Inventing Cocktails Inspired by Craft Beer

As someone with a "beer-centric" palate, it is often difficult for me to find cocktails that I enjoy. When I go to a cocktail bar and order something that sounds interesting, the flavors are often overwhelmingly concentrated, and the balance tends to be either super-sweet or super-boozy. The 20-30+% ABV of most cocktails also makes them rough to drink at the same rate you would a beer...

So, I thought it would be interesting to invent a few cocktails inspired by the balance and flavors of some of my favorite beer styles. If you want to drink something that tastes exactly like a beer… drink a beer! These cocktails are “inspired” by the flavors in the style and the overall balance of the style in terms of alcohol-bitterness-sweetness, they aren’t meant to be “ringers” for drinking a given beer. I'm also trying to avoid "uncommon" ingredients... although some of these may take a little searching at a specialty grocery/liquor store or online.

I’m not an experienced bartender or mixologist, if you try one of these let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions!

Ramos Gin Fizz... Hazy IPA

Gin and Tonic is my standard cocktail order because it isn't too strong or too sweet, and the bitter/herbal notes are something I appreciate. I also find Ramos GIn Fizz to be a fun one, with the added body of an egg white and cream, and more citrus from lemon juice and orange blossom water. In this "Hazy IPA" inspired riff, I swapped out the tonic for aromatic hop water. To replace the malt sweetness and enhance the juicy flavors from the hops I added orange juice. To keep it from being too one-note orange, I added New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which contains high concentrations of many of the aromatics produced by Thiolized yeast and found in New Zealand hops. An egg white helps to add haze, foam, and body.

Recipe

In a shaker, combine:

1.5 oz Bombay Dry Gin

1.25 oz Orange Juice

1.25 oz Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc

1 Egg White

Dry shake 10 seconds

Pour into a glass, then top-up with:

6 oz Hop Water

6.7 % ABV

Ingredient Notes: The Hop Water you choose is up to you. I've enjoyed the ones from breweries as well as places like Hoplark. You can also make your own with carbonated water and some hop terpenes (I like the ones from Abstrax). Use pasteurized egg white if you are worried about the risk of salmonella. If you don't like orange, try mango or another juice that appeals to you. 

Tasting Notes

Smell - Winey tropical-citrus. Slight herbal from the hops and gin. Doesn't read obviously juniper.

Appearance - Very pale, very hazy. Great sticky head.

Taste - Pleasantly sweet. Good balance of the juice and wine, without either dominating. The gin provides some depth, but again not overtly gin-y. The hop water brings herbal complexity without dominating the other ingredients with "hops."

Mouthfeel - Medium-light body, light carbonation.

Drinkability - Light and bright, citrusy.

Changes for Next Time - Certainly could add a few drops of hop terpenes if you want to send it more hoppy. Some hopped bitters could be a nice addition if you like a little more bitterness.

The Charleston... Rye Barrel English Barleywine

Thanks to Audrey, I've really come to enjoy fortified wines like Port, Sherry, and especially Madeira. It's traditionally made by halting fermentation with an addition of brandy to preserve the sweetness of the wine, then aged at elevated temperatures. The result is a like a concentrated barrel-aged English barleywine, woody, with dried fruit, and pleasant oxidative notes. I added Rye Whiskey to elevate the vanilla notes. Malta is essentially unfermented wort, but tends to have big caramel and malt extract notes from pasteurization. It helps by lowering the alcohol without thinning the cocktail, adding a little carbonation. 

Recipe

Combine together:

.5 oz Bulleit Rye (95 Proof)

1 oz Broadbent 10 Year Verdelho Madeira

1 oz H&H 10 Year Sercial Madeira

Stir, then top with:

2 oz Malta India (or Malta Goya)

14.0% ABV

Ingredient Notes: Madeira comes in various sweetness levels, the really sweet ones are too sugary for my tastes in this. Sercial is the driest and Verdelho is off-dry, but find ones that work for your palate.

Tasting Notes

Smell - The vanilla/oak of the rye leads. Rich dried fruit behind it. There is some maltiness there, but definitely tastes like a really aged-out barleywine without any fresh graininess. Boozy, hotter than I'd expect from an English barleywine.

Appearance - Deep leathery brown. Good clarity. No head.

Taste - The Maderia really gives it an "aged" character, lots of raisin and date. The Sercial especially gives it a fun oxidative weirdness, and a faint acidity. There is a "sugary" sweetness, along with some alcohol warmth. Subtle bitterness.

Mouthfeel - Almost flat, "barrel sample" generously. Not quite as full as a real barleywine, but not watery or thin by any means.

Drinkability - This is one of the more evocative ones, really has a lot of the flavors you'd expect from a barrel-aged barleywine. It's a little sweet for me, but so are a lot of barleywines.

Changes for Next Time - Wish it had a little more carbonation. Otherwise it really satisfies that English Barleywine itch.

Sherry Shrub...  Flemish Sour Red/Oud Bruin

One of the classic inclusions in the microbe blend for Flemish Red/Browns (e.g., Wyeast Roeselare) is Sherry Flor. This oxidative yeast forms the pellicle on sherry and produces the characteristics aldehydes that give sherry a nutty/fruity aroma. Oloroso is more "microbe" forward, funkier, while PX is more sweet and dried fruit (especially raisin). The acidity of the grapes needs a little help to mimic the classic examples of the style, so inspired by shrubs I added both vinegar and kombucha. The blend of sherries, sweetness of the kombucha, and amount of vinegar are all variables you can adjust. 

Recipe

Combine together: 

.5 oz Lustau Oloroso Sherry

.5 oz Lustau PX Sherry

.25 tsp Balsamic Vinegar

Stir, then top with:

3 oz Wild Bay Elderberry Kombucha

4.6% ABV

Ingredient Notes: The kombucha choice is tricky, a cherry kombucha is a nice choice if you are looking to replicate a fruited version of the style. For my palate I'd avoid those kombucha with stevia or other non-sugar sweeteners. Cream Sherry is a blend of Oloroso and PX and could be a stand-alone replacement (although you the flexibility or tweaking your blend). 

Tasting Notes

Smell - Fun mix of red fruit and raisins. A little oak/almond. The elderberry works well compared to some other kombuchas since it isn't as distinct as cherry, strawberry et al. I like the Wild Bay since it doesn't have stevia or other non-sugar sweeteners.

Appearance - Clear, more amber than red. Color is about right. Not much foam.

Taste - Pleasantly sweet. Tart, with just a touch of vinegar. It has a good blend of fresh and dried fruit flavors, plum, fig, raisin etc. A little oaky. Has that classic Belgian Red balance with sugar balancing the acid.

Mouthfeel - Medium body, pleasant low carbonation.

Drinkability - This is a super interesting result for low ABV.

Changes for Next Time - Misses the maltiness of the real version, but it has the fruitiness, acid, oak, age. For a low ABV cocktail it really delivers, with the fermentation of the kombucha helping stretch the Sherry.

Espresso Martini... Coffee Stout

Flavored beers are one of the "easiest" points of entry since they already have big flavors that aren't from malt, hops, or yeast. That said, it seemed like a waste of time to make a smoothie sour cocktail. Coffee stout is still a stout, and seemed like a nice place to work in bourbon since it usually includes some barley and brings big oak aromatics that work well in stouts. A little Malta again provides body, sweetness, and a touch of carbonation. 

Recipe

Combine together:

4 oz Cold Brew Coffee

1 oz Kahlua

1 oz Bourbon

Stir, then top with:

2 oz Malta India

7.5% ABV

Ingredient Notes: I should probably have sourced a "better" coffee liquor, but Kahlua is what we had on hand. Homemade cold brew would work just as well, if not better. 

Tasting Notes

Smell - Big coffee nose, with some vanilla. It reads caramel malty, but not roasty.

Appearance - Deep brown, with red at the edges when held to the light.

Taste - Has a pleasant sweetness, certainly sweeter than a typical coffee stout thanks to the simple sugars. Nice note of bourbon woody/vanilla in the finish

Mouthfeel - Medium body, light carbonation.

Drinkability - I really like this one, more coffee-focused than a stout usually is, but the other notes round it out.

Changes for Next Time - I think this one straddles the line between traditional coffee stout and pastry stout. A little sugary compared to a classic stout.

Conclusion

This has been fun for me to work on the last couple months. I'll probably make a Part #2 if there is interest... already playing around with a West Coast Grapefruit IPA, Pastry Stout plus plans for Wit, Rauchbier, and Saison! 

Shoot me a line if you try any of these out, or if you have suggestions or other ideas!

Why Are Brewing and Winemaking so Different?

On their surfaces the fermentations of beer and wine seem like they should be similar. A cool, sugary liquid is inoculated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae (or a close relative) and the eventual product is packaged with a goal of minimizing oxidation. Why then are the two approached in such fundamentally different ways from yeast pitching rate to the use of oxygen scavengers?

I’ve only made a handful on wine kits over the years so I’m by no means an expert vintner. That said, I’ve been thinking about cider while I wait for TTB-approval to begin production at Sapwood Cellars. The question is, do we approach it like a beer or a wine?

Wine yeast has a different history than beer yeast. Where ale and lager strains have been domesticated for centuries, most wine strains were at best semi-domesticated until the last few decades. A big reason for that is the seasonal production differences between the two products. Dried grain and hops store and ship easily compared to grapes, so harvesting and repitching yeast was common in beer long before wine (which relied on an annual spontaneous fermentation).

Wine strains are still less domesticated (more wild) and thus tend to be more “competitive” than beer yeast, producing kill factors and generally being able to bootstrap up from low cell counts. As a result, suggested pitching rates for wine are usually much lower than for beer. A typical pitching rate for a 1.080 beer might be 3 grams of dried yeast per gallon, where wine is usually 1 g per gallon. This is also reflected in the package size for the strains (5 g vs. 11.5 g).

For home winemakers anyway, it is difficult to find best-practices for things like pitching rate and oxygenation. We can certainly debate the credibility and accuracy of the advice, but homebrewers have widely referenced formulas and targets for these based on original gravity and type of yeast (ale vs. lager).

Wine must isn't boiled to avoid destroying its fresh fruit flavor, so without chemical intervention there is no “clean slate” to begin fermentation. Even pitching a pure culture of yeast wouldn’t guarantee a product that doesn't eventually sour or go off. That helps to explain the common uses of antimicrobial sulfite and sorbate (which winemakers have widely referenced formulas for dosing rate). Chemical stabilization also allows the packaging of sweet wines, where brewers have mash temperature to control fermentability.

Most of the analysis of wine, must, and fermentation has happened since the 1970s. Where some of the earliest work on microbiology (not to mention scientific measurement) was from breweries a century earlier. Beer became science-ified first thanks to the earlier industrialization of brewing (again a result of the differences in ingredients). 

Modern breweries are built upon keeping oxygen out of the beer post-fermentation. Much of this is accomplished with purging with carbon dioxide or nitrogen and transfers and packaging under pressure. Conversely, conventional wine production relies on dosing with metabisulfite (a potent oxygen scavenger) to neutralize oxidation while the process doesn’t do as much to avoid it.

Part of this is that breweries may make 25 or more batches of beer in a given fermenter each year, while seasonal wineries don’t have this luxury. This means even smaller breweries can afford to spend more on their equipment allowing for transfers under pressure rather than pumps. Dealing with force-carbonation makes pressure vessels a requirement. There are also stages of winemaking, like punch-downs or separating the skins from the fermented wine, that are nearly impossible to do without introducing some oxygen. There is also an expectation of stability and ageability with wine.

Traditionally beer was naturally carbonated, which allows the yeast to scavenge oxygen introduced during packaging. Combine that with typical quick consumption and oxidation wasn't as large of a concern until recently.

Natural wineries that avoid the addition of sulfites do take some cues from brewing in limiting oxygen, but this is currently a growing but still niche winemaking approach.

Beer has always been a recipe: grains, water, and herbs at a minimum. Sugars, fruit, spices etc. all have a historic precedent in brewing. It is no big surprise then that brewers are more likely to add 100 different ingredients than vintners who can make wine from crushed grapes alone - although adulteration had a historic place. Most of the wines I see with a "flavor" addition (e.g., chocolate, almond etc.) are inexpensive gimmicks. The lone exception is herbs in wines like vermouth. Where most of the expensive highly sought-after beers contain additions that fall outside of the core ingredients.

Modern wineries add all sorts of processing aids, acid/sugar adjustments, nutrients etc. but generally with the goal of balancing, showcasing, or heightening the fruit expression. Wine strains are now carefully selected to have specific interactions to increase aromatic compounds (e.g., the ability to converts the thiol 3MH to 3MHA). Wine yeast blends are also popular with one strain freeing a compound and another converting it. All things that are rarely considered for brewing.

Brewers have only relatively recently begun to embrace aging in oak barrels, something many wineries never gave up on when stainless steel became the standard. Brewers have very much relied on the secondhand barrels from wine and spirit production rather than buying new or directly supporting coopers.

This goes after the larger point that brewers are currently less tethered to their industry's recent past than wineries. The most popular craft beers of today don't look or smell like any beers that were produced 30 years ago, while wines have remained relatively unchanged. Much of the American craft beer boom was based on taking dead or dying styles, ingredients, and techniques and resurrecting them. It is great to see the same becoming more popular in wine with the resurgence of orange wine, obscure varietals, and natural winemaking.

I’m not here to argue that either brewers or vintners are better. I think there are things that each side could learn from the other. Why don’t we see dry hopped wine? Why don’t brewers add 5 PPM of metabisulfite as insurance for the hazy IPAs? Why don’t we see more wineries reduce their sulfite usage by purging their tanks and bottles? Why don’t we see more brewers celebrate the terroir of local ingredients? I even wrote an article for BYO about using wine yeast in beer.

Someone could likely write a similar article about distilleries, cideries, sake-producers, etc. The point is to get out of your box, and see what other experts suggest in their chosen domain. Determine if any of it is useful to what you do!

I've talked to cidermakers who operate just like a winery in terms of their fermentation and highlighting of the apples, while others are clearly more influenced by craft beer (take Graft). We'll likely take a hybrid approach for our ciders, using our best low-oxygen transfers along with winemaking techniques that make sense to us. Celebrating the character of the apples, but still sometimes having fun with additional flavors.

New England Pale Ale: Brewing Video

NEIPA has a well-deserved reputation for short shelf-stability. I've heard homebrewers refer to it as intentionally poorly brewed... but that's like saying a souffle is poorly baked because it sinks minutes after you remove it from the oven. If there was a way to achieve a beer with the same juicy hop flavor and pillowy body plus long shelf life I wouldn't complain!

There are brewers like John Kimmach, who says Heady Topper is at it's best at 10 weeks old. I've heard brewers from three or four other breweries advocate holding onto their hazy IPAs (especially the double-dry hopped sorts) for a month or two. Not exactly cellaring potential, but better than the versions that fall apart after a couple weeks.

Cold storage and minimizing oxidation both improve stability, but what else can we do to extend the life of hazy IPAs? Wheat and even more so oats contain higher concentration of manganese than barley malt. Manganese can catalyze oxidative reactions as well as increase protein solubilization. However, I don't think you can drop wheat and oats from a NEIPA without replacing the extra protein contribution, which adds body and head retention (not to mention haze).

To replace the protein usually imparted by flaked grains, Scott bought a sack of Best Chit Malt and shared a few pounds with me. Chit is essentially the Reinheitsgebot-approved replacement for unmalted barley. It is under-modified, retaining a range of long-chain proteins. Theoretically these proteins could fill the same role as the oats/wheat, enhancing foam and mouthfeel but without the associated drawback to stability. For the first try, I used chit at about the same rate I would flaked oats, 20%.

For hot-side hops, I went for a budget option as I did in my previous batch. For that last batch I used Chinook and Nugget to provide linalool and geraniol. For this batch I used Columbus and Simcoe. Columbus makes up a large portion of the kettle hops for many of Trillium's fantastic IPAs, providing a nice dank base-note to balance the fruity hops added on the cold-side. I added the Simcoe to the boil because the 3MH it contributes increases during the boil (while catty 4MMP decreases). Certain yeast strains have the ability to converts 3MH (grapefruit and passion fruit) to 3MHA (similar flavors with a lower threshold). Something we'll be playing with at Sapwood Cellars!

Rather than talk about the brewing process for the 200th time, I took videos of the key points in the process and posted them to my YouTube channel with my descriptions, plus a version without a voice-over. Enjoy! I'm hoping to do more of this, especially as the brewery gets up and running and I have more interesting action to record!



Good Chit NEIPA

Smell – Pleasant mixture of tropical and lightly dank. As always I appreciate a balance rather than the “straight juice” aromatics of some examples. If I want a fruit beer, I’ll drink a fruit beer! The volume could be turned up, despite the heavy hot-side, fermentor, and keg hopping it doesn’t leap out of the glass like my favorite batches. A result of the yeast or something else? Clearly it isn't malt aromatics in the way.

Appearance – It isn’t clear, but it certainly looks more like an unfiltered West Coast IPA than a standard NEIPA. I don’t brew for appearance, but there certainly is some eye-palate interaction that it doesn’t fit. There are some suggestions that above a certain point more proteins (especially large proteins) are likely to coagulate and drop from suspension. It was hazier the first few weeks, but it cleared up in the keg.

Taste – Crisp, missing the malt sweetness to support the fruity volatiles. The saturated hop flavor is nice, again walking that line between fruity (grapefruit and passion fruit) and dank. Malt is subdued, could use a boost from a portion of English malt or crystal malt. A friend commented that it has a zwickelbier-like maltiness, hard to argue with it being more subdued than most.

Mouthfeel – While the head lasts it is thick and luxurious. It really adds creaminess to the body. While retention started off lackluster for the first couple weeks, it really came into its own. Although after the head fades the body is lackluster. Thin, crisp, just a hint of tannins in the finish. The screen did a good job keeping the powder burn to a minimum.

Drinkability & Notes – It is a unique interpretation of the style. Somewhere between the crispness and cleanness of a Russian River IPA, and the fruity-tropical hop character of NEIPAs. While I don’t want sugary, I think the style benefits from a little perceived sweetness. Drinking this seven weeks after brewing I have to say that it did hold up better than my typical oat-heavy NEIPAs!

Changes for Next Time – A little iso-hop extract might add the longevity the head needs. In exchange I’d move the 10-minute addition later or slightly cool before adding the whirlpool addition. Maybe a small dose of light crystal malt to add sweetness?

Recipe

Batch Size: 11.00 gal
SRM: 3.8
IBU: 62
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.6%
Final pH: 4.65
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68%
Boil Time: 75 Mins

Fermentables
----------------
80.0% - 20.0 lbs Rahr 2-row Brewer's Malt
20.0% - 5.0 lbs Best Chit Malt

Mash
-------
Mash In - 60 min @ 156F

Hops
-------
2.00 oz Simcoe (Pellets, 13.00% AA) @ 10 min
6.00 oz Columbus (Whole, 15.00% AA)  @ 30 min Whirlpool
2.00 oz Simcoe (Pellets, 13.00% AA) @ 30 min Whirlpool
4.00 oz Mosaic (Pellets, 12.25% AA)  @ Dry Hop Day 2
4.00 oz Simcoe (Pellets, 13.00% AA) @ Dry Hop Day 2
2.00 oz Citra (Pellets, 13.00% AA) @ Dry Hop Day 2
2.00 oz Simcoe (Cryo, 26.00%) @ Keg Hop
1.50 oz Citra (Cryo, 24.00%) @ Keg Hop
1.50 oz Mosaic (Cryo, 25.00%) @ Keg Hop

Other
-------
1 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 5 mins

Water
--------
19.0 g Calcium Chloride @ Mash
15.0 g Gypsum @ Mash
2.0 tsp 88% Lactic Acid @ Mash

Calcium	Chloride	Sulfate	Sodium	Magnesium	Carbonate
150	150	150	10	5	40

Yeast
-------
WLP013 White Labs London Ale

Notes
-------
Brewed 10/8/17

10 gallons filtered DC water and 6 gallons of distilled. All of the salts in at the start of the mash. 2 tsp of lactic acid to lower the mash pH from 5.47 to 5.23.

Sparged with 3 gallons of room-temperature distilled water.

Collected 14 gallons of 1.046 runnings.

Chilled to 76F, placed in the freezer for an hour before pitching, and shaking to aerate. An hour later down to 69F, moved to 63F room to ferment. Internal ~68F for most of primary.

10/10/17 Dry hopped. Around high krausen.

10/20/17 Kegged with the Cryo in the stainless steel canisters. Mosaic and Citra were pellets, Simcoe was powder.

I get a commission if you buy something after clicking the links to MoreBeer/Amazon/Adventures in Homebrewing/Great Fermentations!

Alsatian Funky Saison Tasting

I flavored this Alsatian Saison recipe with German hops (Hull Melon, and Hallertau Blanc) and French wine (Maison Trimbach Gewurztraminer). It was the third batch fermented with my "house" funky saison culture. I'm really happy with the way the blend of microbes is working together, despite my abuse (harvesting from the kicked keg). This batch did have sulfurous edge after keg conditioning, but venting the head space a couple times over a few days fixed that.

Not sure of the next stop for my house saison culture - I'm quickly running out of regions that produce both interesting hops and wine grapes. Maybe back to America, with a red wine, or an English saison with a touch of gin?

Alsatian Funky Saison

Appearance – Foggy pale yellow beer with a stiff white head, decent retention, and nice lacing. A nice rustic look, glowing despite the clouds and light summer rain.

Smell – More vinous than the New Zealand Saison, thanks to a more winey-wine, and grape notes from the Hallertau Blanc. Mineral-funkier as well; luckily the sulfur is completely gone. Balanced, not a big nose, but very pleasant. Not assertively hoppy after 10 weeks in the keg.

Taste – Wine-forward, good white wine, no white grape juice. Dry, without being a desiccant. Finishes crisp and bright, lemons and farmyard. Lingering on the funk keeps it from being really refreshing though.

Mouthfeel – Smooth lean mouthfeel, prickly carbonation. Lively and crisp without being watery or tannic.

Drinkability & Notes – The “new” German hops provide nice flavors and aroma, but they aren’t turned up the way American and New Zealand hops are. Still a nice wine-saison-funk hybrid, a pleasant moderate-alcohol variant for summertime consumption.

Alsatian Saison Recipe

I like conceptual series of beers, for example our annual dark-funky saisons. This batch is the third in a different sort of lineage, hoppy saisons fermented with an evolving mixed culture. It is the follow-up to the delicious Nu Zuland Saison, this time with European hops an wine. I wanted an excuse to try Hull Melon ("honeydew melon and strawberry") and Hallertau Blanc ("passion fruit, grapefruit, pineapple, grape and lemongrass"), two German hops released to compete with the bolder-fruitier flavors of modern American and Southern Hemisphere varieties like Citra and Nelson Sauvin.

The old rule of thumb that the hundredths place of the original gravity roughly predicts alcohol by volume (e.g., 1.060 wort will ferment into ~6% ABV) doesn't work well for saisons because of their high attenuation. With the start of DC's four months of oppressive heat and humidity arriving soon, I wanted to keep this batch relatively light and refreshing at 1.047. With the wine it still ended up just above 6% ABV.

I fermented it with a starter made from the yeast slurry harvested from the Nu Zulund Saison keg after it kicked (not a textbook maneuver). This is the third use for my house saison blend (a mixture of The Yeast Bay Saison Blend, WLP644 Trois, CB2, and Wyeast Lacto brevis). This turn is heading towards being the funkiest so far. Likely the late harvests are applying selective pressure that favors Brettanomyces. As a side note, White Labs recently renamed/reclassified WLP644 from Brettanomyces bruxellensis var. Trois to Saccharomyces "bruxellensis" Trois. I could care less what genus it is, I still think Trois is a great strain! If anything I hope the strain gains wider use by brewers who do not want to risk introducing Brett to their gear.

To bolster the flavors of the hops and yeast I blended in an entire bottle of Trimbach Gewurztraminer at kegging. I find this to be a much easier, more consistent, and effective way to introduce wine flavors than soaking oak cubes in wine that are in turn added to the beer. Despite the German name, most Gewürztraminer is grown in what is now France. I selected the varietal because it tends to be a more aromatic and fruity/spicy than most European wines. Maison Trimbach is a storied producer which I've posted about before. This 2010 bottle was bright, citrusy and minerally, a nice match for the flavors already in the beer.

Excited to see how it all comes together after keg conditioning!

Alsatian Funky Saison

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.75
Total Grain (Lbs): 10.90
Anticipated OG: 1.047
Anticipated SRM: 3.4
Anticipated IBU: 24.3
Brewhouse Efficiency: 71 %
Wort Boil Time: 65 Minutes

Grain
-------
82.5% - 8.99 lbs. Rahr 2-Row Brewer's Malt
14.9% - 1.62 lbs. Great Western Soft White Wheat Flakes
2.6% - 0.28 lbs. Weyermann Acidulated Malt

Hops
------
0.56 oz. Magnum (Pellet, 11.80% AA) @ 60 min.
2.00 oz. Hallertau Blanc (Pellet, 11.2% AA) @ Hop-Stand
2.00 oz. Hull Melon (Pellet, 6.8% AA) @ Hop-Stand
2.00 oz. Hallertau Blanc (Pellet, 11.2% AA) @ Dry Hop
2.00 oz. Hull Melon (Pellet, 6.8% AA) @ Dry Hop

Extras
-------
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 5 min.

Yeast
------
House Saison Blend 
(i.e., The Yeast Bay Saison Blend
White Labs WLP644 Brettanomyces bruxellensis var. Trois
Brettanomyces bruxellensis var. CB2 (Jason Rodriguez isolate)
Wyeast WY5223-PC Lactobacillus brevis)

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington, DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch Rest - 75 min @ 148F

Notes
-------
Brewed 3/22/15

7 gallons mash water with 2 g of CaCl. 1 gallon of untreated cold sparge water.

Initial mash pH 5.64 at room temperature with 3 oz of acid malt. 1.5 additional ounces plus .5 fl oz of 10% phosphoric acid brought it down to 5.50.

Collected 6 gallons pre-boil at 1.047, diluted with .75 gallons of water to 1.042. Added .5 fl oz of phosphoric acid to the boil.

Whirlpooled 5 minutes, settled for 15 minutes. Wort pH= 5.46. Naturally cooled to 180F. Then added 2 oz each Hallertau Blanc and Hull Melon. Allowed to steep an additional 30 minutes before finishing runoff (down to 145F). Chilled to 68 F, pitched the slurry from the Nu Zulund Saison with 1 L of wort pitched the night before, slow activity.

4/9/15 Dry hopped in primary.

4/20/15 Kegged with 3.5 oz of table sugar and 740 ml of Trimbach Gewurztraminer. Left in the cellar to naturally condition. FG 1.003 (5.8% ABV, 6.1% with wine).

7/7/15 Tasting notes. Wine comes through more than the hops. Good balance of fruity and funky. Was sulfury initially on tap, but venting the head space over a few days blew it off.

Saison New Zealan’ Tasting

Saison New Zealan’ is the spiritual and microbiological successor to Saison ‘Merican. It was hopped exclusively with varieties from the island (late additions of Motueka and Nelson Sauvin, with Rakau for bittering). In addition I added a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon blanc directly to the keg to enhance the citrusy-terroir of the hops.

Saison New Zealan’

Appearance – It sure is a looker. The sunrise-yellow body is hazy, without appearing muddy. The white head is dense, prodigious, and sticky.

Smell – Despite the competing aromatics, the Nelson still leads with its distinctly divisive-pungent aroma. The Motueka and wine manage to soften it, sending it off on a somewhat citrusy tangent. The Brett (Trois and CB2) is mild, adding some fresh cut hay as well as mingling with the citrusy-funk of the Southern Hemisphere hops.

Taste – Saturated hop flavor that lives up to the nose. The grape(fruit)y wine comes through a bit more emphatically as well, assisted by the mild acidity from the Lactobacillus. The bitterness is just the right level to play with the lactic acid without clashing. The resulting balance is reminiscent of grapefruit juice cut with seltzer water, refreshing not bracing. The alcohol is present as it warms, but remains clean like a dry cocktail.

Mouthfeel – Light and crisp, firm carbonation, and downright refreshing for a beer above 7% ABV. A dangerous thing indeed!

Drinkability & Notes – I’ve said it before, but adding wines rather than wine grapes is the great option unless high quality grapes are easy to source. This is another win for my slowly developing mixed-house saison culture, when this keg kicks I’ll have to hang onto the lees to brew something else. Maybe continue the world tour with Hull Melon and German Riesling, or Galaxy and Australian Chardonnay?

New Zealand Saison and Glycosides

Terroir is a fascinating thing. New Zealand white wines (chiefly Sauvignon Blanc) have gained worldwide attention for exhibiting exciting flavors and aromas (e.g., lime-zest and gooseberry) not produced when the same grapes are grown in Europe or the Americas. It is intriguing that New Zealand grown hops like Motueka (originally called Belgian Saaz) and Nelson Sauvin (related to Cluster by way of Smoothcone) have gained popularity for aromatics described with many of the same terms!

While shopping for beer a few months ago, I tried a sample of Fernlands Sauvignon Blanc 2013 (from Marlborough, NZ). The idea immediately struck me to add the wine's citrusy flavors to a hoppy/tart/funky saison. In addition to a yeast blend harvested from ‘Merican Saison, I pitched Wyeast’s Lactobacillus brevis. Given the heightened IBUs I wasn’t expecting sharp acidity, but I wanted some tartness to enhance the grapefruit and lime.

This was far from my first time combining wine to beer, for example a variant of my first Pizza Port Mo’ Betta Bretta clone was mixed with cherries rehydrated in Pinot Noir, a Russian River Temptation clone with Chardonnay, and my trials blending Oud Beersel Gueuze with Maison Trimbach Riesling. The quality of wine you can procure is usually better than the wine grapes you can source locally, and if nothing else combining them is a much simpler task. Mixing wine into a batch of commercial beer isn’t allowed (which is why breweries tend to turn to wine barrels and grapes); you have to appreciate the legal freedom homebrewing allows! When the base saison was finished dry hopping, I blended a sample with measured amounts of the wine for evaluation. I could have stood for adding more than 750 mL (~4.3% of the batch) of wine to the keg, I should have bought two bottles!

Some Brett strains are capable of freeing aromatic aglycones found in hops, fruit, and spices which are attached to sugars in molecules called glycosides. I have a few mentions of this in American Sour Beers, but the section about hop glycosides was dropped because more comprehensive/specific research is underway:

Certain strains of Brettanomyces (those that produce the enzyme β-glucosidase) have the ability to release aromatic aglycone compounds by splitting the glycosides provided by hops. Very few Saccharomyces strains can release aglycone, and those that do at a much lower rate than Brettanomyces.¹

The amount of glycosides in hops varies widely by varietal, but the only extensive research into the actual amounts is the proprietary information contained in studies by Miller Brewing. Miller Brewing treated an extraction of hops with β-glucosidase and subsequently used a gas chromatograph to detect “benzaldehyde (almond, maraschino cherry), vanillin (vanilla), raspberry ketone, geraniol (floral, rose), linalool (floral), phenylacetaldehyde (honey, floral), and many other primary alcohols, ketones, and aldehydes which are also aromatic.”² Methyl salicylate (wintergreen, minty, spicy) is another aglycone which has been shown to be released by the enzymatic action of Brett.³

Citations:
1. Luk Daenen, Daan Saison, Femke Sterckx, Freddy R. Delvaux, Hubert Verachtert and Guy Derdelinckx, “Screening and evaluation of the glucoside hydrolase activity in Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces brewing yeasts.”
2. Beer Sensory Science “Glycosides:The Hidden Flavors.”
3. Luk Daenen, “Use of beta-glucosidase activity for flavour enhancement in specialty beers.”

The New Zealand saison is keg conditioning to boost the Brett activity without extended aging that might compromise the vibrant hop aroma. The second runnings from it were turned into a Berliner weisse that will be receiving some citrus, most likely lemon, eventually. More on that batch later!

New Zealan' Saison

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.00   
Total Grain (Lbs): 16.50
Anticipated OG: 1.062   
Anticipated SRM: 2.4
Anticipated IBU: 37.7
Brewhouse Efficiency: 77 % (w/ parti-gyle)
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain
-------
 66.7% - 11.00 lbs. Rahr Pilsener
 33.3% - 5.50 lbs. Wheat Malt  

Hops
-------
1.38 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellet, 2.70% AA) @ Mash Hop
1.00 oz. Rakau (Pellet, 11.00% AA) @ 30 min.
2.00 oz. Motueka (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ 0 min.
2.00 oz. Nelson Sauvin (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ 0 min.
2.00 oz. Motueka (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ Dry Hop
2.00 oz. Nelson Sauvin (Pellet, 12.00% AA) @ Dry Hop

Extras
--------
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Yeast
-------
The Yeast Bay Saison Blend
White Labs WLP644 Brettanomyces bruxellensis var. Trois
Brettanomyces bruxellensis var. CB2 (Jason Rodriguez isolate)
Wyeast L5223-PC Lactobacillus brevis

Water Profile
-----------------
Profile: Washington, DC

Mash Schedule
------------------
Sacch I - 90 min @ 148 F   
Sacch II - 15 min @ 155 F (decoction)

Notes
-------
7/26/14 Made a 1L starter (50 g DME, Wyeast nutrient, chilled to 112F, put on stir-plate on low) with Wyeast L. brevis (two weeks from manufacture).  Strong activity by the next morning, already a bit tart. "Some even benefit, for example L. brevis yields 50% more cells when aerated." - ASB

Brewed 7/27/14

Added 3 g of CaCl and 1 tsp of 10% phosphoric acid to the mash (along with a couple handfuls of rice hulls. Same treatment for the 170 F sparge water.

Parti-gyle batch sparge.

Swapped wort back and forth to achieve 7.25 gallons @ 1.052, and 5.5 gallons at 1.034.

New Zealand Saison with first runnings - L. brevis, and saison/Brett blend from keg, loads of NZ hops, New Zealand Sauv Blanc. Pre-dilution OG = 1.070. Added 0 min hops and allowed to steep for 20 minutes before chilling. 8 g of 88% lactic acid. Added 1/2 gallon of distilled water (cold) to help it chill the rest of the way at the same time as the keg dregs (~6 hours after pitching the Lacto). Left at 65F to ferment

Lemon Berliner - Brought just to a boil, added yeast nutrient, chilled to 85F, pitched Lacto, added 7.5 g of 88% lactic acid (aiming for 4.5 pH), left at 65F to ferment. OG 1.030. L. brevis and Saison Brett dregs for the first 24 hours - activity by 12 hours, then US-05 (11 g, not rehydrated) (down to 1.024 at that point).

7/30/14 Both batches moved to ~75F ambient after three days to ensure complete fermentation.

8/7/14 Dry hopped saison portion.

8/17/14  Kegged the saison (1.008, 87% AA, 7.1% ABV. Light acidity, nice hop aroma) with ~750 ml of Fernlands 2013 Sauvignon Blanc and 3.5 oz of table sugar. Flushed keg twice before and after filling. Left at ambient basement to condition for a couple weeks before tapping. 7.3% ABV including the wine.

10/29/14 Tasting notes. Not much I'd change, delicious blend of citrus and funk, from the hops, wine, and Brett.

Red Wine Yeast Flemish Ale

I have a backlog of brewing ideas waiting to be tried out (to put it lightly).  It takes a lot of time for some of them to bubble-up to the surface for brewing (and some never make it).  For the last six months (ever since I listened to the Shea Comfort interview on the Sunday Session) I've been wanting to use wine yeast to ferment a beer; more specifically BM45 (a red wine strain known for imparting jam and berry-like aromatics) as the primary fermenter in a Flemish Red.

It took some time for me to get around to ordering the dried yeast (it wasn't available locally), but everything came together perfectly when my friend Alex passed off a second generation East Coast Yeast Flemish Ale slurry.  The recipe itself was pretty similar to a few Reds I'd brewed in the past, but instead of my standard 1:1:1 blend of Pils, Vienna, and Munich I dropped the Pils and made up for it with more Munich and Vienna.  The gravity was a bit higher than anticipated, but this should only bolster the winey character.

I did make a misjudgment in my process... maybe.  I had read that BM45 is a really slow starter, including a report of three days with no activity before it took off in a beer.  Despite knowing this I pitched the rehydrated wine and ECY02 simultaneously.  By the next morning the fermentation was raging, almost certainly the ale yeast in the blend.  Luckily BM45 is a "killer" strain (that is it produces a factor that kills many other yeast strains within hours) so once it got going it should have taken care of the ale yeast (almost all strains of which are susceptible, according to Shea).  Luckily the killer ability does not extend to the other important yeast involved in the ferment, Brettanomyces.

When I racked the beer to secondary the mouthfeel of the sample I pulled had a coating viscosity.  At first I was suspicious that it was the Pedio getting "sick," but the description of BM45 says "produces high levels of polysaccharides resulting in wines with great mouthfeel and improved color stability."   I'll be interested to see whether or not that fullness survives the Brett and into the finished beer (I'm betting not).  I'm still debating adding either wine soaked oak to reinforce the vinous character or plain oak to allow me to tell exactly what the BM45 brings.  Either way I'll have some red wine on hand in 18 months when I bottle to add if the flavor needs a boost.

Wine Yeast Flemish Red

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.25
Total Grain (Lbs): 12.50
Anticipated OG: 1.068
Anticipated SRM: 17.6
Anticipated IBU: 16.0
Brewhouse Efficiency: 78 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
-------
40.0% - 5.00 lbs. German Munich Malt
40.0% - 5.00 lbs. German Vienna Malt
8.0% - 1.00 lbs. CaraMunich Malt
4.0% -  0.50 lbs. Flaked Corn (Maize)
4.0% - 0.50 lbs. Flaked Soft White Wheat
4.0% - 0.50 lbs. Special B Malt

Hops
-------
0.50 oz. Sorachi Ace (Pellet, 9.00% AA) @ 60 min.

Extras
--------
0.50 Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min.

Yeast
------
Lallemand BM45 Brunello
ECY02 Flemish Ale

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch Rest -  60 min @ 158

Notes
-------
Brewed 6/12/11

Fly sparged to collect 7 gallons of 1.054 wort.

Chilled to 68 F. Pitched 1 pint of ECY02 Flemish Red and 8 g of BM45 (rehydrated), shook to aerate.

Fermentation started strong in 12 hours. Temp around 70 for the first 36 hours, then the ambient temp was up in the mid 70s for the rest of primary fermentation.

7/3/11 Racked to a five gallon better bottle for long aging.  Since last week the ambient temp has been 65 F thanks to my new A/C unit. Gravity down to ~1.020, some light sourness already as well as a really viscous mouthfeel, not sure if the beer is getting sick or if it is just the BM45.

5/8/13 Bottled with rehydrated Champagne yeast and 3 oz of table sugar. FG 1.012, 82.4% AA, 7.4% ABV

9/23/14 This batch fought long and hard to come around. Wish I'd posted a set of notes during it's rubbery-yeasty phase, but I waited until it came around, which took almost a year and a half in the bottle!

Visiting Madrid, Granada, and Seville

At the end of May Audrey and I spent nine days in Spain, starting in Madrid before traveling south to Granada and Seville.  Spain is a striking country, with a complex history, rich culinary tradition, and wonderful wine, but finding a good beer was next to impossible.  Almost every street has at least one cerveceria (beer bar) and I saw more people drinking beer than anything else, but the only beers available at most restaurants were bland pale lagers. Ordering a "cerveza" would result in a Cruzcampo, Alhambra, or another fresh, clean, pale lager (often served in an attractive stemmed glass).  The experience conjured up visions of the pre-craft beer US, with lots of beer, but few interesting options.

We did bump into a few somewhat interesting local beers like Mahou Negra (a dunkel), and the oddly named Alhambra Mezquita (mosque) which I can only describe as an old ale lager. There were a couple bars we walked by that advertized a selection of imports, often on display in their windows were 10-20 imported beers (Chimay, Franziskaner, even the exotic Budweiser). The last night of the trip we stumbled into the local mega-department store looking for a few bottles of wine to bring home, what I found were bottles of Westmalle Dubble for 1.60 euros (~$2.25) each (a good deal even with a bad exchange rate).  Spain certainly wasn't a beer desert (like India was), and it seems like a country that is ripe for a craft beer explosion.

The red wine was cheap and generally very good, but when it is nearing 90 degrees that isn't my beverage of choice. Sadly sangria, the Spanish solution to that problem, was hit-or-miss. At some restaurants it tasted like wine with a subtle citrus flavor and light sweetness (wonderful), while other time it either tasted like Hi-C (too much sugar, and with extra fruit like watermelon) or one that tasted oddly of Butterfingers.

The food was similar to the sangria in that some places were great, while others were lackluster. My normal scheme when traveling is to find restaurants that look like the locals go to them (trying to avoid eating in touristy areas or places that look gimmicky). For the most part this landed us at small bars and restaurants where the food fell between iffy and decent. I was disappointed how little variation I saw in things like tortilla (potato omelet) and bocadillos (sandwiches).  We did have some great meals thought, fish soup in Granada, roast suckling pig in Madrid, stewed partridge in Toledo. We also got a number of great tapas on Calle Navas in Granada (like shredded spiced meat mini-sandwiches). It is a great concept to be able to get a small plate of food to try something, and then move on if it wasn't especially interesting or well-done.

It was a busy nine days, but we got to see and do almost everything we had wanted to. 

A few general observations:

Picasso's Guernica at the Riena Sofia in Madrid is still relevant and powerful.

Why are Europeans so obsessed with bottled water, I thought they were supposed to be environmentally conscious?

The architecture, fountains, and carvings of the Alhambra in Granada were stunning.

The number of times our servers disappeared for 30 minutes or more when we wanted more food, or were looking to pay was astounding.

The public transportation systems were clean, on time,and  reasonably priced (compared to America).

Spain would be a difficult place to visit for a strict vegetarian, almost everything had a bit of jamon (delicious thin-sliced salt-cured ham).

Despite my Catholic upbringing, looking at a saint's 400 year old arm bone in a gold case at the Seville Cathedral was still creepy.

The language barrier (I took Latin in high school, Audrey knows Arabic and French) didn't create much trouble for us.  We learned a few key phrases, and hand gestures were sometimes required, but often the people we met spoke some English.

It was interesting to see young people out in the streets peacefully protesting, trying to change their government.

Homemade German White Wine Tasting

The process that went into making this WinExpert kit (Selection Original: Liebfraumilch Style) was pretty simple compared to brewing a beer: all it required was opening packages, stirring, racking etc...  Not much that you can screw up if you read the instructions.  The real problem I'm having is what to do with 25 bottles of wine.  I've tried everything I can think of: I cooked mussels, made vinegar, gave it away to friends, christened ships and I still have 20 bottles left.  All that is left now is to drink some of it.  I've heard that most white wines are supposed to be drank relatively fresh, so I didn't want to wait too long to post a tasting of this batch.

Liebfraumilch Style Wine

Appearance – Clear pale yellow, the bentonite and isinglass certainly did their job removing haze admirably. A swirl reveals some thin legs running down the sides of the glass.

Smell – Big fruity nose, tropical, apricot, and fresh white grape juice. Slight soapiness, not sure if it is from the yeast or maybe the sulfites.

Taste – Slight grapey sweetness. Fermented beer so rarely has any simple sugars that this wine tastes sweet even though the FG is 1.004 (I'm glad I held back some of the back-sweetening "F-pack"). The alcohol is rather soft for being around 12%, but it makes its presence known with a slight warming on the back of the throat.

Mouthfeel – Medium body with only a slight tannic roughness on the tongue. No carbonation, so it turns out my post-fermentation stirring was aggressive enough to knock the CO2 out of solution.

Drinkability & Notes – For a first attempt at home winemaking I'm really happy with how this wine came out.  I wish it was a bit lighter and drier so it was more refreshing for the summer, but there are no off-flavors. I may try making a big red wine this fall, something I can enjoy slowly over a couple of years.

Making a German White Wine

I've spent the last few years making alcoholic beverages out of a lot of different things at home (grains, sugars, fruits etc...).  Mostly beer, but I've also dabbled in mead, sake, ginger beer, and kombucha as well.  Wine is the only major class of undistilled alcohol I'm missing (although I've added wine grapes to a couple beers).  It probably took so long because I really don't drink wine more than once a month, and then only because someone else buys it or I open a bottle to cook with.  It's not that I don't enjoy it, I just enjoy beer much more (and great beers cost the same as cheap wine)

A year ago I read From Vines to Wines a book on making wine from grapes, but for my first batch I decided to go as fool-proof as possible by using a kit. Making a kit wine is about as simple as you can get, the juice has already been separated from the grapes, and the acidity and gravity of the grape juice (must) has already been adjusted.  Similar to mead making, adjusting these variables before fermentation is important because they allow for a healthy and complete fermentation (unlike brewing where the correct mash pH and the buffering power of the malt keep the pH in a healthy range for the yeast).

The WinExpert (Selection Original Liebfraumilch) kit I used suggested dissolving potassium sulfite (campden tablets) in warm water for sanitizing equipment, but after the first stage I switched to my usual Star-San.  Sanitation seems to be less of an emphasis in wine making, probably because you end up adding stabilizing chemicals to the wine which kill Brettanomyces and other spoilage microbes.

"Brew" day is easy, the kit I bought called for diluting the concentrated must with water, stirring vigorously to dissolve oxygen, and pitching the dried wine yeast.  One of the fining agents, bentonite, is hydrated in warm water and added to the must at this point as well.  I decided to rehydrate the yeast (Premier Cuvee) in warm water to give them a healthier start even though the kit didn't call for it.  It is important to note that six gallons seems to be the standard for home wine kits, so if you go that route you'll have more must than can comfortably ferment in a 6 or 6.5 gallon carboy (I bought a 7.9 gallon bucket).

Fermentation started quickly and was bubbling rapidly after fewer than 24 hours.  Unlike wort, the must contains mostly simple mono- or disaccharides that the yeast make quick work of.  Just like beer the wine yeast have different suggested fermentation temperature ranges, white wine strains tend to be cooler while reds are fermented hotter (the ambient temperature for my batch was in the low-60s).  There was a great interview with Shea Comfort on the Sunday Session where he discusses the complementary fruity flavors that wine yeast can produce (I've been thinking of brewing a Flanders Red with BM45 since I listened to it).

After fermentation calmed down, but before the attenuation was complete, I racked the wine to a keg.  This seemed like the best option because I could flush the keg with CO2 so the amount of head space wasn't important.  I took the extra wine that didn't fit in the keg and used it to make white wine vinegar.

In a few more weeks the wine was completely attenuated and read to stabilize.  Unlike beer, which is protected by hops, wine is almost always guarded by sulfite and/or sorbate.  My kit came with these as well as another fining, isinglass (purified collagen extracted from fish bladders, which is also used to clear some English cask ales).  This is also the point that the wine is back sweetened, this is much easier to control than attempting to arrest fermentation at the right level of sweetness.  Being a German white the kit came with a large "F-Pack" of sweetened must (that tasted a bit riasiny), after adding about half of it a sample told me that it was sweet enough for my tastes.

The instructions called for me to rack the wine again a few weeks later before bottling, but I didn't get around to it.  At this point I'm a bit late to bottling, but it has taken longer than I intended to round up the 30 delabeled wine bottles, corks, and corker required to give it the "proper" treatment.  My initial plan was to just bottle/cap in bombers, but I decided to go that extra mile.

The samples of the wine have been good so far, nice tropical fruit aromatics, clean, and crisp.  The sweetness is subtle, chilled it should be a good summertime wine.  It certainly has been an interesting process, but I feel more like I've put together a bookshelf from Ikea than actually created something of my own.  Even brewing a kit extract beer feels like you are more involved (steeping, boiling, hopping etc...).  Making great wine is more about what leads to making the must (growing conditions, harvesting, crushing) than what the wine maker does during fermentation.  One of the things I love about brewing beer is that I can buy the same ingredients as the best breweries in the world.

WinExpert Selection Original Liebfraumilch

1/16/11 Sanitized with Campden tablets, 24 g in 1/2 gallon.

Microwaved 1/2 gallon of filter water for 4 minutes, added to primary with the packet of Bentonite.

Mixed in the concentrated must. Topped off with cool filtered water to 6 gallons. Stirred vigerously for a couple minutes. OG 1.088.

Hydrated the Premier Cuvee yeast and pitched. Low to mid-60s ambient temp.  Strong fermentation by the next day.

1/28/11 Racked to a keg for secondary. A bit late, was supposed to rack at 1.010 it was down to 1.004.

2/10/11 Gravity down to .998 (just under 12% ABV), just what is supposed to be. Added sulfite and sorbate and stirred vigorously. Added about half of the "F pack" since it was extremely sweet and tasted a bit raisiny. Added the Isinglass and stirred again, no CO2 coming out of solution by the end. Topped off with CO2 and resealed to allow to settle/clear.

3/27/11 Bottled, yielded 25 corked 750s.  Easy since there was no priming or racking needed, wine looked crystal clear.  Last two bottles got a a bit of air in the line, so i stuck them in the fridge for early samples.  I was a few weeks late on bottling, but the wine seemed to be fine.

4/27/11 A month out from bottling it is clear, clean, and plenty fruity.  I wish it wasn't quite so sweet, despite the 1.004 finishing gravity (the simple sugars kill me).