WortWort

Catching up and the MindTouch RESTful IPA

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:33:00 +0000

As usual, my entries are woefully behind my actual brewing. Quick recap (with some questionable chance of detailed follow up) of the last 6 months:

Second batch of Session Ale recipe using British Ale yeast came out the way i intended right at about 4.5%. This was bottled as the Bunkspeed Hyperdrive 2.0 Release Ale
Third batch of Session Ale repeated the second batch's success but was cask conditioned and put on the Angram (and is already gone)
Another attempt at a Paulaner clone ended up off the mark. A fine Hefeweizen but not quite a Paulaner
Second annual Cranberry WitBier is now on tap and even tastier than last year.

And my most recent brewing excursion is the MindTouch RESTful IPA. This is a variation on my take on the SDPA and will be bottled. I'll probably start another batch of it next weekend to put on the Angram. Either that or another Session Ale, since it is more quaffable.

Session Ale status

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:17:00 +0000

Session Ale went to secondary after some remarkably active fermentation. It was still fermenting when i racked it, but considerably slower. When i first kicked off almost two weeks ago, it bubbled to the top of the carboy, clogged the filter and blew out the airlock. It actually ejected the airlock with such force that it hit the ceiling of the shower and smashed it.

All this fermenting would indicate that all the sugars are converted and the specific gravity supports this. Original Gravity was 1.056@ 80F (1.059 adjusted) and current gravity is 1.010@ 68F (1.011 adjusted). Problem is that my Session Ale is now more alcoholic than my SDPA with 6.5%. Hrm... I may end up doing the old heat treatment to bring that down. Also it's really dry right now. I hope it will be tasty once it goes through secondary and carbonation and some of the current bitterness mellows out.

When I racked it, I also added 1 oz. of Simcoe plugs for dry hopping.

SDPA kegged

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:38:00 +0000

Just kegged my SDPA and put another ounce of Simcoe in there for further dryhopping. The specific gravity was 1.016 (1.017 adjusted) giving an approximate alcohol content of 6.4%. I put in a little bit of fermentation sugar, since this is going on the Angram and needs to be just lightly keg conditioned.

Time for a Session Ale

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:26:00 +0000

The other night at a company party, I ended up with a Stone Levitation instead of Stone IPA I had aimed for. I'd had Levitation once before and remember thinking it was remarkably tasty for such an easy drinking beer. That impression was redoubled at that party. Considering that almost all my brewing efforts lately have been around big, high gravity ales, I thought I really could do with a session ale as quaffable as Levitation. Since there were no clone recipes to be found, I went off an ingredients list someone posted: 2-row, 75L Crystal, 150L Crystal, Flaked Barley, Magnum, Centennial, Chinook. Since that's all grain and I was planning on using extract, I scaled back the Crystal, to get the right color. For that matter, Home Brew Mart doesn't even stock 150L. I also replaced Centennial with East Kent Goldings in an attempt to go through my hop reserves, in the present hop climate.

This is what I ended up brewing yesterday. Curious what I will get.

Steep (30min @ 160F)

1.0# Flaked Barley
1.0# 20L Crystal
0.5# 120L Crystal

Boil @ 60 minutes

1 oz. Magnum Pellets
1 oz. East Kent Goldings Pellets

Boil @ 15 minutes

6# light malt extract syrup
0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings Pellets
1 tblsp. Irish Moss

Boil @ 0 minutes

2 oz. Chinook Pellets

Yeast

White Labs California Ale Yeast

Initial Gravity

1.056 @ 80F (1.059 adjusted)

Dry Hop

1 oz. Simcoe Plugs

Yeah, I can't not dry hop. I'm just a hop-head, sorry.

OAB @ 12% and new SDPA

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:07:00 +0000

I just kegged the Oaked Abstract Bastage and it's gravity had further decreased to 1.034 or 1.035 adjusted which gives it a whopping 12% alcohol by volume. Still has that guava juice taste to. Still very sweet. I'm letting it age some more before tasting it, partially because i don't have room in kegerator. In two weeks it'll probably go in the kegerator and be tapped for a tasting, but i still expect to let it age at least another month or two before drinking it.

In the meantime, I've started a new SDPA. Well, I really started it two weeks ago and today transfered it to secondary for dryhopping. It's got a beautifully light color and a yummy aroma. It's gonna be a bit of a weird one, because i completely screwed up my hop additions. My plan was to use some spare hops for the bittering, since hop prices have shot up and I want to leave the strong aroma hops for flavoring and aroma. Except i kept grabbing the wrong packets. So here's the recipe as it turned out:

Steep (30min @ 160F)

0.5# Victory
1.0# Cara Pils
0.5# 10L Crystal

Boil @ 60 minutes

1 oz. Amarillo Pellets
1 oz. Magnum Pellets
1 oz. Cascade Pellets

Boil @ 15 minutes

7# Light DME
1 oz. Amarillo Pellets
1 oz. Cascade Pellets

Boil @ 0 minutes

2 oz. Perle Pellets

Yeast

White Labs California Ale Yeast

Dry Hop after two weeks

2 oz. Simcoe Plugs

My initial gravity was 1.060 @ 87F or 1.064 adjusted. Today's reading was 1.018 @ 66F or 1.019 adjusted which gives me 6.3% alcohol by volume. That's just about perfect, although I assume it's gonna pick up another 0.3-0.4% by the time i keg it.

The SDPA will be keg-conditioned and replace the guiness on the Angram.

Oaked Abstract Bastage, One week of Oak

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Last weekend I racked the OAB into a carboy with the whiskey soaked oak chips. At the time the specific gravity was 1.038, or adjusted, 1.039, giving me an alcohol volume of 11.3%. The taste was alcoholic guava juice. Since it was still very sweet and there was still a significant amount of Trub in the carboy, so I racked a bunch of it into the new carboy as well.

Today, I checked on the oakeyness and it was already sufficient. So I'm racking it again. The current gravity reading is 1.038, or 1.037 adjusted, which gives me an alcohol volume of 11.6%. Woah.

Oaked Abstract Bastage, Repitch

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:31:00 +0000

Initial Reading: 1.110
Gravity adjusted for 90F temperature: 1.114

Reading before re-pitch with Champagne yeast: 1.044
Gravity adjusted for 66F temperature: 1.045

Current alcohol: 8.96%

Oaked Abstract Bastage, Starting Gravity

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:50:00 +0000

Initial Reading: 1.110
Gravity adjusted for 90degree temperature: 1.114

That's a good bit higher than last time and means I'm likely to break 10% this time around

Starting the Oaked Abstract Bastage

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:29:00 +0000

As I indicated last week, I started a new instance of Abstract Bastage and will oak it with the chips currently soaking in Scotch.

Here's the final recipe I ended up with:

Steep @ 160F for 35 minutes

1# Flaked Rye
1# Crystal 40L
3/4# Dark Munich Malt
1/4# Special B
1/4# Biscuit
1/4# Aromatic

Boil @ 60 minutes

12# Malt Extract
1 oz. Magnum Pellets -- Bittering Hops

Boil @ 50 minutes

1 oz. Target Pellets -- Bittering Hops

Boil @ 15 minutes

2# Dark Brown Sugar
2 tbsp Irish Moss

Boil @ 0 minutes

2 oz. Simco Pellets -- Flavoring Hops

Initial Pitch

White Labs California Ale yeast

Beyond that, I plan to re-pitch without racking with White Labs Champagne yeast after about a week. Another week after that, I'll rack to secondary add 2oz. of Simcoe plugs and add the whiskey soaked oak chips. I'll probably leave the oak in for 2 weeks, but will taste once a week to be sure. After that, I'll age it for a couple of months.

Cask-conditioned Guiness clone

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:42:00 +0000

So the Guiness clone has cask-conditioned and is now hooked up to the Angram. Bought a 4-pack of rocket-widget powered Guiness cans, still the best way to enjoy a pint outside a pub (don't like the widgetted bottle). So we had nitrogen vs. hand pulled here. I've previously done this recipe and done the A/B with the cans, so i know the recipe is pretty darn close. Well, the head wasn't as thick from the Angram as what nitrogen was able to pull off, but you did have the usual effect of the two ale being aerated and a nice thick head building up from the bottom up. The color is spot on and when it came to taste, the Angram version tasted richer, almost making the canned Guiness taste watery. All around, I'd call this exactly what I wanted

Oaked Abstract Bastage

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:22:00 +0000

I did my first oaked ale a couple of months ago with the Oakengrueven, but as it aged it got and more like chewing on a board. I'm gonna age the remaining bottles for another couple of months before trying them again to see if they've mellowed out a bit.

But that doesn't mean, I give up on oak flavors and this time I'm taking my Abstract Bastage and oaking it. It's a nice strong ale that could do nicely with some oak flavors.

The two mistakes I made with the Oakengrueven was putting the oak in during primary fermentation and putting them in dry. I just put the new toasted chips into a bottle with a about a cup of Dewar's White Label (bought a Costco size a while back and decided, that I really didn't like it nearly as much as Glenlivet) and will soak them until the Abstract is ready for secondary, then dump the whiskey and rack the ale into with carboy with the chips. I'll probably taste it once a week after the first two weeks to decide when the chips come back out and then age it for another 2-3 months.

Couple of things I plan on changing with the Abstract are (i'll write out the full recipe as I do it):

use California Ale yeast instead of British Ale yeast
Re-pitch with Champagne yeast without racking and as soon as the first fermentation dies down and only move to secondary after the re-pitched fermenations dies down
Toss the Cascade for Simcoe and up the dosage on the dry hopping to at least 2oz.
Swap out the 2-row used in the steep with rye malt.
Actually use 2# of brown sugar, like originally planned
Drop the Wheat DME and up the Syrup to 12#

I doubt i'll even get around to starting this batch until Xmas tho.

Liar's Club is no more

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:37:00 +0000

Just saw over on Menu In Progress that the Liar's club has shut down and moved. Serious suckage! It was the one place that you could go to, drink some of the tastiest brews around and be in a cool area where you could walk off that inebriation. Truly sad.

Oakengrueven, Cranberry Wit Bier and other things

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 23:23:00 +0000

Last weekend i started a Guinness clone for the Angram. That was racked to secondary yesterday. I also kegged the Cranberry experiment, and after having some today decided to christen it Cranberry Wit Bier. It took the place of the Oaked Bitter, or Oakengrueven. The oak characteristic kept getting stronger on that so that at the end it tasted like chewing on Oak chips while quaffing a pint. I still have some bottled, so I'm curious if they went the same way as the kegged edition. Finally, the tap I'd previously thought contained my Belgian from earlier this summer is actually the Steam Beer kit after all. I've started labeling kegs now.

SDPA gone bad and a new experiment

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:51:00 +0000

Well, I just learned that I should trust my nose. When I pitched the yeast I had from the previous SDPA into this batch, I thought it was off. Sure enough, two days later and still nothing. So I got a fresh White Labs California Ale Yeast and it really took off. Today I transfered it to secondary and the smell was just way off. The same chemical sort of smell that made me pitch my Hefeweizen last year. So all those yummy ingredients down the drain. I'm giving it a couple of days in secondary and will taste it again, but that's mostly an act of desperation. Suckage.

Considering it's almost November, I probably won't try another SDPA this year, since I want a Guiness clone on the Angram by the time it gets cold. I was going to start the Steam Beer kit I thought i had kicking around, but I have no idea what happened to it. Did I already brew and consume it? I almost think I did.. I had something else next to the Belgian before I put the Oaked Bitter on.. I bet it was the steam. Now, if i kept better notes in here...

So I decided to go a little crazy today. I still had a couple of cans of Coopers Wheat Extract and it's just too dark for a Paulaner style Hefeweizen. I decided to throw a bunch of Belgian ideas together and just mix something up. I do brew beer the way I cook, never able to stick to recipes.

Here's what I got:

Boil @ 60 minutes

9# Coopers Wheat Malt Extract Syrup
1 oz. Perle
1 oz. Liberty

Boil @ 30 minutes

1 16 oz. can of Cranberry Sauce

Boil @ 5 minutes

1 oz. of Liberty
1 tsp. English Moss

Pitched with White Labs Trappist Ale Yeast. And in a week, I will re-pitch with White Labs Champagne Yeast. A little Trappist, a little Wit, a little Cranberry and enough sugars to give the Champagne yeast something to work on for a high gravity tart Wit variation. Or that's what I imagine it will turn into.

SDPA: Cask-Conditioned IPA, take 2

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:51:00 +0000

As usual, plenty of beer related things have happened since the last post, but I didn't write anything down. The long and short is that the Cask Conditioned IPA I did back July was hooked up to my Angram in August and it was perfect. Right Hop flavor and aroma, right mouth-feel coming out of the hand-pump. Exactly right. Tastes like those tasty San Diego casks at the Liar's club. Now, using only 7 lb. of DME, it's not quite DIPA strengh, but it certainly is fashioned after the San Diego DIPA, or as it ought to be called, SDPA. Maybe it's a light SDPA.

Anyway, that keg is nearing at the bottom and so i'm way overdue to start a replacement, since i want a proper conditioning period. So what I brew today won't be ready for a month. Regardless, I'm doing another batch with the only change is swapping out the Amber DME with more Light DME and moving it to the late addition stage at 15 minutes. This should give me an even lighter color, as is characteristic of SDPAs.

Steep (45min @ 160F)

0.5# Victory
1.0# Cara Pils
0.5# 10L Crystal

Boil @ 60 minutes

3# Light DME
1 oz. Columbus Pellets
1 oz. Centennial Pellets
0.5 oz. Cascade Pellets

Boil @ 15 minutes

4# Light DME
1 oz. Columbus Pellets
0.5 oz. Cacade Pellets

Boil @ 0 minutes

1 oz. Centennial Pellets
1 oz. Cascade Pellets

Yeast

White Labs California Ale Yeast (repitched from last IPA's wort)

This will ferment for a week and then get racked to secondary w/ dry hopping.

Dry Hop

1.5 oz. Cascade Flowers
1 oz. Simcoe Plugs

After another two weeks, I'll rack it to the keg with another 0.5 oz. of Cascade and 1 oz. of Simcoe and sugar for cask conditioning.

I'll need to kick in another batch next weekend that I can get on tap in 2 weeks. I have a Steam beer kit still waiting for me to brew it, and after tasting the San Diego Brewer's Association serious overhopped Steam beer at Home Brew Mart yesterday, I'll probably augment that kit with various hops.

Angram enclosure

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:49:00 +0000

When I originally got my Angram pump I just threw together a wood enclosure so i'd have a way to use the beer engine. The way it's supposed to be installed it clamped on the inside of a bar. While we have a kitchen bar, it didn't suit itself and the place where i could have mounted it was too far away from the kegerator. So it was clear from day one that I'd build a custom enclosure and I knew I wanted it to fit visually with the look of the beer engine.

This weekend, my cask conditioned IPA is finally ready and so is the new enclosure.

This is a picture of the quick fix box on the right and the new box, milled from 2" oak on left.

A closer look at the just assembled, unstained enclosure.

Stained, varnished and installed in its final location on top of the wine fridge next to the kegerator.

Detail of the fit of the beer engine in the enclosuse. Because of the clamps protruding from the side of the Angram, I had to cut fairly deep rails to let me slide it into the enclosure.

Detail of the wood grain and finish comparison of the enclosure and the Angram's own wood cap.

Oaked Bitter

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 18:34:00 +0000

A new experiment.

Steep (30 minutes @ 160F)

1# British Crystal (about 80L)
1/4# Victory
1/4# Special B
1/4# Biscuit

Boil (60 minutes)

6# light malt extract syrup

Bittering hops (60 minutes)

1 oz. Columbus
1 oz. Galena

Boil (15 minutes)

2 tbs Irish Moss

Flavoring hops (1 minute)

2 oz Kent Golding

Boil (0 minutes)

1# dark brown sugar

Fermenation

White Labs English Ale yeast
4 oz. Lightly Toasted Oak chips

IPA & cask conditioning

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 21:53:00 +0000

Recently, I got a Angram Beer engine for my birthday. Woot! Of course there was no time to brew my own IPA for the inaugural usage, so I went up to Green Flash in Vista and got a keg of West Coast IPA. It's a wonderful IPA with a great flowery nose. But how would a keg beer work with the beer engine?

The setup I received was a factory refurbished Angram CQ with sparkler and a Cask Breather to regulate the CO2 inflow, as was recommended to me by UK Brewing. The Green Flash Cornelius keg had a Sankey Domestic fitting. I also had to make some mods to my kegerator to run the extra line for the Angram out the back.

Everything hooked up fine and the first test water pumping worked great. I bled the West Coast IPA of any head pressure. In retrospect, I should have probably shaken the keg, bled, shaken, bled, etc. etc. to get more of the CO2 out of solution. Well, I started pulling a pint and got a whole lotta foam. The line had air in it and no matter how fast or slow I pulled, the air stayed in. I also noticed that once I stopped pulling, there was a fine line of bubbled coming out of the top of the sankey filling the hose with "air". I put that in quotes, because I doubt that the sankey was leaking, so most likely, the culprit was excessive CO2 in the IPA which was coming out of solution due to the negative pressure on the line.

Eventually, with slower pulls, the foam calmed down a bit, but you still have to pull 4 times (a pint) and let the most egregious foam spill over. The end result, however, was a wonderful, hand pulled pint of IPA. Just like I'd hoped.

That keg went a lot faster than I expected -- a combination of the extra wastage of hand pull overflow and just general enjoyment. Which brings me to my next IPA, especially brewed for the Angram. This was initially going to be another version of my last Simcoe IPA, but instead I dreamed up a whole new recipe. I had recently purchased two stainless hop cages for dry hopping. I had also asked Green Flash whether their cask were properly cask conditioned (after finding out that Stone just used their regular keg beer with some additional flavors added to the cask). Mike Hinkley told me that they take fill the casks from the secondary fermenters and add more dry hops and let it condition in the cask. So, my plan was to add another dry hop stage once the beer went into the corny.

Here's the recipe I brewed up last weekend:

Steep (45min @ 160F)

0.5# Victory
1.0# Cara Pils
0.5# 10L Crystal

Boil @ 60 minutes

3# Light DME
1# Amber DME
1 oz. Columbus Pellets
1 oz. Centennial Pellets
0.5 oz. Cascade Pellets

Boil @ 15 minutes

3# Light DME
1 oz. Columbus Pellets
0.5 oz. Cacade Pellets

Boil @ 0 minutes

1 oz. Centennial Pellets
1 oz. Cascade Pellets

Yeast

White Labs California Ale Yeast (repitched from last Simcoe IPA's wort)

This fermented for the last week and today, I racked it secondary & dry hopping.

Dry Hop

1.5 oz. Cascade Flowers
1 oz. Simcoe Plugs

In about two weeks, I'll transfer it to the keg with another 0.5 oz. of Cascade and 1 oz. of Simcoe and let it condition for another two weeks. Then I finally will find out what a come brewed IPA on the beer engine is like.

Various brew ramblings

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:02:00 +0000

Went to the Carlsbad Pizza Port Real Ale festival the other weekend. Beer engine heaven, but I did learn two things:

Sparklers are important for that hand pulled mouthfeel. There were no sparklers used as the festival
I really only like IPAs from the beer engine. There were a bunch of belgians and the low carbonation did not taste appropriate for them, imho.

A little more on the carbonation. I learned this last year, when I tried putting my Hefeweizen on nitrogen. Tasted horrible. Then I switched it to CO2 (but only about 7 psi, because i had an IPA on the same regulator) and it got better but still not right. Since then I learned that Hefeweizen, like Belgians do better at fizzy carbonation levels. I've now bought a dual regulator for the kegerator, allowing me to run most ale's around 5psi, while my belgians and hefeweizen come out at 13psi. I just put a Belgian Triple on tap and it's perfect at 13psi.

At the same time, I moved my Simcoe IPA to nitrogen. Interesting experiment. Really brings out the hop aroma and has that hand pulled mouthfeel. It basically starts as a pint of head. After about 5 minutes, you have about half a pint of ale, the rest is a head that won't go away. So it's a stand-in for a beer engine, but no replacement.

Ready for summer, I've got yet another Paulaner clone sitting in secondary, waiting for an open slot in my kegerator. This one I did with wheat syrup instead of DME. It's very dark. I guess syrup just makes your ales a lot darker. We'll have to say if that's affected the taste once i finally keg it.

Finally, Alpine finally made Duet again and a friend of mine brought me a growler. It wasn't like I remembered at all. Not sure what was different and I don't know if it's my memory is wrong or if it just came out different this year. The aroma was right, but the taste was more like the Nelson. Strange. At the Real Ale festival I had Ballast Point's Sculpin IPA and I guess, at this point, Sculpin's moved ahead of Duet as my favorite IPA.

Simcoe IPA, part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:33:00 +0000

I just kegged the Simcoe IPA I brewed almost a month ago. Two weeks primary, and another two weeks for secondary. The hop aroma profile is exactly what I was hoping for--very strong floral aroma similar to Alpine's Duet. I tasted the sample I took for my specific gravity readings and it was almost ready to drink as is. This would be a perfect ale for cask conditioning. Alas, my endeavours to get a beerengine and cask setup at home have taken a back seat to other projects, so this will be normally force carbonated. I'll give it a week in the kegerator before tasting it.. Ok, I doubt that's what's going to happen. I'll probably take it tonight, but I think it won't truly be ready for another week or so.

The final gravity was 1.010, giving me about 6.14% alcohol.

Simcoe IPA

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:41:00 +0000

I currently have two Leener's Kit Ale's on tap. I got both of these for Christmas. They're an IPA (which I dryhopped with Amarillo plugs) and the other is Dortmunder. My first homebrewing ever was also from Leener kits and I can only recommend them. These kits are unbeatable for good, easy and inexpensive beermaking.

But this weekend, i went back to working on finding my ideal IPA. I started with the Ruination clone recipe from before and started swapping things out to get more of a Alpine Duet flavor profile.

Here's what I brewed:

Malt

6.5# light malt extract syrup
1.5# DME

Steep

1# 10L Crystal Malt
1# Dark Munich Malt

Bittering

2oz. Simcoe

Flavoring

1oz. Simcoe
2oz. Amarillo

Yeast

White Labs California Ale Yeast

Aroma

1oz. Simcoe
2oz. Amarillo

I pitched the yeast at 71 degrees at which time it had an OG of 1.056.

Beer comparisons

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:27:00 +0000

Last night I did a little A/B testing of my Ruination Clone vs. Stone's Ruination IPA and my Abstract Bastage vs. Stone's Double Bastard. The concensus was that both were a very close match for its Stone counterpart.

Ruination comparison: Same color, but Ruination was filtered and clear, while mine had a lot of residual yeast in it. Ruination was also more carbonated, which I assume is an artifact of bottling. I prefer my IPAs to be have a very low carbonation.

Double Bastard comparison: Once poured, you could barely tell the difference. Mine was maybe a tad darker. Taste wises they were also nearly identical, with mine having a bit more of a sweet aftertaste. More aging and/or a proper secondary stage would probably remove that difference. This one was especially surprising, since I didn't really model it after Double Bastard, merely started with an Arrogant Bastard Clone and tweaked it to what I thought would be appropriate for a strong ale.

Crystal Hop is weak

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 15:41:00 +0000

I tapped both the Double IPA and the Ruination Clone this weekend.

The Double IPA had been naturally carbonated. I don't have a beer engine, so i just put minimal pressure on the keg to tap it. However without the agitator, the beer pretty much tasted like a fairly flat brew. So I force carbonated it and how it's just a regular keg beer. It's a fair bit sweeter than I expected, another indication that I stopped the primary fermentation too soon. If this goes the way of my Abstract Bastage, then it'll probably mellow out in another month or so. The part that I found disappointing is that with the amount of aroma and dry-hop hops that went into it, it was virtually no hop aroma or smell. I guess I'm Cascace and Centennial head and I don't count anything else as hoppy, but I don't think i'll be using Crystal Hop again.

The Ruination went straight from secondary to the keg and was force carbonated. It's definitely green, but nice and hoppy. The way i like it. Give that two weeks in the keg and it will be perfect.

In the meantime, I have two strong, sweet ales on tap. They're definitely not quaffing beers. I think I better start another ale up next weekend, since the Ruination will probably be consumed before i get through either of the other two.

Double IPA update & Ruination Clone

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:23:00 +0000

Due to various distractions I did not keg the Double IPA until today. Talk about a long secondary. But for a Double IPA, i thought it appropriate. I decided to skip the split kegging, because it would leave too much airspace in both kegs and add risk of contamination. But this Ale is getting cask/keg conditioned. I used 4oz. of fermentation sugar boiled with about 4 cups of the ale and mixed back in with a rest in a 5gal keg. I'm going to let it age about 2 weeks at room temp and then put it in the kegerator. Yeah, I'll loose a lot of the cask conditioned benefits once i hook up the CO2 for the kegerator, but I hope that it will still be noticable vs. pure forced carbonation.

Since I had to dump my Paulaner clone and I'm still aging my Double IPA, I decided I better get on another batch. I figured, I'd close out summer with another IPA. This one is a clone of Stone's Ruination that I found on the Beer Recipator. Depending on how the Double comes out, I may go the cask conditioning route with this one as well.

Stone's 10th & Paulaner down the drain

noreply@blogger.com (ether) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 01:37:00 +0000

I'll talk about the happy stuff first. We went to Stone Brewing's 10th Anniversary Celebration yesterday and sampled a lot of tasty brews. Being an event of drinking beer, I don't have a precise account of what was tasted, so i'll just concentrate of the outstanding parts.

The price of admission got you 10 "tastes", i.e. 10 times the collectible glass (4oz? 5oz?) they also gave you at admission. That didn't seem like a lot, but between the long lines and there being no beer under 6%, it was plenty and a number of us did not make it through all 10. Good thing we had arranged for a bus to take us there and bring us beer, because to have been a designated driver at this event would have been a sad job. There were 40 breweries represented plus Stone. Each had at least two different beers on tap. So selecting 10 from over a hundred beers was not easy.

Favorite: Alpine's Duet. Hoppier, imho, than Pure Hoppiness with a much stronger Hop flower aroma.

Second Fav: Stone's 10th Anniverasy IPA, cask conditioned. I had the normal draft version and it was a nice strong IPA, but i wouldn't rate it above Ruination. However the cask conditioning and hand pumped delivery improved it ever so much. It was a pity that only Stone was exhibiting cask ales

Most interesting: Smoke Creek Rauchbier from Great Basin Brewing Co. Think baconated beer. Seriously! And yes, it was tasty.

Notable: Avery's Thirteen. A Weizen Doppelbock. While I had been aiming my strong ale to land somewhere between Double Bastard and Avery's Hog Heaven, it actually turned out like a slightly sweeter version of this Avery Ale. Tasty stuff, just not the best quaffing beer for a hot day in the sun.

We tried several times to get to the Russian River Brewing Company's tent, but their line was just too long, so we satisfied ourselves with being able to get their brews at a couple of local brew pubs. Another tent with a line too long for my taste was Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. Luckily some in our group were a little more patient and I got to taste their Punkin Ale, which I wouldn't mind finding a pint on tap of. In retrospect, I should have stood in line at Paulaner to see whether their brew was the proper Munich stuff, or just the pasteurized kegs you get in a number of places here.

All around, Stone put on a fantastic event and I can't wait for the 11th.

On a sad note, I have given up on my Paulaner clone. First brew for me that's gone wrong. I hoped it had just been green, although I feared it was nothing that time would fix. It's got an odd chemical smell and taste. Did I screw up on cleaning the keg? I don't know, but it's not drinkable. Here's hoping it was the keg, not something in my fermenters, since I still have the Double IPA aging in secondary and I don't want that to go bad as well.