compooter.org

Beer style guides are just guidelines

2007-07-22T01:22:28Z

I recently listened to an archived Brewing Network podcast featuring Brian Hunt of Moonlight Brewing Company. His recipe formulation strategy is quite simple: toss a combination of grains in your mouth and chew; if it tastes good, use that same ratio to compose your grain bill.

It’s a distinctly different approach that some brewers would disregard as impractical in both a commercial and competition setting. In a nutshell: if it tastes good, brew it — screw the BJCP.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not devaluing the importance of the Style Guide in craft and home brewing. The BJCP Style Guide provides a starting point that helps brewers (and judges) gain fluency in historical and regional differences in beer styles, as well as the language commonly used to describe the character of those styles. However, there comes a time for any student to put down the textbook and learn to trust his or her senses.

It is fairly easy to mechanically compose recipes in ProMash or BeerAlchemy, adding and subtracting until you hit the target attributes of a style definition, without actually thinking about the impact of each ingredient you’ve chosen.

Next time you brew, taste each ingredient throughout each stage of your brewing process. Decocting a weizen? Eat some grains straight from the decoction mash, just like it’s oatmeal. Purchasing ingredients from your local homebrew shop? Chew a few grains for comparison while you’re weighing out, e.g. crystal 40L vs crystal 120L or Vienna vs Munich malt. Keep a few ounces of grain from a few batches and chew them alongside a glass of beer or bite of food. This goes for hops, too!

By learning to locate the individual flavors and aromas contributed by each ingredient in your final product, you’ll find it easier to compose recipes based on your experience and intuition, rather than blindly adhering to minimums and maximums. Even if your recipe formulation strategy still involves strict adherence to the BJCP Style Guide, remember: the Style Guide is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.

Brew like a pirate. Arrr!

Belgian Golden Strong Ale

2007-07-09T06:15:19Z

Since this recipe was fairly successful the first time around, I will focus on tweaking small aspects of the recipe in order to improve upon the original.

Recipe

Style: Belgian Golden Strong Ale
Type: All grain
Batch size: 6 gal
Color: 6 SRM
Bitterness: 31 IBU
OG: 1.076
FG: 1.014
ABV: 8.3%
BU/GU: 0.41
Mash: Single infusion (153°F/168°F)
Efficiency: 75%
Boil: 75 min
Yeast: Belgian golden ale (WLP570)
Grain/Sugar:
- 12 lb Pilsner malt (Belgian)
- 1.8 lb Candi sugar (clear)
- 1.0 lb CaraVienne
- 0.5 lb Cara-Pils
Hops:
- 1.0 oz Styrian Goldings (pellet, 75 min)
- 1.0 oz Hallertauer (pellet, 60 min)
- 0.75 oz Czech Saaz (pellet, 20 min)
- 0.5 oz Hallertauer (pellet, 0 min)
- 0.5 oz Styrian Goldings (pellet, 0 min)
Extras
- 0.5 oz Sweet orange peel (5 min)

Process

A single infusion at or below 153F was used with this recipe in order to keep the beer from finishing too sweet and primary fermentation was kept between 70F-72F. High temperatures promote the production of strong esters and fusel alcohols, which can serve to make such a high alcohol beer seem too hot or harsh, so try to keep your temperature constant.

In a future version of this batch, I’d like to try using a slightly milder yeast, such as Abbey or Trappist (or some combination), as well as perhaps using wine yeast during bottle conditioning to contribute a smooth, delicate fruitiness.

Result

Well, this batch finally taught me the lesson most brewers learn with regards to yeast starters: they are necessary if you want healthy, consistent fermentations. Normally I just shake the hell out of the carboy and pitch 2-3 vials of liquid yeast, depending on gravity and whether making an ale or lager, using no starter. Four days into primary, yeast activity was well below normal and the inch or two of krausen was slowly disappearing.

What is most likely is that I witnessed the yeast leave lag phase, wake up just a bit, then settle back down after depleting their glycogen (carbohydrate energy reserves). On the third day, I procured a hefty 2000mL Erlenmeyer flask in which to make a starter and pitched the actively fermenting yeast about 24 hours later.

July 11, 2007: Fermentation seems very sluggish, perhaps stuck.

July 23, 2007: Kegged, but still awaiting judgement. This turned out decidedly different than the first time around, mainly due to whatever problems occurred during fermentation.

October 9, 2007: Quite hazy, most likely from bacterial contamination, which would explain the angry yeasties. What’s funny about this style is that no matter how funky it gets, it’s still drinkable. Not my best; not my worst.

India Pale Ale [2]

2007-06-04T01:25:47Z

“Dude, have you tried Brand X Quintuple IPA? It’s EXTREME!”
- Extreme Beer Punk #1

This is the part where I commit beer blasphemy: I think most IPAs suck.

It’s not that I dislike hoppy beer. On the contrary, there are many well-hopped beers that I enjoy immensely (most notably those produced by AleSmith and Russian River). However, the hype that fuels the extreme IBU trend leads most brewers toward over-hopping their recipes just for the sake of marketability or street-cred. These recipes generally suffer from a grain bill that is too sweet (excess caramel malt or improper mash), which overloads the palate when paired with strong hops, or a hop profile so complex that the result just lacks drinkability.

In other words, hops for the sake of hops.

This is an attempt to brew a pale ale with a clean malt character that highlights a balanced but assertive hop profile, without sacrificing drinkability.

Recipe

Style: India Pale Ale
Type: All grain
Batch size: 6 gal
Color: 8 SRM
Bitterness: 60 IBU
OG: 1.063
FG: 1.014
ABV: 6.5%
BU/GU: 0.95
Mash: Single infusion (153°F/168°F)
Efficiency: 75%
Boil: 90 min
Yeast: California ale yeast (WLP001)
Grain:
- 13 lb Domestic two-row
- 0.5 lb Wheat malt
- 0.4 lb Crystal 120L
Hops:
- 1.0 oz Columbus (pellet, 90 min)
- 1.25 oz Centennial (whole, 10 min)
- 0.5 oz Centennial (whole, 0 min)
- 2.25 oz Cascade (whole, 0 min)
- 1.0 oz Amarillo (pellet, dry)
- 1.0 oz Simcoe (pellet, dry)

Process

Everything went flawlessly for this batch; all temperatures were nailed dead-on. Primary fermentation will last about ten days at 69F before being racked to a secondary fermenter and dry hopped for another week.

Result

June 12, 2007: Racked off to secondary fermenter and dry hopped. Gravity currently sits at about 1.017, which hopefully will continue downward to finish at 1.012 over the next week or two.

June 19 2007: By far the best IPA I’ve ever brewed. Although it finished just a tad high, it’s not too sweet so as to throw it out of balance. I really like the Simcoe/Amarillo dry hop combination; it gives a very clean fruit and citrus hop presence, not overbearingly pungent, spicy or soapy. It’s very reminiscent of the Stone IPA cask (also dry-hopped with Amarillo/Simcoe) showcased at The Linkery from time to time. If all goes according to plan, all five gallons will be gone by Sunday.

Märzen [3]

2007-05-07T06:54:34Z

It’s neither March nor October, but who cares? It’s beer.

Recipe

Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen
Type: All grain
Batch size: 6 gal
Color: 12 SRM
Bitterness: 32 IBU
OG: 1.058
FG: 1.030?
BU/GU: 0.55
Mash: Single infusion (153°F/168°F)
Efficiency: 78%
Boil: 90 min
ABV: 3.7%
Yeast: Oktoberfest/Märzen lager yeast (WLP820)
Grain:
- 4 lb German pilsner malt
- 3 lb Vienna malt
- 2 lb Munich dark (20L)
- 1.5 lb Pale malt (2-row)
- 1 lb Cara-pils
- 1 lb Crystal (60L)
Hops:
- 2 oz Hallertauer (pellet, 60 min)
- 0.75 oz Hallertauer (whole, 15 min)

Process

The switch from a homemade fermentation chiller to a temperature controller and refrigerator is going well. So well, in fact, that this year I think I’ll brew lagers straight through the hot months, just because I can. That’s not to say the fermentation chiller box is without its purpose, since it will still be useful for primary fermentation of ales. The temperatures of ale secondary and lager primary fermentation overlap nicely, which should allow for a short two-week gap between batches if I alternate between the two temperature control systems.

I don’t have any first-hand experience of the difference between using a decoction mash versus a single infusion. Some say decoction contributes additional maltiness, others (many) say infusion works fine with the right choice of malt and yeast. Never having brewed a Märzen before, I chose single infusion over decoction for later comparison.

Result

May 27, 2007: Racked to secondary. Gravity is still quite high, up around 1.034. I bumped the temperature up from 50F to 56F about five days ago (diacetyl rest), a temperature that I’ll hold for at least another week to promote additional yeast activity. Hopefully this thing finishes off at the proper final gravity.

June 2, 2007: Patience is a virtue. Shortly after racking, fermentation activity picked up again. I’ll wait until it subsides to begin stepping down toward 35F.

June 12, 2007: Now lagering at 38F.

June 19, 2007: Not sure what the hell happened with this one. A stuck fermentation hasn’t allowed this thing to ferment past 1.030. I have a feeling it was just too low of a primary temperature. I may just trash this and return to the drawing board. It’s a good recipe, just flawed execution.

Lessons

Two 25-ft copper coils and a bucket of ice can cool much faster than one 50-ft coil. Now all I need is a pump to get below 55F.

Witbier [3]

2007-03-26T03:39:42Z

I’ve tasted many one-dimensional (U.S. made) witbiers that are little better than a hazy Corona. A truly excellent witbier boasts a delicate balance of citrus, spice, sweet and sour that results in a complex, yet refreshingly crisp wheat ale.

Recipe

Style: Witbier
Type: All grain
Batch size: 6 gal
Color: 3 SRM
Bitterness: 14 IBU
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.014
BU/GU: 0.27
Mash: Single decoction (122°F/154°F/168°F)
Efficiency: 82%
Boil: 90 min
ABV: 5.0%
Yeast: Belgian Wit Ale (WLP400)
Grain:
- 6 lb Belgian pilsner malt
- 4 lb Flaked wheat
- 0.25 lb Rolled oats
- 0.3 lb Grapefruit blossom honey (about 3/8 cup)
Hops:
- 1 oz Tettnanger (pellet, 60 min)
- 0.5 oz Czech Saaz (whole, 20 min)
Unfermentables
- Citrus zest (4 oranges, 1 grapefruit, 1 lemon)
- 0.25 oz chamomile tea (whole flowers)
- 1 tsp ground coriander

Process

When you’re using a gravity system with rubbermaid coolers, hitting all your temperatures through a single decoction mash can take a bit of effort. It’s really not that much more difficult than single infusion, aside from the stirring, but it gets quite a bad rap. The trick is having ready a bit of boiling and cool water, in the event you decoct too much or too little and need to adjust. A good rule of thumb at 1.2 qts/lb is 40% of your mash, about the consistency of a bowl of oatmeal.

The yeast, wheat and coriander will do most of the work to provide a mildly spicy backbone, but the recipe called for something to give the beer a nice orange-like fruitiness. A trip down to the farmers market yielded a TON of organic herbs and produce to choose from. The final ingredients included some organic citrus fruit and dried chamomile flowers, grown in Fallbrook, CA. If this beer turns out even 1/2 as good as it smelled at flameout, this is going to be one damn good witbier.

It’ll ferment in primary for 10-14 days at 65F, then settle out in secondary for a short while before I crash and keg it. I also plan to experiment with lactic acid after secondary is complete, to see if any slight lactic sourness compliments the flavor profile.

Result

This beer was definitely a hit among the ladies. Out of the three beers served (witbier, schwarzbier and pilsner), this keg blew first.

However, it became clear upon first taste that the extra time spent in secondary had mellowed the yeast character, resulting in a beer balanced too heavily toward citrus/herb/spice. Witbier should be served young, preferably well under a month, so next time I’ll forgo secondary.

Lessons

Dried orange peel is nice, but there is no substitute for fresh fruit.
Taste everything through every stage of the beer. It’s nice to see how all elements combine into the final result.
Kegging is way, way better than bottling. Seriously.

Schwarzbier [2]

2007-03-12T06:38:53Z

I recently sampled Bony Fingers and Death and Taxes, two outstanding black lagers by Moonlight Brewing Company, inspiring me to brew a schwarzbier.

After a bit of research, I noticed a distinctly wide range of interpretations in published recipes for this style. My usual starting point for composing a new recipe, Designing Great Beers, contains no chapter on the style and a Google search yields recipes that fall all over the spectrum. This is most likely because many brewers today forgo the traditional schwarzbier style in favor of a more robust black lager interpretation (including Moonlight’s Death/Bony, which aren’t schwarzbiers in the traditional sense).

Luckily, Jamil Zainasheff recently did a podcast show on schwarzbier and what better way to introduce myself to the style than by using an award-winning recipe?

Recipe

Style: Schwarzbier
Type: All grain
Batch size: 6 gal
Color: 31 SRM
Bitterness: 29 IBU
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.019
BU/GU: 0.54
Mash: Single step infusion (152°F/168°F)
Efficiency: 75%
Boil: 90 min
ABV: 4.6%
Yeast: German Lager (WLP830)
Grain:
- 7 lb German Munich malt (10L)
- 4 lb Pilsner malt
- 0.5 lb Crystal 40L
- 0.5 lb Chocolate malt
- 0.25 lb Roasted barley
- 0.25 lb Carafa II (de-husked)
Hops:
- 1.0 oz. Hallertauer (pellet, 60 min)
- 0.5 oz. Hallertauer (whole, 20 min)
- 0.5 oz. Hallertauer (whole, aroma)

Process

Using RO water, I had to add quite a bit of CaCO3 in order to get the right mash pH with such a dark beer. The mash temperature was a bit low, but hopefully it’ll still turn out sufficiently sweet enough to balance the roasted character.

Primary fermentation was held for 10-14 days at 52°F, followed by a short diacetyl rest at 58F, then racked off to a short secondary and incrementally decreased by two degrees each day until 34°F. An empty refrigerator along with a brand spankin’ new temperature controller and thermowell will make this fermentation a hell of a lot easier than with my homemade fermentation chiller box.

Result

April 9, 2007: I am quite pleased by this beer’s roasted complexity and clean flavor. Can’t wait to share this one with friends!

May 6, 2007: This was by far the best beer I’ve ever brewed.

Lessons

Keep on top of sanitation. Lots of nasty shit can build up in very little time.
Beer podcasts rock.

Bohemian Pilsner [3]

2007-01-29T03:24:32Z

Everything went so smoothly with the California Common that I’ve decided to stick with this yeast for a little while longer, even though it’s not a true pilsner yeast. I’m pretty excited that I’ve found a lager yeast that can ferment at temperatures that are more manageable in this (relatively) warm San Diego climate; it really opens up a large amount of styles that I’ve yet to had the opportunity to brew.

The recipe

Style: Bohemian pilsner
Type: All grain
Batch size: 5 gal
Color: 5 SRM
Bitterness: 38 IBU
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.014
BU/GU: 0.70
Mash: Single step infusion (151°F/168°F)
Efficiency: 75%
ABV: 5.3%
Yeast: San Francisco Lager (WLP810)
Grain:
- 6 lb. German pilsner malt
- 3 lb. Pale malt (American 2-row)
- 0.75 lb. Crystal 10L
Hops:
- 2.0 oz. Czech Saaz (pellet, 60 min)
- 0.5 oz. Czech Saaz (pellet, 30 min)
- 0.5 oz. Czech Saaz (whole, 15 min)
- 1.0 oz. Czech Saaz (whole, aroma)

The process

This is all fairly well-modified grain bill with low protein content, so no protein rest was needed. An acid rest was also unnecesary because the pH of the RO water, adjusted with 0.03g/gal of both CaCO3 and CaSO4, is about 8.2 (and remarkably close in mineral content to the water of Plzen!). This was the most problem-free brewday I’ve ever had, hitting both saccharification rest and mashout perfectly and finishing the entire process in just over five hours.

Primary fermentation will be held for 10-14 days at 50-52°F, then racked off to secondary for three weeks at 45-50°F. The temperature and duration of this secondary fermentation is untraditional for a Bohemian pilsner, which usually involves being slowly cooled to 34°F and lagered for a couple months, but a) this is southern California and traditional lagering is a pain in the ass for most homebrewers around here, and b) I’d like to compare the results of this slightly different use of WLP810 to the California Common I brewed last month.

The result

April 28, 2007: Not particularly bad, but definitely not my best performance. It finished up a bit sweet. Additionally, it showed some mild signs of infection that were largely unnoticeable above the spicy Saaz, but added a bit of phenolic character that was out of style. Next time around, it will also need a stronger hop bill.

Lessons learned

BeerAlchemy has rapidly become the best recipe formulation software for Mac OS X; I now use it interchangeably with ProMash + Parallels Desktop.
Finding a good beer-related domain name is nigh impossible.

Textpattern plugin: ajw_bookmarks

2007-01-26T15:33:53Z

Summary

This plugin enables the ability to import bookmarks into and export links out from Textpattern.

With this plugin you may export your Textpattern links to a standard bookmarks html export file, which can be easily imported to del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, or other social bookmarking services that have the ability to import bookmarks from any standard web browser.

This plugin can also import bookmarks into Textpattern (currently, del.icio.us is the only officially supported import format, but it should work with other services as well… leave notes in the forum, as your mileage may vary).

Installation & Setup

Download, install, and activate this plugin. By default, this plugin will appear under the ‘Extensions’ tab in the Textpattern interface.

Known Issues

Because of Textpattern’s tagging system (there is none), importing of tags is not currently possible.
There may be some mild encoding issues caused during import or export.

California Common [2]

2007-01-14T04:07:12Z

As a tribute to the extraordinarily cold weather we’ve been having lately here in California, I’ve decided to “brew for the season” and hopefully avoid my ongoing too-cold-for-ale fermentation temperature issues.

Those of us living in old homes with poor insulation and no central heating, it can become challenging to manage fermentation temperatures, even with an insulated fermentation chiller box. Indoor nighttime temperature have been hovering between the upper 40s to low 50s, so ales have become difficult. Unfortunately, I also lack the resources to manage lager temperatures between 34°F and 55°F.

There is a small window of temperature within which I can work reliably during the peak winter months, between 55°F and 65°F. A perfect candidate for this temperature range is the California common, also known as “steam beer”. This recipe is slightly lighter than most steam beers and uses Saaz hops for flavor/aroma, which is normally associated with a Bohemian pilsner, but should make for an interesting interpretation.

The recipe

Style: California common
Type: All grain
Batch size: 5 gal
Color: 8 SRM
Bitterness: 38 IBU
OG: 1.058
FG: 1.012
BU/GU: 0.65
Mash: Single decoction (75% efficiency)
ABV: 6.1%
Yeast: San Francisco Lager (WLP810)
Grain:
- 9 lb. Pale malt (American 2-row)
- 1.0 lb. Crystal 40L
- 0.75 lb. Vienna malt
Hops:
- 0.5 oz. Northern Brewer (pellet, 60 min)
- 0.5 oz. Northern Brewer (pellet, 45 min)
- 0.5 oz. Czech Saaz (pellet, 15 min)
- 1.0 oz. Czech Saaz (whole, aroma)

The process

Breaking the standard BJCP Style Guide mold a bit here, I did a few things with this beer to merge it slightly with a Czech pilsner. This recipe uses both Northern Brewer and Czech Saaz, which should create a less woody/minty and more spicy/floral hop aroma. Additionally, I opted for a single decoction instead of single infusion in order to contribute more malt complexity. Finally, the saccharification rest was held at 156°F in order to increase dextrins for a bit more additional body.

Primary fermentation was held for 14 days at 59-60°F, then racked off to secondary for two weeks at 50°F. This is not a true secondary fermentation per se, since the beer will not be incrementally cooled down to 34°F over the course of weeks and lagered for an extended period, like most classic lagers. Nevertheless, this should serve to remove much of the sediment from the beer and clear out many of the impurities that may remain.

The result

March 20, 2007: Problems. Phenolics. Infection? Meh.

Lessons learned

Water temperature management can be a bitch.
During a decoction, prepare extra hot and/or cold water to adjust mash temperature after returning the boiled portion back into the mash.
ProMash is worth the money, as is Parallels Desktop, which allows me to use ProMash on my Mac.

My year in cities, 2006

2006-12-22T17:09:10Z

Because it’s been a long time since I’ve participated in a silly meme, here is the list of cities in which I spent one or more nights during 2006:

San Diego, CA (duh)
Pacific Grove, CA
Los Altos, CA*
Lancaster, CA
Big Bear Lake, CA
Mammoth Lakes, CA
Snowmass, CO
Denver, CO
Tamarindo, Costa Rica

* Visited more than once

Looking at this list makes me realize just how little time I spent in 2006 exploring new landscapes and cities. What the heck have I been doing? Brewing lots of beer, apparently…

My goal for 2007 is to double the length of this list, adding a healthy dose of non-U.S. cities. Time to rediscover the art of the weekend getaway and impromptu road trips!