Red Maple Saison

The sun is setting earlier. The nights are getting cooler. The leaves begin to change in the green mountains into a mountain on fire. Red, Orange, Yellow leaves ignite the mountains into flames. Where tree's become flowers before winter. Enough jabber. Brewing a Red Maple Saison with maple syrup. The red color will come from amber and crystal malt. Also using torrified wheat and flaked oats for body and head retention. The syrup will add some color as well. Especially since I'm using grade B syrup. Which, as any syrup connoisseur knows is the better syrup. It's been boiled longer, creating a more intense maple flavor than grade A syrup. I'll be adding this during cool down. Stirring in two pounds at 160 degrees F. I don't want to drive off the delicate maple flavors, even though the yeast will do it's best to scrub it away during fermentation. I may back sweeten with more maple syrup depending on it's attenuation and flavor when tasted. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup for more information on the sugar of the tree gods.I'll be using the saison yeast from the one I brewed last week. Looking forward to tasting and dry hopping it. I'll probably be using this yeast for a 3rd generation to make an imperial black winter saison, strong 11% and spiced with meadow sweet, nutmeg and chamomile.

The Aussie's Attack Smoked Porter

The International home brewing community is strong. Around the world home brewers get together to share brew, ideas, and stories. Last Wednesday night was one of those nights. A group of Australian home brewers came to my house to home brew and drink. How all this came together is somewhat explained in this newspaper article. Out of the Times Union in Albany, NY. http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=835847&category=&BCCode=&newsdate=8/28/2009&BCCode=&newsdate=8/28/2009. So, Ross and Dave express some interest to Jim Azotea, the former president of the Saratoga home brew club(my first home brew club http://www.thoroughbrews.com/), that they want to go to DFH. Since, I am reluctant to say this, a brewer there Jim emailed me Tuesday if they could come to the mid Atlantic to home brew and get a tour. Of course my response was yes. The opportunity to hang out with home brewers that have the wealth of knowledge that Ross, Dave, and Matt have was priceless. We started brewing around 11:00 at night. I think I finished brewing around 3:30 in the morning. Not sure, but there is a carboy full of smoked porter from that night that doesn't taste too bad considering the circumstances. The circumstances were the tasting of quite a few brews. I don't think many were under 8%. Needless to say the night lasted till the morning. I learned a new term. To take a pint to the head, to skull it. For example "hey, I bought you a pint, skull it". Ross, Dave and Matt, you can crash here anytime and I'll be looking you guys up when I'm in Brisbane. Hey Dave send me some of the pics you took. Cheers!

La Fin de l'ete Saison

The end of summer. Unless your going south of the equator in the next few weeks then the summer sun is setting. Today's saison brew has Pils malt, wheat malt, torrified red wheat, biscuit malt, and rye malt. Hops are east kent goldings, styrian goldings, and dry hop with saaz. The twist on today's recipe is I'm adding 4 grams of Schinus Molle, more commonly referred to as red or pink peppercorns. Though there is no relation to the true pepper family Piperaceae. These red berry's are sweet with a slight peppery bite, some juniper berry type qualities. The wikipedia page gives this as a description, "Schinus molle is a quick growing evergreen tree that grows to 15 meters (50 feet) tall and 5-10 meters (16-33 feet) wide. It is the largest of all Schunus species and potentially the longest lived."


Good brew day. Cooling the wort down now. Only going to cool the wort to 80 degrees Fahrenheit to promote a very healthy fermentation for the saison yeast. I've heard Saison Dupont ferments up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. I'll go for 80's on this one. Planning on dry hopping with saaz and more styrian goldings.

Rye Pale Ale v2.0

Brewed this beer with home brew friend a few weeks back and were brewing it again with different hops and a slight malt bill adjustment this time. The last brew turned out quite nice. A little dark, it was approaching amber. Looking to brighten in up and bring it a pale color. This brew has pale malt, rye malt, dark Munich malt, wheat malt, and crystal rye. For hops let's drop the "C" hop bomb into this one. Yup. That means a little warrior for bittering, then into the cascade, columbus, chinook, and centennial. Some in the kettle and dry hops. These "C" hops are some of the most popular hops in American style pale ales. They contribute a citrus grapefruit character. Well it's three in the morning. Waiting for the wort to cool. Then aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Four in the morning and all wrapped up.

Green Peppercorn Rye Amber Ale

This is a beer I've been wanting to make for quite some time. I'm using the German ale yeast from last weekends rauchbier. Racking off the yeast and just knocking out right on top of the yeast. Ever since I tasted Dieu du Ciel!'s Route D'Spices I wanted to try and re create the amazing peppercorn flavor in that beer. It is an amazing beer that starts malty and ends witha a nice peppery finish. That demands you to take another sip to have that pepper bite again. The rye malt contributes it's own peppery quality as well. I really like fresh ground pepper, so I'm going for a little more assertive pepper flavor but still not overwhelming. Runoff going well, but it's getting close, yup, stuck mash. No problem, just deep cut, you can feel the grain bed sucked to the false bottom. Re-Vorlauf to clear the wort and start running off again till kettle full. Here is a video of mashing in. I have a grist case that feeds the crushed grains into the mash tun with a knife valve. Works great. Getting ready to start brewing much more into the fall. Sour Shack is being constructed in the catacombs to begin brewing sour beers soon. Looking forward to bringing some funk.

Rauchbier

Been over a month since my last post. I took a little home brewing hiatus. Went home for a week and a half. With only a few weeks left of summer I'm starting to think about the last bbq's of the season so I'm going to brew a German inspired rauchbier today. The BJCP style guidelines say this about the history of the style. "A historical special of the city of Bamberg, in the Franconian region of Bavaria in Germany. Beechwood-smoked malt is used to make a Marzen-style amber lager. The smoke character of the malt varies by maltster; some breweries produce their own smoked malt"

Traditionally the Germans used lager yeast to make classic rauchbier but since I can't brew lagers at home right now I'm going to be using the Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast and ferment it cool, lower than 65 degrees. Also I'm using the Briess cherry wood smoked malt instead of the traditional beechwood rauchmalz. Fairly simple malt bill with pale malt, smoked malt, amber malt, aromatic malt, munich malt, melanoidin malt and a dash of chocolate wheat malt. Very light hops, just enough to balance the malt sweetness. Smoked bacon is the flavor I'm looking for today. Great brew day. Good to make a five gallon batch again. Got a new toy. An aquarium pump aeration setup. Worked great, only drawback was the foaming over. Just unplugged for minute and all was well. Nice to see oxygen getting dissolved into the wort. This is the first time I've been able to aerate my homebrew. That little stone chugs right along.

Le Noir Petit Mort

A black white beer. The idea of the beer doesn't make sense, but Quebec brewery's and the Bruery out of Orange County, CA have made sense of what this style can be. To the eye the beer in the glass appears to be a porter or stout, until the aroma surrounds you with the Belgian citrus and coriander. Some confusion and intrigue the first time you try this beer. The taste is dry like the whiter version but with some more body. The dark malts don't overpower this style but play a supporting role to the lead roles of citrus and coriander of the classic white beer. The crystal and dark malts create a chocolate covered orange effect. In this batch we used pale and wheat malt. As well as crystal, aromatic, and dark munich. The color was achieved with debittered belgian black malt and chocolate wheat. Some molasses was added for color and flavor. Lightly hopped to not overtake the spices and malts. A great summer beer that doesn't look like a summer beer. A collaborative recipe between myself and fellow brewer and master mead maker Jon Talkington of Brimming Horn Meadery. We used lots of spices and added more as we tasted the wort during the process. Both being surprised by how much the darker malts masked the normally poignant flavor of white beer, citrus and coriander. Cooled to 70 degrees in thirty five minutes and pitched Fermentis Safbrew T-58 dry yeast.

Houblon Abbey Blonde

To start let's see what wikipedia has to say about this style. "Blonde or Golden Ale. Duvel, a typical blond Belgian ale Duvel is the archetypal Belgian blonde ale, and one of the most popular bottled beers in the country as well as being well-known internationally.Its name means "Devil" and some other blonde beers follow the theme -- Satan, Lucifer, Brigand, Piraat and so on. The style is popular with Wallonian brewers, the slightly hazy Moinette being the best-known example. Delirium Tremens can be considered a spiced version."

Those are some very tasty brews. In my take on the "beer style" I'll be adding a large quantity of hops toward the end of the boil as well as dry hops. Using a melange of American grown hop variety's with Hallertau Mittlefruh parentage. Liberty, Mt. Hood, and Vanguard.

Also using Fermentis Safbrew S-33, been having good results with dry yeast lately and haven't tried S-33 yet. This is what Fermentis has to say about S-33, "A very popular general purpose yeast, displaying both very robust conservation properties and consistent performance. This yeast produces superb flavour profiles and is used for the production of a varied range of top fermented special beers (Belgian type wheat beers, Trappist, etc.). Sedimentation: medium. Final gravity: high. Also recommended for bottle-conditioning of beers. Excellent performance in beers with alcohol contents of up to 7.5% v/v but can ferment up to 11.5% v/v."

In the grist in pale malt, wheat malt, rye malt, Belgian aromatic, honey malt, and toasted rye flakes. Mash rest at 152 degrees right now, about half way through. Then mash out to 168, this will allow beta-amylase to really get in there and create body. Also allowing for a better runoff from the change in viscosity of the wort. Over low to medium heat stirring the whole time, should take about ten to fifteen minutes to raise the temperature to 168-170 degrees from 150 degrees. It sure is tiring though. Just finished. About to start vorlauf. Good brew day. Knocked it out in four hours. Wort cool down took thirty minutes to get to 75 degrees.