Spiced Winter Ale = Gushy Mess

As it turned out, my spiced winter ale was a gusher. This beer was my first infected beer in a while. All of the bottles that we drank after a month and a half or so had a slight aftertaste and you could hear the head "sparkle" as you poured it. Further, if you did not serve it cold, very cold, it would gush. The wild yeast must have gotten in there prior to bottling, due to the pervasive nature of the infection (i.e. it was in every bottle). I think it was because I did not cool the wort fast enough to pitch quickly and I did not aerate enough, so my beer yeast got a really slow start.



To clarify what infection means if you are not familiar with it in a brewing sense, wild strains of yeast or other microbes get into your beer. Because beer is acidic and alcoholic, no pathogens (stuff that can really hurt you) live in beer. However, infections usually have off flavors that can make the beer almost undrinkable. In extreme cases, they make the beer smell and taste like newly opened band-aids or old socks. They also ferment sugars that normal beer yeast cannot, which super-carbonates the beer and makes it gush. This makes a mess and can lead to "bottle bombs." In the case of the spiced winter ale, the off-flavor was minimal, but you could taste it. The real issue was the gushing nature of it.



So, for next time, I have to make sure I cool the wort quicker and aerate more. I got an aeration kit from Northern Brewer, which should help. I also learned how to link my wort chiller into an ice bath using a cheap pond pump, as shown on the latest Basic Brewing DVD. I think these things will really help.

Bohemian Pilsner

Well, I have begun the new year with my first lager-style fermentation. I have never "successfully" done a lager before. My one previous attempt was to make a marzen (or Oktoberfest, as it is more commonly known) when I had no idea that you needed fermentation temperature control. The beer never really fermented, and the resulting beer, which really was more of a wort, was consumed by a friend who helped make the beer and felt guilty that it did not work out alright. It was in no way Sam's fault, as I really had no idea what I was doing.

I bought a temperature controller with some of my Christmas money and hooked it up to my beer fridge. This controller is basically a thermostat that you plug your fridge into and then the thermostat cuts the power on and off. This allows me to set the fermentation temperature to around 50 degrees, which is important to minimize dactyl (butterscotch flavor) production in lager and pilsner-style beer.

Also new to my beer process this year is active aeration using an aquarium pump and stainless steel airstone and my home made stir plate for yeast starters. The aeration really helps fermentation start faster and minimize wild yeast propagation. The yeast starter does the same thing by increasing the amount of active yeast you pitch into the wort. More on the stir plate, which was built out of a cigar box and spare computer parts, in anther post.

One of the other complicating factors in fermenting a lager or pilsner is that it takes about a week to 10 days to ferment and then another 4 weeks to "lager" in the fridge. So, we will see how it goes. Stay tuned for more information . . .

First Homebrew Club Meeting

Jamey, Christopher and I have been meeting a couple times a month for the past several of months to get our concept of a homebrew club ready. Well, now the invitation has gone out to a bunch of our friends and other people we think might be interested in brewing. The first meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 5th at 6:30pm at Court Square Tavern. The response has been favorable so far, and we expect more than 10 people to come out and join us.

The goal, at first, is to have meetings on the first Tuesday of each month to provide a social gathering of people who enjoy homebrewing beer, with the longer term idea of providing speakers, tastings, and other similar events of interest. We may also organize informal gatherings to go to breweries and maybe even go to the American Homebrewing Association Conference in Cincinnati (I am now an AHA Member - a Christmas present from my in-laws - thank you!).

Stay tuned for more details and check out our club's website and forums at:

http://www.cvillebrewing.com/

Get spicey!

The spiced winter ale we made during Teach a Friend to Brew day is finally ready. I like it. It is very subtle, more subtle than hops, but a great flavor all the same. The spice smell is there too, though less than just after the boil when it filled the room.

This beer clearly showed me that serving temperature impacts the taste and smell a great deal. If you drink the beer when it first comes out of the fridge, there is no spice taste and smell. But, if you let it warm up a bit, maybe 50 degrees F, the taste and smell are great. I gave a couple of bottles away to friends and told them to drink it a bit warmer and they looked at me strange. However, they later thanked me and said it made a big difference.

Cheers to all who helped brew this great winter beer!

Maui Madness -- What a cool head!

Well, the coffee stout is ready and it came out very tasty. Most surprising of all was the foam of the head -- it is the color of chocolate milk. Very cool. I have never had the foam on my beer appear anything but light tan, but this looks great. Also, surprisingly, the beer tastes of dark unsweetened chocolate. The coffee flavor is there, but very balanced. I was not expecting the chocolate and dark fruit flavor at all. I am very happy with it.

The beer was definitely worth going to Hawaii to get the raw ingredients! Now, how to get my wife to agree to go back to get more . . .

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day

Well, this past Saturday (November 3), was the American Homebrewers Association's Teach a Friend to Homebrew day. I invited a number of friends over and registered our house as Site #82 on the AHA site. The day was absolutely beautiful, a nice crisp fall day with temperatures in the mid 60s. It proved an excellent opportunity to break the deck in with its first "multi-person" brew day. As a side note, the deck is not complete yet and people had to get on it by using a chair, but it looks nice and is already very functional.

Three friends of mine were able to make it out (Sid, Bryan, and John), along with my In-laws, wife, son, and daughter. My In-laws were in town for a completely unrelated reason and my son and daughter always help out in a matter of course (or as much as a 4 year old and a 2 year old can). So, we can count the number of brewers as 8, WOOT!

We brewed a spiced winter ale as our collective brew. One of the tasks the participants were charged with was coming up with a name for the beer. I, of course, reserved the right to veto any names that were deemed unoriginal enough (such as "Bryan, Sid, and John Ale," which actually was suggested). The winning name was "Slap the Bag Ale," named after a rather amusing drinking story shared by Bryan. I shall not recite it here, so I do not embarrass Bryan further, but it was rather funny.

The brew day ended with a cook out of sausages and grilled eggplant. You can see the fixin's behind John as he pitches the yeast into the cooled wort. I hope everyone had a good time and learned something.

Now, hopefully the beer is as good as the story behind its name . . .

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - Nov 3

Well, it looks like I will have a couple people out to the house on Saturday for Teach a Friend to Homebrew day. The weather looks like it will be a nice crisp Fall day, perfect to make some beer with friends. I decided on a Spiced Winter Ale to make, because winter is coming fast and I just listened to a Jamil Show podcast about that style. So, here is the recipe, which was taken from Jamil's show.

Spiced Winter Ale

Ingredients:
- 13 lbs British Pale Ale Malt (original recipe calls for 19.5 lbs)
- 0.75 lbs Crystal 80 Malt
- 0.25 lbs Black Patent Malt
- 1 oz Horizon hop pellets (ended up using Progress hop pellets due to hop shortages)
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Ginger
- 1/8 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp All Spice
- London Ale Yeast
- Bottling Sugar

Stats:
- O.G. - Unknown (original was 1.090)
- F.G. - 1.022
- IBU - 45
- Color
- 19 SRM (approximate because I changed the amount of Pale Malt)
- Alcohol - 6.5% (original was 9%)

Instructions:
- Mash at 152 F for an hour using 1 quart per lb of grain.
- Sparge at 170 F until you have 6.5 gallons of wort.
- Boil for 90 min.
- Add hops 60 min from flame out.
- Add spices 1 min before flame out.
- Ferment at 68 F in primary and rack to secondary when mostly complete.
- Taste beer when racking from primary to secondary and adjust spice flavor if necessary with appropriate spice slurry.
- Add bottling sugar and bottle.
- Wait three weeks for bottle conditioning and enjoy.