Focusing on 8 and only 8 beers... and some sours...

So we have made a decision as a team.  A monumental decision to focus on 8 beers.   We want to perfect these 8 recipes.  We want them to be competition worthy and commercial quality. And with two of our team members about to have babies, we will be brewing less often, and brewing larger batches. 10 and 15 gallons each time. But sports fans have no fear, Mark Anthony and I will still be making sours, and other test and crazy batches (hoptonite, a heady topper clone, etc).   But the team will be reducing brewing to about 1.5 x a month.  So, Ill be brewing a lot on my own as well.  For the most part I will be brewing 1.5 gallon test batches of our chosen 8.  

Here are the 8 beers we are really going to focus on.  We invite you all to brew along with us.  If we work together we can really make some great recipes.  We will begin this quest, after we make a pumpkin ale from the great people at Northern Brewer and a milk stout to sustain us through the winter (the left hand of fate).

The recipes will be posted on the right hand side of the blog near the top... under Hoptonite.

Desir et la Nuit -  Belgian tripel.  Our triple based originally on La fin du Monde.  My personal favorite beer.   Trying to find a better attenuating Abbey yeast.  The last batch was just a little too sweet. And I think we're going to up the spices a bit.   The beer is currently made to our liking, but not to BJCP standard, to get it to standard, we have to make it attenuate more completely. We also need more spice notes from the yeast, so we will be extending our acid rest.  The current plan is to use T58 and WB06 as the yeasts for this beer. WB06 is technically a wheat beer yeast, but it offers excellent attenuation and produces great esters. This will be a fascinating one for you all to keep up with as we are staggering the yeast additions.  I think this will do the trick.  I have seen on forums that people are using this yeast for La Fin clones, so I think we'd better try it.   We may also just break down and buy some Wyeast Canadian Abbey yeast. 

Allegement - this is our raspberry flavored Belgian blonde. I don't want to change anything about this beer. It's truly amazing.  We just need to find time to brew it more often.  This beer should be renamed MILF slayer.  Every woman who has tried it has loved it.  So if your SWMBO doesn't really like craft beer... this is the one to make. But be warned, you'll have to make it again and again. 

Ein Heldenleben - Munich Helles.  Triple decocted Helles.  It makes for a long brew day, but it is so woth it.  When we originally made this beer John was on the disabled list due to a torn Achilles (but he did manage to eat 10 lbs of pilsner like pop corn)  So his lovely bride Beth stepped up and we powered through the brew day. What we produced is technically the best beer we have made a nearly perfect example of the style.  If you can not lager, you can not make this beer.  Ale versions are just not the same.   

L'humble Moine - the Humble monk -  An abbey single.   This beer was an accident.  Mark Anthony and I were making a session-able Czech pilsner... and I accidentally pitched some washed abbey yeast I had on hand. The result was a beer that we all love.  We originally though of this beer as a Belgian blonde... then we came to learn more about the patersbier style.    It is a delicious entry level Belgian beer.  An easy drinker, and it never lasts long.   We have read recently that some patersbier recipes feature cinnamon and mace, or cinnamon and coriander.  So we'll experiment with that too. 

Saison de Pipaix clone -  This beer needs a name.  This beer is inspired by the last steam powered brewery in the world. Brasserie a Vapeur in Pipaix Belgium.  It is a spiced, orange colored Saison, and it is delicious.   We want the color to more closely match the deep burnished gold almost orange color of the original. This is the kind of Saison that makes your beer loving friends, who have only tried DuPont, Henepin, and Tank 7, take heed and show respect for your brewing mastery.

C4 pale ale -  Hey, sometimes you need something hoppy.  And we have certainly made more than our fair share of hoppy beers.  So very many... (and 15 more gallons recently)  This one will never be to BJCP standards, but we think it has huge potential.  We all felt like it could use a little more up front bitterness, and a bit more color.   An odd thing about this beer is that it actually tasted better in the bottle at about 6 -8 weeks than when it was fresh.  So we have work to do on our hop schedule and on our water chemistry.  Yummy delicious work to do.  

Belgian dark strong ale -  I have decided that we are the holy brotherhood of de abdij van cerise.  I'm not sure that the monks of St Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren make as much Belgian beer as we do.  We love abbey beers.  And we love BDSA.   I have been making this recipe since the dawn of home brew.   Our most recent batch is too approachable, this beer is for beer lovers not sorority girls. It is not nearly spicy enough but in fairness it is still delicious. So 5 of the 10 gallons is getting hit with Bourbon soaked oak chips and bourbon soaked cherries.  Hey why not?  Everything else gets this treatment.  And the next batch we will extend the acid rest to produce more ferulic acid and therefore more "phenolic" spice.  But other than that this beer is good to go.  A tried and true winner.

A Clean, clear cream ale!

Big John's Cream Ale -   Listen to me round eye.   You have to make Cream Ale.   It keeps your processes sharp, and it is delicious and easy drinking.  Your friends who don't like craft beer will still love this beer.  It is my house ale.  I have a friend who only drinks Miller Lite who will drink 2 or three of these every time he shows up.   John's recipe is an improvement on the recent 3 grains craze. John adds not only flaked corn but also flaked barley, which gives it more mouth feel, more "grain" taste, and better head retention.   An excellent beer.  I am always excited when I find a couple of these in storage.  I just found 6 of them, and I still have 5... ok 3,   Ok fine I'm out.   We need to brew this again.  

So there it is the 8 beers we will be focusing on.  The 8 beers that we think we can do some special stuff with.   You may be wondering... where are the sours?   Where is Hoptonite?   Well as to the sours, Mark Anthony and I will be keeping those alive and well.  We will protect our cultures, and keep them rocking.  We are about to bottle a sour, and when we do, we will certainly have another brew to put right on top of it quickly.   As to Hoptonite... to be honest, it is awesome, but it is also crazy expensive to brew.   A 10 gallon batch is well over $100.00.  So I will be brewing it solo in 2 and 3 gallon batches.    That is a little more pallet-able to the old wallet. 

I will say that we have reached a point where our home brew is superior to almost anything we can buy commercially, and that is very exciting.

Cheers!

10 Gallon No Sparge

Why do you sparge?  Seriously, why?  Of course you sparge to rinse sugars off the grains, and to improve efficiency, and because that is what every book says to do, so that is what you do.  But other than that, why?   And why is improving efficiency a good thing?   Have you ever thought about that? I routinely get into the high 80s and low 90s with brew in a bag step mash with a sparge.  But why is that good?  Other than the fact that is means you did a great job extracting sugars, is there any benefit to supremely high efficiency?  

The answer may surprise you.  The answer is unequivocally, no.  In fact I think you could argue quite compellingly that super high efficiency actually reduces many of the malty flavor compounds (flavinoids, melanoids like dimethyl pyrazines) that give beer balance and it's delicious grainy, bready, taste. That's right sparging may be lessening the overall taste of your beer.  And further, sparging isn't necessary.  

If BIAB has taught us anything, it has taught us that there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.   One of the most common methods of BIAB uses a no sparge.  All of the water, all of the grains. Perhaps a squeeze, but other than that no other method for pulling sugars out of grains.  

Built in bulk head
makes connecting a
valve really easy!

We have been looking for a better faster brewing method for some time.  A method that would allow us to do 10 gallon batches.  But we didn't want to spend a fortune.   Many of the 10 gallon systems are price prohibitive.  So we put on our thinking caps.  Here is what we came up with.

Stirring and Checking Mash
Temperatures.

We mash (no sparge) in a 100 quart (25 gallon, 95 liter) Coleman Extreme Cooler.   The cooler has a built in hose bulkhead, and a trap door in the lid.  Both of which come in very handy.

25 Gallons of mash is actually enough for quite a bit more than 10 gallons.  I am confident we could make a 15 gallon high gravity beer, or a 20 gallon medium gravity beer in the cooler with out sparging.   In the photo on the right you can see Jake and Mark have the door open and they are able to stir the mash.  The door is crazy helpful for infusions too, we do lots of step mashing.  And it sure is nice to be able to add the boiling water with out opening the entire cooler.

We still use a bag as our filter medium. The benefits of the bag are well established.  We get about 77% efficiency on these large no sparge batches.  We're good with that.  Although we are going to try an even finer crush and see what that gets us.

But as you can see in the photo at the left, the crush is already pretty good.  By the way, John isn't talking to the mash, he's telling me the temperature.  He's not encouraging them "come on little grains, you can do it"  As you can see, that is a whole lot of grains for a 10 gallon batch. (6.5 Gallon plastic bucket. )  the temperature is important.

All grain brewer's need to take this part of mashing in more seriously.  I can't tell you how many times people send a question about missing strike temps, or post the same on a forum.   I ask them..."what was the temperature of your grains?"  And I get back, "I don't know... room temperature I guess"  "Where were the grains stored?"  "In the basement...    Uh, yeah... no wonder that your temps were low.  Your grains were probably 60 F.  (15.5 C)

We generally do step mashes with infusion.   I have mentioned infusion step mashing before on the blog.  But I've never really gotten into detail.  Basically, you add a certain amount of boiling water to the mash to raise the temperature to the next rest.  It is similar to decoction mashing in that a certain amount of boiling water can be added to the mash to heat it to a certain temperature.   "Won't the boiling water denature the enzymes?"... yes... and no.   A very small amount of the enzymes in the mash will denature when you pour in boiling water. But not enough to cause any problems with conversion.

So we start with a protein rest, we dough in around 140 F (60 C) , the grains drop us to 129-132 F (54.4 C).  We let it sit for 10-15 minutes then up to 146 F (63.3 C) for 35 minutes,  Then up to 156 F (68.8 C) for 30 Minutes, then up to 168 F (75.5 C) for 10 Minutes.   Yes, our mash takes longer.  yes we generally have a little bit of water left over, no problem.  We add it to the keggle  as we start the transfer.    Our mash takes longer, but we didn't sparge.   Even a batch sparge takes 30 minutes by the time you heat the water, carry the kettle, pour the water, stir and transfer.   And fly sparging adds an hour minimum to your brew day.   We skip all of that, and just transfer and boil.  

We use a 7.5 gallon kettle and jet burner to get our infusions ready.  We use the keggle to keep the water damned warm during brew day, and then to boil the wort.

That isn't protein break, it is
bitter orange peel, ginger, and
black pepper.
Although, protein break is crazy
with step mashing and the
jaded hydra.

And boy oh boy can we boil.   We boil 10 gallon batches in a 15.1 gallon keggle.  It was legally sourced from a local distributor.  I don't know why guys steal kegs.  It is a crappy thing to do to a brewery. If you ask they will probably let you have one that can't be repaired.  At a minimum, they will probably sell you one.   So just do the right thing, buy an old keg.  

We use an old Bayou Classic KAB6.  It puts out an insane amount of heat.  Something like 185,000 - 200,000 BTUs.   We can bring 13.5 gallons to a boil in about 13 Minutes.  6.75 gallons comes to a boil in just minutes.   As you can see in the photo above,  it is up on a stand which means it is high enough for transfer into fermenters after chilling.   We chill with the Jaded hydra chiller.  It is plainly put, insane.  It chilled this 10 gallon batch from 210 F (100 C)  to 72 F (22 C) in 13 minutes.  Last week Jake and I chilled a 5 gallon IPA from boiling to 65 F (18.33 C) in 5 minutes.  

We ferment in glass, if we have it available.  But in plastic if we don't have glass available.   To be honest, I don't notice much of a difference.  The plastic v. glass debate is really just another silly home brew debate.   You're not more of a brewer if you ferment in glass.  You're not less if you ferment in plastic.  Enough already.
We both have fermentation chambers.   I also have a hot box for lactic fermentation and for saisons.

The ghetto brew 1280! Our no sparge HERM System
We are going cheap on the pump, our pump is
a food grade pump for a sous vide system.  It was $30.00

We are making some improvements to the no sparge system.   We are going to add a herms coil and a pump.  Herms = Heat Exchange Recirculating Mash System. This will allow us to stabilize water temperatures more, and to do a gradual rise to mash out temperatures.    Or to do much more precise step mashes, with far greater accuracy.   That is where we are heading.

It has taken me a long time to buy into the whole recirculating mash thing.  But the fact of the mater is that it keeps temperatures better and it makes cleaner wort.  So, after considerable deliberation, I'm in.

The brew day you are seeing photo's of is a 10 gallon batch of Saison, loosely inspired by Hennepin by Ommegang.  But we do make a change.  We add crushed black pepper corns to the boil for the last 10 minutes.   How many?  Well... that depends on how it smells.  Believe me when I say, quit trying to get exact recipes.   Learn to brew, learn to taste, learn to evaluate while you are brewing.   It will change everything for you.     We split off 5 gallons of this for sour beer.   The normal saison is fermenting with Belle Saison yeast.  The sour is fermenting with Imperial Chimera yeast blend.  Which is a low attenuating belgian ale, lacto, bret l, and bret c.  If those terms mean nothing to you, that's OK.  Sours are pretty advanced stuff.  We are learning about them in the sour series.

Updates and Evaluation;

C4 Hop Explostion pale ale -  Flavor is fantastic.  Could use a little more bitterness, not much just a tiny bit, and a little more dark crystal grain.   So next time, we'll make those changes.  But it is really excellent.

La Fin du Monde clone -   I would tell you this is the best tripel I have ever tasted.   John would not agree.  He still thinks the original is better.   But we're splitting frogs hairs here people.  It is world class.  

Allegement a la Framboise -  probably the best fruit beer I have ever tried.   A belgian blond and raspberries are a perfect combination.

Tank 7 Clone -  Can't capture tank 7 exactly, Boulevard uses a proprietary yeast.  But it is an excellent saison.   It will be loved all summer long.   The color and aroma are spot on.  

Kolsch - Clean easy drinking German Kolsch.

Cream Ale - Wonderful as always. Still a touch sweet, should clear up in the bottle.

The future of home brewing... Its in the bag!

You can get as complicated as you want!
If that is fun for you, go for it!
I prefer to keep it simple!

If recent days have taught us anything, they have taught us that we live in a world that is changing faster than any of us could have ever imagined.   Facebook and Twitter are a part of our everyday lives, they weren't even around 10 years ago.  (Well ok, they were around but not like they are today) And 10 years ago no one had ever even heard of eBIAB RIMS (or HERMS).  I'm sure they existed but very few home brewers were using them.

yes, I am that nerd who enjoys
a tripple decoction brew day!

Now it seems like everyone is building some behemoth system capable of cranking out home brew with the push of a button.   Bluetooth compatible, iPad controlled wort machines may be all the rage.  But I take a different tact. First of all, I don't really want push button beer.  I enjoy controlling the process.  I like the contact with my beer.  I imagine myself a wort whisperer.  I want to be the one to stir my mash and check it's temperature. I taste the mash.  Heck, I even enjoy decoction mashing. ( the SWMBO has a retreat coming up and I fully intend to fully nerd out and triple decoct a Vienna lager) I want to write it down in our brewing log, not have it automatically upload to google cloud. And I want everything to be simple and easy to clean.  (you cant clean what you can't see, and minor infections ruin good beer).

I know (not suspect KNOW) after 25 years that it is the brewer, not the equipment! I have tasted world class beer made on ghetto brewing systems! I will state quite arrogantly, I make far better beer than I can buy.  And for the most part far better beer than I have at club, or the LHBS.  (if you want to try my beer, come brew with us when you're in KC.you're always welcome and KC is a blast!)   I think part of the reason our beer (my beer) is so excellent is that we are in touch with our process.  So I try to keep everything old school.     So I avoid most of the new fangled technology up grades.   But there is one improvement I do not shy away from;

I think the most significant improvement in brewing, since I started brewing 25 years ago... it the Brew Bag. (the quality of malt extract being a close second)  

Affordable brew bags!

I use a brew bag for lautering my grains no matter what system I am using.   And as I have said numerous times.  I have several systems.  This weekend, we will be breaking out the 10 Gallon, 3 Vessel system.  We need to get ready for summer, and that means we need to get some 10 gallon batches of August Hyppo Pale ale, and Johns Cream Ale ready.  I don't often post about large brew days on the blog.  This blog targets newer, and intermediate brewers.  But we do brew some more advanced stuff, some sours, some decotions, and some large batches.  Saturday, I'll let you all behind the veil at counterbrew studio 2 (John's house)  But even when I use the ol' system, which I am admittedly somewhat romantic about.  I wont be doing it with out a brewing bag.   Brewing Bags offer home brewers many advantages.

• Higher efficiency due to finer crush.   
• yes I know some of you don't believe this, but it is true, try it for your self, this is a well established fact of home brewing now. 
• faster vourlauf - sometimes no vourlauf 
• you don't know till you give it a try, usually I pull about 1/2 of a quart and were done. 
• NO STUCK MASHES or SPARGE
• Can you brew a 100% wheat or rye beer?   I can.  
• Can you brew a pre prohibition pilsner with 65% corn & rice and 35% pilsner?  I can.
• Faster brew day
• Higher efficiency

Zapap Lauter tun still works
one bucket with holes drilled
inside of another bucket!

So, I don't understand why some guys will spend hundred and hundreds of dollars on an amazing false bottom, but wont spend $40 on a brew bag?   I have used bags from both of the major suppliers, they both worked fine.   They're both just tools for lautering.  When I started brewing we had separate lautering buckets.    We wold mash in a great big pot, then transfer the mash (grain and all) to a lautering tun (2 plastic buckets 6.5g and 5g).   The zappap lautering tun.  Still works.  But there are some of you that think the zappap is real brewing, and the use of a bag is sacrilege.  And folks that makes as much sense as mustard on a birthday cake! 

the overwhelming best advice I ever got
Keep it simple!  Learn your system!  Become a wort whisperer
and always remember "brewers make wort, yeast makes beer"
It's all about coaxing flavors out of the grains, and creating the
right environment for the yeast!

A brew bag is no different than any other filter you use for lautering... except... they work better.  What ever drunk aussie thought of the brew bag... should get a medal and free beer for life!  They make everything faster.   "if they're so great why aren't commercial breweries using them".   My answer;  They are, or at least they are trying to replicate them.  I have it on excellent authority from a brewer at a major label that they are trying to add a permanent filtering medium to their experimental brew house.   Inspired by BIAB efficiency, they are working with an engineering firm trying to create filters inspired by this home brewing process.  And why the hell wouldn't they? Increased efficiency = increased profits.   And further who cares what they do?  We are home brewers, we have certain advantages over the big boys.  This is one of them.   So no matter how you brew, I suggest strongly that you work a brew bag into your system.   You won't regret it!


BONUS MATERIAL
Here is my trusty ol mash tun, and keggle set up,  150,000 BTUs it can easily handle no sparge 5 gallon batches, and can easily handle traditional 10 gallon batches of beer.

My keggle was purchased legally
from a distributor.  It features
a 150000 BTU banjo burner!

I removed the pvc false bottom
from my ol mash tun, and now
use a bag.  The bag was sewn by a friend.
She charged me a beer, The fabric cost
me $9.00

And here it is in action.