Blow-off!

Never had this happen before but the lid for Super Tripel fermenter decided it was tired of being attached overnight. I guess the 3787 strain is rather aggressive even with the Fermcap S in the boil. I scooped out a bit of the krausen to make some room and put the lid back on since I did not have the stuff to do a blow off hose. I dropped the temperature down to 68 as well to keep it under control and hopefully all will be well now.

 

Clare's Super Tripel

Clare requested a Belgian Tripel as my next beer and I am a big fan so I agreed. Of course she didn't want it to be a traditional tripel so we are changing it up a bit at her request. I also got some brewing spices from my brother and his wife so coriander and orange peel get to join the party that is already off style with Belma as the only hop. It is also Super Bowl Sunday so it is a "Super Tripel"!

The recipe:

• Grain:
• 13 lb Pale Malt
• 0.5 lb Caravienna 20L
• 1 lb Candi syrup 5L @15 min
• Hops
• 0.75 oz Belma @ 60
• 0.5 oz Belma@ 20 min
• 0.75 oz Belma @1min
• 0.5 tsp Irish Moss
• 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 10 drops FermcapS
• Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity 1.8 L starter 
• Beersmith Specs:
• OG: 1080
• 32.8 IBU
• 7.0 SRM
• 9.1% ABV

 

Pretty simple grain bill but I added the caravienna for some complexity, downside is it will darken it up a bit more than I want it to be. Also the candi sugar is not clear it is actually 5L so again a bit darker but I am adding it late to avoid it caramelizing more.

The plan was to mash at 148 F for 75 minutes and boil for 60 minutes. The mash started at 149 which is fine since the garage is a cold 32 degrees and the mash tun will drop a bit during the 75 minutes.

First runnings: 2.5 gallons at 22.7%. 
Second: 4.75 gallons total, 17.0%
Pre-boil: 6.75 @ 14.4%

A bit low on the pre-boil gravity but I am just going to boil for 5 minutes before the first hop addition to make up for it. A fellow homebrewer told us about a "hot scotchie" which is scotch and the wort from the mash tun before you add any hops. Pretty tasty I must say.

Here are the coriander and orange peel before they went in. I am interested to see how they come through in the final beer.

Final gravity was low unfortunately at 1069 (17%). It will be good I am sure but it may be balanced too far to the hop side in the end. Yeast was pitched and I am going to try to ferment it at 70 degrees to keep the yeast going and get some good esters in it. I need to adjust my equipment profile down to 65% efficient or so to make sure I am not undershooting these bigger beers so badly. I had it at 75% after I had some really high batches around the Ryerish Red but it seems lower now again.

Winter Storm Nelson/Simcoe Pale Ale

We are up to about 6 inches of snow and it keeps coming so what else is there to do but brew some beer . I am trying to do this all inside since it is nasty outside and there is no place to put my car to free up the garage. It is also holiday cookie day so Clare and I are sharing the kitchen.

I am going to try out a hop I bought a while back but never tried, Nelson Sauvin, in a pale ale. It is supposed to have a grape like fruity character that sounds like a love it or hate it type of thing. After looking online I decided to pair it up with some Simcoe to keep it interesting.

The recipe:

• Grain:
• 8 lb Pale Malt
• 1 lb Crystal-15
• 0.5 lb White Wheat
• 0.125 lb Crystal-120
• Hops
• 0.25 oz Warrior @ FWH
• 0.5 oz Simcoe @ 10  min
• 0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin @10 min
• 1 oz Simcoe @ 1 min
• 1 oz Nelson Sauvin @ 1 min
• 0.5 tsp Irish Moss
• 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 10 drops FermcapS
• Beersmith Specs:
• OG: 1052
• 33.3 IBU
• 7.0 SRM
• 5.2% ABV

The plan was to mash at 152 F for 60 minutes and boil for 60 minutes. First runnings 2.9 gallons at 19.2%. 4.5 gallons total after second runnings at 14.9%. Forgot to check the pre-boil gravity but the original gravity ended up at right on at 1052 (13.6%). This is what it looked like outside, I have no idea where the animation came from, I think Google did it for me. Pretty cool but also kinda scary, how did it know...

I chilled it with the pump and a snow bank since it was available. Ended up getting it down to 54 before pitching the yeast. Tasted good going in, fermenting at 15.5 C until I get back from Arizona for the holidays.

A couple updates

Just a quick update on the Hop Burst IPA. It finished up at 1010 which puts it at about 6.2% ABV. Not too shabby but next time I would like it to start a bit higher to balance the hops more. This is a hop bomb, but in a good way. There is a ton of good juicy hop flavor but the malt is a bit subdued. It is still clearing up which is understandable since there was a ton of hop junk in the fermenter after it finished. Next time I want to make sure the OG is a bit higher, I might scale back the flameout hops slightly, and I will also probably dry hop it to get a bit more aroma out of it.

The dragons milk is tasting pretty good so far but still needs to age a bit more. I wanted a bit more body our of it so they next time I may add some flaked oat or maltodextrine to the recipe. The bourbon flavor could have been a bit more pronounced too. I think I may go for an imperial stout with the next bourbon barrel beer when the time comes.

Hop Burst IPA

I have been lurking on the email list for the Tippecanoe Homebrew Circle for a while now but never participated at all. Recently some emails started going out about a brew day at People's Brewing Company here in Lafayette. I love the beer there so I figured why not go brew some beer and meet some people. I have read a bit about hop bursting (or late hopping) beer so I wanted to give it a shot. It should provide a huge amount of hop aroma and flavor with pleasant bitterness. The recipe:

• Grain:
• 10 lb Pale Malt
• 1 lb Crystal-30
• 1 lb Vienna Malt
• 0.75 lb Cara-pils
• 0.25 lb Crystal-120
• Hops
• 0.35 oz Warrior @ FWH
• 0.5 oz Simcoe @ 15, 10 and 5 min
• 0.5 oz Cascade @ 15, 10 and 5 min
• 0.5 oz Columbus @ 10 and 5 min
• 0.5 oz Citra @ 10 and 5 min
• 1. oz Citra @ 1 min
• 0.5 oz Galaxy @ 1 min
• 1.0 oz Cascade @ 1 min
• 0.75 oz Simcoe @ 1 min
• 1 tsp Irish Moss
• 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• 10 drops FermcapS
• Beersmith Specs:
• OG: 1070
• 72.1 IBU
• 9.5 SRM
• 7.3% ABV

The plan was to mash at 152 F for 60 minutes and boil for 60 minutes.

I got all of the stuff packed up in the car which was no small feat and makes the whole brewing not at home thing a bit of a pain. It all fit though and everything made it back in one piece too.

The brewers at People's offered to provide base malt and yeast for free so I got my 10 lb of pale malt from them and crushed it up then mixed in the specialty grains. I also set up right next to one of the former brewers at People's who now works at Flat12 in Indianapolis. He had a pretty nice set-up with a multi-tier system.

   

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Mash went pretty well, but it was cold and windy and I had to adjust temp to get the mash to 152 F. The first 5 minutes were probably more like 149 F. After the mash I tossed in the FWH and sparged ending up with 7 gallons of wort but I forgot to write down the Brix on it. 

Clare came along and helped with the brewing, she stirs the mash like a champ and really likes the spent grain a lot...

 

The boil went pretty well but keeping the burner lit in the wind was a challenge. It probably didn't stay as hot and boil off was lower than usual. This was a ton of hops, the bag below is the 1 minute addition. The 4 doses are in the images below that.

   

 People's gives the spent grain to local farmers so the mash tun was emptied into the grain tub

 After the boil I cooled a bit differently than usual. I picked up a 1/4 HP submersible pump and got it hooked up to my wort chiller. I started with cool tap water and recirculated that until it was hot. Then I switched to a new bucket of cool water and started adding ice to keep it cold. Clare helped stir the wort with the chiller and we got it cooled down with 4 buckets in 20 minutes. Much less water wasted than how I do it at home but it did take a bit longer. 

The wort ended up at 14.7% Brix (1057), much lower than planned. It is possible that the base malt weight was off from the hand scale or the efficiency just went down from the temps and boil. All in all it was a successful brew and a good time. The wort smelled amazing going into the fermentation chamber at 15.5 C and the CO2 bubbles coming out smell like hop heaven.

Dragon's Milk Bottling

I pulled a sample from the Dragon's Milk with the bourbon soaked oak chips and tried it on 10/28. It tasted fantastic with a bit of alcoholic heat in the finish and is still at 1.016. I didn't want it to get too oaked so I went ahead and transferred it to the bottling bucket and put it in storage at ~50 F. Normally I keg my beer but this one will benefit from some additional conditioning and I also don't want to blow through a keg of an 8% beer. This one will be good for the cold winter months ahead.

I bottled it yesterday (11/6) with 3.5 ounces of corn sugar and am really happy with what went into the bottle. I tried a new way to prep the priming sugar that I read somewhere online. I filled a standard mason jar with water, boiled it in the microwave, added the sugar and dissolved it, then re-boiled in the microwave. Once it was done I put the lid on and made sure that everything came in contact with the boiling water. The jar went in the fridge until it was cooled enough to add to the beer.

All of the bottles filled and capped below, hopefully they get even better with age!

Dragon's Milk Update

Checked the gravity on the Dragon's Milk yesterday and it was ~1.018. Not too shabby in my opinion and it tasted great. A bit alcoholic but that should mellow a bit and play well with the bourbon soaked oak chips I added. I soaked 2 ounces of medium toast oak in some vodka for 24 hours to get rid of some of the fresh oakiness. Then I added 4 ounces of Larceny bourbon (because I had it laying around) and soaked them for a week. Dumped it all in the primary last night and will let it go for about a week before tasting it. This one is going to be bottled since I don't want to tie up keezer space while it ages and it might make some nice Christmas presents if it turns out well.