Stonington Sour-Bottled

T-minus ~24hours until the little Taco arrives

...and I can't legitimately extend the aging on the stonington sour any more. Its (well past the) time to make room in the guest bathroom for the encroaching baby bathing accoutrement, and while the beer has only been on the bugs for ~4 months, the pellicle fell quite early in the game, and there has been no positive pressure on the airlock for quite some time. Not having a hydrometer (broken...2nd one), I'm strictly relying on my sense and gut that this thing is mostly finished. Its highly probable that I'm wrong.

But in the battle of beer vs. baby...the mighty baby wins the guest bath, but in truth it looks like this beer is going to make us all winners. Immediately after removing the airlock, this Brett C beer/wild ale had strong tropical fruit aromas with a touch of compost-y earth. I can't wait for it to develop further in the bottle and have those aromas further carried by what will likely be ample carbonation. The beer was blended with 750ml of 2007 Saltwater Farm Chardonnay (100% estate grown grapes, fermented in stainless, aged in French Oak). A small sip brought those aromas to life...the fruity aromas highlighted by a medium-acid brightness. A fullness in the body still remains somehow (wheat?), though it finishes with dry snap, so I'm quite certain (hoping) the FG is reaching terminal. Oak tannins aren't where I'd want them to be, but do provide more soft fullness. The microbial impressions lean toward a nice menage a trois of the Fantome Printemp, JP Oro de Calabaza and Brett C, with the aromas sitting squarely with Brett C.

Many friends of mine, especially Sue and Pat, have been saving their thickest of glass for these high pressure brewing endeavors. And its a good thing, you never know where the 'wild' ones will end up. Chances are, even with a modest dose of the priming sugar, the strains of Brett et al will continue to carbonate well past their enzymatically challenged Sacch brethren, and it is best to have hedged some bets toward the higher CO2 vol tolerant vessels. Its a motley crew of green, brown, and clear (gasp!) glass...375ml all the way up to a 1.5L magnum. Corked + caged a few, while most were outfitted with either the standard or larger diameter euro cap.

My attentions will certainly be turned almost solely toward the taco for short bit, which will keep me and my friends from running through this, my first earnest attempt at a wild fermented beer.

...I wonder if I can sock away a bottle of this until Taco is of age (or somewhere reasonably close to it).

Brookline Hopfen Weisse: large format bottling

Man...there's something about popping the cork on a large format bottle...it just tells you and everyone with you that 'today is a special day...fun will ensue'.

I've squirreled away a few of these thick walled bad boys (a handful of magnums, one 4.5L and one 9L (!!!) knowing I wanted to eventually fill it up with my own beer, and cram a cork back inside the neck. There's discussion in the wine world that the larger format bottles are more 'age-able' and lead to a more complex and refined quaff. Perhaps it has something to do with the reduced oxygen available in the headspace/liquid ratio. Or maybe its due to the larger volume leading to a larger number and volume of flavor compound to compound interactions.

Or maybe its just because huge bottles are 100% hilariously awesome.

(yes, this is the 9L bottle of St. Feuillen tripel that the lovely wife surprised me with for Christmas a couple years back).

So, eventually I knew one day I'd dig out one of these funny bottles and fill 'er up.

Trouble was... I don't have a stand-corker that could accommodate the skyscraping height...the Colonna capper/corker that I normally use to cork and cage champagne and belgian bottles maxes out on a magnum bottle height, so after scratching that idea off the list, I was left to try to rig something with the wine kit included double lever corker.

This corker is designed for 1. wine corks (not larger diameter Belgian corks) and 2. inserting the cork flush with the top of the neck of wine bottles.

The corker has only been pressed in to service once before, and the price tag isn't staggering if it were to get injured in any wrong tool for the job attempt. So, I figured I'd do a dry run with a Belgian cork in a regular champagne bottle to see if I could overcome problem #1.

Luckily, I quickly discovered that the reducer orifice in the corker can still accomodate the larger diameter Belgian corks. I promptly removed it with a corkscrew and wondered how (if) I could mimic the same half-way-in/half-way-out insertion that I rigged with the Colonna. Feeling emboldened by my initial success, I grabbed another cork, made a quick dip in one-step sanitizer (provides just enough lubrication to help ease it through that almost too small reducer), and depressed the levers until I had plunged the cork down with the levers just slightly less than parallel to the counter. I held it up the whole apparatus to the light, and could see about 3/4 of an inch of cork in the neck.

OK...what do I do now? I would have to then interrupt the mechansim of the levers and their leverage point, but still allow the plunger to continue, otherwise the cork would just continue to get driven in to the neck, and I'd have no real way of pulling it back out, save for a CO2-seal-destroying corkscrew. I pulled the levers back a bit, and braced my left hand just under the corker's orifice chamber, right where it meets the bottle, which in effect falsely extended the neck of the bottle. Holding on tight to the bottle with my pinky and ring finger, I pushed down on the plunger directly, and with a little wiggling, the cork slipped through the remainder of the orifice, and I had that half-in/half-out cork I was looking for.

Good thing I held on to the oversized cage that came with the bottle...the regular cage wire is probably about 3 inches too short. I'm sure I could cut and twist in another length of wire, but this sure looks cleaner.

Oh, for the bottle nerds out there (oh, I'm on the only one? I don't think so.)...here's a chart of the proper names for the larger format bottles, including its correlation to the standard 750ml bottle. reference

(there are others, here's the exhaustive list from wikipedia, including the source of the bottle names)

You can just tell...there will be fun had when this bottle of Brookline hopfen weisse gets popped.

(...and no, this isn't camera trickery...the hopfen weisse is right next to that bottle of cantillon to its left).

Belgian Chocolate Stout: tasting

In and effort to diminish the vast quantity of bottles in my aging library, I pulled one of my first brewed beers from the wine rack (yes, this beer was lying on its side for the better part of 2.5 years...more on that later).

The Belgian chocolate stout was brewed before I was taking proper notes, so I'll recall the recipe and particulars from memory, which actually give me a descent understanding of how the beer has revealed itself to me today.

Most importantly, this is when I was buying recipe kits from Midwest. I'll guess that the base kit was either a dry stout or the oatmeal stout kit, knowing my predilections at the time. At this point, I likely boosted the recipe with another 1lb of chocolate malt, as I recall being underwhelmed by the roast character of earlier kit, to which I logically attributed to the specialty grains components of the recipe.

So, just add more, right?

Yes and no.

Certainly adding more chocolate malt would increase the flavor threshold, but, just like many other flavors, the perception of 'chocolatey-ness' certainly relies on more than just this simple addition (though my head was certainly heading in the right direction). I now appreciate that the yeast choice, its health, pitching rate, SG/FG, fermentation temperature, brewing liquor, other components of the grist will also have harmoniously holistic impact on all flavor perceptions, including 'chocolateyness'.

But, back to the other particulars about this batch...I know I re-used yeast from the tripel I had made earlier, which was actually yeast cultured up from a few bottles of Duvel. Not the most expressive yeast I've found, so not one that screams estery, phenolic Belgian, but...again, my head was in the right place. Plus, I really liked the idea of re-using my yeast that I had lovingly nudged out of its trans-Atlantic, very far from its European home hibernation.

Lastly, I used some cacao shells to 'dry hop' the beer after primary. I had snagged a bunch of the bags that Taza was handing out as homebrewing fodder at one of the Beer Advocate fests I attended (maybe it was the first ACBF?). This artisanal chocolate maker in nearby Somerville certainly have their heads in the right place, as it pertains to their product, so I hoped to infuse some of the amazing aromatics from these shells in to my beer.

I had poured a bottle of my corked/caged tripel this past summer, which went nearly completely flat. That singular experience told me that I will not cork and cage bottles that I intend to keep for any real amount of time. Caps are clearly a superior, yet homelier solution that I'll opt for in the future.

This beer, after resting upright in the fridge for a few weeks, exhaled out a satisfying burping pop as the cork was freed. Hmm, only an n of 2, with two different beers, stored in different rooms, but the beer lying on its side kept what I assume was most of its carbonation, and the bottle stored upright was nearly devoid of the stuff.

Poured it down the middle of a small Portsmouth Brewing goblet, and a satisfyingly creamy head formed. Perhaps it was a Midwest oatmeal stout kit? I can see that the beer had conditioned itself clear with time. Nose of ...chocolate, nice proper artisan chocolate, though I have to assume that these aromatics have seen a better day, given its age. It would have been useful to try some non dry cacao shelled beer in a side by side to appreciate the impact, but those experiments will need to be realized at a later time. The beer is dark, though not nearly as dark as some of my other stouts and porters, which lean toward excess in the roasted grain territory. Still, it sits in that glass, fat and dark.

First sip gives a thin but velvety feel, so I'll put a stake in the ground, this was the oatmeal stout kit paired with full attenuation of the LME by the Duvel yeast. No distinguishable yeast character...nothing that says 'hey, this is a Anglo-Americanized beer, fermented with a Belgian yeast.'

Just a very clean ferment, and obviously full attenuation. A very sessionable beer, subtle roasted grain acidity. I could have multiples. Its very nice and satisfying as it warms as well. The chocolate tendencies grow with the warmth. Satisfying drying finish from the kilned malt, cocoa on the breath. Ah, too bad there's only a handful of these left.

Lastly, on to the is it bad to lay down the beer for aging question.

My response today is...maybe. The sediment that developed along the side of the bottle is garishingly disturbing at first, but it truly didn't make its way in to the pour, actually. So, to me, that's only a minor fault, as I'm not serving the bottle to someone. Sets up an interesting sediment erosion-lightning streak appearance, though.

After a few weeks in the fridge, any 'moveable' sediment made its way down the bottom of the bottle, and stayed put during the pour. This beer was very clear, all the way down to the last sip, and no cloudiness at the dark margins when held up to light.

So, there was plenty of CO2 in this beer. Maybe the beer contact with the cork is what kept this beer carbonated, but until I pop a good number of a couple more from the wine rack and the few remaining bottles that from that tripel batch that have spent their lives standing upright, I'll not make a verdict, yet. One thing is for sure, this beer has aged very gracefully, and I am more than happy to turn a blind eye to the sediment. And who doesn't love the sound of a popping cork?

Pretty Glass for pot&kettle

Last weekend I bottled up the pot&kettle, batch 2, a brew session that has been filmed, tweeted and pics posted on Facebook by French Oak TV. Ah, my 15 minutes of mini-fame!

I ended up with 11 gallons of the black stuff so I had to put the call in to Dan V (of VeeVee) to help supply me with the additional glass I needed. I was quite happy to hear that he continues to set aside glass for me. Esther and I were all to happy to hop in to the car and make the short trip to JP to see the very hospitable Dan and Kristen and to enjoy yet another fantastic dinner. Aside from the satisfying food, Dan always keeps a very tight and thoughtful beer list...on this cold Boston night, it was good to see the Nogne O #100 flying out from the behind the bar. Each bottle of #100 Dan sent out generated yet another smirk. It clearly pleased him to know he was helping others enjoy some very special craft beer. I know that smile well, as I'm often wearing it myself.

Esther and I finished with dinner with their fantastic coconut cream pie (perfect amount of subtle sweetness in the silky cream, delicate use of lime, hardy biscuity crust).

As we pushed back from our plates, Dan bestowed 3 boxes of some very Pretty glass...I do hope that these repurposed vessels bring even a portion of the great fortune to Trillium that has rightfully been received in their original incarnation.

So, back to the bottling...10 (11?) gallons is the limit of my condo kitchen cum brewery, which is just fine, because wrangling and sanitizing enough bottles for this much beer is an undertaking that requires some planning and the laboriously kitchen sink hogging de-labelling process, in the case of new glass. Thankfully, I can reuse the first batch pot&kettle glass, with labels fully intact and unfazed by the dishwasher's intense heat cycles.

Initial taste of the green pot&kettle tells me that the change in yeast to the Burton strain may have had a significant impact on the finished product: a much more estery/fruity nose, which enhances the rich malt profile. Layer after layer of roast filled the bottling bucket. Virtually no hard acridity on the palate...just a subtle, drying char in the aftertaste. Attenuation was likely less than that cranked out by the Nottingham, but some residual body and sweetness might be an incremental improvement. I'll take a gravity reading on the test bottle to confirm FG.

I rarely will send out any bottles as gifts before I'm 100% confident in the quality/proper bottle conditioning, but given the proximity to the holidays, a number of them are going out with proper instruction to store at room temp and to wait at least 1 month before sampling, and preferably 6, if at all possible. It feels strange to give gifts with instructions and caveats, but its more difficult for me to see these beers enjoyed at anything less than their full potential.

Kevin's lemon: Bottled

I always forget to take FG before I add the priming sugar. Today's bottling of Kevin's lemon was no different.

Then I always start out to rationalize my forgetfulness with the following internal monologue.

"That's OK, you can just take it from the sample bottle, or from a bottle you don't finish."

"You always say that, but never do"

"I will this time, I promise!"

"I don't believe you."

"I know, I don't believe me either."

The beer was 'very beery!' according to Esther, as I was bottling. She's right, its particularly spicy (both from the yeast and spices) and phenolic smelling. I'm looking forward to see how the mouthfeel of the oats plays against what I think was good attenuation. Bottled the 5.5 gallons with 7oz of cane sugar for a ~3.0volumes CO2.

I decided this would be a good time to try the Bruery's Orchard White, a lower abv version of what I was shooting for in this beer. Theirs: a spiced Belgian wit, brewed with oats and wheat, 5.8%abv. Poured a very thin looking and spritzy hazy witbier. Smells very spicy, soft and wheaty. Tastes...carbonated! prickly on the tongue, and apparently a very low FG, I would have expected more silky mouthfeel from the use of oats. This beer is VERY low. Almost as though they added bugs and dropped the FG to near nothing. To me, though, still a session beer, it could have used some remaining body, given the wheat and oats. Nope, nothing. And perhaps a bit too spiced (hard for me to discern between the added spices and contributed yeast flavors, which is nice, actually).

Huh, I'm sure some people will love this beer, but I'll look elsewhere when I want a nice summer spiced Belgian wit and I don't want to drop 9.50 on a 750ml.

Anyway, back to the post: Kevin's lemon. This one will hopefully have a bit more of that oaty silk in the mouth, be a little more subtley spiced. But, most of all, I hope it is something that Kevin will appreciate and enjoy.

Very much looking forward to raising a glass to my good friend Kevin.

an Indian Brown Ale plus lots of firsts

The IBA spent a little more time on the dry hops than I would have liked, but finally got to bottling it this past Monday night (18May). FG at 1.020, leaving it a bit higher than I would have liked, but expected for extract, I suppose. Nonetheless, the hydrometer sample revealed a pleasantly bitter and fresh hop aroma and flavor. I didn't really swish it around and analyze the malt profile very much, but I think that the properly carbed up version will be quite enjoyable. The color was a nice brown, just what I was going for. Maybe a touch of redness to it, but only when held up to the light, at the edge.


About 1/2 of this batch was put in to 12oz bottles, and is currently conditioning at the office. Final destination is the group of guys who kindly donated the reactors to my homebrew cause. I put the rest in larger flip tops, as I expect to drink this one in its peak condition, which would be within 2months.


Finished at ~6.5%abv.
____________________________________________________________


Back from Phoenix yesterday (26April), and racked the IBA to secondary on to an ounce each of Cascade and Centennial. The fermentation vessels don't have an airtight seal on the screw caps, so I wasn't able to dry hop in the primary as I intended. No worries there, but I'll probably put a bead of silicone on the inside of the caps to get that good seal for future brews. While stuffing the whole hops in to the 5 gallon carboy neck, I was reminded why the wide top opening in the reactors would expedite the process vs. a regular carboy neck. Keeping the carboy in a water bath in the spare bathroom tub, as springtime temps expectedly jumped up to the 80s over the weekend.


The primary ferment was done before this happened, so I'm hoping no off flavors from a warmer than optimal fermentation. holding in the mid to high 60s in the water bath now.
______________________________________
Brewed up this Indian Brown Ale tonight as a thanks for the fermentation vessels. here's a nice shot of the beautiful foamy wort after squeezing out the hop matter post wort cooling.



I had 6lbs of northwestern amber LME that I received as a gift from my sister Chelynn, so this recipe is a partial mash. The taste of this LME was phenomenal...rich, fresh, smooth. Almost like a soft and sweet molasses with no 'iron bite' that can sometimes be associated with it.

Anyhow, I chose a hoppy american brown ale, as I figured the guys will appreciate a decidedly hoppy brown. Oh, and plus I've really been wanting to make one. The roasty chocolate malt combined with a touch of caramelized sugars from the crystal30, and some soft belgian biscuit malt will play a backup role to the bitterness provided by the zeus and american aroma and dry hop thoroughbreds: Cascade and Centennial. If Centennial is good enough for Bigfoot and Ruination, its plenty good for my little 5 gallon batch of IBA.

I added alot of new variables to my brew day:

• Tore in to my 25kg Canada Malting ltd pale ale malt. This is base grain that I'll be using for the to-be-determined 3rd wedding beer, so it'll be good to get a sneak peak.

• Of course all of this grain is uncrushed, so I unleased my barley crusher for the first time... here's a snippet of the titillating video!

It tore through the 5.5 lbs of grain to reveal a wonderfully fresh and aromatic crush. From the mill and in to mash in minutes...I can already tell this is going to improve my beer.

• I used 1 teaspoon of 5.2pH stabilizer in my mini mash...I'll have to wait to get a taste of the brew to see if it made much of an impact. I added 1oz of burton water salts to my nearly naked boston sparge water, so I'm not too sure if this was the best time to introduce the 5.2pH stabilizer variable (to discern effect), but I figured it couldn't hurt and would probably help.
  

• I finally cracked in to my freshops stash. wow. the 16.4AA% zeus is almost sticky. what fun. I suspect freshops will become my sole retail hops provider to supplement my (eventual) 6 variety hops field (more on that in a future post).
  

• And of course, the inaugural fermentation in my 25L reactor. The larger central opening is going to really help when it comes time to add the dry hop addition. It could also be useful for top cropping, should I ever want to do that.
  

Without further ado, the relevant details:

Hoppy American Brown
American Brown Ale

Type: Partial Mash
Date: 4/19/2009
Batch Size: 5.00 gal

6 lbs Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) Extract 52.17 %
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 34.78 %
8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.35 %
1.00 oz Zeus [16.40 %] (60 min) Hops 50.9 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [7.20 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops
1.00 oz Cascade [7.20 %] (5 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops
1.00 oz Centennial [9.00 %] (5 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops
0.50 oz Burton Water Salts (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1 PkgsUS-05 Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.020 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.56 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.58 %
Bitterness: 50.9 IBU
Calories: 317 cal/pint
Est Color: 23.9 SRM

Mash In
Add 2 gallons of water at 159.5 F
150.0 F

Mash Out at 170F, 60min boil

Bottled kombucha, sam adams triple bock, and a whole lot of perspective

I was scared to taste it. the 2.5inch white mass that has been slowing forming for two months ominously floating on top of the fermentation vessel felt like...well, I don't know. Lets start with the fact that it didn't feel like anything I'd normally consider consuming.

Strangely firm, but still yielding to the touch.
sort of like an ultra firm tofu. yum.

But, our perspective was all over the place, as B, J and I just stepped back from the gates of hell after our taste of sam adams triple bock. This tasting was 15 years in the making. I finally cracked one of the two 1994 vintage bottles in my possession. I was not disappointed. Read recent reviews HERE. A clue that things were going to go incredibly wrong was evidenced in the cork. It broke with minimal effort. I was particularly gentle because I heard cork breaking was a common occurence with this vile stuff. It was probably good at some point in its life. But beer forensics tells me this 17%abv beast died a slow oxidative death due to this jerk of a cork. The sediment apparent in the pretty little blue bottle was further evidence of this oxidation. A day after sipping it, these words continue to resonate: terriyaki and maple glazed salmon in-a-bottle. blech. This little treasure can be hard to find, as it hasn't been produced by the home town boys for a number of years, but if you look high and low, you'll find it still makes cameo appearances.

I spied it recently at the very friendly Wine&Spirits in Coolidge Corner for the very reasonable price of $4.50. Try it, if you dare.




So trying the kombucha wasn't nearly as daunting as the SATB. In short , it was quite a bit milder than what i was expecting. Considering the duration the fermenting tea was sitting in culture, and the strong acetic acid smell I'd get every time I'd wander down to that end of the kitchen, I was expecting something akin to sipping on some red wine vinegar. Not even close. ok, maybe a little close... perhaps it was like sipping on watered down red wine vinegar. yum.

Nothing a little flavor, carbonation and a touch of sweetness couldn't theoretically fix, though. After siphoning off some in to bottles, I dumped the majority of the liquid, and restarted the culture with more tea and raw sugar.



I wanted to see if I could come close to my favorite commercial kombucha so I juiced one meyer lemon and ~2 inches of ginger root. Pushed the resulting juice through a fine sieve, added some water to it to ensure adequate distribution among three flip top bottles (two 500ml and one 750ml). I dropped in two coopers carb drops each, and now its we'll wait a few days for CO2 production, then pop them in the fridge to slow down fermentation. There probably won't be enough resulting sweetness, but I figure I can always add a bit more, flip the cap down and wait til the sugar dissolves, which happens quite quickly, likely due to the very low pH of this stuff.

Carbing undercarbed bottles: Proof of concept achieved

Proof of concept has been achieved...I successfully and easily added CO2 by adding fermentables to a naturally conditioned bottle, well after inadequate carbonation was detected, as described in this post.

• a dose of sugar was added to a single 12 oz bottle,
  
• stored at room temps on the kitchen counter (in a gallon plastic bag, in the case of a bottle bomb-if it busted, figured it would at least lessen the shrapnel dispertion. I probably should have stuck it something a bit more sturdy.)
  
• agitated/shaken ~1-2x daily to get yeast in to suspension/reactivate it

In 15 days (which felt like forever...it was omnipresent...waking up to the bottle in the AM, welcoming me when I returned from work/the gym), the bottle was opened after being cooled down in the fridge for 3 hours, significant additional carbonation was immediately evident. Upon popping the bottle cap, a satisfying hiss quickly gave way to a foam building slowly but steadily rising up and out of the neck of the bottle.

For reference, here are some pics of a pour from a bottle that didn't undergo the 'reconditioning'... even after a vigorous pour (see the floaties in the glass?), minimal head was formed due to low CO2.

...and here are some pics from the proof of concept bottle. No explosion (phew...) but definitely overcarbed now. Poured half the bottle, and the head overflowed the glass.

Success!

Next step: move on to phase II, dial in the desired carbonation by varying the additions of conditioning sugar. But, I think it is safe to say that if you get a batch of undercarbed bottles (as a result of inadequate priming sugar addition), all is not lost, and there is no need to 'chalk it up to experience' as is often recommended on the various forums. you can fix it, if you put in a little more time and (minimal) effort.

Carbing under carbed bottles

See the results of the below experiment HERE

I just dropped a coopers carb drop in to a well chilled 12oz undercarbed bottle of cranberry wit. As soon as I dropped it in, all the nucleation sites on the sugary lump caused foaming...but I was at the ready with the trusty red barron capper and new cap.

The foam reached the top of the bottle by the time I affixed the cap, and certainly would have foamed over if it was properly carbonated. This is probably best done with two pairs of hands...one to drop the sugar in and hold the bottle, the other to move in swiftly with the cap and capper.

Anyhow, I'll leave it out at room temp , giving it a shake every once in a while to rouse the sediment to see if the yeast reactivated and processed the added sugars. I'll pop it after a week to compare CO2 to another untreated bottle.

this is reallly just an experiment to show proof of concept. I hope I can do some nose thumbing against forum nay sayers who advise to just chalk undercarbed bottles to learning. Given my prior experience with culturing yeast from bottle conditioned beers, I believe this will work just fine. If I get increased CO2, then I'll use a few more bottles to dial in the carbonation by using munton's carb tabs, by adding 1, 2 and 3 tabs to each bottle. I would have gotten these to start the experiment...but the LHBS didn't have any when I went. bummer.