Trillium Brewing Fall/Winter Schedule: Sneak Peek

Now that the wedding has come and gone, and the coffers are woefully under stocked, it’s time to ramp up brewhouse production.

First on the docket is a west coast double IPA, based on from the Nov 2008 BYO ‘Hop Hammer’ recipe, as originally conceived by Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River. It is a slightly higher ABV version of oh-so-popular (but, as yet, unavailable in the Boston area) Pliny the Elder.

Best man Jason and I are looking to co-brew this one in the coming weeks, so it will be peaking for a soon-to-be planned November Leon pig roast.

The hops used will be mostly with fresh 2009 harvest, so I really hope this will be as fresh of a DIPA I could ever hope for at home, using commercial acquired hops. Just put in the order under the group buy deadline with the Boston Worts. The Simcoe will need to be ordered through freshops.com, as the much less expensive Peterbaugh Farms run hopsdirect.com website doesn’t have any available. Prices have PLUMMETTED since last year, and availability is driving us all to pull the trigger on these hop bombs that we’ve been craving, but may have been putting off for other comparatively hop-light styles.

Speaking of Russian River, I’m finally looking to take my first foray in to the bugs w/ a harvest from the dregs of a bottle of RR’s Temptation. I’ll slowly build up a healthy starter, and then dump my under carbed and woefully under attenuated quad, which will hopefully drive the level of complexity up and the gravity down from the nosebleed 1.035 section. This is strictly a research and rescue mission, not pinning too much hope on anything fantastic.

Other planned brews involve an Orval’d Belgian pale ale that have asian pears . My three trees have been pushing out more and more fruit every year, so I’d naturally love to experiment with a few pounds of these in a beer. They have been infinitely more flavorful, juicy and complex than the expensive and limited grocery store selections, and I'd love to see what they lend to a crisp Belgian pale ale.

Also, I’ve got a Temptation influenced hybrid wine/wild ale in development. This beer will feature fresh chardonnay grapes from a hands-on harvest effort that will occur next month at Saltwater Farm in Stonington, CT. Toasted French oak will be employed, of course. More details on these experimental and other beers to follow in the weeks and months ahead.

Lastly, I've got some grand plans for a more detailed series of blog posts in the works, involving collaborative efforts with Boston/New England area folks who pride themselves on local and artisan foods. It may take a little while to develop the content, but once it starts, look out!

Stonginton Pale Ale: Dry Hopping!

Dumped 1.5 ozs each of Centennial, Cascade and Simcoe leaf hops on to the 10 gallons of Stonington Pale Ale last night. Hoping to punch up the American hops aroma with these additions.

Best man Jason was in attendance. Made an impromptu dinner of chili powder crushed pork tenderloin with lignonberry balsamic chutney (inspired by the rodenbach below), roasted small potatoes, and broccoli.

We were semi-celebrating his last standardized test for life and, as we commonly do when we get together, we cracked some beers that we've been meaning to sample together:

• Westy Blonde
• Ommegang Hennepin from our man date
• Rodenbach Grand Cru
• Triple IPA
• sampler bottle of pot & kettle

To cap off the night, we...uh...dry hopped:

Belgian Honey Wit-The First of 3 Wedding Beers

The first wedding beer was brewed on Sunday, 18May2009. Right on schedule!

This style is among Esther's favorites, so she didn't even hesitate when I asked her opinion on which styles she'd like for me include in the selection for our day. I'll get around to uploading the recipe, but for now I'll leave you with some pictures from the day.

I went with the same yeast I used in the original brew, Wyeast Witbier 3944. Here's a pic of the DME+water heating up on the stove. I stepped it up twice to make sure I had an adequate healthy starter to brew the 10 gallons of wort, which is officially the largest single batch I've made at one time. I actually can't believe that I was able to do this on my electric stovetop!

Here's a quick pic of some of what will give this beer its subtley spicey character (aside from the yeast, of course). 4lbs of Boston area raw/unfiltered honey, coriander, grains of paradise, sweet orange zest, and mt. hood + organic hallertauer whole hops.

I used flaked wheat, and made sure it was well gelatinized before adding it to the mash. When it came time to lauter, I had a super slo-mo thing going on. my sparge water probably wasn't hot enough, and the mash was too viscous. I just kept adding more sparge water and stirring stirring stirring, until it finally started to flow. Probably added about an hour to my brew day. I think I really need to upgrade to a 10gallon cooler for my mash tun...the 7.5 gallon stainless didn't allow enough room, especially for such a viscous wort.



My sister Elise and her boyfriend Drew made an appearance on brew day. Drew brought a freshly baked loaf of fantastic flax and wheat bread...went perfectly with the scrambled eggs (goat cheese, parmesan, onion, garlic, tomato) and applewood smoked Niman Ranch bacon. I practiced portion control by only making 7 strips. I could have easily eated a 1/2 lb of the stuff on my own...

The breakfast got Elise feeling extra energetic, and got her wondering how well her new(ish) weight training routine has been pumping up her guns.

Well, darnit...they are getting seriously gunned up. See:?


The boil went pretty well, and the spice additions made this wort smell fantastic. I cooled it down with my wimpy 25ft copper immersion cooler, aerated and am using the 50liter reactor for primary. I had collected about 2 gallons of the last runnings in a seperate kettle which I cooled to ~170, then added the 4lbs of honey, held it for about 10 minutes to de-bug it. Such a huge difference from typical grocery store honey. Amazingly complex and fragrant.

I filled the big reactor in place in the spare bathroom tub. I don't think I would have carried it (safely) after it was filled up.



I was woken up the next AM at 5 by the sound of someone blowing their nose.


PFFFFFfffff!!!!!


I thought Elise went home yesterday afternoon?


PFFFFFfffffff!!!!!


There it is again. Huh. weird.

Wait, Elise did go home. I brewed beer yesterday. Eyes popped open, went in to check on the beer. The krausen had reached the top of the reactor. The krausen started to clog the threads of the caps with yeast. The pressure would build, and was slowly releasing C02 once the pressure build up enough to clear the yeasty build up.

I unscrewed the top cap, and...

Almost had another beerxplosion, or possibly worse. jeeez, will a guy ever learn?

cleaned it up, put some foil over the top and went back to bed. The water in the tub has kept the strip thermometer reading at a good 66-68, which probably means something closer to 72ish for an internal temperature.

Goldilocks (just right)

She's still swirling away with a big foamy krausen now, 3+ days from pitching. Hopefully Esther will enjoy this beer just as much, if not more than the original.

Type: All Grain
Date: 5/17/2009
Batch Size: 10.00 gal
Brewer: JC

14 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 62.22 %
2 lbs Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 8.89 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 6.67 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 4.44 %
1.00 oz Hallertauer, New Zealand [7.00 %] (60 min) Hops 11.8 IBU
1.00 oz Mt. Hood [5.10 %] (10 min) Hops 3.5 IBU
1.00 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
2.00 gm Grains of Paradise (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
15.00 gm Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
4 lbs Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 17.78 %
1 Pkgs Belgian Witbier (Wyeast Labs #3944) Yeast-Wheat

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.061 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.064 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.94 %
Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 15.2 IBU
Calories: 282 cal/pint
Est Color: 5.5 SRM

opening up the coffers

I get eye rolled by the fiance when I come home with a new beer, and place it with the others. The whole 'cellaring' thing, she doesn't get so much. that, and she's a bit put off by the shelf space hogging of all the bottles. I can't say I totally disagree with her. Anyway, I'm doing my best to bust out of the buy and hold mindset and decided to crack in to some prized bottles, as my best man to be Jason and his girlfriend Adrienne were stopping by for dinner last night. I had actually sliced my finger (typing=ouchy) during the brewday, greatly reducing the dexterity of my right hand.

We braved the snow, and grabbed some provisions from TJs, and told J when he arrived to have at it, he was guest chef for the night.

Adrienne made a great spring greens salad with walnuts, goat cheese and a fresh grapefruit vinaigrette. We sipped an alesmith speedway stout with it. delicious coffee-beeryness.

Esther laid out some thinly sliced manchego with stonehouse olive oil drizzle, grind of pepper and sea salt, and some grilled toast points. J put a simple salt and pepper seasoning on a flank steak, seared over high heat and finished in the oven. He deglazed the pan with some of my homemade zinfandel, reduced and finished a pan sauce with butter. An israli couscous was the side...he added some slowly toasted pinenuts, dried cranberries, shitake mushrooms and finished it with fresh chiffonade parsley. nicely done J.

We cracked the black ops (yeah, it exists), and had ourselves a nice feast. the stuff is pretty damn fantastic, but I gotta say, the RIS that J and I made together at his place about 6 months ago is right up there with these.

Esther rounded out the night with some from scratch lemon vanilla cupcakes while we watched food network...waiting for the first episode of flight of the conchords to arrive.

in short, coffer opening can be a very good thing.