Smokey Chipotle Porter

The Brew Farm Group has a new member that cooks professionally.  She, Dana, has offered her services to create an end of year brewers' gala, and the level of excitement about the project is all-time.  Ethan, Butch, IPA Dan, Ken and myself will each be brewing a batch to pair with a given course.

I have been selected for the slightly smokey day boat scallops with onion relish, and celery saute'!  I couldnt be more pumped to have pulled this course:

"Seared Day-Boat Sea Scallop w Apple Wood Smoked Bacon Powder – served on a bed of caramelized onion relish, with red bell pepper and celery sauté.

Description: strong smoky flavor followed by sweet scallop, and deeper flavored relish – hint of apple cider vinegar in relish"

For my pairing I have decided to go "complimentary," and will be doing a Chipotle Porter with adobo sauce. The trick, as per usual, is balance.  Furthermore, as a pairing, the balance of the beer itself must not overpower the food, but compliment it, as stated above.  Taming the smoke and heat, while balancing to the roast character will be the trick.  Moving on...

I want the beer to be highly approachable, not overbearing, and dry as to not "fill up," my guests; my pairing comes as the second course.  To start off,  I am going with Pilsner Malt, because I want a more crisp canvas to paint this picture on, so I think the Pils will work well here.  It is a bit out of the box for the style and for this reason I am, of course, intrigued.

Deciding that simpler is better, I skipped the Crystal and moved to my dark malts. Referring to my recent Stout, where the roasted malt landed at 3.5%,  I am very happy with the roasted character that imparted.  With that in mind, I am going to roll with it.  Black patent malt has never found its way into my beers, so it's time for a debut.  I want a little bit of that additional bitterness, and coffee character (found at low percentages), again, just lending to my dark malt complexity, so I am going with just a reserved add of .3 lbs... the only problem is the color of the beer still ends quite light...so I saw three options, black patent malt after the main mash to get the color, but not the characters of the malt (which when overdone can go to ashy and unpleasantly acidic). Add some MIdnight Wheat Malt deepening the dark grain complexity of the brew and at just 4 ounces I will get lots of color.  4 ozs black patent in the mash along with .25lbs chocolate wheat malt, and then .25 black patent malt during vorlof and sparge for color.

Other considerations...

Brewing Water - higher relative alkalinity to help the mash pH buffer the dark malts' acidity (that's science). But the overall target will be London water.

Schedule
Early September - brew
Primary finishes  late September
Early October - add jalepenos
By the 15th of October - final blend of smoke and non-heated base beer if needed
Keg no later than October 21 (leaves 2 weeks to condition)


Mash - 152 - Looking for a dryer beer, but not going Saison crazy.  We need some body as the alcohol content is on the "lower side," for me anyway and with the simple sugars in there I'll just target a middle of the road mash.

Boil - 90 - to allow for the creation of a bit more complexity within the brew. With that said, how fun would it be to roll a 120 minute boil on a Porter made with Pilsen malt!  Just for kicks....Time permitting, I may go for it.

Yeast - 001, or safale 005.  No esters required, this is not a yeast show.

Keg, condition 2 weeks, bottle.

As a result
Stats (on a 90 minute boil)
OG - 1042
FG - 1007
IBU - .5 BUGU (about 1 oz noble hops)
Color - 31 SRM

Grist
6 lbs - USA Pilsen (70%)
6 oz - Roasted Malt (4.6%)
.5lbs - Wheat Malt
.25 lbs - Black Patent Malt (full mash) (3%)
.25 lbs - Black Patent Malt (post mash)
.25 lbs - Midnight Wheat Malt

.25 - smoke malt
.5 lbs - Piloncillo Sugar (a nice medium dark and flavorful sugar)

Brew Day Setup

Salts - London profile.  1.5tsp cacl and gypsum.  2tsp Baking Soda

Strike - 3G @ 165, target 152 for 60.

Sparge Volume - 6G and sparge to 7.5G.

Boil - 90, 1oz EKG at 60

World Inside the Wort

Actual Brew

Mash 152 for 60

Capped with uncrushed black patent - oops.

Boil - 120. FW dark brown sugar Ekg, 1oz at 60, nutrient,  whirlfloc, chiller at 10, rinsed and split chipotle at 5.  

OG - 1043.  

Rehydrated 1 pack safale 005 at 95 degrees in 250 ml sterile water for over an hour with nutrient.

Pitched at 72ish

9/15 - added .3oz smoked and dehydrated chipotles in hop bag

9/16 - removed chipotles.   A bit too much already.  Into fridge for a week, then secondary to get beer off the peppers.  Tastes awesome, just a couple notches over what I was aiming for.

11/21/15 - in the homestretch the berr came through.   Kerry calls it, Spicy Guiness.  It had a nice depth for a smaller brew.  Dark brew with an off white head and excellent retention through the experience and beyond.   The roast is light to medium and compliments the chipotles beautifully.   The heat is dissipating with time and the taste of the peppers themselves continues to emerge.  Mouthfeel is medium-light.  Overall the berr is a win.  It's imperative to always give these beers plenty of leeway to allow the character you're going for to emerge, and not expect it to hit spot on from first  being kegged.  

A week ago I blended 

50% - porter

25% - funky lambic

12% - Yogurtweisse (acidity)

12% - raspberry funk brew

Degassed and stabilized with Camden tab.  Will add CLEAN yeast and tabs to carb.

12/2/15 - added french saison slurry and sugar tabs to bottles then racked beer on top.

The Mill Run (Devils Purse Mystery Grist)

Ah ha, a new challenge on my brewing hobby, the mystery grist.  DP tested their mill and had spent grains of various origin and amount.  They didn't keep track in the least and added a whole smattering of grains, including but not limited to crystal, rye, wheat, smoke, 2-row and so on.  I couldn't just let that all go to waste!

The plan was to just go with a Nordic style as Mike thought it made sense from what he remembered in the grist, but I had to know where that smoke landed to really be able to gauge what this mystery grist was all about.  Simple solution, mash it!  So that's what I did.


2 quarts of water, 1 pound of the grain in a steeping mesh and landed at 146.  I sparged with .1G hot water and got right back to 2 qts of runoff and an OG of 1043.  It has a very earthy feel to it, the caramel is medium with hints of dark caramel, maybe toffee and dark caramel character, and a low level of roasty notes.  The smoke really didn't come through.

I can't help but peg this as an English style wort and am going to go that route.  I am thinking I'll mash at 154 as I plan to add date sugar to add to complexity in the aroma and flavor. Hops will be EKG or Fuggles to balance at .5 BUGU with just a 60 minute charge.

Ferment with London Ale yeast, but Irish Ale or 001 would be fine as we have no idea where this is headed.  That is the original concept based on the wort, will the beer be awesome or terrible, time will tell.

I have 30 pounds of the stuff so I split it into 3 batches of 10 and included samples of the wort to two other brewers to get their mind wrapped around the wort they will get (generally speaking).  Also planning on sending second runnings to Eric to work his own Mild Magic.  He has gotten into tea infusions and this wort will work well for that effort.

The one big takeaway for me is I plan to do a Mystery Grist Challenge with the homebrew club.  I think it would be critical to have samples of the wort on hand for folks to taste, so they can start working the remainder of their recipe right there in the shop!  Maybe we just do a single mash and throw the unfermented wort in a keg and pressurize for samplings at the shop...I like it! It would be really interesting to see where people take the wort just from tasting it in the boil or after!  Just one more notch in the belt of folks trying to find new reasons to test their skills, senses, and see where the brew takes them instead of the other way around.

Brew Day: 3/18/15

Logistics: Bottle SMaSH beers, arrogant to keg of LH SMaSH with 1oz bag chinook, clean arrogant yeast, DPMG to Arrogant bucket.

So I found date sugar at whole foods, pricey stuff!  At $12/lb I just went with a half a pound and bought an additional pound of pitted dates as well.  Within a mini-brainstorm this AM as I stared out the window into a Spring that is begging to appear, I figure I'll take a qt of the first runnings of what will be a fly sparge process and add that to a pot with all the sugar and dates.  I'll do a low slow simmer of that during the hour boil to sanitize the dates, dissolve the sugar and reduce a little wort, further adding to the dark caramel character of the brew. The name of this game is earthy, dark and not so much rich as just flavorful on the dark fruit, dark caramel complexity side of the brew flavor wheel.


Brewing Water: Target Edinborough (malty) -
2tsp Gypsum and Baking Soda, 1.5tsp CaCl to mash.

Strike: 5G at 164 - landed at 152

Lauter:
1. Boiled 3.5G water, mix, vorlof, run out (still only got to 162).
2. Collected .5G first running to pot and added .5 lbs date sugar and 1.25 lbs. pitted dates, put on low, uncovered simmer for 60 minutes.

Boil: 45 min addition of 1oz EKG whole leaf hops targeting .35 to .45 BUGU.  I guessed I'd hit about 1060 with the reduced wort and dates...got 1063, so the 23 IBUs I got from the 45 minute addition worked out to .37 BUGU.

Cooled and added reduced/chilled wort and date concentrate direct to fermenter, racked chilled wort on top.

Yeast: Mix culture 001 and 007 from Barley Bastard, washed. Measured 150ml clean slurry was where I landed from the wash. Not quite large enough for a cool fermentation, but just a little over for a room temp fermentation, so we roll with it at room temp (65).  A little low for the 001, but it will free rose to optimum for both. They each have highly attenuation abilities and 007 will lend  some English character, why not.  I could see this brew being badass with a Scottish Ale yeast, but that's for another day.....Wee Heavy with Dates....Oh man, that might have to happen!

The mashed wort went from muddled and without direction to incredible with the reduced wort and date sugar/date mixture.  In the end, I feel like the muddled character of the "mystery grist," was tied together well by that process.  Time will tell if we pulled something off that's worth talking about, but in the meantime it has left me with plenty of learning, and fun ideas for the future. 

Pitched - 65 - 1056

Lag 12-18 hours at 63.

D3 - 5/5 - 68

3/26/15 - 9.1 Brix - 1023 - 67 - swirled. Will check back next week and split batch.  Taste is a hodgepodge and Date didnt come through as much as I would have liked to this point.  Time will tell.  I think oak and port is the best move for now.  Brett is not worth it in this wort.

4/3/15 - solid now.  Earthy aroma with some caramel sweetness.  Slightly bitter.  Time to oak and carb the rest.  Fg terminal - 8.9 brix - 1022

4/10/15 - bottled.  Light oak character is nice and complimentary.

Tasting Notes - Delicious. Ive since oaked the brew and carb has settles in. Deep caramel, and earthy aromas. To me the Dates come through as the characteristic stone fruit, dark fruit character.  

Nice off white head doesnt fully dissipate throughout the pour. A deep brown hue all the way to the edges.

A very malt forward beer, with a nice low-low roast charcter, hints of chocolate and dark caramel. Medium body and medium residual sweetness.

Of course this is all for not s there is no way to know what the grist is, but nonetheless, it was an experiment in reverse engineering which is the jumping off point for more fun challenges to come!

SMaSH and Barley Bastard 2015

Ok, it's time to roll into the first experiment of The Brew Farm Group.  It has been decided to do a club-wide SMaSH experiment and I picked Chinook to give myself a chance to make a batch of my beloved Arrogant Bastard.  Haven't been able to bring myself to purchase the stuff out here on the right coast as I know far too well just how far that brew has to go to hit my parched lips. It's a bit of an undertaking and my first real attempt at a parti-gyle, so here's to jumping in head first, but I figure what the heck.

Solution - Brew It!  Ok, lets begin.

The plan is to do a Parti-Gyle triple batch, including a partial mash, and a split boil. Ya, that's happening, now I just have to figure out how.

The goals.

Arrogant Bastard "Clone" - Recipe from BN Can You Brew It

5G batch, 90 min boil

2-Row - 12.2 lbs. (90%)

Special B - 1.2 lbs (10%)

OG - 1061 (unless I figure my parti-gyle all wrong:)  Which I did:)

FG - 1015

IBU - 91

BUGU 1.5 :-)

Hops - Chinook (@ 13% alpha) 

90 - 44 ibu (.7oz)

45 - 37 ibu (.7oz)

15 - 11 ibu (.7oz)

0 - 0 ibu (.7oz)

Yeast - 007 - 1L starter needed

Standard SMaSH

Batch - 1.5G

OG Target - 1045

FG - TBD

IBU Target - 30

Hopping - 60/30/15/0
Yeast - 001 -  500ml starter needed

Late Hop SMaSH

Batch - 1.5G

OG Target - 1045

FG - TBD

IBU - 30

Hopping - all at 5
Yeast - 001 - 500ml starter needed

Second, the grist.  To quote, Doc, "if my calculations are correct," (which they were not - 3 seconds and a smart Google search would have been helpful - Parti-Gyle Calculator)  I'll be using 12.2 lbs for the Bastard and 6 lbs for the SMaSH in the main mash.  Off to the side I'll mash the Special B separate with 1 lb of 2-row for conversion.  So that brings us to a grand total of 17.2 lbs 2-row in the main mash.

Mash Plan/Boil

1. Dough in and target 148 for the main mash with 2 qts/lb. (2x17.2 = 34.4qts or ~8.6G).  8.6G - 2.2G {absorption (1.7)/ + tun loss (.5)} = 6.4G of first runnings

Dough-in targeting the same for the "side partial mash."  Keep the side mash on the heat to stop it from dropping, you want a mash, not a steep.

Side mash details: 2.2 lbs grain x 1.5 qts/lb = 3.3qts strike...use 1G. Then - .25G (absorption) = .75G back to boil.

After Mash complete: First runnings + side mash (6.4 + .75)  ~ 7.25. to kettle.

Boil 90 minutes.

2. While above is mashing prep Parti-Gyle Req:  Parti-gyle water requirement = 4.5G (volume target, absorption has already been accounted for), plus .5 for tun loss = 5G req.  In conclusion, heat 5G sparge water to 180. Once first runnings complete add the 5G to the mash tun, mix, vorlof and run to second kettle. 

3. Once second runnings are in the kettle stir and split to two kettles and place on stove.  At boiling begin hopping with one batch getting an equal IBU contribution via a 60/30/15 addition and the other getting only a 5 minute addition to target 30 IBUs.

Starter

2/26/15 - starer vial 001 in 2L of 1040 with nutrient and calcium. SMaSH - Come to find out today (brew day) that my rare earth magnets had come loose and stuck together overnight, throwing my bar.  Oh well, intermittent shaking from here.  Only need half the starter anyway so Ill just pitch to the vial for next storage and toss in the rest.  It'll be more than enough for these small half batches.

Arrogant Clone - Today, Started fresh 007 vial in 750ml wort. Ball jar, intermittent shaking.  It'll have 8 hours.

Brew Day: 2/27/15

Strike target 157 - mash 144 to main mash, 158 to partial mash.  Why i didn't use muslin bags I'll never know.  Purest???  Shmuck...

--------------------------------Surgeon General's Warning-------------------------------

Parti-Gyle calculations are not straightforward at all.  I realized the mistake while running off, and ended up over, so now I got me a Bog Arrogant Bastard. , More hops, same BUGU.  Keep brewing!  Of course, as I write this I ask myself, "Self, there must be a calculator out there, yes?"  4 seconds later - http://www.astrocaver.com/java/Parti-Gyle.html - indeed there is.  Doh!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brew on!  PS.  Today is Devil's Purse first batch brew day!

Arrogant Pre-boil - 1062

Smash - preboil 1037 (with a little DME love)
Each got .5tsp gypsum and .25 CaCl

Smash 60-30-15-0 got adds as planned.
Smash late hop got all hops at 10 min as OG was showing high.

All got nutrient at 10.

Arrogant OG - 1075

Smash Late Hop - Glass fermenter - 1053
Smash standard - plastic 6G - 1052

Pitch

Both starters are moving, slowly, but moving.

Arrogant - pitch temp 65 - 850ml warm up starter 007 plus 500ml 001.
Each SMaSH - 750ml 001.

Done - It's steak time!

D4 - 3/3/15 - The brews have all been high krausen and ripping along this week. All brews free rose to 65-66 and are now @ 62.  Arrogant is still a 3 on my fermentation meter.  Moved to a warm water bath of 70 to finish.

D5 - 3/5/15 - Arrogant landed at 73, leaving it alone.  Still at a 3/5 on the airlock activity.

D10 - 3/9/15 - all airlock activity finished and Krausen dropped on smash beers.  Final temp 61.  Late - 6.5 brix - FG - 1009

60/30/15/0 - Brix: 6, fg 1006

Arrogant finished at 70. Brix - 9.4, fg 1014 (stoked)

3/10/15 - 2oz chinook to dry hop.  Hop Bag.  Pull at 5-7 days.  70 degrees.
3/11/15 - Harvested yeast
3/18/14 - Kegged and carbed.  Initial tasting is too green to really say.  Slightly metallic and overly bitter when warm with improper carb.  She needs at least a week to settle in. Aroma is pungent, no additional keg-hopping needed. Smash beers bottled with 4 as a 50/50 blend. Done.

SMaSH 60 min - garbage.  I mean its fine overall, but the hopping schedule didnt bring out the hop as I would have hoped.  I shouldve just stuck to a 60 min add and seen how it performed as a sole bittering hop.

SMaSH Late - Awesome!  The characteristic Chinook bite is right up front, but not overdone.  Surprosing to say the least.  The aroma is resiny, slight pine, but more citrus than pine on this iteration.  Very good and in fact with just a little ove this beer could be a recipe unto itself.

4/8/15
Barley Bastard - She has a slight off white head, which is stable throughout the pour.  She smells like described above, resiny, dry with slight pine notes but more citrus.

Taste - Initially the bite was too much and almost had a slight metallic tinge to it, but after two weeks in the keg that has mellowed.  It is a well attenuated beer with a nice malt backbone and the accnet of dark caramel is hiding behind the hops.

Mouthfeel is medium with a moderate to low residual sweetness.

Overall - I like this for a Fall IPA grist, but likely I wont brew it again.  I fee like the taste comes very close to arrogant and I am satisfies with the effort.  Had the numbers worked out to targets I think the recipe is pretty darn close, if not spot on.  In anther two weeks the beer could dtand a traingle test of arrogant and I'll have some fun there and report back if its worth the time, but brew it!

FriendsGiving pale Ale

2014 FriendsGiving Pale Ale

In the past year I have focused all of my hoppy beers to be more smooth than bitter.  The primary reason for this is because my beautiful bride does not enjoy the bitter side of the hop   Now my queen is carrying our first born child and cannot enjoy the fruits of my labors.  With that said, I figure now is a good time to dip my toe into the preverbal pool of the American Pale Ale. 

As Americans tend to do, I too, will go head first into this brew.  Needless to say, I have an alterior motive to this recipe and that is the recent collaboration between Lawsons ans Otter Creek, the Double Dose, IIPA. http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/119/99838/

Having scored one of only 100 bottles in all of MA (or so the very well intentioned barmen stated), I was blown away by the hop character of this beast of a beer.

The alcohol was masked with style and the hops were shining like the spotlight at the Luxor.  Amazing aroma of citrus and what I perceived as tropical fruit, dominated the beer and prepared your palette for the smooth and saisfying draw to come.  It was, in a word, GLORIOUS!

Being so new to the scene there is still no brave soul of whom has posted a potential clone to this mighty IIPA, but I will start the with this APA, and then be in touch with the brewers directly should no one else make the great leap to cloning this masterpiece.

So, what the heck are you going for?  Well, how about a beer that has a nice citrus/tropical fruit nose, a solid bitter hop, but not over the top and a malt bill to compliment, not detract.  On the malt bill I recalled a great comment in an IPA article I read stating that IPA's, if utilizing tropical character hops can accentuate those hops with the use of crystal grains. As you associate tropical smells with sweetness, the caramel character of the grain helps to draw out those tropical notes.  Brilliant!  Let's try that!

Onto the brew!

Stats

OG - 1055

FG - 1013

IBU - 50

BUGU - 1.0

SRM - 16

I have pulled from several resources in the creation of the grist.  Everyone has an idea of how to run with this, from Vinny at Russian River's "simpler is better," to Jamil's middle of the road version 2 row, English pale, 4.5% 20, 4.5% 40, 4.5% Munich, 2% victory, to your most complex of malt bills.  I'm going to side with the simpler side of things, but not quite as simple as Vinny recommends (I reserve that kind of simplicity for my full IPA's).

The carapils (2-3%) and wheat malt (2-3%) are a trick my new brew buddy Dennis 'Butch' uses to guarentee that precious, longstanding, credibility building head retention...and at 1.0 BUGU, I may need some help on that front, so lets roll with it!

Water

3 tsp gypsum targeting ~ 115ppm calcium.

2-Row Extract (its officially winter brew process time) (75%)

8oz Victory (6%)

8oz C40 (6%)

8oz C80 (6%)

3oz carapils (2%)

3oz Wheat Malt (2%)

2oz roasted barley (color up) (1%) for last 10 minutes of steep.

Hops

Warrior (or Millenium)

(Too dry hop or not to dry hop, that is the question...on a big time crunch here as it is, but if this turns out right then I may have to go with the triple dry hop Chinook, Cascade and Citra)

Steep ~2lb grains. Heat 1G (2qts/lb) water to 170.  Turn off heat, drop in grains, cover and steep for 30 minutes.  Pull grains, drain and rinse with .5G warm-hot water. 

Residual wort = 1.25G

Bring 4.25G to a boil, mixing in extract slowly.  Begin hop schedule. Add in residual wort.  Final voilme after 60

Should be 4.5G.  Estimating .5G loss leaves 4 to fermenter.

Cool, put 1G distilled water ice in fermenter and transfer wort at 85 leaving 5G in fermenter plus starter gives about 5.25G.  

1G ice to 4G wort calculations 

100 goes to 86

90 goes to 78

85 goes to 62

80 goes to 57

Yeast - East Coast Ale - This choice came out of necessity as my beloved homebrew shop New Farm, had just gotten a new shipment in and this was an expiring yeast I was happy to take off their hands, as making a starter is no problem for me, but could be an issue for other customers...so, lets see what we get.

According to WLP, this yeast is much like 001, but attenuates at a lower rate and some say, "mutes hop character."  This considered lets tweek our recipe to accomodate these characteristics.  To get a more accentuated bite from the hops I'm going to up my normal 60ppm of calcium to 100+.  In this case it'll come in at about 115ppm.  This will help the hops to shine.  And to emulate an 001 attenuation rate , im going to add just .25lbs of sugar to get those last few points out of the yeast.  I'm not trying to totally dry out the beer as i would an IPA, just get to the high end of this yeasts attenuation. (75%).  This could be a mistake as the caramel sweetness is meant to balnce the tropical fruit character of the yeast.....and the beer showing an attenuation down to 1.012.  You know, this is why I write, to question myself, and in this instance Im going to let this yeast work without the sugar for just that reason, to allow just a llittle more residual caramel sweetness to balance thse tropical notes.  If your going to go with a concept, give it a chance to work.

With two brews going at the same time, I have reserved the stir plate for the bigger Stout, so I will make a 1000ml starter in a Ball Jar be doing the "intermittent shaking" method.  What I get for reproduction, I get, but I know I want them warm and ready to run.

Pitch at 65 and let her ride for 7-10 days, Keg and enjoy!  With the starter I'm hoping she finishes in 7 (I'll check FG at 5 and 7, if no motion, then I'll keg right then and perhaps get a dry hop in there) so there is some time in the keg to condition properly before the shindig.

Done!

Brew Day - 10/10/14

Preboil a little high so I added a little extra warrior to get that BUGU to 1.0

Water

Gypsum - 3tsp

Steep

40 minutes and sparged with half a gallon.  

Boil

Additions all on time.

Cooling - using the frozen distilled water was a pain in the butt.

Ferment

Starter was 24 hours. 1040. 800ml. Intermittent shake.  Was active at pitch.  66 degrees.

D2 - 5 - 73 (that's free rise as room is 72 and Edinborough in batch next to it, pitched at same time is at 68

D6 - 64 - 1 - 1013

D10 - 64 - 0 - 1012 - Im calling that good.  Keg it!

11/21/14 - It was a hit!  i am very happy with how this beer come around.  The color is a little dark for the style, but the malt bill held up the hops very nicely.  The head retention was appropriate.  No dry hop needed here.  

Next time, increase the BUGU to 1.25 by adding in the Chinook/Cascade at 45-30-15 and up the citra just a touch to accomodate the higher bittering.