FOOLCiRCLE

So this evening was spent pushing beer from one container to another.

First, the Twenty Pound Pale Ale had to be moved from the primary fermenter to the secondary and get a dose of dry hops, 1 oz of Centennial to be exact. I also moved the beer from upstairs to downstairs where the warmer temp upstairs is preferable during this time of the year to help with primary fermentation, the cooler temperatures downstairs will benefit the beer clarifying. It weighed in at roughly 5.5% alcohol, and pretty balanced, yet slightly malty as of now, so the dry hops should move it towards very balanced. Most of my pale ales are aggressively hopped, this one, not so much.

Next the Dubbel and the Chinese 5-Spice Dubbel needed to be bottled. I pulled 5 bottles of the Dubbel and 9 bottles of the 5-Spice, kind of weird numbers now that I think of it. I’m going to leave one of these on tap for now, not sure which, but I am leaning toward the traditional Belgian-style Dubbel, and the other I am going to reserve. I was thinking about it earlier, it’s been since like Christmas since I have had 3 beers on tap at once, I need to remedy this. So I’ll reserve one of the Dubbels, then the Pale Ale will be ready to roll in like two weeks, but that’s it. So I guess I’ll need to brew again soon, and often. If things go right I’ll be re-upping on base malt shortly so it’ll be time to get my brew on, anyone have any suggestions, I’m open!

Twelve ounces IPA plus one ounce Hop Vodka equals a HOP BOMB!

So for this example, the first example I am aware of anywhere, we used Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA and the Hop Vodka I created, which was Three Olives plain vodka infused with Cascade hops. Originally we were thinking of drinking it a la Car Bomb style, drop the shot and chug, but we thought otherwise, and probably for the better. So instead, Robert and I drank it more Boiler Maker style, pour the Hop Vodka into the IPA, thus a Hop Vodka Infused IPA. The Hop Vodka definitely brought a new level of hop “freshness” to the beer, slightly like when DFH pours there beer through a Randall but a little more grassy/green in flavor. Overall it was pretty good, and if I try to refine the Hop Vodka like I mentioned it may be really good. I’ll have to experiment with this. But remember, you heard it here first, it’s called a Hop Bomb!

Also, yesterday I transferred the Dubbel and the Chinese 5-Spice Dubbel to kegs and started carbonating them. The Dubbel tasted fine, which is good, but what I was really interested in was trying the 5-Spice Dubbel. You could definitely pick-up on the spice aspect in the nose, in particularly the cinnamon, which had me concerned. I’ve used cinnamon in batches before where it just blew out everything else. Also in the blend that I used was: cinnamon, anise, fennel, ginger, clove, and licorice root. Yes, I know there are six spices listed, my guess is the manufacturer used both anise and licorice root to compliment the same flavor and give it depth at the same time. Upon first taste I was pleasantly surprised; the spices weren’t too overwhelming, but you could tell they were there. It was sort of like a cross between a mellow not-to-boozy Winter Warmer and Belgian-style Dubbel. There was a cool dessert note to it too, I think accentuated by the ginger and clove, kind of like a ginger snap, made me wish I used molasses in the batch. So, first impressions I wasn’t disappointed at all, can’t wait to have a full glass of this puppy when it’s fully carbonated and chilled out.

Sometimes things that seem like a good idea really aren’t, and sometimes things that seem like a bad idea really aren’t either. I haven’t decided if this is a good idea or a bad idea yet, or even if it was successful or unsuccessful.

So while creating the Chinese 5 Spice infused vodka for the Chinese 5 Spice Belgian Dubbel I decided I was going to mess around with making a Hop Vodka also. Originally I had contacted the distiller at Dogfish Head Brewery to get her advice on what kind of proportions were necessary, how to filter, and if they had ever tried it. She responded that they have never tried a Chinese 5 Spice vodka, but had tried a Hop Vodka without too much success. Her advice was two handfuls (she guessed 2oz) of whole leaf hops to 750ml of vodka. Let soak for 48 hours then strain, then filter through charcoal (like a Brita filter). She said with their experiment it was still too strong and they then cut the infused vodka with 750ml of plain vodka, so really 1oz to 750ml.

So for my experiment I used 1oz of Cascade whole leaf hops to 375ml of vodka. I let this soak for 48 hours giving it a shake whenever I happened to walk by. I then inverted the jar and strained the hops out through the vodka for 24 hours. After that time there was just over 200ml of hop infused vodka, where’d the other 150ml go, I’m not sure I guess the hops drank it. The Hop Vodka is a bizarre bright yellow/orange and smells very much of hops, but also with a grassy tone to it. The flavor is, … intense! It covers all aspects of the hop, bitterness, flavor, and aroma, plus the grassy/green/flowery type thing. And of course it’s vodka, so it’s hot, well, at least to me.

So far now I’m not sure if I like it, it’s big. I think if (when) I do it again I’ll use a higher vodka to hops ratio, like 1oz to 750ml, and/or let the hops sit on the vodka for a shorter time frame, like 24 hours instead. So what’s next? I think Hop Bombs are next, think a Boiler Maker but with Hop Vodka and DFH 60 Minute IPA! I think I just made myself a little excited

I am in desperate need to buy more ingredients, so in the mean time, I’ll improvised!

So this is it … until I buy more ingredients no more beer will be made, it’s a sad day indeed. So basically I was down to twenty pounds of base malt, an ass ton of American hops, and some dry English yeast. So what did I make? Hell if I know, a Twenty Pound Pale Ale, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. It’ll be good, and you’ll like it, trust me. So basically I took all the base malt and mashed real low to make it nice and fermentable, dropped three hop additions with a fourth reserved for dry hopping, and set the little English buggers loose on it. That was yesterday. Cold as hell, but at least the snow had stopped. That was pretty much the second day in a row of spending too much time outside when it is way too cold, I couldn’t get warm last night, suckage.

Oh BTW, the last half a keg of the Fool Circle 10th Anniversary Ale is now on tap, ask nicely and I might share. Might.

Also, watch out for Hop Vodka. Yup.

So I’ve messed around with the Belgian Dubbel style ale a little bit, so I figured it’s time to keep the “world” updated.

So last Saturday I transferred the two carboys of Dubbel to secondaries. Everything went as well as possible, except for one exception, I dosed one of the secondaries. Yup, dosed it with Chinese 5-Spice Infused Vodka, and that shit was potent! Seriously, I used 375ml of Three Olives vodka to 1oz by weight of ground Chinese 5-Spice. I then let this sit for 48 hours, swirling the jar whenever I happen to walk by. After 48 hours I double filtered it through a coffee filter, once and then again. If I was feeling really ambitious I would have put it through a Brita filter or another charcoal filter, charcoal is a distillers best friend as it’s said, but I didn’t want to “ruin” a filter with eternal 5-Spice flavor. Regardless, the stuff was like mace just smelling it, and like an 1/8th of a shot was pretty intense – so I was pleased . Basically I was looking for a solution to extract the 5-Spice flavor and to be able to add the least amount of solution to the brew.

I pulled 32oz during the transfer to experiment on intensity. I added 1/4 tsp to a pint at a time until I thought I reached a flavor threshold that was somewhere between “yeah I can tell it is there, and what’s different about this beer…?” So subtle, but not non-existent. This turned out to be approximately 1 tsp per pint. Quick math told me I had 40 pints in this batch, thus 40 tsps, which turns out to be roughly 6.5oz of solution – so that’s what I added. It’s been in secondary for a week now and looks very similar to the un-flavored batch, cool.

Originally I was going to keg both of these batched next Saturday (02.06), but I’d like to enter it in a competition where entreis are due by this Sunday which means I’d need to keg it closer to Monday or Tuesday to leave time for carbonation, refridgeration, bottling, and shipping … poop. We’ll see what happens, maybe I’ll skip the deadline.

Yesterday was the first brew day of 2010, and so far so good!

I brewed a 10 gallon batch of a Belgian-style Dubbel. Originally I was suppose to do this last week, but one key ingredient I was waiting on, Belgian Candi Syrup, had not arrived yet, so it was postponed until yesterday. It really is a shame that the local homebrew supply store does not carry this product for I feel as if there is no comparison, rock candy or the newer soft candy sugar. The reasoning was supposedly because it was too expensive, though I was willing to pay a premium price plus shipping to try and have it in time and still was not able to, disappointing.

Regardless, the brew day went relatively well after it got started. My typical starting time is 10AM which has me wrapping up by 5PM typically. Yesterday I just could not get going in the morning so the day didn’t start until 12PM and I didn’t wrap until 7PM. I have noticed that 10 gallon batches do take slightly longer than a 5 gallon batch, and the problem seems to be that I can’t heat my water fast enough, I suppose the quantity is just that much greater. For example, after I mashed in I began heating the water right away for the mash out water and sparge water, about 14 gallons total. It took 1 hour and 50 minutes to bring 10 gallons up to 170′F and the other 4 gallons up to 212′F, that’s 50 minutes longer than I would have preferred my mash rest to be. And lets not forget the heating of the foundation water, bringing the wort back to a boil, and my favorite cooling the wort to pitching temperature – which for once was a non-issue (thank you January freezing cold ground water!). One option is a more powerful burner for the burner stand, I believe mine is currently 75,000BTU and they really just go up from there, but so will propane consumption, which is already up with the larger batch sizes. Additionally, I think when the weather begins to warm it will be time for a wort chiller upgrade. I am currently leaning towards a counter-flow or plate chiller to help with time consumption, but the “new” immersion/whirlpool options seem pretty interesting too, we’ll have to see what time and money allows.

I was able to use the newly converted mash tun for the first time this batch, it went well. No leaks, and I only smacked the thermometer a few times. It was also more likely a better temperature ready too, the new thermometer is much closer to being in the middle of the tun which is most likely a better average of the overall temperature, versus before I used a digital thermometer on the surface (first 6 inches or so) of the tun, which always worked, but I always questioned it’s overall performance.

So currently there is 10 gallons of Dubbel popping away in my upstairs where it is warmer. I plan on leaving 5 gallons of this beer traditional and the other 5 gallons I plan on doing something. Currently I am leaning towards dry-spicing the beer of making a spice-neutral spirit (vodka) infusion and infusing the beer in secondary. I think I want to do a Chinese 5 Spice Dubbel. If I’m luck the spice and yeast profile and malt aspect of the beer will go together brilliantly, if I’m not so lucky I may have a lot of spicy cooking solution. Though I am a week off from my original brew date, I am aiming to have these beers wrap up quickly if all goes well. There are two homebrew competitions that are coming up in February that I’d like to enter these, and it’s been a while since I entered a competition. First is the War of the Worts XV which is February 20th but entries have to be received by the 7th, but if I judge (which I plan to) I may be able to bring them the day of the competition as long as they are already registered, which will buy my an extra 2 weeks. The second is a homebrew competition through McKenzie’s Brew House, which is a Belgian competition only, which need to be in by February 15th. This one is interesting for the winner gets have their recipe brewed on the McKenzie’s system and served at the pub, nice!

Oh, and just to keep you posted, the Fool Circle 10th Anniversary Stick-Icky DIPA was kegged yesterday, so theoretically it’ll be on tap by next weekend, very good news. It tasted delicious and smelt fantastic while kegging. Though I learned a lesson, removing 12oz of spent dry hops (read: wet hops) from a carboy sucks! I have not found an easy way yet to get all that hoppy goodness out of that little hole in an easy manner, oh well, it’s worth it! Though I was thinking, I wonder if there is a way to create a device or system that will keep the dry hops constantly moving in the fermenter? The reason I wonder is that I’ve always noticed that the dry hops float on top of the wort, after they are wetted they are immersed in the wort, but still at the top. It makes me wonder if the hops were constantly moving throughout the wort, thus creating an ever changing contact point between hop (lupilin) and wort would there be an increased efficiency. Maybe some way to bubble CO2 through the solution to create an environment that would force movement, or a very big and strong stir plate that would constantly swirl the solution … dunno, just thinking aloud.

You got beer in my salad! … Or something like that, either you get it or you don’t

So yesterday I finally had the opportunity to transfer the Anniversary Ale into secondary carboys and to add the dry hops. Let me be the first to say: 6oz of dry hops in 5 gallons of beer is totally and completely unnecessary and absolutely overboard. OK, now someone has said it, and I agree. BUT I did it anyway and it makes me smile.

When I was getting ready to add the dry hops I realized this is going to be a huge amount of hops, it filled about a gallon of space in the carboy, so my typical 5 gallon secondary carboys were not going to work, so I had to use my 6.5 primary carboys for this experiment. As of right now I would say only about a 1/4 of the hops are actually wetted, but I plan on leaving them in for three weeks, so I ‘ll give them a week on there own to absorb. But if it appears as if it it just too much, well then I guess I’ll flush the head space with CO2 and then give the beer an nice swirl or shake or something to get them as wetted as possible. No need to be wasteful in an already lushy environment.

The bad news was when I transfer the beer I always take a second gravity reading, the beer was still in the mid-1.020’s, not really what I was looking for. It wasn’t excessively sweet, but it had a lot more “chew” to it then I was looking for which for me lowers it drinkability (is this Bud Light?). I was thinking more West Coast style IPA, now we’re looking at more of an East Coast style, a la 90 Minute IPA from DFH. And I’m talking about body and fullness, not flavor as of now. I suppose that’s the flip side to Summer brewing is Winter brewing. In Summer it’s a constant battle to try and keep fermentation temperatures low, in the Winter trying to keep them high enough. It did ferment around 67/68F for the first week, but was probably closer to 63/64F for the second, and then fell close to 60F for the third. Oh well. I guess it’s time to try and find the time and money to work on the fermentation cabinet that I have, which should be able to create a year round stable environment.

Also of brief note, the Harvest Ale is now on tap. This is the beer that Garrett and I brewed using only fresh hops. Literally from the vine to the kettle. I totally appreciated the opportunity to brew that beer since I would not have been able to do it on my own since I have not re-planted my hops in years. I know, bad hop daddy. The beer turned out great, very different flavor than most “hoppy” beers and a great silky/creamy texture I wasn’t expecting. The hops are more floral, spicy, earthy, mellow but still retain a fresh flavor. It’s been dubbed the Freshy-Fresh around here. So soon there will be the Freshy-Fresh and the Sticky-Icky on tap, too funny.

WOW, it had seriously been 10 years since I brewed my first batch of beer … seriously, WOW!

Happy Anniversary, Cheers!

So, November 28th is the anniversary date which happened to be the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year. Most of you have probably heard the story before on how all of this got started, but I will re-cap anyway. My sister, Nancy, bought me a Mr. Beer kit in 1999 for my birthday, I was to turn 22 that year. She didn’t think anything of it, she wasn’t old enough to drink, and she didn’t like beer, but thought that it was something I might like. Five days after my birthday I was brewing my first beer, a Mr. Beer kit West Coast Pale Ale, and I was proud. Sure it may seem silly thinking of some of those early batches now and the things that did and didn’t go into the brews, but I’ll tell you what, I loved every aspect of it and couldn’t wait for the next batch. And I shared that stuff with everybody, and most of it was drinkable, but some of it was just … interesting. Some of my early creations that may have been a little ahead of their time included: Mandarin Orange Spice Beer (freakin’ 3rd batch! haha), Green Tea with Honey Beer, and the Opaque Espresso Stout that seriously blew me away. A lot of people at the time didn’t have the same interest in boundary pushing beer that I did, but I think because of some of those early experiences with my homebrews I believe it helped open other peoples eyes later to the craft brew revolution and some of the beers they enjoy today.

Regardless, that’s not what this post is about, this post is about the Fool Circle 10th Anniversary Sticky-Icky DIPA brew day. This day had a lot of things that could go wrong: a new recipe, with new ingredients, on new equipment, and I had to be finished by a certain time. These are all elements that make it more exciting of course, but also a little nerve racking, but I know RDWHAHB. So this was going to be the first batch to pop the cherry of the new 15 gallon kettle which I talked about in the last post, and also I was going to use all whole flower hops – 2 pounds of whole flower hops, and I was stoked! The recipe is very roughly (read: not suppose to be a clone) based on a beer made by Russian River called Pliny the Elder, in my opinion probably the best Double IPA (DIPA). I actually did clone Pliny once before and it turned out excellent, hopefully this beer will be even better. So in the recipe there are hops everywhere: mash hops, FWH hops, 75, 60, 45, 30 minute, and flame out hops let alone the ridiculous amount of hops going in for dry hops, 6oz per carboy, haha. The hops are pretty much all C-hop goodies with some Magnum thrown in for some extra bittering pop, though I don’t think the beer is going to be too bitter considering there is so much hops added as late additions. Yet it is a relatively simple grain bill, 85% brewers two-row, two small additions of specialty malts, and some corn sugar to help hopefully keep the beer from being too sweet. It had a finishing gravity of 1.082, though I was aiming for 1.070, um can we say over-shoot, oh well, I’m OK with that.

So the brew day went relatively well, no major mishaps. I did discover the maximum capacity of my mash tun, 30 pounds. Even with lowered the grain to water ratio as low as I was comfortable after adding the mash-out water the lid was literally floating on top of the mash which was brimming the tun. I also realized, with the weight of the kettle (approx 40 pounds) and the weight of a full kettle full of wort (approx 110 pounds (14 gallons x 8 pounds each)) there was no way I was going to be able to move that thing around by myself. So instead of running the tun off directly into the kettle I kept the kettle on the burner and ran off into a 5 gallon bucket and transferred that to the kettle, much easier loads to handle. The sparge went slightly smoother than normal by me spending 5 minutes soldering some copper to make a pick-up tube. This is something I’ve wanted to do since I bought the HLT and finally did it, and it worked great, less than a cup of water in the bottom when all was said and done. The rest of the brew day seemed to go fine, though everything felt like it ran a little longer. I suppose I should have expected it considering I was heating a lot more water, and a lot more wort and also cooling a lot more wort. And no, I didn’t buy a bigger/better wort chiller yet, patience. The boil was a little funny with all of the hops in there, I was actually a little concerned about the absorption rate of the hops and how much wort I would lose, but I was able to pull 10 gallons so I guess I was fine. For lunch during the brew day I had a special treat, a bottle of Pliny the Elder that my buddy Guy was able to give me in trade for a few bottles of my beer when it is really, good trade. I felt this would be the most appropriate beer to drink to celebrate the batch and the day, plus I found the perfect pairing to go with it – Ellios Pizza. Yup, Pliny and Ellios, and it was great. The brew day was starting to come to an end after a very long cooling of the wort for November, I was suppose to go to my mom’s for Thanksgiving round two and I was starting to feel the time crunch. What I hadn’t thought about was cleaning up still, and there was a ton of spent wet hops, enough to fill an entire grocery bag. Plus I had to clean the new beastly kettle, and you know what, it wouldn’t even fit in my utility sink, so that’s going to be fun to figure out an easier way to clean it.

See all the pictures from this brew day at this LINK

The next day was still full of beer-stuff fun. Since I was in a hurry Saturday I didn’t get to attend to my hop supply and put them away properly. I was going to re-seal the Mylar-type bags they came in with a Food Saver, but I couldn’t get it to work with those bags (though it is suppose to) and it was the first time that I had tried to use it on Saturday, so it waited until Sunday. On Sunday I still couldn’t get it to work with the Mylar-type bags so I had to use the expensive Food Saver bags, it’s like buying n inexpensive nice printer with expensive ink cartridges, ugh. Anyway, it worked great with their bags and everything is all air tight and in the freezer waiting for the next brew day. I also finally got around to another long time project, adding a thermometer to my mash tun. I bought the thermometer when I bought the tun and just never committed to the project. I think the ease and usefulness of the pick-up tube from the day before inspired me to finish this project also. This one wasn’t as easy as I anticipated, though I would have realized the issues if I would have thought it through. Anyway, the thermometer is designed to be used as a “weld-less” conversion for a kettle, or for a metal vessel. So it is designed to go through something very thin. My mash tun is about an inch thick since it is an insulated cooler. So I needed to figure out a way to mount this to that. The solution I came up with was to use a 3.5″ hole saw and carefully drill into the face of the tun to make a space large enough to accommodate the face of the thermometer, but I only wanted to drill through the front and not the back. After drilling through, I was able to scrape out all of the insulation leaving the back wall of the cooler (the inside) exposed. This was approx the same thickness as a metal vessel and I could then add the thermometer to the cooler. This seemed to work fine, and additionally bought me an extra inch of length to the thermometer now being even closer to the center of the tun. I still haven’t brewed with it yet so I don’t know how many times I’ll smack it while stirring, but over all I’d say it was successful.

So if all goes as planned this beer will be ready in January, so make sure you ask me about it then if your interested in trying it, I know I am! Oh, and BTW, you know I embarrass myself for your pleasure with those old pictures, right?

Think it’s been long enough since my last post? Sorry about that. The good thing is, you haven’t missed much, the bad thing is, you haven’t missed much because I haven’t done much homebrewing.

BUT, the really cool thing is I’m ready to brew more in 2010 then ever before! Look at that beauty! That’s my brand-spankin’-new 15 gallon kettle which will allow me to double my capacity by doing 10 gallon batches instead of 5 gallon batches. This kettle has actually been on the “wish list” for quite some time, and I received a little bit of funding for it LAST Christmas and just finally pulled the trigger. This bad boy is approximately 40 pounds, all stainless steel, with welded fittings for a 1/2″ ball valve and 2″ length / 3″ face thermometer. I also opted for the optional false bottom so I can use whole flower hops in my brews if I so chose. And, the novelty of handles, go figure. Yeah, this isn’t a cheap piece of equipment, but with proper care it will realistically last a life time.

So in preparation of getting my brew on for 2010, or at least for the next little bit, and to hopefully abuse (in the best way possible) the new kettle and all of it’s features I also placed a nice sized hop order from Hops Direct.

It’s kind of a shitty picture, but that’s 5+ pounds of whole flower hops. Each bag was suppose to be 16oz, instead the bags ranged from 20 to 22oz a piece, over a pound of free hops total. Also, I was trying to hit a dead-line for my delivery and Hops Direct upgraded my shipping from 3-day to 2-day for free. This is my first time using them and I must say I was happily impressed and would easily recommend them to anyone interested. So what did I order? I ordered a bunch of C’s: Cascade, Chinook, Columbus, Centennial, and Magnum. So everybody better get ready for some hoppy American brews, but what else is new from Fool Circle.

So hopefully more news later this week, at least one more post about a very special brew from the weekend after Thanksgiving, stay tuned!

So yesterday my buddy Garrett and I brewed a beer that’s been dubbed the Harvest Ale, a Pale Ale brewed with all fresh hops!

We decided on doing a 10 gallon batch as this was TOTALLY an experiment, and 10 gallons would give us each 5 gallons at the end of the day. This was a total experiment because neither one of us had ever used fresh hops, there was no way of telling what the estimated alpha acids or IBUs from the hops would be, and hell, we didn’t even know if we were going to have enough hops for the experiment in the first place. In all honesty we could have basically made a “lawn clipping” beer by accident.

And let me just tell you, these hops were F-R-E-S-H-! Literally Garrett cut down the bines an hour before I arrived and filled a utility wagon and we began picking right away. Of course it had been raining all morning and we were a little unprepared for the excess water on the cones so Garrett came up with the idea of laying all of the hops on a screen with a fan on them to help surface dry the hops, nice. Our recipe called for a total of 20 ounces of fresh hops which we think translated to about 4 to 5 ounces of dry hops, which for a 10 gallon batch seems about right for a non-super hoppy beer.

So, why all the fuss with the fresh hops? Well, fresh hops are literally only available (in the northern hemisphere) once a year, so this could only happen when it happen, that alone makes it special. Also, the longer hops are handled and aged the less potent they and you lose the sensitive volatile oils that can’t hold up to it. So, there hops were literally like three hours old when they hit the kettle, they were picked by hand (versus machine) and were used in every aspect of the recipe. By using them throughout we know we destroyed any delicate compounds with a 90 minute boil trying to achieve our estimated bitterness level, but we mostly late hopped which will help preserve the sensitive material.

One funny thing that happened during the brew day was we WAY over shot our OG some how. We were aiming for 1.055 and hit 1.066, huge difference. Not that I’m concerned, though the hop profile may appear diminished, it just is big, it’s like 85%+ efficiency, and that’s pretty much even if I accidentally over weighed the grain by a pound or so. Anyway, this should be a pretty exciting beer to keep your eyes on to try and grab a taste when it is on the kegerator. Even compared to commercial versions, there is nothing else like this available, this is the freshy-fresh!