Choco Milk Stout!

Transferred the Stout to the secondary today so I can get the cacao nibs with it. First time using the Better Bottle, as you can see it gets pretty gunked up. I'm hoping a good soak will clear that all out since I can't use the brush on the plastic.


Here the cacao nibs sit on top after adding them to the secondary. These smelled so good I wanted to just pour them in my mouth! These should be much better than the chocolate flavoring previous NB kits used. I will keep these in with the Stout for 2 weeks and then bottle.


Here's a tasting of the Stout. It already tasted good flat, but I think the chocolate will add an appropriate balance to the already round and sweet notes that sing in it.

Caribou Slobber bottled!

Took some time before the Science of Beer this past week to bottle my Caribous Slobber. It was truly delicious flat, so I just know we'll be slobbering all the way home on this one when it's done. It's a gorgeous American Brown Ale. Just look at it flow in that bucket! Oh, this is the stuff dreams are made of...














I ended up using DME once again for carbonation. It served me well with my Saison a few weeks back. I upped the amount to the 1 1/4 cups of DME that the late, great Charlie Papazian recommends. I used about 1 cup for the Saison, and I will likely use less for a style like that again.

New to the TRI Brew Crew

I was very excited when JWC (Jason) asked me to contribute to this blog. I have only been brewing a short time but I've learned quite a bit, and my hope is to share some of my knowledge and insights about this great hobby.

Over the summer while my wife was completing her master's degree I was left to my own devices and of course that meant I did a bit of home brewing. I thought I would talk about my Aldeeran Wit Beer and Boba Fett IPA, both of these beers were a blast to make and all came out great.

Aldeeran Wit:

I brewed this beer for my wife, Wit Beer is one of her flavor beer styles and because I had not made a Wit I thought it would be a fun challenge. I found the recipe in "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer (an excellent recipe book by the way) and went to my LHBS (local home brew shop) and grocery store to pick up my supplies.

This is a great and simple beer made of liquid wheat malt extract, oats, Hallertuaer hops, coriander, citrus zest and the secret ingredient chamomile tea. The only problem was zesting 8 oranges and 2 grapefruits to get 2.5 oz of citrus zest but it was worth it in the end. I was very pleased with this beer, after fermentation and conditioning it was an explosion (hence the name) of citrus and coriander in your glass and Sarah loved it. As it has aged the citrus and coriander have dropped out a bit but it is still a great drinkable beer which I will have to make again when summer rolls around.

Boba Fett IPA:

This is one of my favorite home brews it is a bad ass IPA (hence the name) but before I can go any further I have to get something off my chest. Ok give my a minute this is very hard for me to say in such a public forum... I am just going to come out and say it.... I AM A HOP HEAD.... phew, that feels better, alright I feel like I can move forward. Please do not misunderstand me I love a great malt forward porter, stout, dopplebock etc, its just I LOVE the floral, citrus and some times dank flavors that come for our friend the hop cone. That is why I love this beer, it has a ton of late addition hops and is dry hopped which gives a great hop flavor and aroma without a lot of the bitterness (which I feel turns a lot of people away.) This is the second time I've made this beer, it is inspired by one of my favorite commercial beers Bells Two Hearted Ales. The first time I used the Dead Ringer Kit from Northern Brewer and I was very pleased with the results, this time I went to my LHBS and built the kit myself.

This a very simply recipe Light Golden Liquid Malt Extract, Crystal 40 Malt to steep and 6 oz. of Centennial Hops. I am so pleased with the way this came out, it has a great juicey fruit hop character without over powering the carmel sweet malt backbone. This beer is very fresh I bottled it less than a month ago so the hops are still in the front, I will have to be sure to drink it fast to preserve all of those hop flavors that I love. I do not think I will have a problem with that since the beer so balanced and drinkable. My only regret is not saving a bottle from the original batch to compare to this batch. From what I remember they are very similar, which is great it gives me a lot of confidence in my process. I will have to save at least one bottle this time so that I can really compare the to the next batch.

I am going to save my adventures into partial mash brewing for my next blog post, thanks for letting me share.

Cheers,

Cytorunner

Triangle Brew Crew, Why I Love You

One of the many great things about my chosen pathway in life has been the friends that I have met along the way. I must say that I never thought that I would meet people that loved this great hobby as much as I do. I have found a new appreciation for the hobby and this appreciation has solidified my long standing position that civilization as we know it could not have flourished without beer. I would like to post more later on this position later however I would like to write about tasting beer. I am very thankful that I have friends that brew beer and that we have started this blog. In keeping with our fellowship Jason passed me his Saison Jason today and I rushed it home to try it. I have never disliked a beer my fellow brewers have produced and this beer is no exception. Its everything a Belgium beer should be. Its full of great yeasty aroma, its dry, its spritzy, and this particular one is low in alcohol. (for a Belgian beer) Beer is a living breathing organism, it is very much alive and dynamic. For the taster that has transcended no drink is the same as the last... as the beer warms up it changes, it released aromas, and flavors previously hidden much as a mystery novel would relinquish its secrets.

In using large bottles you can store the entire batch in fewer bottles. Another great thing about using large bottles is the difference you get between the first glass and second glass. The above picture displays two beers and even though these beers look different they are in fact from the same bottle. After you pour one glass you tip the bottle back which stirs the yeast which you get a large amount of in the second glass. For my first glass you get a very transparent beer and the second is a yeasty Belgian surprise. Same bottle, same beer, but very dynamic.

Fresh Ricotta!

Mamma mia, ho fatto stasera ricotta fresca, ed è fantastico!

I used Maple View Farm whole milk, some half/half, a good pinch of salt and good ol' vinegar. So easy, but so delicious!

WolfBrew Mystery Beer 2011

Alrighty, guys, I finally got my graduation mystery brew ready to go. Found all ingredients yesterday at Bull City and went to town today! Decided to use a fair amount more specialty grain with this than the usual NB kit, so I hope that turns out well.

Here she is on the boil:


This is my "Say WHAAAT?!" face:And, here we are in the carboy. It's not as dark as this pic makes you think. Can't wait for October for our Oktoberfest, and then the graduation mystery beer revealing will unfold in December! It's all going to be here before we know it (not that we're counting down the days until graduation or anything...).

Don't Fear the Foam, Don't Fling the Foam

I bottled the Polar Bear Porter last night (AKA Northern Brewer's St. Paul Porter), a beer I first brewed in fall 2007. At the time I considered it my best batch, and from the tasting last night I think this version will be just as good. Looking back at my old notes, my OG this time around was higher, but the FG was only off by 1. I was surprised that this beer is only 4.3% ABV because the flavor profile is such a bold mixture of malt and hops, but we'll need something a little easier to drink with all of the other big beers we're going to have ready soon.

Ready to Bottle

Here is what the beer looked like back in 2007. I used corn sugar to carbonate then and used dry malt extract last night.

Polar Bear Porter, 2007

The Star San was extra foamy last night. I think I have not been using the proper concentration when filling my sink with water to sanitize the equipment, so I used a little more last night and ended up with lots of foam. The foam from the bottles was getting stuck on the end of the bottle filler, so I was trying to fling it off every once in while. I don't recommend this, because I got so involved with trying to fling off the foam that the bottle filler came right out of the hose and beer started to spray all over the floor! Once I realized what was happening I quickly turned off the spigot, but not before I had lost about 12-16 ounces of beer. Ouch! The lesson: DON'T FLING THE FOAM!

Bottled

This beer tasted great flat, it's just really bold and tasty, and I can't wait until it's ready. It's going to be perfect on the cool autumn nights that should be here soon. Cheers!

Polar Bear Porter, 2011

Bottle, Transfer, and Tasting

Last weekend saw a lot of action at the home brewery. Let's start at the beginning with the bottling of the Dubbel Trubbel (Belgian-style abbey dubbel) that I brewed back in early July.

Ready to go

This beer was in the secondary for almost two months. I think the Better Bottle I used worked really well.

Better Bottle

I decided to use dry malt extract (DME) to carbonate this beer, hopefully to avoid the "gushing" problems that I experienced with the bitter (although this dubbel is well above 7% ABV and I think it would be less likely to happen). Boiling the DME gave the kitchen that lovely malt aroma that we all love.

DME

I think the color/malt profile/yeast flavors of the beer turned out great. The only thing that I am concerned about is a hot alcohol taste that could be a result of fermenting at too high of a temp, although I think that the temps were fine for this yeast strain. We'll see how it mellows out in the bottle.

Tasting glass

Of course, Davy was as helpful as usual in his role as the brewhouse cat.

Davy after a long day in the brewery

With the Better Bottle now open, I decided to transfer the Orange that we brewed several weeks ago to the secondary (so that I have a primary open to brew the graduation mystery beer). This thing tasted great, with a great flavor from the orange zest, and I can't wait until it's ready to go.

Before

After

Finally, I had sampled the second batch of the Saison Jaison (petite saison) a little while ago, but I think that it is now ready for consumption. The color is almost identical to the original batch, and although the hop flavor at first seemed a little sharper (perhaps from not using hop bags?), it was actually not that different when tasted side-by-side with a bottle of the original. At any rate, this is still a great beer to have on hand.

Saison Jason v. 2.0

White House Home Brew!

Well, not too much of a surprise that the kitchen staff under the Obama's have started brewing their own beer with equipment the Obama's bought! You go, dude! Represent!

Obama White House Home Brew

Too many bubbles

I wanted to post this video to show everyone the carbonation problems I had with my English Bitter. This gushing started after less than 2 months from brew day...I love the beer's flavor, but I will definitely need to figure out how to mildly carb it the next I time I brew it.

The Keg is Empty

The keg is empty and I do not know what to put in it next??? I have two beers in the fermenter right now. One is the Belgium Tripel and the other is the somewhat mystery beer. I did want to let you guys know that my mystery beer is using the Whitelabs yeast. I figured it would be a good way for us to compare the yeast to the Wyeast Variety. I must say that I missed beating the crap out of my yeast package before pitching.

The Keg

Ask any Homebrewer what their favorite thing about homebrewing is and they will always pause and answer, everything! Oh but bottling takes forever. Yet another question people always ask me is, "so do you buy beer anymore?" Well I do, I like to support breweries that I think are doing a good job and also I like draught beer. There is something like beer on tap that is just great! The best way for the homebrewer to bottle and dispense beer is with a keg. Homebrewers unlike commercial breweries put their beer into soda kegs known as cornelius kegs.

The first beer that I put into this amazing dispenser was the innkeeper. The triangle brew crew got together and we tried it out with amazing results! The bubbles were very different and due to my lack of refrigeration the beer was very low in carbonation in keeping with the English style. We just threw the keg on ice and dispensed via the "Frat Faucet" ...... Delicious.

Graduation Mystery Beers

We all decided to brew a mystery beer for graduation in December...my box of ingredients arrived today. What do you think is inside?

Chocolate Milk Stout Update

She's a fermenting with the Caribou Slobber hangin' out in the primary behind. The stout is talking up a storm, I hope the Slobber is a good listener.

Como cerveza para chocolate

Hats off to my new brew, Norther Brewer's chocolate milk stout kit. This sucker smelled like like had opened up a chocolate mousse cafe next to a brewery!

I decided to up my boil to 3.5 gallons instead of the 3.0 I've used on the last three beers. Overall, I think I may have undershot the last addition of H20 because my OG was a a point or 2 on the high side. I also didn't have any more bottled water to top it off, but the number was supposed to be 1.051 and after temp correction I ended up around 1.053. Always rather err, though, on the higher side than undershooting the OG.

The specialty grains were Simpsons Extra Dark Crystal and Fawcett Pale Chocolate Malt. They gave a great color and aroma before adding the LME. I didn't mind using the LME for this brew, because clearly I ain't too worried about keeping a light color! I do, though, want to try DME for my next lighter colored beer to see if it works better.



All's I got to say is "hot damn!" I cannot wait to crack open one of these babies for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

Beer link from NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/magazine/mark-bittman-beer-as-an-ingredient.html?_r=1&hpw

The minimalist, Mark Bittman, shares some wisdom on Beer as an ingredient. Funny he mentions the one and only...Garrett Oliver!

Watch out for capes on the loose!

ESB and a Better Bottle!

So, I was driving back from the Bull City today and my car just would not exit off on 40, it kept a straight path towards Carrboro. I took the opportunity to grab a quick cup of coffee at Open Eye Cafe (does anyone in that place ACTUALLY work on the computer or just look up at every single person who comes in between their bouts of facebook???). I whipped out my computer to shoot off a few emails (truly), and, after finishing, dropped the dirty mug in the bin and walked out. I suddenly found myself in Fifth Season with a 6 gallon unported Better Bottle in my hands.

I figured, "well, what the hell! I guess I'll just have to buy this." AND, I guess I'll just HAVE to brew that Chocolate Milk Stout awaiting patiently in my beer closet since my other primary seems to have been occupied after a herd of caribou slobbered in my glass carboy only to leave a deliciously smelling fermenting beer behind. Don't worry, pictures are soon to come.

What does this all mean? Saturday=Stout brew day. Hellabeats doing some other nonsense that provides no concrete deliverable that compares with 5 gallons of brew.

I haven't forgotten that I put ESB in the title. After walking out of Fifth Season, I just so happened to swing by Carrboro Bevereage company, and at the bottom of the coolers at the back of the store sat a 6 pack of Fuller's ESB with my name written on it. This is my first time experiencing this world class ale, and OH how I feel like he and I have already missed out on so many years of good times. This is an absolutely incredible beer. Cheers to a good day...