Farmhouse, part deux

Here is my version of Northern Brewer's Farmhouse Bier de Table kit. This was one of the easiest beers that I have ever brewer. Like Chad the Lad, I love session beers and was excited at this beers low starting gravity...but my gravity somehow ended up 5 points higher than expected (1.048 instead of the expected 1.043). This means either that I had ridiculous brewhouse efficiency or that my hydrometer is off. It doesn't really matter, because I think that this beer is going to have some fantastic, funky flavors and will be a refreshing summer brew. It's bubbling along right now at about 80 degrees and should be ready to drink in 3-4 weeks, when Chad and I can compare our products.

My farm can beat up your farm

Perhaps in today's society with Facebook in farmville this is a common saying.  However I don't think that anyone had beer in mind.  Jason and I have both set out to brew a traditional low gravity farmhouse ale.  When many people think about Belgian beers they think of high gravity breathalyzer busters.  As most of you know I am a fan of the session beer and thus was extremely enticed by this beer.  Fantome is perhaps my favorite farmhouse ale.  I have heard from reliable sources that there beers taste different from batch to batch.  I think there is beauty in that which can not be replicated.  Home brewing is an art form, and the beer you make that day is a beer that reflects that moment.  After all could Picasso paint the Mona Lisa over again if he had to in the exact same fashion? Would it look exactly the same?  I hope that I never make the same beer twice.  Anyhow...here are some pics of the farmhouse ale.  There should be a farmhouse vs. farmhouse event featuring both of these prospective offerings....

Hefeweizen

I've loved hefeweizens ever since I first tried one in Germany. At its best, a hefe is refreshing and thirst-quenching, with lots of yeasty flavors that make it a truly unique beer style. Unfortunately, fresh hefes are hard to find in the US. Most American breweries make American-style wheat beers, which I find too lemony and hoppy. There are some good examples: Penn Brewery's Weizen and Lone Rider's Shotgun Betty are about as good as you'll get outside of Bavaria. Of course you can try a German hefe, but they are often a little old by the time they cross the pond and have lost some of the freshness that is a hallmark of this style. I have brewed a couple of extract hefes and was not happy with the results. One reason I switched to all-grain brewing was so I could finally try to make an authentic German hefeweizen.


Hefes must be at least 50% wheat malt. My recipe had close to 60% wheat malt, with German pilsener malt and German CaraMunich I rounding out the grain bill. I used a little CaraMunich to darken the color and help with head retention. Wheat malt can sometimes cause a stuck mash because it gets very gummy, so I also added some rice hulls for bulk. The mash went well and my pre-boil gravity was very close to what I expected (1.040 vs. 1.041). I did a 75-minute boil and was able to cool the wort to 78 degrees in about 20 minutes afterward. My original gravity was 1.045, which was much lower than the expected 1.051. I am not sure why because the pre-boil gravity was so accurate. It might have just been a bad reading.


Jamil's podcast on hefes recommends fermenting at 62 degrees, which is much cooler than popular wisdom. To lower my temps, I placed the carboy in a water bath and added some freezer packs. By the next day, things looked good:

At this time the temps were in the high 60s but seemed to be coming down. I also thought that the fermentation had already peaked. 12 hours later I found a different story:

Hefe yeasts are notorious for causing blowoffs, so I should have seen this coming. The airlock didn't actually blow off, but it was completely clogged with residue and there was krausen running down the sides of the carboy. After I put the hose on the fermentation continued to be vigorous for another day before slowing down. I was also happy that the temp on the fermometer was between 62-64, so I think the water bath helped me reach the lower temps that I wanted. The beer is still in the fermenter. I'll probably transfer it to the keg this weekend, then try it in about a week. As I mentioned, these beers are best fresh, and I am really excited to see how it turns out.

Cream Ale

            I would have to say that my favorite American style beer is probably the cream ale.  I have drank only a few of them so its kinda hard to get a good understanding of what one is supposed to taste like.  Being a big Northern Brewer fan I decided to brew their all-grain cream ale kit. 

Doing some wort circulation. Its got a nice color and great smell.

Hops just added with a good boil. NO BOIL OVER!

I was able to keep the mash around 150 degrees F. Hopefully I will get a dry tasting beer.

I got an original gravity of 1.040 (temp adjusted) and the color looks awesome. Fermentation kicked off very quickly and I was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud POP! sound.  Sure enough it was my airlock blowing off and fermentation foam was everywhere.  I quickly fashioned a ghetto blow off set up and fermentation has since calmed down.  In keeping with energy savings it is about 61 degrees in my house.  Here are some pics from brew day.

Fuller's London Pride

After all of our talk about the Innkeeper, and now with two versions of it either almost ready to drink or fermenting, I had to pick up some Fuller's London Pride last week. It's just about the closest commercial beer to the Innkeeper that one can find in the US. It's a great beer, easy to drink and low in alcohol, with a nice dryness and biscuit flavor. But I still prefer the Innkeeper v1.0 that Chad the Lad brewed a few months ago. Perhaps it was because that beer was on tap and this Fuller's was in the bottle, but the Fuller's is missing some of the creaminess and rich flavor of the Innkeeper. I can't wait to try the new versions.

First All-Grain Batch

I finally decided to make the switch to all-grain brewing in 2012. After much deliberation on whether or not to go with an elaborate setup or a budget setup, I couldn't resist the $40 turkey fryer I saw at Home Depot. Chad the Lad came over several days ago to guide me through my first all-grain batch, an Irish red ale. I chose to brew an Irish red because of its simplicity and mass appeal. We picked up the ingredients at American Brewmaster in the morning and began brewing at around 1130.


My mash tun was really easy to make. I took the spigot out of a 10-gallon cooler and replaced it with a ball valve from Fifth Season, as well as a screen fro inside the mash tun. I then added a hose barb adapter to the outside of the ball valve and picked up a 3-foot length of high-temperature hosing from American Brewmaster. It worked well to drain from the mash tun to the brew kettle.


I was a little worried about how long it would take the turkey fryer burner to bring the wort to a boil, but it was actually pretty fast (and it was a cold day). It took about 25 minutes.


One problem with the aluminum kettle that comes with the turkey fryer system is that the capacity is 7.5 gallons, which makes it a close call when it comes to boilovers. I forgot to heed Chad the Lad's suggestion to have a water spray bottle
handy, so we had a minor boilover, but nothing too bad. Lesson learned.


I am wary about wort chillers because of the water they waste. Instead I picked up three bags of ice and made a water bath, and we got the water down to the low 60s in about 25 minutes.


We siphoned about half of the wort into the carboy using the steps off the deck.


We poured the other half of the wort into the carboy, which I like to do because it aerates the wort quite nicely.


I set up the blow off hose for this beer in case the fermentation proved to be vigorous.


Actually, fermentation did not take off as quickly as I anticipated because the wort was too cool. I moved it out of the closet and placed it next to a heating vent so that it would warm up a little bit. This helped the fermentation get going.


This first all-grain experience was great, and I can't wait to brew another batch. It was really nice to put all of the equipment into use and to learn things that will help me in the future.

"Beers and Ales"

On the Beers and Ales clear misunderstanding...I'm with you Chad. That is utter bologna if you ask me, why should they pretend to have a higher class beer section if they can't even label it correctly?! I went to the Harry Tweeter the other day and was again somewhat impressed initially by the selection of beer "and ales...", but, quickly, after getting over the initial shock of the more choices beyond the usual Lagerland of mass production mid-western American beers, I got bored of the choices. It's like somebody went through a catalog and picked out some of the more exotic beers they had at some somewhat trendy restaurants, not what I would consider a knock down fest of microbrews and exotic tastes. There also seems to be an obsession with carrying every beer out there that comes in a clear bottle, which clearly indicates a lack of quality storage to pour in a heavily lighted environment. Then, I remember that the Tweeter's goal seems to be to stay at just above the middle of the line as far as megamarts offering just enough exotic tastes and choices for the standard white person to feel that they can get most things on their recipe list and to just feel explorative enough to see new ingredients, beers, etc. to maybe try something new. For those of us who have clearly tasted and explored beyond that, we have higher standards and our shopping must expand beyond the megamart. For us, it's required to go the Sam's QuickShops, Asian markets, Whole Foods, and other more specialty shops of the worlds to satisfy the urges we have of what the world has t offer. There's my 2 cents...