UPDATE: Belgian Witbier bottle conditioning

I finally got around to bottling the Belgian Witbier, which had been sitting neglected in a corner of my room for five and half weeks. Because I am not one to rack to a secondary fermenter, unless necessary for processes like dry-hopping, I was a little worried that this batch may have picked up some unfavorable flavors from sitting on the yeast cake for so long. Generally, from what I have read, it is fine to ferment in the same vessel for up to four weeks, but after four weeks you risk adding some funk to your beer.

Like I said, I got a little worried that the witbier was going to taste and/or smell like farts, so I did some snooping around a few different forums. Sure enough there was plenty of people saying never let a beer sit in primary longer than two weeks, while others swear their best beers sat for six weeks (for whatever reasons). I chose to believe the latter... 

When I opened the lid of the bucket for the first time since January 11, the smell was way better than expected. To be honest, I had kind of forgot about this beer, but after smelling and tasting it, I feel like this could be one of my best ones yet. It definitely had a prominent grapefruit smell from adding the zest in at flame-out. And the flavor was sweet with oranges with earthy and floral undertones from the chamomile and coriander. The color was the best part. It was a very pale yellow with a lot of haze, which made it appear almost white. Usually brewers are doing everything they can to make as clear of a beer as possible (one of the reasons people vouch for racking to secondary), but witbiers are supposed to be cloudy and appear white, which is why the are often times referred to as "white ales.". But I digress...

Come bottling day I slaved away cleaning bottles in my bathroom and was ready to actually start the bottling process. I boiled two cups of water and added 4.7 oz of priming sugar (dextrose) for two minutes. The sugar water cooled for a bit on the stove while I did some cleaning and sanitizing, and then I put the water into the bottling bucket. Right after I got the siphon all ready, I looked into the bottling bucket and thought to myself, "Hm...Looks like there is some water on the bottom from the sanitizer." Naturally, I dumped it out, and immediately after realized what I had done...

Luckily cane sugar, which is sold at grocery stores, can be used as a substitute for the dextrose (aka corn sugar) from homebrew stores. I ended up getting highly refined baker's cane sugar because it supposedly adds the least amount of flavors. Depending on the beer and what flavors you are going for, honeys, brown sugar, and dry malt extract are just a few things that can be used as priming sugars. The brown sugar is intriguing...

Despite the sugar fiasco, things seem to have gone well. I am curious to see if I can notice the difference in priming sugars, but who knows. The gravity read 1.003, which is lower than expected. This will hopefully turn out as delicious as I wanted it to be.

Homebrew #6: Imperial Brown Ale/Double Brown Ale/India Brown Ale

BJCP.org

It was rather difficult coming up with the title for this post. Putting a style to my most recent beer I brewed was not an easy task. I went with a fairly renowned recipe called "Janet's Brown Ale" that I found in the book Brewing Classic Styles. It is classified as an American Brown Ale because of the prominent hop profile compared to the malt forward English version. However, I noticed the recipe created a beer with a ~6.8% ABV and 63 IBU, which is outside of the BJCP style guidelines (which are what are widely used for brewing competitions) for American Browns which states an alcohol percentage of 4.0-6.0% ABV and 25-60 IBUs. So where does that leave the ale that I brewed?

In the American craft beer world stronger, hoppier ales are often times given the label "Imperial," though historically the term was reserved for typically (though not always) dark ales, like stouts, that were brewed specially for royalty, particularly in Russia (thus the popular style: Russian Imperial Stout). The BJCP has categories specifically for Imperial IPA, Imperial Stouts, and Imperial Porters, but there is no explicit Imperial Brown category. They do mention Imperial Brown/Double-Brown under the "Specialty Beer" category which is more or less reserved for situations like I am in where there is a twist on a classic style that puts it outside of set guidelines. The term "double" (not to be confused with a Belgian Dubbel) is often times used interchangeably with "imperial" to describe a traditional beer style that has a higher alcohol content and/or a stronger hop profile.

So at this point I have tried American Brown Ale, but my homebrew does not fit the guidelines. Imperial Brown is tempting, but I like to maintain some sort of historical accuracy and, unfortunately, this ale will not reach the palette of royalty (as far as I know?). Double is tempting, though I feel the alcohol content being only 6.8% ABV does not earn my homebrew such a title, since the beers I think of when I hear "Double" are usually in the ~10% ABV range.

from growler-station.com

India Brown Ale seems to be a fairly prominent term that some craft breweries have taken to (check out Boulder Beer Co.'s Flashback). I assume this title came about because India Pale Ales distinguish themselves from regular pale ales through the use of more hops and higher alcohol content. Thus it seems to make sense that an India Brown Ale is a brown ale, but with more hops and a higher alcohol content. The theory is sound, but again, this title does not really jive with the history behind the name "India Pale Ale" (see my post on Homebrew #3 to get a brief idea of where the term IPA came from). Boulder Beer Co. seems to skirt around the issue by calling their Flashback an India-style brown ale.

I still can't decide what to refer to this beer as since it seems too hoppy/alcoholic to be an American Brown Ale, not majestic enough to be an Imperial Brown, not alcoholic enough to be a Double, and nonsensical to be labeled an India Brown Ale. Debates, like this one I am putting myself through, have been pretty common recently when trying to describe beers like Odell's Mountain Standard, which some refer to as India Black Ales while others refer to it as Cascadian Dark Ales. I won't go too deep into this anymore since this post is getting long and I haven't even started to write the recipe, but my point is that in the end they are just names. Unless you are planning to enter a competition, it really doesn't matter, and even if you are entering a competition, you can just enter under the "Specialty Beer" category.

Here is the recipe I put together in BeerSmith. Like I said I took the grain bill and hop schedule from a recipe in Brewing Classic Styles, but I tweaked the amounts and also added in another malt (mainly just because I had some available).

All the grains and hops for the mash

Brew day: 2/10/2012

Grains:
10 lbs 6.9 oz - Pale Malt (2 Row), US
1 lbs 1.4 oz   - Cara-Pils/Dextrine
1 lbs 0.3 oz   - Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
13.9 oz          - Wheat, Flaked
6.5 oz            - Chocolate Malt
5.6 oz            - Brown Malt (this is the grain I added to the recipe)

*This recipe called for hops during the mash, which I have never done nor heard of before. Usually hops are added during the boil, but I tossed in 1.05 oz of Northern Brewer hops for the 60 minute mash in*

Mash tun all wrapped up to help
maintain temperature.

Mash Schedule:
Mash In:  17.7 quarts of water at 169.7*F. Hold at 154*F for 60min
Sparge 1: 3.2 gallons of water at 168*F for 10 minutes
Sparge 2: 1.65 gallons of water at 168*F for 10 minutes

Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons (about .15 higher than anticipated)

All the hop additions weighed out
(including the hops in the mash)

Boil:

1.31 oz Northern Brewer    60 minutes
1.05 oz Northern Brewer    15 minutes
1.55 oz Cascade              10 minutes
Super Moss                     10 minutes
Cascade                            0 minutes

Post Boil Volume: 6.1 gallons

kettle boiling out in the snow

*I had a hell of a time with the wort chiller. It was snowing so the hose was all frozen up. I thawed it out with boiling water, but the nozzle connected to the hose must have warped from the ice and wouldn't screw all the way in to my wort chiller. I ended up having to stand in the snow with my foot over where the wort chiller and hose connected to keep the water from spraying into my kettle, which can cause contamination. It really bummed me out and I subsequently forgot to take a gravity reading before I pitched the yeast. I am in the process of figuring out how to estimate the original gravity based on all the data I have.*



Cooled wort down to 67*F and pitched two smack packs of Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast.

The bucket is now fermenting at 67*F.

UPDATE: Saison (HB#4) now bottle conditioning

I rigged up the siphon to my measuring stick so I didn't have to
hold it the whole time the Saison trasnferred to the bottling bucket

This past Thursday (1/19/12) I bottled the Saison, which has been sitting in primary since 12/27/2011. The period of time in the fermentation bucket was about a week shorter than the usual month, but the yeast I used (Wyeast 3711) does some serious work very quickly.

When I opened the bucket for the first time in three weeks I immediately stuck my face in their and took a deep breath in. The strong smell of pepper filled my nose and burnt my sinuses, but smelt really, really good. I decided to leave the peppercorns in the fermenter for the entire primary because I have read the peppercorn flavor/aromas fade fairly quickly if just boiled. The taste was also very peppery, but you could definitely sense the orange peel and coriander. I am very pleased, though I hope the pepper isn't too over powering.

My gravity on bottling day 1.006, which is right about where it should be. Since the yeast strain I used is such a workhorse, the bottle conditioning period shouldn't be too long. I am hoping it will be drinkable in a week or so (this coming Thursday), but I am sure like the other batches that it will only get better with time.

Funkwerks Saison

Funkwerks out of Fort Collins, Colorado is slowly becoming one of my go-to breweries whenever I go to the liquor store with nothing in mind. All of their ales are in someway inspired by classic Belgian styles, particularly saisons, witbiers, and golden ales. I have had their imperial saison ("Tropic King") and witbier ("White") and could not have been more pleased. Yesterday I picked up two more bottles I have yet to try: their flagship "Saison" and a Belgian golden ale called "Aurora." I haven't opened the Aurora yet, but this post will talk about the Belgian style ale simply called "Saison."

From what I have gathered from the Funkwerks website, "Saison" is their flagship beer. They seem to define themselves with this organic version of the classic Belgian saison. Unlike some saisons I have tried, this one was not too complex (which is NOT a bad thing) and was a nice alternative to some of the overly spiced and/or overly fruity examples I have tasted.

First off, this 6.8% saison pours a pale orange color with a thick white head with good retention. Their are strong sweet/citrus fruit and ginger aromas, with some pepper and cinnamon undertones.

The aromas are a very accurate foreshadowing of the flavors. Strong orange and other citrus flavors take center stage with very apparent pepper, ginger, and some cinammon in the background to create a very full flavor. The finish is dry with some bitterness from the German hops.

The ingredients lists only grains, hops, yeast, and water, which means that their was not any pepper, zest, or other adjuncts used to create any of the flavors that make saison the style that it is. It may come as a surprise, but the prominent citrus flavors, and the pepper, ginger, and cinammon flavors/aromas are all derived from the yeast. A lot of renowned brewers state that a really good saison doesn't need a lot (or any) of extra fruits and spices, but the proper yeast, a warm and fairly quick fermentation period, and a healthy bottle conditioning period. This really makes me want to try another Saison recipe with only grains, hops, yeast, and water in order to see just how big of a player the yeast really is in the flavor profile.

More on Funkwerks' "Aurora" to come...

**First two pictures are from Funkwerks.com**

Homebrew #5: Belgian Witbier

Even though I just got through brewing a saison around two weeks ago, I style have a jonesing for Belgian beers that can only be satisfied by more brewing. I thought about doing another saison, but I decided to wait until the saison fermenting now is down so I can taste it, make improvements, and brew the exact same thing again. This seems like the only logical way to actually improving my brewing. Anyways, saison was out, so I decided to take on the Belgian witbier.

I had just had Funkwerks' Belgian White about a week ago and loved it. It drank similar to a ginger beer with lots of citrus and spiciness. I knew I really wanted to capture the strong citurs flavors that were prominent in Funkwerks Belgian White, and most other Belgian witbiers, but I decided to leave out the ginger. After reading too many recipes all over the internet and consulting some of my recipe books, I formulated my own witbier recipe on BeerSmith that I think will really come out strong.

Here it is...

Zach stirring while I add the grains
during mash in.

Brew Day: 1/11/2012

Grains:

5.5 lbs - Pilsner (2 Row) Belgium

5 lbs    - Flaked Wheat

.25 lbs - Munich Malt

Mash Schedule:

Mash in:    3.2 gal at 166*F. Hold at 152*F for 60 minutes

Sparge 1:   2.1 gal at 168*F. Hold at 150*F for 25 minutes

Sparge 2:   2.1 gal at 170*F. Hold at 155*F for 20 minutes

Sparge 3:   2.6 gal at 166*F. Hold at 154*F for 20 minutes.

**My mash schedule was not supposed to look like this at all. Belgian Witbier recipes usually require you to gradually increase the temperature of the mash-in from around 122*F to 154*F, but as far as I know I cannot do that with a plastic cooler, so I planned to mash in at 154*F with 3.3 gal and do two sparges with about 2.3 gallons. However, after I saw how much wort the mash-in yielded, I knew my plans were going to change drastically. (The mash-in yielded 1.5 gallons. Sparge 1 yielded 1.5 gallons. Sparge 2 yielded 2 gallons, and Sparge 3 yielded enough to bring the preboil volume to 7.5 gallons and with some to spare) The sparge temperatures and times listed under the mash schedule were not planned. They are the result of reaction to the mash-in yielding so little wort.**

Pre-Boil Volume: 7.5 gallons

The ingredients for the boil less the hops.

Boil:

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

1 oz       German Hallertauer Hops       90 minutes

12 oz     Seville Orange Marmalade       5 minutes

.75 oz    Coriander Seed, crushed         5 minutes

1 g         100% Chamomile                  5 Minutes

4g          Fresh Grapefruit zest              0 minutes

Cool down with wort chiller and snow to 168*F

**Our hose was was completely frozen since it was snowing, so while I boiled some water to dump on the hose to thaw it out, I put the kettle in a mound of snow in order to start cooling as much as I could. If it wasn't for Mother Nature I would have been in quite the bind. The hose was thawed with one kettle of water dumped on it.**

Post Boil Volume: 6 gallons

**The opposite of the boil off situation with the saison happened with this brew. I over compensated for the boil off and ended up with 1 gal more of wort than intended. A large part of this is due to the type of boil I utilized. Instead of having a roaring boil, I kept the pot just hot enough to be at a boil, though not rapid. Beacause the boil wasn't as intense as HB#4, I think less water was boiled off. Luckily my fermenter can handle 6 gallons**

Original Gravity: 1.048 (target was 1.050)

**I am assuming the gravity is off by the small amount because I have more water than anticipated. The slightly lower OG should not be much of a problem.""

Pitch 2 packages of Wyeast 3944 Belgiant Wit yeast

Even though the mash schedule was completely off and I had to pretty much make up what I was doing along the way, my numbers still came out around the targets, so I can say things went pretty well. The beer tasted extremely good out of the tester. Citrus and orange flavors are on the forefront with some spice from the coriander and earthiness from the chamomile, while the hops add a bit of bitterness to dry it out just a tad. The only downside I can think of is the color. It looked on the light brown side of yellow, which is a bit off putting to be honest. Hopefully some of the sediment will settle and allow the color to be less muddy looking.

This was a really fun beer to brew despite taking more or less an entire day. This is my first recipe that I more or less created so I am interested in seeing how it comes out...

*UPDATE* I noticed the airlock on the fermenter bubbling rapidly at the 12hr mark. Fermenation seems to be progressing nicely.

The sources I use to learn about beer and brewing

Knowledge of craft beer and brewing goes beyond the simple ability to brew beer and appreciate (drink) it. Really anyone can brew beer like I am doing now if they have access to the equipment. However, being able to boil ingredients in water and ferment the wort at a certain temperature does not instill an understanding of what goes on in the brewing process in order to create different beer styles and flavors. There is a great deal of science that has to be considered, by home and micro brewers alike, in order to fully grasp how to make great beer (that can be re-created if desired).

I would like to think I know a great deal about a lot of what it takes to brew beer, but I by no means am in any way shape or form a self proclaimed expert, know-it-all, or any other similar title. That being said, I am constantly reading and researching different things to try and broaden my understanding of all aspects of craft beer, ranging from the science of the brewing process to the historical and cultural significance of beer. Now I am getting to the point of this post: I want to share the main resources I use since I find myself saying "I read..." a lot without stating where exactly.

We will start with the websites I mainly use:

-r/beer/ : A subreddit that is all things beer related. I mainly use this to keep up to date on news and releases. 

-r/homebrewing: Another subreddit. This is the primary forum I use to ask questions about all the things I dont understand about homebrewing

-American Homebrewers Association: Has a great forum for all things beer and brewing. Also a good resource to see inside micro-breweries and stay informed on things like the GABF and homebrew competitions.

-HomeBrewTalk : One of the bigger Homebrewing forums. More or less every question or problem I have run into has been discussed on at least 5 different occasions so it is a great resource. Also a great recipe database.

-Hopville : User submitted recipe databse.

And now the books:

-How To Brew by John Palmer. Bought this book way before I bought any equipment to brew. It is a great resource to walk you through every part of the brewing process for beginners, and then gets into the nitty gritty stuff as you get more comfortable. I have read this book at least 2 times cover to cover.

-The Oxford Companion to Beer by Garrett Oliver. This book is just short of 1000 pages. It is more or less a beer encyclopedia with everything from breweries, to ingredients, to brewing techniques. This is my new go-to book.

-Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. Recipe book full of award winning homebrew recipes. The author is world renowned. Recipe books are actually a great way to become familiar with what ingredients are used in certain styles and things like that.

-The Homebrewers' Recipe Guide by Patrick Higgins et al. Another recipe book. Recipes are submitted by different people. There are little anecdotes and informative blurbs that make it a bit more interesting then just reading recipes.

Other resources worth mentioning:

-Beer Wars is a great documentary (that you can stream on Netflix) that concerns the roles of macro and micro breweries in the national and international beer market. There are segments on New Belgium, Sam Adams, and Dogfish Head just to name a few.

I realize this is a pretty dry and boring post, but I really felt the need to post all the resources I use to learn from. Like I said, beer is a science that goes far beyond boiling water, so there is a lot to learn and understand in order to achieve a strong comprehension of water exactly beer is.

A look at the spices used in the Saison (HB#4)

I don't feel the adjuncts in the saison got enough focus in the original post. This is the first time I used any sort of non hop or grain ingredient in a recipe. I tried to sample a little of each ingredient to see what it tastes and smells like so I can see how it will be showcased in the final product.

Corriander seeds have been prevelant in Belgian-style beers since the Middle ages. It was used to balance of the malt sweetness with some spiciness and bitterness. The flavor and aromas are more prevalent and last longer in the beer if the seeds are crushed, so I put the coriander seeds in a ziplock bag and rolled a soup can over them just enough to crack the them open. After the whole crushing process, the seeds smelt of flowers and citrus. The taste was very similar to the smell. The floral and citrus flavors are in the forefront with a bitterness and sweetness in the back, which really makes the taste and smell pleasant. The flavor and aroma profile is actually very similar to some hops.

Orange peel is also a common ingredient Belgian-style ales, particular Whites, that has been used since the Middle Ages. The peel I used came in packets in dried form, though you can use fresh peel if you want. There is sweet and bitter orange peel, and for this recipe I used the sweet. It gives off very strong, sweet, orange aromas. Despite the strong smell, there is not much taste. There are some hints of orange and a nearly untraceable amount of bitterness.

I had to go to Whole Foods to get pink peppercorns since they aren't necessarily that common in homebrewing. They tasted very much like peppermint with strong spiciness and some hints of fruit/sweetness.  I added the pink peppercorns at flame out and now they are sitting in primary while the beer ferments, so this Saison should have a very spicy pepper flavor and smell.

Though not a spice, the amber Belgian candi sugar is an ingredient I have yet to work with. It literally looks, smells, and tastes like flavorless rock candy. It will add some sweetness to the flavor, darken the color a bit, and increase the head retention. Since it is sugar, it will also act as more "food" for the yeast to convert into alcohol and carbon dioxide.The yeast strain is also worthy of mention, since yeast adds a huge amount of flavor to beer in general. For the saison I used Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast. This yeast will enhance the spiciness and citrus notes in the beer as well as give it a smooth mouth feel. It is also common in high alcohol beers, which I have a feeling my Saison will be turn out on the stronger side.

I can't wait to try this beer. I am hoping the spiciness will be really prevalent in the forefront, but the floral and citrus flavors will smooth out the finish and make it drinkable. Right now (1/8) the beer is fermenting at 80 degrees. It has slowly been rising from 65 degree F on brew day to where it is now, with some minor fluctuations along the way. I don't have any way to regulate fermentation temperatures, though I am aiming for 80 degrees F, but I have the fermenter bucket wrapped in blankets and coats and I put a space heater on it every once in a while. I am working on having more control on the fermentation temperature, and since it is winter time I will be starting with heat. More to come on that soon....