• 7lbs US 2Row Pale Malt
• 5lbs Wheat Malt
• 4.2oz Flaked oats
• 1lb Belgian candy sugar (45min)
• 1oz UK Goldings Hops (60min)
• .5oz Czech Saas (15min)
• 1oz Bitter Orange peel (half at 15min and half at 3min)
• .5oz  ground coriander (15min)
• .25tsp crushed cumin seeds
• 1tsp crushed grains of paradise
• Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier

Since it was going to be a rainy Sunday anyway, I decided to take my time and brew later than usual.  I started not long after 10:30am and finished at about 2pm.  This was a 5 gallon batch with relatively simple set up so I was lazy and decided to skip the starter.

I still set my recipes at 65% efficiency although it seems like I am doing better than that with my new grain mill.  More to come on that…

I struck with 4 gal of water at 175f which made my mash about 153f, slightly above my target 151f, but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.  I ran a fly sparge with an additional 4gal of water at 185f which successfully raised my mash bed temp to 168f.  My sparge ran for about 25min before finishing off.  For the second time since I got my pH meter, I did a pH reading.  This one was 5.9.  I am not quite at the point of doing anything about, just trying to get the reading process into by brew day.

I was able to reach a boil not long after the sparge was finished because I have been keeping my wort on heat while I run off.  This is a huge help on time and its made a lot easier when only brewing 5gal.  Everything else pretty much followed schedule, but there was one thing that kept throwing me off.

Like many brewers, I am paranoid that something is broken so I take readings with multiple devices.  I use a hydrometer and a refractometer, I used a digital and a dial thermometer and so on.  In this case I took a readying of the pre-boil gravity with my refractometer and saw that I was at 15brix or about 1.060 (way above the projected 1.044).  However, when I took a hydrometer reading, I was at 1.044.  I was puzzled but just assumed that I had measured the refractometer too hot or something.

Later, when I was getting the OG, my refractometer was reading 1.066 (16brix) while my hydrometer was reading 1.046.  Suddenly I noticed that the paper in the hydrometer had slid out of place, thus explaining the discrepancy.  With that in mind, my efficiency was more in the ball park of 80%, an obvious huge difference.  This seems a little out of place so I am going to start to scale my recipes slightly to the more accepted 75% given the change.  This explains a lot because my last few brews seemed a little stiff.

All and all it was a great brew day; fairly uneventful and productive.  I am interested in seeing how this one turns out.  More to come!  Cheers

 I made a decision about the wit and went with banana extract.  Initially I had visions of using real banana and doing some cool stuff, but with the holidays I was really distracted and just added some extract into the secondary.  I added 1 fl oz of extract to 5 gallons of beer.  The extract was a little pungent in the bottle, but it blended well with the Belgian yeast. 

The name Space Monkey Wit came to me a while back because of the banana in the brew, but last night’s episode of Mythbusters where they busted all the myths about a hoax moon landing sealed the deal.  It’s just about ready to tap, I put one of the bottles in the fridge so I think I am going to give it a test run later tonight.

Cheers

Making Beer

Today was another glorious brew day in Central New York!  Normally I use my brew day posts to review the stats on our session, but this morning I was thinking that this might be a good opportunity to review some of my brew day practices in greater detail.

Living close to a homebrew shop can be a blessing and a curse all at the same time.  I am the person who is always charged with getting the grain for the weekend brew day.  This requires a little light planning for me because I have to make sure that everyone is in for the weekend session.  It can be a little stressful at times trying to make sure that I get the grain, yeast and hops for the weekend, I wouldn’t trade being close to a brew shop for being far away.  It’s nice to be able to make a quick run to visit Ed.

We’re morning brewers.  We do this because it helps the relationships with our significant others and brewing doesn’t take us out of commission for a whole day.  Because we start brewing at 7am on a Sunday, I am always looking for ways to keeping me in bed for as long as possible before I have to get up to fire up the water.  I like to set up my coffee maker so that I just flip the switch in the morning.  Brew-day coffee is the mother’s milk of our morning brewing. 

While obviously I have to fire up the starter the night before we brew, I also like to draw the water into my brew buckets.  This is especially helpful on our 20 and 30 gallon brew days.  It may not seem like a big time saver, but at 7am, every little bit helps.  Last night I turned my truck around because I use the tailgate for part of out “brew-tree”, again, every little bit helps.  In the morning, all I have to do is flip on the coffee maker on my way out to open the garage door and pull my truck out to the driveway.  From there, I set up my burners and keggle.

While I draw the water the night before I brew, I still keep it in the basement because it would get cold in the garage and cause me to have to burn more propane than necessary getting it up to temp.  The same thing is true for the grain.  I also store my crushed grain in my mashtun the days before we brew so no mice catch a whiff of it and decide to find there way into my basement.  Another reason for drawing my water the night before I is that I can draw cold water and let my basement do the work of bringing it up a few degrees, this is good for energy and good for the hot water heater.

I am always trying to get the waterstarted as early as possible on brew day.  Raising the temp of our waterand lowering it are two of the factors that can save time on a brew day, I can fire the burner up and let the water heat up while I eat a bowl of cereal and wait for Nick and Bryan to fight through the snow to get here in time for brewing.

Once the brewing starts, we’re really pretty  on point.  We’ve gotten pretty good about adjusting our brew day temps to reflect the temp outside and our schedule of what to do when is pretty automatic at this point.  A few of my neighbors have been known to stop in and say hi (Dominic comes bearing homemade wine), but usually we just get waves and honks (especially in the cold).

We use a makeshift brewing tree that changes from week to week depending on what is laying around in my garage.  I’ve made some drawings of some structures to take the place of this, but I doubt we’ll build anything before the spring.  Our system works, although I STILL want to tighten up our sparging and mashouts.

We steep our hops in reusable grain bags.  This helps keep our volume up where we want it, some people say that our alpha acids might suffer, but we ring the sacks out pretty well at the end of the day to ensure that as little of that hoppy goodness is lost as possible.  This makes hopps additions a little tricky, but we have it down by now.

When it comes to cooling, I have a submersion chiller that works out pretty well.  Snow on the sides of the keggle helps to cool, though I would not recommend using this for the primary cooling as it is not real effective.  We use it to cool the outside of the keggle (and clean it a little) so that we can take it into the basement for cooling using the faucet on my basement sink.

When it’s all said and done, sanitize using the water that is coming out of the submersion chiller and fill our buckets using a mix of both keggles (if we’re making a 20 gallon batch).  When it’s all said and done, we usually have 5hrs wrapped up into the brew day, but we normally each take home 10 gallons of beer, so it’s well worth our time.

That’s about it in a nutshell for a brew day here.

Cheers.

Anyway, since one of our brew clubmeetings where someone brought in a kiwi wit, we’ve been jonesing to brew a wit with kiwi.  It wasn’t something that I would have ever thought I would like, but it was great.  It was sour and sweet with great drinkability.  It’s a good brew.   However, in the process of shopping around for kiwi prices, we discovered that kiwi was going to be very expensive in the winter months, and considering its Christmas, we’re feeling pretty cheap.

So, now we have the parts for a belgian wit base:

Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.12 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 4.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amount Item Type % or IBU
11.50 lb Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 46.46 %
11.50 lb Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 46.46 %
1.75 lb Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 7.07 %
2.00 oz Pearle [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 27.5 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (10 min) Hops 3.4 IBU
1.00 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Belgian Witbier (Wyeast Labs #3944)Yeast-Wheat

Now the question is; what do we use to fruit the beer?

Nick suggested raspberries or coconut.  I was thinking about bananas.  Now we just need to figure out what we are going to brew with.  We’re open to suggestions.  I am personally not in favor of the raspberry as I am just not feeling the red fruits.  They dominate anything they are added to. 

Updates to come as we make this decision. 

Cheers

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MDNFaGfT4]

This past weekend we brewed up three batches of brew. We also broke a new brewer into the hobby when by wife’s cousin Bryan (Yes MNB, spelled like Bryan Adams, no need to get all giddy) joined us and brewed up an extract batch. When the day was all said and done, we had brewed up about 20 gallons of beer.

Nick and I brewed a 10.5 gallon of Belgian wit I named Ongenaet Wheat – after Belgian SU Basketball player Kristof Ongenaet. If you haven’t seen the guy play, he’s a warrior, total scrapper. Against Marquette he stole the ball and did a 1 on 4 coast to coast where he dunked and drew the foul. I couldn’t find that highlight, but here is Arinze Onuaku breaking a backboard at the midnight madness game.

Ongenaet Wheat
Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 10.50 gal
Boil Size: 13.12 gal
Estimated OG: 1.049 SG
Estimated Color: 5.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————

12.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Euro (3.0 SRM) Grain 51.72 %
8.25 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 35.56 %
1.75 lb Munich Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 7.54 %
1.20 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.17 %
1.00 oz Brewer’s Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 14.0 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [4.30 %] (25 min) Hops 2.6 IBU
1 Pkgs Belgian Strong Ale (Wyeast Labs #13Yeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 23.20 lb
—————————-
Single Infusion, Light Body

75 min Mash In Add 7.25 gal of water at 161.4 F 150.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 4.64 gal of water at 200.2 F 168.0 F

‘Cuse may have been snubbed from the big dance, but this beer is going to help wash away the pain. We also used 2oz of sour orange peel, 1tsp of crushed coriander, and 2oz of grains of paradise. It weighed in at 1.044 making this a summer sensation.

The second recipe we brewed was a 5 gallon alt that we used the kolsch yeast in both for the cream ale and the kolsch. The recipe was based on the specs from Ray Daniels Designing Great Beers:

Alt-ternative Lifestyles
Recipe Specifications
————————–
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 13.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————

6.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 59.63 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt – 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 18.35 %
1.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 10L (10.0 SRGrain 11.47 %
1.00 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 9.17 %
0.15 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 1.38 %
1.25 oz Brewer’s Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 37.4 IBU
1 Pkgs Kolsch Yeast (Wyeast Labs #2565) [SYeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 10.90 lb
—————————-
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge

60 min Mash In Add 3.41 gal of water at 159.1 F 148.0 F

This beer came in a little light for the specs, but I would say that a lot of that had to do with the new mash tun clogging. The OG should have been 1.047 and it wound up 1.041. I have since fixed the issue with the false bottom and moved back to the braid – old faithful – it always works!

Finally we brewed up Bryan’s Guinness Stout Clone. I came up with the recipe based on Googling some clone recipes and trying to find out what worked. It turns out people on the Internet are morons (present company excluded). The recipe is way light and a little under hopped. Not a HUGE deal, just a little pissed that people (multiple) post up recipes that are so far off. Anyway, lesson learned and I am sticking with good ole Beer Smith from here on in:

6.6lbs Muttons light LME
1lb Flaked Barkey
.5lb Roasted Barley
.25lb Black Patent
1oz Northern Brewer (60min)
1oz Fuggles (3min)

Steeped grains for 1/2hr at 158f, added 1tsp of gypsum. We dumped in the extract, brought it to a boil and topped it off with water once it was cooled off to give him the proper quantity. The OG was about 1.049 with 33 IBU’s.

Going forward, I would replace the light LME with dark, increase the BP from .25 to .5, and the roasted barley to .75. Right now he is light for the color (about 26SRM) and could use some more hopps. With that said, it should still be a good beer for his first time out.

Bryan came over Sunday morning prepared with venison sausage, baked beans and a cast iron pan (seen cooking in the picture) so we got to eat some breakfast and brew some beer. Not much else to say besides that…

Cheers!

With that said, we were fortunate this weekend in the North East to have an albeit breezy, but sunny day in Upstate New York. Sunday I took advantage of the weather and brewed the crowd favorite Mulligan Wit.

Here some some items of note from the brew day:

• I made a starter that I cooked a little hot and it boiled over in the stove.
  It’s also had some of the DME scorched the bottom of the flask (first time using
  my flask, kind of a pain in the arss).
• Started brewing at 8:30am, finish time 2:30pm, 6hr brew session.
• I heated the mash water up to 175F and it leveled out at about 154F when it was in the mash tun. One item of note was that I got two different readings from the
  thermometer, I usually stick it into a tiny hole I have in the top of the mash
  tun, and it was saying 160F, when I put the thermometer into the mash, it was
  154F. I am assuming that this is because the steam is so hot in the mash tun.
  Take note for future batches.
• The gravity of the mash was 1.060 without any adjustments to compensate for heat. I need to make sure that I start cooling these off more from now on.
• I sparged at 175F and had two rests in the sparge. By the time I was done with the sparge I had used 5.5 gallons of sparge water and 4.5 gallons of mash water.
• The beginning boil OG of the wort was 1.040, this was again without adjustment to temp.
• I used a fine grain bag as a way to keep hop loss to a minimum. I also used this for all of the other items on the list for this recipe.
• The boil went for about 1hr and 20 min., the end yield was 4.8 gallons.
• The OG was 1.059, a whole .010 over my target at 1.049 so I added water
  and stirred it a while. I got it down to 1.052 and called it good.
• I pitched at 74F and it was bubbling within 24hrs very actively!

It was a successful brew day. I doubt I will enter this one into any competitions as it’s more of a brew that I enjoy than anything. I just hope that I am going to be able to get it close to what I had last year.

Cheers!

Grain Bill:
2 Row Pale Malt (Mutton’s US)- 7.43 lbs
Flaked Wheat- 5.76 lbs
Biscuit Malt- .14lbs
Flaked Oats- .27lbs
Clear Candi Sugar- .5 lbs (45min)

Other:

1.5 tsp Ground Coriander (15min)
1.5 oz Bitter Orange Peel (1/2 @ 15min 1/2 @ 3min)
1/2 tsp Crushed Cumin Seed
1.5 tsp Crushed Grains of Paradise

Hops:

1oz Saaz (3.75% AA) 60 min
1oz Styrian Golding (5.25% AA) 30 min

Yeast:

Belgium White Beer Yeast

OG: 1.052
FG: 1.009

ABV 5.6%

I made some adjustments to this recipe because I am shooting for a 7 gallon yield. I have been trying to get higher and higher yields and I am barley getting what I need to so I am going to shoot for a little more this time and see where I end up.

If you see anything here that looks out of place, now is the time to let me know because I am not brewing till this weekend!

Cheers!

Malt Extract: 3.3lbs Light malt extract (I used Muttons)
3.3lbs Wheat Malt extract (again, Muttons, wish they would sponsor me)
Specialty Grain: .5lbs Crystal Malt

Bitter Hops: 1.5oz Hallertauer (45min)
Flavor Hops: .5oz Hallertauer (10min)

Yeast: Wyeast Weizenbeer Yeast

Special: 8 lbs of frozen sweet cherry’s (they are put in during the fermentation, watch for clogging of the bubbler, I used a spill-over tube which consists of a tube connected to the plug where the bubbler goes and it runs into a bucket of sanitized water, worked really well, the fermentation was really intense on this batch)

OG: 1.040
FG: 1.005

This is by far my favorite kind of beer, so without a doubt I’m a bias observer. However, the brew recipe I used for this worked out great, it comes highly recommended.

It has a great smell, light fruity hints throughout the brew, and it’s even uncharacteristically clear for a Belgium White. I had two of my golf buddies over the other night after a very ugly night at the links. It was named the “Mulligan Witte” because it was a Mulligan for our whole night.

If you are looking for something summer, smooth, easy to drink, this is a great option.

For anyone in the brewing side of things, it was OG 1.045, and FG at 1.011, Making it a hair under 5% abv. The grains of paradise really stand out in the aroma, but the orange peel is pungent in the flavor. It was in the primary fermentation for about 1 week, and in the secondary for over 2 weeks. I racked it too early and it fermented in the secondary for just about the whole two weeks.

Good luck.

Malt Extract: 4lb Alexander’s wheat Malt Syrup (60% wheat and 40% Barley)
Specialty Grain: 4oz flaked oats
3oz Belgian biscuit Malt

Bitter hops: 1oz Styrian Goldings (45 min)
Flavor Hops: 1/2 oz Saaz (15min)

Yeast: Belgian White Beer Yeast- liquid

Special 1/2 lb Belgian clear candy sugar (45min)
*1tsp ground coriander (15min)
1oz bitter orange peel (1/2 15min, 1/2 at 3min)
1/4tsp crushed cumin seeds
1tsp crushed grains of paradise

OG: 1.045 (range 1.048-1.049)
FG: 1.015 (1.009-1.010)

*I did not use this, but it was part of the mix.

I brewed this for just under an hour and it fermented in the primary for about 3 or 4 days before slowing down. It smells really good I can’t wait to try it!