Buffalo B(rew)log

Whirlpooling (with lots of flavorful hops)

This iteration, which is really a different beer altogether, will be lighter in color, drier, more bitter and will have a somewhat different range of hop flavors.  SotE #2 will be very dank/earthy/piney in the nose, yet very fruit forward in flavor.  I also wanted more of a biscuity/grainy flavor from the malt, and less caramel malt presence.  Think Pilsner.

To achieve that target, I opted to revert from my standard 2-row to a Pilsner malt.  I'm also in the custom of using a fair proportion of American Crystal Malt (usually 20 40 or 60 L) - in this brew I only used a few ounces, primarily for color.

Finally, I went with a more modest water profile.  I sought to decrease the calcium and sulfate and increase the chloride.  My hope is that this will provide a softer mouthfeel and a less lingering bitterness.

Here's the recipe:

Salt of the Earth #2 10-A American Pale Ale Brewed: 4/14/13 

Size: 6.16 gal Efficiency: 83% (measured) Attenuation: 79% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.051 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (estimated)

Color: 8.36 Alcohol: 5.26%  IBU: 54.9

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 56  Mg: 14  Na: 14  SO₄: 64  Cl: 46  HCO₃: 39 

Ingredients:

10 lb Pilsen Malt

4 oz Caramel 20°L

2 oz Caramel 40°L

5 mL HopShot - Boiled 65 min

0.75 oz Simcoe (13.0% AA) - boiled 20 minutes

0.75 oz Amarillo (8.5% AA) - boiled 10 minutes

1.25 oz Simcoe - ‘whirlpool’

0.75 oz Amarillo - ‘whirlpool’

2 oz Chinook (13.0% AA) - dry hop (opted not to add.  see below)

0.5 oz Centennial (10.0% AA) - dry hop

2 oz Columbus (16.1% AA) - dry hop

2L Starter WLP007 "Dry English"

Schedule:

Mash @ 150F (1.33 qt/lb)

Mash out @ 170F

Batch sparge - water alkalinity adjusted

Listening:

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief Wilco - The Whole Love

Notes:

4/14/13: brewed on a Sunday, by myself

Had really good efficiency, but my mash pH was initially way off (low at 4.6) for some reason.  I guess this is why I check.  I had it corrected to 5.3 within 6-7 minutes of dough-in.

Efficiency was actually a little too good.  Wound up having to add 1.75 quarts of water to dilute down to OG.  Filtered, pH adjusted, boiled, chilled before adding.

Chilled to 64, pitched big starter of WLP007 and left at 65 ambient to ferment.  

4/16: Fermentation crept up to about 68, which I was concerned was a little high.  Got it into a swamp cooler and down to 66.  With the temperature outside creeping up, I'm going to need to bite the bullet and build or buy a real fermentation temp control system.

4/23: Fermentation done (and quick).  FG 1.010 +/- 1.  Racked into a sanitized, purged secondary with 2 oz Columbus and .5 oz Centennial.  Will pull after ~3 days and add 2 oz Chinook.  After that - rack>keg>drink!  This'll be a quick turnaround.

WLP007 (the yeast) is crazy when it comes to flocculation.  Really thick, compact yeast cake at the bottom.  Saved a bunch for future batches.  

I checked the beer tonight and opted not to add the 2 oz of Chinook (dry hop) that I had planned on.  The beer is right where I want it.  No sense taking it in another direction with more, different hops.  I'll give it a few more days to condition, but it'll be in a keg by week end.

I’ve been doing some reading and here’s basically the way maple harvesting and production works: As winter comes in and temperatures drop below freezing, Maple trees will draw in water, which eventually freezes. This water becomes sugary (mostly sucrose), as it is stored in the tree through the winter. When spring finally comes, and temperatures are still fluctuating between freezing at night and above freezing at day, pressure is created within the tree. It’s a narrow time window that this occurs, often as short as one week a year, but If a “wound” is introduced to the tree trunk, the water collected in the winter (now sap) will flow out.

Maple sap is actually fairly watery - only somewhere between 1 and 4% sugar. Maple syrup makers bring the sap into a sugar shack, where it is heated up, evaporating off the water and concentrating the sugar percentage. To make maple syrup, it can take up to 50-60 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup, which is usually 66% sugar. There’s also a maillard reaction which causes the syrup to darken to its trademark amber and brown colors.

Tom is a member of a CSA who also have a connection a maple producer somewhere south of Buffalo. I believe in the woods south of East Aurora. If you’re not familiar - it’s a pretty rustic, sparsely populated area probably 30 miles south of Buffalo proper. These folks are very much off the beaten path, but have a plot with a couple of thousand maple trees. Many of these are plumbed directly into the sugar shack, but there are still some with an old fashioned bucket collection system, which need to be hand-picked up throughout the woods.

One of two 5 gallon containers of ~2.7% maple sap

Tom took a lunchtime trip out on Friday and came away with 10 gallons of freshly harvested maple sap, as well 64 oz of last year’s syrup. The sap is fairly highly concentrated at ~2.7% sugar. Under 2% is much more common. When I say it was fresh, I’m not kidding. It had pieces of bark and leaves in it - completely unfiltered and natural, just what we wanted.

Tom also took the picture of the sugar shack above and had some stories of fresh maple syrup consumption (like pouring hot syrup over fresh cornbread, straight out of the evaporator) that made me pretty jealous. At roughly the same time, I think I was sitting on a conference call and eating a can of soup. He wins this round.

I’ve heard Maple sap compared to milk, in that it will spoil very quickly if not refrigerated or used promptly. Fortunately, we both had the day free yesterday (Saturday 3/30) and got started with the brew around 10 am. It was a sunny day around 45 degrees, which is the best we’ve had in months - a great day to put a fun beer together.

Mash sap, heating up to temperature (~172F)

We decided to make the beer an Imperial Porter, using the fresh maple sap as our brewing liquor. The sap increases the gravity a bit, but does not necessarily add a lot of maple flavor. From what I’ve read, using sap or syrup during the brew/boil will actually impart more of a woody flavor than classic maple sweetness. I want the woody quality, but with that in mind, we’ll also be adding 64 oz (two quarts) of 66% maple syrup to the secondary, which should give a great maple flavor and increase the alcohol percentage.

One of the other considerations that we had to keep in mind, was the unknown quantity of minerals in the sap. I know what’s in my water, and often modify it to meet my grist and/or beer goals. This time around, I relied on pH measurements to ensure that I was going to get decent mash conversion. Using a lot of roasted grains in the mash, I knew I would probably need to increase alkalinity. I wound up adding a few grams each of CaSO4, CaCO3 and MgSO4 to ensure some mineral content. Once I checked the pH, it was actually a little high for the mash, at 5.6, so I used a little (food grade) lactic acid to bring it down to 5.3/4. The sparge sap’s pH was around 6.2, which I determined to be a pretty good level and not requiring adjustment. All in all, this worked out well as our mash efficiency was probably in the 77% range. *This was a little difficult to calculate, as the concentration of the maple sap was also providing a somewhat unknown amount of dissolved sugar.

I kept the recipe fairly simple, as the different maple additions are going to provide plenty of complexity. With simple 2-row base, a heavy hand of Roasted Barley and a variety of flavorful adjuncts, I think we’re well on our way to a really special beer. My yeast of choice was White Labs’ WLP007 Dry English strain, which is quickly becoming my go-to. It’s fast, furious, flocculent, flavorful and has a high alcohol tolerance. The last part will come into play when we bottle condition this in a few weeks.

When it came time to brew, we had 10 gallons of sap to work with - a little more than we needed. I really didn’t want any to go to waste, so we wound up using it all in the mash and sparge, and extending the boil to concentrate down to the gravity and quantity that we wanted. This wound up being a bit more of a commando brew than I usually do, but it was fun and worked out well. The only bad thing is, it makes it more difficult to reproduce. I think in the long run, that’ll be part of the magic behind this one as I open each bottle.

Following primary fermentation, we’ll rack into a clean secondary with the 2 quarts of maple syrup. In an effort to add as much maple ‘terroir’ as possible, I’m also working on sourcing some maple cubes or spirals (wood), which will also be added to the secondary to give a maple-barrel aged essence.

In the end, this will be a big (~10.8% abv), roasty, maple-y beer with a great story behind it. I’m excited to see this one progress and share with friends.

Here’s the recipe:

Sap, Syrup & Wood Imperial Porter Brewed 3/30/13

Size: 6 gal Efficiency: 77% (estimated) Attenuation: 79% (anticipated) Original Gravity: 1.083 (measured. 2 qt of maple syrup should bring to 1.103) Terminal Gravity: 1.019 (estimated)

Color: 29.79 SRM Alcohol: 10.82% IBU: 33

Water: Unknown (maple sap). Added gypsum, epsom salt and chalk to create a baseline

Ingredients:

12 lbs. Canadian 2-row

1.25 lb Roasted Barley

1 lb. Aromatic Malt

0.5 lb Crystal 60L

0.5 lb Belgian Chocolate Malt

0.25 lb Kiln Coffee Malt

0.66 oz Columbus (16.1%) - boiled 90+ minutes

White Labs WLP007 - Dry English. Big pitch from American ESB brew

64 oz pure, 66% maple syrup.  To be pasteurized to 180F, cooled and added to secondary

Notes:

3/30: Brewed on a sunny Saturday afternoon with Tom (we’re splitting the batch). Mark and Alex were here to help/hang out. Winging it a little due to some unknowns, but everything went great and the wort tasted unbelievably good. Drank a bunch of beers, ate some cheese and pizza while brewing. No complaints whatsoever

Mashed at 153F, boiled for around 100 minutes. Cooked down from about 8.75 gal and wound up with around 6 gallons of 1.083 wort (had planned for 1.077). Once I add 2 quarts of 66% maple syrup to the secondary, this might as well be 1.103.

Chilled to 68F, pitched a huge yeast slurry from my last batch and left at an ambient of 58F to kick off.

Fermentation in full roar by morning

Outside of some of the upper end offerings, American Saisons can be very one dimensional - dry, lots of spice, no fruit.  The best examples are dry but maintain a solid mouthfeel, zesty carbonation and are overall effervescent and flavorful with notes of fruit, spice and grain.  Historically, Saisons would have been "infected" with wild yeasts and bacteria, which would have added a tartness and some funk.

I've brewed a few Saisons that have turned out well, but really wanted to try some new things.  Previously, I had really restricted myself to traditional ingredients - pilsen malt, noble hops.  This time around, I decided to brew one without special ordering any ingredients and rather opting for those I keep on hand.  This is intentional and in the spirit of a more traditional farmhouse ale, which was likely something of a kitchen sink brew.  I also want it to be fairly hoppy.

I keep basic 2-row around, which would be my base malt.  I also usually keep flaked oats and red wheat around, as well as a variety of hops - both domestic and imported.  The oats and wheat will play well with the highly attenuative Saison yeast.  That is to say, they should help maintain mouthfeel and a bit of residual sugar while the aggressive yeast chews away at anything in its path.  

In terms of hops, I bittered with some locally grown Cascades, which I happened to have a decent quantity of.  I finished (late and dry) with Motueka hops.  Typically, Saisons are brewed with a noble hop variety.  Motueka are bred from noble hops (Saaz), but grown in New Zealand.  I think their lemony flavors will lend well to a Saison.

This Saison is actually a sub-type of Saison called Biere de Miel.  This is essentially a honey saison.  The fermentable sugar was comprised of roughly 20% local, wildflower honey.  The taste of the honey was incredible - much better than the generic clover honey you get at the grocery store - and I'm really excited to taste it in the beer.

With the water, I basically went with a modified Wallonia (Belgium; home of Saison) profile.  The actual Wallonian profile is extremely hard, with ~350 ppm bicarbonate and plenty of the other essential water ions.  I went with a profile similar to this, but with only about 100 ppm bicarbonate.  The rest should be close to the real thing.

Finally, I captured some wild yeast for a bottle of the aforementioned Hill Farmstead Arthur, which to my knowledge is a blend of Brettanomyces strains.  I'll be kegging the majority of this batch, but doing an extended secondary with the remainder and adding the Brett.  This will also spend time in contact with some white wine oak and eventually be bottled and aged.

Here's my recipe:

Biere de Miel 16-C Saison Brewed 3/17/13

Size: 8 gal Efficiency: 79% (measured) Attenuation: 84% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.057 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.009 (estimated)

Color:   9.43 SRM Alcohol: 6.22%  IBU: 35.6

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 57  Mg: 15  Na: 19  SO₄: 106  Cl: 28  HCO₃: 97

Ingredients:

10 lbs. Canadian 2-row

1 lb. Aromatic Malt

1 lb. Red Wheat Malt

1 lb. Flaked Oats

0.5 lb Crystal 20L

3 lb Local Wildflower Honey, added with 10 minutes remaining in boil

2 oz Cascade (6.2%) - boiled 60 minutes

2 oz Motueka - boiled 5 minutes

2 oz Motueka - "whirlpool"

2 oz Motueka - dry hop

Wyeast 3724 - Belgian Saison (DuPont) - 2 packages

Brett blend - Hill Farmstead Arthur.  To be added to 3 gallons in secondary.

Notes:

3/17: Brewed on a Sunday, by myself, while neighbors wore green and got sloshed.  Had a couple of beers while I brewed, including a Saison DuPont and a Southern Tier Live.  The latter is a new offering and I was really pleased with it.

Undershot volume and overshot gravity somewhat significantly.  Still getting used to the high boil-off rate of my bigger kettle.  

Added 1.5 gallons of extra, filtered and treated water, to the end of the boil.  With that adjustment, my volume and gravity were right back where I wanted them.

Have been propagating the HF brett on my stirplate for the last several days.  Transferred to a mason jar and put in the fridge to settle.  Looks like I have more than enough.

Chilled to 75, split into two fermenters, pitched yeast and left to ferment at an ambient just shy of 70.  Once the yeast gets active, the exothermic fermentation should bring it up to 74 or so, which is right where I want it.

3/26: Fermentation mostly wrapped up with a gravity of 1.007 (woah, not bad).  Krausen has dropped for the most part, but a thin layering of yeast persists.  Still some stinging CO2 coming off of the fermenter, so there's still some kind of activity, though I suspect it is mostly cleanup work.  I'd like to get some of this in bottles in another 10 days or so for a competition, but no sense rushing it.  Excited to get the oak and brett version transferred and inoculated.

3/29: Fermentation seems complete at 1.006 and the yeast has finally dropped.  Transferred 3 gallons into a glass carboy (filled to neck), along with a slurry of HF Arthur Brett and a handful of medium toast oak cubes that had been soaking in Sauvignon Blanc for about a month.  FWIW, the super-oaky wine left behind in the mason jar tastes incredible.

While focusing on all of these big beers, I started falling behind on my keg rotation.  I always have two kegs pouring so that I can share with guests and have something to take to social events.  I've become pretty good at timing my kegged beers so that hoppy beers are consumed at peak freshness and non-hoppy beers have an appropriate amount of conditioning time.  Despite having a lot of (usually good) beer around at all times, I seldom drink during the week and rarely more than two pours in any sitting.

First runnings, starting to heat up

The idea of this beer is, like the recipe, fairly simple and somewhat classic.  I wanted a true session beer - something flavorful and drinkable, but with a light body that would be refreshing after an evening jog with the pooch.  I wanted it to have sweetness, smoothness but a fairly bold hop expression.

I settled on doing kind of an Americanized ESB, with a strong English malt presence.  I also added a bit of oat to provide that smoothness.  This one was more or less reverse engineered, based on what I want it to taste like.

True to keeping it simple, I also stepped back from the intense new breed and high alpha hops that have marked my last several pales/ipas/dipas and went with the tried and true, but seemingly forgotten Cascade hops.  I hadn't used cascades in quite a while, but their pine and grapefruit notes are fantastic.

I decided to make this a single-hop beer, using only cascades.  One of the things I'm kind of experimenting with on this one is bittering with low alpha hops.  I have a theory that there's a different, unique and perhaps better character to be derived from this technique.  If the results are what I expect them to be, I plan to utilize low alpha bittering in some future brews.

Delicious cascades

One of a couple of small water adjustments made.  Calcium Chloride.

I expect this beer to have a strong biscuity malt presence, a fairly dry but smooth body and light notes of grapefruit and pine in both the nose and taste.  Finally, I hope the bitterness to have a certain "cruchiness" to it.  Here's the recipe:

American Oat ESB 8-C English Pale Ale Brewed 3/5/13

Size: 4.9 gal Efficiency: 82% (measured) Attenuation: 75% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.051 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (estimated)

Color:   11.13 SRM Alcohol: 5.01%  IBU: 44.8

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 58  Mg: 14  Na: 14  SO₄: 79  Cl: 39  HCO₃: 49

Ingredients:

7.5 lb English 2-row Pale Malt (6# Pearl, 1.5# Maris Otter)

1 lb oats

4 oz English C-80

2 oz English C-120

1.75 oz Cascade Hops (6.7%) - boiled 60 minutes

1.25 oz Cascade Hops (6.7%) - whirlpool

White Labs WLP007 - Dry English Ale yeast

2.00 oz Cascade Hops (6.7%) - Dry hop

Schedule:

Mash @ 152 (1.30 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water alkalinity adjusted)

Ferment at 64

Notes:

3/5: Brewed on a Tuesday night, by myself.  Raced home from work to get my strike water started heating, so that I wouldn't be up all night.  Typically I don't do weeknight brews, as I don't finish cleaning up until after 11 pm.  

Hit mash temp and pH dead on (152, 5.3 at room temp).  Opted to do my boil on the stove - my new 10 gal kettle is big enough to fit across two (gas) burners and maintain a solid boil.  

Finished with a slightly lower volume (4.9 gal v. 5.0 gal) and higher efficiency (82% v. 79%) than planned.  This resulted in the beer tentatively being 5.0% instead of the 4.8% I'd planned for.  Not to worry, this should be fine.

There's actually two beers being discussed here, as different as they are similar.  First, I was asked to brew a "calibration" beer for an upcoming competition - something for the judges to drink between flights and for stewards to "snack on".  Specifically, the request was to "brew a really boring Irish Red" (is that a double negative?).  I don't really like Irish Red, and didn't want the leftovers of one kicking around, so I tweaked the request a bit, brewing a sessionable Scottish beer that will serve a similar purpose.  Not much to this one, but the recipe is below. 

Around the time fermentation was wrapping up on that one, I struck up a conversation with a co-worker who has a similar level of interest in his chosen hobbies, bar-be-que and charcuterie, as I do brewing.  I admittedly kind of wear the fact that I'm into brewing on my sleeve, so it's fairly well known around the office by now.  He expressed some interest in checking out a brew.  

After some discussion, I asked him to pick a favorite style, which he went with Wee Heavy, or Strong Scottish Ale.  A little bit of a dark horse, but I hadn't ever found the occasion to brew one and was intrigued by the idea.  We agreed on doing some additional, interesting things with the beer, which I'll get into below.  We agreed to split the resulting beer 50/50, I put together a recipe and we picked a date.  It also wound up being fairly convenient that I had a nice big pitch of scottish yeast leftover from the session brew.

Some weird striations in the ice caused by the propane burner's heat

Last Saturday, 3/2, we got together at my apartment and got to work.  It was probably only 20 degrees outside, but fortunately I do most of the brewing indoors.  We took a pretty leisurely pace with the brew, chatting and enjoying a couple of cheeses and meats along with the obligatory homebrews.  Alex, a regular visitor during my brews was also around for most of the brew and contributed some tasty homebrews to the cause.

Good stuff, all

So.. the beer.  I wanted it make it big, but not oppressively big.  My recipe had actually intended for the beer to come out around 9.2%.  I unfortunately made a few (uncharacteristic) oversights that resulted in a slightly lower gravity.  The beer is now looking like it'll be more like 8.75% which I could have corrected with some DME, but opted not to.  That's still plenty big a beer.  Regardless of ABV, the goal is for this beer to have a malty boldness with a rich, deep caramel profile and full mouthfeel.

The malt bill was fairly basic but only somewhat traditional, based on my limited research.  Historically, the deep, burnt and caramel flavors of a beer like this would come from a simple malt bill (perhaps even single variety), but an extremely long boil, possibly in excess of three hours.  This would cause extensive concentration and kettle caramelization, leading to the aforementioned flavors.

I don't have a kettle big or a day long enough to completely reproduce that technique.  In light of that, I did want to be sure we mimicked that kind of kettle caramelization and draw as much character as possible.  That was done partly by choosing a malt bill that provides those burnt and caramel flavors, but there are other tricks one can employ as well.  

Specifically, we took about a gallon of the first runnings (most concentrated with sugars) and boiled in a small pot on the stove.  That small pot boiled for about 2.5 hours and concentrated down to about 12 oz of caramel-like malt syrup.  I was surprised how well this cook-down method worked - decidedly viscous, super sweet and sticky.  It actually reached a point where it began to foam up and I believe did convert to caramel.  This uber-goodness was added back into the main kettle, which also underwent a 90 minute boil and some caramelization of its own. 

You can see on the walls of the pot how much water boiled off.  This was actually topped off a few times with more wort before I let it boil down.  Awesome.

The base was half Maris Otter and half Rahr 2-row.  This will give some classic English, nutty malt character, but not so much that it detracts from the caramel-ly maltiness that we're going for.  I also used some English C80, English C120 and a touch of Roasted malt.  I had also bought some peat smoked malt, but chickened out on using it and instead hope to get the classic Scottish phenolics from my yeast and water profile.

Speaking of water profiles, I opted to use a classic Edinburgh water profile, which I feel is appropriate for obvious reasons (Edinburgh is in Scotland, duh).  It also made for a perfect mash pH, which is great.  Kind of an interesting profile - very hard, fairly high in minerals across the board, especially calcium.  That said, much more balanced than something like Burton-upon-Trent and its notorious sulfate levels.

Once the beer is done fermenting, we'll give it a few weeks in secondary to condition and clear.  Here's where I think things get a little more fun.  The plan is to split the batch into two equal halves.  One will be "clean".  The other will receive both bourbon oak and vanilla bean.  The bourbon oak started as medium toast american oak cubes, but has spent the last six weeks submerged in a mason jar full of a bourbon blend.  This mix is of Jack Daniels (50%), Woodford Reserve Double Oak (25%) and Finger Lakes McKenzie (25%).  By the time I add the cubes, they'll have had 10 weeks to soak up the Bourbon and yes, I will be saving the now even-more-oaky Bourbon for consumption.  I see us sipping on that as we bottle this beer.  I'm also going to be ordering some organic, fair trade vanilla beans for this one.  

We'll wind up with about 24 bottles of each - clean and bourbon/vanilla.  I'm really looking forward to both.  Here's the recipe(s):

Bourbon Vanilla Wee Heavy 9-E Strong Scotch Ale Brewed 3/2/13

Size: 5.25 gal Efficiency: 71.5% (measured) Attenuation: 75% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.086 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.021 (estimated)

Color:  17+ SRM Alcohol: 8.7%  IBU: 47.3

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 98  Mg: 16  Na: 20  SO₄: 90  Cl: 50  HCO₃: 140 

Ingredients:

8 lb 2-row Pale Malt

8 lb Maris Otter Malt

8 oz English C-80

4 oz English C-120

3 oz Roasted Barley

0.7 oz Columbus Hops (16.7%) - boiled 60 minutes

Wyeast 1728 - Scottish Ale (second generation slurry)

Schedule:

Mash @ 152 (1.30 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water alkalinity adjusted)

Ferment at 65

Notes:

3/2: Brewed at a leisurely pace.  Caramelization was awesome.  Chilled to 66, pitched huge starter of second generation yeast and left at 60 ambient to ferment.  

3/3: Airlock bubbling away by morning.  Fermentation temp holding steady at 64.5.  

Specific to Heady Topper, it's well discussed that their proprietary yeast, Conan, is key.  It is a mutated english strain that is highly attenuative, lets grain flavor shine through and has a fruity punch in the middle.  I collected some of this yeast from a can and have been slowly propagating it into a pitchable rate.

Beyond the yeast, I went with a high quality 2-row base malt (Munton's), augmented with a bit of honey malt for color and sweetness.  Finally, I'm using a very liberal dose of my favorite hops.  Clean Warrior for bittering.  Chinook and Simcoe for pine, Centennial and Columbus for citrus and "earth", Amarillo for exotic fruit.  

Because of Conan's attenuative nature (reports as high as 83% AA), I opted to mash fairly high at 155.  This should still provide a fairly dry finished product (de-gassed Heady comes in around 1.010).  Columbus first wort hops and a healthy dose of 60-min Warrior's will provide a sharp, but smoothed out bitter bite.  Massive late and dry additions of hops will make for abundant hop flavor and aroma, in a mix of the flavors mentioned above.  In the end, this beer will have 'consumed' 13.5 oz of hops (in 5.75 gallons), which is certainly a record for me.

This should be a fairly bitter beer with striking hop flavor and aroma, backed up by a biscuity, slightly sweet malt.  I am extremely excited to dig into this over the next few weeks and share with friends who I know will enjoy it.  Something tells me this one will go quickly.

Oh, and the name.  My last name is Dunn.  I don't have a farm (..or a stead), but I thought Dunn Homestead was a clever name.  Apartmentstead didn't roll off the tongue very well.  Most people won't get it anyways.

Here's the recipe.

Dunn Homestead DIPA 14-C Imperial/Double IPA Brewed 1/27/13

Size: 5.75 gal Efficiency: 79.68% (measured) Attenuation: 82.0% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.077 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.014 (estimated)

Color: 9.78 SRM Alcohol: 8.33%  IBU: 127.4 (theoretical)

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 59  Mg: 14  Na: 14  SO₄: 71  Cl: 46  HCO₃: 39 

Ingredients:

15 lb 2-row Pale Malt

1 lb Honey Malt

0.5 oz Columbus (16.7%) - First Wort Hop

0.75 oz Warrior (16%) - Boiled 60 minutes

0.5 oz Columbus, 0.5 oz Chinook, 0.75 oz Amarillo (1.75 oz total) - boiled 5 minutes

1.0 oz Simcoe, 0.5 oz Centennial (1.5 oz total) - boiled 3 minutes

0.5 oz Columbus, 1 oz Chinook, 0.5 oz Centennial, 0.75 oz Simcoe, 0.75 oz Amarillo (3.5 oz total) - "Whirlpool" hops

Conan yeast - 2 L starter originally from a fresh can of Heady Topper

 0.75 oz Columbus, 1 oz Centennial, 1.25 oz Simcoe, 1.25 oz Chinook, 1.25 oz Amarillo (5.5 oz total) - dry hops

Schedule:

Mash @ 155 (1.30 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water alkalinity adjusted)

Ferment at 65

Listening:

Brown Bird - Salt for Salt

Wilco - The Whole Love, Sky Blue Sky

Notes:

1/27: Brewed on a Sunday, by myself.  Pretty leisurely brew, for the most part everything went well.  Hit mash temp and pH dead on.  Some issues in that it took a long time to get up to boil (20 deg out) and my hop spider collapsed.  I saw that coming and was able to disassemble and clothes-pin the hop bag to the kettle.  Only received minor burns :-(.

Using a brand new, 10 gal SS kettle with ball valve for the first time (thanks Santa/Mom&Dad!).  Sparged with more water than usual assuming a more rapid boil-off.  I guessed right.

Chilled to 65 F, pitched huge starter of Conan and left to ferment in the bathroom, which is the coldest in the apartment right now.  Should maintain a fermentation temp of 65.

1/28: Krausen fully developed, but airlock activity somewhat slow.  Should really kick off pretty soon.

2/1: Fermentation wrapping up.  Will give it a few days diacetyl rest before crash cooling, racking and adding dry hops.  Thinking I will split the dry hops in half and add them in stages.

2/8: Added round one of dry hops (bagged, weighted)

The best part of this brew was making it together.  Second to that was the system we got to use.  One of the four participants, Joe, owns a BrewMagic system.  If you're not familiar, this is essentially the same process as a professional brewery utilizes with three vessels, pumps and a built in heat exchanger which can be used to dial in mash temps.  In fact, many breweries use a BrewMagic as a Pilot system to test recipes on a smaller scale before stepping up to their larger, normal batch size.  It was pretty f'n awesome to use and I took a number of pictures that are sprinkled throughout here..

Recipe-wise, to achieve the beer we all envisioned, we went with a base malt bill of roughly 2/3 plain 2-row (sweet, fairly neutral maltiness) and 1/3 Maris Otter (nutty, bready).  This was augmented with a bit of carapils and crystal 40 to give us a little additional sweetness and a great pale orange color.  We mashed fairly low (150) to achieve a lightly sweet body and bittered with Warrior, which - high in alpha and low in cohumulone - provides a solid, clean bitterness that doesn't linger too long (apologies to Columbus).

Our goals for hop flavor and aroma afforded us some flexibility, but we really wanted a somewhat unique profile.  I was coaxed into parting with 4 oz of my coveted Riwaka hops (New Zealand, rare, intense grapefruit flavor), which were blended with Centennial (grapefruit), Columbus (citrus, earth) and Simcoe (fruit, pine).  

These were added mostly as post-flameout/whirlpool hops, which in my experience is the best way to achieve intense hop flavor.  There was also a similar portion of the same hop blend added dry to our secondary fermenters.

Here's where things get a little more interesting.  About a month ago, I was at Cigar City Brewing in Tampa and was able to get a piece of the spanish cedar spirals the use in the humidor series beers.  With that as inspiration, we decided to split the 10 gallon batch three ways: Spanish Cedar, White Oak and Straight Up.  

I am the keeper of the Spanish Cedar version, while Alex/Eric (aka APES) are maintaining the White Oak and Joe our straight up version.  In the coming weeks these will be bottled, shared evenly between the group and likely entered into an upcoming competition.  A little too soon to tell, but as of now, I think we all like our chances :-).

Here's our recipe:

IPA Three Ways (aka Tender, Younger APES) 14-B American IPA Brewed: 1/11/13 

Size: 11 gal Efficiency: 85.66% (measured) Attenuation: 82.2% (measured) Original Gravity: 1.072 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (measured)

Color: 11.86 SRM Alcohol: 7.8%  IBU: 67.6

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 50  Mg: 11  Na: 14  SO₄: 57  Cl: 33  HCO₃: 97 

Ingredients:

10 lb Maris Otter Malt

17 lb 2-Row Pale Malt (Canada Malting)

2 lb CaraPils

1.5 lb Caramel 40°L

1 oz Columbus (16.7%) - First Wort Hop

1.75 oz Warrior (16%) - Boiled 60 min

1.5 oz Columbus, 1.5 oz Centennial - boiled 5 minutes

2 oz each: Riwaka, Simcoe, Centennial (6 oz total) - Whirlpool

2 large starter of US-05 yeast

2 oz each: Riwaka, Simcoe, Centennial, 1 oz Columbus (7 oz total) - dry, added to secondary

1 fermenter receives 1 spanish cedar spiral, 1 receives White Oak cubes

Schedule:

Mash @ 150 (1.30 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water alkalinity adjusted)

Ferment at 65

Listening:

None

Notes:

1/11.  Brewed together on Joe's system.  Took our time getting this one done.  Undershot our expected volume a bit (11 gal v. 12), but no big deal - plenty to go around.  Chilled to 70ish, split into 3 vessels, aerated and pitched US-05 starter(s).

Fermentation took a little longer than expected, but it was a pretty high-gravity wort.  

1/24.  Fermentation complete, gravity 1.013.  Racked to secondary with weighted dry hops.  Will wait a day or two before adding the cedar.

1/26.  Added cedar spiral.  Boiled briefly to sanitize.

2/1.  Removed cedar.  Flavor came through quickly.

The real inspiration for this beer is Mexican Cocoa, which is richer, darker and more bitter than our americanized (read: bastardized) version of hot cocoa.  In a lot of cases, mexican cocoa can also have a hint of heat, from some variant of chile pepper.

I decided to make a big stout that would be loaded with the flavors of Mexican Cocoa.  The first step is figuring out the specifics of your Stout, based on what you want the end product to be like.  Of the Imperial Stouts I've had, the fatal flaw that many have is that they are so damn sweet.  So many of the offerings out there are too rich, bordering on syrupy and cloying.  I've never had Dark Lord, but I've heard it's insanely sweet and really not worth the hype.

I decided that while I wanted some body and sweetness, I wanted to stay away from too much.   The malt bill that I came up with is fairly complex and has quite a few malts that are going to contribute 'unfermentable' sugars (these become the residual sweetness of a beer).  Keeping that in mind, I kept my mash temp very low, so that the 17# of base malt will be mostly converted to fermentable sugars.  I also chose a fairly attenuative yeast and pitched a big, 2L starter of it.  My hope and expectation is that this will ferment down fairly low (to about 1.020), leaving me with a stout with ample backbone, but not overwhelming sweetness.

The dark, viscous, 1.110 first runnings

Another tricky component to this beer was that it has nearly 2# of roasted malts.  While these are necessary to achieve the flavors I want out of the beer (chocolate, coffee, roast, toffee, dark fruit, etc), they are highly acidic.  This can both throw off your mash conversion (efficiency) and create unwanted flavors.  Unchecked, malts like Roasted Malt and especially Black Patent will product harsh, acrid, bitter and burnt flavors.  A lot of homebrewers compensate for this by aging a beer like this for a year or more, because those flavors will mellow with time.  Personally, I'll be cellaring a lot of this batch, but I want to drink some soon, and I want it to be smooth and delicious now.

During the brew, we split a "Mini Growler" Imperial Stout from Westbrook/Evil Twin. It was awesome.

Modifying your water is the way to get around aging these flavors out.  I carefully chose a profile that would neutralize the acidity of the roasted malts.  In turn, I was able to achieve 87%+ on my efficiency and have a wort that is free of overly harsh flavors.  Similarly, I think it's absolutely critical to filter the chlorine and chloramine out of your water for a beer like this.  The opportunity for chlorophenols to be produced by the chlorine/chloramine reacting with components of your beer is high.  Personally, I never brew with unfiltered water, but its particularly important in a beer like this, or one with lots of hops.

The final challenge with this beer was the sheer size of it - this is the biggest all-grain beer I've ever done.  A typical 5/6 gallon batch for me includes a grain bill of 12-15#, which calls for 3-4 gallons of mash/strike water and a roughly equal portion sparge.  To be able to hit an acceptable water-to-grist ratio (1.25-1.5 is good, IMO) with a grist of 22ish pounds, I needed ~6.75 gallons in the mash.  This stresses the limits of my 10gal mash tun and also takes me into uncharted territory - how much will I lose to absorption, how much do I sparge with, do I need to compensate for efficiency loss/gain, etc.

In the end, I wound up going with the big-ass mash (I had to) and sparging with about 3.5 gallons of acidified sparge (too alkaline will extract tannins).  I collected around 9 gallons pre-boil (~1.085 gravity), which was a lot, considering I wanted to finish with about 6.5.  I got 7.5 gallons into an 8 gallon kettle, and the other 1.5 in a smaller pot on the stove top.  I let both of these boil down until I had about 7.75 gallons, at which point, I added both to the 8 gallon pot and tossed in my 75 minute hop addition.

This worked out beautifully, as I slightly overshot my gravity while hitting my volume dead on.  

Onto the recipe...

Mexican Cocoa Imperial Stout 13-F Russian Imperial Stout Brewed: 1/5/13 

Size: 6.5 gal Efficiency: 87.47% (measured) Attenuation: 80.0% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.098 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.020 (estimated)

Color: 30.69 SRM Alcohol: 10.42%  IBU: 69.1

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 56  Mg: 10  Na: 26  SO₄: 31  Cl: 39  HCO₃: 162 

Ingredients:

17 lb 2-Row Pale Malt

1.5 lb Oats

12 oz Roasted Malt

10 oz Caramel 80°L

8 oz Belgian Chocolate Malt

6 oz Black Patent Malt

4 oz Midnight Wheat Malt

2 oz Caramel 120°L

1.5 oz Warrior (16% AA) - Boiled 75 min

2L starter, Whitbread Yeast (Wyeast 1099, US04, etc)

Added to secondary: 2 mexican vanilla beans, 2 dried ancho chile peppers, 3 ceylon cinnamon sticks, 4 oz cacao nibs.

Schedule:

Mash @ 149 (1.30 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water pH adjusted)

Listening:

Radiohead - The Bends

Wilco - Wilco, iTunes Session

John Butler Trio - Three

Notes:

1/5: Brewed a Saturday afternoon at my parent's house, with my Dad's help.  Prior to the brew, built a new high-flow water filter that can travel with me.  Determining the water adjustments took quite a while, as their water profile is different than the Buffalo municipal that I'm used to.  Similar, but different.

Chilled to 68, pitched yeast.  The beer got to take a road trip back to Buffalo with me.  Put a blowoff tube in.

1/6: This morning, I woke up to a blowoff tube struggling to keep up with the aggressive, sugar-laden fermentation.  I ended up having to unseal the lid and set it on top of the fermenter.  This allows gas to escape without building pressure.  If pressure builds, then the krausen grows and you run the risk of clogging your airlock/blowoff tube and having a fairly messy explosion.  It's a little touch and go right now, to be honest.  If I were smart, I would have split between two fermenters.  I'm not smart.

1/8: Fermentation is surprisingly, somehow complete.  Gravity is 1.022 (right on track) and might drop another point or two.  Very sharp smell of diacetyl, but not to worry - this yeast should clean it up no problem.

1/12: Diacetyl aroma is much diminished.  Smells roasty, malty, biscuity.  Can wait to get this racked and the spices added.

1/23: All activity in the fermenter seems to be pretty finished.  Did a quick, 4 hour crash cool on my 25 degree porch then brought back inside.  Racked to secondary.  Gravity 1.021

Spices added.  2 dried ancho chile peppers (halved), 2 mexican vanilla beans (halved, split down the middle), 3 ceylon cinnamon sticks and 4 oz cacao nibs.  Brought 8 ounces of water to a boil.  Added spices to a mesh hop bag.  Killed heat on water, then dropped the spices in.  Covered and let sit/steam for ~5 minutes.  Transferred everything (water, too) into the secondar.  Used a piece of sanitized monofilament (fishing line) to tie the spices to my better bottle's neck.  Will be able to remove once desired character is achieved.

1/27: Spice character was already plenty pronounced after only 4 days.  I really didn't want to overdo it, so I opted to bottle the beer tonight.  Everything went well, but it did remind me that bottling is a total pain in the ass.

That's why, when I read about the new Mosaic hops (formerly HBC-369), developed by the Hop Breeding Company, I was intrigued.  Mosaic's parentage isn't fully disclosed, but it does include Simcoe and Nugget.  While some of the descriptors include fruit, they also denote a earthiness and spiciness.  

After doing some research, I really wanted to take this hop for a test run.  It sounds like an ideal IPA hop, so I decided to do a single-hop IPA with 8 oz of Mosaic (whole leaf) that I sourced from FreshHops.  I guess, in reality I cheated a little, as I used a hopshot for the bittering.  I've come to really like the predictability of hop extract and don't see myself backing away from that.

I went with a very simple, middle-of-the-road IPA grist, but my recipe does have a few exciting twists.  First, I'm using Hill Farmstead's Ale yeast.  I propogated this from a growler of Society & Solitude #5 that I brought back from VT in September.  I've been slowly stepping it up, and finally had a big enough pitch for a beer this big.  As of now, I expect to wash the yeast and save for a few future uses.

I also researched and utilized the Russian River Pliny water profile - well, pretty close to it, at least.  I could have gotten closer, but didn't feel like bothering with diluting with distilled water.  Pretty excited to see how it brings out the hop character.

While the purpose of this beer is really to get a grasp of Mosaic, I also hope to learn some things from the yeast and water profile, that I can apply in the future.

The brewday went well, but I actually overshot my gravity (1.070 v 1.065).  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I might end up watering it down a little with boiled, chilled water.  I was also trying to collect a little more wort than necessary, as I assume I'll lose some to the whole leaf hops.  My FV was right on at around 5.5, which means my efficiency was a somewhat staggering 86.79%.

Here's the recipe:

Mosaic IPA 14-B American IPA Brewed: 12/21/12 

Size: 5.5 gal Efficiency: 86.79% (measured) Attenuation: 77.0% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.070 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (measured)

Color: 9.09 Alcohol: 7.1%  IBU: 69.1

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 94  Mg: 13  Na: 14  SO₄: 149  Cl: 49  HCO₃: 116 

Ingredients:

12 lb 2-Row Pale Malt

0.5 lb Caramel 40°L

5 mL HopShot - Boiled 60 min

1 oz Mosaic (12.3% AA) - boiled 10 minutes

3 oz Mosaic (12.3% AA) - Whirlpool

1.0 ea Hill Farmstead Ale yeast (variety unknown)

4 oz Mosaic (12.3% AA) - Dry Hop, 7 days

Schedule:

Mash @ 153 (1.30 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water alkalinity adjusted)

Listening:

Fleet Foxes

Notes:

12/21.  Half day from work, brewed mostly by myself starting around 2 pm.  

Chilled to 68, let stand a few hours at 65 ambient before pitching a big cell count of HF yeast (decanted).

Fermentation rocking by early the next morning

12/22.  Left town to visit family for the holidays.  Reduced ambient to 60F.

12/26.  Returned, brought ambient back to 65.  Fermentation moving, but slowly.  Gravity still 1.028.  Over the next 12 hours or so, I noticed the activity picking up as the temperature rose.  Outside, the snow fell like crazy.

12/28.  Gravity at 1.020.  Will probably drop just a bit more.  Still a little activity going on.  Hoping it'll be ready to be crash cooled, transfered and dry hopped this weekend.

12/31.  Added 4 oz dry Mosaics.

1/8.  Kegged, chilled and hooked up to CO2 to force carb.

1/15.  First taste.  Holy-shit aroma.  Lots of melon, mango and tropical fruit.  Damn.  Does not smell like one hop (granted, a lot of one).  Taste - hmmm.  Fruity, but with kind of a weird ... stinkiness in there.  It's definitely from the hops and not an infection.  Probably used too much of them.  Not bitter enough, but that's on me.

1/24.  After another 10ish days chilling (literally) in the kegerator, the intense hop flavor has begun to mellow.  The stinkiness is much diminished and much more pleasant.  Still overpowering any grain flavors, but I bet I'll start picking those up in a few days.  Much more palatable.

I've been thinking a lot about what kind of beer I want to have on tap this winter, and I kept coming back to a belgian style.  I thought about a Tripel.  With the Westy 12 release, I considered a Quadrupel, but they're so damn big - I really didn't want a full keg of it.  I settled on Dubbel - a style I can drink a few of in a session, I really enjoy, and that I think there is potential for some interesting experiments.

I also wanted to get another sour going.  They take a really long time (8-12 months, in most of my experience) and I had a few new sour-dedicated fermenters after brewing a 10 gallon sour starter for our Wine Barrel Flanders Red.

This meant a double batch, split - half with clean yeast (went with Wyeast 1214 - Chimay) and half with a variety of wild yeasts and microbes.

The twist for the clean portion, is that I will be adding some french oak cubes (med toast) that have been soaked in Petite Sirah wine.  If you're not familiar, Petite Sirah is a very big, very bold red wine.  It's extremely dark and rich.  This is one of my favorite types of wine, and I thought its boldness would add some interesting character to a Dubbel.  I've also never had a Dubbel anything like this, so it should be a pretty fun experiment.

2 oz (weighed dry) french oak cubes - after being soaked in Petite Sirah wine.

The other half of this batch is where things get really interesting.  I had a couple of different wild yeast/microbe strains kicking around and wanted to utilize them in my Sour Dubbel.  After some consideration, I went with roughly equal portions of a brett slurry, which originated from a bottle of Russian River Sanctification (also used in my Citrus Sour Blonder) and some leftover Wyeast Roeselare Slurry leftover from our Flanders Red.

A bit of my yeast collection.  From left, Wyeast 1214, Roeselare Slurry, Brett Slurry, Conan (from the Alchemist's kickass Heady Topper)

With all of these ideas ironed out, it was time to brew.  My friend Alex was kind enough to help out and lend the use of his keggle.  I don't have a kettle capable of doing a 10 gallon full boil, so I often look to him when I want to do something that big.

This turned out to be a pretty fun brew, and I'm really excited for both sets of results.  I'll probably bottle a little of the clean portion before the wine oak, so I can enter it in an upcoming competition.

Here's the recipe:

Double Dubbel 18-B Belgian Dubbel Brewed: 12/2/12 

Size: 10.5 gal Efficiency: 77.25% (measured) Attenuation: 72.0% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.064 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.017 (measured - clean portion), 1.007 (estimated - sour portion)

Color: 16.66 Alcohol: 6.15%  IBU: 16

Water (all in ppm):

Ca: 69.8  Mg: 6.4  Na: 10.6  SO₄: 23.3  Cl: 21.4  HCO₃: 120.2

Ingredients:

20.0 lb Briess Pilsen Malt

2.0 lb Red Wheat Malt

1.25 lb Special B Malt

1 oz Roasted Barley

1.0 lb Amber Belgian Candi Sugar - added at 15 min

2 oz Hallertau Hersbrucker (4.5% AA) - boiled 60 minutes

Yeast - see notes

Clean Portion - 2 oz Petite Sirah oak cubes added to secondary (just for a few days, before bottling).

Sour Portion - 1 lb sour cherries, added to secondary.  2 oz Petite Sirah oak cubes added for a few days before bottling.

Schedule:

Mash @ 152 (1.25 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water slightly acidified)

Notes:

12/2 - Brewed on a Sunday with the help of Alex and his keggle

Brew went pretty well.  I missed my target mash temp (155), which I was surprised by, but this should be fine.

Collected 10.5 gallons of 1.064 wort, chilled to 68F.

Split evenly between two vessels.  One received a 1L starter of Wyeast 1214 (Chimay strain).  The other half received 3 tbsp of Brett slurry (2nd generation from RR Sanctification) and 3 tbsp of Roeselare slurry (2nd generation, leftover from wine barrel flanders red starter)

Both off and fermenting quickly.  The sour portion was particularly vigorous.  I wound up sticking a blowoff tube in, which I didn't expect to need.

12/9 - Clean portion just about done fermenting - krausen dropped out and activity clearly slowed.

12/16 - Gravity 1.017.  Racked the clean portion to a sanitized secondary fermenter, bottling 2-12oz bottles on the way.  Added 2 oz (weighed when dry) of Petite Sirah oak cubes, in a sanitized mesh hop bag.  Will begin checking daily and remove the oak when desired character is achieved.

Sour portion still has something of a krausen, which is gooey, sticky and essentially opaque.  I expect it to drop out after another 2 weeks or so, at which point I can rack to secondary.

12/27 - pulled the oak out of the clean portion, as I believe I've reached the level I want.  Letting the cubes dry for now.  I'll blanch them in some boiling water tomorrow, before adding back to the petite sirah.  Clean portion is currently crash cooling to 36 degrees.  Will hopefully bottle tomorrow.

2/2 - A little late following up on this one.  I wound up letting the clean version sit in an extended secondary, although the oak was only in for about 6 days.  The desired oak character came out quickly.  This past week, I racked into a keg and began force carbonating.  Realized today I'm out of CO2, so I won't get to drink this for another couple of days.  

Sure, I needed to do some research and understand how the recipe should ideally be built, but also deeper dive topics such as - assuming an extended fermentation, how would the oxygen permeability of the vessel impact the various microbes.  

Acetic acid (vinegar) is essential to the character of a Flanders Red Ale, but only in a light proportion. If too much oxygen is present, acetobacter, which develops this character, can really take hold and create an undrinkable mess.  While keeping that in check, you still want enough oxygen for the brettanomyces, lactobacillus and pediococcus to do their thing.  There's a balance that needs to be kept, but it's quite challenging to achieve.  

The other, more in-your-face factor, was the need for oak.  I use oak in my beers somewhat often, but only in cube form.  That's fine and dandy, but if I really wanted to do this beer justice, I needed a wine barrel.  Luckily, I have a connection at a winery in the Finger Lakes, who has access to such a thing.  After telling her what we intended to do with the barrel, Jess was able to get me a 7 year old cabarnet sauvignon barrel for free.  Well, I promised to give her some beer, but that was a given.

Last but not least, I didn't want to do this alone.  The barrel is 55 gallons.  I typically brew in  5 gallon increments, partially due to the limitations of my equipment.  I couldn't fathom brewing 11x my normal amount (plus extra just in case) by myself.  It also occured to me that this was a pretty fun idea that would garner some interest.  Fortunately, there's a pretty vibrant homebrewing community in Buffalo, and with my friend Alex's help, we were able to get 11 interested guys signed up (one being my dad, who also brews and was really interested in the idea).  While we certainly could have found more bodies, 11 seemed to be a good number, as everyone gets a decent amount of beer, and it was fairly easy to distribute the costs amongst teams or pairs.

Once our roster was ironed out, an epic email thread began, where we discussed everything that would go into this beer.  Timing, recipe formulation, ABV/OG, process, resource efficiency, storage, aging and more.  As I said several times throughout the process - what started as my idea truly turned into a group project.  We couldn't have had a cooler, and more knowledgable group to tackle this with.

There were a few things that all agreed upon early on:

Where to store, how long, etc.

We decided to do this beer as a Solera of sorts.  This December, we filled the barrel.  Sometime about 12 months from now, we'll bottle around 20 gallons and replace with fresh wort.  Same thing in 24 months.  In three years, we'll bottle all 55 gallons.

We would need a sour starter - at least 10 gallons with a mix of microbes - given several weeks to begin souring before adding to the rest of the beer.

The 'clean' portion (at least to begin with) would need to be mashed high (or hot).  This ensures that there is enough residual sugar left for the microbes, but not so much that we have a full blown refermentation in the barrel.

The 'clean' portion (everything but the 10gal starter) would be brewed together, in one day - a brew party of sorts.

I offered to brew the sour starter, along with my dad, which we wound up doing about 5 weeks in advance of everyone else.  With the ~2.5 weeks of primary for the clean portion, the starter had almost 2 months for the bugs to get rolling, which I think was plenty.

Photos of the starter brew:

Once that was out of the way, it was time for the big brewday.  Regrettably, my dad wasn't able to make it, but everyone else was.  For a mid-November morning in Buffalo, we couldn't have had better weather.  It was sunny and the thermometer eclipsed 60 degrees.  Everyone came in a great mood and loaded up with outstanding beers to share:

Just a sampling.  By the end of the day, this table was covered with empty bottles - all of them excellent.

The brewday went about as well as could have been expected.  Everyone (slightly) overshot their gravity, we were able to chill quickly and efficiently with a march pump, purpose-built manifold and 125# of ice.  We also wound up with a few gallons more than we needed, which was a nice safety net to have.

Once chilled, all of the wort was combined in a ~70 gallon PET barrel that we all took turns splashing sanitizer around in.

Two of our contributors, who happen to be professional brewers, were kind enough to bring a large slurry of US-05/WLP001/1056 yeast (Chico) that we used for our primary fermentation.  About 8 hours after we started, we pitched yeast, sealed the lid and let er go.  Here are a few more pictures from that day:

Fast forward about 18 days and primary fermentation was complete.  We were ready to transfer into the barrel, along with our sour starter.

We started by pseudo-sanitizing the barrel.  We didn't necessarily want to kill any wine yeast that might have bee burrowed in the wood, but we did want to kill any mold that might have grown on the inside surfaces of the barrel.  We carried the barrel outside, brought 10 gallons of water to a boil and quickly pumped it into the barrel with a march pump.  The barrel was then resealed and rolled around for several minutes.  Steam pressure built up inside of the barrel, popping the bung out several times.  I took this as a positive, as steam would be nearly as effective at killing any wayward mold spores, as the water itself was.  After several rolls, we emptied the water and brought the barrel back inside.

The sour starter went first, siphoned over out of its two vessels.  That was followed by the clean fermented portion, which was pumped over using the march pump.  This made light work of what would have otherwise been a very challenging transfer.  The wort foamed slightly, which we let run out until the barrel was full to the brim with liquid.  We'll lose a bit over time, so it was important to start with as much as possible.

With the barrel full, there's nothing to do now but wait and watch.  I had more fun with this brew than any other I've done and can't wait to get back together with the guys and drink some of this fine beer over the next few years.

Here is the recipe that we followed:

Filtered, but otherwise untreated water

35.3% Vienna Malt

22.1% Munich Malt

8.8% Pilsen Malt

8.8% Belgian Aromatic Malt

8.8% Flaked Wheat

8.8% Flaked Maize

4.4% CaraRed

2.9% Special B

11.1 IBU Hallertauer Hersbrucker

3x Roeselare smackpacks (WYeast)

1x East Coast Yeast 23 - Oud Bruin

OG Target (79% efficiency): 1.062

Actual OG: ~1.065

Estimated FG: 1.006

ABV: 7.8%

IBU: 11.1

Microbes:

US-05/1056/WLP001

Wine yeast inherent to barrel (mystery)

Roeselare contains:

Saccharomyces C. Belgian Ale strain

Saccharomyces F. Sherry Wine strain

Brettanomyces Lambicus

Brettanomyces Clausenii

Lactobacillus Delbruckii

Pediococcus

ECY23 contains:

Saccharomyces C. Belgian Ale strain

Lactobacillus Delbruckii

Lactobacillus Mali

While I'm going back to basics a bit as far as the recipe is concerned, I wanted to use this brew as a skill-honing exercise and ensure a flawless brew.  I was extremely careful with my strike, mash, mash out and sparge temperatures.  I did a large yeast starter, chilled to 65F post-boil and maintained a fermentation temperature of 65.  I cut no corners and perhaps most importantly, I built a full water profile, monitoring the pH at all stages of the brew.  

Water profiling is new to me, but I'm getting the hang of it.  My near complete lack of a chemistry education/background was a bit of a hindrance, but I've figured out my cations, anions, residual alkalinity, and the like.  I now have a pretty solid understanding of how and why all of these things matter to a beer.  There is a particular importance when it comes to dark beers, as the various roasted grains are fairly acidic and need to be neutralized by more alkaline strike and sparge water.

My brewday did go about as well as it could have, and it was certainly due to my amplified attention to detail.  I hit 83% efficiency, which I attribute to a flawless mash, which came in at 155F and 5.3pH.  From now on, I expect to take this level of care with every beer.  I take a lot of pride in the beer that I make and strive for constant improvement.  I consume so little of the beer I make, that I want to ensure that I'm putting my best foot forward with every beer that my friends, family and fellow brewers drink.

It'll be another couple of weeks before I drink this one, but I'm very optimistic at this point.  I'm hoping that this can serve as a good base to work from in the future.  I'd like to try variations where I infuse with spices and/or coffee.

Here's the recipe (and water profile):

Robust Porter 12-B Robust Porter Brewed: 11/17/12 

Size: 5.25 gal Efficiency: 83% (measured) Attenuation: 72.0% (estimated) Original Gravity: 1.063 (measured) Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (estimated)

Color: 26.24 Alcohol: 6.21%  IBU: 36.6

Water (all in ppm):

Ca:75  Mg:10  Na:21  SO₄:45  Cl: 37  HCO₃: 100 

Ingredients:

9.0 lb Canada Malting 2-Row Malt

1.0 lb Biscuit Malt

0.5 lb Caramel 80°L

0.5 lb American Chocolate Malt

6 oz Roasted Barley

3 oz Black Patent Malt

3 mL HopShot - Boiled 60 min

1 oz Fuggle (4.8% AA) - boiled 5 minutes

1.0 ea Wyeast 1187 Ringwood yeast (stepped up into 1L starter)

Schedule:

Mash @ 155 (1.25 qt/lb ratio)

Mash out @ 170

Batch sparge (water slightly acidified)

Listening:

Radiohead - The Bends, Hail to the Theif

Notes:

Brewed on a Saturday afternoon, by myself. Really took my time, brew went off without a hitch.  

Chilled to 65℉ and pitched a large starter at high krausen.  Despite this, it took nearly 24 hours for the fermentation to really kick off.

11/23 - fermentation activity slowing, krausen has dropped.  Definitely smell the diacetyl and will be giving the yeast plenty of time to clean it up.

Very concerned about diacetyl levels.  Emailed my homebrewing club for suggestions on maximizing the yeast's diacetyl breakdown.  Suggestion was to heat slightly, to around 70F and agitate daily, to maximize yeast contact with the beer (ringwood is fairly flocculant and create a pretty compact trub at the bottom of the fermenter).

Followed these instructions daily, for 2 weeks

12/11 - no longer much, if any, diacetyl in the nose.  Kegged, purged headspace and set regulator to force carb

12/12 - stole a little taste.  should be a tasty porter, although I already have some impressions as to how I'd tweak this one (more bitter, a little more roast, a little maltier).  Have the updates in mind and will plug into my brew software once I have a few proper pours of the finished product.

12/28 - So this turned out to be a pretty decent Porter, I actually find it to be fairly similar to Southern Tier's, but with a little more diacetyl.  While it isn't perfect, it's pretty good for a first pass with a major mistake (the yeast).  I'll be taking another stab at it in the future with a few tweaks.