Cask Drainer's Brew Blog

Sampling a Friend's Homebrew

2008-05-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a colleague and friend of mine (and perhaps a reader of this blog?) gave me one of his homebrews to sample. Thanks, MP! I just now got a chance to taste it. I am embarrassed to say that I can’t remember what style he told me it was. I think that he said it was a Dunkel, and its color certainly supports this. He warned me that it was over-carbonated, so I opened it carefully, expecting a geyser. This did not happen; in fact, I found the beer poured smoothly and contained the right amount of CO2. On my first drink I noted that “sharp” taste that I usually associate with extract homebrew. This is certainly not an unpleasant taste, but a pronounced sharpness down the center of the tongue. The aroma is very malty, and the malt flavor was more pronounced as I got about halfway through the glass. In fact, this beer tasted better and better the closer I got to the bottom of the mug. I wish that I would have poured a bit more vigorously to knock out more CO2, because the flatter the beer got the more the malt presence came to the front.

For some final thoughts - this is a very “clean” beer. There are no noticeable off-flavors which speaks great things about MP’s brewing process. I could definitely drink a few more.

Thanks for the sample. I will return the precious Corona bottle, and repay the kindness with a bottle from my own collection. All I have in bottles right now, though, is a really big Belgian Ale (about 8% A.B.V.) that I have been aging for about 2 years now. So, I hope MP likes "big" beers.

Porter - Fermenting Vigorously!!!

2008-05-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

Although I have had fermentations so vigorous that they clogged the airlock and made a messy explosion, this one is a pretty aggressive fermentaion. I pitched this wort on top of a pretty thick cake of Nottingham yeast.

Brewday - "In Stock" Porter

2008-05-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty crazy brewing session, but the wort turned out great. First of all, I had no plans to brew today since I had a basketball game scheduled over lunchtime today. However, the game didn't make, so I scrambled to get a brew finished before my son's b-day party this evening. I posted this recipe a few blog posts ago, and you can see how it worked out here in Promash (the brewing software I use to formulate recipes and calculate efficiency).

Note that I did switch up the recipe a bit. I opted to use a few extra pounds of pale malt along with a pound of pilsen malt (only because I was too lazy to open the new bag of pale malt that I bought recently). I took out the Munich malt, because I want to save as much of that as possible for a few brews I am planning.

My gravity came to 1.054 giving me an efficiency of 68%, but I collected about an extra half-gallon of wort. This should make my efficiency a few points higher, but I'm okay with anything close to 70%. The wort looked, smelled, and tasted awesome!

I pitched onto the yeast cake from my recently fermented "Come-Back Victory" Pale Ale, so this things should start vigorous fermentation within an hour of racking it into the primary fermenter. I suspect it will be fermented out to 1.008(ish) within 48 hours.

When racking the Pale Ale out of primary and into the keg, I tasted a bit of it. This beer will be ready soon, but it will be nothing special. The original gravity was very low and it fermented down to 1.006, so it is a very thin beer with little mouthfeel. Some carbonation will help this problem a bit, though. It is very hoppy - enough so, that I will probably consider it out of balance with the malt background (which is non-existent). In fact, I may save this keg until mid to late summer, because it may be a great beer to drink after a game of frisbee golf in the oppressive heat of late July.

Destihl Restaurant and Brew Works

2008-05-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Last night, me and the wife had a night out alone, so we decided to go to the Destihl Restaurant and Brew Works in Normal, Illinois. Overall, the experience was a good one. The atmosphere is quite contemporary and the food is respectably good.

The beer, however, is exceptional. While they were out of a few selections (the Munchner Dunkel and the Dopplebock, to be specific) and they did not have a selection on the beer engine behind the bar, their selection was pretty extensive. I tasted small samples of a bourbon barrel barley wine and an espresso stout. Both of these beers were loaded with flavor. It was the Roggenbier, though, that really caught my attention.

First of all, the only Roggenbiers I have ever tasted are homebrewed versions, and I've never really been impressed with any of them. This one at Destihl's, in my opinion, was tremendous. Quite frankly, I think that my most recent obsession will be brewing a really good Roggenbier, so even though I just bought a new 50 lb. bag of Pale Malt, I have to find a source for malted rye.

Here is the link to Destihl

All Grain Brewing Introduction

2008-05-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, my brother (who is an extract brewer) asked me some questions about All Grain brewing. At first, I was going to take a few pictures of my process to give him some idea of the equipment he would need. The project turned into this really cheesy video. Since then, I have mentioned it to a few of you who read this blog, so I thought you might like to see it. Don't make too much fun of the scrolling star-wars text.

Enjoy

"In Stock" Porter

2008-04-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

I spent some time yesterday hovering over my grain bin, taking inventory of what I had in stock. I did this in order to formulate a recipe for the Porter I am making next. Here is what I have.

8 lbs. Pale Malt
2 lbs. Munich Malt
0.50 lbs. Chocolate Malt
0.25 lbs. Crystal 80L
0.25 lbs. Crystal 120L
0.25 lbs. Black Patent Malt

This makes an 11.25 lb. grain bill, a target OG of 1.055, and an SRM of 29. I may add an extra ounce or two of the black patent malt late in the mash, right before sparging. Given my poor efficiency on my last brew, I may also throw in an extra pound of brewer’s malt depending on how confident I am feeling on brew day.

Normally, on a porter, I might prefer some Fuggles or Willammette in terms of hops, but I need to use what I have in stock before I buy any new supplies or ingredients. So . . .

0.50 oz. Yakima Magnum 15.5% (60)
0.50 oz. Northern Brewers 6.5% (30)
0.50 oz. Northern Brewers 6.5% (15)

This makes for 49.3 IBUs, and the beer should be fairly reserved in terms of up-front hop aroma especially (in contrast to the Victory Pale that will share tap time with this Porter).

In terms of yeast, I plan on throwing this wort on top of the yeast cake from my Victory Pale Ale when it is finished with primary fermentation. This much of the Nottingham yeast will create a quick and violent fermentation, which will be fine with me since I want to get these beers on tap soon.

By the way, I use Promash software to formulate all my recipes. This is an excellent recipe formulation, and I will make it the subject of a future blog entry.

Cheap Beer?

2008-04-29T05:48:00.001-07:00

A colleague and a reader of this blog e-mailed this image to me yesterday. Pretty funny, I think. And it caused me to consider the price of my recent brew. Here is a break down of approximate pricing.

I bought my last bag of brewer's malt (50 lbs.) for $32.50 or $0.65 a pound. Generally, I buy specialty malts at prices ranging from $1.50-$2.00 per pound. Hops are generally $2.00+ per ounce, and my favorite Nottingham yeast strain is approximately $1.50 per satchet (used for two batches, generally).

Some quick addition yields an approximate ingredients cost of $15.00. This does not include water taken from my tap or propane used for boiling the wort. These things aside, my latest brew costs me approximately $3.00 per gallon (a bit under that, actually).

It's true! Gas is definitely more expensive than my homebrew!

Some pics from brewday

2008-04-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

I promised some pics from this weekend's brew. Here you go.

I crush grains with my MaltMill Barley Crusher. The grain bill for this brew was very simple and quite small.

I missed my target mash temperature by about 4 degrees. This is typical for my first brew of the season, and the temperature outside was a bit colder this weekend than when I usually brew. You will notice my makeshift set-up in the sparging pictures. My biggest fear is of 6 gallons of 180 degree water spilling from my hot liquor tank on top. I watch it pretty closely, but I need to build a three-tiered scaffolding.

A "Come-Back" Victory Pale Ale

2008-04-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

There are only a few pints remaining of the Cream Ale I made late last fall, and for the first time in quite a while I have no brew to replace it with. This means both taps will be empty for a while - a problem that at least one of my friends is letting me know about regularly.

To mark the return of brewing season, then, I put together a "Come-Back Victory Pale Ale" today. Here is the recipe:

6 lbs. 2 Row Brewer's Malt
2.5 lbs. Pilsen Malt
1 lb. Munich Malt
6 oz. Victory Malt
4 oz. Crystal (80L)
2 oz. Special B

0.5 oz. Galena 12% (60)
1 oz. Northern Brewers 6.8% (30)
0.5 oz. Simcoe 12% (15)
0.5 oz. Simcoe 12% (0)

Nottingham Ale Yeast

I am hoping that this will be an easy drinking pale, heavy on the hop flavor and aroma. The brew went fairly well today with the exception of a few boil overs. Final gravity was 1.043 (pretty low) on nearly 6 gallons of wort, so my efficiency is not what it usually is. This always happens on my first few brews of the year. I did take some pictures of today's brew, and I will post them when I get a chance.

Next up? Either a porter or a stout.

Welcome to my brew blog!

2008-04-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

I have started this blog for two reasons. First, I enjoy writing about and thinking about beer. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I have found that I am miserable failure at keeping good brew house notes. I have lost more good recipes than I care to think about., so I envision this as a place where I can collect the recipes I use as well as some tasting notes.