Cold Weather Time - Oatmeal Stout

With fall and winter approaching I needed to make some beer that is good cold weather beer.  Stout definitely is a beer that I drink a lot more of in the cold weather months than I do during spring and summer.  The brew day was pretty uneventful and everything went off without a hitch.  I have made this recipe before using the seasonal Yorkshire squares yeast and it tastes a lot like Samuel Smith’s.  I also decided to not toast the oatmeal.  Partially this was laziness and partially because I wanted to see how much difference there was to the beer from previous batches.

One change I have made to my brew recipes is to shoot for 7 gallon batches.  This way it gives me a good size starter and a full keg of no chill beer.  It may sound like to much but you don’t get the shrink loss from pre-chilling the beer.  If I fill my keg up to the very top so I get some spill over when I put the lid on I usually have an inch of headspace when I crack open the keg to ferment later.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
10 lb 3 oz	Maris Otter
1 lb 4 oz	Instant Oatmeal
10 oz	Chocolate Malt - 450
10 oz	Dark Crystal
3 oz	English Roasted Barley
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
28	East Kent Golding	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
152F	60 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 004 -  Irish Ale
Stats
7 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 28

Belgian Quad …Yet To Be Named

With my Divination supply starting to run low I started another Belgian Quad beer which will hopefully be ready when my supply is done.  This beer is inspired by Jamil’s Duppel recipe but I upped the base malts to Quad level and make my own Candi Sugar.  The Duppel recipe created a great beer so I am hoping that it translates well to a stronger base malt profile.

I started this mash and then went on a few errands and to the local Farmer’s Market so it sat for at least 20 minutes.  With a strong grain bill the extra mash time won’t hurt the beer.  When I made my original Quad I mashed that beer for 3-4 hours. 

So far this beer smells great while it is fermenting.  The only thing I would change is a blow-off tube.  I have had to swap the airlock a few times with all of the krausen that has bubbled up.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
6.5	Pilsner
6.5	2 Row
1	Munich 10
.5	Caramunich II
.5	Special B
1	Homemade Amber Candi Sugar
1	Table Sugar
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
20	Tettnanger	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
148F	120 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 530 – Abbey Ale - Cake
Stats
6 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 20

Super Session Belgian Single

My wife has recently requested that I start another batch of Belgian Quad to replace the dwindling supply I have in the house.  Since this takes a 6-12 months depending on how long I age it I started the project in motion with this beer.

Quads take a large quantity of yeast to ferment the 10% worth of alcohol producing sugars.  Instead of making a large starter for the one vial of yeast I want to use I decided to make a 5 gallon batch of beer to make all of my yeast, and I’ll be able to have 5 gallons of beer to drink while I wait.  This beer is pretty basic.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
2.5	Pilsner
2.5	2 Row
.5	Caramunich II
.25	Special B
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
12	Tettnanger	45
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
158F	60 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 530 – Abbey Ale
Stats
6 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 12

Oud Bruin – 15 Gallon Project

 

Today I brewed 12 gallons of an eventual full keg of Oud Bruin.  My goal is to start the ferment with the this wort in a Sanke keg and then top up with unfermented wort after the initial fermentation dies down.  Next weekend I will brew enough to fill the keg the rest of the way.  By that time the fermentation should have died down enough.  Sanke kegs actually hold 16+ gallons of beer and I plan on filling the keg up to the neck to limit the amount of air space.

I have 2 packets of Wyeast Roeselare Blend that I will pitch directly into the beer.  I do not plan on racking this beer after the fermentation since I will have very little trub in the keg.  I have noticed almost crystal clear beer from no chill brewing as long as I leave an inch or two of sediment in the Corney kegs that I use as my no chill vessels.   I expect to get 10-10.5 gallons of beer since Corney’s hold 5.5 gallons of beer. 

For some reason I over sparged this beer and ended up having to do a 2 hour boil.  Overall the brew day went well except for the thunderstorms we had all day!

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
4	Pilsner
3	2 Row
.75	Caramunich II
.75	Special B
.25	Carafa Special III
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
20	Saaz	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
156F	60 minutes
Yeast	Wyeast 3763 - Roeselare Ale Blend
Stats
6 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 20

Hefeweizen

 

Another beer that I brewed for the Brew-n-Que and am just now doing a write-up on.  I wanted to make something refreshing, a little sweet and a good warm drinking weather beer.  Hefeweizen is a pretty good beer to fit the bill. 

I added dried orange peel to the beer to give it a little extra kick of citrus.  I had previously bought some “Cutie” oranges last year and noticed how easily they peeled and how little pith they had in them.  I used a grapefruit spoon to scrape out as as much pith as I could and put them in my circa 1980 food dehydrator.  I have used them in a few Belgian beers with good results and used most of what I had left in this beer.  I figure I'll server this beer with some orange slices for anyone who wants them.

I wanted just a little bit of spice in the beer besides the yeast so I added uncracked coriander to the beer along with the oranges to give it some background note spicing.

This recipe is a double batch with half of it going to my work for a happy hour or two.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
12	2 Row
8	White Wheat Malt
1	Honey Malt
2 oz	Dried Cutie Orange Peel (5 minute addition)
2 tsp	Coriander (5 minute addition)
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
12	Tettnanger	60
4	Tettnanger	15
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
152F	60 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP300 - Hefeweizen
Stats
12 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 36

Brew-n-Que Gets a New Date

 

We have moved the date of the Brew-N-Que from Memorial Day Weekend to July 13th this year.  There was an overwhelming number of people who couldn’t make it on Memorial Day so we are going to reschedule it for Cait’s birthday.  I have been so busy lately (both at home and being out of town) that I have fallen behind on blog updates.  I will try to catch up on this during the extended weekend.  I have a Hefeweizen and a Fruit Punch Pale Ale that I need to do write-ups for and a bulk aging sour project that I am going to be doing within the next month.

Updates coming soon!

Beer Updates – Apple and Pub Ales

This morning I spent some time cleaning kegs and kegging a couple of beers for the Brew-N-Que. 
The first beer I kegged was my Pub Ale.  I had brewed a second batch of this because the first batch didn’t attenuate nearly as much as I’d hoped.  I tested it again one last time today and the London Ale III yeast must have kicked back in.  The gravity had dropped 12 points from my last test and the beer is perfect at 4.6% abv.  Looks like the second batch that I brewed last weekend will be 5 extra gallons of beer to drink.
The second “beer” I kegged was my Apple Ale. This ale turned out pretty well.  My hydro sample had a week amount of apple flavor to it, which was more than I was expecting.  Usually when I use apple juice in anything the apple flavor completely ferments out.  This session ale clocks in at 3.6% abv and I added 3 cans  of Old Orchard 100% Apple Juice concentrate to the ale to boost the apple flavor.  I might only use 2 cans next time but the extra sweetness will probably go over well with the non beer drinkers in the crowd.  The beer had a very fizzy carbonation now that I hope carries into the finished beer.
I plan to give the Belgian Single another week in the fermenter and keg it next weekend.  This beer didn’t have any simple sugars added to it and I usually ferment all of my beers a minimum of 4 weeks to allow the yeast to clean up the beer and for any solids to settle out.