Brother Thelonious Visits for a Brew Weekend

After a great deal of anticipation and back-and-forth planning, Br. Thelonius made it up to the Northwoods of Wisconsin for a weekend of brewing. There was a great deal of eating (of good food), good discussion, good baseball listening, good beer, and of course, good brewing. The weekend exceeded expectations; an impressive achievement given the hype!

The docket consisted of two 2.5 gallon batches: a Tripel for the Friday evening brew session and an English IPA for the Saturday brew session. For these batches I wanted to try out two styles I had never brewed before, and also make crisp and refreshing beers for the warm months ahead. To that end, I've made the decision to use my beer ledger in the ol' budget for only homebrew and the purchase of special beer that I'd like to age/cellar. This idea stems from trying to brew (and drink) more to the season; brew more in general, and; with the dearth of great choices at the store (aside from some of New Glarus' offerings), save my money to buy some excellent beer when I do have the opportunity.

Both of the brews went according to plan and really involved very little dramatics or cursing. I was a little worried with the 3787 as it started out REALLY slow, but it picked up nicely. The interesting part for both beers was fermentation: it was too cool in the basement to ferment the English IPA, and I didn't have a bath setup in the closet upstairs, so the result of fermentation was this:

Note the gunk all over the side.

Happily for the Tripel, I had a nice fermwrap setup for that, and got to utilize the temperature control to its fullest extent:

I guess I didn't have to worry about the 3787.

To ensure that it didn't produce too harsh an alcohol flavor and also finished dry enough, I started the fermentation at 66F, and raised the temperature over the course of 7 days up to 77F. Now, the results from both brews:

Velvet Hammer Tripel

Batch size: 2.5 gallons
Pre-boil: 1.063
OG: 1.089
FG: 1.012
ABV: 10.9%
ADF: 88%
SRM: 4.5
IBU: 34
Mash: 148.5F for 90 minutes
Efficiency: 75.7%
Boil: 90 minutes

Grains and Additions
79%- 7 lbs German Pilsner
2%- .25 lbs Aromatic
19%- 1.25 lbs cane sugar

Hops
1.15 ounces Tetnang (4%), 60 minutes
.25 ounces Tetnang (4%), 10 minutes

Yeast
1.3 L starter of Wyeast 3787, 12:12 AM, 5/19/12
1/4 tsp yeast nutrient in starter; 2 tsp in boil
Pitched at 66F; raised to 77F over the course of 1 week

Notes
Blowoff hose necessary by 5/19/12, 2:05 PM
Fermentation complete by 5/30/12; replaced with airlock
Hydrometer sample is full of citrus and spice; the alcohol seems well hidden to my palate.

English IPA

Batch size: 2.5 gallons
Pre-boil: 1.053
OG: 1.065
SRM:11
IBU:50
Mash: 151F for 60 minutes
Efficiency: 65%
Boil: 60 minutes

Grains
78.7%- 6 lbs Maris Otter
13.1%-   1 lb White Wheat
3.3%- .25 lbs Victory
2.4%- .18 lbs C-40
2.5%- .19 lbs C-120

Hops
1 ounce Northern Brewer (8.6%), 60 minutes
.78 ounces Willamette (4%), 10 minutes
.85 ounces Tetnang and Willamette (4%), 0 minutes

Yeast
1L starter of WLP013 London Ale, 6:50 PM, 5/19/12
1/4 tsp yeast nutrient in starter; 2 tsp in boil
Pitched at 70F ambient. No temperature control.

Notes
Extremely vigorous fermentation. Visible activity had ceased by 3rd or 4th day.


~Br. Abelard

New Glarus Unplugged Enigma 2010 tasting

It's been a treat to revisit these New Glarus beers; due to their WI-only availability, we haven't had  any of these since we first tried them on our honeymoon.  This final beer, Enigma, was a bit different from my recollection, but in no way a letdown.

Date - 20 May 2012

Venue - My house

==========

Appearance - Deep gold/amber, thin film of off-white head, brilliant red highlights.

Smell - Cherry with some acidity that brightens the sensation, some vanilla, prominent oak.

Taste - Lots of oak and vanilla with an even tanginess; balanced acidity leads to a rounded berry flavour.  Clean tannic finish.

Mouthfeel - Medium-low carbonation with a medium body; disappears easily.

Overall - Dan Carey knows how to get cherry to come across loud and clear, even when it's not the main event.  This one is very easy to drink, with a round, fruity, oak flavour.  It's not as sour as I recall, but the sourness that is present acts more to balance the beer than to strip enamel.  Will definitely keep my eyes out for this one in Wisconsin, whenever we end up back there.

- Br. Absalom

New Glarus Unplugged Old English Porter tasting

Finished up a long, somewhat excruciating brewday a little while ago.  Back to tasting notes!  Here's the second in the series of two-year-old New Glarus limited releases opened last weekend; this time it's the Old English Porter.

Date - 19 May 2012

Venue - My house

==========

Appearance - Clear, tawny brown body with orange highlights.  The thin tan head drops quickly but leaves some lacing down most of the glass.

Smell - Oak is prominent, followed by faint vanilla.  Acidity starts out faint, but comes out more as it warms.

Taste -Moderate acidity (not too citric and biting) washes over the palate; oak emerges after that along with vanilla undertones.  Roast is distant, far from prevalent.  Finishes clean.

Mouthfeel - Low-medium carbonation complementing a light body.  Very brown porter-ish of it.

Overall - This isn't a crazy big imperial/Baltic porter, but the acidity makes this low-gravity beer a sipper on par with something much more alcoholic.  It's an interesting take on the historical "vatted" porter style that makes me want to try more aged/soured small beers.

- Br. Absalom

New Glarus Unplugged Cherry Stout 2010 tasting

 
Following recent discussions within the Order regarding our personal storehouses, I thought it was just about time to pull something from the "cellar".  Three selections from New Glarus's Unplugged Series have been lurking in those shadows (quite literally) for the last two years; it seemed only right to let them see the light of day this weekend.

The first to be sampled was the Cherry Stout; my recollection from the summer of 2010 was that there wasn't a lot of "stout" to this beer.  My recollection did not lie.

Date - 19 May 2012

Venue - My house

==========

Appearance - Dark brown, nearly black on first glance; held to the light, however, it's shot through with clear ruby highlights.  The small light tan head falls back quickly.

Smell - Sweet cherry front and center, jumping right out of the glass.  Really that's the overriding aroma; maybe a little barrel quality hiding behind it, but the cherry really dominates.

Taste - Tons of cherry here from start to finish; notes of oak, bourbon, and vanilla at the end.  Very full and sweet without being cloying.  Complete and utter lack of stout roastiness.

Mouthfeel - Solid, sparkly carbonation.  Especially given the sweetness of the cherry here, it could very well come across as soda-like with much more; keeping it under that threshold reminds you you're still drinking beer.

Overall - Up front, I'll admit I have a ridiculous sweet tooth.  In no way does this come across as a stout, but I love the hell out of it.  The huge cherry aroma and flavour are great, but the complexity of the oak qualities really enhance this beer; it's getting the wheels spinning in my head for what to brew come fall.  DeAunn's summation was "Yumtastic!!!"; I have to agree.

- Br. Absalom

Fresher produce

Mrs. Absalom's done a fair bit of gardening over the last couple summers in the limited space we had in our former domicile in Chicago.  Every last tomato fell prey to the neighbourhood squirrels, but the basil fared much better, producing plenty of pesto, caprese salads, and pizza toppings.  This spring she embarked on an ambitious program of growing a wide variety of vegetables from seeds, starting them inside.  Unfortunately, they did none too well when they were moved outside; we were forced to scrap them all and regroup.  Our new plants - including basil, bell peppers, hot peppers, strawberries, and several varieties of tomatoes - are sprouting happily and showing prodigious progress every day.

In the meantime, our friends Craig and Caitlyn, who've done a lot of planting on their property last year and this spring (including a few fruit trees), gifted us an ample bag of mint leaves they harvested.  We love having great, fresh produce from our friends' garden, but we've really had to dig for ideas on how to use all of this mint.  We're not big mixed drink fans normally, so I don't foresee a lot of mint juleps or mojitos in our future.  After a bit of online research, Mrs. Absalom decided to candy a few of the leaves, then use them as a garnish on toasted graham crackers with quality chocolate and organic strawberries and blueberries.  To say this turned out well would be an understatement.

More ideas for getting the most out of the rest of this crop would be greatly welcomed.  If nothing else, I'll make a tincture with it to give brewing a mint stout another shot next winter.

This has brought me back to thinking on the issue of eating organic versus local foods.  Much as Brs. Abelard and Thelonious have mentioned here recently, we've really come to value knowing the origins and treatment of what we eat in the last few years.  Mrs. Absalom and I usually select as much certified organic food, especially produce, as possible; avoiding extra chemicals is certainly better for our personal health.  Ideally, we'd like to be able to buy organic and local - reducing the distance our food travels and supporting local businesses would definitely be our preference - but it seems like it's difficult to have it both ways at this point, especially in a climate that's less than ideal for farming of even moderate scale.

Fortunately, we're not without options altogether here, most notably Wyomatoes (their basil is also great) and Creminelli Meats; in addition, our local Whole Foods occasionally offers locally raised heritage meats.  The Order has discussed recently what it would take to find locally produced organic brewing ingredients; Dave Logsdon of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales (and founder of Wyeast) just spoke of his own work on this in a Q&A on sour beer blog Embrace the Funk.  And on the East Coast there's Valley Malt, whose Malt of the Month Club makes me wish I were back in New England.  At this point, it's tough to be a year-round organic locavore in many areas; for now, though, we'll keep growing in our small space and making the best-informed choices we can.


- Br. Absalom

Frankenmash IPA

American IPA is one of my most-brewed styles. I really love the taste of a super-fresh IPA, although ironically enough, I find that homebrewed IPAs definitely tend to lose their hop aromas and flavors much quicker than commercial examples. That said, it doesn't stop me from brewing it: it just means I had better drink it up!

My usual recipe, however, was at a loss because I didn't have the amount of 2-row I thought I did, or Munich, or C-20...at least I still had the hops. Time for improvisation! I ended up supplementing with some wheat and victory malt to match the usual amount of grain and also hit the gravity numbers so it matched up with the IBUs. Oh and some black barley that got mixed in with my 2-row at the homebrew store when I went to crush the grain. Always make sure to give the little flap a good knock before starting up your own grind!

Of course, I prefer to have additional things to stress me out during a brewday; it helps me to achieve what Mrs. Brother Abelard likes to call my "Brewday face". The yeast was at its best-by date, so luckily I was able to worry about yeast health for awhile, at least until I got home from work to brew, and found out it started up just fine after all:

Finally, of course, there was the little moment of panic when I opened up my kettle filled with filtered water to find white stuff floating around. My initial thought was mold, but it smelled fine and tasted okay too. As it turns out, the white stuff was simply calcium that had fallen out of solution over time. Once I had heated the water and dumped it into the mash, the remaining stuff in the kettle dried into a fine, chalky powder. Disaster averted.

After all that, I ended up pitching the yeast at 11:59 PM, and it has been fermenting quite happily ever since. So happily, in fact, that I had to replace the airlock when I got home from work this evening because the first one became clogged with beer. In conclusion, the usual mantra follows: "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew". 

Frankenmash IPA
Batch Size: 5 gallons
Projected Pre-boil: 1.056
Projected OG: 1.065
Projected SRM:9
Projected IBU:71
Mash: 149F for 90 minutes
Boil: 60 minutes
Efficiency: 72.6%

Grains
82.2%- American 2-row Pale, 12 lbs
4.8%- Wheat, .70 lbs
4.7%- Munich, .68 lbs
4.5%- Victory, .65 lbs
2.1%- C-20, .31 lbs
1.7%- C-40, .25 lbs
.3%- Bits of Black Barley that got mixed in with my 2-row at the store, .05 lbs (estimate)

Hops
1.18 oz. Falconer's Flight (11%), 60 minutes
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (10.2%), 10 minutes
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (10.2%), 5 minutes
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (10.2%), 0 minutes
1.0 oz. Falconer's Flight (10.2%), Dry Hop

Yeast
2 liter starter of WLP001
1/4 tsp yeast nutrient in starter; 5 tsp in boil

Notes:
Pitched yeast at 59F ambient; beer was 68F.
Temperature control set to 67F.
Fermentation large and in charge: had to replace airlock on 5/14 with new airlock.

~Br. Abelard

New Pot Windscreen

I finally got around to putting together a windscreen for my new 9-gallon ported kettle, all for real-like (i.e., not held together with duct tape).  Given the size of the kettle, this one was much easier to build; the favoured design here was a simple cylinder that fits tightly to the corners of the turkey fryer body.  A couple notches for the gas line and the kettle ports and we're done.  The next step is to avoid accidentally folding the damn thing in half when it's not in use.  Let's hear it for ease of lighting and heating efficiency!

-Br. Absalom

Simply a lovely spring day

I'll admit it: I'm relieved to be done with doctoral study for the summer.  Having survived the hurdles of writing back-to-back double-digit-page papers two weeks ago and finals (with sometimes downright insane "drop the needle" listening portions) this past week, it's good to put it down for a while.  Not that there's nothing to do until September; there are a few more studio projects to wrap up in the next week, and DeAunn and I are getting to work to find ways to make a summer living as musicians, sussing out new students and cajoling libraries, nursing homes, and any other venue we can think of to pay us to perform.

Having started early and fought the good fight earlier today, I found myself on my own for the afternoon and evening; DeAunn played a recording session this afternoon, will play the opera downtown tonight, and taught a lesson out of town in between.  Stopping

at Whole Foods on the way back from logging some studio time, I found their salmon steaks on sale for nearly half off.  What was there to do but have one for late lunch/early supper, pour a beer, and sit out in the beautiful spring sunshine?

I don't have a lot of experience cooking fish--I've never eaten it regularly--so after some online perusing I seared it with a little olive oil and the inimitable Spice House's Lake Shore Drive Seasoning, then baked it for a few minutes to cook it through.  A few slices of raw tomato and a sauteed chopped green onion finished the plate; I laid on too much lemon juice, but it was still excellent.  Accompanying the salmon, the dog, and myself on the porch was a glass of my "new" old ale (formerly known as my IIPA).

It still gets chilly at night, but the days are getting increasingly warmer, a trend that's right in line with my own constitution.  I look forward to more glorious days like this, hopefully including a few back in the Midwest with my fellow brothers of the Order this summer.

-Br. Absalom

A Garden Meal

Okay, so it wasn't precisely a garden meal; after all, there was actually only one ingredient from the garden which actually was ready to be in the meal, but still, it was the first harvest from our garden, so I thought I'd write up a post about it...especially considering Br. Thelonious and I were recently lamenting about the lack of cooking/food posts on the site.

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past (6 years ago), in which I would not have batted an eye at eating a meal where all of the offerings had come already prepared from a box, tube, jar, or some other container. Add water, heat, and "enjoy". Fortunately I've traveled a long way since then, to the point where it's highly unlikely that anything in a meal has been pre-prepared, pre-made, etc. For the vast percentage of Americans, however, this is not their reality, and it hurts my soul to think about. Wendell Berry sums it up best when he writes:

"The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous, substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality."

Yes, it can take time to make a meal from scratch (though it doesn't always have to), but the reward of knowing every ingredient that is in the meal, and hopefully from where it came and how it was produced, far outweighs the reward of convenience.

This meal consisted of two offerings: a Spring garden salad with goat cheese, and oven-baked macaroni and cheese. For the salad, Katherine and I harvested radishes from our garden and to them added carrots which we had peeled into thin slices. "But where are the greens!?", I hear you asking frantically. Worry not: we simply cut off the tops of the radishes, chopped them up, and used those as the greens. To that we added goat cheese, then combined lemon juice, melted butter, salt, and pepper and tossed it all together. The result, of course, was delicious:

 

The macaroni and cheese was also fairly simple (Katherine suggested this), which required neither a bechamel sauce nor par-boiling the pasta: combine the liquid with the pasta and the cheese; bake it, and you're good to go. I ended up blending milk, yogurt, butter, spices (I used salt, pepper, nutmeg, and habanero powder), then mixing in the pasta with some smoked cheddar and provolone, and baking for an hour in the oven. Again, the result, paired with Sierra Nevada Torpedo (seen in background):

It was a fantastic meal, made even more so because it utilized our first garden harvest. I look forward to the day when we can harvest multiple things at once, and make an entire meal from them all. 

~Br. Abelard

First Brewday, New Place

Kolsch, to me, is one of those styles which always seem to be overlooked when considering one's brewing docket. It either doesn't seem to be the right time of year to brew one, or I am too impatient to wait the additional time it takes to lager it, or I want to brew something intensely malty, or...well, you get the idea. This lack of initiative on my part is odd, considering the first time I truly enjoyed a lager-type beer was Goose Island's Summertime, a Kolsch-style beer. In fact, I believe I first drank it on Brother Thelonious' patio at his (old) Damen apartment, after an afternoon spent watching a Sox/Twins game and grilling hot dogs. Well, things have changed since then: I no longer drink Summertime; my hot dog consumption has been reduced significantly since switching over to only meat which I know from where it came, and how it was produced; and the Sox and Twins both are not nearly as good this season as they were in 2006.

For my first brew in the new place, I wanted to create a beer which would take advantage of the cooler temperatures in my basement, my new *gasp* temperature control system, convert some of my Wisconsin friends to craft beer, and also be a good quaffer for those hot summer days just over the horizon, threatening, ever threatening. Kolsch seemed an excellent fit for those parameters. Done well, I think the style has a balance to it which appeals to the craft beer drinker and macro beer drinker alike: subtle enough to appreciate the balance and craftsmanship for the former; and subtle enough so as to make it approachable to the latter.

I brewed the beer this past Sunday (4/29), after dragging out all of my equipment, cleaning it up, and stressing out over the best-by date on my package of yeast (April 9th). For this beer, I wanted to try out WLP862, better known as Cry Havoc, Charlie P's house strain of yeast and marketed to be good for lagers and ales. Given that it was past its best-by date and (in some camps) purported to be a slow starter, I made a 2-liter starter to compensate. Thankfully, it was chugging away by the morning of my brewday, less than 16 hours after I made it.

Next up to stress out about, of course was the temperature controller, my Johnson A419, coupled with a FermWrap to keep things warm in the cool basement.

The instructions, unfortunately, were very technical (for me), and I was in the middle of the mash and had very little time to decipher them as fully as I liked. I eventually determined I needed to shift some of the jumpers over from an open position to a close position on the internal circuitry to reflect what I wanted to accomplish, which was overriding a heating element, and instructing it to cut out (shut off) when it reached a certain temperature.

The rest of the brewday was uneventful, thankfully, given the new place and unfamiliar (and steep!) steps down to the basement. My wort chiller hooked up to the outside hose properly, chilled it down within 15 minutes, and was hustled inside before the coming storms could conspire to dump bacteria-laden water into my beer.

Above is my setup, which seems to be working well. Four days into the fermentation and it is still fermenting nicely, holding steady at 60F. Ambient temperature as of two hours ago was just around 56F. Below, the recipe specifications:

Ted's Kolsch
Batch size: 5.25 gallons
Pre-boil gravity: 1.039
Efficiency: 70.8%
Original gravity: 1.050
SRM: 4
IBU: 31
Mash: 90 minutes at 149F, for maximum conversion
Boil: 90 minutes, to drive off DMS precursors

Grains
95.4%- 10.3 lbs Pilsner malt
4.6%- .50 lbs Vienna malt

Hops
2.0 oz Hallertau (4.3% AA) (60 min)

Yeast
2 Liter starter of WLP862 (Cry Havoc)
5 tsp. yeast nutrient

Fermented at 60F

~Br. Abelard