Parti-gyle Brew Day - Sour Blonde & Sour Belgian Strong

So, this was a big time first for me, I've never tried brewing using the parti-gyle method. Parti-gyle is basically brewing two different beers from the same mash by separating the first and second wort run offs. The first run off from the mash will be a much higher density wort with a higher ABV while the second run off including the sparge will be less sugars and ultimately lower ABV in the finished beer. I'll admit that I made somewhat of a brewers mistake but changing up too many variables for this brewday, I probably should have brewed a similar style to what I've done before but no.... I decided to not only brew using a different method, I also decided to brew a style I've never attempted before. SOUR BEER!!! If you've never tried a sour beer style before then I highly encourage checking one out, keeping in mind that it's a unique style that you should approach with an open mind. Your first sour beer should play out a lot like your first IPA or double IPA for that matter... it's an explosion of flavor on your palate that may seem obtrusive at first BUT simply needs time to adjust in order to recognize and appreciate the complexity and time put in to make the final beer. That being said, if bitter beers are bitter then sour beers are sour. So without having to explain too much of what a sour is - because the category is just as broad as any other BJCP recognized category - I'll simply tell you what I was thinking while designing and brewing the recipe.
I should probably mention that while writing this, it's only been just under a week since brew day and there are still a lot of decisions to be made between now and the day I take the first sip of finished beer. So, take what I write a grain of grain and know that these are my indefinite plans yet so far for this beer, hopefully if it all goes according to plan, we're happy campers. If we're sad campers for some reason, then we'll chop this one up to another learning experience.
If you know me pretty well, you know that I like to brew, and brew often. But, I'm not one to rebrew the same recipe ever, I don't care how happy I was with the batch, in my opinion there are too many styles to brew and not enough time! And what about the styles that haven't been created yet or accepted in the BJCP, who know's when the triple IPA or session IPA or Black IPA - okay, I like IPAs - will ever make it as an accepted style?! So, for this parti-gyle brew day, I decided I wanted to make as polar opposite of beers as I possible could from the same mash. Methodology wise, I could only do so much from the same mash, but what about after the mash? Well I did lot's of research on basic sour beers and even more research of the beers I really liked from Russian River, Cascade Brewing, Cantillon and a few others that seem to be doing some extraordinary things. I narrowed it down to brewing a simple Belgian Blonde sour as my small beer and brewing a Belgian Strong Ale as my big beer. I realize that these styles are pretty broad in themselves, especially the Strong Ale category, but I wanted to leave it as an experiment with the bumpers on, so to speak.

However, it's not brewday that intimidated me, it's everything on the cold side and dealing with the new strains that I've never used. Okay, so going back to the brewing styles.... I knew I wanted to make a very simple blonde beer, light in color with puckering, dry finish. I used pretty much all base malts for this one relying on a pretty high temp in order to give the bacteria strains something to munch on down the road in secondary fermentation. I probably should have mentioned this but I figured if you're reading this, you probably already know that the reason why sours are sour is due to the amount of acidity that is produced by the added bacteria strains during fermentation. So anyway, the Blonde side of this brewday was pretty simple, just needed to hit the right numbers and keep some DME on hand just in case I've exhausted my grains in the first run off. Easy, done.
This brings me to the big beer, a Belgian Strong Ale. I've done Belgian strong ales in the past but they were more of the "Belgian DARK strong ale" category... It's not far off other than the SRM but the dark fruit character may or may not be there depending on the yeast I throw in. I decided I wanted to add some DARK belgian candi sugar to see if I can get pretty close to the same flavors of the previous BDSA that I've done. Of course all these flavors are going to change drastically when we add the bacteria element, but this was just establishing the base beer, perhaps to do the bulk work of fermentation, secondarily to speed up primary fermentation.
So, we have the big and the small beer set in place, a Blonde that's aching for a souring and a big Belgian biz-nitch that wants to be high in alcohol while letting the malt sweetness battle it out with the acidity in your mouth. Did someone say cherries? No? Okay, well I just did. Remember how I said I changed too many variables? Why not one more? I plan to age the big beer (Belgian strong ale) on cherries. How long? As long as it takes. If you're looking for a quick beer to turn over from grain to glass then perhaps a sour isn't the best idea. You might think lagers take time... not even close. A good sour could take several months up to a year...a great sour could take years...a Gose perhaps, blending 3 year old beers.... But I said I wouldn't get into these styles in this post, so anyway...YES, I'm going to age the big beer on cherries. No, I haven't decided on what type of cherries yet. Delicious cherries, that's all.

 

There isn't really a whole lot more to include other than my recipe but I would like to mention that I chose to do a 90 minute boil in conjunction with a 45 minute high mash temp because the yeast I added can only eat so much sugar (mainly small, significantly broken down sugars) and I wanted the sourness to really come through. Basically -- and again, this is what I've read and what I've gathered from reputable homebrewers -- the bacteria will eat anything. It's almost one of those things that tells you to remember everything you've been taught as a homebrewer and do the opposite. For example... if you want to amplify the sourness, then you have to stress out those bugs (bacteria). Under pitch the bugs. Yes, it's going to take longer but that's what I was referring to earlier about putting the beers away for a while to sit and ferment out. Stressing them out will give off more acidity and ultimately give you that sour quality you're after along with the matured malt sweetness.
Ok, last thing. A lot of breweries that have access to a barrel program that will age their sours in oak barrels in order to round out the flavors. I have a barrel, and I plan to use it. I plan to barrel age the big beer and see what happens. This is actually something I've been wanting to do for a while mainly because bourbon or whiskey barrels only give off so much flavor until they are completely exhausted. So, now I plan to use this barrel as a forever souring agent for future beers. Anyway, enough is enough... here's the recipe.

Parti-gyle Sour Blonde & Sour Belgian Strong (12 gallong batch)

Mash @ 158 degree for 45 minutes:
23# German Pilsner
4# German Wheat

90 minute Boils on both beers

Blonde Hops/Yeast/Bacteria (1.042 OG)
0.5 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60 minutes
Belgian Ale Yeast WLP550 (primary)
Sour Belgian Mix 1 WLP655 (primary)
Lactobacillus Bacteria WLP 677 (primary - Day 2-3)
DME (I used DME because I undershot the gravity from excess sparge water, use enough to sit around 1.032-1.035 preboil gravity)

Belgian Strong Ale Malt/Hops/Yeast/Bacteria/Adjuncts (1.100 OG)
2# EXTRA Dark Belgian Candi Sugar
3 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60 minutes
Trappist Ale WLP500 (primary 1.5L yeast starter)
Flemish Ale WLP665 (primary - Day 2-3)
Lactobacillus Bacterial WLP 677 (primary - Day 2-3)
Cherries (still working on quantities)

I do need to mention that I shifted the bacteria strains back a day or so in order to give the sacchro yeast a head start on the feasting. I want a sour beer but I felt it was important to supplement a baseline yeast strain to kickstart the fermentation process...

Trip to San Diego

Last weekend I took a few days off work to head down to San Diego to go camping with my Dad and QUAFF (Quality Ales Fermentation Fraternity). QUAFF is the big home brew club in San Diego with lots of members. I mentioned in another post that I've been camping with this club before to Aqua Caliente, but since I had so much fun last time I figured it would be another great opportunity to meet more people with similar interests. The timing was perfect because of Mother's Day and it happened to be my dad's birthday that Saturday.
So anyway, that next morning before we headed out to the campsite, my dad and I wanted to check out Intergalactic Brewing Company, which was just recently opened by a guy I went to high school with, Alex Van Horne. After touring the brewery and bombarding Alex with a billion questions my dad and I headed down to Balboa Park for a San Diego Brewery Exhibit that was in town. I'll include a picture or two of the exhibit but it was pretty fascinating to see the evolution of what San Diego has ultimately become.

Finally, hit the road with several growlers from Intergalactic and Beachwood. Because I google mapped the the route to get to Lake Morena, I saw that we had to drive through Alpine. It didn't take much convincing to have my dad stop off there for a few samples and what's another growler?
So eventually, we got to the campsite and set up our tent. We met up with the rest of the QUAFF club members and immediately started sharing beers. I met lot's of great people while I was down there, homebrewers seem to just be so easy going and down to earth.
Later in the night, everyone seemed to be bouncing around from site, drinking beer from each others Jockey set-ups. I eventually got to try this guy's beer which is a strong ale aged for 2 years... It was a Strong Ale known as "Creeping Death" nicknamed because its so easy drinking and so high in alcohol. It was brewed with a bunch of different dark fruits and had 5 different yeast strains to finish it off at 17% abv. Needless to say... "Creeping Death" got the best of me and I my head was hurting pretty bad for most of the next day. The 95 degree weather wasn't helping my situation either.

At one point, some of the members from the club began roasting a pig on a manual spit for a potluck scheduled for dinner. The pig was roasted for 8 hours, totally worth every minute too... That night was more mellow than the night before. I went to bed kind of early and felt great the next day. Had my steak and eggs and we hit the windy roads back to Rancho Penasquitos. Because it was Mothers Day, we relaxed at home and spend some quality family time together. We had an unfortunate incident that afternoon that later resulted in having to put down my childhood pet Abbey. She brought nothing but happiness to our family so it was very difficult to see her go. She was 13 years old and not getting any younger. We all miss her very much and will never forget her as she was a true member of our family. Here's a picture of her as a puppy with Beau our other faithful companion probably sometime circa 1999.
Anyway, it was a quick trip but I was very glad to be down in San Diego with the family this last weekend. I'm sure I'll be down there relatively soon with the San Diego County Fair beer entries due next month. Until then, Cheers!

Cascade Pale Ale

I feel like I've been doing a bunch of obscure beers lately so I wanted to switch it up a bit and brew a crowd-pleaser for when the non-beer geeks come over. I often find myself in a situation where I'm offering beer to friends who like beer but who maybe are not super deep into the craft scene. I then realize, shit... I don't have any beer styles on tap that many people know of... For example, I have 4 beers on tap right now... A whiskey barrel aged Russian Imperial Stout, a very hoppy session IPA, a peat smoked Scotch Ale, and a Czech Pilsner... So, you don't like smokey things... okay...so you don't like whiskey.... okay.... so you don't like very hoppy beers... okay wellllll now you have one option. A pilsner.

So anyway, I want to probably work on a few beers to have on tap this summer in order to give our guests a few more options just in case they are too skeptic to try new things. With that being said, I mentioned in another post that Summer is really when the session beers come out anyway. I haven't brewed an American Brown ale lately, those are always fun. Maybe a basic IPA or Imperial IPA, an American Stout, a Saison perhaps? This is just myself brain storming but I think it's time to hold off on the cryptic styles for bit. Although I do have some fun things fermenting away in the closet, they can be released at strategic times... I just mean, one strange beer at a time.

It's been 10 weeks in the barrel as of yesterday and I finally kegged the Russian Imperial Stout that was sitting in my whiskey barrel. Bad news... it tastes oxidated as all hell. I kinda figured it would be because I've been trying it periodically. I think that, there, in lies my problem... I've always been impatient for beers which is why brewing the big ones are so difficult for me. I think if I would have just left it alone for the two and some months it would have been much less oxidated. The worst part is it's not even the sherry oxidation notes.. it's the wet cardboard notes that make it almost undrinkable. Anyway, I'm carbonating it right now to see if a little gas in suspension does anything for the flavor profile... who knows..? Going back to the other beers I have in my closet, I have the 100% Brett IPA which I think is coming along VERY nicely... I'm a little hesitant to take a gravity reading because I just don't want to risk contaminating my other beers until I have a second thief... It smells incredible and looks great. The only other beer I have in the closet is the Habanero Black IPA. Here's the deal, Black IPA...Vermont Ale....Cascadian Dark Ale... Black Ale... what ever you want to call it... I took a gravity reading this morning and it tastes great... I used the San Diego super yeast which is kind of weird to me... I always get a bunch of off flavors in the first week then they drop out or get reabsorbed by the second and third week so I think it's on the right track. Either way, it's nice and hoppy, very dark without the roasty aromas, thanks to Sinamar. I plan on dry hopping it but I don't want it to butt heads the habaneros. I haven't put them in yet, still deciding on a dry hop variety.

Okay, so that was mostly about other shit... I know. So, this beer I brewed today was basic compared to my current beers but I think it's for good measure. As I normally do, I'll put the recipe down below. It's an American Pale Ale. Yes, another very broad category, but it's classic in the hop choice (cascade) and the other flavor and aroma profiles from the grain follow suit. Although, I did used Chinook for bittering, I wanted to keep the amount of hops somewhat under control in this recipe. Going into the fermentor it looked nice an clean, I really like the color. I always have success with the White Labs 001 as a house strain... but I'm interested in trying maybe the Chico strain or possible looking into see what Dogfish Head's house strain is... It's what ever is in the 60 and 90 minute and you can tell recently in their 'Rising Bines' collaboration with Sierra Nevada Brewing. Cheers.

Cascade Pale Ale - 5.4% (Brewed on 5/6/13) 6 gallons

10.5# American 2 Row
1.5# Crystal 60L

1 oz Chinook @ 60 min
1 oz Cascade @ 10 min
2 oz Cascade @ 0 min

WLP001 (California Ale)

(5/9/13) Here's a sequence of the first 3 days of fermentation starting with the yeast pitch.

Czech Pilsner

Pilsner... Czech Pilsner... Don't I mean lager? Yeah, well it's a lager. In fact, All pilsners are lagers, but not all lagers are pilsners. A lager, in short, is a beer fermented with lager yeast (Saccharomyces Pastorianus). Oh... okay now it all makes sense. Well, not really. In the vast world of beer styles, there are really only two types, ales and lagers. The main difference between the two is the type of yeast you added for fermentation. That's it? Yeah, pretty much. However, there are plenty of other factors that you might want to look into while building or brewing a recipe in order to make it drinkable. The main idea to keep in mind is that LAGERS, unlike ALES, need to be brewed at a much cooler temperature, we're talking around 45-55 degrees. So, unless you have a basement that stays around those temps year round, you're going to need to have some sort of refrigeration unit to keep things chilly, especially in the Summer months. Additionally, because temps are colder, fermentation happens much, much slower. At least double the time a traditional ale would take. On top of that, the pitching rate needs to be much higher of a cell count compared to an ale. Just keep that in mind...

So, let's go back to lager types. If all pilsners are lagers but not all lagers are pilsners, what other types of lagers are out there? A LOT. American Lagers, Bocks, Dopple Bocks, Baltic Porters, Festbiers, Helles, Vienna Lagers, the list goes on. In fact there's more lager beer brewed and consumed in the world than ales. Seems unlikely since there are so many more ale styles out there, but you need to think about who's drinking the beer. Which brings me to American or European lagers. Coors Original is a lager. It's not a pilsner. Budweiser brews lager beer, not pilsners. These particular beers being brewed are stylized as American Lagers due to the amount of corn and/or rice being added. They are essentially watered down, low ABV, "sessionable," adjunct beers with the sole purpose of easy, one dimensional drinking. I'm not one to knock anyone for making or drinking such product and I feel it definitely has a place in today's beer drinking community, and always will. However, I'm not really into the whole one dimension flavor thing, so I searched elsewhere for lager inspiration for my homebrew.

Ok, back to Czech Pilsner. This lager style is a simple, yet extremely flavorful beer that comes with quite the flavor profile. These beers are basic in ingredients but quite complex in hop aroma as well. The Czech, or Bohemian Pilsner -- I think is what BJCP refers to it as -- is brewed with traditional European ingredients. Monrovian Pilsner malt is recommended but it's harder to find in the United States. The next closest is probably German Pilsner, full bodied grain with a nice malt flavor. The Czech Pilsner is also know for its spicy/earthy hop flavor and aroma, so keep that in mind too...

So, what's left? The YEAST, a lager yeast of course. When building my recipe I was looking into what White Labs has produced and stumbled on WLP800 (Pilsner Lager). From the White Labs website, "Classic pilsner strain from the premier pilsner producer in the Czech Republic. Somewhat dry with a malty finish, this yeast is best suited for European pilsner production." Ok, that was easy. Anything else I should be looking at...? I've got the recommended malt, yeast, hops... Is water important?.... Hell yes it is... SOFT water is a must! Avoid hard water at all costs... It wont ruin the beer but it will certainly leave you with a minerally aftertaste and not give that quintessential smooth, refreshing mouthfeel that lagers are know for. Long Beach has moderately hard tap water, so I decided to blend distilled water with arrowhead spring water. I did about three parts distilled to one part spring water. I wanted to get a little bit of minerals in there because the yeast love it and it's all about making them happy.

Lastly, before I include my recipe I want to mention a protein rest and diacetyl rest. Protein rests are used in the mash for certain beers in order to break up the longer chained proteins at a lower temperature. This contributes to a clearer beer by reducing the chill haze as well as helping to lend a crisper finish. I want to make a note that I did NOT end up doing a protein rest, but a single infusion mash for a light body (148 degrees) for 75 minutes. Some people will tell you that the protein rest makes all the difference but I took a risk on this one and left it alone. Now, a diacetyl rest is used in order to clean up the beer a bit from the diacetyl let over from cold fermentation. This is achieved by slowly ramping up the temperature in the fermentation process as it comes to an end. This will leave the beer cleaner in taste and free of any off-flavors still lingering. I feel a diacetyl rest is always necessary when brewing lagers. After the lagering phase (week 4-8) in fermentation, bring the temperature up to about 60 degrees and hold for a day or so... I usually keep it at 60 deg for 48 hours then crash the temp one last time before kegging.

Czech Pilsner 5.4% Brewed 1/28/13 (6 gallon recipe)

10# German Pilsner

2 oz Saaz @ 60 min

2.5 oz Saaz @ 30 min

1.5 oz Saaz @ 5 min

1.5 L Yeast Starter WLP800 (Pilsner Lager)

Also, I wanted to mention that I aimed to accentuate the Saaz aroma with late addition hops. I wanted to promote the spicy aroma without having to dry hop the beer. I would say it definitely worked. This Czech Pilsner is herbal, spicy, floral, very refreshing for summertime. Cheers!

Session IPA

What's the deal with the whole session thing? Well the obvious answer is to drink more of the same beer without having to worry about getting too drunk. But, what makes them so great? You'll probably start seeing a lot of commercial, micro and nano breweries putting out these session styles in the summertime, in light of easing more consumers into the craft beer world. Well, you don't have to tell me twice to try a new beer, but if half the alcohol means half the flavor then "No, thank you." Which brings me to American session beers that have a lot of flavor. Like, I don't know... an IPA perhaps... That's right, Session IPA. What is it? What goes into it? Hop flavors? Aromas? What does one expect out of a beer when they order a Session IPA at the bar? We'll get to that in second. But first, the reason why I like Southern California's take on an IPA is because it defies the "rules" of building recipes... Other parts of the country, and even world, boost their ingredients at similar rates. I'm talking about hops and malt characters. Outside of California, it's pretty easy to find these IPAs relatively balanced between bitterness and sweetness of the malt. Even further, its very common to sip on an Imperial IPA on the East Coast that can easily be confused with an American Barleywine. I guess that's why I like Socal beers so much, the hops are always showcased in the beer despite the style. Going back to IPAs, us Californians tend to back off on the malt complexity a bit when designing beers and trek on to find the best hops to feature in our beer. Well if you ask me, it's a perfect time to brew the IPA. Oh and for those who are completely lost at this point, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. If you want to know where the name comes from you're going to have to read "IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale." I mention that book because it's a little more accurate to what was actually happening at the time.

Anyway, let's answer that question on what to expect from a Session IPA. Now, I understand everyone is partial to what they feel is their preferred beer but putting that all aside, I think we can agree on a few things... The first element would be the malt, or lack of. The beer should be clean and refreshing with minimal caramel malt character to keep the beer honest but not obtrusive. Next the alcohol needs to be kept relatively within session guidelines. I don't like saying guidelines because it hinders creativity but leave that for the main event. To put a range on ABV, I would suggest flirting in the 4.5-5.5% range, with a slight deviation. The beer should be clean, meaning the yeast should be thorough and well attenuated without any ester profile. Color can range but in order to keep from confusing the consumer, the beer, in my opinion should be relatively light. Ok, so we have light body, low ABV, clean yeast strain, light color, what are we missing?

HOPS! Ah, yes the bride herself. Well this is the one ingredient that you should feel you can be the most creative with. Of course, that means you can also do what ever the hell you want... Or sort of... Don't go tossing the whole vine in but keep it relative to what flavor and aroma profile you are trying to achieve. And let's not forget about the bitterness either, were still talking about an IPA here... Going back to the topic of hops and malt, keep in mind that its almost exponential in regard to adding hops to a low density wort. A little bit goes THAT much further now. Keep the bitterness level honest but don't push the 100+ IBU in a 4% beer... You're going to get much more than you bargained for and it's not going to be the next big thing. I would suggest sitting somewhere in the 40-65 IBU range. Ok, that's great but the biggest question of all needs be addressed, what type of hops? Ok, you're on your own for this one. Really, though. There are so many hop varieties that would work great in a session IPA, I personally like the citrusy/tropical hops in my lighter, drier beers. I went to Steinfillers, in Long Beach and asked them to order Mosaic, a somewhat newer hop variety. From the Northern Brewer website, "A new dual-purpose hop, bred from Simcoe. Mosaic is so named because it gives a range of aromas and flavors which are complimentary to other common hop aromas. Everything from citrus, pine, earth, herbal, mint, bubblegum, blueberry, lime peel, black pepper - the character seems to change depending upon the conditions it is in." Now, I don't know about all the bubblegum and what not, but this was a perfect hop for what I was going for. So enough is enough, here is my recipe I brewed a few weeks back.

obSESSION IPA 4.7% (6 gallons)

7g Gypsum
6# Pale Malt
2# German Pilsner
.5 # Crystal 60L
.5 # Dextrose

1 oz Mosaic @ 60 min
1 oz Mosaic @ 10 min
2 oz Mosaic @ 0 min
2 oz Mosaic Dry Hop 10 Days

WLP001 White Labs California Ale

Tasting notes to come...

Brett IPA

Yep, Brett IPA. What the hell is a Brett IPA? Well... it's exactly what it sounds like... IPA fermented with Brett. You can do that? Apparently. I just did. And actually, the more research I do, the more I find that these beers are far more common than I had thought. Ok, so... how'd this one pop into my head? It was several months back when I went on a camping trip with my Dad, who is a member of QUAFF (San Diego Homebrewing Club) where we headed out to the Anza Borrego desert and sharred beer, stories and trades all homebrewing related. It was actually pretty fun but amidst the drunken stupor I ran into a fellow homebrewer that was handing out pours of his latest beer. I actually can't remember his name -- go figure -- but he was telling me he made a 100% Brett IPA. I could probably go back and look up his name because I know he was talking about being involved with the start of a new brewery coming up pretty soon. I believe he said it was called "Toolbox Brewing" or something to that regard, but either way, he was telling me all about misnomers of Brett. He went on to tell me about how Brett can really be a clean strain when used properly. By the way, Brett is short for Brettanomyces, a yeast that is slightly different from tradition brewing yeast. It's not that it's more temperamental, if anything is less but mainly because it thrives in so many extreme environments. Unlike Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, which works well in a smaller temperature parameter, Brett works in a much broader range without having nearly as many negative byproducts. In fact, Brett works very thoroughly in it's attenuation but the only downside is that it takes it's sweet, sweet time. Brett is really known for its funky, leathery or horse blanket like notes that are found in many Belgian beers, but as this guy was telling me that Brett has so many other benefits to beer, I had to look further into it.

There are so many different offshoots of Brett strains but the one I was focused on was the "Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois" or the WLP644. Directly from the White labs website, "This Belgian strain, used traditionally for 100% Brettanomyces fermentation, produces a slightly tart beer with delicate characteristics of mango and pineapple. Can also be used to produce effervescence when bottle-conditioning." I chose this strain mainly because I've never used it before and I liked the idea of having the Brett quality on a slightly Belgian platform, yet assertively hopped for an added dimension. Here's one issue though, you absolutely need to propagate Brett in order to have enough cells to pitch. I put together a 1.5 litre yeast starter that lasted about 10 days, then pitched.

Brett IPA (Brett Brux Trois) 7% Brewed on 4/18/13 (6 Gallon)

12# American 2 Row
.75# Carapils
.75# Crystal 40L
.5# German Wheat

1.75 oz Chinook @ 60 min
.5 oz Cascade @ 30 min
1 oz Cascade @ 15 min
1 oz Amarillo @ 0 min
2 oz Amarillo Dry Hop (Whole Leaf)

WLP 644 White Labs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois

Here's the scary part. Brett is very, very tough. Cross contamination is almost guaranteed if you reuse the same equipment with Saccharomyces strains. I know this from personal experience as well as all the other info I've read on Brett. I have my Brett IPA now sitting with the dry hop in my closet at about 78 degrees. I usually ferment all of my beers around 68 for a clean profile but I eventually ramp the temps up toward the end of primary fermentation to really get the off flavored byproducts absorbed back into the yeast. Because Brett eats pretty much anything in front of it, this shouldnt be a problem, but as it stands, the Brett IPA is at 78 degrees until ready for transfer.

Now the question, to bottle or to keg....? I don't want to risk any more cross contamination so we'll see... I'll be watching this beer quite closely to keep tabs on its progress, because again this beer may take quite awhile to thoroughly ferment. I would like to end somewhere around 1.004 - 1.008 terminal gravity and dry dis' bitch out. Tasting notes to come!

Anyway, Cheers!

Habañero Black IPA

Originally I was going to make this recipe an Imperial Black IPA but leave it to brewday complications to shift the beer style a bit... I've been tweaking this recipe for a few weeks now, trying to decide the best hop usage as well as dark malts, knowing I wanted to use the back stock of Sinamar I had. For those of you that don't know what Sinamar is -- it's a food grade coloring used to mimic the SRM of the wort without lending too much, or any roasted malt character to the beer. Weyermann makes a pretty good product so I decided to order some online a while back. Anyway, I first heard about Sinamar from Jeff Bagby, from his "Black Lie" Black IPA, which he had a lot of success with. I went back and forth on how much to add to the boil, but I can safely say I added enough. As I was putting together the recipe I felt I wanted a little bit of the dark malt character so I last minute decided to add some black patent just for the ashy flavor that certain carafas gives off. The idea behind using Sinamar is to get away from too much roasted flavor from the darker malts. I'm aiming for a clean bitterness from the hops and not too much astringency from typical highly modified dark malts.

The recipe was complete. I had a pretty smooth going brewday until the bittering hop addition got away from me due to chatting with some neighbors. My first hop addition didn't make it into the boil until 15 minutes late. Now that I had a far too condensed wort I added some water to dilute it a bit. I over did it. I then added some corn sugar and tried balancing it out once more. I was close enough. Instead of hitting the 1.080 I ended up with 1.072 OG. Regardless, it smells incredible.

Habañero Black IPA Recipe (not including the corn sugar or water top up) 75 min Boil Brewed on 4/29/13

15# Pale 2 Row
2.25# Rye Malt
1# Crystal 60L
.5# Black Patent
8oz Sinamar

2oz Magnum @ 60 min
2oz Amarillo @ 15 min
2oz Simcoe @ 0 min

WLP 090 (White Labs - San Diego Super Yeast)

I plan to add the habañeros after I transfer to a secondary fermentor. Still deciding on how much to add.. this one may just be a guess and check. I'll do an update on this beer in a week or so...

4/30/13 Here is a shot of the primary fermentation at initial krausen. Probably sitting around 66-68 degrees inside the fermentor.

5/1/13 It's been about 36 hours since I pitched the yeast and the blow off was definitely necessary. I had to clean up a little bit but for the time being, it's only going to keep making a mess...