Bourbon oak english brown

I'm doing a crazy one here folks. This is a southern english brown ale style. My original plan was to do 10 gallons of brown, and split it up. Keg one as a brown ale, and rack the second to sit with some bourbon soaked oak chips. Only, my brain wasn't working right this morning, and I planned out the perfect 5 gallon recipe - but was thinking it was a 10! Oops. So, life goes on - I'll just have to whip up another batch soon, to keep the beer flowing in the D.R.B. :)

8lb maris
4 lb victory
.50 crystal 40
.50 crystal 120
.50 biscuit
.50 chocolate

.87 oz. kent goldings - 5% (20 IBU's)

OG: 1.062 (a bit high for this style, but I want it up there a bit more since I'm adding the oak/bourbon).

Yeast: This'll be my first time trying dry yeast. I'm going to use Safeale S-04. Also soaking oak chips in bourbon for a bit to add to the secondary. Can't wait to see how this one comes out. I'll report back in the comment section on how this went. I think I'm going to brew on Sunday (tomorrow).

Snow Shovel Blonde

Not too long ago, someone asked me "have you ever brewed a normal beer?".. I had to sit back and think about what they meant by "normal".. To me, an IPA is pretty normal, or the Porter I just put on tap. Those are about as normal to me as beer gets. But I thought about it, and a "session" type beer came to mind. I read through some books and dug around on the internet and found Blonde Ales to be one of those more normal type beers. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

Blonde ales, also called golden ales range in color from that of straw to golden blond(e). They are clear, crisp, and dry, with low-to-medium bitterness and aroma from hops, and some sweetness from malt. Fruitiness from esters may be perceived but do not dominate the flavour or aroma. A lighter body from higher carbonation may be noticed. The lightness in the use of hops and malt can make blonde ales a good introduction to craft industry beers for consumers only familiar with mass-marketed beers.

So basically, I'm making a lawn mower beer in the middle of winter! I figure by the time this is on tap, I'll be shoveling snow. My thoughts drifted back to last winter. I woke up on a Saturday morning to about a foot of snow. I threw on some boots (and clothes if I remember right), and first things first, stomped through the snow to the garage (DRB) and turned on the heat. I knew after shoveling, I was going to need a day of r&r. I spent a couple hours shoveling. My neighbor was out supervising his kids shoveling, which also wore him out. We retired to the garage where we enjoy a few (several) pints of homebrew and played a couple rounds of chess.

By the time we get hit with a big snow, I'll be ready. I don't plan on bottling this one, I think it'll all go straight to keg. Here's the recipe:

23 lb. American 2-row
1 lb. Crystal 20
2 oz. Willamette 5% AA (beginning of boil)
Yeast: White Labs California Ale (starter)
OG: 1.050 / FG: 1.011 - 5.2% (though my program has me coming in at a 1.060 OG, 6%)

Can't get any easier than that. I did some preparing last night. I made my starter with DME this time (I had been using LME), and boy what a difference that made. I didn't get any boil overs. I just checked it and there's already activity starting.
I also milled the grains last night and brought my hot liquor tank in as well as my mash tun, to keep them at room temp. Not much else to do but fire up the strike water and get this brewday going!

Porter & Christmas Ale

Porter:
11.75 lb. 2-row
1.5 lb munich malt (only I didn't use munich - see below)
1 lb. crystal
.75 lb chocolate malt
.5 lb black patent

Hops:
60 minute Kent Golding 5%AA - 1.75 oz.
15 minute Fuggles 5%AA - .75 oz.
0 minute Kent Golding - 5%AA - .75 oz.

Yeast:
White Labs London Ale (starter)

I realized last night that I didn't have any Munich grains. I forgot to get them last time I was at the homebrew store. I did a post on Beer Advocate asking for advice. Some said to just up the 2-row, the Munich isn't necessary. One guy, at like 3 in the morning posted, saying to try toasting the 2-row to make something a bit similar to a Munich. I'm not sure if he was right or wrong, but I didn't feel like driving to Dundee. I threw a couple pounds onto a cookie sheet and put them into the pre-heated oven for 15 mins, more like 20. I stirred them every few minutes. My house smelled amazing. When they were done, I tasted them then tasted the regular non-toasted. Big difference. I hope it adds a nice toasty flavor to the beer.. we'll see!
The base for this recipe came from Brewing Classic Styles book.
OG: 1.072

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Christmas Ale
12 lb. two row
1 lb. crystal
.25 lb. black malt

Hops - 1 oz. Horizon - 13%AA 60 min.

Yeast:
White Labs London Ale (starter)

The grain and hops are pretty close to the same as the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles. I used my smaller mash tun for this one and it worked well. The beer came out looking like a brown ale and smelling sweet.
OG: 1.074

(spices to come later)
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The day went pretty well. Jason at Adventures in Homebrewing suggested trying to keep a layer of water on the grains when you sparge at all times. I had previously been draining the wort all out - then sparging. He explained when you do that, the water doesn't get to travel through all of the grains, it creates almost like tunnels for the water to travel down, since the grains became so compacted from the first sparge out. So, I did it that way this time and it seemed to go well. I ended up with about 7 gallons of Porter (pre-boil) and about 6 gallons of the Christmas Ale. The boil went well, a couple of boil overs on the Christmas Ale (I need another keg boil tank!).
Excellent day for brewing too, 74 degrees today!! Aaron stopped by and supervised brewing for a while.
After I was finished brewing I kegged and bottled my Hop Head IPA. So far it tastes wonderful, nice and hoppy. By Saturday I should be able to kick back and have a pint to see how it is cold and carbonated.

Extract efficiency calculations

I've always been curious about my extract efficiency. I dug around and read several articles about it. A lot of them are just flat out confusing. I found a pretty basic one, that explains the breakdown like this:

1. Multiply the amount of grains you used by the potential maximum extract from your grain. You can find them online, here's a list of some popular grains (click here), I didn't see my Maris Otter on there, so I just googled "maris otter extract potential" and several sites came up.

2. Once you have these numbers, multiply them by the amount of grains you used. So, with my most recent IPA i brewed, here's the breakdown:
20 lb Maris Otter x 38 = 760
4 lb Munich x 37 = 148
2 lb Crystal x 34 = 68
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976

3. Take this final number, and divide it by the number of gallons of wort you collected, in my case, I collected exactly 12 gallons. 12/976 = 81.3 points

4. Next, and this part is tricky, but bear with me: Take your specific, pre-boil gravity number, mine, was 1.072. Take the last two numbers, and and divide your total points from step 3 by this. So: 81/72 = 88%

I'm guessing this is how it's done. After reading several articles, I think I have this all together right. Correct me anyone, if this is wrong.

But 88% sounds pretty good to me. I was wondering how I was doing in this area. I know there are a lot of factors that can effect the efficiency. Using a refractometer, crushing the grain better, proper sparging temperatures, etc. Here's a thread with some interesting tips on boosting your extract efficiency - (click here).

Finally, my first all grain IPA

Last Friday I took a vacation day and brewed a 10 gallon batch of IPA. I split the batch in two - here's what I did:

20lbs Marris Otter
4 lbs Munich Malt
2 lbs British Crystal

I split the batch because I wanted to try out some homegrown hops I received (Willamette I believe). In the first batch, I added 1 oz. Summit (60), 1 oz. Ahtanum (15), 1 oz. Simcoe (5), and will be dry hopping with 1 oz. of Argentine Cascades. The other 5 gallons, I added 1 oz. of Summit (60) and a bunch of the fresh dried home grown hops (15).

California Ale yeast - starter made a couple days before.

This brew went surprisingly well. I started at 5 a.m. and things went like clockwork. My mash tun was filled to the top when I put the lid on. This time I put towels over the top of it, thanks to a tip from a Beer Advocate member - it really helped keep the heat in. After an hour I started draining the wort into the split batches.

I boiled and followed the hop additions as seen above. I really need to get something for my keg boil kettle, a screen or something at the bottom, because the whole leaf hops got all stuck when syphoning the wort out.
Anyhow, I'm going to dedicate the fresh hops batch to Leon Blackburn, who's wife donated a bunch of their hops to us. Leon passed away in June of 2007. He grew some amazing hop vines a while back and this year the crop was huge! I'll be doing a post on the MiBeerBuzz.com blog when the beer is finished.

Hoppy Fall IPA: Pre boil gravity - 1.072
Post boil gravity - 1.082

Blackburn IPA - Pre boil gravity - 1.076
Post boil gravity - 1.084

The difference in the gravity between the two was a mistake on my part. I was doing one pitcher in one boil pot, then another in the second boil pot. Well, I did two in a row in the Blackburn IPA.. oops! My other mistake was coming out a bit under 5 gallons on both of them. The Hoppy Fall IPA came in around 4.5 gallons, the Blackburn IPA was just under 5. I didn't top them off with water, I feel that kind of messes with the whole batch by doing that - but I did learn, a 6 gallon boil will reduce to a 4.5 gallon wort after an hour - so, I'll probably shoot for 6.5 gallons of wort to boil next time.

Anyhow, the room these carboys are in smell freaking awesome. I can't stop walking in there every few hours and smelling them. I'll be racking the Blackburn IPA to a secondary for a week or two of settling and the same with the Hoppy, but I'll be dry hopping that one at some point. mmm. Hops. Oh yeah, the odd hops I used were the ones free from the AHA rally I went to. Somehow I wound up with 3 bags of hops. The Summit hops were the only ones I had to purchase. This whole batch cost about $55.00.

Hops

I just inherited some hops and they smell awesome. I can't stop playing with them. Anyhow, tomorrow I'm going to begin sealing them up for freezing and giving away. Here's a pic of them.. they smell wonderful, I wish I could blog smells, but, Google hasn't invented that yet. I should register googlesmells.com so when they invent that technology, they'll be able to buy the domain off me for TONS of $$ .. :)

Oktoberfest @ The DRB

The DRB is about the size of one of those tables.. haha. But yeah, we are having an Oktoberfest bash on Sept. 20th. The weizenbock came out to a solid 10% abv. The dunkel was alright, but I decided to add cherries to it. I had originally planned on having both on tap at once, and didn't want two similar styles on tap at the same time. It turns out I will only have the cherry on tap. The weizenbock I ended up bottling, but will be doing a tasting of it around 8pm the night of the party. I plan on getting a regular beer for the masses. I was going to spring for a german keg, but holy wow are they spendy. I just got word too, we'll have live music, in the form of an accordion player! Crazy fun will be had next weekend. :)