Another recipe for our Summer Beer series comes to us from Allagash Brewing in Portland, Maine.

I really love the light and citrusy flavor of this beer.  A good friend on the Brewing Knowledge Base forum (BKB for short) gave me this clone recipe for Allagash White. (Thanks again to ”Dartgod”)

Allagash White is one of the greatest everyday drinking beers available.  Living in New England, I am fortunate to have access to a ready supply of this beer.  However, I am going to try my hand at brewing this one very soon.  I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do.

Allagash White Clone

16-A Witbier

Size: 6.5 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Original Gravity: 1.045 (1.044 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.008 - 1.012)
Color: 3.3 (2.0 - 4.0)
Alcohol: 4.37% (4.5% - 5.5%)
Bitterness: 21.76 (10.0 - 20.0)

Ingredients:
6.75 lbs Pilsner Malt
4.25 lbs German Wheat Malt Light
0.98 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
0.32 oz Saaz (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
0.32 oz Saaz (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1 min
0.3 oz Coriander crushed - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.3 oz Ginger (fresh) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.3 oz Bitter Curacao/Bitter Orange (Peel) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1.0 ea White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale
-OR-
1.0 ea White Labs WLP410 Belgian Wit II Ale

Mash in at 152F
Ferment at 65F
Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.29

With the gracious help of my wife, we got the IPA and the Kolsch bottled up. These two beers were made out of the same mash, then tweaked with steeping grains as I reported back on my Double Brew Day post.

My kegerator is dead, and has since been hauled out to make more room in my garage. So back to bottling for this devotee of home kegging. I didn’t have any corn sugar on hand, so I just used 3oz of table sugar (sucrose) for my priming agent. I considered using DME, but I wanted the beers to carb up quickly and DME priming can take a little longer than refined sugars. Both beers spent three weeks in primary and were looking nice and clear in the carboy.

Everything went as planned. The IPA had a finishing gravity of 1.014 and the Kolsch was a dry 1.009. I had considered dry hopping the IPA with 2 oz of Cascade, but the aroma from the later hop additions was already great, so I decided to save those Cascades for an American Brown in the near future.

We are certainly looking forward to tasting these two beers once they are ready. As this was the first time I have used Columbus and Centennial hops (IPA), I was pleased with their aroma and flavor. We’ll have to see how the beer is all carbed up and conditioned. I’ll post back with pictures of each beer and a taste review in a couple weeks.

Be sure to look for my next post on using the Better Bottle carboy as I totally forgot about one key factor about them that may have ruined the Kolsch.

Brew ON!

My Kolsch and IPA brew session went of without a hitch last Friday night.  Today, almost a week later both beers are almost quiet with their fermentation activity, but I’ll continue to let them set for another week before I rack them into kegs.   I may dry hop the IPA with 2oz of Cascade plugs I have.  And I need to get that Kolsch chilled down for some cold conditioning.

During this session I brewed the two beers from the same mash.  Doing this saves some time and allows me to get two full beers out of one mash session.  I have two burners to use so I can split the total wort and then boil the two worts at the same time.  I have done this double sized mash a couple times and I find it works really well for me.

In my Kolsch recipe it called for base malt (Pils), some Munich and some CaraPils.  That is a pretty simple grain base that I felt would work also as a base for a clean American style pale ale like IPA.  My IPA recipe reflects that base and also has the addition of some crystal 120L in it to get more of that crystal malt flavor that I like in a pale ale.  My approach with the double sized mash then is to mash with enough grain to generate enough wort to cover both batches.  In this case I needed about 13 gallons of wort.  I calculate the amount of grain needed to be sure to hit the gravity of the highest of the two OGs (in this case the IPA at 1.060).  Then I can dilute down some of the resultant wort with water to get to the appropriate pre-boil gravity of the lower gravity beer ( in this case the Kolsch at 1.040).

Once I had collected all the wort I needed, I diluted the wort for the Kolsch and started the boil.  For the IPA wort, I placed the 0.5lb of Crystal 120L in a grain bag and steeped in in the wort for 30-40 minutes. At the same time, I started the boil in the Kolsch.  A second advantage to this steeping phase is that it helps set up my chiller process.  If you start both beers at the same time, then one beer will have to sit hot while you chill the first one down.  In this session, I steeped for about 40 minutes in the IPA.  This builds in a 40 minutes buffer for me to get the Kolsch chilled and transferred at the end of its boil before I need to start chilling the IPA.

Essentially this double mash session is like using a big batch of extract wort that you would then use with specialty grains to get the beer you want.  The greatest difference here is that I am using an all-grain process to control the mash profile of the wort I am making (which you can’t get with extracts) and I am controling the freshness of that wort (which you are always unsure of with extracts).  I have used this techinque to mash in a large batch of English Pale malt to make a porter and an English Pale.  The variations are endless.  It’s just like doing extract with grains.  I think that this technique is a great way to get double the production with just a little more work (essentially just the staggered start times difference for chilling).  Try it out for yourself and let us know how it works out for you.  Just be prepared to now have twice the beer on hand after each brew session.

Well I am finally getting around to brew.  Its been a while and I can’t wait to get those propane burners fired up.  Last night I did most of my preparation to trim a little time off of what will surely be a late brew session.  I weighed and crushed my grains, set out my mash tun and set out my two burners and hooked up the propane tanks.  I also filled one pot with 8 gallons of water for my mash.  So all I have to do when I get home after work will be to light the burner and wait for things to come to temp.

Tonight I am going to be doing two beers a Kolsch and an American IPA.  As a Brew Dudes first, I am going to be using a technique that I have been experimenting with but I haven’t talked about much here yet.  I am going to be only doing one very large mash, then pulling enough wort for both beers with the same grain base (also called the grist). I don’t have a catchy name for the technique yet, but I a sort of like Doubling Down Mashing.  More on the specifics later, but for now if you follow this brew-log you get a glimpse of how its done.

I already posted my Kolsch recipe, I’ll be sure to get the IPA written up before my next update to this brew-log.

I’ll try and get some results up to the site tomorrow with some pictures of the session.
Happy Brewing!

Here is one of my upcoming brews that I have planned.
A nice crisp Kölsch in time for the change of seasons into spring.

Kölsch

Batch Size: 5.5 gal
Efficiency: 70.0%

Original Gravity: 1.048
Terminal Gravity: 1.010
Color: 3.8 SRM
Alcohol: 4.98%
Bitterness: 26.23

Ingredients:
9.5 lbs German 2-row Pils
0.5 lbs Munich 10L Malt
0.5 lbs 2-Row Carapils Malt
1.5 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
0.25 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
2.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1.0 vial White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch

Mash temp- 150F

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.29

I told you it was a work in progress, so here is the latest iteration of my Oatmeal Stout Recipe.  This time I added a little flaked barely rather than all Oatmeal.  This is an attempt to force a creamy mouthfeel.  I also increased the amount of Black Patent and Roasted Barely, while cutting back on the chocolate.  In retrospect this may be a mistake, but its all about learning. 

I also tried to do some bittering with a high alpha hop (Nugget), and do flavoring with the EKG.  Using a low alpha hop for bittering means using more of it, which does carry over some flavor because you use so much more.  By using I high alpha hop addition for bittering the flavor contribution will be less.  Then by using the EKG as a flavoring addition, I use less overall EKG (saves on precious EKG right now), but I still get an EKG and English Stout character.  At least that’s how it plays out on paper (or blog), I’ll post some tasting notes on this in a few weeks once the beer is servable.

Oatmeal Stout#2

13-C Oatmeal Stout

Size: 6.5 gal
Efficiency: 65%
Attenuation: 70.0%
Calories: 212.9 per 12.0 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.063 (1.048 - 1.065)
Terminal Gravity: 1.019 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 35.4 (22.0 - 40.0)
Alcohol: 5.83% (4.2% - 5.9%)
Bitterness: 33.57 (25.0 - 40.0)

Ingredients:

12.0 lbs English 2-row Pale
1 lbs Wheat Malt
0.75 lbs American Caramel 40°L
0.25 lbs American Caramel 120°L
0.75 lbs American Chocolate Malt
1 lbs American Black Patent
1 lbs Roasted Barley
1 lbs Rice Hulls
1 lbs Oats Flaked
1 lbs Barley Flaked
0.75 oz Nugget (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz East Kent Goldings (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
2 pkg Safale-04 (Fermentis)

Schedule:

Mash In - Liquor: 4.94 gal; Strike: 178.3 °F; Target: 156 °F
Conversion - Rest: 60 min; Final: 156.0 °F
Mash out Infusion - Water: 5.09 gal; Temperature: 181.9 °F; Target: 168 °F

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.29

I brewed up a batch of Winter Warmer/Holiday Ale at the end of December. I have noticed that my sparging efficiency has been going up lately, yet I haven’t adjusted my recipes to compensate for this (i.e. use less grain). So I end up dumping a small amount of wort out prior to the boil because I just don’t need the extra sugars to hit my target gravities.

I must have been in a frugal mood because I decided to try my first parti-gyle brew session; making a “small beer” out of the late runnings from the tun. Here is how I squeezed two beers from the same mash.

I collected 4 gallons of 1.083 wort from my first runnings (I batch sparge). More than enough sugar to end up with 5 gallons of 1.060 wort which is what I wanted in the recipe. I transfered the first runnings to my primary kettle to start the boil. I added my second infusion of sparge water to the tun and collected 4 more gallons of 1.037 wort. I did some quick calculations used some of the second runnings to get the proper volume in my primary kettle (which later became the Holiday Ale). I conducted a third sparge to collect another 2 gallons of wort and added it directly to the left over second runnings. I now had 5 gallons of 1.025 wort. Which I felt was a little low so I added one pound of DME to bump it to 1.034.

I added this second/third runnings wort to a second kettle. I have two burners, so I could boil these beers in parallel. I boiled off this “small beer” down to 4 gallons at 1.042 OG. For hops in this beer I wanted to just do a single addition. I tried something different and added 0.75oz of Nugget at 30 minutes. Hoping for enough utilization to get good bitterness while retaining enough flavor character due to the limited 30 minute boil. (In all I boiled the small beer for 30 minutes, made the hop addition and boiled for 30 more minutes.)

So this small beer is a mini version of the Holiday Beer (without the spices and bourbon). I suspect it might be a little like a Mild Ale, but I pitched American Ale yeast (Fermentis US-05) into both beers, so it won’t really be very English. If it tastes pretty good I suppose I could dry hop with some cascade and call it an American Pale.
I have to admit I am more excited about this little beer than I am about the Holiday Ale. I’ll add some tasting notes once its carbed up and ready to drink.