Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

American Wit Brew Log

On April 26, 2012

For my April 2012 brew I hemmed and hawed quite a bit over what to brew. I have some Stout and a Brown that are drinking nice right now; I wasn’t ready to brew another dark beer. I just brewed a Pale ale that’s ready to start drinking this weekend. I have a cherry wheat beer that I finally resurrected from the dead. I have an American Cream Ale that is about 2/3 empty. I know that I want to rebrew the stout, brown and cream again this year with minor tweaks; but I really wanted to brew something different that all that this time around.

Eventually, I settled on a Hefewiezen. Then I started to think well how much do I really like a hefe? If I don’t drink it, will my in-laws??? Should I brew the Cream ale for the in-laws (they all live next door too)??

I figured I’d brew an american Hefe because I don’t like clove flavors. Then I thought I’ll add some orange peel that sounds nice. They I realized I was just heading down the road to my Harpoon UFO white clone I made a two years ago.

So with all that story out of the way, tonight I’ll gather the equipment up, measure the water and start the yeast for my Orange Wheat recipe (only 5 gallons instead of 10 in the recipe). I’ll be making some modifications and dropping the corriander, just to focus on those orange citrus flavors. Normally, I’d use the Belgian WLP400 Wit Beer strain, but to satisfy that curiosity without committing to a true Hefe I am using the American Hefe Yeast WLP320. Much less clove and banana than a WLP300 German Strain. So I am calling it an American Wit Beer…shoot me.

Not as creative but I really like this recipe. I am trying not to buy too commercial beer much as I am brewing regularly now, so I better get some UFO White like beer in a keg to keep me from buying some.

I’ll toss up some comments tomorrow night as I brew on the Twitter feed and maybe a pic or two as I go.

BREW ON!

Bock Recipe

By John Krochune

On April 20, 2012

In Recipes

I used Brewer’s Friend to create this Bock recipe. Pretty sweet! Here’s the output of the recipe generator (with a few tweaks by me):

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Traditional Bock
Author: Brew Dude John

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Traditional Bock
Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Efficiency: 70%

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.071
Final Gravity: 1.019
ABV (standard): 6.76%
IBU (tinseth): 22.22
SRM (morey): 17.81

FERMENTABLES:
3.5 lb – Pilsner (23.3%)
10 lb – Munich (66.7%)
0.25 lb – Melanoidin (1.7%)
0.5 lb – CaraAroma (3.3%)
0.25 lb – Caramel / Crystal 150L (1.7%)
0.5 lb – Munich – 60L (3.3%)

HOPS:
0.5 oz – Magnum (AA 13.5) for 60 min, Type: Pellet, Use: Boil

MASH STEPS:
1) Infusion, Temp: 154°F, Time: 60 mins

YEAST:
White Labs – German Bock Lager Yeast WLP833
Starter: Yes
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 73%
Flocculation: Medium
Ferment for at least two weeks at 50°F

Lager at 34°F for 2 months before bottling/kegging

SMaSH Brewing

By Mike

On April 19, 2012

In General

Single Malt and Single Hop, it’s nothing new but it’s new to me. I have read about SMaSH brewing in many forums and brewing blogs over the years. As I mentioned in my Munich Lager Recipe post for the Master of Lagers series, I am going to employ the SMaSH technique with that beer.

The point of SMaSH brewing is to plainly put one base-malt right out in front, naked if you will, and subject it to the brewer’s skill to showcase it’s nuances of structure and flavor. OK,that last part may oversell it a bit, or oversell my skills as a brewer. SMaSH brewing showcases the one malt and one hop. It’s a great way to first understand how a particular base malt tastes all on it’s own. Once you have a good feeling for the base malt of your liking, then you can really start to vary your hops.

While it’s not my focus for the Munich Lager, I think the real power of SMaSH brewing is exploring hops. You can quickly get a sense of all the aspects of a hop’s properties by using a standard 60, 30 and 0 min additions. It allows you to explore the hop’s flavor and aroma.

You can answer questions like:

Is the bitterness harsh or smooth?
What do the flavors appear to be?
How does that all compare with the aroma from the late additions?

Although this method can give you a great perspective on hops, for my Munich Lager I want to really get a sense of what Munich malt tastes like. I normally only use it at a rate of 10-25% in most recipes so using it in a SMaSH format seems to make sense. I am pretty familiar with the properties of Hallertauer hops so I am not concerned about those getting in my way when trying to focus on that malt. However, I did leave out a late addition because I do want to be able to focus on the aroma of the Munich malt as well.

Time will tell how it turns out.
BREW ON!

Munich Lager Recipe

By Mike

On April 17, 2012

In Recipes

If you follow along regularly, you may remember John and I are planning an epic lager “marathon” through the late Spring and Summer. Our Master of Lagers series is rapidly approaching (although we haven’t set the date yet to start).

For my first lager round I’ll be attempting to accomplish a couple goals at once. I want to focus on Munich Malt so I can really understand its flavor profile. As a result, I am going to do a SMaSH beer (second long term goal I have had). SMaSH stands for Single Malt and Single Hop. I’ll talk more about SMaSHing soon. For now this is my first lager recipe for my end of the 6 part lager brewing series.

Munich Lager SMaSH

Batch 6.5 gal final
Eff: 70%
OG 1.055
IBUs ~30

15lbs Munich Malt
1.5oz Hallertauer 60min
1.0oz Hallertauer 30min

Yeast WLP830 German Lager Yeast (or WLP838)

Pretty short and clean.

New Hop Rhizomes

By John Krochune

On April 11, 2012

In Hops

The hop rhizomes that I bought through Northern Brewer arrived earlier this week. I stashed them in the fridge until I decide where to plant them. There’s only a few places in my backyard that get a ton of sun in the summer time. The trees shade most of the area so it’s going to be a bit of a challenge, but it will be worth it.

I got a bine of Willamette and one of Cascade hops.

If you look real close you can see the shoots pushing out of the bags. Ok, not really.