Brew Dudes

Last Friday night I brewed up an English inspired Brown Ale.  I love brown ales.  I like my browns with a decent caramel malt punch, a good nutty/biscuit malt backbone and a touch of toast/roast flavor.  I also like the ester profile that English Ale yeast brings to help hold all those flavors together.

In this case I went the easy route and used my favorite dry yeast: Fermentis S-04.

I didn’t take many pictures during this brew.  I was really focusing on having a great brew session that was efficient and quick.  As a family man, I am always trying to hone in on the fastest brew session I can have while still enjoying the process and producing high quality brews.  Being the 4 session with my latest brew setup, I wanted to totally focus on brewing and sort of let the blog take a back seat (sorry dudes).

Despite the sacrifices to the blog I think this was one of the best sessions I have had in a while.  No hitches, multitasking very well and I hit all my numbers along the way.  I even got all the gear cleaned up at the end.

All in all, the session was only 4 hours and 20 minutes long and I can live with that.

I’ll post the recipes seperately and link back to it soon.  The main highlights for this one were a simple bittering charge of EKG hops, no flavor or aroma additions so the malt profile would shine through.  I also thought that the chocolate malt I purchase from Northern Brewer was a bit to dark for what I wanted (400L), so I sort of split it with some pale chocolate malt (200L) to lighten the color and to also help make the flavor more toasty and less chocolate driven.  We’ll see how it comes out in a couple weeks.

For fermentation, I chilled to 60°F and pitched the yeast.  After 24 hours, I ramped the temp up to 65°F, the natural heat of the ferment took it up to 68°F, just where I wanted it.  Fermentis S-o4 is a very fast fermentor, so after 4 days I then ramped the temp to 72°F to be sure that the yeast stays in suspension and finishes out the beer.  I have also been focusing on drying my beers out as much as possible by using slightly lower mash temps, and really focusing on the temp profile of my ferment.

Enough of that stuff, I save any more thoughts when we do some tasting notes.

All right.  So the first time I brewed the Belgian Witbier, let’s just say there was something off.

I don’t know the exact cause of the issue but it was one or a combination of these three things:

• Fermentation temperature – it might have gotten a little warmer than it should have
• Spice issues – too much/too stale?
• Sanitation – maybe I didn’t clean the carboy well enough

Not knowing which one was the problem, I am going to focus on doing all of these better.

The fermentation temperature shouldn’t be a problem this time.  Brewing in the winter gives me more control over my ale fermentations.

The spice issue?  It stemmed my addition of fresh orange zest to the boil.  With a little preparation, it won’t be an issue again.

Sanitation should never be a issue at this stage in my brewing experience, but it happens.  15 more minutes of cleaning and sanitizing can make a big difference and I will make sure I take the time to do it.

Now I just have to order the ingredients and get this brew session scheduled.

Two weeks ago I brewed up my favorite recipe for an American Cream Ale.
Not much to report as I have brewed this recipe a few times in the past. I love the the light but slighly sweet grainy character. This recipe also made me really start to admire Liberty hops.

I took a few pics of the night. I am still getting used to my pump and direct fired mash, but I’ll post more on that in the future after I get some more equipment focused pictures.

I needed to get these pics up because I’ll be diving into a Nut Brown Ale brew session this Thursday night.
Enjoy the pics: