Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Mead Ingredients Ordered

On September 27, 2011

It’s about time to start up another brew log. This time, it’s the start of my first mead.

I am going to attempt to make this raspberry mead or melomel following the recipe and procedure I put together earlier this year.

Although I had plans to go to my local apiary and buy some honey in bulk, I decided to purchase a gallon first and see how this recipe went before I had 5 gallons of honey on my hands and not enough desire to make mead with it.

So I ordered online most of my mead ingredients. I got a gallon or 12 pounds of clover honey, some yeast nutrient, some yeast energizer, and a dry mead yeast strain.

The raspberries will come from other sources. I do have some local ones that I froze but I will need to supplement with more frozen berries that come from the grocery store. Meh.

I have to watch that Curt Stock episode of BrewingTV again. He has such a laid back approach to his mead making but where he succeeds is in keeping his yeast energized in those first 48 hours of fermentation.

I plan to make 4 gallons with this amount of honey. It should be a learning experience.

Midnight Wheat Malt

By John Krochune

On September 26, 2011

In Malts

In the September 2011 issue of BYO magazine, there was an article profiling new malts available to homebrewers.

The first one that I decided to research more was Midnight Wheat Malt.

Originally part of Briess Maltster’s Reserve Series, this malt is now available all year round. It’s made from Wisconsin wheat kilned at high temperatures like black malt. Briess describes it as black wheat malt and can be used like debittered black malt.

I am guessing roasting wheat malt to carbonization must result in an even less bitter malt than debittered black barley malt. Here are some more details:

Flavor: No bitterness – Smooth milk chocolate – Some roast in the background – some coffee

Color: 550°L – Bring in the darkness.

Body: N/A

Use: In beers where you want the dark, black color but no bitterness like a Schwarzbier or a Black IPA. I think you can start making black versions of a lot of beers using Midnight Wheat Malt. Black Hefe, anyone?

Homebrewing Books

By Mike

On September 21, 2011

In Beginner, General

I have started brewing a little more regularly lately. Now that the weather is cooling off finally, I have several brews planned before the year taps out. While pulling gear in and out of crates and bins I keep stumbling and moving back and moving back and forth boxes of brewing magazines and books. I started to look through some of the books during the mash of my last brew session. I found a couple great books that I used to really admire. I thought I would put them here for show.

Now, everyone always talks about Palmer’s “How to Brew” and Jamil’s “Brewing Classic Styles“. Ray Daniels “Designing Great Beers” is a favorite too for anyone that has a few years of brewing under their belt. However, these books may be ones that you haven’t seen, but if you have them let us know. I wonder if anyone else references these books are part of their growth process as a brewer. Anyway, check these out.

“The Brew Masters’s Bible” Stephen Snyder. This book is a great book with simple recipes for inspiration. The main reason I really like it is that its filled with good tables and reference charts. It has recipes compiled form many , many homebrew shops all over the country. Its a little dated, but the reference material is still valuable.

“The Homebrewers Recipe Guide” Higgins, Kilgore and Hertlein. This book is full of recipes, as the name implies. Many of the recipes are extract bases, but each covered style section ends with a handful of all grain recipes too. The book covers converting to from extract to all grain. It also has many little highlight sections with tips on things like bottling, aeration, fruit additions and more. I like to flip through this book when I am looking for inspiration on what to brew next.

I present these as just some option if you are browsing for a new brewing book sometime and you want something different than the big three I mentioned above.

BREW ON!

Homebrew Alcohol Levels

By Mike

On September 16, 2011

In General

I have been cruising the blog-o-sphere and some recipe database sites recently. For some reason, my mind started to focus on the alcohol content rating for recipes and brewed beers. Some sites list alcohol as a % by volume or a % by weight, some places even both.

I don’t think I have ever really paid attention to the alcohol level in my beers. I know how to calculate it, even though I use BeerSmith and it will tell me instantly once I put the FG data in. However, I have never been concerned about it I guess. I see forum posts and questions that pop up occasionally with a dude asking how to increase his alcohol. Also when I serve homebrew to people they occasionally ask me how much alcohol is in there. I usually just say “5.5% give or take”.

If you follow the site regularly you’ll notice that John and I don’t brew too many big beers, so maybe that has something to do with it. The Baltic Porter I brewed is really my first significant big beer at 1.080OG, and I have been thinking of doing an English Barleywine too. I am certainly thinking about alcohol with that porter as I think I should get to at least 9-10%.

How often do you care about alcohol levels? Do you prefer to see it posted as ABV or ABW? Does it matter?

Here is the quick calculation for ABV if you are interested and an Article at Beer Advocate about the matter:

(OG-FG)*131=%ABV your gravity #s should be in the format of 1.040, for example.
(1.045-1.008)*131=4.8% ABV (See, I didn’t even use a high gravity example!!!)

BREW ON!

Baltic Porter Recipe

By John Krochune

On September 15, 2011

In Recipes

When my oktoberfest from the brewing duel finished up I didn’t feel like tossing the yeast out. Seems like a shame to generate so much healthy lager yeast to only pour it out. So I decided to brew up a Baltic Porter. Baltic Porter is a bigger version of Robust Porter, but its tpyically fermented clean with a lager yeast. Porter normally is brewed as an ale. This one has been in the fermentor for a little over a week and is coming along. I thought it was starting a little slow, but I managed to rouse the yeast with some shaking and swirling of the carboy, next day I was starting to see some krausen the next day. I collected 600ml of slurry out of the Oktoberfest and pitched that.

My OG was 1.080 at 70% efficiency.

Here is the recipe:

Amount	Item	Type	% or IBU
15.00 lb	Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM)	Grain	71.22 %
3.00 lb	Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)	Grain	14.24 %
1.00 lb	Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM)	Grain	4.75 %
0.50 lb	Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)	Grain	2.37 %
0.50 lb	Caramel/Crystal Malt – 60L (60.0 SRM)	Grain	2.37 %
0.50 lb	Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)	Grain	2.37 %
0.31 lb	Carafa Special III (450.0 SRM)	Grain	1.48 %
0.25 lb	Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)	Grain	1.19 %
2.00 oz	Saaz [4.00 %] (60 min)	Hops	18.1 IBU
1.00 oz	Saaz [4.00 %] (30 min)	Hops	6.9 IBU
1.00 oz	Saaz [4.00 %] (5 min)	Hops	1.8 IBU
1 Pkgs	Bavarian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2206)	Yeast-Lager

John’s Recipe

After putting together a Baltic Porter style profile, I thought I would create a recipe for it too.

This is an all grain recipe.

Ingredients

12.5 lbs. English 2-row Pale Malt
0.25 lbs. English Chocolate Malt
1 lbs. Crystal Malt 60°L
1 lbs. Crystal Malt 120°L
0.25 lbs. British Black Patent
1.5 oz. Fuggle (Pellets, 4.75 %AA) boiled 60 min.
0.50 oz. Fuggle (Pellets, 4.75 %AA) boiled 15 min.
0.50 oz. Fuggle (Pellets, 4.75 %AA) boiled 1 min.
Yeast: Wyeast 2112 California Lager

Predicted Results

Original Gravity 1.075
Terminal Gravity 1.019
Color 25.19 °SRM
Bitterness 30.0 IBU
Alcohol (%volume) 7.4 %

I guess I could have added in some other additives like brewer’s licorice…but I think I am focused on all-malt brewing these days.

I am sure I could have added more crystal malts or some Munich…maybe even some Special B. I thought I would keep it simple and English.

For the yeast, I thought I would use a strain that kept lager characteristics at 58-60 degrees Fahrenheit. It apparently can handle up to 9% alcohol by volume.

Check out our other homebrew recipes.