Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Homebrewing Supplies Needed Again

On November 26, 2010

Or…Here’s my Christmas Wish List:

1. 6.5 gallon glass carboy – either that or a Better Bottle carboy. I think I would like to end my primary fermentation in a bucket days.

2. Grain mill – I have been putting this one off because of the cost, but I would rather mill my grains at home than have someone else do it.

3. Aeration stone set-up – This piece will complete my quest in getting better at fermentation. Now that I feel like I have starters and temperature handled, I should be aerating my wort during every session.

These are the next three immediate upgrades. After these three, my sights will be set on a keg system.

Bad Mead Aroma

By John Krochune

On November 23, 2010

In General

All right. We’re looking for some information from the mead makers out there.

The Brew Dudes were at an annual wine tasting event last Saturday night. There were some rumors that it was going to be changed to a Four Loko chugging event, but that didn’t pan out.

Mike brought some mead for tasting. It was made by a commercial meadery and I do not recall the name. Maybe Mike can chip in here…

The taste seemed in line with what a mead should taste like but the aroma was certainly lacking. The description that Mike used was, “It smells like a fish that tucked into a dirty gym sock for 6 months.”

Is this a common issue with meads? Granted, I haven’t had enough meads to know what the aroma should smell like but sniffing this mead was unpleasant.

Any information about mead aroma and what could have cause this issue is welcome.

Brining Meat With Homebrew

By John Krochune

On November 18, 2010

In General

I got an email from Mike today asking me about brining turkeys. He found a recipe from Sean Paxton that uses beer in the brine. He was debating using beer because he was taking into consideration the taste buds of his guests – maybe they wouldn’t be into their Thankgiving turkeys to taste like beer.

I wasn’t sure how much beer they would taste in the turkey after it was done roasting.

So I throw it out to you: Have you ever brined meat with homebrewed beer? If yes, how were the results?

Also, when cooking with homebrew, what are your favorite applications?

Leave comments below. If you haven’t left a comment on our blog before, I will have to moderate it.

Russian Imperial Stout Recipe

By John Krochune

On November 16, 2010

In Recipes

Big and bold, an Russian Imperial Stout is an intense beer with complex flavors and strong alcohol warming. I developed this all grain recipe to be brew some time in the Spring so that it can be enjoyed the following Winter.

My plans for this one:

6.5 gallons of wort for an hour long boil – targeting 5.5 gallons of wort at the end of the boil.
Create a large starter for this one. Maybe I can brew an American Amber two weeks before the Russian Imperial Stout, rack the Amber, and pitch the RIS wort right on top of the yeast used for the Amber. That could work…
Plan for a long aging period. Once primary fermentation is done, prime and bottle it and let it sit somewhere out of the way for at least 6 months.

Ingredients:

17 lbs. English 2-row Pale Malt
1 lbs. Belgian Special B
1.5 lbs. Black Roasted Barley
.5 lbs. Crystal Malt 60°L
.75 lbs. 2-Row Chocolate Malt
1.25 oz. Magnum Pellets – boiled 60 min.
2 oz. Fuggle Pellets – boiled 10 min.
2 oz. Fuggle Pellets – boiled 1 min.
Yeast: White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.094
Terminal Gravity: 1.025
Color: 40.05 °SRM
Bitterness: 79.5 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 9.1 %

Blonde Ale Bottling Day

By John Krochune

On November 11, 2010

In Brew Log

It was more like a bottling night but you get the picture. I primed and bottled the blonde ale last night so that it will be ready for the Thanksgiving festivities at my house.

It was only a 10 day primary fermentation, but checking the final gravity proved that it was close enough to where I wanted it to be (1.012).

I tasted the green beer – looking for some any contamination issues since moving the wort from the kettle to the fermenter was not as smooth or as sanitary as planned.

I didn’t taste any funkiness that I have encountered before when I slacked off in cleaning/sanitizing. So, I feel we passed the first test.

All materials that came in contact with the beer at bottling were clean and sanitized so it should be fine the rest of the way.

Ok – so no contamination flavor issues. What about the desired ones? Well, I can tell you that the descriptors for Magnum hops are right on. There is a clean, refined bitter flavor to the beer. Besides that, there really is not a lot of life/complexity to the hop flavor from what I can tell at this stage. I can taste why this variety is good for bittering, but maybe not flavor or aroma. We shall see. The hop flavor is certainly pronounced, but at this point I am not sure if it is balanced with the other flavors. That’s something to report on later when it’s done.

Mostly this beer is an experiment in the homegrown hops performance in my homebrew. I think next year I will pair the Magnum with (probably store bought) varieties that are better suited for flavor/aroma as late boil additions and see how that goes.

Other than that, the color seems in the range. The clarity wasn’t where it should be but I am thinking that will fix itself in time. With a couple of weeks of conditioning, I should have a fairly rushed but drinkable Thanksgiving beer.