Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Belgian Pale Ale Brewing Session and Tasting Notes

On March 8, 2017

In the course of your homebrewing experience, you get accustomed to brewing your favorite styles or the ones you have had success with. Often once you get good at brewing a certain type of beer, you keep brewing it.

Mike decided to break out of that rut and brew something he had never brewed before. We talk about it in this video.

Without knowing what this beer was, I was tasked with trying to figure it out. I picked up on the malt forward aroma and the nice amber color. It was a fairly clear beer with just a touch of haze.

After tasting it a bit, I couldn’t figure it out. It was very clean and not that hoppy. Before I made a total fool of myself, Mike revealed that the beer he brewed was a Belgian Pale Ale.

The Belgian Pale Ale Notes

Unlike other Belgian ales, the pale ale has only mellow fruit esters and a light spiciness. It finishes pretty dry and was a tasty beer that you could have 2 or 3 without having the effects of a stronger beer. There were no funky notes in this Belgian.

Mike followed the recipe from Jamil’s Brewing Classic Styles. He wanted to try something that he hadn’t brewed before to get back into the swing of home brewing for fun. Sometimes when you’re brewing for competition or brewing to perfect, the enjoyment can be lost a little bit. This brew session had low expectations and it helped to relax and just brew.

He went with Dingemans Pilser malt for the majority of his grain bill with some CaraMunich and a whole pound of Biscuit malt because he had it. He used Perle hops and White Labs WLP515 Antwerp Ale yeast for fermentation.

I was a big fan of this beer and certainly thought that it would be a good gateway for people you know who are Belgian haters. This beer was not what I think people expect when they think Belgian ales.

Hopefully Mike puts it into competition to see how it fares.

Brew on!

Thoughts On The AB InBev Keurig Partnership

By John Krochune

On March 1, 2017

In General

Hey there – how are you doing? Mike had some thoughts about AB InBev Keurig partnership that he read about so we discuss them in this video.

What’s Happening?

So, as you probably know from homebrewing news sources such as ours, AB InBev has bought the homebrew shop Northern Brewer through their global incubator arm, ZX Ventures. Now, the latest information from AB InBev is they are entering into a partnership with Keurig to develop an in-home alcohol drink system.

Not a lot of details are known at this time what kind of system or systems they are going to build but one would think that a countertop brewing device could be one of the options for this partnership.

The big thought that Mike had was where Northern Brewer comes in to the picture. Selling any of the devices that they develop would make sense to sell through the NB site since they are a leader in home brewing supplies along with having a built in customer list.

Through acquisition, they were able to get a nice e-commerce platform to sell directly to an invested audience. Hey, that beats having to build these things yourself.

Maybe we will see more acquisitions from this venture arm. Could some other home brewing equipment manufacturing companies be next as they build up their offerings to you, the homebrewer?

Mike has thoughts – he has a lot of thoughts. This time he is thinking about the future of homebrewing and what that means for all of us still committed to the hobby. I am interested in seeing what devices that this new entity is going to produce. Will they make a countertop cocktail maker too?

Keurig is a local business to these Brew Dudes. I hope they come up with some cool stuff for use.

Thanks for reading – Brew ON!

Solera Project Update 2 – The Latest

By John Krochune

On February 23, 2017

In Brew Log, General, Videos

Hey there – Because a guy named Jonathan asked us on YouTube to provide an update on Mike’s Solera project, we give you this video and post.

Here’s a spoiler alert. The update is not what you think it will be.

Solera Update Details

So the Solera project has taken a bit of a change in direction. Mike says that the project is still on the table. The issue that Mike faced is that the golden sour beer is still delicious, it’s very clear, and it didn’t need to be racked to another carboy.

Fundamentally, the sour beer he made was too good to split and to start a solera procedure.

Instead, he put half of the beer in a keg so we will be tasting that soon.

The other half was put into another carboy and added to a mix of sweet and sour cherries. This beer should be ready to taste in a few months. He’s trying to get a kriek-like thing going. If you can’t dare to part with a good tasting sour beer, make a couple of different versions of it and pivot.

Here is the pivot. Mike took a big portion of the slurry and he is going to use it on an upcoming brew day where he will produce 12 gallons of wort and split that batch into two 6 gallon buckets.

One is a repeat of the golden beer and the second one will be more like a Flanders Red. He’s probably going to add a steep of dark grains to the second batch to add the color necessary.

Mike has the equipment ready and the plan to move forward. In the meantime, we will have some sour beers to taste pretty soon. I can’t wait because it will give me some ideas for the 15 gallons of sour beers I have in my basement right now. At some point in the next few months, I need to make a plan to blend the old and young beers into a Gueuze.

We will keep you up to date on all the sour things that these Brew Dudes have going in our cellars.

Thanks for your attention and participation.

BREW ON!

2017 Vienna Lager Brew Session Notes

By John Krochune

On February 15, 2017

In General, Videos

Hey Brew Dudes readers! Here is another post about a brew day. This time, it’s the 2017 edition of the Vienna Lager.

Let’s take a look at the great brew day footage and learn from me on how I do my batch sparging, deal with cold propane tanks, and some tips on aerating wort.

The Finer Points

So if you have never brewed following an all grain recipe and procedure, then maybe batch sparging is a little new to you. In this video, I show off how I build my wort from two runnings off the grain bed.
The first running is from the mash and the second one is from rinsing the grains after the first runnings have been captured in a cooler. I have been batch sparging for years and it has worked for me.

Propane tanks get really cold in the winter time. If they get too cold, the flow of the gas slows down and that can affect the intensity of your flame. If you take some boiling water and pour it over the tank and the line to the burner, it gets the flow to speed up again. I encourage you to experiment in keeping your propane tank warm while brewing in sub-freezing temps.

Lastly, aerate your wort well. You can do this by just opening the spigot on your kettle so that the wort flows freely and picks up air as it enters your fermentation vessel. Well, that’s what I do.

I had a good brew day as everything went as expected. There were no big issues with the boil and the beer fermented very quickly. The one note I have for this year’s edition is that my starting gravity was 1.049 instead of 1.050. Maybe the elimination of Munich malt made for a change in my gravity.

Check back in a few weeks when this beer is done.

Brew on!

Brewing a Vanilla Coffee Stout With Lanna Coffee

By John Krochune

On February 11, 2017

In Recipes, Videos

Hello again. Since we last posted, I brewed a beer and we are tasting this Vanilla Coffee Stout in the video below.

Although it sounds like a well planned out and complicated beer, it started simply. I was only trying to brew a beer with coffee from the Lanna Coffee Company. What happened along the way called for a little improvisation and some luck.

See what I am talking about by watching this episode from our YouTube channel.

Beer Notes and Information

If you are big fan of coffee, take a look at what the Lanna Coffee company is doing. The bag of coffee they sent me was fresh and made a good cup of joe.

What I really wanted to know is how it would taste in a beer I brewed so I put this recipe together.

Boil Size: 6.5 gallons
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons

Ingredients:

13.75 pounds of Maris Otter Pale malt
1.25 pounds of Roasted Barley
1.25 pounds of Old Fashioned Oats
1.25 pounds of Chocolate Malt
1.25 pounds of White Wheat Malt

2 ounces of Fuggles hops (45 mins)
1.5 ounces of coarsely ground coffee beans (Flame out)
1 vanilla bean

Yeast: 2 packets of Safale 04

Instructions:

Mash grains for 60 minutes at 154° F.

Boil for 60 minutes. Chill to 68° F and ferment for two weeks. Rack to secondary and let the beer sit on a vanilla bean cut down the middle for 3 weeks. At the end of three weeks, keg or bottle and carbonate to 2 volumes of CO2.

Predictions:
Starting Gravity: 1.074
Final Gravity: 1.012

ABV: 8.0%
Bitterness: 37 IBUs
SRM 32°

All right – this beer was my first attempt at brewing with coffee. I tend not to like those beers anyway. After fermentation was done, the beer wasn’t great in my opinion. I decided to add vanilla to the flavor so that it would calm the coffee taste down a bit.

Since the beer rested on a vanilla bean for three weeks, the coffee harshness was calmed a bit and blended nicely with the vanilla.

I think the addition of all the foam positive grains made for a silky mouthfeel. After 3 weeks of drinking this beer, I definitely want to brew this again next winter.

Brew on!