Limitations: Beer 2 (Pale Ale/Lager)

Posted on March 19, 2019 by admin

This post is one in a series following five brewers limiting themselves to a select set of ingredients and brewing several beers each with only those ingredients. The goal of these limitations is to push creativity and to see what can be done within the confines of a single set of ingredients. More about this concept can be found here. The ingredients chosen for this project were Maris Otter, White Wheat (malted), Light Munich, Amarillo, Nugget, WLP810 San Francisco Lager and WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast. The brewer must use all ingredients (with the exception of choosing one yeast strain). The rest of this series can be found here.

Author: M. Rasmussen

Settling on the list of ingredients for this project was quite a task for the group. We all came in with some pretty strong opinions about certain malts, yeasts, and/or hops, so we deliberated for a while. I think the process, while arduous at times, set us up to make some really solid beers in a decently wide range of styles.

Once we narrowed down and finalized the list, my initial thought was that I wanted to brew three different styles throughout the year. There are so many different flavors and characteristics that can be highlighted with these ingredients, and I want to explore that as much as possible.

Recipe

 For my first beer, I wanted to brew something that I’m comfortable with in order to get an idea of how these ingredients play with each other. My favorite beers are ales in the 12-15 SRM and 30-50 IBU range. I wanted to shoot for a cross between an amber ale and a pale ale so I could find a nice balance between the malt and hops we’re using. I was having a hard time choosing between the ale yeast and lager yeast. I finally decided on the San Diego Super Yeast, and my brewing partner decided he wanted a batch of the beer and that he’d use the lager yeast so we could compare.

Light Munich is one of my favorite malts to use, so I wanted to go a little heavier on that one since it’s the darkest of the three and I knew it would have a solid malty foundation to the beer. I figured splitting the other 50% of the malt bill between the other two malts would allow both malts’ characteristics to express themselves in the final product. I’ve used Amarillo as a flavoring hop and Nugget as a bittering hop numerous times with great results, so I designed the hop schedule around that. I wanted to try to get some flavor from Nugget coming through so the hop flavor wasn’t one-dimensional, so I added a small late addition.

After plugging everything into BeerSmith and dialing in the specifics, I still wasn’t hitting the color range I was hoping for. Even at 100% Light Munich, BeerSmith predicted only 11.5 SRM. After chatting with the rest of the group, I decided to pull a small portion of the wort out at the beginning of the boil so that I could boil it down as vigorously as possible on my stove while the main batch was boiling. I thought that might help give some darker color and complexity to the beer.

After all of these considerations, my recipe for the 10 gallon batch turned out as such:

  • Mashed at 152°F for 60 minutes
    • 50% Light Munich
    • 25% Maris Otter
    • 25% White Wheat Malt
  • Boiled for 60 minutes
    • 1.5 oz. of Nugget (First Wort) at 15.2%AA (41.3 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. of Amarillo (15 minutes) at 7.1%AA (5.8 IBUs)
    • 0.5 oz. of Nugget (5 minutes) at 15.2%AA (2.3 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. of Amarillo (Flameout) at 7.1%AA (0 IBUs)
  • Ale:
    • 1 package of WLP090 pitched at 66°F
      • Fermented at 66°F for 5 days
      • Slowly raised to 72°F over 3 days
      • Rested at 64-68°F over 7 days
    • OG: 1.058
    • FG: 1.009
    • ABV: 6.5%
  • Lager:
    • 1 package of WLP810 pitched at 63°F
      • Fermented at 63°F for 11 days
    • OG: 1.058
    • FG: 1.014
    • ABV: 5.8%
  • Kegged and quick-carbed

 

Brew Day

This was a pretty solid brew day altogether. There was 10 gallons of the pale brewing slightly staggered with another 5 gallons of a coconut vanilla porter. I’m still working on dialing in my BeerSmith profile on my new laptop, so I once again failed to hit my expected gravity of 1.063, undershooting it by 5 points.

The most interesting part of the brew day was my attempt to add some depth to the flavor profile and color of the beer by aggressively boiling a small portion of the wort. After the mash was finished and the grains were sparged, I pulled about a gallon of wort from the kettle and brought it to a boil on my stove.

preboil gallon

The goal was to boil down the liquid as much as possible while the other 11 gallons were boiling in the kettle. I should have added some fermcap at the start, but I had a lapse in judgement. After checking on the kettle, I came back inside to a mini-boilover. After that was taken care of, the rest of the brew went smoothly.

When the end of the boil was nearing, I transferred the separated wort back into the main kettle. The color difference was pretty stark. I had boiled off about 75% of the original volume.

postboil gallon

We chilled and transferred the wort into the fermentors, and I stuck my 5 gallons into my fermentation fridge to chill it down to my pitching temp. I didn’t have time to prepare a yeast starter for this batch, so once the wort had chilled down I pitched a packet of WLP090 into the wort and let the yeast take it from there.

carboy

Tasting

Ale

Appearance: Golden color. Moderately low carbonation. Good head retention. Slight lacing. Very thin head that stays for the whole glass.

pour

Aroma: Bready malt. Light floral/citrus hop aroma.

Flavor: Strong floral hop flavor that slides into a citrus-heavy orange peel as you swallow. Malt character takes the backseat throughout the whole flavor profile. There’s a slight bit of maltiness, maybe toasted cracker, but it’s only there as a complement to the hops.

Mouthfeel: Low carbonation. Medium body.

Aftertaste: Hoppy bitterness, very light caramel, & a hint of alcohol

Overall: Balanced. Crushable.

Lager

Appearance: Golden color. Low head retention. Moderate carbonation. Active bubbling. Head dissipates quickly. Probably a symptom of being poured from a growler that was filled from the keg.

side by side

Left: Lager | Right: Ale

Aroma: Bready malt that overpowers the light hop aroma. Very reminiscent of Anchor Steam lager. Extremely similar to the ale version, but less “crisp.” Slightly more malty than the ale. Very estery.

Flavor: Hops and malt share a 50/50 balance throughout. Floral & citrus hop notes are both apparent, and neither seem to outweigh the other. The yeast esters also come through. More caramel notes than the ale.

Mouthfeel: Medium carbonation with medium body.

Aftertaste: Slight hoppy bitterness and a light caramel

Overall: Balanced. Maybe too balanced/generic? Nothing stands out as a super defining characteristic, other than this is a very easy drinking and satisfying pale ale/lager.

I’m pretty happy with how this beer turned out considering my original goals. I think one thing that would help add another layer to the beer is a small dry hop charge, since the beer doesn’t really lean towards malt or hop forward. I’ll probably brew this recipe again and throw an ounce of Amarillo and maybe a half ounce of Nugget into the fermentor for a few days before kegging.

I think the fact that we’re limited to three base grains left me wanting more depth from the malt profile of this beer. If I brew this one again without any limitations I’d definitely add some Victory and maybe a bit of Crystal 120L to add some color and complexity to the beer.

 Editor’s Note: So How Much Did the Separate Mini-Boil Matter?

In an effort to quantify the impact the separate mini-boil made and in hopes of delivering new methodology to calculate adjusted SRM for anyone interested in trying this, I set out to tackle the SRM calculation formula (Morey’s). For anyone interested in what that formula looks like, here it is (note that any number of grains can be added, but for brevity below, I have only included two grains):

((((weight of grainX in lbs.*Lovibond of grainX)+(weight of grainY in lbs.*Lovibond of grainY))/post-boil volume in gallons)^0.6859)*1.4922

Example:

10.25 lbs. 2-row @ 1.8°L; 1 lb. Crystal 120 @ 120°L; 5.5 gallon batch

((((10.25*1.8)+(1*120))/5.5)^0.6859)*1.4922=13.63, rounded=14 SRM

At first glance, the calculation didn’t look too difficult, as it looked to be merely a function of grain weight and grain color, with a couple constants in there for sake of conversion between Lovibond and SRM. Granted, math isn’t my forte, but I assumed that this could be manipulated easily enough with some simple algebra.

After plugging in the variables provided from the brew above into the equation (i.e., ignoring the separate boil) and assuming the same final volume, I ended up with a (rounded up) SRM value of 10. I then took the additional information provided (mini boil volume, original volume to determine some percentage values that I thought would be helpful, etc.) and began using the given scenario to manipulate the formula and come up with a method to make this equation work for the two separate volumes.

After determining a method I thought made sense, I began to question this whole concept, realizing that it might very well not matter if I manipulated the equation or not since one of the variables is the final  (or post-boil) volume of the beer. Again, knowing that math is not my forte, I sent the equation and my ideas to a friend of mine who is a mathematician. I had him review my methodology and logic, and he concluded what I had begun to suspect: there isn’t a way to split this up since the volume itself plays a large role in the final outcome.

Ultimately, to manipulate SRM value without adding darker grains, one either needs (a) more grain or (b) to collect a lesser amount of post-boil wort, both of which will impact the gravity of the wort. An idea that sounded good at first glance, might have ended up not making an impact on the color. That isn’t to say that it couldn’t have had other impacts, but without a side by side comparison, there’s only speculation.

Recipe Comparison

Note: Some disparity in IBU contributions for flameout and whirlpool additions will exist in the chart below due to variation in recipe calculator software amongst contributors.

Beer 1 Beer 2
Style Hoppy Wheat Pale Ale/Lager
Maris Otter 34.4% 50%
Light Munich 5.5% 25%
Wheat 60.1% 25%
Hop Addition 1 28.7 IBUs Nugget (60 min.) 41.3 IBUs Nugget (First Wort)
Hop Addition 2 5.5 IBUs Amarillo (5 min.) 5.8 IBUs Amarillo (15 min.)
Hop Addition 3 7.1 IBUs Nugget (5 min.) 2.3 IBUs Nugget (5 min.)
Hop Addition 4 16.8 IBUs Amarillo—30 min. Whirlpool 0 IBUs Amarillo (flameout)
Hop Addition 5 22 IBUs Nugget—30 min. Whirlpool N/A
Dry Hop 2.5 oz. Amarillo, 2 oz. Nugget (10 days) N/A
Yeast WLP090 at 64°F, raised to 70°F WLP090 at 66°F, raised to 72°F; WLP810 at 63°F
OG 1.059 1.058
FG 1.012 1.009/1.014
ABV 6.2% 6.5%/5.8%
Posted in Brewing, Limitations | Comments Off on Limitations: Beer 2 (Pale Ale/Lager)

Limitations: Beer 1 (Hoppy Wheat)

Posted on March 5, 2019 by admin

This post is one in a series following five brewers limiting themselves to a select set of ingredients and brewing several beers each with only those ingredients. The goal of these limitations is to push creativity and to see what can be done within the confines of a single set of ingredients. More about this concept can be found here. The ingredients chosen for this project were Maris Otter, White Wheat (malted), Light Munich, Amarillo, Nugget, WLP810 San Francisco Lager and WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast. The brewer must use all ingredients (with the exception of choosing one yeast strain). The rest of this series can be found here.

Author: M. Willis

My initial thought when I saw the ingredients was relaxing on a summer day with an Amarillo Wheat beer. Tasty, but it’d be too easy to just load the grain bill with wheat and go heavy on the Amarillo. The remaining ingredients would disappear, right? I knew I could make some sort of IPA—but what?

I’m that guy in the brew club that’s teased about putting a pound of hops in a 5-gallon batch. The guy that opens the growler at the meeting and fills the room with the sweet, pungent smell of NEIPA or other tropical IPAs. I love ‘em! I often have two on tap, but I unfortunately found myself with no IPAs on at the moment. So what do I do, what do I do? IPA or Hoppy Wheat? This is the Limitations series, right? OK, so I decided on a Hoppy Wheat, or what ultra-hop jerks like me do to a classic style like American Wheat.

The challenge then is making a big Hoppy Wheat with no wheat yeast and including both Amarillo (yes!) and Nugget (oof). Can I make a wheat beer without wheat yeast? Well, yes and no. I’m going for a Hoppy Wheat, so I’m bastardizing a style and making it all about the hops. Grain and yeast will be supporting actors. I’ve previously made a clone of Gumballhead with an ESB strain, and it was a nice mashup of IPA and Wheat. Speaking of, the commercial beer inspirations for my beer were Three Floyds Gumballhead, Southern Tier Hop Sun, Sierra Nevada Hoppy Wheat, and Boulevard Brewing Co 80-Acre Hoppy Wheat—the former more than the latter, but the beer shelves are not crowded with this “style.”

Hmm, Nugget hops: spicy/herbal/earthy/woody, Northern Brewer-like, mostly used for bittering. It’d feel like cheating to me to hide one of the hops solely as the 60-minute bittering hop. Bittering with Nugget and dumping a pound of Amarillo in late additions would just be too easy. A little research showed that Nugget is both high in total oil content and rich in myrcene like Amarillo. The woody and earthy descriptors were a bit concerning, though, especially if there would be no wheat yeast. After looking at a couple of homebrew recipe websites, I saw that not very many people were using Nugget as a late addition, but a few SMaSH and 2-hop recipes had favorable results. OK, roll the dice and let’s see how this turns out. If it’s not dangerously drinkable on a hot summer day, then so be it—but there was always the chance it could end up being pretty good.

Here’s the recipe I ended up with:

  • Mashed for 60 min. at 152°F
    • 60.1% Wheat Malt
    • 34.4% Maris Otter
    • 5.5% Light Munich
  • Boiled for 60 min.
    • 0.60 oz. Nugget (60 min.) at 15% AA (28.7 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Amarillo (5 min.) at 8.6% AA (5.5 IBUs)
    • 0.75 oz. Nugget (5 min.) at 15% AA (7.1 IBUs)
    • 4 oz. Amarillo (Whirlpool 30 min.) at 8.6% AA (16.8 IBUs)
    • 3 oz. Nugget (Whirlpool 30 min.) at 15% AA (22 IBUs)
  • Pitched WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast
    • Fermentation started at 64⁰F
    • Raised to 70⁰F on Day 4 and added dry hops
    • Cold crashed on Day 12
    • Kegged on Day  14 (closed transfer)
  • Dry hopping
    • 2.5 oz. Amarillo (10 days)
    • 2 oz. Nugget (10 days)
  • OG: 1.059
  • FG: 1.012
  • ABV: 6.2%

Brew Day

This beer would be the second on my new DIY electric brewing panel. I am not an electronics whiz, but there is such a wealth of information out there that I felt I could do it, and I wanted to do it. The reasons to switch were numerous: the cost of propane, running out of propane, brewing in a cold or hot garage, and lugging equipment from the basement to the other end of the house. So, armed with info and desire, I bought parts, drew diagrams, bought more parts, and began assembly. I’m using a 5500-watt stainless element, controlled by a PID designed specifically for homebrew, and a pump controller. I also left room in the panel and electrically (wire and breaker size) for another element should I ever use an HLT for back-to-back brews.

Electric

The final item preventing the first use was exhausting the steam-filled air out the house. As you might imagine, I had an issue with cutting a 6-inch hole in the side of my house. I obsessed over the details and how it would look. I contemplated moving the brew room to a non-ideal location to accommodate the exhaust. Then I found a post and read up on steam condenser systems. I bought one of the commercially available ones, and that was the final catalyst. I finished the brew panel and tested the components. I did a test brew and it went fantastic. No DMS and no steam filled room—not even a bit of either. It’s hard to convey how happy I was for it to work the first time and allow me to now brew indoors. Living the dream!

Electric panel

My process is now a bit different due to the location and electric heating. I still collect and treat my water with Campden (and usually salts, too) the night before. Although that’s now done in the basement next to the brew area, so I’m not lugging buckets of water around. I mill my grains out on the patio of my walkout basement, so I’m moving the mill and grain 20 feet instead of 100 feet upstairs and out the garage. Next, my vessels and tools are sitting on a temporary work table, rather than 100 feet away in the garage. See the pattern? Oh and the work table is right next to the keezer. The bathroom, TV, and couch are all within 20 feet. I’m living the dream, Jerry!

Without issue, I mashed in, hit my temps and pre-boil gravity, transferred, and boiled. It was so nice to have an easy transition to electric brewing after all my preparation. I took a gravity reading and saw that I’d hit my target gravity at 1.059.

hops

I then started the hopstand. I love this part, as I coax the hops into giving up their amazing oils and other compounds we vaguely understand. Using a pump and my new counterflow chiller, I instantly dropped the wort to 160°F and added 4 ounces of Amarillo hops and 3.5 ounces of Nugget to a stainless basket. The pump then swirled the beer around and through the basket. It smelled heavenly.

whirlpool

After 30 minutes, I moved hoses and chilled again to pitching temp. After a very short amount of time due to the efficiency of the counter flow chiller I was running the wort into the fermenter. I pitched the yeast and placed it in my fermentation fridge with the controller keeping the temp near 64°F.

ferm chamber

A few days later, I saw the beer had dropped ~30 points on my bluetooth hydrometer, so I decided to add the dry hops. Recall, I mentioned earlier I’d be making a BIG hoppy wheat, and I’m the guy teased about a pound of hops in a 5-gallon beer. Well, I did put 7 ounces in the whirlpool, and I added 4.5 ounces of dry hops in this beer. I really wanted to push the hops to the forefront on this one. So, after giggling at my irresponsible use of hops, I replaced the standard air lock for a cold crash bladder. This bladder fills with CO2 while fermentation occurs. Then when I cold crash, it allows the fermenter to fill with CO2 during the contraction rather than regular air. This should reduce oxidation effects, and I’ve had good results. I take few chances on the cold side with hoppy beers.

Closed transfer

About a week later, I cold-crashed and kegged using a closed transfer to reduce the ingress of oxygen.

FG

Tasting

Appearance:

  • Golden yellow to amber, but not straw-colored as is the norm of wheat beers
  • Thick white head that’s sticky from the large hop additions and wheat
  • Doesn’t have the normal haze of a wheat beer, but not clear

Tasting 1

Smell:

  • Juicy Fruit (like the gum) which is classic Amarillo late addition for me
  • Woods (dry, not dank), which is not entirely pleasant in this style
  • Doesn’t leap out of the glass like most of my other hoppy beers

Taste:

  • Early on it was Alpine Meadow—by that I mean floral, woods but not pine, and then some fruit characteristic from the Amarillo
  • 3 weeks later it had gone Floral and Grassy/Woods
  • 5 weeks on it was less of everything and quite delightful!
  • Low bitterness, low sweetness and very clean fermentation

Mouthfeel:

  • Creamy and full bodied. High carbonation gives a nice finish.

Tasting 2

If I were to brew this beer again using these same ingredients, I’d reduce the amount of Nugget used in the late additions to prevent some of that woody flavor. I’d also decrease the amount of wheat malt used and turn this into an IPA.

If I were to brew this beer again with no limitations, I’d use a Wheat or English yeast strain, as San Diego Super Yeast lacked character. It didn’t contribute much, and I see why I’ve previously only used it for West Coast ales. I could also see pairing the Amarillo with a citrus-forward hop and/or grapefruit peel.

Posted in Brewing, Limitations | Comments Off on Limitations: Beer 1 (Hoppy Wheat)

Red IPA: Iteration 11

Posted on February 5, 2019 by admin

This post is one in a series of making small adjustments to a single recipe in order to improve it, learn more about the impact each ingredient has on the finished product, and the art of recipe creation. The rest of the series can be found here.

Author: C. McKenzie

Brew Day

After brewing nothing but Red IPA for a year, I needed a break. Honestly, though, I didn’t end up taking as long of a break as expected (only ten months). I’ve been brewing mainly maltier beers since last year, and I started to get the urge to brew something big and hoppy. It seemed like a good excuse to dust off the Red IPA recipe, tweak it a little, and see if it stood up to my previous impressions of it now that my palate has had a decent break from it. I honestly have to admit that I’d begun to wonder if my favorable impressions of the beer became more favorable over the ten iterations since I had only brewed that style last year, and it therefore made up most of the beer I drank.

Brew day started early on a Monday work-holiday. I’ve gotten in the habit of staging my setup and gathering my water the night before, so I lit the flame under my strike water for my mash before I’d even properly woken up. I put a kettle on the stove, used the hot water to preheat my mash tun, made some coffee, and stepped back outside to check the temperature of the water. I’d let it sit on the flame for a little too long, and I was about 4⁰F over the strike temperature calculated to hit my desired mash temperature. I pulled it off the burner and let it sit for a few minutes to cool down before mashing in. After waiting, I still overshot my mash temperature by 1⁰F, but I’d actually overshot my temperature the last time I brewed this beer too, so that was actually in line with the mash temperature for Iteration 10. No worries. At this point, I went back inside for a leisurely breakfast while the mash was doing its thing.

Iteration11-temp.jpg

After the saccharification rest, I gathered my first runnings and completed two batch sparges. I used the full 9 gallons of water I’d collected beforehand, but was mistaken in doing so. My target pre-boil volume was 7 gallons, and I overshot that volume—only the 7 gallons I planned for made it into my kettle due to both kettle-size limitations and hop utilization considerations. After an uneventful boil and hop stand, I saw that my sparging error ended up landing me 2 points below my target gravity. Not terrible, but not ideal—oh well.

Iteration11 boil

I chilled my wort down to a balmy 90⁰F (only about 3-5⁰F over my groundwater temperature during the summer months) and transferred it into my carboy. I wanted to give my fermentation chamber a helping hand to get to wort down to pitching temperature since it struggles a bit in the summer in my garage, so I put my carboy in a water/ice bath and alternated between letting it sit in the cold water and rocking it back and forth to aid in the heat transfer. Once I felt the temperature had dropped enough, I put it in my fermentation chamber, let it chill some more, and pitched my yeast. When I checked the next morning, there was already a nice krausen forming.

Iteration11-fermentation.jpg

After fermentation had completed, I added my dry hop charge and let it sit for three day before cold crashing. I then transferred the beer to my keg and put it under pressure for a few days before pulling my first pint.

Iteration11 keg

 

Recipe

Iteration 10 was a vast improvement over Iteration 1. A year of small changes to this recipe certainly helped, but it didn’t land me where exactly I wanted in terms of how this beer tasted in its last version. The hop aroma in Iteration 10 was exceptional. I believe that the combination of increased late kettle hops and a decently hefty dry hop charge played a big role in achieving that character, as compared to the lesser-than-IPA aroma of Iteration 9. Iteration 10 was also the first iteration that truly drank like an IPA in terms of hop flavor, but that unfortunately hid the malt flavor of dark fruits I’d spent so much time trying to achieve. It was also a little heavy-handed in its bitterness—which is what I believe was pinpointed as “astringency” by the judges at the competition I submitted it to.

In response to all of this, I wanted to change the excessive bitterness and help the malt shine through again, though still achieve a high level of hop aroma and flavor. The hops seemed to be where I needed to focus. Knowing that I had jumped from 0.5 ounce additions to 2 ounce additions with the late kettle hops, I began to realize that I had never taken the time to consider the IBU impact of those additions—only the flavor/aroma impact. In concept, I initially wanted this beer to be somewhere around a 1:1 BU:GU ratio (a ratio of bitterness units and gravity units—a concept outlined in Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers). I had this ratio in mind, but I never really calculated it to see where I was in order to use it as a reference point for my adjustments to my hop additions. I decided to change that. Iterations 8 and 9 both had an OG of 1.066 and calculated IBUs of 51, yielding a BU:GU ratio of 0.77. Iteration 10, on the other hand had an OG of 1.064 and calculated IBUs of 71, giving me a BU:GU ratio of 1.1.

From both an IBU numerical standpoint and the BU:GU ratio standpoint, that’s quite a difference. I decided I needed to tread somewhere in the middle and shoot for a ratio of around 0.9-1. Toying around with some changes, I ended up at 57 calculated IBUS and a ratio of 0.89, which was good enough for me (I understand 6 IBUs isn’t that much, but neither would be the 4 additional IBUs needed to get me to that midpoint of 61 IBUs—plus, I am currently buying hops in single ounce bags and not in bulk, so from a practical standpoint, avoiding the use of partial ounces of hops made sense.)

One additional change I made was the return to using Amarillo. I used Citra in Iteration 10, and while I enjoyed it for this beer, it wasn’t quite the same. I got a solid citrus character, but I was missing the distinct apricot flavor I was getting from the Amarillo hops. Plus, I had made the change in Iteration 10 out of necessity when my LHBS only had Amarillo that was potentially mishandled somewhere along the supply chain based on my experience using it in Iteration 9. Certain that the Amarillo I picked up this time was different that the last time (based on it being in a different hop supplier’s packaging), I decided to give it a go. All of these changes led to the following recipe:

  • Mashed at 151⁰ F for 1 hr.
    • 10 lbs. 2-Row (82%)
    • 1.2 lbs. Crystal 120 (10%)
    • 1 lb. Vienna (8%)
  • Boiled for 1 hr.
    • 0.5 oz. Magnum (60 min) at 14.7% AA (26 IBUs)
    • 0.5 oz. Magnum (30 min) at 14.7% AA (20 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Cascade (10 min) at 5% AA (6 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Centennial (5 min) at 9.3% AA (6 IBUs)
    • 2 oz. Amarillo (hop stand at <180⁰ F) at 8.2% AA (0 IBUs)
  • Pitched US-O5
  • OG: 1.062
  • FG: 1.009
  • ABV: 6.96%
  • Dry hopped 2 oz. Cascade, 1 oz. Centennial, and 1 oz. Amarillo for 3 days.
  • Kegged

 

Tasting

This iteration poured with an excellent, thick head that had excellent retention. The color was less red than it was an orange-ish amber.

11

The aroma was pleasant, but less present than desired. There was a prominent citrus smell that reminded me most of orange rind. Other hops aromas included pear, apricot, and peach. The portion of the aroma that came from the malt smelled of Bing cherry and plum; these malty aromas were not present at first but came out more as the beer warmed.

The level of bitterness in this beer was not quite balanced and hid the malt character some. The bitterness lingered on my palate and was a bit sharp in the aftertaste. Specific hop flavors I noticed were grapefruit, orange, and apricot. There was a rich maltiness that served as a backbone to the beer but that did not taste heavy or thick. That said, most of the distinctive malt characteristics that presented themselves so nicely in the nose did not show up in the flavor. As the beer warmed, I did perceive some Bing cherry in the taste, but it was less present than I would hope it to be.

 

Final Thoughts

Although I didn’t have a bottle of Iteration 10 to compare this version to anymore (as it had been almost a year since I last brewed this beer), I couldn’t do a one to one comparison, but I could compare it to my notes from before. I do believe that this iteration is an improvement over Iteration 10. The bitterness level was down and not as overpowering as in Iteration 10, and I managed to get the apricot flavors back that I enjoyed over the hit-you-over-the-head orange flavors of Citra.

All that said, I do believe this I believe the level of bitterness is still an issue. I think it’s the bitterness and not the hop flavor that is hiding the malt flavors. I think my main points of dissatisfaction with this beer come from the aroma not being as prominent as expected and from the imbalance of bitterness and maltiness.

I could guess on the reason for lack of hop aroma and assume the usual culprit of oxygen, but I’ve gotten more prominent aroma than this when I’ve bottled previous iterations. This is the first time I’ve kegged this beer, so by all means my oxygen uptake should be less; however, I won’t rule it out since I’m not doing closed transfers and might have gotten some more splashing than I thought I did when transferring my beer to the keg.

Another consideration about the lack of aroma is the hops themselves. I frequent my LHBS for all my ingredients, and though they store all of their hops cold in the front of the shop, they are repackaged into one ounce packs from the original package by the owner. One thing I’ve noticed about the hops from this shop is that the alpha acid percentages on the labels of these repackaged hops have been the same since I started buying from there. This either means that the owner hasn’t bothered to change the AA% on the labels when a new package of hops is being used (potentially throwing off my bitterness calculations), or they could possibly be using the same package for several years—I do believe this particular shop moves more wine-making product than brewing ingredients, so it’s a real possibility. If the latter is true, then there’s no telling how old these hops are and, although they smelled fine when I brewed with them, it’s possible that they’ve lost a little “something” during the time they’ve sat unsold. All of this is speculation though because I cannot prove anything one way or another, but it is certainly a potential culprit—something I might question the owner about or perhaps I’ll try buying hops elsewhere to see if it makes a difference.

In terms of the imbalance of bitterness, I also have to consider what role the yeast might be playing—not that I’m accusing US-05 of making this beer overly bitter, but rather I wonder if another strain might not favor, accent, or otherwise complement the hop profile I’ve been using. I also suspect that my “0 IBU” hop stand addition, although it was conducted mainly below isomerization temperatures, might be partially to blame. Perhaps some isomerization did occur during that time, and if so this would account for the extra bitterness that I would not otherwise expect.

 

Recipe Progression

 

  Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 Iteration 6
Base Malt 2-row 10.25 lbs. 10.25 lbs. 10.25 lbs. 9 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs.
Crystal Malt 1 lb. C80 1 lb. C120 0.75 lbs. C120 1.25 lbs. C120 1 lb. C120 1.2 lbs. C120
Specialty Malt     0.5 lbs. Special B 1 lb. Munich 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna
60 min. hop 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 1 oz. Magnum
30 min. hop 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe 0.5 oz. Simcoe  
15 min. hop 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade
10 min. hop           0.5 oz. Centennial
5 min. hop 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial  
0 min. hop           0.5 oz. Simcoe
Dry hop

 

 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade & Centennial 0.5 oz. Cascade, Centennial, & Simcoe
OG 1.059 1.064 1.056 1.052 1.056 1.066
FG 1.008 1.010 1.008 1.010 1.008 1.010
ABV 6.7% 7.1% 6.3% 5.5% 6.3% 7.4%

 

  Iteration 7 Iteration 8 Iteration 9 Iteration 10 Iteration 11
Base Malt 2-row 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs. 10 lbs.
Crystal Malt 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120 1.2 lbs. C120
Specialty Malt 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna 1 lb. Vienna
60 min. hop 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum
30 min. hop 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum 0.5 oz. Magnum
15 min. hop 0.5 oz. Cascade        
10 min. hop   0.5 oz. Cascade 0.5 oz. Cascade 2 oz. Cascade 1 oz. Cascade
5 min. hop 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 0.5 oz. Centennial 2 oz. Centennial 1 oz. Centennial
0 min. hop 0.5 oz. Amarillo 0.5 oz. Amarillo 1 oz. Amarill0 2 oz. Citra 2 oz. Amarillo
Dry hop

 

 0.5 oz. Cascade, Centennial, & Amarillo 1.5 oz. Cascade; 0.5 oz. Centennial & Amarillo 2.5 oz. Cascade; 1.5 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Amarillo 2 oz. Cascade; 1 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Citra 2 oz. Cascade; 1 oz. Centennial; 1 oz. Amarillo
OG 1.073 1.066 1.066 1.064 1.062
FG 1.010 1.010 1.011 1.010 1.009
ABV 8.3% 7.4% 7.2% 7.1% 6.96%

 

Posted in Brewing, Red IPA | 4 Comments

Double Feature: Competition Stouts

Posted on January 22, 2019 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the series can be found here.

Authors: C. McKenzie & T. Bowen

Competition Stouts

My original plan with these collaborative iterations was to have this stout recipe pass through the hands of all six brewers twice, brew one final iteration myself, and enter it into a local homebrew competition (as I did last year with my red IPA). Unfortunately, due to a shipping disaster, the timeline of this plan got thrown off and I knew I wouldn’t receive Iteration 12 until long after the deadline to drop off bottles; needless to say that left me no time for brewing a final version to enter into the competition—at least one that followed the pattern of only making one change from the previous recipe.

So a new plan took shape. Deciding to take advantage of the fact that another brewer participating in this collaborative stout project lives nearby, we both decided to enter a stout into the competition. Both of us took the recipe from the last iteration that we had personally brewed (Iterations 7 & 8,respectively) and made the change(s) that we thought would most improve that recipe. The changes the next brewer made did not necessarily reflect what each of us would have personally changed, since the idea behind this project was to be less insular and instead take a look at what other brewers would change in order to improve a recipe. In short, this offshoot of this series reflected how the stout would have changed if it had remained in the hands of one brewer instead of going to the next brewer to be adjusted.

Since we brewed these beers based on changes to the recipes we had both brewed last time and these brews were somewhat outside of the confines of the rest of this stout project, we’ll call them Iteration 7.1 and Iteration 8.1. Ultimately, these recipes were fairly similar, so we were looking forward to seeing how these beers were perceived by the same judges and how they scored beside each other at the same homebrew competition.

Brew Day

Iteration 7.1:

Oy vey. That’s all I have to say about this brew day.

I was very much looking forward to this brew day, as it was the first truly cold (for the south) brew day of the year. I had set up all my equipment and gathered my water the night before so that all I had to do was light the flame under my strike water when I woke up. Shortly after I had started heating the strike water, I heated some water on my stove in order to preheat my mash tun. I always do this, and I knew it would be especially needed that morning due to the cold temperatures. After preheating the mash tun and reaching my calculated strike water temperature, I doughed in. I let the mash sit for a few minutes before checking the temperature and found it to be sitting at a very low 142⁰F, a full 10 degrees below my target. Awesome.

competition--mash

I quickly boiled some water to raise the temperature, but since my mash tun was almost at capacity anyway, I only managed to add enough boiling water to raise the temperature a few degrees. I didn’t really know what else to do other than let it ride.

Bummer #2: While collecting my wort, I decided to gather a bit more than usual for my preboil volume due to the cold weather. Certainly this cold and dry air would impact my boil-off rate, so I should probably gather a little more to ensure I hit my numbers.

competition--lauter

Apparently the day was more humid than I thought or some other factor came into play that I am unaware of, because my evaporation rate ended up being lower than normal—leaving me with roughly a gallon more post-boil wort than desired. My only comfort was knowing that despite my low mash temperature, I would have hit my target OG if not for missing my target post-boil volume. I was 10 gravity points lower than my target, but some quick math showed that the extra gallon would lower the gravity by exactly that much.

Lesson learned.

I couldn’t boil off any more at this point without impacting bitterness (since the hop additions had already been added), so I again decided to just let it ride. I chilled my wort and transferred it into my carboy, which then sat in my fermentation chamber for a couple hours to reach the desired pitching temperature. I pitched the vitality starter I had going and saw activity within a couple hours. Signs of fermentation stopped just two days later, and I let it sit for a couple more days to ensure full attenuation and to let the yeast clean up after themselves before kegging the beer.

Iteration 8.1:

After my last attempt at this beer ended up with a gravity much higher than I wanted, I was eager to rebrew this beer, especially as I really enjoyed the last one after it had sit in the keg a few weeks. So when Chris reached out to me about entering these beers into my homebrew club’s annual competition, I jumped on board immediately.

As I considered what, if anything, I wanted to change from the previous recipe, I kept coming up short. I really enjoyed the previous version and honestly did not want to change much at all. Moreover, the previous version was fermented at ambient temps, and I was anxious to brew essentially the same beer but with temperature-controlled fermentation. The previous version had a lot of odd malt amounts in the grist, e.g., 12 ounces of this, 18 ounces of that, etc. So I made the decision to merely simplify things down to quarter pound increments. I’m mostly convinced at this point that this is what led to my much-higher-than-expected gravity on the previous version—I had so many odd amounts of malt, and they all got bagged together, so I must have gotten more of this or that. Lesson learned, and I get all my malts bagged separately now.

I was coming up on my drop dead date to brew this beer (along with the other beer I was entering in the comp), and my wife and I were still in the throes of moving into our new house. Thankfully, I got a Monday off for Veteran’s Day, so it had to get done that day. In fact, this would be both my first double brew day and my first beers brewed at the new house. The problem was, the new house doesn’t have a brew shed (building it next month!), and it was cold and rainy on brew day. With the wife at work all day, I decided to setup on the front porch with a roof over my head.

setup

Call it a brain fart, or discombobulation due to brewing in a new spot, but for whatever reason, I neglected to preheat my mash tun with hot tap water, as I usually do. After mashing in, my mash temp came in about 4 degrees lower than I wanted. Oh well, I wrapped it up and put it down for a 60 minute nap.

mashing

The good news is, despite the cold, damp weather, I didn’t even lose a degree of heat during the mash. While I wanted a mash temp of 154°F, I ended up mashing at about 150°F. I then proceeded to vorlauf, batch sparge, and move on to the boil.

boil kettle

The boil was rather uneventful, and I added hops at the times indicated in the recipe. One thing I did notice, however, was the wort going into the fermenter seemed a tad lighter than the previous version. In fact, it almost looked more like a slightly darker brown ale than a textbook stout.

close wort

After chilling, I took a gravity sample and was pleased to see it land right at 1.064. Even though this is a few points lower than predicted, I took no issue with it. The NEIPA that I also brewed this day was occupying my main fermentation chamber. But since I didn’t really have much on tap that I was actively drinking, I decided to ferment this stout in the keezer. I put it in the keezer to continue chilling down to pitching temp. Then I hit it with oxygen for about 10 minutes and pitched a 2L starter from a fresh pack of WLP004.

in ferm

Fermentation was rather uneventful. I pitched yeast at 70°F, then dropped it to 68°F and let it ride out at that temp. After an overnight cold crash, I kegged the beer on day 8.

to keg

Recipe

Iteration 7.1:

After tasting Iteration 7, I was left with a couple options of what to change. I noted that I wanted to see a return of the stronger toasted flavors that I believed were coming from the Victory malt. I also made the statement that, “the one change I know I would make would be to continue playing with the hops.” The more I thought about that, though, the less I wanted the hops to be my change. I didn’t want to overpower the malt or detract from the roasty and chocolate notes with floral or citrus hop flavors, so I ended up maintaining the hopping schedule and amounts from that recipe. I ended up opting to increase the toasty character of this stout, and I swapped out a couple percentage points of the base malt with some additional Victory.

I also wanted a little more alcohol in the final product than I had achieved last time to bump the beer up into or close to the 6% range. To do this, I decided to drop my mash temperature slightly to hopefully allow for some (but not much) more fermentable sugars to be created while still maintaining a rich and full mouthfeel with a finishing gravity between 1.014-1.018. Of course, as stated above, I ended up lowering my mash temperature much more than intended, which produced both a lower OG and lower FG than desired. The resultant recipe is as follows:

  • Mashed at 142-145⁰ F (Target 154⁰F)
    • 67.5%. 2-Row
    • 12.2% Victory
    • 8.1% Roasted Barley
    • 8.1% Flaked Barley
    • 4.1% Chocolate
  • Boiled for 1 hr.
    • 1 oz. Nugget (60 min) at 13.3% AA (44.3 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Centennial (5 min) at 9.3% AA (6.2 IBUs)
  • Pitched WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast
  • OG: 1.055
  • FG: 1.012
  • ABV: 5.6%

Iteration 8.1:

As mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed the flavor profile the first time I brewed this beer, so I didn’t want to make wholesale changes. This beer further solidified how much I absolutely love pairing Pale Chocolate with Chocolate malt. It gives such a smooth, candy bar chocolate flavor that I love in stouts. Ultimately, the recipe is pretty much the same, but I adjusted amounts slightly to make it easier. I prefer my malts to be in quarter-pound increments, and the previous version had amounts like 18 ounces, which is just annoying. Ergo, this version had a touch less flaked and roasted barley, and a touch more chocolates. With that said, here’s where I landed:

  • Mashed at 150°F for 1 hour (Target: 154°F)
    • 67.9% 2-Row
    • 10.7% Victory
    • 7.1% Flaked Barley
    • 7.1% Roasted Barley
    • 5.4% Pale Chocolate
    • 1.8% Chocolate
  • Boiled for 1 hour
    • 1 oz. Nugget (60 min) at 13% AA (43.3 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Centennial (5 min) at 10.8% AA (7.2 IBUs)
  • Water Profile (ppm): [Black Full] Calcium (41); Magnesium (3); Sodium (29); Sulfate (37); Chloride (49)
  • Pitched WLP004 (2L starter from fresh pack)
  • OG (calculated): 1.069
  • OG (actual): 1.064
  • FG (actual): 1.014
  • ABV: 6.6%

 

Tasting & Final Thoughts

Iteration 7.1:

This beer poured black with a thick, tan head that had strong persistence. The aroma was strongly roasty, with dark toast, coffee, dark chocolate, and slight floral notes.

competition--tasting

The flavor was very toasty. It also reminded me of coffee—but like biting into a coffee bean (in a good way) and not like drinking coffee. There was a strong chocolate flavor in the aftertaste with a slightly lingering bitterness.

All in all, I think that this recipe is solid. If I changed anything it would possibly be to slightly increase the hop aroma and flavor, but as stated above, I really don’t want to detract from the malt character, which is where I think the focus should be on a stout like this. I really like the strong toasted character in the flavor of this stout, but I wonder if it might be a bit much for some people’s tastes.

What is interesting to me about this project of collaborating on these iterations is that although I made a single change to the version I brewed last and am content to say that this is where I want this stout to be, Iterations 8 and following went down a path that I think produced a completely different beer that I would also be glad to brew. The addition of the pale chocolate malt in Iteration 8 changed the direction of this stout in such a way that following that direction has led to a completely different stout, but one that is delicious on its own merits. I guess what I’m trying to say is that following one path of iterations doesn’t yield the perfect beer; it may lead to a very good beer, but a deviation from that path down another path may very well lead to another very good beer that tastes quite different. For my personal tastes, this last stout that I brewed will likely be my go-to stout recipe for a while, but the variations from Iteration 8 on may very well be beers I brew or may serve as inspiration for changes if I want to brew a stout that is less toasty and more chocolate-forward.

Iteration 8.1:

This beer pours very dark brown. As you can see from the picture, the “brown-ness” is really only evident in the smaller area of the glass (bottom) where light can pass through more easily. The beer is capped off with a nice thick, off-white/tan head.

The nose is black coffee, dark chocolate, with a slight hint of burnt toast. Flavor follows the nose, for the most part, with hints of roast, coffee, and chocolate. At colder (i.e., from-the-tap) temps, I get a lot more dark/baker’s chocolate than I do candy bar chocolate. However, as it warms, more semisweet chocolate emerges and rounds it out a little better than the first few tastes.

I definitely plan to brew this stout again as I feel with a minor tweak here or there this will become my house stout. Changes for next time will likely include the addition of wheat, and more flaked grains. I will likely replace the Victory with wheat. To be quite frank, I’m not sure what Victory is adding to this beer. Regardless of what, if anything, it adds, I think replacing it with wheat will get me closer to what I’m looking for. I like using wheat for body and mouthfeel, and I think this version could benefit from a little more body. I also prefer my stouts a little on the thicker side and I’m more familiar and experienced with flaked oats, so I will likely replace flaked barley with flaked oats and bump it from 7% of the grist to 10%.

Finally, I’d also like to play with the ratio of Chocolate to Pale Chocolate to try and coax out more candy bar chocolate flavors, which were more apparent the first time I brewed this beer. However, I will likely leave that alone for now and see how the other two changes affect the beer.

Competition Results

Iteration 7.1:

You can access the scoresheets for Iteration 7.1 here:

Iteration 7.1 Competition ScoresheetsDownload

I saved a beer to drink while reviewing the scoresheets, and overall, I generally agree with most of the judges’ comments. I completely agree with the assessments of appearance and mouthfeel. That said, I have to disagree with what one of the judges noted about a lack of coffee in the aroma; I certainly pick up coffee notes in this beer. I do agree with what that same judge said about the strength of the roast in the aroma, though—it’s on the lighter side.

Again, I mostly agree with what was said about the flavor, though I do think that there’s more than just the coffee notes there—which is mostly what the judges commented on. Though, perhaps I perceive more because I know the recipe and have my own set of expectations based on those ingredients.

For the comments in the Overall Impression section, one judge noted that the aroma should be more complex, and if that’s the only negative thing that was said about this beer, I’ll take it.

Iteration 8.1:

You can access the scoresheets for Iteration 8.1 here:

Iteration 8.1 Competition ResultsDownload

One of my judges noted a “slightly high fill” on my stout. As an aside, I’d like to point out that notes like that really annoy me. Hear me out. First, the bottle inspection does not add nor detract from your score. Second, I fill all of my bottles off the keg; therefore, I typically make an effort to overfill to an extent to mitigate oxidation and keep the beer as carbonated as possible. If it is not a factor in scoring, I don’t care to know about it—of course, descriptor definitions are the exception, because I certainly want to know if a judge detected diacetyl or DMS.

I pretty much agree with both judges on the aroma section as far as dark roasted grains, coffee, and bitter chocolate. However, both noted hops or “earthy hop aroma is present.” I honestly don’t get much hop aroma.

For flavor, one judge noted that it was “quite bitter.” I honestly had not considered that until I read the notes. And I definitely pick up on it now, and I think it’s one of the problems I have with this beer. With all the roasted grains, I think the bitterness needs to be dialed back a touch. I will probably drop the 5m addition of Centennial next time.

One judge noted a “nice creaminess” in the mouthfeel. I get a little creaminess, but I actually want more, hence why I will be adding some wheat to this next time.

Finally, in the Overall Impression section, one judge noted that the bitterness “may be a touch aggressive,” and I definitely agree with that now. However, the other judge noted that his only suggestion was to “derive more bitterness from the grain instead of the hops.” I like the suggestion, I’m just not sure what he means or how to accomplish it. I’m assuming he means rely on the roasted grains for bitterness instead of the hop bill? That’s all I could think of.

Side bar: this beer resulted in something I’ve rarely (never?) experienced before. When I bottle off the keg for competitions, I always bottle two extras. I open one after I get competition results to taste and compare for educational purposes. I hold the other one back a little while longer just as a bit of quality control for my bottling process and seeing how long certain beers hold up when bottled off the keg. I still have some of this beer in the keg, so I recently opened the other bottle to do a side-by-side with a pour from the tap. For reference: I bottled right after kegging and a 24-hour burst carbonation. The keg and the bottle were both right at one month old and were both kept in cold storage. First, the bottled beer was still perfectly carbed (probably slightly overfilled!) and did not show any signs of oxidation in the nose or flavor. But what surprised me was how much better I perceived the bottled beer to be than the keg pour. The bottle had better aroma, particularly big notes of coffee. The bottle had more chocolate flavor. Overall, the bottle tasted better, fresher, and more vibrant. It just seems odd to me because I assumed the opposite would be true. Further research will be done!

Recipe Progression

  Iteration 7 Iteration 7.1
Base Malt 2-row 69.2% 67.5%
Specialty Malt 1 10.8% 12.2%
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 8.1% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.1% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 8.1% Flaked Barley
60 min. hop Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.2 IBUs Centennial: 6.2 IBUs
Yeast White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)
OG 1.064 1.055
FG 1.021 1.012
ABV 5.6% 5.6%
  Iteration 8 Iteration 8.1
Base Malt 2-row 68% 67.9%
Specialty Malt 1 10.2% 10.7%
Specialty Malt 2 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.1% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.1% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.4% Pale Chocolate
60 min. hop Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 43.3 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.8 IBUs Centennial: 7.2 IBUs
Yeast White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)
OG 1.075 1.064
FG 1.012 1.014
ABV 8.3% 6.6%

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Posted in Brewing, Competition, Stout | 1 Comment

Tasting Iterations 11 & 12

Posted on January 8, 2019 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the comparison tastings for this series can be found here.

The recipes for the beers being compared below are as follows:

Iteration 11 Iteration 12
Base Malt 60.8% Maris Otter 37.6% Maris Otter
Base Malt 2 None 15.1% 2-row
Specialty Malt 1 10.6% Victory 11.3% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 5.6% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 1.8% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.6% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 5.3% Pale Chocolate 5.6% Pale Chocolate
Specialty Malt 6 None 9.4% Flaked Oats
Sugar 6% Corn Sugar 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 42.9 IBUs 43 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.7 IBUs 6.7 IBUs
Yeast WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.064 1.062
FG 1.021 1.016
ABV 5.8% 6.1%

 

Taster: M. Rasmussen

Just like last time, my brewing partner and I set up a blind triangle test for ourselves before we began the real comparison tasting. I poured two samples of each beer in opaque cups and marked the bottom of the cups with a sharpie. I mixed up the cups and placed them on a shelf so that my partner (later referred to as J) could select 3 cups completely blind to what was in them. We were actually able to identify the odd one out based off of the color of the foam. Surprisingly, the aroma of the beers were quite similar, but the taste matched the stark difference in appearance. It was a very easy triangle test, and we’re two for two on our triangle tests with this stout project.

11&amp;12 triangle

Appearance: Iteration 11 poured just as I remembered: opaque black with a thin, dark tan head. My partner, J, pointed out that it’s very reminiscent of Russian imperial stout, which was a common theme for this tasting. There was slightly more carbonation than Iteration 12, and head retention was moderate. There was very minimal lacing on the glass as we drank. M prefers number 11.

Iteration 12 looked almost identical to its predecessor in the glass, except for the off-white head. The thin ring of foam that lingered was similar to an Irish Dry stout. There was decent head retention and some mild lacing on the glass as we drank. J prefers number 12.

11&amp;12 head

Aroma: The biggest aroma to me on Iteration 11 was a strong dark chocolate covered cherry. I also got slight hints of plum and alcohol. When the beer was cold, there was a hint of nuttiness that’s closest to hazelnut. As the beer warmed up to around 50℉, that hint of nuttiness became a rich, chocolatey hazelnut character. The aroma was also very roast forward. J prefers number 11.

The main aroma in this beer was roasted grains. When the beer was cold, the roasted aroma was also slightly burnt smelling. There was a hazelnut smell here that became more expressive as the beer warmed. There was also a bit of fruitiness, but lighter than Iteration 11. We weren’t exactly sure which fruit was most representative, so we’re calling it “plum light”—not as strong as the plum character in Iteration 11, but it was close. M prefers number 12.

Taste: Iteration 11’s flavor is best described with the word ‘roast’. There was quite a lot less fruitiness to the flavor profile than there was in the aroma. The fruity flavor that was there was closer to plum than the dark cherry I was smelling. The burnt, bitter, overpowering roastiness I remembered from my first tasting was still there. Other descriptors that were mentioned included “not pleasant” and “astringent.” Then we noticed that if you hold a swig in your mouth, let it sit, and warm up, it developed into a richer, more complex flavor profile. I got back some of the strong, cherry fruitiness that I missed from the aroma. Once the beer had reached 55℉, the flavor profile became much more balanced.

There was a medley of hazelnut, roast, and chocolate for the major flavor profile in Iteration 12. There was the slightest bit of fruitiness in the middle of the swallow as well. The roastiness was strong, but less subtle and more pleasant compared to Iteration 11. M & J prefer number 12.

11&amp;12

Mouthfeel: Although there was a heavy thickness to the mouthfeel, it still felt fluffy and pillowy on the tongue. There was a low amount of carbonation, but I could feel some light bubbling on the tip of the tongue. J prefers number 11.

The mouthfeel in Iteration 12 was quite thin, but still fluffy and pillowy on the tongue. The light amount of carbonation bubbled on the tongue. M prefers number 12.

Aftertaste: There was a slight character in the finish to Iteration 11 that wasn’t apparent in the main flavor profile. Something showed up after swallowing that gave it a more pleasant, bitter chocolate flavor that lingered.

In Iteration 12, there was a creamy, roasty character that lingered after the swallow. J and I were throwing out a litany of phrases while we tried to place a firm description on the aftertaste of Iteration 12. Hazelnut, coffee liqueur, espresso & baileys, spiked coffee, and amaretto were all mentioned. I’m still not quite sure which of those are most accurate, as they all seem to describe the flavor that this beer left on the palate after it was gone. M & J prefer number 12.

Overall: After completing this tasting, I realized that I rushed through my first tasting of Iteration 11. I didn’t allow the beer to warm up at all, so it didn’t have the chance to develop into the stout it truly was: a mock imperial-style stout. The heavy mouthfeel, complex profile, strong fruit, and roast character all combined to form a beer that was extremely reminiscent of a Russian Imperial Stout. I’m not sure how or why, since the ABV was only 5.8% and the focus of this project was to brew a plain stout. That being said, once this beer warmed up, it was a very pleasant experience. Each sip was slightly different than the last. I’ve come around from thinking this beer was a bitter mess, to realizing it was a very complex stout that ultimately just didn’t match my personal preference for the style.

The easiest way to describe Iteration 12 is that it was an Irish-like stout. The off-white head, thinner mouthfeel, and creamy aftertaste were all very similar to what one would expect from a glass of Guinness or Murphy’s. Compared to Iteration 11, this beer seemed more balanced and easy-drinking. I still think this was the best stout I’ve brewed, and I will definitely be brewing it again. M & J prefer number 12.

Taster: C. McKenzie

Iteration 11 was a deep black and poured with a thick, tan head that had excellent retention. Iteration 12 was also black, but definitely lighter in color and almost a super-dark brown when held to the light. This beer also had a minimal off-white head with mild retention, though I suspect this was due to the lack of carbonation in the bottle (likely caused by bottling from the keg).

11&amp;12--me

The aroma of Iteration 11 was one of chocolate and espresso (reminiscent of mocha), toast, and roasted character. There was also a mild citrus aroma from the hops. Iteration 12 had notes of roast, toast, coffee, and dark chocolate. There was a distinct character compared to 11 that I can only describe as “smelling lighter.”

The flavor of Iteration 11 had a prominent cherry character that was complemented by chocolate notes and roast. All of this faded into a bitterness that stuck around for a little while but didn’t linger too long. This beer was like biting into a dark chocolate bar, with those dark fruit flavors that often accompany dark chocolate that is at least 70% cacao. Iteration 12’s flavor was one of roasted character and coffee. Again, as in the aroma, there was a character that I described as “lighter”—there was almost a brown ale-like quality to it. It tasted like more than a brown ale and was definitely a stout, but something about the character was reminiscent of a brown ale to me—this beer was almost like the older brother of a brown ale. Perhaps it was the lower carbonation levels calling English ales to mind that caused me to perceive the beer this way, but to clarify, I certainly wouldn’t mistake this for a brown ale if I were given the beer blind. Again, it definitely had proper stout character, but something about the change between the recipes of 11 and 12 made this beer feel lighter in character.

Overall, these beers are quite different. I imagine if I were given these beers blind side by side that I would never have considered that they were so close in recipe. In fact, even knowing the recipes of each while tasting them, they still tasted like very different beers. Both beers were quite good, and I would gladly drink either, but what little difference there was between them in the recipes actually ended up creating a rather stark difference.

Posted in Comparing, Stout | Comments Off on Tasting Iterations 11 & 12

Stout Iteration 12

Posted on December 11, 2018 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the series can be found here.

Author: M. Rasmussen

Brew Day

As a whole, this was one of the roughest brew days I’d had in a while. I struggled to hit some of my target numbers, something that I’m attributing to switching laptops and not having my equipment profile tuned in yet. There was also a lot going on that weekend, including dealing with a minor plumbing emergency during the brew. That being said, it was still successful. Beer is beer, right?

The brew started as all of mine do: with a trip to the LHBS to get the ingredients. Stouts are hands down my favorite type of grain bill to pick up because the bag smells so incredible every time. This grain bag was no different.

Iteration12 grain

After collecting 8 gallons of tap water and treating it with some campden, gypsum, and lactic acid, it was time to get the burner rolling. I nailed my target mash-in temperature, and already the heavy roasted aroma started filling my garage.

Iteration12 mash

The mash went pretty smoothly. Fifteen minutes into the rest, I pulled a small sample to check the pH and give everything a little stir. With twenty minutes left I noticed that the temperature had dropped a handful of degrees, so I added some heat for a few minutes while I kept the liquid moving.

Iteration12 ph

When the sixty minutes of the mash were up, I raised the grain bag out of the kettle using a pulley system and started the propane burner back up. I rinsed the grains with about a gallon of sparge water and then squeezed as much liquid out as I could. At this point I added the dextrose to the kettle. Once I got all of the sweet wort mixed in, I took a pre-boil gravity sample.

Iteration12 gravity

I was 2 points shy of my target. I figured I could give the wort a little more vigorous of a boil than normal and hope to gain those 2 points back. Once the boil got started, I added the first charge of hops.

iteration12 hops

The boil went along swimmingly, especially for those beautiful hop pellets swimming around in the wort. When the time came, I added a whirlfloc tablet, my stainless steel immersion chiller, and the second hit of hops. Before I cut the heat and started chilling, I pulled a sample of wort to check my OG. Again, I was 2 points low. I continued battling my leaky kitchen faucet while the wort chilled down in near record time, thanks to the fact that it was about 45°F outside. I hooked up my transfer tubing to the spigot on my kettle and attached my wort aerator to the other end.

Iteration12 carboy

I carried the 5.5 gallons of wort downstairs and stashed it in my fermentation fridge. It only took about 30 minutes in the fridge to get down to my target pitching temp. I grabbed the smack pack of yeast that I had smacked about 5 hours prior. There was hardly any bulge to the pack, which I had repeatedly chastised it for throughout the afternoon. Upon opening the pack and pouring the liquid yeast into the carboy, I realized that I had failed to pop open the bubble of nutrient when I smacked it. One more facepalm for the day, and it was time to let the yeast do their job.

Iteration12 ferment

Fermentation kicked off pretty quickly, to my surprise. After about 6 days I raised the temperature in the fermentation fridge to encourage complete attenuation and allow the yeast to clean up after themselves. After 2 weeks, I transferred the beer to a keg using my gravity-fed technique. After realizing that I attached the wrong gas line to the new keg about 14 hours into my planned carbonating period, I fixed my mistake and quickly carbed up the stout. And, finally, it was time to see if all of those mishaps (and my recipe tweaks) could turn into a decent beer.

Recipe

Tasting notes from Iteration 11:

Appearance: Inky black. Moderate, dark tan head. Sticks to the glass. Lots of bubbles lining the bottom of the glass. Good carbonation. After a minute or two, carbonation settles into a pillowy blanket on top. Carbonation stays on top throughout drinking. Nice lacing down the glass. Lacing actually dissipates/drops pretty quickly, but the pillow on top stays.

 Aroma: Dark stone fruits. Milk chocolate. Creamy. Plum. Dark cherry. More chocolate. Something odd that I can’t place.

 Flavor: Dark chocolate. Roasted malt. milk chocolate on the back end. Little bit of the fruitiness. Dark roast coffee. Gets creamier as it warms up.

 Mouthfeel: Good carbonation level. Moderate body. Leans on the lighter, thinner side of moderate. Carbonation sticks around.

 Aftertaste: Bitter. Not hop bitter, but dark roasted malt bitter. Not my favorite finish for a stout. Maybe a slight hop flavor? Can’t tell.

Overall: Dry, chocolately, and a little rough around the edges. Smoother as it warms up, but it’s still too bitter/astringent for my taste. Has potential, but it seems unbalanced.

There were several things running through my mind when I sat down to think about how I wanted to adapt the recipe. The main goal was to add some balance to the beer. I wasn’t able to perceive any character from the hops or the yeast; all I got was dark, roasted malt. I briefly toyed with the idea of changing the yeast, but that was the change I made last time, and I wanted to take a swing at the grain bill.

I found the addition of corn sugar/dextrose in Iteration 10 very interesting. It was a change that I’d never think to make myself, and I thought it might be attributing to the lack of balance in the beer by drying out any sweetness or creaminess. I thought about removing the dextrose, but I decided to leave it be since this project is about learning new ingredients and processes. The next thing that came to mind was flaked oats. I’ve had success using oats to add a creaminess character to beer, especially stouts.

Upon seeing the previous recipe, I also wondered if the 61% of Marris Otter was helping to contribute to the lack of balance I was perceiving. Since Marris Otter is known to contribute nutty, toasted flavors to a beer, I figured that it was probably pushing the grain bill too far towards a complex, roasted character; and I didn’t think that a pound of flaked oats would be enough to balance out the heavy load of roasted and toasted malts in the bill. I didn’t want to completely undo the previous change, and I’m usually a big fan of Marris Otter, but I wanted to get back some of the lighter malt character that US 2-row offers. So I decided to adjust the base malt by adding a few pounds of 2-row back in to hopefully help add some balance that I thought was lacking from the beer.

Finally, as I was plugging in my changes to BeerSmith, I was struggling to hit the some of the numbers that I was going for while keeping all of the grain percentages the same as Iteration 11. I took a look back at the previous iterations to see how the others had handled additions to the grain bill. I realized that there’s really no way to make an addition without adjusting percentages, at least slightly, for most of the different malts. In order to hit the numbers I was aiming for (mainly OG and SRM), I decided to reduce the Roasted Barley by about 2%, again, hoping that the change would allow the Flaked Oats and 2-row to balance out the roasty bitterness even more. That left me with the following recipe:

  • Mashed at 153°F for 60 minutes
    • 37.6% Maris Otter
    • 15.1% 2 Row
    • 11.3% Victory
    • 9.4% Flaked Oats
    • 7.6% Flaked Barley
    • 5.6% Roasted Barley
    • 5.6% Pale Chocolate (300°L)
    • 1.8% Chocolate Malt
    • 6% Corn Sugar
  • Boiled 60 minutes
    • 1 oz. Nugget (60 min.) as 13.0% (43 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Centennial (5 min.) at 9.9% (6.7 IBUs)
  • Pitched Wyeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
  • OG: 1.062
  • FG: 1.016
  • ABV: 6.1%

 

Tasting

Appearance: Black. Low/moderate carbonation. Thin, off-white head after pouring. Dissipates quickly. Head turns into thin ring around the glass. Slight lacing down the glass.

Aroma: Roasted malt. Chocolate. Dark and milk. Esters. Slight bit of alcohol. French roast. Bit of chocolate covered pretzel. Hints of stone fruit/plum. Crust of dark toast.

 Flavor: Roasted malt. Creamy yeast esters. Reminds me of the esters in a Guinness. Little bit of hop flavor poking through at the front of the palate, very slight. Slight bitterness, but not off-putting. More like the bitterness of a good espresso.

 Mouthfeel: Moderate, slightly thin body. Low carbonation. Feels like a fluffy pillow in the mouth.

 Aftertaste: Dark chocolate. The creaminess, esteriness linger nicely. The dark roast flavor smooths out and leaves a pleasing bitterness on the tongue.

Overall: Dry, dark, and roasted are the highlights of this beer. It’s slightly thinner and less carbonated than I’d like. There’s also a creaminess to it that balances out the heavy roasted character.

Iteration12 pour

I think this is the best stout that I’ve ever brewed (which has been about 6 of them). I’m a big Guinness fan (as I type this wearing my Guinness shirt that I picked up at the Storehouse in Dublin) and this beer is reminiscent of the world’s favorite stout. It’s dark, dry, balanced, and easily drinkable. As difficult as the brew day was, I’m extremely happy with the results.

As far as recipe changes go, I’m really not sure. There are several pieces in this recipe that I wouldn’t have gone with if I were creating it from scratch. The complex grain bill, dextrose addition, yeast choice, and even hop combination are all different from what I have done in the past when it comes to stout recipe creation. Yet, I’m so glad I participated in this project. Like I said, this is my favorite stout I’ve brewed and I will definitely be brewing it again.

 

Recipe Progression

Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5
Base Malt 1 80% 2-row 80% 2-row 80% 2-row 72.5% 2-row 69.2% 2-row
Base Malt 2 None None None None None
Specialty Malt 1 10% Victory 10% Victory 5% Victory 10.8% Victory 10.8% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 5% Roasted Barley 5% Roasted Barley 10% Roasted Barley 4.4% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 5% Carafa III 5% Chocolate Malt 5 % Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 None None None 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 None None None None None
Specialty Malt 6 None None None None None
Sugar None None None None None
60 min. hop Nugget: 47.7 IBUs Nugget: 42.5 IBUs Nugget: 47.7 IBUs Nugget: 41.2 IBUs Nugget: 41.5 IBUs
5 min. hop Willamette: 3.6 IBUs Willamette: 3.3 IBUs Willamette: 2.9 IBUs Willamette: 3 IBUs Willamette: 3 IBUs
Yeast US-05 US-05 US-05 US-05 US-05
OG 1.054 1.060 1.045 1.065 1.064
FG 1.010 1.016 1.005 10.20 1.020
ABV 5.8% 5.8% 5.25% 5.9% 5.8%
Iteration 6 Iteration 7 Iteration 8 Iteration 9 Iteration 10
Base Malt 69.2% 2-row 69.2% 2-row 68% 2-row 68% 2-row 60.8% 2-row
Base Malt 2 None None None None None
Specialty Malt 1 10.8% Victory 10.8% Victory 10.2% Victory 10.2% Victory 10.6% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 None None 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.3% Pale Chocolate
Specialty Malt 6 None None None None None
Sugar None None None None 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 45 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 43.2 IBUs Nugget: 42.9 IBUs
5 min. hop Willamette: 3.6 IBUs Centennial: 6.2 IBUs Centennial: 6.8 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs
Yeast White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.065 1.064 1.075 1.065 1.064
FG 1.018 1.021 1.012 1.023 1.018
ABV 6.2% 5.6% 8.3% 5.5% 6.1%
Iteration 11 Iteration 12
Base Malt 60.8% Maris Otter 37.6% Maris Otter
Base Malt 2 None 15.1% 2-row
Specialty Malt 1 10.6% Victory 11.3% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 5.6% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 1.8% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.6% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 5.3% Pale Chocolate 5.6% Pale Chocolate
Specialty Malt 6 None 9.4% Flaked Oats
Sugar 6% Corn Sugar 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 42.9 IBUs 43 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.7 IBUs 6.7 IBUs
Yeast WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.064 1.062
FG 1.021 1.016
ABV 5.8% 6.1%
Posted in Brewing, Stout | Comments Off on Stout Iteration 12

Stout: Tasting Iterations 10 & 11

Posted on November 27, 2018 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the comparison tastings for this series can be found here.

The recipes for the beers being compared below are as follows:

Iteration 10 Iteration 11
Base Malt 60.8% 2-row 60.8% Maris Otter
Specialty Malt 1 10.6% Victory 10.6% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 1.8% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 5.3% Pale Chocolate 5.3% Pale Chocolate
Sugar 6% Corn Sugar 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 42.9 IBUs Nugget: 42.9 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.7 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs
Yeast WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.064 1.064
FG 1.018 1.021
ABV 6.1% 5.8%

 

Taster: R. Goyenko

Iteration 10 was dark, almost black, and opaque. The head was somewhat low and tan in color. The head lingered for a while before subsiding, and the bubbles were a mix of small and big ones. Iteration 11 was also dark, almost black, and opaque. The head was a tan color, about 2 inches, persistent, and left lacing on the glass walls.

Iteration 10’s aroma had notes of deep chocolate, medium-low amount of roastiness, and dark candied cherry. Iteration 11smelled of roasted grains, chocolate, dark coffee, and resiny hops. As it warmed up, a moderate amount of dark cherry was added to the aroma, and the hops become less prominent on the nose.

The flavor of Iteration 10 had a roast-forward flavor with medium bitterness from roasted grains and hops. Dark cherry esters. The bitterness was rounded by malty and chocolate flavors and didn’t feel excessive. There was a slight roasty/bitter aftertaste. The finish is medium on the palate. It also had a medium to medium-high body, with medium-low carbonation. There was no alcohol warmth, no astringency, and a creamy mouthfeel.

With Iteration 11, I noticed hop bitterness, chocolate, and espresso coffee flavors. The hops were resiny and reminiscent of grapefruit pith. This version feels hoppier than the previous one – it’s both more bitter from hops and has more flavor and aroma from them. The beer had a medium to medium-high body, with medium carbonation. There was no alcohol warmth, no astringency, and a creamy mouthfeel.

Taster: C. McKenzie

Iteration 10 poured black with a moderate tan head that showed good retention and left prominent lacing on the glass. Iteration 11 was also a deep black color, but had a slightly darker tan, almost brown head that was a bit smaller but also showed decent retention.

10&11

Iteration 10 had an aroma of choclate, espresso, cherry, and toast. Iteration 11 had a deep candy bar chocolate element to the nose, also smelling of coffee, toast, and a hint of citrus.

The flavor of Iteration 10 had notes of coffee, dark chocolate, toast, a hint of cherry, and a little bit of floral thrown in there. Iteration 11 tasted more roasty and bitter than Iteration 10. It also had flavors of coffee, dark chocolate, a touch of cherry, and a hint of citrus.

I’ll be honest—the distinction between these two beers was much less pronounced than the variations between previous versions. There was a definite difference, but I can’t guarantee the differences were based on the switch to Maris Otter rather than the inevitable differences that will occur when two brewers brew the same beer on different systems. Both were solid beers at this point in the recipe development process, and it’s getting harder to determine what I’d like to be different about this recipe.

Posted in Comparing, Stout | Comments Off on Stout: Tasting Iterations 10 & 11

Stout: Iteration 11

Posted on November 13, 2018 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the series can be found here.

Author: R. Goyenko

Brew Day

As a recap from the previous time I brewed my iteration of this stout, I do BIAB, so the setup is simple: a brewing bag, a big pot, some blankets, a burner, and a fermenter. At this point the procedure is established. I put the recipe in Beersmith with my changes to the recipe and adjustments for the water chemistry.

I measured out the grains and milled them.

Iteration11 mill

Then the water – I used about 8 gallons for this batch. I mashed at the same temperature as last time: 154⁰F, which I came pretty close to.

Iteration11 temp

I added the minerals for water—with this much dark grain and my soft water I needed chalk (4g) and I also added 2.4g gypsum. Chalk normally doesn’t dissolve in water well, so the trick I use is to carbonate the water and shake it until it dissolves.

I mashed in, and after about 10 minutes I measured the pH of water. It was close to what Bru’n’Water predicted: 5.31 and in a good range for the mash.

After one hour of mashing, I got the bag out and drained the wort. The pre-boil gravity came in at 1.060. This was a bit higher than needed, so I added 0.5 gallons of water before the boil.

Iteration11 BIAB

I boiled the wort for 60 minutes.

Iteration11 boil

I measured and added the hops at the times stated in the recipe. After the boil, I chilled the wort quickly. I measured the OG, and it came in as expected at 1.064.

Iteration11 refractometer

I transferred the wort to the fermenter and pitched the yeast.

After 6 days, signs of fermentation stopped and the krausen dropped. The gravity was at 1.021. I measured 3 days after that and the gravity was the same.

I decided to bottle this beer like I did the in my previous iteration, even though I usually keg—just so I would not have to bottle from the keg before sending the beers out. This time I didn’t have a mixing bucket available, so I added dextrose directly into the bottles.

 

 Recipe

Tasting notes for Iteration 10:

Aroma: Deep chocolate, medium-low amount of roastiness, dark candied cherry.

Head is somewhat low, tan in color, after it subsided it lingered for a while, bubbles are mix of small and big ones. Beer is dark, almost black and opaque.

Iteration11 tasting 10

Flavor: Roasted flavor forward with medium bitterness from roasted grains and hops. Dark cherry esters. The bitterness is rounded by malty and chocolate flavors and doesn’t feel excessive. There is a slight roasty/bitter aftertaste. Finish is medium on the palate.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-high body, carbonation is medium-low. No alcohol warmth, no astringency, creamy mouthfeel.

This beer turned out very nicely and hits the notes on what stout should be: it is roasty and with a lot of chocolate aroma and flavors. Last time I brewed this beer, I made a side experiment with an additional gallon of beer using Danny’s Favorite 50 yeast, and it imparted a similar taste to the beer—smooth and clean taste, maybe even a bit too clean. I felt like adding a bit more complexity and more layers would improve it. The recipe is very good as is, so I didn’t want to change too much. I decided to change the base malt to Maris Otter to possibly add more layers to the flavor of the beer to see how that worked out. That left me with the following recipe:

  • Mashed at 154° for 60 minutes
    • 60.8% Maris Otter
    • 10.6% Victory
    • 7.8% Flaked Barley
    • 7.8% Roasted Barley
    • 5.3% Pale Chocolate (300°L)
    • 1.8% Chocolate Malt
    • 6% Corn Sugar
  • Boiled 60 minutes
    • 1 oz. Nugget 13.0% (43 IBUs) 60 min
    • 1 oz. Centennial 9.9% (6.7 IBUs) 5 min
  • Pitched Wyeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
  • OG: 1.064
  • FG: 1.021
  • ABV: 5.8%

Tasting

Iteration 11 Tasting:

Appearance: Dark, almost black and opaque. Head is a tan color and about 2 inches, persistent, and leaves lacing on the glass walls.

Iteration11 pour

Aroma: Roasted grains, chocolate, dark coffee, resiny hops. As it warms up the aroma adds a moderate amount of dark cherry and hops become less prominent on the nose.

Flavor: Hop bitterness, chocolate and espresso coffee flavors. Hops are resiny, grapefruit pith. My version feels much hoppier than the previous one – it’s both more bitter from hops and has more flavor and aroma from them, I am not sure why since this variable didn’t change. Maybe variation in water chemistry or brewing techniques.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-high body, carbonation is medium. No alcohol warmth, no astringency, creamy mouthfeel.

Overall it’s a very good beer with a lot of character. I think Maris Otter added a layer of complexity as desired. One thing that is pretty different for these two beers is the hoppiness level, with Iteration 11 being much hoppier, as I mentioned above. As I said it could be that it’s due to water chemistry (even though I tried to adjust it to be similar to the previous version) , my setup, or a fluke in the hops themselves. I think hops in this beer could be dialed down so the nice chocolate/coffee/roastiness is more balanced.

I am not sure it was an improvement on the previous iteration to be honest, but I don’t think it’s because of Maris Otter.

Aside from adjusting hops, the other thing I might consider adjusting would be simplifying the recipe—maybe removing 1.8% Chocolate Malt. Another thing I might do is to introduce some kind of caramel malt for added layers of complexity (or substitute/split Victory with caramel).

Recipe Progression

Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5
Base Malt 80% 2-row 80% 2-row 80% 2-row 72.5% 2-row 69.2% 2-row
Specialty Malt 1 10% Victory 10% Victory 5% Victory 10.8% Victory 10.8% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 5% Roasted Barley 5% Roasted Barley 10% Roasted Barley 4.4% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 5% Carafa III 5% Chocolate Malt 5 % Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 None None None 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 None None None None None
Sugar None None None None None
60 min. hop Nugget: 47.7 IBUs Nugget: 42.5 IBUs Nugget: 47.7 IBUs Nugget: 41.2 IBUs Nugget: 41.5 IBUs
5 min. hop Willamette: 3.6 IBUs Willamette: 3.3 IBUs Willamette: 2.9 IBUs Willamette: 3 IBUs Willamette: 3 IBUs
Yeast US-05 US-05 US-05 US-05 US-05
OG 1.054 1.060 1.045 1.065 1.064
FG 1.010 1.016 1.005 10.20 1.020
ABV 5.8% 5.8% 5.25% 5.9% 5.8%
Iteration 6 Iteration 7 Iteration 8 Iteration 9 Iteration 10
Base Malt 69.2% 2-row 69.2% 2-row 68% 2-row 68% 2-row 60.8% 2-row
Specialty Malt 1 10.8% Victory 10.8% Victory 10.2% Victory 10.2% Victory 10.6% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 None None 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.3% Pale Chocolate
Sugar None None None None 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 45 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 43.2 IBUs Nugget: 42.9 IBUs
5 min. hop Willamette: 3.6 IBUs Centennial: 6.2 IBUs Centennial: 6.8 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs
Yeast White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.065 1.064 1.075 1.065 1.064
FG 1.018 1.021 1.012 1.023 1.018
ABV 6.2% 5.6% 8.3% 5.5% 6.1%
Iteration 11
Base Malt 60.8% Maris Otter
Specialty Malt 1 10.6% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 5.3% Pale Chocolate
Sugar 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 42.9 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.7 IBUs
Yeast WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.064
FG 1.021
ABV 5.8%
Posted in Brewing, Stout | 2 Comments

Stout: Tasting Iterations 9 & 10

Posted on October 30, 2018 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the comparison tastings for this series can be found here.

The recipes for the beers being compared below are as follows:

Iteration 9 Iteration 10
Base Malt 2-row 68% 60.8%
Specialty Malt 1 10.2% Victory 10.6% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.3% Pale Chocolate
Sugar None 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 43.2 IBUs Nugget: 42.9 IBUs
5 min. hop Centennial: 6.7 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs
Yeast WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.065 1.064
FG 1.023 1.018
ABV 5.5% 6.1%

 

Taster: M. Willis

Iteration 9 has an attractive medium-brown color to the head. The head is small, short-lived, and leaves almost no lacing on the glass at first pour. Iteration 10 has a long lasting medium-brown, thick head. The pronounced cap blankets the top of this beer and leaves beautiful lacing in this iteration. Iteration 9 is inky black in color and Iteration 10 is very similar.

9&amp;10--full

Left: Iteration 9 | Right: Iteration 10

It’s been about 45 days since I first sampled Iteration 9. Not much has changed since the original tasting. Dark molasses, roasted coffee, and more pronounced molasses as the beer warms. From my recollection, this beer is less complex in aroma than the previous iterations I tasted, Iteration 3 and Iteration 4. Iteration 10 shows a large reduction in 9’s sweetness allowing the great stout flavors to stand out again.

Flavor follows the nose in both beers. The dark molasses is dominant in Iteration 9. I’ve previously experienced Denny’s Favorite 50 stalling and not finish attenuating, and it’s my opinion that this probably happened with Iteration 9. It’s sweet whereas Iteration 10 is balanced.

Mouthfeel on Iteration 9 hasn’t changed much since the original tasting 45 days ago. It’s medium-bodied with that sweet slickness that I associate with under-attenuated beers. Time in a cold bottle didn’t fix that and wasn’t expected. Iteration 10 is simultaneously dry and creamy with all that flaked barley. That stickiness that laces the glass also coats the tongue, but without being cloying.

9&amp;10--lacing

Left: Iteration 9 | Right: Iteration 10

The biggest differences to me were the mouthfeel and flavor of the beers. I definitely like the improvement from the sugar and felt this beer benefited from this change. Most of us have had what we thought was an under-attenuated beer and wondered what to fix. I’m glad I had a chance to test this out. This was very fun and informative to make this one change—and I believe it was successful.

Taster: C. McKenzie

Both iterations of this stout poured black with a tan head. Iteration 9 had a slightly larger head than 10 (which admittedly could have been a function of my pour). Both beers showed good head retention, and when the head did drop, a thin layer of foam was still present.

9&amp;10--me

Iteration 9 smelled of coffee grounds, dark chocolate (or baker’s chocolate), and a hint of toast. Iteration 10 had an aroma of toast, coffee, and milk chocolate. There was also a hint of floral in the nose. Overall, Iteration 10 had a bigger aroma than 9.

The first flavor that struck me when I tasted Iteration 9 was cherry. This was followed by the taste of milk chocolate/chocolate bar and a touch of toast. The sweet chocolate flavor was the most prominent flavor. Iteration 10 tasted like biting into a milk chocolate covered espresso bean. There was a big chocolate bar component to this flavor. Lesser notes that I perceived included toast, floral, and citrus.

The takeaway for me from this comparison is that Iteration 10 ended up being all-around “more than.” Mostly, the same flavors were present with a couple extra shining through from the hops, but they all seemed to be present in a bigger way. All in all, the choice to add sugar to the grist would not have been a choice I would have personally made for a stout, but it turned out to be a solid choice. This is exactly what this collaborative project is all about—seeing how a choice you might never personally make for a recipe impacts the beer. Prompting this yeast to attenuate a bit lower than it would have otherwise (or ensuring it attenuated to the desired level) seemed to help all the flavors in this beer shine through more than they did previously.

Posted in Comparing, Stout | Comments Off on Stout: Tasting Iterations 9 & 10

Stout: Iteration 10

Posted on October 16, 2018 by brewu0

This post is one in a series following six brewers collaborating to each make a small adjustment to a single recipe in order to improve it, then pass it along to the next brewer. We hope to learn more about the art of recipe creation as we see how other brewers approach the same recipe. The rest of the series can be found here.

Author: M. Willis

Brew Day

My brew day truly starts a few days before when I finalize the recipe in Beersmith, decide on my water adjustments via Bru’n Water, and then acquire the ingredients from the local homebrew store….[Record Scratch] except I no longer have a LHBS. After struggling for years, they recently called it quits and I completely understand.

This brew would be my first with a mail order in many years, and I immediately had to experience the old feelings of trepidation often followed by disappointment. I won’t name names, but due to the time crunch between when I tasted the beers and when I had to brew, I ordered at one of the closer places that claims to ship within 24 hours and would be 1-day transit from my house. Well I soon realized I had missed their cut-off time and so it was over 48 hours to ship. The package, including packets of yeast, then sat in a UPS warehouse all weekend. Luckily, I had ice packs with the order. This then led to a rare (for me) weekday brew to stay on schedule. I prepped everything Sunday, and after reviewing my delivered items after work Monday, I started the burner around 6pm.

As a reminder, my equipment is atypical. I do not use either a 3-vessel system or Brew in a Bag (BIAB). I use the less common Mash in a Bag (MIAB) using a 10-gallon Cooler. Reason being, most of the time I batch sparge because I find it more repeatable and there’s something comforting about stable mash temps. I then boil in a 15-gallon kettle. I’ve been using this equipment and methods for several years, so I had no surprises this brew day. It was entirely without surprise and calming after the mail order snafu.

I collect and treat my local water with Campden the night before I brew. We are lucky to have access to the water company’s current test results via their website, so I believe I have enough info for water salts to help. I then stepped out to the driveway to mill my grains. Owning a mill has also helped with repeatability.

stout10 water

I then proceeded to heat my strike water, add salts, transfer to mash tun, check the temperature, mash in, and check the temp again. I’ve used the same equipment and methods for quite a long time, so I usually hit my temps and volumes; if I don’t I’ve entered something wrong in Beersmith. I missed my target mash temp of 154°F only by a tenth of a degree. Good enough.

60 minutes later, I raised the bag to drain, then transferred to the kettle. I completed a quick sparge and moved that into the kettle too. My pre-boil gravity was one point low, 1.052, after adjusting for the temperature. Close enough—this is within measurement error. After bringing to a boil and starting timers, I added hops at 60 minutes and 5 minutes as planned, then chilled to 79°F. My groundwater temperature is fairly warm in the summer (Midwest climate). In the Spring I can achieve close to 60° fairly quickly, but this brew day required a bunch of water. I took a gravity reading, and I was one point low at 1.064 after temp correction. The wort was transferred to a 6-gallon plastic carboy using a short piece of silicone hose and Siphon Spray Wort Aerator. The fermenter was then moved to my dedicated fermentation fridge and Inkbird temp controller set for 64°F. By this time, it was 11pm and I decided to wait till the next morning to pitch yeast so the wort temp would come down to my preferred pitch temp.

The next morning, I pitched two packs of Wyeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50. Since I received my yeast the day I brewed, I didn’t make a starter. I also didn’t have time for this slow yeast to reach terminal FG if I was going to stay on schedule, so I gave the yeast it’s best chance and pitched two packs. It was less than a month old, so I was confident it would be happy. After it made the airlock bubble for a few days, I turned the cooling off but set a high temp alarm on the controller just in case. This let the beer warm slowly to 68°F over the course of about 7 days. It was held there for 3 more days and gravities were taken two days apart. It was stable, so I cold crashed to 32°F and kegged. Final gravity was 1.018 which, at 70.6%, is under attenuated for the specs on 1450, but matches what I’ve experienced the last few times I’ve used it.

I use low O2 methods after fermentation. My specific process is to fill a keg completely with sanitizer until I overflow the top. Then I replace the lid and push out all the sanitizer with CO2. My CO2 line is moved to the fermenter and used to push the beer from the fermenter to the keg. My standard carbonating process is to a set my regulator to 40+PSI, shake for a while, and then vent 24-48 hours later. I packaged in bottles 3 days later, but it might have been a bit low on carbonation. We’ll see what the recipients say.

 

Recipe

Iteration 9 Tasting:

Appearance: Inky black in color with a dark brown head that starts fluffy with a normal pour and sticks around. Look at that lacing!

Aroma: Dark molasses, roasted coffee, and more pronounced molasses as the beer warms. From my recollection, this beer is less complex in aroma than the previous iterations I tasted.

Flavor: Follows the nose, as they say. The dark molasses is dominant. I’m wondering if it finished attenuating or stalled. It’s sweet, whereas the other iterations were dry.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. There is little astringency, medium-high carbonation, no alcohol warmth.

Comments: This is a good candy bar style beer. Fits the Halloween season perfectly. If I search for a flaw, the only weakness was the residual sweetness. Molasses overrides the coffee, dark chocolate, and dark cherry notes in the previous iterations I sampled.

The sweet molasses has pushed out that wonderful coffee + chocolate in the previous iterations I was able to sample. Once I saw the attenuation was 65% and FG 1.023 on Iteration 9, I decided to add sugar and reduce the 2-row appropriately. This should reduce the residual sweetness and help the beer attenuate further. Based on a calc and my experience, the FG should drop by 5-8 points with the addition of 12 oz (6%) of Corn Sugar. This was a pretty good beer, and it was my hope that this would make it great! Also, how fun is it to tell people you are adding sugar to lower the sweetness?

  • Mashed at 154° for 60 minutes
    • 60.8% 2-row
    • 10.6% Victory
    • 7.8% Flaked Barley
    • 7.8% Roasted Barley
    • 5.3% Pale Chocolate (300°L)
    • 1.8% Chocolate Malt
    • 6% Corn Sugar
  • Boiled 60 minutes
    • 1 oz. Nugget (60 min.) at 13.0% AA (42.9 IBUs)
    • 1 oz. Centennial (5 min.) at 9.9% AA (6.7 IBUs)
  • Pitched two packs of Wyeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 at 64°F
  • OG: 1.064
  • FG: 1.018
  • ABV: 6.1%
  • Kegged after FG was stable

Tasting

I accomplished my goal of lowering the perceptible sweetness and the FG by 5 points. I even passed a triangle test 3 times just to verify I wasn’t biased. These beers are definitely different to my taste buds. I’m smelling and tasting chocolate, coffee, and a hint of that dark sweet cherry note that was more present in the earlier iterations. With an attenuation of over 70%, this version no longer has the sweetness that made me think candy bar. Some of the complexity is back now that it’s not overshadowed. It’s still a touch dull compared to what I tasted in Iterations 3 and 4. The significant lacing on the glass is still there, which gave off ample aroma each time I brought the glass to my mouth and nose.

In my previous iteration, I pondered how Denny’s Favorite 50 would work in this beer as I’ve never been a big fan of the neutral, workhorse US-05. I’m not sure it’s done this malt bill and

hops favor. If I brewed again, I’d be tempted to find another yeast. Maybe WLP004 in Iterations 6, 7, & 8 was the better yeast for this one? This recipe might also be ready for some more bitterness as a next step. An original goal was earthy and herbal notes from the hops using close to a 1:1 BU:GU ratio, and I would like to explore that more.

Recipe Progression

Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5
Base Malt 2-row 80% 80% 80% 72.5% 69.2%
Specialty Malt 1 10% Victory 10% Victory 5% Victory 10.8% Victory 10.8% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 5% Roasted Barley 5% Roasted Barley 10% Roasted Barley 4.4% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 5% Carafa III 5% Chocolate Malt 5 % Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 None None None 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 None None None None None
Sugar None None None None None
60 min. hop Nugget: 47.7 IBUs Nugget: 42.5 IBUs Nugget: 47.7 IBUs Nugget: 41.2 IBUs Nugget: 41.5 IBUs
5 min. hop Willamette: 3.6 IBUs Willamette: 3.3 IBUs Willamette: 2.9 IBUs Willamette: 3 IBUs Willamette: 3 IBUs
Yeast US-05 US-05 US-05 US-05 US-05
OG 1.054 1.060 1.045 1.065 1.064
FG 1.010 1.016 1.005 10.20 1.020
ABV 5.8% 5.8% 5.25% 5.9% 5.8%
Iteration 6 Iteration 7 Iteration 8 Iteration 9 Iteration 10  
Base Malt 2-row 69.2% 69.2% 68% 68% 60.8%
Specialty Malt 1 10.8% Victory 10.8% Victory 10.2% Victory 10.2% Victory 10.6% Victory
Specialty Malt 2 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.5% Roasted Barley 7.8% Roasted Barley
Specialty Malt 3 4.4% Chocolate Malt 4.4% Chocolate Malt 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.7% Chocolate Malt 1.8% Chocolate Malt
Specialty Malt 4 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.5% Flaked Barley 7.8% Flaked Barley
Specialty Malt 5 None None 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.1% Pale Chocolate 5.3% Pale Chocolate
Sugar None None None None 6% Corn Sugar
60 min. hop Nugget: 45 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 44.3 IBUs Nugget: 43.2 IBUs Nugget: 42.9 IBUs
5 min. hop Willamette: 3.6 IBUs Centennial: 6.2 IBUs Centennial: 6.8 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs Centennial: 6.7 IBUs
Yeast White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004) WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50 WYeast 1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
OG 1.065 1.064 1.075 1.065 1.064
FG 1.018 1.021 1.012 1.023 1.018
ABV 6.2% 5.6% 8.3% 5.5% 6.1%
Posted in Brewing, Stout | 4 Comments