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Aaron Ouellette — 2013-01-21T23:20:15-05:00

The Blog and RSS has moved.

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I apologize for the inconvenience. This should be the last blog move in the foreseeable future.

Book Review: Brew like a Pro by Dave Miller

Aaron Ouellette — 2013-01-16T22:25:00-05:00

This is one of the more recent additions to my brewing library.

I picked it up because I heard about the book on Beer sessions radio and I’m a sucker for brewing books, as my library can attest. This is an advanced how to brew book that’s focused on all grain. This is intended as a brewing book based on the author’s experience as a professional brewer. I appreciate the single focused approach, this is the way Dave brews, and how he brews consistent beer. I feel the author eschews some common homebrewing methods like batch sparging, extract or dme, and the use of star san, choosing more complex methods, such as using a pump, a grant, a cold liquor back, and more complex sanitizer. While I feel Dave really has a grasp of how to make quality beer, I don’t understand some of the trade offs, the complexity, and then some of the short cuts. For example, He recommends building a bulkhead, but it requires costuming fitting. Why not just go to bargain fittings and buy a pre made bulkhead and call it a day. Then when it comes to yeast, the recommendation to direct pitch dry yeast, just seems lazy. While liquid yeast, yeast starters, and propagation are covered, fermentation temperature control for ales is completely overlooked. The biggest sin, however is the Kolsh style beer recipe, rather than explaining the fermentation nuances of the beer, the recipe defaults to using a non kolsh yeast strain. The project guide at the rear of the book help is helpful in completing those projects. However I think that many of those projects have been covered ad nauseum all over the internet.
I hate to sound negative about the book, I enjoyed reading it cover to cover. I just don’t personally agree with all of the methods detailed. I’m certain the work for the author, but I feel this is a book intended for a person who wants explicit methods on how they can brew all grain beer. Specific and detailed methods with instructions, and it does a good job of providing that information. It’s also provided me plenty of food for thought on many aspects of my processes, and methods. There are two tips I’m going to take away are that most kegs that are converted to keggles are of suspect origin, and should be treated as such. These things cost professional brewer far more than the deposit left for one. I’m not saying all kegs are stolen, but you should ask it’s origin before purchasing one. The next is that a fancy sculpture isn’t necessary, Dave has an advanced setup w/out the large infrastructure of a multi tiered brewing rig.
My summary is this, if you want to simply brew, and don’t care too much, get Joy of home brewing, if you want a detailed technical resource covering all aspects of brewing, get How to brew, if you want a concise set of brewing instructions, this might be the book for you.

New Years Eve Miracle, Milk Stout

Aaron Ouellette — 2013-01-01T23:19:49-05:00

I try to brew as often as reasonable, which is usually when I’ve got a keg free, when I’ve got a competition to enter, or it’s been way too long. In 2012 it was more like every 3 months, despite wanting to brew more often. Which is what makes brewing 3 times in december quite an accomplishment. This last batch pushed the 2012 total to 6 batches, 5 beers, one cider, an extract only batch, extract and steeping grains, a partial mash, all grain, and brew in a bag all grain. To say I’m a dabbler might be an understatement. One thing that hasn’t changed a whole lot is what I brew.

This New Years eve brew session was pretty much on a lark. I had picked up a pair of 2.5 gallon kegs from adventures in homebrewing as a christmas gift to myself. From a trip to Valley Malt this fall, I have a stock pile of grain. From stocking up during the fall harvest I also have an abundance of hops. I’ve been thinking of how to fill one of the small kegs, while taking advantage of what I had on hand. 90% of the grain, 100% of the hops, came from what I had on hand. I did still have to make the trip to the home brew shop to pick up yeast, and a few misc things, but it was a little easier on the wallet. I only needed caraffa II, lactose powder, and yeast. Anyone guess what I brewed from the ingredients I picked up? Since kicking the Oatmeal stout, I’ve wanted to brew something dark to go beside the pales I usually brew, and have on tap. My wife likes stouts more than my typical beers. I wanted this to be smoother, richer, than the last stout. In an attempt to smooth this out, I modified the recipe I based my beer off. I swapped out the Roasted Barley, thinking the chocolate malt I have is going to have that edge, and roasted bitter flavor, I swapped the barley for carafa 2. I realize that some might argue that it’s not a stout if it doesn’t contain roast barley, well, it’s going to be a lactose porter then. Trust me it’s dark enough, and I’m confident it’s going to have enough bitterness to match the sweetness. I also plan on dosing the stout with some cold brewed coffee, and a vanilla bean in the keg for added complexity.
Since I was brewing a small batch, I decided to simplify my brew day, keep me from lugging all my equipment up from the basement, and allow me to stay out of the cold, I decided to brew in a bag (BIAB). It’s an all grain technique in which you take all of your brewing water, heat it to strike temp, add the grain to a large mesh bag, and add it to the pot. After 60-90 minutes you remove the bag and grain, and are left with your pre boil wort. It’s less efficient than other brewing techniques, but it’s far simpler. Even for this 3 gallon batch my 5 gallon pot is a little undersized. I had an overflow trying to get the grain bag into the pot. After bailing some water, I got the mash started. I struggled to keep the mash temp in the high range (156) to keep body, and a richer beer, even keeping the burner below the pot on low. The thermometer read 150ish most of the time. Removing the large bag of grains from the 5g pot was also a bit of a chore, trying to prevent a big mess while draining wort from the grain. I rinsed the grain in my 8qt pot to get some additional extraction, because I was planning on topping up the pot anyway.

The boil was uneventful, with our large 3 ring burner, I can get a boil pretty quick. Skimming as it came to a boil, and after hop additions kept the foam at bay from a boil over. As you can see above, I can barely fit the chiller into the pot, but with the cold temps, it chills quite rapidly. I chilled to 65, poured the wort into the fermentor and pitched wyeast 1028. I was really hoping to use 1099, as it’s less attenuative, and more temperature tolerant than the 1028, but the local shop was out. I checked the fermentor tonight, and it’s slowly bubbling away.

Cider with a twist, Cyser

Aaron Ouellette — 2013-01-17T21:44:40-05:00

This fall was pretty hectic, starting a new job, having appendicitis, and a trip to California. All of this happening in the span of 3 months really cut into my free and brewing time. So much so, I nearly missed making my 2nd batch of cider. It’s not like making cider is time intensive either. The basic recipe is Cider + sugar + yeast + fermentation time. While I did finally make a batch, I did miss my preferred cider mix from the local farm. During picking season the farm will have single varietal fresh ciders along with their normal blend. These aren’t hard cider specific apples known for their acidity, or tannins, just single mac, macoun, or my favorite, honey crisp. Last years batch was a mix of honey crisp and cider blend, and after malolactic fermentation, aging on various items, it turned out quite well. Well enough to take a ribbon at a club only cider comp (1 of 8 or so).
This year I was hoping to do something similar, but in large quantity. However I missed my window, and this years crop was much more expensive than in past years. I was finally able to pickup cider in mid december. Thankfully making hard cider really isn’t that time consuming. This years batch was made with 3 gallons of Lull Farm unpasteurized apple cider blend. I first added 1 camden tablet, and peptic enzyme, to the cider and allowed it to sit over night to pasteurize the cider. Next, I added a pound of local wild flower honey. Which making this actually a cyser, instead of a true cider. In addition to the honey, I added yeast nutrient, and one packet of safale us 05. A lot of folks use wine or champaign yeast, I assume because it can better metabolize the fructose and glucose in apple cider, since grapes are similar in composition. My understanding is that cider is highly fermentable, so I’m not too worried about us 05, a known hearty yeast, being unable to ferment it out. Last years nottingham yeast did just fine.
After pitching, during the fist week of fermentation, I tried to degas the cider a few times. I was also meaning to stagger the yeast nutrient as a local accomplished mead maker recommended during many podcasts this past summer and fall as a key to meed making, and I assume since honey is a portion of the fermentables in cyser, the same would apply. However, I slacked, and didn’t manage to do so.
I did however ferment the cider much cooler than I ferment ales, which tend to rip through at 65+, this sat at 55-60. It was in primary for 28 days, and now it’s been transferred to a keg for cold conditioning. The last batch I made seems like it underwent malolactic fermentation some time after it went into the keg, it went from very dry and acetic, to much more mellow after a few months in the keg. I’m hoping this happens again, as the first batch wasn’t any good until that transformation took place. When I transferred I took a sample, and it wasn’t bad. We’ll see if I need to back sweeten or try to inoculate for malo lactic fermentation.

Recipe can be found here: http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/77670/cider-w-honey

Current status: Transferred on 1/5/13 for cold conditioning, gravity was near 1.001.

Entering Competitions

Aaron Ouellette — 2013-01-06T20:58:00-05:00

Brewing beer is reward in itself. You get to take part in a centuries old craft, turning simple ingredients into something so much more. You even get to enjoy fresh beer in the style of your choosing. What more could you want?
Well, some also seek affirmation from their peers that their efforts are worth it. It’s not too hard to get positive feedback from family and friends after quaffing a free home brew. While appreciative of their approval, I’ve found I can get more critical feedback by entering competitions.
I’ve only entered 2 BJCP sanctioned competitions the Samual Adams Longshot competition, and the New England Regional Homebrew Competition. These are large scale competitions, with hundreds of entries, and bjcp certified judges. The BJCP program trains judges to detect beer flaws and rate beer against it’s guide lines. Which means you’ll get qualified feedback, in a standardized format (BJCP scoresheet).
The feedback on my score sheets has been useful, and has provided information I’m certain will help me score better in future competitions. Note, I didn’t say help me brew better beer/cider. I find there is subjective feedback about brewing methods or assumptions about brewing methods that I don’t think are very helpful. I also think the rigid structure can lead to judging against how a beer is to style, more specially being dead in the middle of the style guidelines appears to be goal, and this may not reflect how good a specific home brew is. However, there are some very objective feedback about how various aspects of the beer can be tweaked, and what flaws the judge identified that is very helpful. After all, the judges have a well train taste buds. There are also some guidelines I feel aren’t about the beer, but rather about presentation. Meaning you can get dinged for things that otherwise are meaning less in the big scheme of things, such as bottle fill level, or higher levels of hop flavor or aroma for a particular style. With that said, it’s an opportunity I think a home brewer should take the time to do at least a few times, perhaps even while trying to hone a particular style. To get impartial feedback on your beer.

Here are some recommendations for picking a competition for your first entry, and how to prepare your entry.
First off, pick out a local competition. Having the competition local will make it a lot easier to drop off your entries, rather than shipping them. There are complications to shipping that are better dealt with after you’ve figured out the other competition logistics. It also gives more time to brew, if you have up to the last day to drop of the beer, and don’t have to wait for delivery. You want to ensure is that your beer isn’t going to be mishandled during delivery. When picking the competition, make sure you have enough time to get the beer packaged for it. Enough time to brew, dry hop, carbonate / bottle condition, etc. You don’t want to trying to force your beer to be ready for drop off. If bottle conditioning, make sure your beer is at the proper carbonation level. For your first competition, you may want to consider a style that doesn’t require being at the peak of freshness, or a very popular category (IPA/Pale Ale), brew something you know you do well, but more importantly brew something you know you brew well that is in the middle of the road for that category. Brewing a hoppy wheat, or some other beer outside the style guidelines isn’t going to score well, no matter how good it tastes. I recommend picking bottles that have the right fill level, don’t grab any low or high fills. Make sure if you’ve bottle conditioned, that they are carbonated to the correct level, if you are using a counter flow or other bottle filler, the same goes. Ensure you have a good fill level, and after a few days, make sure your carbonation holds up. These are easy items that will keep you from getting dinged for ‘free’ points. Also make sure you read the style guidelines for the category you are submitting. For example, if you are submitting a cider, make sure to specify the adjuncts and flavorings used, as well as the carbonation level. I’m unsure if that is required for other styles, but I certainly got dinged for not including ginger as a flavoring in my cider.

After brewing, bottling, dropping off, whats next? Unless you are a winner, expect to not hear anything back for some time. It takes a while for the organizers to get those sheets back into the mail. When you do get them back, expect 2-3 score sheets, and an assigned score sheet. The individual score sheets will contain the judge info, including an email address and the scoring. Which might be helpful if you have questions about specific feedback, but keep in mind judges reviewed many beers that day, and unless your beer was really good or really bad it’s unlikely to be memorable for them. Keep in mind that feedback is both subjective and objective, and that it’s intended to be constructive, not tear you down, It’s trying to point out where you can improve in the future. Don’t get down if you beers only score in the twenties, that’s the best mine have done so far, it’s just more room for improvement.

2012 year in review

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-12-07T20:23:26-05:00

As I sit here, nearly a year from writing my 2012 goals, I’m struck how I can’t help but be disappointed by my year in brewing. I have accomplished a few of my goals, and a few projects, and made some investments, but I have not made enough progress improving brewing, process, or beers. I feel like I’m a closing in on a process, but have some coming process changes that will make it different once again.

I haven’t had a chance to think about my 2013 goals so that will have to be in another post. I’ll leave this post as a 2012 wrap up. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to eek one more beer, maybe a cider into 2012, but otherwise its over, and I haven’t brewed nearly as much or as well as I wanted.
What I set out to do in 2012:
House / Flagship beer? I’ve made some progress on recipe design, and things to not do (add 1lb of hops in the last 15 minutes). I’m only slightly closer to having the bootle farm house beer.
Enter my beer into competition.
This was a success. I managed to enter 3 beers into competition. Now if you were asking was I happy with the beer I submitted, I’d say yes to two of the entries, and one I knew was a total bust, but had paid the fee, so off it went.
If I plan to do this in the future, I’ll need to invest in a real bottling solution, since bottling from tap is just a bad idea.
This was a great way to get unbiased feedback, insight into the flaws in my beers. I’m happy with the feedback I have received, and look forward to sending more in the future. I’m not happy with the scores, but flawed beers get flawed scores.
Partial Mash. I did it, I didn’t like it. It seems like all the trouble of all grain, w/out all the control. I decided to get a whole grain setup, which I have yet to use.
Brew at a professional brewery.
Complete miss, I wanted to spend a day working / helping out at professional brewery. I really didn’t pursue this, had I pushed the few connections I now have from the home brew club, I’m sure I could have shoveled grain some where, but that’ll have to wait for another year.

What else is interesting, is that I’m about to celebrate one year of this blog. While I haven’t gotten the volume to the level I’d like to brewing, or posting, this has become what I envisioned it. Inspired by a post over on MeekBrewing I thought I’d provide some site stats for the year. Over 40k hits. Averaging 30 visits a day. The most popular post by far is the keggerator update. The coolest thing that has happened to this place, by far, was being profiled on Norm Millers website. So, the year in home brewing blogging hasn’t been too bad. I hope to continue to brew and post in 2013.

So despite what I said when I started this post I’ll include some things I’d like to do in 2013.
I’d really like to post about 3-4x a month.
I’d like to brew every other month at least.
I’d like to brew a berliner weiss
I’d like to finish up some of my pending brewing projects. (keggerator, stir plate, storage)
I’d like to brew with my buddy Michael.
I’d Iike to brew a beer I can’t wait to brew again.

Thanks for the year, hears to 2013.

Book Review: IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale By Mitch Steele

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-11-12T22:18:38-05:00

This is a book I was looking forward to from the moment I heard about well over a year ago. Mitch Steele the head brewer at Stone brewing has been a guest on the brewing network quite a few times, and he also happens to be a member of Brew free or Die.
I’ve read the other two books published by Authors from Stone Brewing Company, so why would this be any different. The book has two main sections, the history of IPA to a vast collection of IPA recipes. Along the way manages to correct the myth of the origin of the name, and perhaps introducing a new one, alluding to brett in the original IPAs. There are lots of historic brewing statistics, to be honest, I mostly ignored them.
The book is organized in three sections, the history, Techniques and Ingredients, and last by not least recipes.Having read numerous brewing books, of both instructional, historic, and recipe this is a great combination of all three. While the historic information may be not be terribly exciting, it's good to see the myth of IPA name corrected. It's also great to see so many recipes for amazing IPA's in one book. There is a large section dedicate to brewing techniques, and ingredients for IPA's. The key to understanding how to make your own recipe, is understanding the goals and methods to achieve them. The sections on designing hop bitterness, and brewhouse techniques will be valuable in my future recipe design. I also can’t wait to try some of the amazing recipes from the likes of Russian River, DogfishHead, The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead, Avery, etc. My only disappointment is that we only got black ipa recipes from the new England greats The Alchemist and Hill Farmstead, what I wouldn’t do for a recipe for Edward or Heady Topper.

Product Review: The original Carboy Cleaner

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-09-30T21:40:00-04:00

I’m reviewing ‘the Original Carboy Cleaner’ and ‘the Original Keg Cleaner’ as I own both. They have made cleaning up after my brew days easier. Please note no one has paid me to say this or given me the product for review*. I did not however purchase them, as I received them from a family member as a gift.
The product is as easy to use as indicated in the tacky video on their website. Three steps, add water & cleaner, insert the cleaner, spin! All the fermentation gunk quickly disappears. I generally use a hot water and give it a good swirl, then attack it with the cleaner. My only challenge is cleaning around the neck area of the carboy, it requires a little finesse to get clean, but it’s something you figure out.
Using the keg cleaner is similar, disassemble the keg, swirl hot water, and clean. One challenge with using it, is keeping it centered as you approach the top. It’s a minor complaint, it gets where I can’t reach and can’t see, and does a good job quick. I wouldn’t want to clean either without it. However I wouldn’t recommend it for better bottles, as those require much gentler handling. As far as value, the product would be really simple to DIY project. A steel shaft, drilled at one end, with a nut through it, holding two felted pads on with plastic washers. It’s very simple, but its effective. For the cost, 32.50, it’s reasonably priced for those who can’t build their own, but if I need new one, I’ll build it myself.

*I’m open to offers of brewing gear, ingredients, or software for home brewing. Please note, I’ll be giving my honest evaluation, and

Fresh hop American Amarillo Wheat review

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-12-27T22:03:00-05:00

From reading the brew day post, the second attempt at a hoppy american wheat took a few unexpected turns. I struggled to get the wort out of the kettle after boil, this being my first time brewing with whole hops, and fresh hops. The recipe itself is super simple, dme and hops, and a big dry hop dose. Ultimately I’m trying to replicate three floyds gumball head I was aiming for a light bodied, very aromatic, hop flavored beer. I ended up with a very light bodied, astringent, chlorophyl flavored beer, with tons of dry hop aroma.
The beer is very clear with a small head, it’s slightly over carbonated right now, but at 11psi it was pouring great. I dry hopped this beer with Citra and Cascade in the keg this has certainly improved the beer with time. The hop aroma is about where I want it, though, I wish it was more tropical. I worried about extend exposure to the hops, but it hasn’t caused any problems. I used a hop bag, and floss to hang the bag from the gas in post.
This was a beer I rushed to dry hop and carbonate to bottle for a competition, and I’ve got a post coming up on entering competitions. When it was bottled young, it tasted very astringent, and grassy. While it did age ok, it’s still very astringent and not where I want it.
At least the color is where I want it.
So for next attempt at 2AM maiden, I’m going to do the following.
This is going to be all grain, brewed with 55% american wheat, 37% pale, 8% Crystal light. Moving away from single hopping this beer, I’m planning on hop bursting, with amarillo and cascade, and dry hop with citra and centennial. Goal to increase the fruitiness, and hop flavor, and lose some of the bitterness.

Update: The remainder of the Keg was dumped. It just wasn’t going to get consumed. It was astringent, and getting worse, not better.

Homebrew Tasting Notes: AHS Oatmeal Stout

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-10-22T21:06:00-04:00

This is the first stout I’ve brewed, and I’m not really a big stout drinker, so I’m not sure this is a very qualified review this, but I’ll give it a go.
This is a very thick, rich stout. It has plenty of residual sugar, finishing at 1.018 will do that to you.

As you can see from the photo there isn’t much head.

Not super dark, but certainly not the mid brown that you’d expect by the coloring from Beersmith. It’s what I’d consider a standard oatmeal stout.I can taste the bitterness from the grains that escaped from the steeping bag, and were boiled. Actually not bad for this style. I’m pretty sure it would have finished lower, and less thick had I hit my expected volumes during transfer.
The ultimate question is would I brew this beer with this recipe, or would I change it up, and if so what changes would I make. Well, I think I might even change this batch in the keg by tossing in a vanilla bean, and a pint of cold brewed coffee. This will thin it out a bit, and add some complexity. Otherwise, I’m satisfied with the stout.

American Amarillo Wheat take 2

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-09-16T16:16:23-04:00

I finally got a chance to put the fresh Amarillo hops to use. When I picked up the hops at A&G homebrew I also picked up some DME. I had everything else on hand for a batch, except yeast, a slight oversight on my part. Thankfully one of my fellow home brewers from Brew free or Die was willing to share half a yeast cake of Wyeast 1968 London ale. This is the same strain of yeast I used for my first home brew.

I made a starter from the pitch, not so much for yeast growth, but to wake up the yeast. Since it had been dormant for a little while. My goal with this beer is to improve upon my hoppy amarillo wheat recipe, to be closer 3floyds famous Gumball head. The recipe is similar to the original 2am Maiden, but targeting less bitterness, with more flavor and aroma. Recipe changes include swapping out liquid malt extract in favor of dry malt extract. I also did a full volume boil, but the most significant change is the hop schedule. I started with nugget and warrior hops for bittering, but replaced all the other original hop additions (45,30,15,0) with a single addition of 1 pound of fresh amarillo hops at 15m. Other process changes included skimming the boil, which I was inspired by the mad fermentationist to do. I figure I do it with soups when cooking why not with beer?

The brew day went ok, but as usual I’m having a few process miscues. I have sorted out my boil volume issues, I overshot boil volume a little, but that’s ok for this beer. Hop & trube issues are still a problem. I installed the dip tube, but did not get any filter to prevent the whole hops from blocking the tube. I tried fruitlessly to clear the tube, but I eventually had to pour the wort into the fermentor.

It has been in the swamp heater since sunday afternoon, and was happily blowing off Monday evening. While I’d ideally ferment at a lower temperature, like 65, I’ve been starting beers at 67, and using additional thermal mass to slow temp rise, but also using a fish tank heater to keep the temp from falling once peak fermentation has slowed and temps start to fall. The beer is now sitting at 70, and is slowly bubbling away, It’s nearly ready for dry hopping. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to dry hop with. After the hop floaties I had with the Alpha King Clone, I’m leaning toward whole hops. For the ultimate recipe I’d really like to stick with amarillo, because I’m a huge fan of it’s flavor profile. However the whole leaf hops I have on hand are, Citra, Cascade and magnum. I will definitely use Cascade, choosing between Citra whole leaf and amarillo pellets. I like citra but not as much as I love amarillo. I’ll update when I put it on tap and post a tasting review.

Fresh hop delima

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-09-15T11:45:53-04:00

I got the call that my hops were in September 5th. It’s now the 15th and I haven’t used them. They are still languishing in my fridge. This is a post about my dilemma with fresh hops. When I ordered them I was extremely excited to have ordered them. Now that they are over 10 days old in my possession, I’m a little less ecstatic.
In hindsight I don’t think I’d do this again, not this way it’s just not worth it. This isn’t a slam on the grower, the home-brew shop A&G homebrew, or wet hops in general, just that my particular scenario doesn’t seem to make any logical sense to use them. I need to invest in more shelf stable ready to use ingredients not extremely perishable ones.
I had to place my order them well in advance, July for a mid september arrival. I have a hard time predicting if I’ll have time to mow the lawn, let alone brew on short notice. One must understand agricultural product not grown locally subject to the whims of nature, and long distance shipping. I also ordered them from a shop far from home, requiring an hour and a half drive to get them, further complicating the logistics of brewing with them. Due to their freight, perishable nature, and the cost of retrieving them, they are expensive. $19 for 1LB of fresh Amarillo hops. When all said and done, they’ll have the alpha acid of 1/4-1/8th that, making it more than $6 an oz. Finally I don’t have any info on AA. Making it impossible to know what I’ll get from them. When I do get them into some wort, it’s likely going to be a mystery what I’ll get, and next to impossible to reproduce.
With all that said, I still need to get this hops into some wort. My next batch will be based on my first batch, a hoppy Amarillo American wheat, I originally called 2 AM Maiden.
The plan is to make it using the fresh hops as a flavor/ aroma addition at 5m. I am trying to reduce some of the bitterness, and add more hop flavor, the hop schedule I used for the original batch, had additions at 60, 45, 30, 15, and dry. The new hop schedule, which Beersmith calculates at 30 IBU, has 60m, 5m and dry hop additions. It’s an extremely basic extract recipe. Just what I’ve got time to make on such short notice. More later, but I’m off to start my starter.

Troubleshooting my homebrew: Volume into the fermentor

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-09-04T22:00:23-04:00

As you start brewing there are issues with your process that will pop up from time to time, and you’ll have to figure out ways around them, or how to better deal with them. I’m a tinkerer always looking for a more efficient way, or method to make it better. The biggest issue I’m facing right now, is too little wort making it into the fermentor.
This problem started when I went full volume boil. When you are doing partial boils it’s easy, pour, and top up the carboy to the 5g mark. However, the last two batches have been full volume boils, the oatmeal stout and the alpha king clone (which I never wrote up) have had post boil volume issues. I ended up topping up the alpha king, but left the oatmeal stout at a higher gravity.
First step in fixing a problem it is identifying why it is this happening? First major issue is not knowing the volume in the boil kettle. Second issue is not knowing my boiloff rate. It’s hard to estimate w/out testing, and even harder to estimate w/out markings on your boil kettle. This part is simple, fix the first then I can calculate the second.

The second part of my volume off issue is trube losses before and after the boil kettle. I feel like I’ve been losing a lot of wort to hot and cold break and hop sludge. I’ve found it hard to whirlpool / chill and allow the beer to settle so I don’t leave a ton of wort behind. Currently I transfer wort using a ball valve w/out any filtration. If I’m not patient, and don’t whirlpool after cooling, a lot of this trube will come along during transfer to the fermenter. The alternate is worse, basically leaving all the trube and large quantities of wort behind.
So what am I doing to try to address the problems? First, I’ve purchased a stainless ruler, which will allow me to determine the volume of water in my kettle. A simple volume equation showed me that one inch =.76 gallons in my kettle. Now I can calculate volume, I can measure boil off, and should allow me to configure the proper profile in beer smith. In addition to this, I plan on scaling the recipe 20%, aka making it a 6 gallon wort recipe, with hopefully 5.5 making it into the fermentor.
To help stem trube losses, I’ve purchased a dip tube, when installed, this should allow me to pick up the wort well below the ball valve level, and prevent me from having to tip my kettle to get the remainder out. I’ve heard that you can use a chore boy at the end of the dip tube, to provide a corse filter as well. Alternately, I am considering picking up a bazooka tube, if the dip tube doesn’t work out.
I will update when I brew my next batch, if the correctly measured additional volume, and the dip tube works out. Then we can move on to other problems like, floaties after dry hopping, or finding more time to brew.

PS. I unfortunately don’t have any photos of the trube, either in the fermentor, or bottle of the kettle, perhaps because I’m too annoyed to take one, but trust me, it’s there.

Product Review: Carboy Carrier

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-08-27T20:18:05-04:00

I’ll be up front when I receive a product for review, this isn’t one of those times. I bought this product with my own money, because I’d heard good things about it, and because carrying a large glass bottle full of liquid is a dangerous proposition. I’ve heard one too many stories of accidents where a single slip can result in a loss of a batch of beer, and a trip to the ER.

The Brew Hauler is well worth the $10-15 price tag. The primary reason I bought it, is that I brew out on my back patio, and have to carry the full carboy down to the basement where I keep the swamp warmer. It has made that trip a lot easier. It can also make hoisting a carboy into a chest freezer much easier.
I’m hoping to get a few more for my other carboys. It’s a little tricky to attach to the carboy, but once on, it stays put nicely.You can find them here* Brew Hauler Carboy Carrier on amazon.

*I link to amazon using my Associate ID, but encourage you to buy these things from your local home brewshop.

Bitter American Clone

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-12-13T22:00:00-05:00

Another brew day, another clone recipe. This time it’s from the pages of Brew your own magazine, a clone of 21st Amendment’s Bitter American. A hoppy american style bitter, weighing in at 4.4 ABV, 42 IBU, featuring warrior and cascade hops, according to 21A’s website. A beer I’ve had a few times, and have enjoyed it. It’s similar to my earlier brews, pale, hoppy, lower abv, and a clone recipe. Whats different about this brew day was that I brewed all grain.
This is a big change from my last batch which didn’t even include steeping grains. My all grain setup is a typical basic homebrew setup. A converted 10 gallon home depot cooler as a mash tun. My boil kettle is a 42 qt polar ware kettle, and my hot water tank is my old 5 gallon brew pot. It’s not really an adequate size for batch or fly sparging. No pumps, brew sculptures, or fancy brewing carts to speak of. Just me lugging stuff around, hoisting hot pots of water, and what not.

Since the recipe was pulled from the pages of BYO, not a kit or a home brew store recipe, I was not able to get the exact grain bill from my local home brew shop. Every time I come in with a specific recipe, which calls for specific grains, he gives the same lecture about how he only stocks x grains, and not every grain ever made, that recipes call for every grain under the sun, bla boa bla. I wish he would give it a rest. I’m sure the rest of his customers would appreciate him not talking down to them as well. I get it, you don’t have it all, just give me what you have.
So, in addition to the grain type variation, I bumped up the grain bill by a pound of base grain to account for any inefficiency in my brew process. I made additional recipe changes, using some stockpiled hops, I replaced the bittering addition of warrior with german hercules, cascade pellets with local whole cascades. I kept the centennial pellets at flameout, and will keep the dry hopping additions the same. The flavor and aroma of those specific hops are really what makes the beer what it is.
The brew day went ok, I remembered to smack the yeast pack well ahead of time, skipping the starter since I have yet to build my stir plate. This beer is also low enough abv that a single smack pack should have sufficient cell count. Milling the grains was easy enough, although I think I might need to adjust the mill to factory settings, I had a fair amount of flour with my grist. My process was pretty straight forward, heat the recommended volume of strike water to the recommended temp. I then mixed in, almost hitting my target temperature, 158 (very high, but the goal of this low abv beer). Next time I’ll try preheating my cooler. It was a bit challenging to add the grain to the water while stirring. I kept hitting the stainless mesh tube when stirring. Then I set a timer, and left the grain to sit. I had other stuff to do, so it sat longer than expected. The cooler held the temp surprisingly well for all that time. I then tried to set my grain bed, and begin running off, but I couldn’t get much flow, so I decided to go no sparge instead of batch sparge.

I mixed in my additional 4 gallons of 170* water, and gave it a big stir up, and let it sit for another 20 minutes. It ran then, albeit still quite slow. I really missed my target run off volume, and at this point I should have heated another 4 gallons, and sparked once more, but it was getting late, and I needed to get the show on the road. Next time more water, and rice hulls. With almost 7 gallons of wort, I started heating to boil. I was inattentive and had a massive boilover, my first since using the new large kettle. About 30 minutes in I decided this was going to be a 60 minute boil instead of a 90. I just didn’t have the time or the wort to spare. I was already shaping up to be up a 2am, and at least a gallon low. Chilling went as planned, I’m amazed how fast chilling works when ground water and ambient temps are at winter temps. 15 minutes, instead of 40 to get to 65, instead of 70. The transfer to carboy went well too, the new stainless scrubby kept the hops and pellet mush at bay. With the low run off, boil over, boil off, I only managed to eek out about 4 gallons into the 6 gallon carboy.

Leaving at least a gallon of sludgy hoppy mess in the pot. The volume was so low I could not manage to get any wort with the turkey baster for a gravity reading. I’m fairly certain it’s going to be quite a bit higher than expected. I pitched yeast 1056, and plopped it into the water bath for temp control. It was bubbling away in less than 24 hrs. It has climbed all the way up to 70, where I’m currently holding it.
Changes for next batch / brew day. First and foremost I’ve tweaked my beer smith settings. Fixing mash tun dead space, trub loss, and boil off numbers in an attempt to fix my volume to fermentor issues. Of course those changes are going to sink my brew house efficiency, but I’m here to make good beer, not cheap beer. I also plan to use rice hulls, and, use a larger pot for heating sparge water, and adjust my mill gap.

Working out the kinks

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-08-17T22:53:00-04:00

One of the first DIY home brewing projects I undertook was building a immersion chiller. This is one of the easiest project you can do. My first attempt was a fairly sloppy mess. Because I wasn’t patient, and I didn’t have a good form to use to keep the coils organized. Also, I was trying to fit the cooler into a much smaller kettle, so I squashed it to fit. This past brew session while cleaning up, I decided to fix it up. It was pretty easy to loosen it up, and rewrap it around a keg to get approximately the right shape. I did a little weave with the inlet to provide some stability to the chiller, then reattached the in and out tubes. It still needs some type of bracing to keep it sorted, any Ideas?

Brewing AHS Gold Seal Oatmeal Stout

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-08-12T16:08:08-04:00

In my prior project update I mentioned the all grain setup, but I had this Oatmeal stout extract kit I purchased from Austin Homebrew Supply that I need to brew. I have told T I would brew her a beer for quite some time, and she enjoys stouts. I also picked this specific kit because it was shelf stable. I wanted to make sure I had something I could be ready to brew anytime, that wouldn’t suffer from sitting around until I had time to brew. I was hoping to brew Saturday evening, but the weather conspired against me. While at the home brew shop picking up the final pieces for the keggerator, I decided to buy liquid yeast. After getting home the yeast was already a little swelled, so I burst the activator with the intention of brewing that evening brew. By the time I was ready to brew, rain was eminent. Once again, I’m left with slightly less optimal yeast. Having to postpone I cleaned stuff and prepped for tonights brew night. Which lead to a funny conversation with T about how much time I spend cleaning stuff for brewing, and how little I spend cleaning other things .

Tonights brew plan:
Put 2 in brew pot.
Increase temp to 158.
Add grain, and steep at 155 for 25.
Fill up swamp warmer w/ water.
Fill 5g pot w/ rest of water to top of boil kettle.
Gather rest of ingredients.
Remove steeped grains and feed to chickens.
Top up water to 5.49 gal.
Add DME while bringing to a boil.
Boil 60 Minutes
@0 add 3/4 oz nugget.
@50 add 1/4 tsb irish moss
@50 add chiller
@60 Stir to whirlpool.

Commence Chilling immediately.
Chill to 65 or as close to as possible.
Transfer to carboy.
Aerate while bringing wort to basement.
Take SG reading.
Set in water bath set at 68.
Pitch.

Some things went ok, like hitting temps and times for steeping and hops.
There are some things I’m still struggling with, cooling, trube, and boil volumes.
I missed my post boil volume significantly, and transferred a ton of crap when I went to primary because I wasn’t able to cool effectively, w/out stirring up a ton of trube.

Things I’ll do different next time.
Steep in 5g pot to allow warming extract and water during steeping time.
Either filter trube, or chill more patiently.

All in all, no fatal flaws, and I hope it turns out well, as we’ll have guests trying it labor day.

Home grown hop update.

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-08-22T22:07:00-04:00

I’m not going to lie my hop plants look terrible. While this has been a really good year for growing hops, I’ve only had so so success. This is my first year growing hops, so I didn’t expect much as the plants establish their roots. I also didn’t get them into the ground until late in the season, despite our warm spring. The old rhizomes I purchased last year didn’t sprout, so I purchased a new set of plants rather than rhizomes, Perle, Centennial, and Galena. Of the three purchased plants, the Perle completely died. The galena planting has done better, but the centennial is just now showing real signs of growth. I’m still hoping they will have enough growth established to withstand a New England winter. In addition to the 3 plants I purchased, I was given 2 other plants, Hallertau and Cascade. They have done the best out of all of my plants, but have been have been hampered by pests, and the leaves are rusty on the edges. From what I understand it seems like they just aren’t getting enough water. I take full responsibility for not keeping them watered, as for the pests, I’m not quire sure what to do. I should have been much more attentive in watering and weeding. We’ve had a really dry season here, and I don’t have a soaker hose setup. With that said, it doesn’t look like I’ll be harvesting much if any usable hops this fall, unless there is a late surge in growth. I wasn’t’ expecting much from first years growth, but was hoping to have enough for at least one brew, but that’s not going to be the case. There is always next year.

The plans for next year.
Next years plan is to get a 5th plant going. I have an order for wet hops due any time now, and I’m hoping to be able to grow a cutting from the amarillo I’m getting. I’ll also be trying some alternate twine (thanks Lyn for the recommendation), and get a soaker hose setup. A more vertical trellis setup will have to wait until 2014.

Keggerator update

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-08-07T20:32:00-04:00

This past weekend I made some additional progress on the keggerator, while I’d like to think it’s nearly complete there is quite a bit of detail work left to finish.

However I could have been pouring beer last night with a few more minutes work. But the perfectionist in me said, finish it up right, don’t just jump to the fun part. This is the short list of what I plan to do in the near term.

Insulate the collar. Install foam board, and caulk seams and holes.
Hook up the gas line to the regulator.
Hook up liquid lines to ball lock connectors and shanks.
Hang dehumidifier and setup a circulation fan
Mount the temperature controller
Mount a drip tray and bottle opener

I guess it doesn’t sound so close to complete with all those punch list items. But I did get a lot accomplished, and it even looks ready to pour beer. What I did:

Assemble inner collar from 2x10’s and assemble facade of 1x12’s.
Drill shank holes, gas line, and temp probe ports.
Put the collar on the freezer, and attach the lid to the collar.
Assemble shanks, and taps.
Took photos and wrote a blog.

It looks ok, the wood work is amateur at best. It will be overkill for the volume of beer I’ll put through it, but it sure beats having to bottle. I have really enjoyed working on it. I want to have it finished and full for a Labor Day party. Also it’s been a work in progress since July of 2011, when I acquired the freezer, and temperature controller. I have been acquiring bits and pieces ever since. I don’t always have luck with that approach, but for this project it worked. I was able to spread out the investment both in cost and labor. Not including kegs, the freezer, or the few remaining items to purchase I’ve invested about $400 in the project. I could have done it cheaper and saved money, but I’d have compromised on worth while areas. I also become a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these types of projects. At what I have spent, it is approaching the cost of a prebuilt dual faucet keggerator, just something to think about if you plan to go this route, it’s not necessarily the cheaper way to go.

Projects in progress

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-07-16T20:32:57-04:00

By now the new page is up. It is still a work in progress. I want to re-theme the blog, and add some details like a logo and favicon. I also need to fix some posts for style, broken links, and insert the missing photos. However, the content should all be there. It’s just one of the projects I’ve been working on here at the bottle farm.
I’ve made a little progress on the keggerator project, Here’s a photo of that progress.

I converted the single regulator to a dual regulator. This will allow me to carbonate at one pressure, and serve at another. The plan is to keep the co2 tank outside of the freezer, and run the second line into freezer to a distribution block. To convert the regulator it’s very straight forward. Unscrew the high pressure gauge (be careful to do so in the proper direction), attach the second regulator to newly vacant spot, then replace the gauge on the second regulator. The only tricky part is finding the right parts, but thankfully Midwest supply carries the adapter http://www.midwestsupplies.com/double-regulator-adapter.html and the connection stem. A few tips I picked up for co2 assembly. Make sure to wrap the threads with teflon tape to prevent leaks and gauging from over tightening. Spray down all the connections with starsan after you’ve reconnected the regulators and gauges to the co2 tank. Any leaks will bubble preventing you from finding out the hard way with an empty tank and flat beer. After I retightened the gauge and regulator resolving some of my own bubbling issues, my new dual regulator is all set for keggerator duty.
This is a multiphase project, the next phase is design the collar. The collar in my keggerator serves a dual purpose, to extend the height of the freezer to allow for additional kegs in the freezer, and it’s traditional role to allow taps to be added to the freezer w/out drilling. Once designed and built, all that will be left will be staining and assembly. I can really see this project taking shape.

The next project I’ve been working is a mash tun for all grain brewing.
This has to be the easiest project so far. The basic instructions are to remove the cooler spigot, insert a weld less cooler adapter kit/bulkhead. Take a stainless supply line for a sink or toilet (new), cut it and use the braid to build a filter tube. Attach the stainless braid and you’ve got a good mash lauter tun setup for single infusion batch sparging. I won’t waste bits, rewriting the instructions I found here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Converting_a_cooler_to_a_mash_tun

The hop plants seem to be doing ok, of the 5 mounds, 8 plants I’ve planted, 4 are growing. The Cascade, and Hallertau are well established, and seem to be climbing well. They haven’t reached the top yet, which I’m surprised. It has me thinking I might want to use some different twine next year, and perhaps a more vertical trellis. The galena have seem to taken hold and are at the training to climb phase. The centennial are off to a very slow start, but have finally started to show some growth. I’m hoping both the later have a chance to grow some solid roots for next season. That’s the good, the bad is that we seem to have some hop pests (the little guy to the right). I think he’s a leaf hopper. I’ve asked my local farmer if she has any recommendations for organic pest control, so I can save my hops. Hopefully it’s something simple.

I’ve also got a set of components to build a stir plate, but I haven’t made progress on this project yet. It should be easy enough, soldier the parts, build out a project box. However I’ve never done these types of projects, so there is a bit of a learning curve to it. The next step is to buy some soldier, a project box and a power supply, and get to assembling.
Other than that it’s quiet here on the farm.

First Brew

Aaron Ouellette — 2011-01-03T22:14:48-05:00

2am Maiden Amarillo American Wheat
These are the notes from my first batch of beer. For my first beer I brewed a true brew American wheat kit.
I’ve wanted to homebrew beer for a long time. I’ve even owned most of the equipment for a few years. What’s been keeping me from getting it done? I suffer from perfection paralysis, I’m not a perfectionist, but with some projects, I can’t seem to get off the ground until things are just right.
I finally had enough inertia to make the leap this past Monday, and all it took was getting a copy of the complete Joy of Home brewing. It’s funny that after reading the first few chapters of the book, I had enough confidence to get going. It’s rare the that a intro book is this good, if you want to try home brewing, this book will get you started no question.

The beer I’m brewing is based on the True Brew american wheat extract kit, but I didn’t brew it exactly as it was in the box. I changed the boil time, the hop variety, quantity, and addition times. Those are the changes I intended. I have also made some changes that I did not intend, aka mess ups. I had a boil over, a few unintentional flame outs, I didn’t read the instructions on my yeast, and I had a cooling problem. All of these were just inconveniences and shouldn’t significant’y impact the beer. Or as they say, opportunities to learn. The good news, is that when I checked the airlock the next morning, it was bubbling away. I’d made beer! There are a few more steps to complete, days of fermentation, dry hopping, bottling and bottle conditioning before it’s ready for drinking, but I have made my first batch of beer.
So what’s next? I’m going to follow the standard home brewing progression. I started with an extract kit, I plan to move on to extract and specialty grain brewing, and eventually making own recipes once I can follow a recipe well. Some day (when I’ve got a lot of free time) I’d like to try all grain brewing. I plan on brewing another batch as soon as I bottle this one, because I know my time afterwards will be limited. If anyone has recipe recommendations, or suggestions on an appropriate style of beer for me to brew I’d gladly take them into consideration. This first batch is going to be a light and hoppy american wheat beer. I’m thinking this next batch should be something appropriate for spring, bonus points for utilizing season appropriate ingredients.
This leaves one question for you. What’s been lingering on your list for a while that will be crossed off next? What will it take to get you to pull the trigger?

Brewing Over Maple

Aaron Ouellette — 2011-02-19T22:11:27-05:00

This is my Brew plan / Log. I start with the recipe pasted onto a blank sheet, and put down the basic steps, which outlines my plan. Once I’ve started brewing I copy that plan, and make notes on anything I’ve overlooked, screwed up. Noting what worked and things to do better next time. Here’s a cleaned up plan / log. I’m posting this to show you what in my log. If you log something I don’t. I’d be interested in hearing it.

Brew Log 2/19/11
Made yeast starter
Boil 3 c water
cool 1 c to suspend yeast.
Make wort with 2c + 1/2c dme
Wait 30, add cooled wort to Yeast.
Wait 24 hrs.
Yeast was active and settled w/in 24hrs

2/20
Bagged grains
Started 2g water in pot, put grains in pot.
Set timer for 45
Missed 170, Grains got hotter than 170, I assume this will cause off / acrid taste/ over extraction.
put 3g cold water in 6g carboy
After 45 mins of 150-170, remove grains
Added LME, Maple 3 lbs, Malto dextrin, Brought to low boil.
Managed to avoid boil overs!
12:30 boil started & added 1oz Centenial A8.7
Cleaned chiller in sink, Added full ice maker of ice to sink.
Prepared sink to run the wort chiller.
Cleaned bottles
20 mins left added 1 tsp of Irish Moss
0m Remove from heat.
Added chiller
Placed pot in sink with ice.
Start chiller.
Chilled to 70, in 10m.
Moved to 6g carboy, lots of sediment filtered.
Toped to 5g w/ ¾ gallon of water.
Pitch started yeast. 500ml
agitated wort and yeast to mix thoroughly.
Placed in corner, add air lock.
Temp measured 64 on side of carboy.
pitched at 64 at 1:54pm.
Starting gravity w/ yeast starter, 1058 w/out calculating SG correction

Monday 2/21 Obvious fermentation has started; airlock bubbling away
Monday 2/21 Evening, had to swap airlock for blow off hose and jar due to such rapid fermentation.
Fermentation temp measured 67/68 on side of carboy.

Wednesday 2/23
Replaced airlock
Measured SG 1028 @67 w/out SG correction
Tasted SG Sample, not bad sweet and boozy.

thursday / friday
Checked temp, and it was down to 64/65

Saturday 2/26
Measured SG 1018 @65 w/out SG correction

Tuesday 3/1
Measured SG 1014 @64 w/out SG correction
Tasted, it tasted good, a little sweet, looks really dark brown, auburn. Decent mouth feel.
Racked to secondary, I’m seeing some outgassing again, so this should bring SG down even further.
Yeast isn’t cleaned yet, but I prepped water for yeast washing.

bottling 8pm 3/13/
FG
1011 @ 67
25 22oz bottles (one busted / top came off)
4 12oz
4.67 gallons bottled
Used 5oz maple syrup for priming.

Fermenting Hard Cider

Aaron Ouellette — 2011-10-16T22:08:40-04:00

A few firsts. My first Cider fermenting. My first time reusing yeast. Hoping for the best on both accounts.
This is yet another long over due goal. I’ve wanted to make hard cider for a long time. Living where we do within a short drive to numerous orchards of every shape and size the fall smell of fallen apples is amazing. After some brief reading of how to make cider online, I figured it was easy enough to do, that I had to give it a go.

Recipe:
3 Gallons unpasteurized cider
2 cups turbinato sugar
1/8 tb peptic enzyme
1 campden tablet
Yeast nutrient
600ml yeast / starter

Mix cider w/ sugar, enzyme, and camden. Wait 24 hrs.
Prepare your yeast starter*.
Add yeast to cider, and ferment at 70ish for 2-3 weeks. Rack off lees, cold crash, serve. Enjoy.

If only it were that simple. So, what really happened? As I was fermenting the cider, I’d yet to really establish proper fermentation control, so it pogo’d as the crazy fall weather went from 65 to 35 and back. It went through a phase where it seemed very dmsy, or even sulfery. When it came time to stop the fermentation. Because of a bit of a mix up with my temperature controller, I didn’t have any means to actually cold crash the cider, or stop fermentation when there was still some natural sugar left. I figured it would be ok to just let roll. I was wrong. I did decide to carb it at low pressure (5psi at 40*) to see how it tasted subtly carbonated. It turned very dry, and w/out any sweetness. I decided to take a bold step and back sweeten w/ 1/2 can of grape concentrate, and to recarb. While it recarbed just fine, the cider isn’t very good. Described as ‘earthy’ and winey by the the brave souls I shared it with.

Plan for next time? I’m sure there are recipe tweaks I could do, but I think it comes down to two things. I need to be less hesitant to stop fermentation. Even if that means heat pasteurizing. Anything to keep that zing and sugar of a cider. Also, I’m going to do more research, perhaps try to pick the brain of Steve Woods of Farnum hill to get a better understating where my process has failed.

Brewing a Clone Kit

Aaron Ouellette — 2011-12-17T07:24:30-05:00

After a slightly disappointing experience modifying someone else’s recipe, I thought I’d try something a bit more structured to work on the process. I picked something I thought T would like, and would be good for the summer.
Back in May, after things began to settle down from having our second child, I was trying to decide what beer I wanted to brew next. I wanted something that was lower risk than a recipe from the local home brew store. I wanted something T would enjoy, I wanted something enjoyable for the summer. So I decided on ordering a kit from Austin Homebrew supply, I chose a beer that is pretty much non offensive to the average beer drinker, a Magic Hat #9 clone. Something happened, I realized things hadn’t really settled down, and I pretty much missed prime summer brewing season. It wasn’t until two weeks ago, that I managed to get some water boiling, and brew this.
In order to brew the best beer possible, you need to use the freshest stuff possible. The delay may cause two issues with the beer. My extract was at least 6 months old. While I stored it cool, I’m sure it’s age could produce the dreaded extract twang, as well as a much darker beer color. The second issue is with yeast health. I purchased wlp 002 (British Ale yeast) for the beer. I even purchased the ice pack with it for when it was shipped, to ensure it arrived in tip top shape. However, all brewing yeast’s viability decreases rapidly over time, so this yeast was questionable. To mitigate at least one of the issues I made a yeast starter, to build up the viable cells to ensure proper fermentation. Even making a starter, using mr malty’s calculator I need way more yeast than I pitched.
With those caveats, I set of to brew my 3rd batch of beer, my 4th fermented beverage.
The good news is, with one or two other exception my brew process worked pretty well, and avoiding those issues in the future should be pretty easy. Without further rambling, here’s the brew log.

This is the first batch I made inside on the stove.
Made 1l starter two days before.
Added 2.5 g water to brew kettle (5g)
Heat at high until 140.
Then I steeped 1/2 lb Crystal 60 & 1/2 lb 2 row for 1.5 hrs.
Removed grain & fed to chickens.
Set heat to high and brought to boil.
Didn’t remove from heat to add extract. * Bad idea, next time, take off heat, to avoid scorching.
Brought to easy / light boil (boil harder next time).
Add 1st addition 22g cascade 5%AA
boil 45m
2nd addition 16g cascade 5%AA & whiflock & yeast nut capsule.
*Note to self open capsule before adding to boiling wort, it’s not soluble.
5m, add 3rd addition 18g cascade 5%AA
Chill using immersion chiller. (8 minutes 200->70)
*Did not wait. Next time wait and let trub settle. Also Chill below target pitching temp.
Moved to basement & transferred to 6.5 g carboy.
Had to filter remove hop and other stuff from wort.
Shook to mix top off with boiled wort.
Measured SG at 68 1020, this was wrong, so I remixed, and took SG again, Measured SG 1052 at 68 (.0009 adjustment) 1.053
Pitched yeast slurry from starter.

11/29/11 Measured SG 1052 (uncorrected) at 10pm
Temp at 70 on carboy.

12/1/11 Measured SG at 70 1024 (.0011 correction) @1pm

12/2/11 Temp at 69 on Carboy Friday @8pm
Fermentation seems to have visibly slowed. I increased the temp on the swamp heater.

12/3/11 It now seems to be holding 70ish. Still visible fermentation activity, but very slow airlock activity.
SG @ 70 1012-14 + 0.0011 (correction) so 1013-15 current sg.
Will crank up one more notch tomorrow for 2-3 days.

12/6/11
SG @71/2 1010 + .0013 (correction)

12/10/11 Kegged, added 3-4 oz apricot extract and forced carbonated at 10psi, targeting 2.3 volumes.

Summary -
The beer is still pouring green and a bit slick. Most likely from yeast settling in the keg, and using a full length dip tube. It’s drinking ok, I bet it’ll be better in a few weeks. It better be good, I’ve got close to 5g in the Keg waiting to drink. I had initially thought about saving and washing this yeast, but it really makes no sense, because it was stressed to begin with, and you really want the best healthy yeast possible, and the best fermentation. While my fermentation was good, it was still a littler higher temp than I wanted, and that yeast age is a serious question.
Yeast is cheap, I’ll try to wash it next time.

Fresh Pour

Aaron Ouellette — 2011-12-19T07:23:13-05:00

Just thought I’d share a photo of a fresh poured draft. Not too much head, not too clear. Good color, but dark for the recipe. Still tasting a little green. Hopefully the hops will fall out a bit, and the apricot will smooth out.

2012 Brewing Goals

Aaron Ouellette — 2011-12-20T07:18:03-05:00

I have a bit more lofty brewing goals for 2012 than I did for 2011.
2011 was simple, just brew. No excuses, stop worrying about doing it perfectly, stop fretting about having the right setup. Just get a few batches under my belt, cut my teeth, and make a bad first draft. After spending the year researching and trying to hone my technique I plan on finding my home brewing sweet spot. A style to perfect, and make my own. Something I’m going to want to have in quantity, and something to call the house style or flagship of the bottle Farm. To meet the criteria, it’s gotta be sessionable, flexible, good all year round. The two styles that come to mind are saison or pale ale. So goal 1, is to pick a style and try to brew it right.
The next goal dove tails with this, it’s to enter my beer into a home brew competition. After I’ve honed the beer a bit, perhaps worked out the kinks, I’d like to have something worth entering to a competition. This will be a great way to get unbiased feedback, insight into the flaws in my beer and hopefully some suggestions on improvements.
The third goal is to step up to partial mash brewing. I started with a simple extract recipe, followed it up with extract and steeping speciality grains. The next logical step is to partial mash. I don’t have the gear or the time to go all grain. Despite what Gordon Strong thinks, you can brew some pretty good extract beer, if you put your mind to it. There are so many more variables I’ve yet to control, that worrying about adding complicated mashing / sparging processes to my brew day at this point will only cause more problems than allow me to make better beer.
My last goal is a serious stretch. I’d like to spend a day helping a brewer at a professional brewery. To see their process, and see how things work on a bigger scale. I don’t have connections to any brewers yet, so I’m hoping to leverage social media to make some friends and see what can happen. I’ve been told most small craft brewers can always use some extra help (manual labor), so maybe someone will take me up on the offer.

No longer borrowed or blue

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-01-08T07:14:51-05:00

I’m wary of thinking more expensive gear, will make better beer. Yes, it can make things easier, but does it really make better beer?
With that said, I’ve made some small investments in my equipment with the intention of improving the quality of my beer, and making cleanup easier.
I’ve been very fortunate, I’ve had to purchase very little of my own brewing equipment. I had keen eye on free cycle and snagged a nearly complete home brewing setup. A 5g pot, 2 carboys, fermentor, funnels, capper, blow off valves, wort chiller, etc. So far my primary investments have been ingredients, books, and a turkey burner.
With the basics taken care of. I did some research into what the experts thought was the next improvement I could make to my equipment to improve my beer. It seems the experts agree that full boils make brewing quality beer easier. You eliminate the need to top off water. I believe you improve the hop utilization* (no real studies have been done). You also are able to limit the melanoidin reactions (browning / caramelization) by diluting the extract. Yes, there are techniques, that many partial boil brewers utilize to limit some of those factors, but truth be told it’s just easier to brew full volume. There is no need boil top up water, no need to mix wort and water in the fermentor. So my first big acquisition, beyond kegging equipment which I’ll discuss later, is an 10 gallon brew kettle.
This is a real deal kettle, with welded port, and spigot.
I’m not really sure what the point of this post, is other than to let you all know, I have a bigger brew kettle, and can now do full volume boils.

Book Review: Beer is Proof God Loves US. Charles W. Bamforth

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-02-02T07:08:29-05:00

Brewing isn’t all boiling and fermenting, and cleaning. You can buy a kit at the store, but to get a real understanding of brewing, styles, and history, you have to read and research.The title is pretty much over the top; and so are many Dr. Bamforth’s stories. This isn’t a book about brewing, despite Dr Bamforth’s decades of experience and knowledge, it’s more the tale of a life long participant in the brewing industry, from both the in and outside perspective.
Don’t read this if you are looking for historic tales about the greatness of beer. Do get this if you a much greater understanding of the industry giants. I’m far from a AB-Imbev fan boy, but I have come to understanding how those large scale operations work, and understanding that making a consistent mildly flavored lager is much more difficult that it appears. I’m not sure I’d buy the book, but I’d certainly borrow it from your library.

Aging Cider on stuff

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-03-13T07:02:46-04:00

After trying my cider early this fall It was far to astringent to drink. Perhaps it was just too young and needed further conditioning. So, rather than pour it out, I decided to let it age.As you may have read I embarked upon fermenting my first cider this past fall. As it completed fermentation I kegged had carbonated it. Perhaps it was still too green, but when I tried it, it was very acidic, and difficult to enjoy. So, rather than let it go to waste I decided to cold age it in the converted chest freezer. There it sat for 4 months. I recently decided I wanted to free up the keg and make room, so I moved it to 3 growlers I had sitting around. So much for being ‘undrinkable’ it was half gone. I also decided to add some flavoring and fruit to the ciders for it to age upon. Non crystalized ginger, dried cherries, and a cinnamon stick. I tried to be conservative, but in hindsight I am not sure how conservative a 1/4 cup per 1/2 gallon really is. Tonight I just tried the cinnamon and it’s not half bad. It does need to come off the stick, but I’m guessing that the aging has really improved and mellowed the cider, and the additives didn’t hurt either. I can’t wait to try the cherry and the ginger and see what flavors were imparted by them. In the coming weeks I’ll let you know how they are.

As for the making room part, I plan on brewing in the coming weeks, but I am still trying to nail down the house pale recipe. I’ve yet to really design it. My ‘plan’ is to start with a known good recipe (extract w/ specialty grain), try to make it to the best of my abilities, and go from there. How can one improve upon a recipe, unless you know how it’s supposed to taste. I can tell you it will be a west coast style pale, with a hoppy slant. I’m really hoping Mike McDole will share his session pale recipe soon, so I can use that. Although that would be an All grain to extract conversion.
With that said, I’ve got another dilemma, I just don’t drink the quantity of beer that warrants brewing 5 gallons. Unless I want to continue to give away large quantities of beer while I learn, I’m going to have to come up with a solution. One I’m strongly considering is brewing 3g or smaller batches. I should be able to turn those over fairly easily, especially if I get them nailed down. Brooklyn home brewing supply has a pretty cool looking recipe book, along with kits for 1g all grain batches.

Brooklyn Brew Shop's Beer Making Book

I’m considering getting it, but 1g just seems so little beer to go through all the effort. They say it takes as much work to brew 1g as it does 5, 10, 20. I don’t think it’s that simple, but the finite time (boil, sit, ferment, etc) are pretty much the same.

Anyway sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve given up beer for lent which leaves me w/out having a whole lot to say about brewing or beer in general. I’ll return to the regularly scheduled program later this spring.

Partially completing a goal

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-04-24T22:30:11-04:00

I have ‘stepping up’ to partial mash on my list of things to do this year. While I haven’t made any decisive progress on brewing / designing the house beer, I have made the leap toward partial mash.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself, since I have not actually brewed a partial mash yet. I ordered a partial mash kit from Austin Home Brew supply. It’s a Clone of Three Floyds Alpha King, and the kit arrived last week. For those of you who don’t know what partial mash is, it’s when some of the sugars that are used for brewing beer are created from mashing. Mashing is when the sugars are converted from the starch in the grains by soaking at a temperature between 148-160(ish). This soak allows enzymes produced during malting to change the starch to fermentable sugars (long and short chain). Most commercial beer is all grain, meaning all of the sugars are created by mashing, but it’s pretty typical for homebrewers to at least start out using all of their sugars from extract. All of my prior batches have been extract, or extract plus specialty steeping grain. Extract brewing is when you get most or all of your sugars in liquid or dry form, ‘extracted’ and concentrated by a malt house. The next step might be to steep specialty grains to add fresh grain flavor and complexity to an extract batch. However there are limitations to the beers you can make from extract, as not all grains can be found in either extract form, or are steep able. Some grains require proper mashing in order to get the desired flavors / sugar additions into your wort.
Pasted Graphic

Beer Gardening

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-05-02T22:06:56-04:00

When I think of beer garden, this isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, as a farmer brewer this is the first thing I hope to be able to product myself to include in my own beer.

What you see below is the fruits of a few hrs of manual labor, some unused and reused items from around the farm, and a few gifted hop plants. A kind soul, Lyn from Brew Free or Die (more about this later) was very generous and shared some plants with me, a cascade and Hallertau. Along side those two, I planted 3 other pairs of rhizomes Cascade, Glacier, and Columbus. The other pairs were purchased last spring, and due to poor planning on my part, never made it to pots or the ground. I do not know if they will sprout after such a long dormancy, so I have also purchased some additional plants (Perle, Centennial, Galena) that just arrived. After they harden a bit, I’ll look for sprouting bines, and make the call on which to keep / or pot for next season.
When I originally purchased the hops, I’d thought I’d have enough time to get em in the ground. I was wrong. After doing some research, I knew I needed to do more than just tossing them into the ground. Leap forward a year, and I’ve now read The Homebrewers Garden and Grow your own hops, and have enough of an idea how to do it right, and just enough free time to do so. It took about 4 hrs all said and done. First step was to desod and turned over a 15x3 patch of soil, I then mix in some rich compost from a well aged pile. Then I made 5 mounds 7 inches high 1/2 a foot apart, then dug a small trough, and planted the pairs of rhizomes, and two plants. I followed that up with a night thick layer of mulch. Mother nature then did it’s deed and rained for the two following days, ensuring they had a good soak. This past week I finished up the trellis.
To trellis the hops, I’ve put 5 eyelets to the side of the house, and strung a high strength wire though the eyelets. I then tied off bailing twine from the wire, down to stakes behind the mounds. The two plants I’ve started to train up a tail I’ve knotted off the twine, since they are too short to reach the twine at present. When hops are first starting the need to be trained to climbing the twine, until they are strong enough to make their own purchase.
From what I read you can expect very little in the way of production the first year. However with the early start of the growing season this year, It seems to me that the biggest challenges for these guys will be to hops wet, and they should hold their own. We had a very dry winter, almost no mud season, and it’s looking like we’ll likely have a dry spring and summer. I’m hoping the plants from Lyn will have a strong year, since we are off to such a solid start to the spring, and she has had good yield from the hallertau. The good news is, I think other than the old dried out rhizomes, I think I’ve done everything right, so, in the coming years we should have a good harvest, and be brewing our own fresh hop beer come late fall. Cheers to being a farmer brewer!
Ps. Working the soil in New England is tough work. This was a small 15x3 piece of soil, that was full of rocks and sticks and debris, I can’t imagine being a real farmer here.

Migration in process.

Aaron Ouellette — 2012-06-17T20:37:33-04:00

I’m actively working to get the past articles rewritten. I’m busy migrating from iWeb to rapidweaver, and there is a steep learning curve. Hopefully this will allow me to more easily generate content, and manage the site, so that there’ll be more of it, and less trying to figure out how to get it to you.
Insert hard hat / animated under construction gif.
Thanks,
AO

Why I love Craft beer

Aaron Ouellette — 2010-08-10T21:46:17-04:00

Recycled post from my old blog, reviving here, as it fits.

I feel the need to explain why I’ve been so interested in local craft beer after seeing some lists and examples of craft brewed beer in recent articles, like The Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Drink Craft Beer and 10 Great Beers Brewed In Unlikely Places .

These articles highlight a few of the reasons and craft beers without covering my reasons for loving it. Those that read my infrequent posts, will know I’m big on local food. While I’m far from new to good beer, I’ve liked ‘microbrews’ or imports for a long time, the interest or better yet fascination with local craft beer is fairly new for me. I can’t pinpoint when the light bulb went off, but I think I became more aware the craft beer movement. Things like these videos and interviews have solidified my interests.

(Belching Monkey interviews - Anderson Valley Brewing and Todd Mott - Kate the great).
Hearing these brewers talk about their commitment to brewing, their craft, and sustainability, it’s not hard to see how it meshes with my values. This is something they need to do, as they just can’t out cheap, out distribute, or out advertise the beer water makers. They can do something things the big guys can’t, be local, fresh, unique, and small. This is their differentiator. Pretty much anywhere you where you go, you can find a local brewery. When I was on a trip to Long Island this past weekend, there were no fewer than 4 breweries with a reasonable drive. Near our home in MA, as you can see on this map (beermapping.com), there are a significant number as well. What I’m getting at, is that you can get local beer everywhere. Not only are you shortening the distribution chain, so you get fresher beer, you are also supporting the local economy. These smaller local brewers can also partner with local purveyors, like Cambridge brewing company (Cambridge MA), using Taza chocolate (Somerville MA) in it’s Chocolate milk stout. It is that sort of double rainbow that you never see from the big guys. Even if local does not matter to you, craft beer has much more to offer the beer fan. You can get your traditional pilsners and lighter lagers, if that is what your palate prefers, but you can also get double imperial stouts, black ipa’s and wild sours, interesting and unique variations that you may not find else where. The reason why craft beer can offer the variety is the the scale at which craft brewery’s operate. It means they are faster moving, they can try the newest variety of hops, or offer wet hopped beers, that operations of larger scale just can’t do. They can offer something for everyone, and a beer for every season. I personally can’t wait for the release of Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale every holiday season, but also look forward to the next iteration of Alagash’s Fluxus which is different every release. This variety and scale means that fine craft beer is really approachable. Unlike wine, where you may find premium wines starting at 50+ a bottle, going into many thousands. Unique rare beer seems to be much more available . Don’t get me wrong, there exceptions, like Portsmouth brewing’s Kate the Great, or Pliny the elder, that the average consumer can’t get. However, I find this is the exception, you can get a great six pack for under $10. A unique limited release bomber for as little as $5-7. Rarely do you find a sku that breaks the $20 mark for a single unit. That makes even a very special craft beer accessible to the new comer, who wants to try it all like myself. That’s why I love craft beer.