Matt's Oatmeal Stout

Trying to brew an oatmeal stout. Recipe is from pg 169 of Zainasheff's "Brewing Classic Styles". The recipe is called McQuaker's Oatmeal Stout (All grain option).

10.24 lbs Simpsons Golden Promise

0.5625 lb Crisp Crystal Malt 77L

0.8125 Crist Chocolate Malt

0.5625 Briess Roasted Barley

1.125 Briess Flaked Oats

Mash called for 155 F, we hit 152 originally, added boiling water and got 156 F.

Mashed for 90 minutes.

Sparged at 170 F for 16 minutes.

Boiled 60 minutes (more like 75)

1.8 oz Kent Goldings Hopps @ 60 minutes

11 g Nottingham Ale Yeast (dry)

Wort tasted creamy (perhaps from the oats).

Odell IPA Clone

Sitting here in the living room while the brew chills. Thought I would post this recipe I found online for an Odell IPA Clone. The inspiration for brewing this came to myself while on a mountain bike ride here in Socorro. I had a refreshing Odell IPA so I decided it would be cool to try and reproduce this myself. With some help from Clark, we (mostly Clark) put together a recipe that hopefully replicates that tasty goodness that I loved while drunk on my mountain bike.

Boil Time: 90 Minutes
IBUs: 47
SRM: 7
OG: 1.067
Assumed Efficiency: 75%

We aimed to make 6 gallons with this recipe

All Grain:
6lb Crisp Maris Otter
5lb Briess Pale Ale Malt
2lb Weyermann Vienna
0.625lb Crisp CaraMalt
0.5lb Weyermann Cara Foam

1.0 oz Horizon pellett Hops 8% @90min
1.1 oz Cascade pellet hops 5.4% @90min
1.0 oz Columbus pellet hops 14.6% at burnout [these smelled the most like the Odell IPA]
1.0oz Chinok pellet hops 11.4% at burnout
1.0 oz Cascade pellet hops 5.4% (dry hop)
0.80 oz Amarillo pellet hops 8.2% (dry hop)
1.2 oz Centennial pellet hops 10.6 (dry hop)

Mash at 154 (we hit 152F)for 60 minutes. Mash out at 168 (we didn't really have a specific temp we were shooting for). Ferment at 68F then condition in secondary on dry hops at 60F for at least one week.

Will dry hop next Tuesday, ferment, then enjoy, hopefully on a singletrack in the mountains!

IPA Moved to Secondary Fermenter

Normally this is not noteworthy. We moved the Two Hearted clone to a carboy after the initial fermentation. Gravity was ~1.021, which is quite a bit too high. This is probably due to mashing way too thin, which causes the enzymes and sugars in the mash to be so dilute that they react slowly.

We'll see - it will probably go down a little... hopefully a lot.

Dunkelweisen II

I'm a sucker for wheat beer, and here in NM I long for something like the Edelweiss Dunkel I used to drink in Austria. It's nowhere to be found, so with Clark's help I tried to brew one, for our 12th beer. Sadly, along with the Roggenbier it fell victim to voracious wild yeast when we diluted it with unboiled tap water to reduce the starting gravity after the boil. We learned from that mistake and this morning we're having another go at brewing dunkelweisen.

The recipe is based on the Trigo Oscuro on p194 of Brewing Classic styles.

Notes during the brew:
- HLT water heated to ~175 F

- Originally transferred 4 gallons to MLT and added grain. Deemed not enough water, added 1/2 gallon more. Temperature was suprisingly low: 147F. Boiled about 1.5 gallons, added around 20 minutes into mash. New temperature was 153F -- phew. Hope this is not too dilute now; still seems like a nice thick mash. We mashed for 70 minutes instead of an hour in hopes of not coming in too low on the gravity.

- Vorlauf and lautering went well except the grain bed was channelized around the edges.

- We forgot to heat the strike water until it was time to strike so the grain sat for a while while the strike water heated.

- First lauter didn't get us up to high enough volume. We ended up sparging twice more.

- Boil started with 8.5 gallons, hopped with 1oz Hallertau from the beginning (first wert hop).

- Pre-boil gravity: 1.045

- Took about 30 mins to get to rolling boil, then boiled for 90 minutes.

- After boil, gravity was high, around 1.06 (target was 1.55) and volume was at 6 gallons, so we decided to dilute it, and then boiled for another 10 minutes or so. We used 0.4 gallons of tap water, which we calculated using the following equation (conservation of sugar!):

([gal wort])*([gravity of wort])+([theoretical total volume wort] - [gal wort])=([target gravity])*[theoretical total volume wort]

This equation was off by a factor of 2-3.

- We chilled using the HLT as a cold reservoir, with 40 lbs ice. We didn't need that much; cooling went very fast and we were at 74F in less than 20 minutes. The yeast was taken out of the fridge around the beginning of cooling and pitched a few minutes after hitting 74F. Blowoff tube was installed with some difficulty.

- Yeast was encouraged verbally and yeast bottle was given a good luck kiss before pitching.

- Beer moved to fridge, which was adjusted to 60 to 64F

Bell's Two-Hearted Clone

Alright, it's March 13 and it has been nearly 4 months since the last brew. We're finally operating again after a few weeks (months?). I'll put up a picture here in a second if I can figure out how.

Improvements to the brewery since last time:

-Soldered fittings on all kettles
-Sight glass added to BK for volume measurement
-Permanent thermometer added to HLT
-Second pump
-Angle-iron frame for holding the MLT and mounting pumps

Recipe:
- 11 lb Briess 2-row malt
- 1 lb Briess 2-row caramel 40
- 1.5 oz Centennial @ 60 minutes
- 0.5 oz Centennial @ 30 minutes
- 0.75 oz Centennial @ 10 min
- 0.25 oz Centennial @ flame out


We did a super thin mash, basically filling 100% of the space in the MLT. We got out about ~8.5 gal after a quick batch sparge at ~ 1.038 SG.

During a normal boil,we lost about 2 gallons out of the BK. 1.051 OG.

We need to figure out how to chill from the HLT instead of doing it gravity style.

We'll see how it turns out.

Pumpkin Ale Bottled

We bottled the pumpkin ale on Sunday Jan 16. It was never put into a secondary fermenter, so it did 2 months in the primary bucket. We primed with 1 1/4 cup dry light malt extract for the batch.

Straight out of the fermenter (warm and flat), the hops come through a little strong and the spices are more subdued than I expected. That being said, appropriate temperature and carbonation have made every previous beer better.

HOWEVER, we did not detect any sourness. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I suspect the addition of cold socorro tap water to the chilled/chilling wort was the cause of infection in prior batches. Still, we're not positive until it's carbonated and cold. We'll see.

Pumpkin Ale

It is super cold here in NM but it's brewday so whatever. Found straight wall kegs at the scrapyard, but I have to go back later this week once the guys check the going price on 30 lbs of stainless. If anyone wants a bow-walled keg with 1/2" hole drilled in the base and the top cut off just let me know. It makes a sweet hot liquor tun, but a subpar boil  kettle because I can't attach a sight glass to it.

Also, I guess this will eventually be hosted on BeerBase.org, but that might have to wait for Aaron to get back from Antarctica.

Speaking of Aaron, he's currently updating our fermenting fridge to also contain a space heater, which will regulate T when it gets too cool in the house. I think we get down to atleast 40 every night. Trailers just don't have much insulation. Optimum fermenting temperature for an ale is around 62-70 F, depending on the style, so we need to be able to stay up there at night.

To the brewing...

Today's recipe is "Samhain's Pumpkin Ale" from Homebrewtalk.com . Recipe copied below.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WY1450PC Denny's Favorite 50
Yeast Starter: yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU: 22 IBU
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 12 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 30
Tasting Notes: Subtle spice aroma expands to blend with pumpkin and malt notes on palate. Delicious!

Amount Item Type % or IBU

8.00 lb Golden Promise (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 50.38 %
3.625 lb Pumpkin* (2 x 29 oz. cans of Libby pure pumpkin) (3.0 SRM) Grain 22.86 %
1.00 lb British Caramalt (34.0 SRM) Grain 6.30 %
1.00 lb Toasted Malt** (27.0 SRM) Grain 6.30 %
1.00 lb Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 6.30 %

1.00 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 6.30 %

0.25 lb Molasses (80.0 SRM) Sugar 1.57 %

0.50 oz Magnum [13.40 %] (60 min) Hops 21.9 IBU

1 t. cinnamon (5 min)
1/2 t. allspice (5 min)
1/2 t. ground ginger (5 min)
1/4 t. nutmeg (5 min)
1/4 t. clove (5 min)

*Pumpkin baked uncovered for 1 hour at 350 degrees to caramelize some of the sugars and gelatinize starches
**Maris otter malt toasted for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven

Mash at 152 degrees for 60 minutes. Pumpkin should be included in mash. Be sure to use rice hulls as the pumpkin will make for a slightly sticky sparge.

9:10 AM:

So, 1 lb of maris otter is toasted and the pumpkin is still baking. Mash starts in 20 minutes. I started heating the strike water at about 8 am I think and just turned the heat off. In the future, we probably only need at 50 minutes of heating at these winter morning temperatures to get to strike temperature (~175 F).


10:00 AM:
Just mashed in. Strike water was at ~163. After the (warm) pumpking and (lukewarm) grain were added, we were at about 150. Added a few scoops of near boiling water to bring it up to 153-154. I'm counting on cooling down to 151-152 since it's still a bit chilly outside. If not I'll just mash a little longer. About 6 gal of water made it into the mash.



12:00 PM:
Lauter and sparge went fine. We ended up leaving a little wort in the MLT, but we got enough at a decent gravity that I didn't bother with fighting a stuck sparge. 1 lb of rice hulls did the trick. Burners cruising, should be boiling in ~30 min.

4:00 PM:
In the fermenter. Got 4.5 gallons. Naptime.