Dark IPA

3lbs Pale DME
3lbs Pale Malt
1lb Wheat Malt
1lb Carastan
4oz Debittered Black Malt
8oz Sugar
2oz Northern Brewers Hops
4oz Cascade Hops
Safbrew S-33 Yeast

OG 1.060 (Actual OG was 1.059)
FG 1.016 (Actual FG was 1.020)

Mash all grain at 150f for 60 Minutes, collect wort and bring to a boil.

Boil for 60 minutes with 2oz Northern Brewers @ :60 and 2oz Cascade @ :10

Cool wort, aerate, add to carboy and pitch yeast.

Primary until final gravity is reached.

Transfer to secondary onto 2oz of cascade and dry hop for 1 week.

After dry-hopping transfer to bottling bucket onto 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water.

Bottle and allow to bottle condition for 1-2 weeks.

______________________________________

With that out of the way, I brewed this beer Oct 31. Fermentation went well for 2 days and from that point forward it was stuck at 1.030. Safbrew S-33 sucks! I repitched with EC-1118 yeast and it brought it down to 1.020 at which point I just bottled it. Here are some photos I took along the way:

 Ingredients

Mashing in

Hot break

 Fermentation on day two

Before bottling, it is not nearly as dark as it appears

 The end result, 12 750ml and 19 500ml bottles

I'll add a glass shot once it carbs up

2012 Hard Cider

Back in September I started my annual batch of Hard Cider. I wasn't sure if it would even happen this year due to the crop failure here in Ontario. Lucky Brantview Cider brought in apples for pressing. 

This year I kept the recipe very simple. Just 20L of preservative free cider and a pack of EC 1118 champagne yeast.  

 

Here it is two months later. I had issues getting the cider clear. I ended up adding gelatin twice and then resorted to Super-Kleer K.C. That finally cleared it out but there is still some pectin haze left. At that point I decided to just bottle it. My next batch I'll be using pectin enzyme from the start!

After all the racking I ended up with 25 750ml champagne bottles. They are currently bottle carbonating from a solution of 1C sugar dissolved in 2C of water. Once carbonated I will let them age at least 6 months, next fall they will be even better.

After bottling there was a nice sample left in my bottling bucket. This stuff tastes great already, light and tart with a good amount of fresh apple taste lingering. Alcohol content of this batch came in at 7.3% ABV.

Malt Bomb Pale Ale

Its been a while since I have brewed so I decided to make a malt bomb of a pale ale. I was planning on doing it all grain but I had 3lbs dme on hand so I threw that in as well. I am brewing this with my homegrown goldings hops as well! The recipe follows:

5gal Batch
10lbs pale malt
1lb crystal 60 malt
3lbs pale DME
3 oz goldings hops
american ale yeast

• Mash grain with 16.5 quarts (15.5L) of water @ 150F. Mash for 60min, stiring every 15min well maintaining the mash temp.
• Collect wort and sparge remaining grain with 24.75 quarts (23.5L) @ 170f
• Add all collected wort to your brew pot along with the DME and bring the a boil.
• Boil for 45mins dividing 2oz of hops at :45, :15 and flame out.
  
• Cool wort in an ice water bath.
• Transfer cooled wort to a carboy and pitch yeast.
• Primary ferment for 1 week.
• Rack beer into a secondary onto the last 10z of hops and dry hop for one week.
• With dry hopping complete rack again and allow the beer to settle out for another week.
• Once the beer has cleared, rack off the lees, mix in prime sugar (3oz sucrose dissolved in 2 cups water) and bottle.
• Bottle carbonation should take another week.
• Enjoy!
  

Mashing

Boiling

Hot Break

Carboy after pitching the yeast.

The Malt Bomb came out at 1.075 OG, a big pale indeed!

Finishing the Munich Dunkel

Feb 19th I racked the Munich Dunkel from the primary fermenter to the secondary fermenter. To clarify the beer I racked onto a solution of gelatin, 1 tsp gelatin dissolve in 1 cup of warm water. I then lagered the beer for about a month to bring on the lager flavors and so the gelatin could clarify.

Once the beer had lagered and clarified I racked the beer to the bottle bucket leaving all the sediment behind. To carbonate the beer I used white sugar that was mixed into the bottling bucked. The sugar solution was 2/3 cup of sugar dissolved in 2 cups of hot water.

With that done it was time to bottle. First thing was to sterilize all the bottles in Star-San and then rinse. I then siphoned the beer from the bottling bucket to the bottles using a bottling wand.

Here is the final product. I ended up with 24x330ml crown bottles, 16x500ml flip top bottles and one 750ml champagne bottle. They were bottled March 7th so they should be fully carbonated soon.

Munich Dunkel Brew Day

Below are some photos taken well I was brewing the Munich Dunkel a little over three weeks ago. Since brewing I have let it primary ferment for three weeks at 10c(50f) and last night I racked it to a secondary fermenter for lagering. I'll post about that soon.

This was taken well I was mashing the grain, basically the grain is steeping like tea to extract all the fermentable sugars. This time I took care to mash the grain with the right amount of water, 1.3L water per lb grain.

This was taken after the hot break and first hop addition. It was boiled of 60min after this with various hop additions along the way.

I attempt to cool the wort down in a snow bank this time. It really did not work well. As soon as the snow melted around the pot it really slowed down the cooling. An ice water bath works much faster.
The gravity came out right on the recipes target. This dunkel should finish out in the 4-5.5% range depending on how well the yeast performs. This photo is also a good representation of the dunkel's colour.

Here is the dunkel in the carboy after fermentation had started. This photo came out quite dark, the dunkel is more of a dark brown then black. Following the yeast pack instructions I allowed the fermentation to start at room temperature and then I cooled it down to 10c(50f).

Partial Mash Munich Dunkel Recipe

Here goes another home brew project, this time a Munich Dunkel Lager. Not necessarily an authentic version but it should be pretty close. The main difference from an authentic dunkel is I added more crystal malt which will bring out more sweetness and richness. This is my first attempt at a lager as well. It will ferment in my closet which is in the eve's of the house and is not insulated. It maintains around 10c(50f) this time of year so it should work out well. Here is the recipe I made up with from a few sources:

Munich Dunkel Lager
OG 1.050 / FG 1.010
18.9L (5G) batch

• 3lbs Extra Light DME or Pilsner DME
• 4lbs German Munich Malt
• 1lb Crystal 77 Malt
• 1/4-1/2lb Carafa Type 111 Special(dehusked, adjust to desired colour)
• 2oz Tettnanger Hops
• Wyeast Bavarian Lager yeast (2206)

Step mash gain with 6.5L (1.75G) of water. Rest at 52c(125f) for 20min, 60c(140f) for 30min and 70c(158f) for 30min.

Sparge with 9.5L(2.5G) of water at 75C(168f). Mix DME into the collected wort.

Boil wort for 60 minutes adding 1oz hops at :60 and 1/2oz hops at :30 & :10

Top up wort to 18.9L(5G) and cool. You have two options for cooling:

Option 1, if using a single smack-pack. Cool wort to 21c(70f) and pitched yeast that is also at 21c(70f). Allow fermentation to fully activate, 4-24hrs and then cool the carboy to 10c(50f).

Option 2, if making a large yeast starter. Make a 2L(0.5G) or larger starter at 21c(70f). Cool wort and starter to 10c(50f), pitch yeast and then continue to ferment at 10c(50f).

Primary ferment for 2 weeks at 10c(50f), diacetly rest when the krausen falls. Rack and secondary ferment for 4-6 weeks at 10c(50f) or cooler.

Prime with 2/3 cup white sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water. Bottle carbonate at room temperature.

Blanche De Chambly Clone Overview

Last June I brewed a clone recipe for Unibroue's Blanche De Chambly. If you would like to look back here are the links: The Recipe, Brew Day & Bottling Day. I am down to my last two bottles so an overview is in order.


Appearance: Colour is almost identical, colour can be the hardest thing to match with home brew.

Aroma: Very similar in aroma. The Unibroue ale has a little more of a citrus aroma and the beer I brewed has more coriander aroma.

Taste: There is a bit of a difference in taste, that said they both resemble a wit beer. The Unibroue version is quite light, sour, citrusy with just a hint of coriander. My ale is also light and sour but has more of a coriander taste and light on the citrus taste.

Overall I think the recipe from BYO is pretty good. If I used the recipe again I would reduce the coriander and greatly increase the bitter orange peel. I would also source better bitter orange peel, the ones I used looked ancient. The grain bill seems spot on though.