First Round NHC - 2014

This year I decided to enter the National Homebrew competition.  They implemented a random lottery to enter this year. You had to give them a few choices for judging location and a max number you wanted to enter. It was said you might not get exactly what you wanted. I ended up getting my first choice for location and the max numbers of entries that I requested, which was four. 

I am very happy to say that three of those four ended up taking a spot in the top three in their respective categories!

I sort of entered at the spur of the moment and had not planned out anything at all. I didn't really have much in the way of options of what to enter. It really was just what I had around at that particular time. Three of the beers were my most recently brewed, and one was brewed in 2010 (entered because I really did not have anything else).

#1 American Bastard - 8A English Standard Bitter – 2nd Place
Brewed with Tim Cantwell and Ryan Buxton

This is a really good 3.8% pale ale. Honestly this is more of an american style beer. It was fermented with conan yeast (said to be English), and uses some fruity american hops like mosaic and amarillo. Most of those were added towards the end of the boil. I entered it into English because I was a little worried about a small session beer like this competing against American pales that would have had higher OGs. Guess it worked!

#2 Tropic Thunder – 23A Specialty Beer – 3rd Place
This is a beer brewed in the style of an American Pale ale with two big differences. Of the 23 ounces of hops used in this 10 gallon batch only 6% were used in the boil, and those were @ 15 minutes. The other big difference is that it was fully fermented with brett brux trois. This was brewed right at the start of 2014. I thought this beer was amazing when it was young, but still really good at it's current age. The fruitiness from the brett early on has started to be replaced by some nice funkiness. A version of this beer has been brewed a number of times now. Here is a link to the first one I made.


#3 Behemothic – 26B Other Mead (Braggot) – 2nd Place
This is a massive 15% abv braggot I brewed back in 2010. It is very experimental and was brewed to have some similarities to a gruit. It was brewed with chamomile and meadowsweet and fermented with an old ale blend of sacch and brett. This has given it a slight tartness which I think helps with the very sweet nature of this brew. Here is my original post on this brew.

#4 High Seas – 22C – Wood aged Beer – Did not place  Brewed with Tim Cantwell

This was one I was unsure of entering. It is a blend of beers with the main one being a baltic porter that had just finished aging in a 1st use rum barrel. At that time it was really hot with rum so I blended in a little bit of a imperial coconut brown ale. The crazy thing is that now that rum baltic has mellowed it might be one of the best beers I have ever had. Seriously! I guess it was still pretty rum forward when it was judged.

Hair of the... IPA (Blue Dot inspired IPA)

This past weekend we did a second brew of a pilsner based IPA. It is very loosely based on Blue Dot from Hair Of The Dog. This is by no means a clone attempt. However the grain bill should be very close to Blue Dot. Blue Dot grain bill is just pilsner and flaked rye. For our version we replace a little of the flaked rye with some chocolate rye. I like the beer with a little more color.


We also went for a full 20 gallon batch. The boil kettle was ridiculously full. It was quite an effort the first 30 minutes to make sure it didn't boil over.

Here is our 20 gallon recipe

I am hoping to bring at least 5 gallons of this beer up to the Mountain brewers festival in Idaho Falls this June. My home brew club has registered for a booth. We will be serving our beers right alongside all of the commercial brewers!

El Jefe - India Dark Ale

I wanted to do something with all the Conan yeast sitting at the bottom of my fermenter. It seemed like such a waste to dump it. I first looked at attempting a Heady Topper clone. After looking at the thread on this subject on HBT, I decided to pass. That thread is over 200 pages and is a bit crazy if you ask me.

Instead I pulled out Mitch Steele's IPA book for something. While Heady Topper is not in this book, there is another recipe in that book from Alchemist.  El Jefe is a curious brew that I was drawn to when I first got the book, but never got around to brewing. It is not a Standard IPA, but it is not a Black IPA either. Kimmich instead calls this a dark India ale as the SRM comes in around 17. Besides the Conan yeast I was also drawn to the recipe because it is hopped entirely with simcoe, and it is a dead simple recipe.

While many brewers are adding a malt derived coloring agent in styles like black IPAs, it seems Kimmich just went for what tasted right, and left out the Sinamar coloring because in the end the beer doesn't have to be black. Again I like the simplicity of it all.

The brew day went off exceptionally well other than a slightly higher OG than I was shooting for.

Here is the recipe I used to brew this beer:

February = Big beers and Small beers

The brew labs have been very busy the past two weeks!

This past weekend was all about big beers and barrels. On Sunday we brewed up an imperial style american brown ale.  It was my third beer using giga yeast, and I just have to say that I have been pretty impressed with it so far. When I make a starter in my 2000ml flask it wants to escape. So the bad part is I probably should buy a bigger flask. The good part is I get a ton of yeast. I swear it is like i'm pitching three packs of white labs or wyeast into my starter. My fermenter had airlock activity only two hours after pitching! Sundays American brown will eventually go into our 10 gallon rum barrel.


After the brew day was done we worked on moving around some other previously brewed beer. We have had a Baltic Porter sitting in the barrel about 4 weeks. Due to the logistics on getting another beer into the barrel, we ended up leaving the baltic in the barrel for much longer than planned. We even figured the beer might be a lost cause. However a quick tasting showed promise. Yes the rum was pretty big, but not as overpowering as we thought. We emptied the barrel in to two corny kegs that each had about 1 gallon of the un-barrel aged Baltic. The quick taste after blending was fantastic!

As soon as we had the barrel emptied we filled it back up with an imperial coconut brown ale. I am hoping the coconut flavor survives the rum. Being this is the second fill of the barrel, I think that it will still show up. Lastly we had a about 1.5 gallons of the barrel aged baltic and a half gallon of the coconut left over so we blended those and added them to a small 2 gallon keg.




The previous weekend we spent the entire day, 9 hours, working on some small beers that we brewed for a collaboration my brew club is doing with Epic Brewing. Since we have a pretty big club we split it into a number of groups. Each group will get to submit one beer to be tasted by Epic. They will then choose one to brew at their new gastropub, The Annex. Due to Utah law these beers have to be 4% ABV or less.





My group ended up brewing a shit load of beer. Here is what came out of the extra long brew day, all 5 gallon batches:

1) Pale Ale - Citra/Amarillo +Citra hopback. Fermented with Brux Trois
2) Pale Ale - Calypso/Summit +30 minute hop stand. Fermented with Brux Trois
3) White IPA - Fermented with Wit yeast
4) White IPA - Fermented with Brux Trois
5) Wit - Lime/Coconut
6) Wit - Lavender/Rose hips
7) Wit - Lemongrass/Crystalized Ginger

The fermentation of these beers is done and we will be doing some additional additions for some of them. Stay tuned for more updates on these beers.

Zuur Tafelbier - Hybrid turbid mash & souring with acidulated malt

Tafelbier or Table Beer is the term used for Belgian and Dutch beers that have an ABV between 1-4%. As the name implies, these are traditionally consumed at mealtime by the whole family. Yes, even the kiddies get to drink it.

One of the main features of these table beers is that the mouth feel is higher than one might anticipate, usually because of unfermented sugars/malt sugars. Traditional versions do not use artificial sweeteners nor are they excessively sweet. More modern versions of this beer incorporate sweeteners such as sugar and saccharine added post fermentation to sweeten the palate and add to a perception of smoothness. A mild malt character can be evident. Aroma/flavor hops are most commonly used to employ a flavor balance that is only low in bitterness. 

One of the methods used traditionally to make Tafelbier is whats called a turbid mash. It is also common for Lambics. This is a fairly complicated process. If you want details on the the full mash schedule check out this page: http://bergsman.org/jeremy/lambic/making.html

Not only was I interested in making a Tafelbier, but I wanted to incorporate some sourness into it. Essentially a petite sour beer. One great thing about a Tafelbier is the quick turnaround. Souring with Lactobacillus would have really slowed the turn around down. So I decided to try to use Acidulated malt to get a nice tartness.  In an effort not to impact the mash PH too greatly I held out the acid malt until late in the mash. The acid malt made up around 25% of the malt bill. This malt was added to the mash 30 minutes into the saccharification rest. I continued the sacch rest for another 25 minutes after the acid malt was added.

Back to the turbid mash. This is normally done using infusions to raise the temp. It begins with a very thick mash. It is similar in a way to a decoction. The difference with decoction is your mainly pulling your grist out of the mash and boiling it. With a turbid mash you are looking to pull liquid only.

The idea behind using the technique today is that you pull a % of wort before the enzymes have been activated. Then quickly heat this portion to around 180 degrees to denature it, or destroy the enzymes. Then at some later point in the process this denatured wort is added back into the mash. For lambics and other wild ales this provides long term food for the brett and other bacteria since saach yeast cannot consume these large complex sugars. In the production of table beers, this process can help too add to sweetness, mouthfeel, and body.

For this beer I was interested in doing a turbid mash. However I did not want to follow the Cantillion process step by step. This is an experimental beer and I was trying to just come up with a hybrid method to hit the main point of the turbid mash which is to keep additional unfermentables in the wort.

Once I finished the boil and chilled the wort I separated it into two fermenters. In one I pitched GigaYeast GY048 - Golden Pear Belgian. In the other I pitched White Labs WLP670 - American Farmhouse blend. The blend also contains some brett. I plan on bottling some of this one for a longer term aging to see if I can get some additional funkiness from the brett and the turbid mash.

The Hybrid Turbid Mash

The 3 quarts I removed from the mash and added  to the kettle 

To start I mashed in 11 pounds of grain with 7 gallons of water. I recirculated for around 5 minutes and pulled off 3 quarts of wort. At this point the mash was thick. I moved the 3 qrts into my boil kettle where I quickly raised the temps to over 180 degrees. I kept this mash liquid in my kettle until I was ready to mash out. I just kept an eye on this and never let it boil.

At the same time I was heating the pulled wort I continued with my main mash. Here are the steps to with the main mash:

1) 20 mins @ 122
2) Raised to 157 over about 15 minutes
3) 30 Mins @ 157
4) Slowly added 4# acid malt over 10 mins
5) 20 Mins @ 157
6) Added the 3 quarts back into main wort for mash out
7)  Raised temp to 168 for 10 mins (mash out)
8) Drained to kettle
9)  Added 11.5 gallons of sparge water.  Recirculated for 15 mins
10) Drained to kettle
11) Collected 15.25 gallons of wort

Zuur Tafelbier

Belgian Table beer

Type: All Grain	Date: 02/02/2014
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal	Brewer: Michael
Boil Size: 15.48 gal
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: 26 gallon- All Grain
End of Boil Volume 12.48 gal	Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 10.25 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 7 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 46.7 % 4 lbs Acidulated malt (Add late in mash) (1.8 SRM) Grain 2 26.7 % 2 lbs 8.0 oz Caravienne Malt (22.0 SRM) Grain 3 16.7 % 1 lbs Oats, Rolled (1.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.7 % 8.0 oz Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.3 % 2.00 oz Saaz [3.75 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 14.3 IBUs 1.0 pkg American Farmhouse Blend (White Labs #WLP670) [50.28 ml] Yeast 7 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.037 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.036 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG	Measured Final Gravity: ? SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.7 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: ? %
Bitterness: 14.3 IBUs	Calories: 0.0 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 6.0 SRM
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Temperature Mash, 2 Step, Full Body	Total Grain Weight: 15 lbs
Sparge Water: 11.5 gal
Mash Steps Name Description Step Temperature Step Time Protein Rest Add 7.00 gal of water at 130 F 122.0 F 20 min Saccharification Heat to 157.0 F over 15 min 157.0 F 60 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F 10 min
Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 1 steps (11.5 gal) of 168.0 F water Brew day Notes: Mashed in at 131 w/ 7gallons Dropped to 122 Recirculated 5-6 mins, drained 3 Qts of wort and added it to kettle (raised temp to 180) Recirced for 20 mins @ 122 Raised temp to 157 over 15 minutes Held temp at 157 for 30 mins Added 2# acid malt recirc 5 mins Added 2# acid malt recirc 20 mins Added 3 qrts of wort back to main mash Mash out @ 168 10 mins Drained Tun, added 11.5 gallons from HLT Recirc 15 mins at 168, drained Collected 15.25 gallons of wort in Kettle. Boiled for 90 mins Added 2 oz Saaz hops @ 60 minutes Chilled, filled two 5 gallon carboys. Pitched American Farmhouse in one Pitched Gigayeast Golden Pear in other

Early in protein rest

Rev Brew lab Brewery

Update 4/18 - Let's chalk this brew up as a good starting point, but needing some sweeping changes. The good: What an amazing full mouthfeel for such a small beer. The tartness was also pretty spot on for what I was hoping for. The Bad: I knew this would forever be cloudy, but it took quite awhile to not look like milk (ewww). The smell was so strong of yeast it was hard to handle.

The version with the gigyeast strain did not stick around long. After several weeks in the keg I tossed it out.

The farmhouse blend was much more promising. I so wanted to like it. It really was just the nose that was such a turn-off. I ended up dry hopping it with 2 oz of citra in the keg to try and mask it as much as possible. That helped a little, but I also just recently gave up on that version as well and dumped it. I was a little sad about it, especial after I dumped it and noticed that only about 10-15% of the hops I put into the keg made contact with the beer. Oops, I guess I need to get some marbles of something to weigh those down in the future.

I will try something like this again, but I will most likely cut back on the 'turbid' amount I remove from the protein rest.

Baltic Porter w/ multi step mash and cold steeped grains

I needed to brew a Porter for an upcoming brew club meeting. After researching the differences between stouts and porters, I settled on the idea of brewing a Baltic Porter because the differences to the other styles of Porters (and Stouts) stood out the most to me.

The main difference between a Baltic and other types of Porter is the fermentation. A Baltic traditionally uses a bottom fermenting lager yeast instead of an ale yeast.

Baltics are known for having a rich malty sweetness in both aroma and flavor. Other things I was looking for was a very smooth roast that stopped short of anything aggressive.

One technique I have been eager to try is withholding dark grains from the mash and boil. Instead these grains are cold steeped for 24 hours and added at some other point. I have seen some adding them to the fermenter, but I went with adding them in at flameout. By doing the cold steeping and withholding it from the boil, you increase the aroma of the malts, and lessen any of the acrid or burnt characters of the darkly roasted malts.


To 1.5 pounds of black and chocolate malts I added 3 quarts of water or 2 quarts of water per pound of grains.



I added the water and grain into a large jar about 24 hours before I brewed.

Just before I added them, I used 2 different size strainers to lauter the dark malts.

At flameout the strained liquid (2 quarts) was added to the kettle.

New Baltic Porter

Baltic Porter

Type: All Grain	Date: 01/03/2014
Batch Size (fermenter): 13.50 gal	Brewer:
Boil Size: 18.08 gal	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: 26 gallon- All Grain
End of Boil Volume 15.08 gal	Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 12.75 gal	Est Mash Efficiency 85.9 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 10 lbs Pilsner (Franco-Belges) (1.7 SRM) Grain 1 34.5 % 6 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 20.7 % 6 lbs Vienna Malt  (3.0 SRM) Grain 3 20.7 % 3 lbs Brown Malt (Crisp) (65.0 SRM) Grain 4 10.3 % 2 lbs Rye, Flaked (Briess) (4.6 SRM) Grain 5 6.9 % 8.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 6 1.7 % 2.00 oz Perle [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 19.9 IBUs 2.00 oz Willamette [4.75 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 6.3 IBUs 4.0 pkg SafLager West European Lager (DCL/Fermentis #S-23) [23.66 ml] Yeast 9 - 1 lbs Chocolate Malt (Castle) cold steep, add end of boil (430.0 SRM) Grain 10 3.4 % 8.0 oz Black Malt - cold steep, add end of boil (500.0 SRM) Grain 11 1.7 %
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.063 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.062
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG	Measured Final Gravity: ?
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.6 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: ?
Bitterness: 26.2 IBUs	Calories: ?
Est Color: 28.4 SRM
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Temperature Mash, 2 Step, Medium Body	Total Grain Weight: 29 lbs
Sparge Water: 12.79 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Steps Name Description Step Temperature Step Time Protein Rest Add 10.09 gal of water at 128.2 F 122.0 F 20 min Beta Sacch' Add -0.00 gal of water at 149.0 F 149.0 F 30 min Alpha Sacch rest Add -0.00 gal of water and heat to 158.0 F over 10 min 158.0 F 30 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F 10 min
Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 12.79gal) of 168.0 F water
Update 2/6/14: It has been about 3 weeks since this was brewed. The color came in a little lighter than I was hoping for but still in the SRM range of a Baltic. Early tasting was promising. The aroma of the beer was fantastic. The next step with this beer is a  short aging in a freshly dumped 10 gallon rum barrel. On Feb 4th I filled up the barrel. I think the aging period will be very short on this one. I plan on taking a sample in the next day and make a decision on pulling it or leaving a little longer.

Porter Vs Stout... Fight!

I have been thinking a lot about Stouts and Porters lately. My brew club just held a style meeting on Stouts. We must have sampled around 20 of them. All the styles were covered and even included some odder variations like a Mole (Mexican Spiced Chocolate) and an Oyster Stout. They were all pretty good.

Our clubs next style meeting will be focused on Porters. For this reason I have been researching the two styles to try and discern the differences. Let me tell you, it's a mess! Where do I even start?

I guess the first thing I will mention is that originally the term Stout did not have anything to do with the color, flavor, or aroma of a beer. It just meant it was strong. So any beer could have been described as being stout. Of course that would change over time, but that is the origin of the word.

A common theme I came across in research is that many people think the main difference is roasted barley. Stouts use it, and porters do not. However lets debunk that one right away. It is just not the case, and it goes both ways. Roasted barley was not even introduced into brewing until the late 1800's. But even then it was not readily accepted into the mash tun. I came across one source that said Guinness did not start using roasted barley in their stout until 1930.

From Martyn Cornell: "At Whitbread, whose Chiswell Street premises, on the edge on the City of London proper (the "Square Mile"), was one of the top two or three London porter breweries, in 1805 the firm used 160 quarters of pale malt and 56 quarters of brown malt to make both its porter and single stout, and 136 quarters of pale together with 40 each of amber and brown malt to make its double stout. From these 216 quarters of malt it would make 798 barrels of porter (3.7 barrels to the quarter, around 6 per cent alcohol by volume), or 720 barrels of single stout (7 per cent abv or so) or 580 barrels of double stout (2.7 barrels to the quarter, around 8 per cent abc).

The brewery made it's porter and single stout with the same malt bill. It's double stout was made with additional amber malt. The resulting beer was 6%, 7%, or 8%. I am going to guess the yeast used for all was the same. Nothing is mentioned about hops, but I am sure they were all hopped similarly as well.  So really we are back where we started. The term is being used to describe the beers strength. At this point in time a very similarly produced beer is called a porter at 6% ABV and a Stout at 7% ABV.

After all of this I would have to say that the only difference between stouts and porters is whatever the brewer wants!