Brewing Chocolate Porter with Northern Nutwood October 24, 2009
Posted by pinchaque in Adventures in Beer, Homebrewing.Tags: beer, chocolate, chocolate porter, Homebrewing
2 comments
Steeping the specialty grains for Chocolate Porter
It took a while, but Amanda and I finally drank enough of the homebrew that’s been aging in my closet that I have bottling capacity to make another batch. It’s also (hopefully) beyond the warm summer temperatures for San Diego and the beer can bubble happily away.
Chocolate Beer
This batch had a couple of goals: use chocolate, and try a new style of beer. I’d brewed a robust American-style porter before, and wanted to go with something more traditionally British, so I dug up a recipe for brown porter.
Using chocolate in a beer is nothing revolutionary. There are good commercial examples such as Young’s Double Chocolate Stout. It was new for me though and something that sounded delicious. Following advice online, I went with 6oz of dark chocolate and had it in the boil for 45 minutes. This allegedly helps dissipate the oil and therefore gives better head retention on the final beer. The chocolate smell really came through for the first few minutes after adding it to the boil. Tasting the unfermented malt drink (from the hydrometer tube) it didn’t come through as strong though. We’ll see how it ends up in the final product.
Beer additives ready for the kettle
Wood Chips
This beer also gives me the opportunity to try out some brewing with exotic woods. I did a test earlier this year and came up with several good candidates from my Maine Grilling Woods source. For this porter I chose to go with the Northern Nutwood, which had sweetness, caramel notes, and smokiness.
Untoasted and toasted wood chips
To prepare the 2oz of wood chips I put them in the toaster oven and toasted them about 5 times until they reached a medium brown. Unlike the bourbon taste test I decided to add them right to the primary fermenter. This will let them sit for 5 days with the beer while it’s at its most active state.
Athena helping by sitting on the beer recipe book
Recipe
Parameters
- Batch size: 5.5 gal
- Boil: 3.0 gal
- Starting gravity: 1.058
Specialty Grains
- 8 oz Crystal 60L
- 6 oz Crystal 120L
- 8 oz British Chocolate Malt
- 2 oz Black Malt
- 4 oz Carapils Malt
Fermentables
- 6.5 lb light malt extract
- 0.5 lb brown sugar
Hops
- 1.5 oz Cascade 7.5% AA for 60 min
- 0.5 oz Cascade 7.5% AA for 15 min
Other
- 6 oz 72% chocolate (Trader Joe’s Dark) for 45 mins
- 1 tsp Irish moss for 10 mins
- White Labs London Ale Yeast WLP013
- 2 oz Northern Nutwood chips, medium toast (added to primary fermenter)
Beer with Nutwood chips
The Waiting Game
I just finished the batch this afternoon so it will be a couple weeks until bottling, and another couple weeks after that until tasting. I’ll post again when I have some tasting notes!
Ale Pail sealed and ready to ferment
Testing Exotic Woods with Bourbon Whiskey April 12, 2009
Posted by pinchaque in Adventures in Beer, Homebrewing.Tags: aging, barrel, beer, bourbon, exotic wood, Homebrewing, oak chips
10 comments
Bourbon aged in exotic woods
Soon after my previous post on Homebrewing with Exotic Woods, Amanda and I discussed how we would evaluate the flavor of the various woods we had acquired. It is simply not worth risking a whole batch of beer on an unknown factor!
We went back to an idea Amanda had when I was brewing my batch of Fig-Cherry Barleywine. Some commercial brewers are not just aging beer in oak barrels; they’re aging beer in oak barrels that used to contain other alcoholic delights. Why not apply this same technique when brewing at home?
The strategy was simple: instead of adding the oak chips directly to the barleywine, first soak them in bourbon for 2 or so weeks to simulate the “bourbon barrel” effect. Then add the soaked chips to the beer and see what happens.
Well, what happened to my barleywine is that it didn’t carbonate, most likely because I left it on the oak chips too long and it was too high of alcohol for the irish yeast I used. However, when we removed the oak chips from the bourbon we were left with some disgusting-looking black liquid that I was about to dump into the sink until Amanda bravely volunteered to drink it. She said it was amazing, and that we should re-age all of the bourbon in the house.
Flash forward to my set of 10 wood chips from Maine Grilling Woods. What better way to test their flavor then to subject several shots of Bulleit Bourbon to their influence?
Amanda took a small chip of each of the woods, did a medium toast in the toaster-oven, and dropped it into a small vessel with a shot of bourbon. These were labeled and left to sit for 2-3 weeks before the taste test commenced.
Taste testing the bourbons
Similar to my Great American Beer Challenge, the tasting was done blindly so we didn’t know which wood we were tasting. The good news is that only one of the woods went bad, and that it was much better to find this out with a shot of bourbon than 5 gallons of beer. Otherwise each of the woods lent noticibly different flavors and aromas to the bourbon that will hopefully exhibit themselves in beer as well. On with the results:
1. Acadian Oak
I found the acadian oak to have a fairly mild but pleasant flavor. Amanda wrote about brown sugar and maple flavors. So overall the standard aging wood earned a passing grade.
2. Downeast Hickory
The hickory had a rich wood flavor that I really enjoyed. Amanda wrote that it was not as sweet as the oak, with strong evergreen and floral notes. Also she said it tasted a bit like paint thinner.
3. Golden Alder
Watch out Mr. Yuk!
Mr. Yuk
This is the one that went bad. I didn’t even taste it after Amanda had to spit it out.
4. Mountain Mesquite
This one was another winner, with its dark rich wood taste. Amanda picked up on pine and molasses flavors.
5. Northern Nutwood
I found the nutwood to be buttery and rich. Amanda found a mild sweetness with hint of caramel. It also had a bit of smokiness.
6. North Atlantic Olive
The olive had a raw wood but sweet flavor. Amanda found vanilla and evergreen notes, but did not taste the same sweetness.
7. Sugar Maple
The maple had a very mild flavor that may not exhibit itself at all in beer. It was not clear if the bourbon took on any different flavor because of this. It had a clean and crisp finish.
8. Black Cherry
Black cherry had a great vanilla scent and flavor. I picked up on a bit of raw wood flavor as well.
9. White Cedar
You know that cedar chest that your grandma has? Your beer can taste just like that. I found the cedar to be bitter and tannic, with a hint of buttery. Amanda thought it had the most strongly imbued wood character.
10. Wild Apple
The apple was a little bit sour and raw. Amanda tasted a hint of pecan or other sweet nut. There were hints of sweet/fruity and astringent as well.
Conclusions
The bourbon taste test let us eliminate a couple of the woods that would perform so well (Golden Alder, Wild Apple, Cedar) and let some others percolate to the top. My favorites of the night were the hickory, mesquite, and nutwood. I also liked the olive and cherry quite a bit. Amanda preferred the oak, nutwood, and cherry.
My next batch of beer is going to be a chocolate brown porter, which will be aged with one of these lucky chip varietals!
Ginger IPA January 3, 2009
Posted by pinchaque in Adventures in Beer, Homebrewing.Tags: beer, ginger, Homebrewing
13 comments
Steeping Specialty Malts
The first ginger beer I had was on my honeymoon: Mount Desert Island Ginger from Atlantic Brewing Company in Maine. That was one our early beer adventurs and sort of what got us started on hitting so many breweries and brewpubs. I remember the ginger flavor being noticable but not overwhelming, and just generally having a great time at the bar there and on the tour.
Ginger is one of Amanda’s favorite flavors, and IPA one of her favorite beer styles, so why not combine them? It was her turn to pick a beer for me to make, so after doing some quick online research I formulated a recipe for a Ginger IPA.
I wanted to do a single IPA that wasn’t too bitter so that the ginger flavor would come through better. I also wanted to use honey since that added a great flavor the last time I brewed IPA.
The beer began with just a couple specialty malts — 20L and 60L crystal malt, and Belgian Biscuit, which should give a good bready flavor. These were steeped for 30 mintues total in 3 gallons of water as I brought the temperature from 150 up to 170 degrees.
Hops and Ginger
From there I added the fermentable sugars: 6.5 pounds of malt extract syrup and 1 pound of honey. These were brought to a boil and then the hopping began: Galena, Chinook, and Fuggles over the course of the next hour of boiling. 2 oz of ginger were added for the final 15 minutes.
Boiling Wort with Ginger and Hops
After the boil was done, I utilized my Alton-Brown-approved method of cooling off the wort: ice cubes! About 1.5 gallons of ice cubes (made in sterilized ice cube trays of course) brought the temperature down to 90 degrees.
Straining the Wort into Brewing Pail
The wort was then cold enough to transfer to the brewing pail. I then added in enough cold water to bring the total volume to 5.5 gallons, which is enough to fill my glass carboy during secondary fermentation. I had to wait a couple hours for the temperature to drop to 80 degrees, and then I added the White Labs California Ale Yeast.
Zephyr Takes and Interest in Beer
After putting on the air lock, the cats immediately took an interest in the beer. Athena was freaked out every time I brought her close to the airlock. I think she smelled the hops and didn’t like that much. Zephyr was more curious and climbed up on the counter to check things out (that’s NOT a posed shot!). Once the beer started bubbling, however, they stayed away.
From here’s on out it’s a waiting game! In a few short weeks we’ll get our first taste of Ginger IPA…
Here’s a link to the recipe spreadsheet: GingerIPA
