National Homebrewers Conference

The National Homebrewers Conference (NHC) in Bellevue has come and gone.  There was a lot of drinking, lectures, drinking, eating, dorking out on beer, drinking, seeing vendors, hanging with other homebrewers and more drinking.  It was my first time attending the conference and I'd consider traveling again to it on the west coast.  Some of the lectures were hit and miss but the real value of the conference was serving our beer and talking to other homebrewers about it.  The Wayward crew was rocking the fez thanks to Jerome!!  We poured beers at both the Hospitality Suite on Friday morning and at Club Night of course, which was a one-of-a-kind experience of amazing beers from all over the country and crazy themed booths.  Jerome and I also got to meet and discuss our Sasquatch beer with Charlie Papazian, the "godfather" of homebrewing.  Cheers to Mark Emily and the whole WAHA crew for putting on a seamless conference.

Full Photo Set

Batch No. 55 - Theme from the Barrel No. 2

Theme from the Barrel No. 2

Brewed - June 3, 2012

Style - Imperial Porter

Ingredients:

• 11.0 lbs. American 2-Row
• 9.0 lbs. Maris Otter
• 5.0 lbs. Rauch Malt
• 3.0 lbs. Midnight Wheat
• 2.0 lbs. Crystal 60L
• 1.5 lbs. Sugar in the Raw
• 1.5 lbs. Chocolate
• 1.0 lbs. Crystal 90L

• 1.25 oz. Centennial (90)
• 0.75 oz. Cascade (90)
• 0.75 oz. Cascade (30)

• Safale US-05 Dry Yeast (3 packs / no starter)

OG - 1.092
Primary – 25 days
Barrel - ?? days
Secondary - ??? days

Transferred to the barrel -June 28, 2012

Kegged - ???

FG - 1.021
Attenuation - 77.2% 
ABV - 9.3%


Notes:

• Finally brewing one of my favorite styles, an Imperial Porter
• Fermented beer will be dumped into my 7.5-gallon Rye Whiskey Barrel from Woodinville Whiskey Company, which was recently emptied of the American Barleywine
• I'm hoping to get one more good turn out the "fresh" barrel and fuse the imperial porter with the rye whiskey notes; afterwards I will strip and clean the barrel to either use for a few fresh oak beers or turn it loose for sour beers 
• Barrel was rinsed with warm water after transferring out the barleywine and then I burned a sulfur stick in the barrel to prevent microbial growth while it sits for approximately 3 more weeks until the new imperial porter is ready; ideally I would have been more on top of this to have it ready closer to the emptying of the barrel, but I've been busy with NHC beers and the barrel flavors really took off into the barleywine the last 1.5 weeks before transferring it out
• Mash at 152° for 90 minutes
• Turbinado Sugar was added into the boil @ 30 mins to help bump ABV and fermentability
• 90 min boil
• First time using Midnight Wheat malt and the wort had a gorgeous chocolate cappuccino layer as it approached boiling
• I got a normal ~ 10 gallons with this batch, so unlike the barleywine where I used 100% for the barrel, I will have ~ 2.5 gallons of base beer to compare to the barrel-aged version

Updates:

• Hydrated the barrel with water for 2 days prior to transfer
• Transferred to the barrel on June 28, 2012
• Gravity at transfer was 1.021 for a 9.3% ABV
• Transfer to the barrel much easier the 2nd time around!!
• The barrel is definitely bigger than the listed 7.5 gallons; closer to 8.5 gallons and will measure it next time I clean it out

Batch No. 54 - Apple Cores, Smoke Galore and a Blonde of some Uniqueness

Apple Cores, Smoke Galore,
and a Blonde of some Uniqueness

Brewed - May 27, 2012

Style - Blonde Ale / Other Smoked Beer

Ingredients:

• 16.0 lbs. 2-Row
• 1.0 lbs. Crystal 15L
• 0.5 lbs. White Wheat

• 1.5 oz. Willamette (60)
• 0.5 oz. Willamette (20)
• ~ 10 lbs. Smoked Apples (20)

• Wyeast #1056 American Ale (2 packs / 1200 ml starter)

OG – 1.042
Primary – ?? days
Secondary - ?? days

Kegged - ??

FG - 1.008 (estimated)
Attenuation - 81% (estimated)
ABV - 4.5% (estimated)

Notes:

• Blonde Ale brewed with ~ 10 lbs. of smoked apples curiosity of Brandon and his BGE; the lot was split between Gala and Fiji apples; like the smoked squash beer, I added this into the boil at the 20 min mark
• Even though the inside of the apples were surprisingly moist and sealed off from the smoke when I cut them into smaller pieces, I don't expect to get much apple flavor, so I will probably be adding apple juice into one of the fermenters after I take a sample
• Mash at ~ 152° for 60 minutes; 60 min boil
• Grain Mill was out of commission, so I used an old coffee grinder; grains were finer than usual and that hurt the efficiency a bit as I expected to be more in the 1.050 OG range

Batch No. 53 - The Alpha Acid Test

The Alpha Acid Test

Brewed - May 18, 2012

Style - American Pale Ale

Ingredients:

• 10.0 lbs. Maris Otter Pale
• 7.0 lbs. Gambrinus 2-Row
• 1.0 lbs. Munich Light
• 0.4 lbs. Crystal 20L
• 0.4 lbs. Crystal 40L
• 0.4 lbs. Biscuit

• 0.90 oz. Chief #3 / P9-VA517005 (60)
• 0.60 oz. Chief #3 / P9-VA517005 (10)
• 0.25 oz. Chief #3 / P9-VA517005 (5)
• 0.25 oz. Chief #3 / P9-VA517005 (1)
• 1.30 oz. Chief #3 / P9-VA517005 (dry hop - keg #1)
• 2.00 oz. Chief #2 / P9-VA436007 (dry hop - keg #2)

• Wyeast #1056 American Ale (2 packs / 1000 ml starter)

OG – 1.052
Primary – 9 days
Secondary - ?? days (dry hopped)

Kegged - ??

FG - 1.006
Attenuation - 88.5%
ABV - 6%

Notes:

• American Pale Ale brewed with some new experimental, high alpha hops
• We received 7 types of experimental hops from Hop Union to be used at our discretion for a beer to pour at NHC; they were all high alpha hops and based on comparing the aromas, I choose one to be the "single" hop to get me to ~ 40 IBU's
• I figured a simple Pale Ale would be a good way to go to really see how the hop does in bittering and flavor 
• I used Chief #2 / P9-VA517005 (15.5% alpha, 5.6% beta) for all hop additions and will dry hop one keg with the 1.3 oz. that remain
• I will use some Chief #3 / P9-VA436007 (17.6% alpha, 6.4% beta) for dry hopping the 2nd keg
• Both of these hops had a nice, fruity, spicy aroma and quite a few others were heavier on the garlic, onion side that I tend not to like that much; we weren't given any flavor profiles, so we'll see how the flavor works out 
• Mash at ~ 152° for 60 minutes; 60 min boil
• Fermentation started in the low 70's

Batch No. 52 - From the Northweiss Corner

From the Northweiss Corner

Brewed - May 18, 2012

Style - Light Hybrid Beer / American (Hoppy) Wheat

Ingredients:

• 12.0 lbs. Rahr Red Wheat
• 5.0 lbs. Weyerman Pilsner
• 5.0 lbs. Weyermann Vienna

• 1.0 oz. Cascade (60)
• 0.75 oz. Amarillo (60)
• 1.5 oz. Amarillo (5)
• 2.0 oz. Amarillo (1)
• 4.0 oz. Amarillo (dry hop)

• Wyeast #3068 Bavarian Wheat (3 packs / 1200 ml starter)

OG – 1.062
Primary – ?? days
Secondary - ?? days (dry hopped)

Kegged - ??

FG - 1.011 (estimated)
Attenuation - 82.3% (estimated)
ABV - 6.7% (estimated)

Notes:

• 2nd go at a New Glarus Crack'd Wheat inspired beer; a hoppy hefeweizen aka a Pacific Northweiss Ale (new style - haha!)
• Mash at ~ 152° for 60 minutes; 60 min boil
• Tried to start fermentation in the mid-60's but ambient temps kept it in the low 70's for the first few days

Sasquatch Ale on the airwaves

Mark Emily was recently on the Basic Brewing radio show giving some updates on the National Homebrewers Conference and of course some background on the mighty Sasquatch Ale.  Reports from the field are that the beer is coming along nicely and I look forward to trying it soon.  Great interview Mark!!

If you want, you can give a listen to the May 17th show here:
Basic Brewing Radio - May 17th

Batch #51 - Saison de Soufflé Fleur

Saison de Soufflé Fleur

Brewed - May 5, 2012

Style - Saison

Ingredients:

• 27.0 lbs. Pilsner
• 5.0 lbs. Red Wheat
• 2.0 lbs. Munich Light
• 1.0 lbs. White Wheat

• Perle - 3.0 oz. (60)
• Saaz - 2.0 oz. (30)
• Dandelion Tea - 32.0 fluid oz. (1.1 oz. dry dandelion leaf tea)

• Wyeast #3711 French Saison (1200 ml starter / 3 packs)

OG –1.068
Primary – 13 days
Secondary - ?? days

Kegged - ??


FG - 1.005 
Attenuation - 92.7%
ABV - 8.2%


Notes:

• Collaboration brew with fellow homebrewing aficionado Bob Zormeir
• After trying Fantome Pissenlit years ago, I have long wanted to try to brew a dandelion saison; with NHC coming up, this was one the beers I wanted to finally get brewed 
• In this case, we brewed the beer together and each are trying a different method with the dandelions
• On the fly, we scaled up a recipe that Bob has worked up; I had never brewed a 15-gal batch on this system, so it was a learning process
• I didn't estimate the pre-boil runoff correctly and we ended up with 13.5 gallons and overshot the targeted OG
• Bob took ~ 5 gallons home with him and when fermentation slows, he will be adding a tea he made with fresh dandelion flowers and a different saison yeast (Wyeast #3724 Belgain Saison I think)
• I made up some strong dandelion tea an dumped ~ 32.0 liquid ounces into the fermenter before the transfer; ~ 5 gallons were transfer on top and I will be adding more tea depending on flavor, strength, etc.
• The remaining ~ 3.5 gallons will be fermented as is with no dandelions and hopefully will turn out to be a tasting wheat saison 
• We both plan on serving our saisons at the NHC Club Night and it will be interesting to taste the different results 
• Mash at 152° and 90 min boil
• Start the ferment ~ 72° 

Updates:

• Wyeast #3711 is a workhouse and this was down to 1.005 in 13 days
• On May 18th, I added ~ 40 oz. of dandelion tea to 4.5 gals of saison in one keg; I have ~ 3.5 gals in the other and will either leave as is as a base or will use some to blend into the dandelion keg depending on how it tastes in a few weeks