TastyBrew.com | User Journal

By Rob Hudson on Nov 5th 2003, 2:50 am	Permalink
Blew my 1 keg of the Brutal Bitter clone tonight. And Denny, you were right... the last glass is almost crystal clear and looks great. You told me that by the last glass, the chill haze you saw earlier would be gone. Have to start planning the next batch o' something. Cheers!

By Rob Hudson on Oct 20th 2003, 5:15 pm

Permalink

Matt and I had our 2nd annual Oatmeal Stout/Olde Ale brew-off. Last year I made Denny's Snow Cap clone. This year I pieced together a recipe with inspiration from Rogue's Mogul Ale (or at least the grains listed). Started with an Old Ale and bumped up the color and IBUs, so one might call it a PNW Old Ale.

Moguloid Ale - 10 gallons
OG: 1.071, SRM: 22, IBU: 69
19 lbs 2-row
5 lbs Munich (light)
3 lbs Crystal 60L
1 lb Crystal 120L
1 lb Chocolate Malt
0.75 oz Chinook @ 90
1 oz Columbus @ 60
2 oz Cascade @ 30
2 oz Crystal @ 20
2 oz Saaz @ 5
1056 Yeast

My idea with the finishing Saaz for aroma was that a spicy, peppery hop aroma would go well with a darker, winter warmer type of beer. We'll see how that works out. Both the Crystal hops and Saaz hops were pellets, so I clogged up my kettle again. And for some reason, I couldn't get a syphon going so I ended up using the pitcher and strainer method to get the wort in the carboys. Thanks to Matt for having those sterilized and ready as a backup plan.

Another twist that'll make this beer unique is that Matt ended up with about 1 gallon more wort than he needed for his Oatmeal stout. So what we did was boil down the extra gallon, caramelized it, and added it to the Olde Ale.

Used 65% efficiency to get in the 1.066 range. I think I actually got around 70% and hit 1.071.

Found that my hydrometer is off -- when measuring straight water it reads 0.996. I need to make up some sugar solution to check it at various ranges to find my error correction curve. Either that or buy a new hydrometer or refractometer.

A great brew session.

By Rob Hudson on Oct 15th 2003, 6:17 pm

Permalink

I finally got around to kegging my other half of the BB clone last night. This one was with the 1056 yeast. Definitely has more body than the half with Danstar Nottingham so if you use the Nottingham, account for the extra attenuation you'll get. Personally I think I'll enjoy this half a little better since the fuller body will balance the bitterness better and was more of what I had in mind. The other half (Danstar) seems a lot thinner, but also seems to go down easier. In any event, it was a good experiment and the first time I've used Nottingham.

Collected 3 jars of 1056 yeast by taking the cooled water I boiled yesterday, adding it to the empty carboy, and refilling my mason jars.

By Rob Hudson on Oct 8th 2003, 5:40 pm

Permalink

Had a pint of my Bumble Bitter (BB Clone) last night -- the half that was fermented with Danstar Nottingham. I was a little worried about it b/c it seemed to have a bit of diacetyl when it was warm and flat. But the cold and CO2 either covers it up well, or I was tasting something else. Very tasty and clean, good hop flavor and bitterness, finishes dry. A bit lighter on body than I'd like but I'm guessing it's the Nottingham yeast that has a high attenuation. I'll probably keg the other half that I fermented with 1056 tonight, so in a few days I'll be able to compare which has more body. I seem to recall Denny saying he mashes a few degrees higher when he's planning on using this yeast so work better with Nottingham, so the split batch fermentation would be a nice test of that.

By Rob Hudson on Oct 5th 2003, 8:00 pm	Permalink
Wrote an infusion temp calculator this morning based on John Palmer's equations: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter16-3.html Hit the Calculators link and then the infusion calculator. Cheers!