it had to happen eventually
No new brews. I’m still recovering from the disappointing loss of the hefeweizen and the unsatisfactory result of the improvised Fat Tire. Both seem to be the victim of the summer heat and humidity.
I’m pretty sure I let the hefeweizen sit too long… I brewed the batch on June 28th, and transferred it to the secondary on July 9th. I had planned on kegging it on the 28th but noticed a rather large patch of mold growing in the airlock. Closer examination of the beer revealed some white specks suspended in the brew just below the surface with a few clusters actually floating on the surface. The top one and a half inches of the brew also showed some discoloration and was noticeably cloudier than the liquid below. After conferring with Scott I was determined to see it through and give the beer a fair chance in the keg. After moving it as gently as I could to kitchen I noticed that the brew had stirred enough to disturb all the specks and what little sediment there was at the bottom. Given the various things that had floated to the top during fermentation, I opted to give it several more hours to settle than I normally would. When I came back to check on it, I noticed the specks that had previously been suspended near the surface were now freely floating throughout the entire brew, and the dark ring of liquid near the top had completely vanished. Dissipated throughout the rest of the beer I assumed. Letting the beer sit overnight didn’t make a noticeable difference either. I had no confidence in the brew at this point, but was still willing to give it a chance. Pulling out the airlock and stopper let loose a rather unpleasant scent from the carboy and caused me to write it off as a total loss. Just to make sure I wasn’t being overly sensitive I had Dakota give it a sniff and he concurred with my assessment.
The improvised Fat Tire had a far shorter stay in the carboys, but still longer than normal. The brew seemed to be suffering from the early stages of an infliction similar to the Raspberry Wheat’s. There were a couple of very small specks on the surface which may have just been bubble clusters, but it was difficult to tell. A greasy looking film also covered the surface of the brew, which could possibly be normal, but I’ve certainly never noticed it before. It smelled fine, but the taste wasn’t quite right. I decided to move forward and keg it anyway. After letting it sit in the keg for a few days it still tastes a little off, but everyone else seems to like it well enough.
In happier news, the Raspberry Wheat can definitely be counted as a success. Next time though I think I’ll wait for Raspberries to be in season and use a lot more than 10 ounces and try to cut the Raspberry flavoring out of the recipe all together.
It’s encouraging that the razz brew turned out as well as it did. Having two batches turn out so mediocre (as far as I’m concerned anyway) and one not turn out at all had really killed my confidence in brewing. I want to brew again as soon as possible, and keep the fermenting time as short as I can. I’m going to aim for a one week stay in the primary fermenter, followed by one week in the secondary, then keg it. Not sure what recipe to go with this time, but I’m leaning towards giving the hefeweizen another shot.
time for another beer, or seven
Though I haven’t been posting, I’ve been faithfully keeping notes. I should start somewhere, and what better place than beer? Since the previously mentioned Pear Beer effort I’ve…
Not much to say about the Irish Red, I shared most of it with friends, and it was very well received. I’ll probably brew it again. Great color, a balanced taste, and just the right amount of head on it.
The Fat Tire clone was what you’d expect. As long as I have the kegerator running, I’ll always have this on tap, or at least, I’ll try to.
The Porter turned out beautifully, even if it’s the wrong time of year for it. I wasn’t wholly confident in it initially, but it’s matured very well in the keg. When tapped, the brew yields a rich chocolate mousse colored head. The flavor carries a very rich taste and has just a hint of chocolate in the nose and aftertaste. Very exciting.
The Bier de Mars is pretty disappointing. I wound up using dry extract rather than a liquid, and I think I might have skewed my measurements trying to compensate for the dry extract being stronger than the liquid. I plan on going back to review my notes then try the brew again. Considering that Bier de Mars is undoubtedly my favorite New Belgium offering I’d really like to get this one right. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to invite Scott or one of the Black Star Pub brewer guys over to have some and help me figure out where I went wrong. In the future I’ll probably try to err on the side of too much rather than too little given my taste in brews.
I’m still yet to name any of my beers. The reason for this, at least partially, is that since all of my brewing has consisted of other peoples recipes, I don’t really feel entitled to naming the brews. On that note though, I’ve recently picked up ‘The Joy of Homebrewing’ and ‘Designing Great Beers’ and hope to come up with an original¹ recipe sometime in the months ahead. Needless to say, this is something I’m very excited about.
¹ relatively speaking of course. it would be nigh impossible to do something that hasn’t been done before.
baby, it’s all about pectin
So, after hearing back from Scott, boiling the pureed pears may not have been the brilliant stratagem I had envisioned. Apparently, when you boil fruit you activate a little thing called Pectin, which would be great if you were making jellies, but perhaps not so much for making beer. I transferred it¹ to the secondary fermenter for dry hopping last Sunday evening and took the opportunity to taste it. It tasted fine, with a soothing pear aftertaste, so I’m still optimistic. Hazey, carrot-juice looking beer be damned.
However, on the other earlier brew front:
Success!
¹ Possible names: The Devil went up To Oregon, PearBear, Parrotjuice
beer, beer, beer, beer, PEAR!
For my sophomore homebrew effort, I had originally planned on trying a 1554 clone recipe I got from a fellow homebrewing flickrite, flickeree, flickerer. However, once I got to Austin Homebrew Supply I started discussing beers and recipes with Billy and inevitably the conversation lead to the Golden Monkey.
Unfortunately, they don’t have a Golden Monkey clone available, nor were they aware of one, but one of the AHS guys recommended their Devil’s Brew Recipe. At checkout, another AHS guy Scott mentioned that a friend of his recently used the recipe and added some pear juice, which resulted in a brew he was extremely happy with. Simple enough, so I jotted down a note to add a pint of pear juice to the mash.
Simple enough indeed! I couldn’t find 100% pear juice anywhere. Even in the grocer’s hippy section. Never mind that I only searched one grocer. Being very set on Pear beer at this point, I opted to take matters into my own hands. I ended up with about 2.5 lbs of pears, which I skinned, quartered and then pureed in a food processor. I boiled 2 cups of the resulting pear sauce in 2 cups of water for 10 minutes, which was then shortly added into the mash along with the flavor hops. The resulting wort had a subtle enough pear scent, but now that it’s been fermenting for almost a week in my closet, the delicious aroma of pears is nearly overwhelming.
I’m still excited about this beer, but not nearly as excited as I am about the prospect of all my clothes smelling like pears.