American Amber Ale

L's aunt is turning 50 this year and they're having a week-long celebration over the Fourth of July. Now, I was a college student for about 7 years and I've known so pretty professional drinkers but that's nothing compared to the Mackey's. The last time I drank with them was at Little Man's first birthday and I failed miserably to keep up. It was pretty embarrassing. Anyways. The point is, we'd need to bring A LOT of beer for the 1/2 week we'll be joining the festivities. They also don't drink crap beer, so we would need a lot of good beer which equals a lot of money. Instead, we decided to buy a new keg from Wilmington Homebrew and the necessary attachments to run it without a keggerator. We also got a kit for an American Amber Ale because its a good tasting but not too hoppy beer that most folks will enjoy.

We steeped .5lb Crystal 70, .25lb Munich, and .25lb Biscuit for an hour in 6 gallons of water. Like the Nut Brown, it was pretty dark after just steeping. Then, we added 6.6lb Golden Light LME and 1lb Sparkling Amber DME. During the boil, we added 1 oz each of Magnum (60), Northern Brewer (20), and Hallertau Hersbrucher (0) hops.

After Steeping.

The LME is easier to get out if its warm.

The Queen keeping an eye on things.

Original Gravity

This was our second time using liquid yeast and we were much more successful and didn't potentially contaminate the batch. This was probably our smoothest brewing session yet. Our Original Gravity was 1.055 which should give us a decently strong beer when the yeasties are done eating!

Also, for future reference, these grains made AWESOME bread!! See the Spent Grain II Post for the recipe.

British Nut Brown

We spent Memorial Day up in the mountains at my family's cabin. While we were there, we decided to check out Appalachian Homebrewing Supply in Boone. We bought her British Nut Brown Ale kit. We also collected water while were at the cabin because it is AMAZING. The water from the cabin comes from a natural spring about 100 feet from the back door, next to a small creek. The family always jokes that we could get rich selling cabin water, cabin tea, and cabin ice. L and I decided to take advantage of that for our next beer.

It's rustic, but we love it.

In the snow.

Since Father's Day was coming up, we decided to do something my Dad would like. He's not really into hoppy beers and really like Carolina Nut Brown so we decided to pick up a British Nut Brown kit for him.

The family, at Biltmore Estates, Thanksgiving 2011

Ridiculous amount of water we toted home.

 So, on to the beer. First, we steeped 1/2 lb Caramel 40 and 1/4 lb Chocolate in 6 gallons of water for an hour. After the steep, the wort was already REALLY dark! The AHB recipe really wasn't very clear (or good) so we just went with our standard procedure. It only had 6 lbs of LME so we were expecting a rather weak beer. L was busy bottling the Imperial IPA when the wort came up to a boil so I had to add the LME all by myself! It was somewhat intimidating at first but the key is to just take your time. There is no reason to get it over with as fast as possible.

Tiny grain bag at the end of the Steep.

The hops included in the kit were pretty good. 1 oz of Kent Golding for bittering (60m) and 1 oz fuggle for flavoring (20m), so it shouldn't be very hoppy. The recipe also called for 1 tablespoon of Irish Moss. Irish Moss is actually a red atlantic seaweed that helps with clarity by convincing the small yeast particles to clump together and for bigger particles that fall out of solution more easily.

Irish Moss. Misleading Name.

Nobby and Bird really enjoy when we're home on the weekend, but they aren't too fond of brew days because it requires that our attention be taken away from them for most of the day. Nobby, however, loves the towels we put on the floor to prevent slipping. She loves anything that smells funky.

Nobby <3 Towel.

After the boil, we chilled the wort with our awesome immersion cooler and pitched the re-hydrated yeast.
 

Happy Yeasties.

After a week in primary and two in secondary, we bottled the Nut Brown. We did a dozen bottles for my dad and six for us. Then, we kegged the rest. It should be ready tomorrow! Bottling is such a pain. Especially when trying to use Lone Rider Bottles. The labels are WAY to sticky. Just don't try.

Bottling Blows!

The original gravity we wrote down for this beer was 1.068. The final gravity was 1.013 giving a ABV of 7.22%. Now, this doesn't really make sense with the amount of malt in the beer. According to this calculator, our OG should have been 1.046 which would give an ABV of 4.33%. I think that makes much more sense, but L is pretty sure he read the hydrometer correctly. We'll find out tomorrow when one beer either gets me tipsy or doesn't!

Imperial IPA Kegging/Bottling and Tasting!

L has a new favorite beer! The Imperial IPA kit from Wilmington Homebrew with high gravity and hop modifications is DELICIOUS! It is extremely hoppy and very well balanced. We ended up bottling about half of it because we didn't think we would be able to drink 5 gallon in three-ish weeks because it was going to be so hoppy. I'm pretty sure L is very disappointed that we didn't keg more. It was gone in about a week.

This was our first significant bottling experience. I can definitely understand why a lot of people brew one batch and quit. The bottling process, between cleaning, sanitizing, filling, capping, cleaning again, labeling, and aging, is a bit ridiculous. Definitely not something we want to do on the regular. One thing we learned is that you CAN NOT reuse Stella Artois bottles! It will break your capper!

Cleaning the bottles - if you're lucky, the labels come off here too.

Filling bottles.

Capping bottles, not a fun task for a 6'4" dude with back problems.

Opps. Stella bottles don't work.

Lots of Imperial IPA!

Our awesome logo I designed on the labels L designed.

"Dude, this is awesome!"

It is quite pretty.

We took it IPA over to L's parents house for a taste test along side Harpoon IPA and Sweetwater IPA. The Harpoon really wasn't very hoppy at all and tasted more like a regular American Pale. It was my favorite. The Sweetwater was just really, really hoppy, but didn't have enough of a malty flavor to balance it out. L like ours the best as it was both hoppy and balanced.

Spent Grain Bread II

I'm currently at work (!!) but I wanted to go ahead and write down the recipe I used for spent grain bread last night. I think I might be getting close to a final product and I don't want to forget it!

Sponge:
1/3c honey, warmed
1/2c water, warmed
1c whole wheat flour
1c spent grains
4tsp active dry yeast

Dough: 
1 egg
1/4c olive oil (or butter)
2c spent grains (food processed)
2c whole wheat flour
1c bread flour (plus extra)
2tsp salt
5tbs vital wheat gluten

Start by warming 1/3c honey and 1/2c water (or milk, if you're not on an alpha-gal diet like me) to around 100-110°. Don't go over 120° or you'll kill the yeast. Add that to 1c whole wheat flour and 1c spent grains, mix well. Then add the yeast. You'll need something crazy like 4tsp because of all the grains. Let this sit somewhere warm for about an hour. I usually turn my oven on for about a minute then turn it off and let it sit inside.

After the sponge has fluffed up, add 1 egg, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 cups proceed grains, 2 cups sifted whole grain flour, 1 cup sifted bread flour, 2tsp salt, and 4tbs vital wheat gluten. Mix in the wet ingredients, then the dry. Start kneeding the dough and add more sifted bread flour until the consistency is right. I think this recipe ends up with a slightly-too-sticky dough and I always want to add more flour, but it would end up too dense.

The dough should kneed for 10 minutes on speed 2 in a mixer. Can't say how long you should kneed by hand because I don't do it that way. Once the dough is kneeded, roll it in a ball, and place it in a greased bowl to rise. I also put wet paper towels over the top to prevent drying. Again, I warm my oven slightly and let it rise inside.

It should rise for about an hour before you punch it down. Divide the dough into two even loaves. If you like free-form bread, shape as desired, set on greased pan and let rise. If you like nice, sandwich-shaped bread, pat the dough out into a rectangle about 9" by 12". Roll the dough into a pipe type shape then tuck the ends under. This will give you a nicely-shaped loaf.

Again, let the dough rise in a slightly warm oven for AT LEAST an hour. The dough won't rise much more during baking so you should essentially let it rise all the way to the size you want your loaf to be before cooking. Bake the bread at 375° for about 45 minutes. Because it's a pretty hardy bread, you'll want the internal temperature to reach 205° to 210°.

One important consideration for the whole wheat to bread flour ratio is the type of grains used in your beer. When I made bread out of the British Nut Brown grains, the bread was MUCH heavier and darker and really couldn't handle a 3:1 ratio. Essentially, the lighter the color of the beer, the more whole grain flour you can use. But, when you have darker malts, like the chocolate malt in the Nut Brown, you need to decrease the amount of whole wheat flour in favor of bread flour to compensate for the grains.

Pictures will be up shortly!