Category: Homebrew

Weissenberg wheat

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As we are coming into summer, I need to have a beer that’s just for swilling out in the heat. 

One of the best beers I’ve had for that was Horney Goat wheat. I wasn’t even a fan of wheat beers when I first had this. But since then it’s been one of my goto beers when the Mercury hits 90.
I didn’t look for a clone, I just took my old American wheat and changed the hops. Wanted to get a little german feel to it. 
Weissenberg wheat. 5 gallon
4 lb 2 row
4 lb wheat
4 oz 20L
.25 oz magnum 60
1 oz Spalt 15
1 oz Spalt flame out
Muntons yeast. (Boycotting 05)
Mashed at 150
Just to try something new I put my biab bag into the mashtun instead of wrapping the manifold. 
Worked quite well I must say. I was expecting some stuckage with the wheat. But i had no problems running wide open. If it ain’t sticking with 50/50 wheat,,, it ain’t gonna stick in a normal batch. 
I believe I will be doing this from now on. 
These wheats are quick turn around beers, so should be ready for that first heatwave. 

 

Sweet Stout. The pre-game.

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My philosophy in brewing has always been to keep it as simple as possible. Roughly keeping to processes, ingredients and theories of the 17-18-1900s.
But admittedly, I am still in the dark regarding quite a few styles. Why did they brew it? Why did they use what they used? How has it changed today?

The list is pretty long, but I recently have changed my mind regarding Sweet Stout. I had always been under the impression that this style was a relatively modern style, and the use of its signature milk sugar was just a gimmick in todays brewing.
I there for had refused to brew one , much less research it. (didn’t stop me from drinking them though. I thought I would throw that in)

Was I wrong. There is a long history of not just the Sweet stout, but the milk sugar use in general. There have been documents mentioning the use of milk and/or milk sugar as far back as the late 1700s. More so in the 1800s when the fortifying of beers for workers was very common place. And there is even stories of doctors of the early 1900s prescribing Milk stouts for certain ailments!

While today we don’t use lactose to keep workers healthy, we do still use it. And in more or less, the same way. And get more or less the same results. Heavier body. Sweeter taste.

So, in finding the long history of Milk sugars in brewing, I have changed my mind. And have decided to forge ahead and brew my first Sweet stout. 
I have a pretty good idea of what I want it to taste like, and an understanding of how the sweet should play and effect the roast of a stout. So I came up with this recipe this morning.

Un-named Sweet Stout  5 gallons
8 lbs 2 row
.5 lb choc malt (450L)
.5 lb Black Patent
.5 ib roast barley
1 lb Lactose
1.5 oz Goldings (60)
Nottingham yeast.  156 mash.

It is my guess that if I just added the lactose to a stout recipe you would probably end up far too sweet. But if you were to make the stout far more roastier, the extra sweet and the extra roast will sorta mellow each other out. Well that’s what I’m hoping.
And I have learned that it’s better to have a little too much roast than not enough. After all, it’s a stout. 

I will be brewing this this week and will check back in then with the progress.




The Black Knight Oatmeal Stout

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Today’s brew is another one that was great, but then never got brewed again. Oatmeal stout. 
I actually had forgotten all about this one until I threw some oatmeal in the stout I brewed at the meeting. The oatmeal aromas and taste really jump out at you.
The last time I brewed this was 2010. I’m slightly changing it because of my growing distaste for 120L crystal. So 80L is going in instead. And instead of Mt. Hood hops I’m using Fuggles. 

Black Knight-3 gallon
4.5 lbs 2 row
6 oz roast barley
5 oz chocolate malt
5 oz 80L crystal
1 lb oatmeal
1.25 Fuggles @60
London ale III. Mashed 156
The way my kettle works is I have a false bottom over the elements. Even in the boil bag the oatmeal is sooo gummy that it completely sealed off the false bottom. 
When I started my pump to recirc, it created a suction underneath and just choked everything off. A couple stirs to open a channel and we were all good.  
So this time I did not recirc. I just stirred half way thru like mashing in the tun. 
So this time after I took the bag out I put another clean bag over the end of the outlet hose and recirculated while heating to boil. Really cleaned a bunch of gunk out that would have been strained out during the normal recirc. 
Hit the preboil of .042. And had an OG of .058.  Even right now it smelled delicious.