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7-22-11 the Dark Ale

stoutmakerLeave a comment

Ok I know i wanted to re do a few beers before starting a new one but oh well.
Dark ale, Cascadian black ale, what ever you wanna call it. I liked everyone I tried so far, so lets try our own.

I chose:
4 lbs maris otter
4 lbs 2 row
1 lbs 40L
1 oz chinook @ 60
.5 oz cascade at 15
.5 oz cascade at 0
Windsor yeast

but to get it black I am gonna steep 1 lbs of black patent in cold water for a few hours. Then use that water for the mash water. I wanna get the color, but not the roast.

Wow. looks pretty black right now as I’m pouring it in.
After 45 min, I took a taste and no roasty at all. gonna let it go for a while.
After an hour and a half it defiantly tastes different, just a tad bit of roast. I’m gonna drain it now and save the water for later.

right before I started heating the water I decided to do a second run of the black patent for the second sparge. So I collected another 3 1/2 gallons

ok ready to start heating the mash water. she is black as black can be.
So I got 4 gallons of this black water heating to 160 to hopefully mash at 154.

Ok i think were are going to settle at 153 and thats good enough. hit the 60 min timer.
Hey we got 3 gallons out of the first sparge and I have another 3 1/2 gallons going into second batch. Pretty good guessing.

Ok we got boil. In go all the Chinooks. sure looks black in there
15 left of boil. in go half of the Cascades and the chiller. everything is going pretty good
0! we are at flame out, in go the rest of the cascades.

Wow I am actually surprised at how fast we chilled down. its like 90 out here. thought it would take all night.
tastes like I was hoping it would so far.

gonna pitch the yeast and thats it.

oh yea out OG is 1.050

In the Heat

stoutmakerLeave a comment

We are right in the middle of the heat of summer. I dont really have a problem with ferment temps, its the 90 degrees and 80% humidity during the mash and boil.
Of course I can just wait till later on and brew closer to dark when its a bit cooler. Yea right. Mosquitos the size of golf balls will quickly drain you of all fluids.
But we are getting pretty low on supplies and will need to brew soon in order to not run dry. What a perfect time to try and fix some of the recipes that didn't quite end up like I wanted.

I haven't had any real disasters, just a few tweeks here and there. The first one I am going to mess with is the Fogger Stout.
When I first made this beer, I can say that I was pretty disappointed at first. Even in the fermenter it looked deep dark red, not black. And the taste wasnt what I wanted. I dont know if it was the hops, but something was not right. But I will chalk this to the cluster hops. First time I have used them in a stout. just wasnt expecting them.

But I do gotta say that after letting this sit in the fridge for a few weeks, it really came around. I would be more than happy to leave it as is except for 1 thing. Its fairly thin, and even though its a “dry” stout. its pretty dry. Although I forgot to take an FG.
So what I want to do with the stout is get a bit more body, and maybe slightly sweeter. But mostly body. With 2 lbs of flaked barley, my thinking was that that would provide all the body I would want so I mashed at 152. I think if i raise mash temp to 155 I will solve both. More body and sweeter.

As far as color goes, I want this black. Not dark dark dark brown. Black. But I dont want ashtray either. So I think we are gonna cold steep some black patent. I'm thinkin about 1/2 lbs in the cold mash water before heating should give me black but no, or very little roasty.

Next I'd like to work on the “mild”. It wasnt supposed to be a mild, but rather a southern brown.
I think I have the basic formula down. But am going to adjust to more special roast, and instead of special B gonna sub in crystal 120. Maybe bump it up another 1/2 lbs. I think thats all that I need to move this into the Southern Brown range.
Thats about all I got planned till it cools off a bit, but will be ready in case I see a cool spell a comin.

6-30-11 kegging the Woot!

stoutmakerLeave a comment

Finally got around to kegging the Woot!zenbock.
Its about time. Think its been sitting for 4 weeks.

Had to prime this one with sugar because I dont have any room in the fridge. Never used sugar before so interested in seeing how this turns out. Boiled up about a half cup of sugar and dumped it in the keg as we were syphoning. Got er all mixed up good and bottled up a 6’er out of it.
Took a FG reading and came out with 1.010. pair that with the 1.075 OG and we get about 8.5 abv. Pretty decent.
Of course we had to have a few samples before we put it away. I think I drank 2 pints. stuff is good. Pretty sure that once this hits the fridge it will be gone.