Christmas Gift!

My wonderful wife got me a great Christmas gift this year for the system. She surprised me with a ThermoWorks Thermapen.

ThermoWorks - Splash-Proof Thermapen Thermometer

I had been speaking about how best I could calibrate the probes and thermometers on my system, and mentioned I needed a good tool to help with this. There are several ways I have read that people calibrate their thermometers. The most straight forward is an ice water test to dial in 32 degrees. The other is a boil test. Water boils at 212 degrees, but will vary slightly based on altitude which should be factored in. However most of the brewing temps I am trying to monitor is around 150-170 degrees, so when possible it is best to calibrate directly within that range.

My new Thermopen comes certified Pre-calibrated to within +/- 0.7 degrees F. I spent a bit of time yesterday taking off the temp probe from my Mash Tun, and my HLT. I warmed up some water to around 155 degrees, then used the Thermopen along with the probes to dial-in the PID calibration. It probably only took me 10 minutes to get both PID's calibrated. As I watched the temperature of the water cooling in the cup I was using, you could see the temps drop at the exact same time for both probes. That was a great sight to see!

What I did previously was to take an average of all the thermometers and probes that came to me. They all state they have been calibrated before shipping, but the reality is there was easily a 5 degree difference between the largest extremes of what came out of the box. It turns out I was pretty close, only around 1 degrees off.

Now that my system is dialed in, I plan to brew tomorrow an interesting Chocolate Mint Stout. Also the revisited Holiday Ale is really finding its stride right now and is ready to drink. The tweaks did what we hoped between the first batch and the second batch. We will be submitting this for a competition being held by Middle Brow here in Chicago. This would be our first competition submission. We have no expectations of winning, but it will be great feedback.

More to come tomorrow after the brew day!

Batch #8 - Holiday Prowler Ale Revisited

After making Batch #6, we felt though a good beer, it didn't hit the flavor profile we were looking for.  The very successful Holiday Prowler Ale from last year was an extract based recipe, so we needed to make an all-grain version of this.  Our tasting notes of Batch #6 are that it is a little too dark, there is too much Chocolate Malt on the front end, and the spices (we think later identified as Allspice) we too much.  With that said we wanted to reduce the Chocolate Malt, and the spices.

In working Batch #6's amounts, I allowed my software to increase the amounts based on a 12 gallon brew.  In reality we try to end up with 12 gallons at the end of the boil, but are ultimately only trying to make 10 gallons.  You will lose some in the transfer as you can't get it all, and the beer will shrink a bit when it goes from 210 degrees to 65 degrees.  Later you will lose a bit more when you transfer to secondary because yeast and proteins settle down to the bottom which is about .5" thick.  With all that said the software took what should have been 5 units for a 5 gallon batch, and made it 12 units.  This really added 20% more spices/etc.  than was probably needed.  We dialed it down to be based on 10 gallons this go around.

Lastly we think we also made three mistakes during the first batch we made.  I think we forgot to take out the chlorine of our water.  We also forgot to use Molasses as the recipe calls for, in my converting I forgot to include that ingredient.  In addition we think we pitched all the spices at the start of the brew last time, and not just the last 15 minutes.  We don't remember that last part for sure, but we do remember smelling the wonderful smell of spices for a long time that day.

Here is the revised recipe:

20 lbs - US 2-Row

2 lbs - Crystal Malt 80L

1.5 lbs - Crystal Malt 20L

.5 lbs - Chocolate Malt

3 lbs - Clove Honey

4 oz - Molasses

Additives - To be added in last 15 minutes of boil

8 - Cinnamon Sticks

1 tsp - Nutmeg

2 - Vanilla Beans split lengthwise

3 tsp - Cloves (whole, not ground)

14 each - Allspice (whole, not ground)

4 each - Zest of Orange

2.5 tsp - Irish Moss

Hops

2 oz - Cluster - 45 Min

2 oz - Willamette - 15 Min

We mashed for 60 minutes with 30 qt of water at 152 degrees.  After 60 min we brought up to 170 degrees to mash out and sparge.  In total we brought over 14.5 gallons of wort for then a 60 minute boil.  You start for 15 minutes with nothing but the sugars in adding the Honey and Molasses.  We then add the Cluster hops 15 minutes in, then 45 minutes in we add the spices and remaining hops.

The color was looking much better this time, closer to last year.  I think we also really identified the proper differences from the last batch and corrected for this batch.  I think it will end up being much smoother as we are going for, and delicious!

Here are the specs:

IBU's - 24.86

Color - 17.3 SRM

Calories - 215 per 12 oz

Estimated OG - 1.066

Actual OG - 1.069

Estimated FG - 1.016

Estimated ABV - 6.55%

New Estimated ABV from Actual OG - 6.94%

We do our calculation based on an 83% efficiency of our system.  The software is telling us we hit 88% efficiency.  I suspect the higher rating, which also resulted in a higher OG, due to the honey and molasses and how the software is calculating.  It is always possible we are getting more efficient, but I suspect not that much.

Because of all the flavors in this batch, it does well to sit and age for a while.  We still have a few more weeks to X-Mas, so our current batch that is drinkable now should only get better.  This batch won't be ready to drink at its soonest 12/29, but will be at its best a few weeks after that.

Batch #7 - Whiskey Oak Aged Ale

We are big fans over here of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.  Most bourbon barrel beers I have tried are generally based on Stouts.  I enjoy a good Stout, but I tend to enjoy Ale's more.  This beer is a smooth beer that is well balanced.  We decided to try to make a similar beer here.

Researching the internet, it was hard to find a solid recipe for this.  There is much debate out there on several aspects of a beer like this.  Most people feel that the recipe is probably based on the brewery's Kentucky Ale recipe, which is a blend of an Irish Red ale and English Pale Ale.  However there are not many Pale Ale characteristics (I feel) in the KBBA, so I decided to go with a straight Irish Red Ale recipe to use as the base.

Here is the recipe we used:

20 lbs  - US 2-Row
2.16 lbs - Crystal Malt 40L
2.16 lbs - Briess Carapils
1.62 lbs - White Wheat Malt

Mash was a 90 minute mash at 150 degrees with 33.75 quarts of water.  We mashed out at 170 degrees and Sparged for 60 minutes.

Hops
24 g - Goldings, East Kent - 90 minutes
24 g - Fuggles - 45 Min
12 g - Fuggles - 15 Min
2 each - Whirfloc Tablets 15 Min

Boil was for 90 minutes.

Yeast
Wyeast 1098 - British Ale

Fermentation at 64 degrees

The second discussion is how to best oak.  Some people use oak chips, some oak cubes, some oak spirals, some oak barrels, some oak for a couple of weeks, some oak for months, some pour whiskey directly into the beer.  As you can see no one has a concrete formula, there is trial and error here.  With that we were going to split our batch into two batches and try to methods.  The first method was going to be a used 5-Gallon oak whiskey barrel.  The second method was going to be soaking an American Oak, medium char spiral in whiskey for 4+ weeks.  For the oak spiral I used Single Barrel Jack Daniels.  No particular amount, just enough to soak the entire oak spiral.

Unfortunately the place I had identified to get used whiskey barrels ended up selling out.  I did not act fast enough!  I decided when I transferred to secondary to transfer both batches, but only put the oak spiral in one of the batches and sit tight on the other hoping the place would get more oak barrels.  After waiting about 2 weeks though, no more oak barrels have showed up so I went ahead and got a second oak spiral soaking in whiskey now.

Tasting of this brew at the time of transfer was great.  It is a very smooth beer on its own.  I might have to make this as a simple ale later on.  We then did a tasting a week later of the batch that had the whiskey soaked oak spiral, and I can tell this is going to be good.  It isn't on the money in taste right now with the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, but it is tasting real good as its own.  We are going to sample the beer weekly to determine when to pull off the oak.  As mentioned above there is great debate on how long the oak should stay in.  People indicate it is easy to go overboard.  It has everything to do with volume and oak surface area, so it will vary.

More to come later with more tastings!

Here are the key metrics on this batch:

IBU's - 14.54
Color - 8.6 SRM
Calories - 245 per 12 oz (ouch!)
OG - 1.075
Anticipated FG - 1.019
Actual FG - 1.020
Anticipated ABV - 7.34% (the whiskey may increase that part)
Actual ABV - 7.21% (not factoring in whiskey)

We hit our efficiency of 83% on the nose for this batch.