Tag Archives: evaluation

Midnight Hour Brewery

Tasting & Bottling Something Else

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It is 14.6° Plato and Something Else is three weeks old. Starting at 25.2º P, the big gravity beer weighs in at a small 6.2% ABV. Before putting it all away for conditioning a little evaluation is in order.

There is a little ester in the nose. No hop aroma. The uncarbonated beer is sweet, bitter, roasty, “stout-like”, and lacks much fermentation character. Tastes a little like an over-hopped milk stout might. It sticks to your mouth.

It is close enough to be a Russian Imperial Stout, but lacks nuance due to the simplistic grainbill.

I have about 80 fluid ounces to bottle. The small volume batch is a breeze to work with. Next time I will remember to add priming sugar. Not to worry, the gravity is still drifting downward.

Midnight Hour Brewery

I Could Make Great Vinegar

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The nettle beer came down with an acetobacter infection. This is not a surprise because fermentation conditions almost encouraged it. When I made the beer, I was out of carboys after making a Newcastle Brown ale clone. Under the circumstances I used a 5-gallon bucket. Normally these vessels can make great beer, however none of my buckets have lids. I improvised a “seal” with some plastic wrap. The beer was okay when I added dry hops to it a week after fermenting and I suspect opening the seal introduced the infection.

In the interest of Science I have a few ounces of the witch’s brew in my cup and take furtive sips to get a taste for how the beer may have turned out. My eyes are a little watery. It isn’t balsamic strength, still very much a vinegar. All the alcohol became acetic acid but there is a underlying malt taste and something else which I can only attribute to the nettles. Sandwiched between the initial vinegar sourness and the finishing vinegar bite is a vegetal-peppery note that reminds me of the brew day. Hop bitterness is non-existent and there is a softness to it that you don’t get when consuming straight vinegar, which I do on occasion.

It was an experiment that failed. The follow-up experiment will improve it. Things I will change:

  • A proper lauter – I strained my grains through a colander.
  • Closed fermentation.
  • Nettles at knockout instead of the boil.

Most teas are steeped and adding leaves to boiling water can bring out bad flavors. Doing a full boil, then adding the nettles after removing the flame will better simulate this.

Midnight Hour Brewery

Review: Rye of the Hurricane II

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This beer is delicious. I already have ingredients to make it again. Soon. It’s almost out.

Previously I made it without crystal 120, but that malt adds great body and plum/raisin maltiness. While it is full-bodied the beer is not heavy. Traditional British hops give it a earthy, muddied bitterness leading into a spicy rye and Hallertau kick. The finish is peppery, slightly sweet and just a little thick on the tongue. I want more.

I really appreciate the ability to do multi-step mashes my new system gives me. For this beer I rested 20 mins at 150° F and 40 mins at 163° F which developed that full body while lending enough fermentables to the wort. The gravity settled at 1.017.

As difficult as it is, an extra few weeks conditioning will do wonders. When I tapped it the dried fruit flavors had not developed, however near the end of the keg they come through and really make the beer stellar. I recommend leaving it alone for eight weeks after taking it out of primary. 8 weeks, I thought I waited long enough for this one….

Midnight Hour Brewery

Barleywine, Bitter, Beer judging

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Last Friday, minutes before leaving for a beer-judging weekend trip to Oakland, CA, I kegged this year’s Gnarly Barleywine. Even though it has been four years since the first and last time I made this barleywine, I call it “this year’s” barleywine because it is a good enough recipe that I would like to make it yearly. Brewed on May 6th, this beer’s beginnings reach back another two weeks to a 10-gallon batch of Bitter I made as a yeast starter for the barleywine.

As I write this article, I sip the Starter Bitter. It’s an ordinary bitter on the very low end of the SG range and the very high end of the IBU bracket. That combination of attributes makes for a bad beer. The bitterness is sharp and harsh and the body is thin. Adding calcium sulfate to RO water is about the only way to “fix” my tap water, but I think I overdid it this time. Sulfur compounds accentuate harsh bitterness. It is carbonic and metallic and a healthy dose of malt flavor would really bring this beer from the brink of disaster. The bouquet has some malt sweetness, but lacks hop aroma. Pardon me while I take another draught. Next time, five more pounds of Maris Ottr. The recipe:

10 gallons of Ordinary Bitter
Fermentables

  • 12 lbs Maris Ottr Pale
  • 2 lbs Crystal 60

90 minute rest at 149° F

Hops

  • 2 oz 7.6% AA pellet Brewer’s Gold 60 minutes
  • 2 oz 5.25% AA whole EK Goldings 15 minutes

WYeast 1098 British Ale yeast. Ferment around 62° F.

A better mash program will probably help the malt profile. 149° F is at the top end of beta-amylase’s temperature range, but below alpha-amylase. Beta makes fermentable sugars and alpha makes unfermentables. As John Palmer writes: “A lower mash temperature, less than or equal to 150°F, yields a thinner bodied, drier beer.” That is exactly what I have; more malt please.

I should also note that higher fermentation temperatures will produce more of the British ester compounds that are missing from this beer.

The low starting gravity sure makes for a low-alcohol session beer. Pardon me while I pour another pint.

Moving along, the starter bitter fermented out and I transferred it to kegs. Onto the yeast cake I dumped 5 gallons of New Gnarly Barleywine:

Fermentables

  • 13.25 lbs Maris Ottr Pale
  • 2.25 lbs Honey Malt
  • 1.5 lbs Munich
  • 1 lbs Carapils Malt
  • 0.5 lbs Brown Malt

Mashed at 145° F for 60 minutes. Raised mash up to 160° F for another 30 minutes.

Hops (90 minute boil)

  • 1.5 oz 14.4% AA pellet Magnum first-wort
  • 1 oz 5.2% AA pellet Mt Hood 15 mins
  • 1 oz 5.2% AA pellet Mt Hood 5 mins
  • 2 oz 4.8% AA pellet EK Goldings 2 weeks dry hop

WYeast 1098 British Ale yeast. Ferment around 62° F.
OG: 1.092
FG: 1.018
IBU: 71 (est)

I was in a rush to get to the airport for this weekend’s Longshot competition, therefore I did not get a proper taste on the way to the keg, nor did I add the dry-hops. Adding them will give me an opportunity to have a proper taste test.

Longshot was great, as usual. This marks my third year judging at the competition and reinforced my appreciation for the Boston Beer Company. My report from 2007 will give you an idea of what it’s like. Incidentally, the best in show in our region went to a barleywine.

22 beers waiting to be judged best in show. The dude on the right is Pete Solsberg of Wicked Ale and gourmet chocolate fame. Real approachable guy – as are most brewers.

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Quickie: Do they blend?

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I am drinking a blend of half Costa Rican, half Yemeni beans roasted to full city. This blend has the deep notes I like from the Yemeni, but lacks the smooth Costa Rican flavors. Not sure if the South American bean is the right complement to the Arabian bean. Next I will try an even split between the Javanese and Yemeni beans.

The people at Sweet Maria’s are right about Yemeni beans — they really take 48 hours to rest after roasting. Yesterday, the first day after roasting, this blend was not nearly as full.

Midnight Hour Brewery

Kegged Evil Brown

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On ITAFtHD I made a brown ale from AHS. Readers will know that I really messed that one up using RO water. I came out with 15 gallons when I expected only 10 – meaning that the beers were weak. Beer #2 was a slow starter, taking two days and some krasuen from beer #1 to get going. I kegged the beers today.

Number 2 was totally spoiled. Might get it through my head now to slow down the rate at which I pass the beer through the CFC. I suspect I pitched my starter into hot wort, killing the yeast. In the end, I came out with the same volume I was expecting (10 gallons) but the wrong strength. Evil Brown #1 ought to be ready for Thanksgiving when we have company over to celebrate.

Final Gravity: 5% brix.

I also ran out of the totally delicious Rye of the Hurricane today. Gonna make that one again. The beer came out with a great dry earthy bitterness from the rye malt and Mt Hood hops. It needed a little more body so I think I will increase the ratio of Munich to pale malts.

Midnight Hour Brewery

Here is Proof My Wife Loves Me and Wants Me To Be Happy

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With apologies to Ben Franklin.

My last beer fermented a little too warm and turned out full of esters. What I am calling The Fruity Brit is still drinkable as demonstrated last night when Adie and I had eight friends over for pizza and beer. The first keg is at least three gallons light. A good time was had by all, even without chairs.

The Fruity Brit is light on hops and body. I can pretend there is a clean malt profile, but the fermentation flaws overpower that. However, I hit the alcohol content right on the button: non-offensive. The Brit’s gravity bottomed out at 4° brix falling from 6°, putting it at about 2.3% ABV. Next time I will start and end higher, and throw in more hops for good measure. My objective is to zero in on a medium-bodied, lightly hopped British session beer.

While gatherings of friends will continue, I do not anticipate unaided fermentations to turn out any better. As summer approaches, Texas ain’t getting cooler. In Redwood City I had a chest freezer with good control over bubbling carboys, but now I have fifteen gallon conicals towering four feet tall on PVC stands. Such things just do not fit in this sort of chest freezer. A proper stand-up freezer runs around $500 and Craig’s List here is pretty pathetic. Those stand-up freezers only fit one of my fermenters, but I expect to be brewing with increasing frequency.

Three weeks ago I started working on a walk-in cooler that could accommodate both my fifteen gallon conicals. Many entwined brewers might meet steep resistance from their significant others, but my beautiful wife simply smiled and told me what a great idea it was. My initial estimate for materials was two hundred dollars easy, but I will probably go over by around fifty percent. While I may get a grimace from Sweetie, I know she will support me. It makes me all warm and fuzzy thinking of how much she must love me.

To drive the cooler I have a window air conditioner (which I wanted to leave in Cali, but Adrienne insisted we keep it; how smart). Here is how my cooler starts; left to right, the frame for the bottom and top.

Basic dimensions are 4×2 and 5 feet high. The skeleton is mostly finished 2×2 furring strips with a few 2×4 studs in key places. Here it stands loose fit together.

For insulation I am using reflective bubble wrap insulation stapled to the exterior plywood:

Followed by loose-fill insulation.

Then a semi-rigid plastic interior layer glued and stapled to the frame (see below). The floor gets a layer of plywood under the plastic to support the weight of the fermenting beer. Here is a shot of the bottom corner, the frame nailed to the floor.

Today a friend, Clay, and I made a lot of progress on the cooler. He is an electrician and offered to wire up an outlet, switch and light fixture. With these features, the project goes to way-cool.

Here is the back. The large opening is the AC mount. Clay is putting the light switch in center-top in our make-shift wiring box. All of the standard-type electrical bits and bobs are made for 2×4 studs while my walls are one and three-quarters thick, so we have to be creative.

Here is Clay again working on the light fixture. It is slightly too deep for the ceiling so we shimmed it out, taking advantage of the flexible plastic to hide the protrusion. We filled this with insulation and covered in plywood.

I will get some pictures of the interior up soon. When it is done I will break down the cost of materials. Expect a second follow-up when the thing is working.

In parting, I would like to thank Adrienne for allowing this project to take up my time, our money and her “pretty living room” for three weeks, going on six. I love you sweetie.

–Dean

Midnight Hour Brewery

WTFAMH Kölsch

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The temperature dropped into the low 30’s F for a few nights last week. On one of the last such nights I put the kölsch out overnight to crash cool in preparation for transfer to a keg. That crash, three weeks of sitting and a little Irish moss have done their job. I was rewarded with a clear yellow beer.
The kölsch turned out great. Pours clear and golden with a lingering thin white head. It has a medium-light body balanced to the malty side with enough bitterness to be barely noticeable. Since it was in the fermenter for so long the FG dropped to 1.009 and it tastes just a little over-attenuated. My only gripe with it is that I only got 3.5 gallons of it.

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Day Two In St Michaels

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Day two in St Michaels. This year I discover that my uncle Ron’s taste beer is more sophisticated than most. Delighted, he tells me of the ales at the C Street Saloon on the main street (the one and only street in town). There is even an English-style ale there, which makes me salivate. My wife wants to spend the morning shopping with Aunt Dottie.

St Michaels’ town motto is “The town that fooled the British” deriving from a August 10th, 1813 ruse. The residents learned of a British plan to bombard the town and fort. Hanging lanterns from the trees, they tricked British gunners into overshooting the town. Dottie says the motto should be updated to read “The town that fooled the tourists.” Overpopulated with fashionable clothes shops, art boutiques and tourist crap shops, there is little much else to do. I endure the commerce until lunchtime at the pub.

The C Street Saloon sits on the corner of St Michaels Blvd and Carpenter Drive. Like all the shops in the town the pub was formerly a home (often Victorian style) converted to business some time in the 1950’s. The bar is separated from the restaurant, forming two long rooms comfortably seating about two dozen apiece. The faire is typical sea-shore pub food: fish, crab, burgers, etc.

There are two beers of note on the menu. The first being the aforementioned C St Ale, and another a Yuengling Porter. Yuengling’s lager is easy to find, but the porter is new to me. I decide to start with a mug of the ale. Ron tells me that it is actually brewed 50 miles away in Annapolis.

A mug of clear amber beer comes to the table. It retains a thin white head after the trip from the bar. On the nose there is a great floral hop aroma. Not much malt, but certainly noble hops. It’s cold and has a carbon dioxide bite which complements a medium bitterness. The sweetness is well attenuated leaving behind a few British malt flavors to delight the taste buds. Medium body with uncharacteristic medium-high CO2, it finished dry and bitter without begin soapy. Warm it up a little and reduce the carbonation for a great English bitter.

Next up is the Yuengling porter, black and opaque. A whiff reveals strong molasses, but not much else. It tastes sweet, but one sided. The hops are barely noticeable with their bitterness coming out halfway through the glass. Low carbonation, medium body. Overall, a disappointing shallow porter. I order another C Street ale.