Oktoberfest Recipe! [Homebrewing]

June 21, 2011  |  1 Comments  |  by Matt Hufford  |  Homebrew, Homebrew Recipes

I foresee a few questions upfront about me posting this recipe.

  • Didn’t you already brew this weekend?  How much do you need to brew? What are you doing with all the beer???No, I did not.  The previous recipe I posted this weekend was actually brewed last weekend.  I’ve been posted them a while after I had brewed them.  I am lazy.  I am going to make an effort to post these within a day or two of brewing.  My friends tend to drink a lot of my beer.  I don’t mind at all, as it means I get to brew more.  I think the only time I complained was when I brewed a beer so delicious that I didn’t want to share it with anyone else.
  • Why are you brewing an Oktoberfest beer so early?  October is so far away!Oktoberfest is in September, not October.  Don’t ask me why; ask those silly Germans.  Maybe it has something to do with schadenfreude?   (Ok, yes, my ancestors are from Germany, but I have no idea why.  Maybe Wikipedia could inform you as to why.)
  • Oktoberfest beers are lagers, not ales.  You used the wrong yeast and fermentation temperature.You got me there.  I currently don’t have the equipment or space to be able to brew a lager.   I want to age it at lagerish temps using some kind of aging chamber and ice.  No idea how this will work out, or even how I will do it.  I figure I have a few weeks to figure this out, as I will probably also be priming the keg with sugar to carbonate it.  This probably won’t end up happening as time/effort/cost could be prohibitive.  If successful, I will probably try to age all of by beers like this.  If anyone has any suggestions/ideas, I would be glad to hear them.

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Bottling Of “Parting” IPA and Over-Wintered Lager [Homebrew]

May 11, 2011  |  Comments Off  |  by Ben Czajkowski  |  Homebrew

There’s nothing more glorious than waking up to have your bathroom smell like hops.

Last night, I bottled roughly 10 gallons of beer. This will be the final time I bottle beer in my Dayton rental home. Next week, I am saying goodbye to the Midwest and making my way to the coastal state of Maryland, just outside of Baltimore.

A little more than two weeks ago, I brewed my “Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow” IPA. Last week, around this time, I dry-hopped that batch with a ton of Centennial. I didn’t bother to weigh; I dumped hops into a 2oz measuring glass. Therefore, I have no idea what the actual weight is. When I removed the lid on the bucket, though, to dry-hop, the entire lid was just covered in beautiful mountains of hops. This sucker fermented vigorously. The end result was 48 bottles, which include 5-6 bombers, which are much bigger bottles than your normal size. A massive yield that will tide my need for IPAs over for a long while.

The second batch…well, I am not proud to admit this. Like with gardening and other outdoor-related hobbies, when it got cold, I got lazy and forgetful. So, this pilsner-based lager that I mixed up at the end of October has sat in my basement for… 6 months, unopened and unmolested. I thought, for sure, that it was going to be just absolutely infested with a bacterial colony unlike any other.

Nope. She was good to go. So, I bottled the pils-lager, and it produced about 2 cases. A good yield for a beer that was sitting around for half a year. I was a little weary on sampling, but I have to say, this beer went down smooth and was flavorful. No hint of infection or off-flavoring. So, I’ll try to drink this batch quickly. Since I’ll have a much larger fridge, the likelihood of this happening has significantly increased.

Oh, and why did my bathroom smell like hops? Because that is where I cleaned my two fermentors and bottling bucket before bed. All that trub got flushed, but there was some minute splash-damage that I was too tired to try to clean up. Totally worth it.

And The Beer Turned Green, Homebrew Saturday [Homebrewing]

November 14, 2010  |  2 Comments  |  by Ben Czajkowski  |  Homebrew
India Cream Ale with Spalt Hops

India Cream Ale with Spalt Hops

Beer generally comes in a range of golden-yellow ales to dark-as-night imperial stouts. Occasionally, you run into an Irish red, and on St. Patrick’s Day, you can expect your BMC beers to be dyed a Slimer shade of green.

Well, today isn’t St. Patrick’s Day; nor is it even close. The ending effect wasn’t intentional, but after SEVEN ounces of hops, it was bound to happen. The wort, as it came out of the mash tun, was extremely pale, almost ghost-like in its fashion. For an India Cream ale, both of these were to be expected. I fully think that once the hops have a chance to settle out in conditioning that this batch will be quite clean.

This morning started off at a beautiful 55 degrees in the Miami Valley. “Wait Wait Let Me Guess” was on NPR, and Matt Hufford and I cruised to fill the propane tank and picked up some lunch before really starting out. Today, I brewed a recipe from Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass by Randy Mosher. (As an aside, if you use this book, please consult its errata. They clearly did not edit this book, to start.) I finally settled on “Hinky Dink India Cream Ale” recipe:

7.5lbs Pilsner malt
2.0lbs Munich malt

0.75lbs corn sugar (I used a little more because I had less than a pound, but greater than three-quarters. No use for a small amount)

1.5oz Spalt @ 60 minutes
2oz Spalt @ 30 minutes
3oz Spalt @ 5 minutes

For yeast, I settled on a strand of Octoberfest Lager Yeast. My basement stays at a constant 60-66 degrees, so leaving this one in the fermentor for three weeks is a must. Maybe four, if I’m lazy.

Now, this was my first time using Spalt hops, a traditional German noble. These little green pellets of joy come from a place called Spalt, a region south of Nuremberg, and it is a traditional hop that is known as a landrace variety. Spalt is a perfect lager-style hops; it was extremely aromatic. It had moments where it smelled almost like a pine forest, to me.

As you could see in the picture above, after the sixth and seventh ounces of hops at the five minute mark, it gave the beer a nice green tinge. When I poured the wort into the primary fermentor, the soon-to-be potent potable was sludgy. I need to think of a good way to bottle this batch without clogging up my bottling wand.

Belgian-American IPA

October 30, 2010  |  Comments Off  |  by Matt Hufford  |  Homebrew

While perusing through Radical Brewing, I found a recipe for a Belgian-American IPA.  Since I love Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch, I figured I’d give it a go.  I modified the recipe a bit because part of it was a bit ambiguous and because I like Centennial hops.  Here is what I used as a recipe:

9.75 lbs pilsner malt
1.5 lbs CaraMunich malt

2 oz of Liberty 60min
2 oz Saaz 30min
1 oz Centennial 5min

Pitched a vial of White Labs’ Belgian Ale Yeast (WLP550).

Homebew Sunday: Random Pilsner Recipe [Homebrewing]

October 24, 2010  |  Comments Off  |  by Ben Czajkowski  |  Homebrew
Random Chocolate Pilsner

Random Chocolate Pilsner

Batch number 12 of 2010. I have a bunch of grain and most of a pound of hops in the freezer. Not sure how much longer @mhufford and I will be brewing this season. So I decided to throw this one together:

10.0lbs pilsner
1.0lbs wheat malt
.5.0lbs chocolate malt

1.5oz centennial 60min
.5oz challenger 30min
.5oz northern brewer 30min

lager yeast

White Labs South German Lager

Then I used a tube of White Labs South German Lager yeast for giggles.