Mead Day 2011

I know, I know, I'm working on my BJCP Challenge, but I couldn't pass up and excuse to try something different.  This one came in the form of Mead Day 2011 on August 6th.  I have only tried to make one mead in the past, but it didn't turn out that well since it was allowed to be exposed to a bit too much oxygen, and ended up well, oxidizing, also I was using store bought honey which does not have a track record for producing great mead.  Instead of just trying to wing it again, I decided I better go the safe route and I picked up The Compleat Meadmaker : Home Production of Honey Wine From Your First Batch to Award-winning Fruit and Herb Variations by Ken Schramm.  Although I didn't make it through the whole book by the time this mead day came around, I made it through most of the important basic parts.

I basically used the Medium Sweet Orange Blossom Mead on page 25, but I adjusted it for the honey that I bought on eBeeHoney.com, 12 lbs of raw wild flower honey, and I decided to go for the no heat method since I did not want to lose any of the honey aromas.  eBeeHoney seems like an excellent source for my mead honeys, they have reasonable prices, have quite the variety of honeys and are relatively close, so shipping costs are not too unreasonable.

Here's the recipe that I used since when I taste and review this recipe, it may be at least six months from now.

1 Gallon of Wildflower Honey (12 lbs)
4 Gallons of Filtered Water
2 Tbsp Yeast Nutrient
1 Tbsp Yeast Energizer
2 Packets Lavalin K1-V1116 - INRA - Montpellier

Using the no heat method, I just mixed all of these things together in one of my fermentation buckets and hooked up my aquarium pump to it.  I'm going to let the pump keep going until Sunday afternoon since in many places I have read that it is advantageous to continually aerate the must for a couple days after pitching.  After primary and secondary have been completed, I plan on racking the mead onto toasted French oak chips for a week or so in order to infuse some of the vanillins and tannins from the wood and give the mead much more depth.

Although this was a fun departure from my strict brewing schedule I'm quite excited to get back to my BJCP challenge.  Next up, Vienna Lager...

Primary: German Pilsner, Wildflower Mead
Secondary: Lite American Lager, Ginger Ale 
Total for 2011: 65 Gallons

Recipe and Review (R&R): Chili Lime Pilsner

This chili lime pilsner isn't exactly what I would hope it to be, but I can't complain.  The base beer, an American Pilsner, is spot on.  The flavorings I used however, are not.  The lime flavor is a bit stronger and more earthy (most likely because I used zest rather than the juice) than I hoped for, and the chili peppers are a bit weak, but it is an excellent summertime beer.

Here is my 33 Beers entry:



And now for the recipe:

Chili Lime Pilsner - 2 Gallon

23 Specialty Beer (Classic American Pilsner)

Author: Aaron Piskorowski

Size: 2.0 gal
Efficiency: 70.0%
Attenuation: 81.0%

Original Gravity: 1.053 (1.044 - 1.060)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (1.010 - 1.015)
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Color: 2.79 (3.0 - 6.0)
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Alcohol: 5.65% (4.5% - 6.0%)
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Bitterness: 49.1 (25.0 - 40.0)
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Ingredients:

1.0 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt
1.5 lb Corn Flaked (Maize)
1.5 lb Belgian Pils
0.25 lb Cara-Pils® Malt
0.5 oz Cascade (7.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
0.5 oz Cascade (7.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
3 ea De Arbol Chili Peppers - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
2.5 tbsp Lime zest - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.0 ea WYeast 2124 Bohemian Lager

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.16


Primary: Lite American Lager, Ginger Ale
Carbonating: Honey Dunkelweisen
Total for 2011: 60 Gallons

Recipe and Review (R&R): Marygrace's Belgian Blonde Ale

For all of the headaches that it has given me, regarding its carbonation issues, this Belgian Blonde Ale has to be one of my favorite beers that I have brewed.  There is the spice of the traditional Belgian Blonde, and it has a full body that lingers with you for a long time.  It falls outside of where the traditional guidelines say it should be, but what fun is brewing if you always follow the rules.

Below are some of my notes from 33 Bottles of Beer regarding this batch as well as the recipe.  If anyone has any questions or comments, let me know.

Marygrace's Blonde

18-A Belgian Blond Ale
 
Author: Aaron Piskorowski

Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 76.0%
Attenuation: 90.5%

Original Gravity: 1.071 (1.062 - 1.075)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.007 (1.008 - 1.018)
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Color: 7.15 (4.0 - 7.0) 
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Alcohol: 8.4% (6.0% - 7.5%)
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Bitterness: 20.6 (15.0 - 30.0)
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Ingredients:

0.75 lb Honey Malt
5 lb Belgian Pils
3.0 lb Dry Extra Light Extract
1.0 lb Candi Sugar Clear
1.0 oz Hallertau (4.7%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 oz Spalt Spalter (2.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.0 ea WYeast 3711 French Saison

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.16

Secondary: Honey Dunkelweisen, Wedding IPA

Total for 2011: 53 Gallons

Cascade-Honey Ice Cream

Well, we forgot to take out some meat from the freezer for dinner tonight so we ended up going out to the Blue Monk.  I've been there a couple times, but this was one of my first eating there.  I'm not going into a whole post about a dinner, but I will say that one of the beers I had, Goose Island's Dominique was quite exceptional.  It was a sour/wild ale, and it makes me anxious for the weather in Buffalo turn warmer so I can start to harvest my own yeast.

On to the post.  One of my other passions besides brewing beer is making ice cream.  There's just something about making your own ice cream that's satisfying, much like brewing beer.  I've been wanting to combine the two for some time now, and I finally saw the opportunity to make a move with some whole Cascade hops that I had.

If anyone has an ice cream maker, here is the recipe I came up with:
3 heaping tbsp Cascade hops
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup half and half
6 egg yolks
3/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bring 1 cup of milk to a boil then remove from heat.  Add hops and let steep for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, beat honey, flour and salt into the egg yolks.  Strain the hop infused milk into the egg mixture, add half and half and return to heat.  Be careful not to boil at this point, because the eggs will scramble.  This mixture needs to be thickened up to a custard.  Then remove from heat, strain again, and add the heavy cream.  Then, the mixture just needs to refrigerate until cold and then should be frozen in your ice cream maker.

If the ice cream is made as above, it will end up being an off white/cream color.  I suggest adding two drops of green food coloring to give it a nice light olive tint.

I enjoyed this ice cream, although as I have said in the past, I am not a hop head.  I think the best way to enjoy this, if you are like me, is with a nice rich malty beer in between sips.

On Deck: Imperial IPA (3/17), Mango Habanero Wit (3/24)
Primary: Chili Lime Pilsner, Chocolate Chipotle Rauchbier
Secondary: Belgian Blonde
Conditioning: Elder Ale
Total for 2011: 27 Gallons

Stockade Pale Ale

This is the American Pale Ale I brewed back on January 9th, 2011.  I decided to call it "Stockade" because in my mind, it was a classic American Pale paying homage to one of the older colonial communities in New York, the Stockade in Schenectady.

I was a bit disappointed that I only brewed this as a 2 gallon all grain.  I am thinking that in the future this may be one that I actually brew for a second time, not that my previous beers haven't been worthy of being rebrewed, just the fact that I like to move on to different styles and recipes constantly.

This beer ended up being a great pale amber color, and it doesn't hold a full head, but retains a nice foaming ring around the rim.  The aroma is fairly mild with a hoppy note.  It is slightly sweeter with a light malty flavor, subtle biscuit after taste, and a slightly creamy mouth feel.  There is a medium hop presence with the slight citrusy taste that comes with the cascade hops.

Here is the recipe for a two gallon batch:
3.44 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt
6.5 oz Crystal Malt 20°L
0.8 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
0.4 oz Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.0 ea WYeast 1056 American Ale

O.G.: 1.050
T.G.: 1.010
Alcohol: 5.2%
Bitterness: 43 IBU
SRM: 7.2

This was just entered in Amber Waves of Grain.  Hope it goes well...

On Deck: Elder Ale (2/13), Belgian Blonde (2/20)
Primary: Sarsaparilla Ale
Secondary: Beef on Weck Ale, Irish Red Ale

Bayrischer Dunkelweizen

This is one of the last beers that Jay and I brewed together.  As you can guess, it is a Dunkleweizen.  Everywhere we take it to let people try it, it seems to get a warm welcome.  It is an extremely simple recipe, so it should make good for a first beer evaluation on this blog.

0.5 lb German CaraMunich I
0.25 lb German Carafa II
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt
6 lb Wheat DME
1 oz Vanguard hops
WYeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen
O.G.: 1.057
T.G.: 1.014
Alcohol: 5.6%
Bitterness:
Color:   20 SRM

Steep crushed malts in 2 gallons of water until about 170 F.  Remove from water and begin to boil.  Add DME.  Once the hot break has ended add hops and continue to boil for 60 minutes.  Add water to the fermentation vessel to make 5 gallons.  Once it has been cooled, pitch yeast.

This is the first time Marygrace and I really tried to taste a beer and we weren't exactly sure what we should be looking for, so we referred to a beer flavor wheel and tried to go through it flavor by flavor.

The color was typical for a dukelweizen, dark and cloudy with a rich full head on the beer.  As far as aromas go, we found that the beer was fruity (banana), slightly alcoholic, and slightly nutty.  When it was tasted, it as rather warming, light, sweet, mouth coating, and very slightly astringent.  We didn't look at the flavor profile of what a dunkelweizen until after we tasted, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I was most concerned about the astringent flavor (tarty/citrusy), however it is an acceptable and sometimes present.

Overall I was extremely pleased with the way this beer came out.  Perhaps this year I will try brewing this again but with a partial mash.

Primary: None
Secondary: American Pale Ale
Carbonating: Rye-rish Red Ale