Busy, Busy, Busy...

Just because I haven't posted in a while does not mean that things have been slow here at Lake Effect Brewing.  I have a couple more batches under my belt in the past couple of weeks, I have successfully captured and brewed a batch of beer with wild yeast, and I had a great hop harvest, all of which I plan on detailing in future blog posts.  For now, I just wanted to throw out a quick plug for a couple of things and tomorrow when I brew my very first sour beer (maybe my second, I still have not tasted my wild yeast ale) I plan on doing a full sized post.

The first thing I want to mention is the Basic Brewing Logbook.  I picked this up a couple of weeks ago and I could not be more pleased.  I love this book.  Even though I use Beer Tools Pro, this serves as an excellent hard copy for finalized recipes for the year.  With its agenda in the first few pages, you are able to keep track of all of the dates for your primary, secondary, lagering, and anything else you could possibly want, and with room for 50 batches, even I would have to try to fill it up.  For $13, you can't go wrong.

The second, and most important part of this post is a startup brewery in Austin, TX that needs your help.  My brother in law's boss, the owner of Austin Homebrew Supply, is in the process of starting up a microbrewery and they need some help purchasing some more equipment.  They have set up a Kick Starter page where you can pledge to donate money to their cause.  Don't worry though, you won't be just giving someone a handout, for your donation, you can get anything from a sticker to being able to help create a featured beer as well as helping to name it.  So, unbutton your change purses and help a worthy cause of fellow homebrewers to pursue their dream.

On Deck: The Gose is Loose
Primary: Wild Yeast Test Batch, Harvest Ale
Secondary: Wildflower Mead
Carbonating: Ginger Ale
Total for 2011: 76 Gallons

2-A German Pilsner Introduction

The history of the German Pilsner is sort of a bizarre one that has its roots in the Czech Pilsner, which has its roots in the German Helles. Go figure, the Germans were trying to copy the Czech that had been based off of their own creation.  The only real difference between these two styles is the use of regional ingredients.  Both are light, crisp, and malty beers, but the big variations come from the yeast, color from the pilsner grains, and hops used.

The recipe formulation is basic on this beer since it is traditionally a single grain beer, German Pilsner malt.  The hops that I used here are Tettnanger.  They are a bit more aromatic and less spicy than the Saaz used in the Czech Pilsner.  I also used a Munich lager yeast for this beer that provides a bit of a drier, more highly attenuated lager beer.

The baseline beers that I am going to be using for this comparison have to be readily available around me, and as much as I would love to use Augustiner Pils as one of them, it is not going to happen.  I plan on using Wasteiner and Jever Pils.  After all, once in Germany we had an older gentleman tell us that Jever Pils was the only beer that he would drink, and being from Munich, that had to say something.


Primary: Wildflower Mead
Secondary: German Pilsner
Carbonating: Lite American Lager, Ginger Ale 
Total for 2011: 70 Gallons

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

An Underground Beer Culture Surviving in Wine Country Part 2

My next few attempts at finding delicious beer in France were nothing short of brilliant successes.  One of the days when we were walking around the city of Narbonne, we had stumbled upon an underground bar/brewery that was advertising lambics for only 2.50€.  But, of course, with our luck it was closed.  I do have the best wife in the world though, and she promised me that we could go back another night.

Well that night came and it was everything I could ever want in a bar.  L'Antre de l'Echoppe was literally an underground beer culture.  It was a tiny brewpub that was built into an old cobblestone cellar with a medieval theme and with plenty of both domestic and import beers on tap for reasonable prices.  This brewpub was so small in fact that they actually brew in the bar, and when it is open, they just push the equipment off to the side.





They only had two of their own beers on tap, but they were both spectacular. 



The first that we had was La Blonde Maison.  At 5% ABV, this was an extremely easy drinking beer.  It was cloudy, very light, and fruity with a slight sharpness at the end.  La Noire Maison was another 5% ABV beer.  Surprisingly, for having a dark, strong, and chocolaty aroma it was unexpectedly light.  It had a deep chocolate malt flavor with almost no linger.  I hope that some day I am fortunate enough to get back to Narbonne and to L'Antre de l'Echoppe again.

When we went up to Carcassonne after Narbonne, I was hell bent on finding some Biers de Carcassonne, but we had no such luck.  We did however find a couple of other beers in a small boutique shop.  At first I was a little skeptical about them, but chilled that night in our Barcelona I indulged and was more than satisfied.



Abbaye Fontfroide not only is a remarkably beautiful abbey outside of Narbonne, but the namesake has been used for an artisanal beer.  The nose is a very subtle spicy (peppery) aroma from the yeast, and there is an excellent head, so good, it made pouring difficult.  It was very heavy beer that was both sweet and spicy notes that shockingly did not linger long at all.  There was an excellent floral flavor as well, and after tasting some of the raw honeys in the area, I would not be surprised if that was where it was coming from.



We never went to the Abbaye de Valmange, but much like Fontfroide, they lent their name to a beer.  It was extremely aromatic with overpowering caramel notes.  The beer itself some subtle spicy notes along with the chocolate and caramel flavors. 

So in the end, I would have to say I am pretty impressed with the beers the south of France had to offer.  (Their wines weren't that bad either.)  I just wish I wouldn't have been so blind when I was traveling around Europe in the past not searching an scouring for the artisan beers.  I can only imagine how many delicious ones I have missed on my travels.

Primary: German Pilsner
Secondary: Lite American Lager, Ginger Ale
Carbonating: Honey Dunkelweisen
Total for 2011: 65 Gallons

An Underground Beer Culture Surviving in Wine Country Part 1

I was a bit skeptical at first and for good reason. Sure, in northern France you can find some great breweries, including the ones that are credited with reviving the Bière de Garde and the Bière de Mars styles, but in southern France, the heart of wine country, really?  At one point the master blender at the estate we were at (Château des Karantes) had remarked to us that the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France (where we were) produces more wine in one year than all of Australia combined.  And I was supposed to find good beer here?  I went in a skeptic, but I came away a believer.

My first experience was at a small cafe in Gruissan.  There were signs in the window tempting: 'Découvrez nos bières artisanales.'  It was a hot day and I was quite parched, so it was my duty as an inquisitive brewer to partake in a nice cool, frosty beverage
 

La Néou is an aromatic, 5% ABV white beer brewed with spices and water from the Pyrenee mountains range.  It was a light, sweet wheat beer, and it had light honey notes to it. (Honey is one of things that this region of the world prides itself on, so it makes sense that they would use it in their beer.)  There was the slightest diacetyl (butterscotch) flavor to the beer, but it wasn't off putting at all.  It actually worked very well with the beer.  These pleasant flavors lingered for a while and it was a perfect way to quench my thirst on the Mediterranean coast.

My next sampling wasn't a beer, but a cider, and being it is my goal to familiarize myself across the lines of the BJCP guidelines, I thought it would be another great learning experience.

 

I am not an expert in ciders by any means, so I do not know if it is actually one of the high quality ciders on the market, but I do have to say it was one of the best I've ever tasted.  It was Loïc Raison's Cirdre Breton Brut.  At 4.5% ABV it is relatively low alcohol compared to most that I have drank in the past, but it's flavors were unmatched.  Upon the first sip, you're hit with a light, dry crisp flavor that has just a touch of sweetness and a hint of honey.  The more and more I drank, the more the tannin flavors of the skin became present and gave the illusion that you were biting into an apple.  It was a wonderful thing to have happen.  Flavors like this are going to be hard to match when I start making ciders, and I can only hope to achieve results close to this.

This one completely ripped off Delirium Tremens (only a pig instead of an elephant), so how could it be bad?  The big pink pig was calling my name and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.  Had I been able to speak and read French a bit better, I may have steered clear (Rince Cochon translates to Pig Rinse...ugh...).

 

Although this beer is very crisp and refreshing like a lager, it is actually an ale that has a very soft nose, similar to a pilsner, and just slightly fruity, like an English ale.  The flavor and after taste were exactly the same, the slightest maltiness along with a hoppy/fruity after taste.  Though this beer wasn't necessarily what I was looking for, it did have a nice sweetness and crispness to it that has its own time and place, and a BBQ in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea was just that (though I do not think that is what the brewers had in mind since it is from Belgium).

Look out for part two of this series later this week... 

Primary: German Pilsner, Ginger Ale
Secondary: Lite American Lager
Carbonating: Honey Dunkelweisen
Total for 2011: 65 Gallons

Portable Kegerator/Jockey Box Round 2

As I had left it in the last post, I had just finished assembling the top.  My original plan was to just use some 2"x4"s and build a basic structure underneath, but I was convinced by Marygrace to just go the fancier route (and easier) and buy four pre-made table legs with mounting brackets.  It really wasn't anything more difficult than screwing on a few brackets and then screwing in the table legs.



I was a bit worried about having enough room underneath to maneuver the kegs and have room for all of my attachments, but I ended up having about 5" which was plenty of room.



Here's a picture of it fully assembled.



Here it is after some staining and varnishing.



I got a fancy four valved manifold for the CO₂ line.  This way, if one of the kegs got kicked I could shut off the gas so it wouldn't drain the keg if someone pulled the tap.



And here is is fully assembled.





Marygrace's mother had made me a skirt to go around the bottom of the kegerator, blue and white checkered.  Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get any photos of it while it was set up.  So next time I use it, I will post some pictures up here.  I also designed this kegerator to be able to fit into the back hatch of my car, so if I ever have to transport it, I'll have to post those photos too.

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

Spent Grain Pretzels

This year, Waldfest was on Sunday, July 17.  This year, we would do it in style.  What better way to kick off the day than to have and authentic Bavarian breakfast with weisswurst, a hefeweisen, and of course pretzels.  Not only pretzels, homemade pretzels using spent grain.

I decided to try something different this time with my grains, don't get me wrong, I like them in my breads, but they and the remaining husks can be a bit obtrusive when you are trying to eat a slice of bread.  In the past, I have tried to grind them using a food processor, but it is very difficult and more and more water has to be added since it turns into a paste and the grains are not properly ground.

As an alternative, I decided to dry out my grains by baking them in the oven at 250ºF for about an hour, occasionally turning them.  When they were dry, I put them in the food processor on high for about a minute and ended up with an excellent consistency, just about as course as sand, with no large husk pieces.  I was very happy with the results, as was my wife since I decided that from now on I would dry and grind my spent grains and put them in a Tupperware as dry storage, and they would no longer take up a shelf in the refrigerator.  The only problem is, the two cups that I saved (I needed one for the pretzel recipe), once dried and ground was only about 1/2 of a cup.  Looks like I would be making a half batch of pretzels.

Here is the recipe I used (the recipe is for a full batch, I just made a half batch).  The half batch made about 7 decent pretzels that are about 3/4" thick at the centers, so a full batch should make about 10-14 depending how big you make them.

1 pkg yeast

6 cups flour

1 cup dried and ground spent grain

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups warm water

5 tablespoons baking soda

Coarse salt for topping

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.

Combine all ingredients and knead.  Do not leave dough to rise.  Flour surface and then take a ball of dough, roll it out, and shape the pretzel.

Once all the pretzels are made, drop them in a pan of boiling water that has 5 teaspoons of baking soda.  Once they are done cooking, they will float to the top.  Remove them, put them on a greased cookie sheet, and sprinkle them with coarse salt while still wet.

Bake for for about 15 minutes, until they start to brown on top. Cool on a rack and enjoy.

When they are done baking, they should look like this:

For everyone that isn't going to be making these pretzels, I will give you a little something you can enjoy, even if you're not coming to Waldfest:

 

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