Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout

We're caught up! Onto the current brew.

Secret Santa Stout was only my second homebrew, but it was definitely the best I have made. It's my kind of beer -- boozy, malty, with some added flavors -- and it came out well. I gave away half of it for Christmas presents, and blasted through another dozen that I brought to a ski getaway with friends. Even though it's the best beer I've made, it's the one I drank the least. That has always bugged me.

That's why, after three consecutive brews that all disappointed in one way or another, I'm going back to the well. This Christmas, I'm making another big-ass stout. Haven't thought of a name yet, so for now, we'll just call it the Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout.

Ingredients:

5 lbs light dried malt extract
3 lbs wheat dried malt extract
2 lbs chocolate malt
1 lb roasted barley
1 lb dextrine malt
1 lb CaraMunich malt
1 lb Special B malt
4 oz Kent golding hops
1 oz Galena hops
4 oz ground coffee
8 oz baking chocolate
8 oz cocoa powder
1 vanilla bean
1 oz French oak
Irish ale yeast

Wow! That is a crap-ton of ingredients. Incredibly malty, which is to be expected, but also the hoppiest beer I've ever made (it would have to be, if any hop character is going to break through all those sugars). There's just so much going on here. I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out, but also wary that it's a bit more complicated than I'm used to. Every step has a couple of considerations that I don't usually need to worry about.

Before brewing, I took the time to make a yeast starter. Partly, this is because I got burned when making my Belgian strong ale earlier in the year. Also, the yeast package that came with the kit specifically says that it's good for starting gravities of up to 1.060, but the recipe calls for a starting gravity of 1.090-1.095.

Here's what I don't understand. Underpitching is apparently endemic among beginning and intermediate homebrewers. When you're buying a recipe kit, the vendor has all the information they need to provide you with an appropriate amount of yeast. Why don't they? You could argue that the customer should know better, but they don't, so why not help out? Price it into the kit. No one would complain about that.

Anyway, I filched a half-cup of the dried malt extract and boiled it for 10 minutes in 2 cups of water. Separately, I sanitized a half-gallon glass jug. When the boil was done, I cooled it to 70 degrees and added it to the jug. Then I poured in my liquid yeast. (The yeast, by the way, was a Wyeast smack pack, which I had never used before. Definitely more fun than a packet of dry yeast or a vial of liquid.)

I covered the jug with a sanitized piece of aluminum foil. There was some debate on Homebrewtalk about whether to use an airlock or the sanitized foil, but the consensus seemed to be the foil, so that's what I did. For the next 24 hours, I swirled it repeatedly and observed some fermentation activity. After 24 hours, I put it in the fridge. The morning of the brew, I took the jug out of the fridge to let it come up to room temperature.

Crushed all 6 pounds of the grains and tied them into 2 large muslin bags. Brought 2 gallons of water up to 170 degrees, then added the grains. Attempted to hold the temperature at 170 for 45 minutes, with moderate success. I had to keep adjusting the temperature and moving it on and off the burner. On an electric stove, this isn't easy. Still more successful than the last time I tried this.

Separately, brought a half-gallon of water to 170 degrees, then put into a pitcher. Placed a strainer over a pot, then added the grain bags one at a time and sparged with the water from the pitcher, thus answering one of the first questions I ever asked in this blog. Added the sparged liquor to the brewpot.

Only later did I realize that I had essentially done a "mini-mash," which is a slight step up in complexity from your usual extract brewing. Considering that I've been using specialty grains from the start, it was hardly a leap, but it felt like progress all the same. Of course, in reading about mini-mashes, it doesn't sound like I really did it the way you're supposed to, but I followed the directions that came with the kit, so I did my best!

Brought the pot to a boil, then removed from heat and added the dried extracts and Galena hops. Boiled 50 minutes. Added baker's chocolate and 2 oz of the Kent golding hops. Boiled 9 more minutes. Added the remaining 2 oz of the Kent, boiled for one minute and removed from heat.

This wort REALLY wanted to boil over. I tend to perch over my pot for the entire boil anyway, but this time it was necessary. Came very close a couple of times, but in the end, everything remained in place.

Moved the pot to a sink full of ice water, and added 2 gallons of refrigerated spring water to the fermenter. (By now, I don't need to mention that I sanitized my equipment beforehand, do I?)

Strained the wort on its way into the fermenter. The amount of sediment was ridiculous. I had to use two wire strainers and a rubber spatula, and it still took about 10 minutes to get all the wort into the bucket. (This is where the spray bottle of Star San really comes in handy -- when I realized I needed the additional equipment, I just sprayed it down.)

Aerated the wort with my power drill. Used a sanitized baster to squirt some of the wort into the jug of yeast in order to acclimate it, then pitched the yeast. Judging purely by visuals, the amount of yeast slurry seemed significantly increased from what had come out of the package initially, so I'm optimistic that it will do the job.

Unfortunately, my hydrometer is broken, which I did not realize until I tried to use it. The end has chipped off, so I was unable to take a reading. It sank straight to the bottom of the sample. In a way, it's freeing. In another way, I probably should get a new hydrometer.

Put the lid on, attached the fermentation lock, and brought it down to the basement. Fermentation activity was observed within about 8 hours, which I take as another sign that the yeast starter is working. Within 24 hours, the lock was bubbling more ferociously than I've ever seen. After 48 hours, it had slowed a bit but was still bubbling away. And unlike with Secret Santa Stout, no blowouts yet.

That was that. Once again, the recipe says to rack after 3-5 days, but because of my schedule I am actually going to give it 2 weeks. At that point I'll transfer it to the secondary along with some more flavorings to condition... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Backlog: Vlad the Impale-aler

Vlad the Impale-aler

After those first horrible weeks of parenthood were over, I wanted to get back on the brewing horse. I've spent so much time on brews that have funky ingredients, high gravities, and so forth, that this time I wanted to do something more straightforward. Hops and barley only! I wanted to focus on my technique. The time seemed right to make a pale ale.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs caramel malt
6 oz dark crystal malt
3.3 lb liquid gold malt extract
3 lb light dried malt extract
1 oz Magnum hops (pellets)
1 oz Ahtanum hops (pellets)
1 oz Cascade hops (whole)
1 tsp Irish moss
English ale yeast

For this brew, I ordered from a different supplier, Midwest Supplies. This is noteworthy for a couple reasons, one of which I'll get to later, but one thing I liked was that they pre-cracked the grains for me. Beer and Wine Hobby doesn't do that for whatever reason, and I always end up using a rolling pin and worrying simultaneously that I have cracked them too much and not enough.

Anyway, bagged the grains and added to the pot. Tried to keep a consistent steeping temperature of 155 degrees F for 30 minutes, but with my electric stove it kept running more to 170.

Added malt extracts and brought to a boil. Added Magnum hops and boiled for 45 minutes. Added Ahtanum hops and Irish moss, and boiled 15 minutes more.

Strained the wort once again, which left much more sediment in the strainer this time. I actually had to stop and clean it out, which I hadn't had to do before. But I took that as a good reason to be straining!

One thing I did differently this time was take more effort to aerate the wort when pitching my yeast. This isn't something I've focused on before; all I've done is stir with a spoon, which is difficult and probably ineffective. This time, though, I brought the power tools. We had once purchased a drill-driven paint mixer from Home Depot that we never ended up using. So I cleaned and sanitized it, attached it to the drill, and let 'er rip. After a minute or two, the wort had built up a big head of airy foam. I'll be honest with you: this is the best idea I've ever had.

Starting gravity was 1.050, about on target.

Ten days later the gravity had hit 1.015, which was on target, but this time I actually did have a good reason to rack it to a secondary. I was dry-hopping, which is what those whole Cascade hops were for. Unfortunately, when I opened the bag, they smelled a little off. A little cheesy. And they looked kind of dry, not brown but not the green color they probably should have been. Faced with the choice to use them or throw them out, I decided to use them.

I kept them in for four days. I have read that a good technique for dry-hopping is to put your hops in a bag with a weight, as they will be more effective immersed in the beer. I did not do this. The hops floated on top of the beer, some of them not even making contact with it. Maybe this was for the best, considering that they seemed off.

Bottling was uneventful, and the beer was actually ready to drink about a week later. The dry hopping was subtle, so even though there's a little bit of the cheesy sensation it is more of a hop flavor and aroma -- better than I feared it would be, anyway.

The beer is good, too. Very bitter, in the intended style. It's a dark brown color, a little murky and not what you would expect from a traditional English pale ale, but apparently more in line with an American-style pale ale. Again, not the best beer I've ever made, but mostly a success.

Postscript: about two months after I bought this kit, a bunch of fraudulent charges showed up on my debit card. Somebody was attempting to buy hundreds of dollars' worth of money orders from Western Union. My bank notified me and I immediately cancelled the card, but I had to file disputes against two of the transactions because they had gone through. Hilariously, after my bank reversed one of them, Western Union then filed a claim against me, as though I were trying to rip them off. The reason my bank allowed them to do it was because whoever made the transaction had used my address, which is usually a sign that it's legit.

Well, after a few phone calls I was satisfied that the problem was resolved (and props to Bank of America, who gets a lot of bad press but was a pleasure to deal with as they handled it quickly), but I thought I would never know what had happened. Then one day I got a letter from Midwest Supplies saying that they were the ones who had allowed my information to be compromised. They were sorry, but seemed to be laboring under the misapprehension that a $20 coupon was enough to buy forgiveness.

Fat chance.

Backlog: St. Sebastian's Belgian Ale

St. Sebastian's Belgian Ale

I got started on my next beer toward the end of January, for an important reason. My wife and I were expecting our first child at the beginning of March, and I wanted to brew something to celebrate. We had already settled on naming him "Sebastian" (although we were keeping that a secret), and it seemed like a name that would fit perfectly on a Belgian ale. So that's what I decided to do.

Ingredients:

9.9 lbs light malt extract
1/2 oz kent golding hops
3/4 oz styrian golding hops
1/2 lb dark Belgian candy sugar
1 tbsp coriander seeds
Belgian ale yeast

This was another easy brew. Without specialty grains to steep, it was fast and simple -- although a few things went wrong, which I'll get to.

Boiled 2 gallons water, added malt extract, candy sugar, Kent golding hops, and coriander seeds (un-crushed). Boiled for 60 minutes.

At 60 minutes, removed from heat and added Styrian golding hops to steep for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, began process of cooling wort and combining with cold water in fermenter.

This time, I did strain the wort on its way into the fermenter, and I was glad I did. It caught a lot of leftovers from the boil, and the resulting beer would be much clearer than past batches.

Okay, so two things happened here that weren't great. The first is that, somehow, I ended up with too much wort. I guess the boil didn't evaporate as much as I should have expected, or I poured too much water into the fermenter. Whatever the reason, it was full to almost 6 gallons instead of the expected 5 gallons. When my starting gravity came in a bit low, 1.060 to the expected 1.070, I figured that was the reason why.

The other thing that I was concerned about was the yeast. I got dry yeast this time around, and noticed that the expiration date on the package was about six months earlier. I was a little concerned but forged ahead anyway.  

Two weeks later I racked to a secondary fermenter, which I don't think was strictly necessary for this beer. It smelled terrific, though -- hints of banana and citrus, definitely in line with what I would expect for the style. The gravity read higher than target, 1.020, but given the style and the starting gravity, I figured it just needed more time.

10 days later, the gravity hadn't changed. Still 1.020.

4 days after that, same thing. Apparently it was done, despite the recipe target being 1.014-1.010. I went ahead and bottled.

A month later, we had a son, but the beer still wasn't ready. It was severely undercarbonated. If I was lucky it would form a bit of a head upon pouring, but there was no retention. It disappeared within seconds. The beer tasted great, with estery notes of banana and tropical fruit, and low bitterness. But the lack of carbonation and unfermented sugars left something to be desired.

I'm not sure what to blame, exactly. The yeast was past its expiration date. I had not made a starter, either. There was almost 20% too much water in the wort. And my basement floor in wintertime was probably cooler than the recommended temperature for a Belgian strain. Probably it was all of these things working in concert. It was a shame, because with full fermentation this might have been the best beer yet.

A few months later, it had actually improved a bit, so impatience may also have been to blame. Even so, months later I can't help but feel like this was a frustrating miss.

Backlog: Rudolph's Red-Nosed Ale

Yep, it's been almost two years since I wrote in this blog. I've made a few more beers since then! I've done some things right and some things wrong, and learned a lot.

I've just started work on an elaborate beer for Christmas that I thought I would chronicle here. More on that later. First, a few posts about the beers I've made since the last post.

Rudolph's Red-Nosed Ale

This was my beer for Christmas 2012. It was the first I had made since the previous holiday's Secret Santa Stout. As usual, I wanted to try something different than I had done before, so I decided to do a more traditional spiced ale.

Ingredients:

6.6 lbs light malt syrup
2 lbs raw honey
1/2 lb crystal malt
2 oz chocolate malt
2 oz cascade hop pellets
1/2 oz hallertau hop pellets
1/2 oz water crystals
1 tsp Irish moss
1 oz spice blend (orange/cinnamon/allspice/clove)
Belgian strong ale yeast

For my third brew, this was not a challenging recipe. I crushed the grains and placed them in a muslin bag, then steeped them in 2 gallons of water for 5 minutes at close to boiling. Removed the grains.

Added malt syrup, cascade hops, and honey. Boiled for 30 minutes.

Added water crystal, Irish moss, and hallertau hops. Boiled 15 minutes more.

Pitched my yeast at about 70 degrees. Starting gravity was 1.050.

Tied the spice blend into a small muslin bag and added to the fermenter, then sealed it up and let it do its thing.

I was a little disappointed by the spices. This was a recipe kit from Beer and Wine Hobby, where I do most of my shopping, and the spices came pre-measured but they seemed freeze-dried or otherwise not as fresh as they might have been. I wish I had taken the time and effort to get fresh spices and measure them myself. Hard to beat the convenience, though.

After a week, I transferred to a secondary fermenter and got a gravity of 1.014, which was a bit above target. The more I read, the more it sounds like most homebrewers don't bother with two-stage fermentation unless there is a really compelling reason, such as a heavy beer that needs time to condition with added flavorings. Certainly it didn't seem to be necessary here, but that was what the recipe said. I also removed the spice sack at this time.

Two weeks later, I read a gravity of 1.010, which was right on target, and bottled. No issues.

Tasted my first one on 12/16/12. Had good carbonation and great head retention. More of a bitter hop flavor than I expected, almost astringent. I had never bothered straining my wort before, but after this beer I decided to do so going forward. I suspected that the hop residue was having a negative effect on the flavor. There also seemed to be some visible sediment in the beer that I could not attribute to expended yeast.

Overall the beer was crisp and drinkable. I attributed that character to the honey. The spices weren't assertive, mostly making their presence known in the aroma.

This beer was okay. Technically, it was well executed. I wasn't ashamed to give much of it away at Christmastime, and I drank through the rest pretty quickly. But I didn't love it. It didn't really sing. Decent, though. Good enough that I got started on my next one soon thereafter.

One other thing to mention: this was my first experience using Star San as a sanitizer, and I'll never go back. It is far easier and more convenient than using a bleach solution. Over time I've improved my technique. Generally I'll mix up a 5-gal batch in my fermenter at the start of brewing, sanitize everything I need to, and then fill a spray bottle with the fresh solution. The spray bottle comes in handy for any incidental sanitization needs over the course of the brew. I also make another full batch in the secondary, if applicable, and repeat the process for that equipment. There's no need to rinse, and it only takes a few minutes. Star San is the best.