Resolution Oatmeal Stout Tasting

A little late with my second tasting post -- this beer was bottled nearly two months prior. Seeing as I am now down to my last bottle, I suppose it's time to post.

Appearance: Black, opaque. Toffee colored head, roughly an inch when first poured. Recedes to a thin covering within a few minutes.

Aroma: Coffee and chocolate, no sign of the bittering hops.

Taste: Chocolate and coffee flavors are definitely in keeping with the aroma. The bitterness is smooth and blends very well. Sort of like the flavor you might associate with good iced coffee. 

Mouthfeel: Here's where the beer is lacking a bit. The body is very thin for a stout, probably because of the low mash temperature. No flavor or silkiness that I would associate with the oats for that matter either. 

Overall, I really like this beer for what it is. But I definitely need to go closer to 152-154F for the mash next time to get some more dextrine content in there for the mouthfeel. Furthermore, I think upping the concentration of oats from 9% to 15% or maybe even 20% of the grist would be desirable. 

Reluctant Brown Ale

One of my closest held beliefs about brewing is that subtle beers are the mark of a master craftsmen. For example, Brooklyn brewery's Brooklyn Lager is one of my favorite beers of all time because the flavor profile is so subtle and well-balanced. While brewing a simple beer may not be as attractive to some, the lack of a huge hop bill, high gravity, or excessive adjuncts means that the craft (or the flaws) in a brew are clear for all to see. With that in mind I wanted to make something a bit less over the top to point out where I can improve in my process. 

I decided to make a nice, balanced American brown ale. Some Northern brewer to bitter it, and some Cascade for floral characteristics. I used some Marris otter, hoping for a maltier beer than with US 2 row. There are quite a few things that I didn't really think through with the this brew, however. Even now, as it's still fermenting, I'm anticipating some issues. 

The first issue is with the color of the beer. My spreadsheet for calculating color of the beer using the standard reference model (SRM) had an error in the order of operations. For each grain, the malt color units (MCUs) can be calculated by multiplying the weight of the grain times the color (in degrees Lovibond) and dividing by the batch size.

MCU = Grain weight (lbs) * Color (deg. L) / Batch size (gal)

The SRM, can be calculated by converting the total MCU (sum of the MCU contributions from all the grains).

SRM = 1.4922 * SUM (MCU) ^ 0.6859

What you can't do, however, is calculate the MCU for each grain, then convert that to SRM, sum all the SRM contributions from all the grains. That will skew the answer and result in a lighter-colored beer than anticipated. Due to this error, this beer is closer to amber than brown -- hence reluctant brown. The one saving grace was that I knocked out on to the yeast cake from the coffee porter, which will likely darken the beer a few shades. 

Another thing I didn't really think about was the attenuation of the yeast and the recent increase in my brew house efficiency. As a result, my OG was very high and the beer attenuated well, resulting in a much higher ABV than intended. Can't complain too much, but it's something that kind of got away from me with this one. I have been reading some discussion about how knocking out onto the yeast cake isn't the best practice as it is likely over-pitching, and it certainly adds an element uncertainty to the process. I will say this: it was the easiest pitch I've had in a while. I think I may try re-using controlled, measured amounts of slurry.

Finally, one other thing I'm considering with this brew and subsequent ones is the BU:GU ratio. This ratio describes the ratio of the bitterness of the beer to the sugars in the beer. One aspect that this calculation doesn't take into account is the attenuation of the yeast -- lower attenuation will be sweeter, higher will be drier, and as a result the bitterness with be more or less balanced. I found a post over at the Mad Alchemist where he calculates the "real extract" which takes into account attenuation. Ideally, a balanced beer hits somewhere around 5 (comparable to a 0.5 BU/GU ratio beer). IPAs can go as high as 10 or 13 and sweeter, low-hopped beers can be down in the 2 and 3's. This beer will end up at about 3.5 which is considerably less balanced than I would have liked. 

Reluctant Brown Ale

Grain Bill

Marris otter: 7.5 lbs (88.3%)

Chocolate malt: 0.125 (1.4%)

White wheat malt: 0.25 lbs (2.5%)

Crystal 60L: 0.25 lbs (2.6%)

Biscuit malt: 0.25 (2.7%)

Flaked barley: 0.25 (2.5%)

Single infusion mash @ 152F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Northern brewer (8% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.5 oz, 5 min

Yeast

Pitched onto the full yeast cake from the Coffee porter

Stats

SRM: 13.7

IBU: 21

OG: 1.067

Brew house efficiency: 75%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 2/9/2014. Mashed for one hour at 152 and lost 3 degrees. May need to re-wrap the foam in another layer of tin foil. Collected 1.7 gallons of first runnings and sparged with 2.75 gallons. Collected 4.25 gallons of pre-boil wort. Measured the last bit of the first runnings gravity -- corresponded to 81% conversion efficiency. Doesn't make sense considering that the brewhouse efficiency was 75%, and the lautering efficiency was 77%. Must have been some problem with the collection of some sort. Bubbling airlock within 3 hours of pitching.

Measured gravity on 2/15/2014 at 1.014 corresponding to 79% attenuation. 

Bottled on 3/8/2014 and noticed that the yeast complete failed to flocculate! I attempted a 24 hour cold crash, but had a very difficult time holding temps with my ice bath. Furthermore, because I was fermenting in a bucket rather than a carboy it was difficult to see the yeast in suspension. When I first opened the fermenter, I was struck by the yeasty smell and sharpness in the samples I tried. After parsing through some online resources, I concluded that there was no infection (as I initially thought) and instead, the massive overpitch simply led to an abundance of negative yeast-associated flavors. Autolysis is generally ignored at the homebrewing level, however, when pitching onto full yeast cakes it is possible.  

Water musings and Big C IPA

Hop additions lined up for the brew

Dark have been my fermenters of late... 

I've made a lot in the stout/porter domain in the last few months so I wanted to brew something where the grain would take a backseat. My girlfriend loves IPAs and her birthday is coming up, so I elected to try to clone one of our favorites: Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale. 

There's quite a bit out there on the web about this beer -- rumor has it that the SN's master brewer spilled the beans about the recipe on a podcast at one point or another. For my attempt, the term 'clone' fits loosely at best. 'Inspired' is probably a better word. The heart and soul of the beer, in my opinion, is the liberal use of the big C hops: Chinook, Centennial, and Cascade. I think my beer will end up 10 points higher in OG (1.076 vs. 1.064), and a shade or two lighter (10 SRM vs. 14). Mine also has more late addition hops (compared to various clones floating around on the web) which will add a lot of flavor and aroma but not necessarily IBUs. I kept my saccharification rest temperature down at 150F to keep the beer dry. A pinch of carapils/dextrine malt was added for mouthfeel.

Doughing in

Recently, I've been doing some research on water chemistry and how it effects brewing. There's a lot of literature out there -- some of it very chemistry heavy, some of it pining over antiquated water sources (and likely wrong), and some of it fairly simple and straight forward. I really like Mike's approach over at the Mad Fermentationist which is squarely in the last camp. If you boil it all down to the bare essentials, the brewer has three important tasks in descending order of priority:

1) Remove chloramines from the brewing water 
2) Balance the alkalinity  and ensure proper mash pH
3) Use minerals to accentuate certain characteristics of the beer

Chloramines are used to disinfect water and make it fit for drinking. It used to be that chlorine fulfilled this purpose, but chlorine is significantly more volatile and will escape the water with time and/or heat. Chloramines are much more stubborn in this regard -- which is bad news for brewers as they create off flavors in the beer. Charcoal filters or campden tablets are commonly used to eliminate chloramines. Personally, I use Boston tap water which is disinfected using ozone rather than chloramines, so it's a non-issue. Boston water is also notoriously soft (not much mineral content, alkalinity) making it good for brewing. Reportedly, Harpoon brewery does not treat the water for their beer at all... Though I suspect that this is probably just a rumor.


Generally brewers start with fairly soft water and add salts to adjust pH and highlight flavors in the beer. In my opinion, water adjustment seems like a slippery slope to a much more complicated brew day. I suspect I'll head that direction eventually, but I'd like to hold off for now. The only concession I'm making at this point is to use a program (I like EZ Water) to input my grain bill and water profile and calculate the necessary addition of acidulated malt to bring the mash pH down to the 'acceptable' range. For example, with this brew I need about 0.2 lbs of Acid. Malt to bring the pH into the 5.6-5.4 window. Without verification through an actual measurement of the pH, however, I am really only going on faith that the mash is in the ideal range. 

All my previous beers have had a lot of roasted malts which naturally pull the mash pH down to a more ideal number. That's not the case with this beer, which gives me an opportunity to evaluate the pH through the perception of tannin bitterness in the final product. Tannins in the beer usually indicate to high a mash pH (some suggest high pH sparge water can do this too). Eventually, once my brew day is fairly comfortable, I'll likely considering using some salts; particularly Gypsum in my hoppy beers to increase the sulfates. Sulfates reportedly dry out the beer a bit and increase the perception of hoppiness. I'll be curious with this one to see if I'm left wanting in terms of the hop character. A side by side test with SN's Celebration Ale should serve nicely for this purpose.

As a last note, I ran out of the OneStep sanitizer I had been using for my previous batches. I read up on Star San and Iodophor sanitizers -- both of which are supposed to work much better (i.e. kill about ten times the amount of bugs for a fixed contact time). I ended up purchasing a big ol' 32 oz container of Star San. I made up some solution in a spray bottle and used it for sanitizing everything on this brew day and for bottling my Oatmeal Stout. It is without a doubt the easiest sanitation method I've used to date. I can't recommend it highly enough. 

The boil and hot break forming

Big C Celebration-Inspired Ale

Grain Bill

US 2-Row: 9.5 lbs (93.0%)

Crystal 40L: 0.5 lbs (4.8%)

Carapils/Dextrine: 0.25 lbs (2.2%)

Acidulated Malt: 0.2 lbs (0.0%)*

*There's some debate as to whether acid malt can actually add sugars to the wort. Essentially, if the malt is acidulated by being sprayed with lactic acid, it will act as a normal grain. However, if it is soaked to promote the natural growth of Lactobacillus (which in turn produces lactic acid), than one can assume the sugars are consumed and it will have no extract potential. I've assumed the latter in this case. 

Single infusion mash @ 150F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Straining out hop material post boil

Chinook (12% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min

Chinook (12% AA): 0.5 oz, 30 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, dry hop, ~ 5 days

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, dry hop, ~ 5 days

Yeast

Fermentis Safale US-05 (one 11.5 g packet)

Stats

SRM: 7.8

IBU: 68

OG: 1.076

Brew house efficiency: 73%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 2/1/2014

Pre-heated tun by adding strike water (3.75 gal) at +10F above strike temp. Doughed in when water hit 164F. Grain bed was at 153F after stirring. Added one ice cube, stirred, grain bed hit 150F. Mashed for an hour, grain bed lost 2F. Ran off 2.05 gal, SG 1.090 (92% conversion efficiency). Sparged with 2 gallons, hit 4.2 gallons of pre-boil wort (SG 1.063). Boiled 75 minutes, added hops as directed above. Strained to remove excessive hop matter from wort. 3.5 gal of OG 1.076 (73% BHE) wort into the fermenter with rehydrated US-05.

2/2/2014

Some airlock activity after 15 hours (1 bubble/min). Around 24 hours, the airlock is steadily bubbling along.

2/3/2014

36 hours in. Despite 3 gallons of head space, there is so much airlock activity that the Star San is foaming up in the airlock! 

Trouble shooting efficiency and Deadline Coffee Porter

One of the most popular topics of discussion in all grain brewing is maximizing efficiency. It's a broad and confused topic because there are a lot of variables to consider, and the terminology/metrics are not always consistent. For my purposes, I define the brew house efficiency (BHE) as the percentage of the total potential sugars in the grains transferred to the wort, as measured by the gravity of said wort at a well known volume. I think this is the most common definition of BHE, though some brewer's use other definitions. 

One point that irks me about BHE is people claiming that they can increase it via boiling. Sugar is a conserved quantity during the evaporation process, so regardless of whether you are measuring the pre-boil wort, or the post-boil wort, the BHE should be the same. You can use extra boiling to offset poor efficiency and hit target OG, but only the volume and SG have changed in this case -- not the efficiency. 

Personally, I'd really like a consistent BHE of 75% or so with typical (<1.060) OG beers (many brewers report a decrease in efficiency for high gravity brews). With my last two brews, I've hit 63% efficiency each time. The styles of the recipes haven't been particularly OG sensitive so I wasn't worried about missing the mark, but I'd like to raise the BHE and hold it consistent in the next few brews. A lot of the forums online describe various tips people use to increase BHE, but most of the people responding to efficiency queries are shooting in the dark. Recipe, equipment, etc. are not really enough to diagnose shortcomings in the BHE. Instead, I think that the most important step in diagnosing the problem is separating the BHE into its constituents: conversion efficiency and lautering efficiency. With this brew, I'm going to follow Kaiser's steps to figure out my conversion and lautering efficiency so I can zero in on the problem(s). 

The first thing I did was to take steps to insulate my mash tun. I've noticed that the lid feels warm during the mash compared to the sides. This suggests I'm losing temperature through the thin lid (it's a 48 quart Coleman cooler for reference). I struck a few degrees high and stirred until the grain bed hit the ideal temperature as measured with a meat thermometer. Then I wedged some 2" thick foam wrapped in tin foil a few inches above the mash (see the pictures). I used another layer of foam on top of the foiled layer and closed the tun with the lid. With this insulation, the mash held temperature for an hour with no measurable heat loss.

2" thick packing foam used for insulation

Wrapped in tin foil to avoid absorption

Foam wedged into the mash tun

Extra layer of foam for increased insulation

As I brewed, I collected samples along the way. I took a half-cup of first runnings and a half-cup of the pre-boil wort and put them in the freezer during the boil. I also added 2.25 gallons of tap water back into my tun after my sparge, stirred, and drained a half cup of runnings. I later measured the gravity of the first runnings (at room temp), and found them to have a gravity of 1.080. Knowing the volume of the strike water, I calculated the conversion efficiency at 89%. I measured the gravity of the post-sparge runnings at 1.016. Using Kaiser's lautering efficiency table, 1.016 corresponds to 81% lautering efficiency for a 2.0 qt/lb grist ratio (based on the volume of the cold water readdition). The gravity of the pre-boil wort, 1.056, allowed me to calculate BHE at 71% which is within a percent of the product of the lautering and conversion efficiency (1% error is well within the margins of measurement error in reading volumes, SG, etc.). After taking these measurements, I added the pre-boil wort and the first-runnings wort back to the kettle. 

The lautering efficiency is pretty decent for batch sparging as far as I'm concerned. The conversion efficiency should ideally hit 95%, however. Two majors players in limitation of conversion are mash pH and the crush of the grain. Using EZ Water and data from my water authority, I found that the mash pH should have been well within the acceptable range. Seeing as I did not verify this with strips or a pH meter, this not necessarily the case. That being said, I think it's likely my crush was not ideal. I crush my grains at my LHBS rather than with a personal mill. Many homebrewers suspect that stores will set their mills wide so that brewers don't complain about stuck sparges -- which conveniently helps them sell more grain. Given the steps I've taken to avoid a stuck sparge, I think I can afford a finer crush. Next time around, I'll run the grains through the mill twice and see if my conversion increases. Assuming a 95% conversion, I could easily hit 75% BHE in future brews.

I really don't know where the extra 8% efficiency I got with this brew came from. The crush in each case was likely similar as I used the same mill for both. The gravity was fairly consistent as well. It is possible that holding the temp. constant during the mash led to better conversion. Otherwise, my stirring technique at the dough in may have improved from previous batches. 

For this brew, I was aiming for something along the lines of the Berkshire Brewing Company's Dean's Bean's Coffeehouse Porter. I elected to make a nice and roasty base beer and use some coffee in the process too. There's a lot of discussion about how to introduce coffee to the beer. Some people brew espresso and add it to the boil in various stages, or cool it and add to the secondary or bottling bucket. Others use grounds in the mash, boil, or secondary. Beans can be used in the same way as grounds -- some report good results with 'dry beaning.' Personally, I decided to use cold-brewed coffee for this beer. I've heard good things from brewers and coffee aficionados alike on the smooth, non-astringent character of cold-brewed coffee. I will add a half cup to the bottling bucket to get a subtle coffee flavor in the batch to compliment the dark grain bill. 

Deadline Coffee Porter

Grain Bill

US 2-Row: 7 lbs (80.0%)

Crystal 60L: 0.5 lbs (5.6%)

Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (5.4%)

Coffee malt: 0.5 lbs (5.1%)

Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (4.0%)

Single infusion mash @154 for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Willamette (5% AA): 0.375 oz, 60 min

East Kent Goldings (6.4% AA): 0.375 oz, 60 min

Willamette (5% AA): 0.375 oz, 15 min

East Kent Goldings (6.4% AA): 0.375 oz, 15 min

Yeast

Fermentis Safale US-05 (one 11.5 g packet)

Stats

SRM: 40+

IBU: 29

OG: 1.062

Brew house efficiency: 71%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 1/18/2014 

Ran off 2.25 gallons of first runnings (SG 1.080, 89% conversion). Sparged with 2 gallons of water at ~ 200F. Collected total of 4 gallons of pre-boil wort (SG 1.056). Boiled down to a 3.6 gallon batch (SG 1.062). Pitched rehydrated US-05, and left in ambient temperatures. Active fermentation within 12 hours.

2/8/2014

Ground fresh JP Licks espresso roast coffee very fine. Put 1 cup (liquid measure) of grounds, and 4 cups water in a Nalgene bottle. Stirred, shook and left in the fridge overnight.

2/9/2014

Strained the coffee (~ 3 cups yield), and boiled 2 cups along and dissolved the priming sugar for the batch directly in the coffee. Bottled as normal with the coffee/sugar solution.

MLT manifold mod and Resolution Oatmeal Stout

My ideal brew day is relaxed, moving at a slow and methodical pace, with plenty of beer. My last brew day was nothing like that. It was a hellish struggle that made me question why I choose to subject myself to this 'hobby'. So with that in mind, I spent quite a bit of time researching manifold-based mash tuns and making modifications to my own to avoid any chance of another stuck sparge. For those new to all grain brewing, I'll direct you to Palmer for a crash course in lautering techniques. 

 For reference, I am currently mashing in a 48 quart Coleman rectangular cooler. I used many of the countless DIY threads and videos to retrofit a metal outlet valve through the drainage port at the bottom of the cooler. This process seems fairly standard amongst all improvised mash/lauter tuns (MLTs); the innovation and variation comes in how you separate the wort from the spent grains. As I've chosen to do batch sparging, I would argue that a manifold system (which is cheap and easy to build) has all the merits of a false bottom. The argument here is that channeling is not relevant in batch sparging the way it is in fly sparging. Really with batch sparging, the most important thing is to get every drop of wort out that you can.

I built a manifold using CPVC and a dremel. Make sure you use CPVC rather than PVC. CPVC is designed for use with potable water at temps approaching 200F, so it is compatible with brewing. You can see the design in the pictures below. I think the only change I'd like to make is to swap the 3-way 't' piece at the outlet valve for a 4-way, allowing for better drainage. Would have grabbed one initially but all my local hardware stores don't carry the 4-way piece. There's roughly a 1/2" of dead space at the bottom of the cooler that I should try to remove at some point. I initially made the cuts for each segment of CPVC using a serrated Ikea bread knife, but it's a really exhausting process. My initial slots were about 1 mm wide, and cut roughly a quarter to a third through the diameter of the pipe (not much uniformity when using the bread knife). I put a slit roughly once per 1/2" along the pipe. 

This initial design may may have been suitable for successful brewing -- I will never know. But if you're going to use a manifold, I can't emphasize enough, face the slits downward in your tun. This may have been my only problem with the setup that caused the disastrous stuck sparge on my last brew day. I wanted to make absolutely sure it wouldn't happen again, so I made some modifications. I increased the slit density to one slit per 1/4", and used a dremel to widen the slits to about 3 mm. The slits also go more than half way through the pipe now. If I were to do it again, I'd probably leave the slits shallower so that the pieces were a bit stronger. I have to be careful not to bend them now.  I also went out and bought a fine, voile dry-hopping/boiling bag from my LHBS to cover the manifold. I actually brought the manifold to the store and played with a few bags until I found the one I wanted. It fits as if it were designed specifically for the manifold. I simply tie it off at the outlet, and now I have two lines of defense against a stuck sparge. 

Manifold with modifications

Putting the bag on the manifold

Manifold added to the tun

With the modifications complete, I wanted to brew something fairly simple to test it out.  I decided to make an oatmeal stout as I've been on a dark beer kick recently. At this point, I hadn't tried my Frustration Black IPA yet, so when I bought the ingredients for this beer (and for a coffee porter I'll be brewing soon) I was once again pretty heavy-handed with the roasted grains. Should have used a lot more oatmeal, probably. I also wanted to mash pretty high to leave some dextrines in there for body. 

I used dry yeast for this one following the  K.I.S.S mantra. I've been reading a decent bit on the differences between dry and liquid yeasts and trying to formulate an modus operandi for choosing yeasts. Dry yeast is definitely easier to work with and more viable out of package (no starter or forethought necessary). However, the drying process is only compatible with a few types of yeast. Currently my opinion is that dry yeast is a good option for beers that do not require or highlight particular flavors from the yeast. Liquid is definitely the way to go for some of the more in your face yeast flavors (e.g. Belgian beers, ester-y English beers, German hefeweizens, etc). 

Resolution Oatmeal Stout

Grain bill

US 2-row: 6 lbs (%)

Oatmeal: 0.75 lbs (%)

Black patent malt: 0.25 lbs (%)

Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (%)

Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (%)

Single infusion mash @ 149F for 90 minutes

Yeast

Fermentis Safale US-05 (one 11.5 g packet, rehydrated)

Hop Schedule
Willamette (5.0% AA): 0.75 oz, 60 min
East Kent Goldings (6.4% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min
Willamette (5.0% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min

Stats

SRM color: 40+
IBU: 32
OG: 1.052
Brew house efficiency: 63%
Batch size: 3.5 gal

Timeline

Brewed on 1/1/2014
Bottled on 1/26/2014
Tasting on 3/28/3014

Brewing notes

For this brew, I actually had a friend over to hang out and drink, despite the fact that it was New Year's day. The day was so relaxed, and so different from the last time around that I actually got a bit sloppy with some of the timing. I heated the strike water 10F above my strike temp and added it to the tun to preheat it as it dropped to my desired strike temp. I wasn't being diligent in checking it, however, and I dropped a few degrees too low. Rather than doing the intelligent thing and adding some boiling water to get back up to the ideal temperature, I doughed in anyway. The actual mash temperature was at about 149F at the start (I was aiming for 156F). I didn't measure the temperature at the end of the mash (I intend to investigate heat loss in my next brew). As a result of the lower mash temp, I extended the mash to 90 minutes to compensate -- making sure beta amylase had plenty of time to do it's thing. I'm anticipating that this brew will end up being a very dry stout as opposed to the sweeter stout I wanted. Oh well, live and learn. 

Frustration Black IPA tasting

Time for my first tasting post! I was kind of half dreading, half excited for the first taste of this beer given the ordeal I went through in making it. The plan with this one was to go big on the hops and big on the roasted malt -- trying to create something with all the heavy flavors of a stout and a nice full hop bill as well. I used a bunch of Chinook, as I had read it's known for piney and earthy characteristics. Centennial was the backing hop, thinking it might add a bit of citrus, but not as much as Cascade, or something in that vein. I used Columbus to bitter for a nice clean bite, and I dry hopped with it also, mostly just because I was curious what flavors it would bring to the mix.

Appearance: Black. Entirely opaque. As a result, no notes on clarity. Pours a very nice inch think toffee colored head which quickly recedes to a thin covering. Leaves nice lacing on the rim of the glass, likely the roasted barley helped in this department.

Aroma: There's a piney, earthy hop smell that lures you in. Definite chocolate notes in there as well. When it was young, I smelled a bit of alcohol in it. That's faded in the past few weeks, as has the hop aroma.

Taste: Lot's of hop bitterness and roasty, chocolate grains. No floral notes at all -- which I would expect from the Centennial. I mostly taste the clean bitterness from the Columbus addition at the beginning of the boil. The bitterness was incredibly harsh when it was first bottled, but it has mellowed quite a bit and it blends into some of the bitter aspects of the dark grains.

Next time around on this recipe, I might decrease the roasted grain a bit. I'll probably leave the Columbus in there -- it did it's job well. The Centennial was pretty lackluster. I think I'll swap it out for a more floral hop, likely Cascade. I'll keep Chinook in there, but pull down the weight of it with respect to the Cascade or other floral hop. Columbus dry hopping worked out pretty well for the initial aroma, but it faded very quickly. Probably lost a few bottles worth of beer from absorption loss in the dry hops. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this beer. It's not a easy drinking, slugging beer, but it definitely has some complexity to it.

Return to brewing and Frustration Black IPA

I'm writing this in retrospect, as this batch was actually brewed in early December. Hooray for detailed notes. 

After a brief hiatus due to moving to a new apartment, I've started back up with brewing again. I brewed extract for about a year prior to moving, something like a dozen batches. This will be my first all grain batch effectively, discounting a partial mash batch way back in the beginning of last summer. Full disclosure: it wasn't supposed to be partial mash -- the extraction efficiency was so terrible (< 50%) that we had to supplement with dried malt extract later on as the wort was fermenting.

I really wish I had some pictures of the brewing process as this will likely be a bland post without them, but seeing as regret and lack of preparation were two of the major themes for this brew, it seems appropriate. With this beer, I wanted to make a full-bodied, roasty dark beer with a complementary piney, earthy bitterness from the hop schedule. Style-wise, I was going for what I consider a 'Black IPA,' though this style is somewhat ambiguous. Black IPA's go by many names: hoppy porters, American black ale, Cascadian dark ale, etc. Recipes seem varied also -- anything from stouts with a few extra IBUs, to IPAs with a pinch of Carafa for color. As a commercial reference, I was aiming for something like a roastier version of Otter Creek's Alpine Black IPA which was been a favorite of mine for a while now. I was positively giddy with the prospect of designing a grain bill for this one, and as a result the low-fermentables crept up to a large proportion of the bill. 

Note that composition percentages are in terms of potential sugars, not weight.

Black IPA

Grain Bill
US 2-row: 8 lbs (82.4%)
Crystal 80L: 0.5 lbs (5.2%)
Carafa special III: 0.5 lbs (3.6%)
Chocolate malt: 0.5 lbs (4.0%)
Roasted barley: 0.5 lbs (4.9%)

Single infusion mash @ 156F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule
Columbus (14% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min
Columbus (14% AA): 0.5 oz, 20 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min
Centennial (11% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min
Chinook (13% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min
Columbus (14% AA): 1.0 oz, dry hop added after primary fermentation

Yeast
1 L starter of Wyeast 1056
(Supplemented by rehydrated Munton's ale yeast, more on that below)

Stats
SRM color: 40+
IBU: 82
OG: 1.063
Brew house efficiency: 63%
Batch size: 3.5 gal

Time-line

Brewed on 12/8/2013
Re-pitched on 12/12/2013
Dry-hopped with 1 oz of Columbus on 12/20/2013
Bottled on 1/3/2014
Tasting on 1/26/2014

Brewing notes:

I began the brew day by heating up 3.125 gal of strike water in my kettle, aiming for a 1.25 qts/lbs grist ratio. I'd recently read up a bit about the activation and denaturing temps for alpha and beta amylase, the enzymes responsible for converting starches to sugar. I wanted a full-bodied beer, so I shot high at 156F to preferentially accommodate the alpha -- in retrospect, I think the high mash temp along with the high proportion of low-fermentables led to a high finishing gravity. I used a pot (~ 1 gallon) of boiling water to preheat the tun for ten minutes, then dumped it.  I added the strike water (168F) and doughed in. 

After an hour of mashing everything went to hell. The first runnings, well, they didn't run. I had a nasty stuck sparge and couldn't get around it for the life of me. After some quick googling, I tried raking the grain bed and blowing through my drainage tube to get it to flow, but it barely trickled. In the midst of this disaster, my girlfriend suggested that I might dissemble the manifold, let it rip through the outlet and use a metal pasta strainer to separate wort from grain. At first I was indignant, because well... That's not how they do it online... Finally I agreed. I used a couple of spoons to reach into the hot wort and pull the elbows off the 't' piece at the outlet. We managed to get a couple gallons of first runnings. 

I tried to sparge and drain the same way, but in the process of getting the first runnings, the outlet valve got gummed up with grain, and once again -- no flow. At this point, we threw the rulebook out the window and got creative. I lifted the tun and tipped it while she held the strainer, and we slowly collected the second runnings. I have to say, as an aside, it's a true sign of trust when you allow your significant other to attempt to pour 150F sticky wort in the immediate vicinity of your body. 

We transferred the wort back and forth between the kettle and a bottling bucket, each time straining with a funnel and very fine mesh strainer that came with my glass carboy. I feel it would be irresponsible not to mention that doing this, for the purposes of normal brewing, is a colossally bad idea. Splashing hot wort around leads to oxidization. Oxidized wort is a time-bomb: at some point within a few months of the beer's life, it will start to taste like plastic or cardboard because of time-released flavor compounds from oxygen binding with chemicals in the wort. At this point, however, I was at war against my beer and I was not going to lose on a technicality. Somehow, despite all of this, I managed 63% brewhouse efficiency. Not great, but given the struggle I'll take it.

Seeing as I'm telling this story in hindsight, I can slip in the relevant lessons as they come. So, brewing lesson number 1: If you brew with a manifold in your mash lauter tun, face the slots downward.  This is one of those things that for 95% of people would be obvious. For 4% of people, they'd be curious and find the answer online. I guess I'm the 1%. 

Boiling and hop additions succeeded without incident thankfully, because at this point I was fuming (RDWHAHB be damned). The real hero of the story was the new copper immersion chiller my father and I made. In its maiden voyage, it took the wort down to pitching temp in less than ten minutes. We used about 45 feet of 3/8 inch copper, which a lot of people will tell you is overkill for 5 gallon batches, certainly for 3.5 gallon batches, but the result was phenomenal. Being used to a 25 ft commercial chiller and having to wait 30-45 minutes for chilling, I was pretty amazed. 

And then things took another turn, although I wouldn't realize it for a while. About 24 hours prior, I had made a yeast starter with a pouch of Wyeast 1056. It was about a liter, with some dried malt extract in there to bring the gravity to about 1.040. I hadn't seen much activity, but I didn't really worry about it. There was definitely some slurry on the bottom prior to pitching, so the yeast had become active. Which brings me to the next lesson: When pitching yeast starters: decant the liquid and pitch or pitch the whole thing, but whatever you do, don't pitch the liquid without the slurry. In my brain, it seemed that the slurry was simply a byproduct, and that the yeast were in suspension in the fluid. While this is true to certain extent, the slurry is where the overwhelming majority of the yeast remains in the starter. If you don't pitch the slurry, you really haven't pitched any yeast.

One out of every 5 threads on every homebrew forum in existence is something along the lines of "No airlock activity!!!!!!!!! Is my beer dead??????" The kind contributors and admins (bless their hearts) will patiently explain that airlock activity is not a guarantee of fermentation activity especially in the case of plastic bucket fermenters which don't have perfect seals. Always check gravity, or at least look for kreusen to determine whether or not fermentation is in progress. In my case, my beer truly was dead in the water. No kreusen, no drop in gravity. So I scrambled, called some other home brewing friends and got my hands on some Munton's dry yeast. And so, the last lesson: Keep a supply of 'oh shit!' ingredients on hand. A couple packs of dry yeast will keep in the fridge for a long time and are super helpful in a pinch. Also, some dried malt extract can save the day if you miss your OG by a long shot. 

I rehydrated and pitched the yeast, and the beer fermented down to 1.022. This final gravity is a bit high (as stated above, likely due to the high mash temp and proportion of roasted grains) but at this point, I was happy to call it beer. I added the dry hops and gave it another two weeks before bottling. As a final FU from this nightmare of a beer, my bottling spigot got stuck open during bottling and dumped quite of beer on my floor. 

In honor of a truly horrific battle with this brew, I dub this recipe Frustration Black IPA.