Mead-Home brewed! Round 1

So about a 2 weeks ago I started thinking that I best get a mead going. No real reason why beyond the obvious ones-age old fermented drink (dated back at least to 1700BC), the simplicity of ingredients-honey/water/yeast, and of course the most obvious one-Mead's are delicious! I'm also sure I was also very much primed by national mead day which was pointed out repeatably in all my beer literature both online and off.

I really wanted to start this off by getting a good base set, and then (if it took with me) building upon that base recipe down the road to incorporate fruits, ales, and "other" so thats what I did.

Here's the rundown: 7 lbs of honey (5 being local straight up organic honey) and the remaining 2 being Orange Blossom honey (again organic), Wyeast smack pack of "sweet mead" yeast (ie-not bone dry mead as the end product), some yeast nutrient, and enough water to top off 2.85 gallons.

There is some controversy out there over if you should pasteurize the honey or not, I had opted not to but to rather heat up to 100 degrees F or so just so that the honey mixed well with the water, after that it was all aerating and pitching yeast (my reasoning was based in that I did not want to lose the honey aroma and that I trusted the natural protection the honey brought with it against foreign yeast and bacteria ).

Yep thats it!

Starting gravity came out to 1.129..which is the highest OG I've ever had! Its been in primary for one week and will likely stay there for another 2 weeks after which I will move to secondary. Secondary will hold for aa minimum 6 months after which I will move to tertiary for a time (yet to be determined..but likely at least another 4 months) to continue to clear and meld within itself as I'm sure it will basically be 15% rocket fuel for some time. After which all is said and done I will bottle in champagne bottles and give out as gifts.

Cheers!

The Yet To Be Named Belgian/Flemmish/Idahoen/Chicago Sour Ale....

So this is my second brewing this weekend (first was my hardened Cider, seen below) and was also a batch that I have been looking forward to cranking out for a while now. It all started at my local homebrew store when I started discussing Flemmish Sour Reds and it was revealed to me that they had one smack pack of Wyeast Roeselare Ale Blend (a seasonal Brett and Lactic culture which saw a seasonal release earlier this year..in spring..so I cant believe I found it!) which was ordered but never picked up...so I picked it up :)

My goal was to do a soured beer, started in a glass primary for 1 month, then moved into a brand spanking new plastic bucket (food grade of course), and laid down on some French oak for a good long while (at least 6 months until bottling...and even then I'm not sure if I will). The gravity however would be higher than a standard Rodenback, or Dutchess De Bourgogne and would be loosely based on an existing homebrew recipe that I went over at the brew shop.

So after a started and failed attempt last week to brew this up (crashed out my 400ml starter in the fridge when I found that I would be sitting on it until this weekend) I was right back in the saddle this morning at 5:30am..thanks to Higgins the Wonder Pooch. So after taking her out, and cleaning up things that..well have no place being mentioned with soured beers. I was heating up my mash water and dumping grain into the ole mashtun.

Mash started at 7am, and was held for 90 minutes, target starting mash temp was 154F which I narrowly missed with 155F. Final mash temp was found at 149F..evidently I'm losing a bit too much head somewhere...but I'm not all too worried about it.

You know what had never happened to me while brewing previously? A stuck sparge that's what! Yes I was living the dream..brewing and never having any sort of sparge issues...well that definitely came to a screeching halt this morning...

So after trying every little maneuver I could muster with my mash paddle, then moving on to blowing into the vinyl tubing, I was about to put one to the mash tuns side and then finish it off in true Mortal Kombat style by screaming "GET OVER HERE" and then proceeding to chuck a butter knife attached to my fly fishing line at it I decided I should first attempt to move all of the contents out, and into a bucket.

Well after moving all contents I found that my vinyl tubing had come loose so nothing was moving from under the false bottom, I quickly reattached and proceed to move the grain and water back into the mash tun..

Did you see what I did there? I still feel like slapping myself.....

So..yes the tubing was disconnected BUT that should not halt all flow, what would halt all flow was if there a blockage somewhere. I realized that somewhat quickly after letting fly a string of vulgarity that likely had our neighbors thinking I have terets...and at that point all grain was back in the mash tun.

So..back we go-all grain back into the bucket, false bottom and all parts removed and rinsed (oh, and guess what? There was a blockage!), mash tun rinsed to ensure no grain was trapped under the false bottom when reassembled, grain goes back into mash tun, I go rinse the bucket as that is where I am collecting the wort and then I'm back in business!

With the slowest f'ing sparge I have ever seen..seriously it took an hour and then some..but eventually I was left with 5.75 gallons of wort..and a promise to myself that I would never brew again without using some rice hulls.

So to wrap an already long post up I ended up boiling for 90 minutes, cooled and pitched. The Roeselare is already churning away as the starter was in good shape when it was pitched, so I've got that going for me..which is nice.

Fermentables:

Grain:

-17lbs Belgian Pale Ale

-1lb Flaked Wheat (or "that grain that fucks up your sparge if you dont use rice hulls")

-1lb Belgian Biscuit

-1lb US 6 Row

-1/8lb Belgian Aromatic

-1/8lb Belgian Special B

Other:

-1lb Belgian Dark Sugar (hard, not liquid)

-1/2oz Bitter Orange Peel

-1/2oz Sweet Orange Peel

-1/3oz Juniper Berries (crushed just prior to addition)

Hops:

Bittering:

-2oz Czech Saaz 2.5%AA-90 minutes

-1/8oz Amarillo 8.2%AA-90 minutes (not traditional but only used for AA content)

Flavoring:

-No hops added-orange peels, juniper berries, and Dark Candy added-15 minutes

Aroma:

-None

Yeast:

-Wyeast 3763, Roesalare Blend

Stats:

90 minute mash. Water to Grain Ratio 1.2 : 1

-155F at mash in

-149F at mash out

-Sparged with 20qts @ 168F

-90 minute boil

-Final Volume 4.75 gallons

Original Gravity: 1.080

Barley Wine (yet to be named)-My first All Grain Batch!

Yet to be named Barley Wine, by this handsome devil !!!

(Grain/Hop bill at bottom)

My first all grain brew!! So, yes I was pretty pumped doing this, tome all of my experiences so far making first extract batches, then moving to extract/partial mash batches, and finally graduating to all grain batches has been very fulfilling and educational to say the least, and I have so much more to learn! After pulling out all of my grain (22 lbs of it!) And going over my recipe and process (mash schedule etc) one last time early Sunday morning I took an extra moment to reflect upon what I was about to do-take nothing but grain, fresh hops, yeast, and water then somehow turn all of that natural goodness into a barley wine, loving it! After prepping my water the night before (5.5 gallons) I was ready to go right out of the gates. I conducted a 90 minute mash in my new mashtun, including the false bottom supplies by Northern Brewer, moved onto a 90 minute boil which I was able to bring roughly 5.75 gallons down to 5 between using two pots, all the while adding ridiculous amounts of high IBU Simcoe hop pellets in to bring my up to my targeted IBU's and start off with my original gravity right on target-1.12..fantastic.

Another big improvement I made to my system this time around was the addition of a proper chilling coil (previously I had tried with 8 feet of copper tubing..which was a huge waste of time), by picking up 25 feet of the stuff and running cold water through it for one full hour-this brought me down to a pitching temp of 73 degrees.

The yeast strain I used was a basic American Ale (smack pack) yeast cake which had been used to ferment out a Hoppy Pale Ale which I threw together a few weeks back, this brew was bottled while the Barley Wine was being cooled and once cooled was pitched directly upon the yeast cake...this is all thanks to Teds recommendation a while back, much appreciated since this bad mother started fermenting within the hour..and was almost completely done within 2.5 days, which brought it down to 1.010...

So now this guy is sitting in primary, to be moved to secondary this weekend (that's 2 weeks in primary...and up to 8.5 months in secondary (that's April..when we will be moving from Chicago..I should name it in respect to this event..hmmmm). Then its to be bottled with the top waxed and stored for much much longer..

Also making a special appearance with this brew is our my assistant brewer-3.5 month old Higgins..the super pup and my beard, which I'm glad to say is now one full month old (in this pic it was 2.5 weeks old)...and when I place this sucker in secondary the beard also goes away..mostly for job security :)

Thanks for reading, and as always please leave comments, threats, donations, and or beer at your convenience.
Thanks!

Hop/Grain Bill & schedule..

Mash: 90 Minute-batch sparged with 2.5 gallons

Grains: 18 lbs UK 2 Row

1 lb Aromatic

1 lb Flaked Barley

1 lb Biscuit Malt

.50 lb Caramel Malt-120 SRM

1 lb Table Suger

Boil: 90 Minue-5.5 gallons

Hop Additions: 60 minute-Simcoe (11.9% AA)-2 oz of Pellets

30 Minute-Simcoe (11.9%)-1 oz of Pellets

20 Minute-Centennial 1.75 (9.5%)-1.75 oz Whole Hops

10 Minute-Centennial .25 oz Whole Hops

5 Minute-Amarillo .5oz pellets

Irish Moss at flame out

3 active fermentations...

Well after a break from posting (puppies take energy!) I would like to get back into it with a post not about homebrewing (however a post on my recent Belgium Wit will be up shortly, and the tasting notes with brewing maestro Ted-www.tedbrews.com) but regarding 3 food products I have been fermenting at home: Kombucha, Kimchi, and Gravlax.

First up Kombucha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha), which can be traced back centuries to ancient China (250 BC) but my involvement with it can be traced back to an organic food store (starts with a "W", means complete and ends in "foods"-not sure I want to infringe here) where Euni tried a free sample which I loved to a week later when I traced a link back from Teds blog to another blog (pending approval) on the actual making of Kombucha from a store bought sample. Because it is not pasteurized and thus packed "raw", meaning live culture is included in the bottle fermented product, you can easily "BYO" (brew your own :) at home! I have one more week of culturing the mushroom (that's what the mass is called-not actually a fungus) while the daughter colony splits off, which I will gladly pass on to anyone who wants to make their own Kombucha, before I add the colony to a fresh pot of black tea and sugar to ferment, then a week later I'm bottling Kombucha baby! Now consider the costs here: $4 per bottle at the above reference store, to under 50 cents bottled here at home-AND I made it myself! Again I give credit to reading more about Kombucha on Teds blog as I would have taken years (if at all) to look into making my own.

Next we are on to Kimchi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi), which is the national food of Korea and obviously a staple of the everyday diet there. Kimchi, when googled, will return article upon article of being oneof the worlds healthiest foods so I will not go into it now..but do me a favor and look it up! Essentially we are looking at fermented vegetables, preserved and loaded with vitamins, nutrients, and beneficial bacteria! My first batches were put together a few weeks ago and are being enjoyed to this day, however I will say my Daikon Radish Kimchi takes the cake thus far..and this was an extremely simple recipe of:
-Daikon Radish (1 large)
-Crushed Red Chili Peppers (from your local Asian grocer..or make your own with you choice of hot chili!)
-Garlic (full bulb-1/2 pressed, 1/2 full)
-Leeks (hand full..or however many you like)
-Brine Solution of chunky sea salt to brine the veggies in.

Process is really simple, but first let me tell you how I fuck#d it up....

Basically you brine the veggies in a salt/water mixture for a few hours to prep them for the fermentation process, then you mix them all together with the chili pepper and crushed garlic (keeping the brine solution..by the way do not do this :) and use a food grade container which will let the by products of fermentation easily escape..which I did not!

What I did was use a sealed glass jar, which luckily for me, was not airtight but rather let the gasses escape, but this also included the brine escaping as well. You see the salt in the brine is going to suck out all the moisture from the veggies..which is why you do not need to include the introduced brine water to the fermentation vessel (in this case being the sealed glass jar). What all this equals is more liquid present than expected and the elimination of some of that liquid while fermenting..and eventually...the mass exit of this liquid when the seal is broken..

I wish I had a pick to back this up but just try to picture me in a fresh pressed shirt, ready to go to work, but covered in red kimchi juice (also our kitchen wall...blender..scale..and ceiling) and cussing up a storm while lamenting the fermentation of cabbage!

Okay okay so I know what your thinking..what am I doing even messing with that stuff right before going to work....well I was impatient of course!

Anyhow I recently was able to work from home and thought I would really enjoy a break from fielding emails by hitting up theDaikon Kimchi with a new recipe, which can be found on this blog (http://www.desertmodernism.com/blog/)

Great success!

Okay so lets round this huge posting off with the batch of GravLax I just put together this afternoon in about 10 minutes, if your unfamiliar with this item please take a quick peak at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravlax) this one is border line when it comes to if I actually am utilizing a fermentation process to ready the item..I'll let you be the judge. I really like this picture, not only does it include a great lighting but also includes a fossil rock given to my by my dad, who had found it years ago in the New Mexico area (waiting on specific mountain range)..you can see the impressions of some ancient shells in there!

Starting with 1/2 cup of sea salt, 1/2 cup of fine cane sugar, 2 tbsp of ground pepper, 1 cup of dillweed, and 1 lb of fresh copper river Sockeye Salmon. This has long been one of my favorite ways of enjoying this amazing animal and am eager to see if I can pull off making it at home in a satisfactory way..if I can this is another case of an extremely simple recipe and shaving 80% off of a bill by making it here at home.

Process was very simple, mixed the salt, sugar, and pepper together, crusted it onto the fish (one fillet cut in 1/2). Using a pyrex bowl I put down a layer of fresh dillweed, then 1/2 salmon fillet (skin down), with a layer of the salt mixture and dillweed on top, then putting the remaining 1/2 salmon fillet on top of that (meat side down, or skin up..basically a salmon sandwich) with a little dill and alot more salt mixture in between the pieces and topped off with some more dill and weighted down (using the flexible lid and jar of Kimchi) for 24 hours.

And that almost catches us all up! I need to post on my Belgium Wit soon but will be traveling some of this week so please don't expect any updates until later in this week...but I promise to make it an interesting post..how could I go wrong-fellow home brewer Ted (http://www.tedbrews.com/) initial reaction to tasting this brew was "oh wow..there is some funk there..."