Oatmeal Stout AKA-Bumpaddle Oatmeal Stout

This will be a real quick post..essentially what I did is brewed my first Oatmeal Stout (Aka "Bumpaddle"), bottled my English Bitter ("Miracle Elixor") and pitched the Stout wort right onto the yeast cake in primary last Sunday (but I did do this on a massive hangover from hitting up the hopleaf the night prior night...so I've got that goin for me..which is nice).

You can see my tempory "3 tier" system to the right, also I would like to note that I'm a knucklehead and have figured out why my mashes have been getting stuck so frequently with the last few batches...I've been batch sparging (which I prefer) but I have also been opening up my drain valve all the way..which obviously (well now anyway) has been compacting the grain bed and not maintaining the inch or so of liquid I should have over the grain bed when sparging. Needless to say this time it went great by allowing 30 minutes to sparge.

This is the second time I have re-pitched onto an existing yeast cake, the first was with my Barley Wine (onto a American Ale yeast used for a pale ale) which worked out well. With this batch I am able to say it worked just as well, if not better.

Primary fermentation was pretty much wrapped up within 3 days, which still amazes me. I plan on sitting this guy down in Secondary for at least a few weeks as it did come in a little heavy (1.068OG-above style guidlines..border line "imperial stout") before bottling..and then an additional 3-4 weeks to bottle condition might be necessary.

So this was a pretty full brew day, not only did I bottle my English Bitter (which is amazingly well balanced I must say) but I also brewed up an Oatmeal Stout, and finished the morning off by dropping 2oz of American Oak chips into my Belgiam Wild ale, which has been in tertiary for 4 months and will continue to be there for at least another 8 months prior to bottling. To the right you will see a close up on this batch in tertiary close up, you can somewhat make out a chunk of oak floating in there...just thought it was kinda cool looking..

This weekend I plan on JUST bottling my Saison...well thats the plan anyway....I will say I do have the grain and hops on hand for a pretty kick ass all cascade APA..which of course is a hop that will likely not exist in 2009.

Flemmish Beer Stew

What you see to the right of you is my second attempt at a Flemmish Beer Stew...and they are only getting better. Usually I would not bother with putting up a recipe onto the beer blog, but considering the time of year and the use of beer I say my way to rationalize doing so. This is one of my favorite dishes at a local belgium beer bar..or gastropub-The Hopleaf in Chicago (http://www.hopleaf.com/) and I have long thought about making it at home. Then one day came along on Basic Brewing Video (http://www.basicbrewing.com/) and lo and behold the fellas were throwing down a Flemmish Stew! That did it for me, within a week I had made my own (first attempt which was great) and now I am getting around to evolving it even more.

I'll keep it brief..but here is the tie in-RODENBACH :)

Various pics below, if you would like the recipe give me a shout and I'll post it up.

Here is the recipe folks..

This is based on a recipe for 6 people, so adjust where necessary:

4 pounds meat, such as chuck, diced into cubes, a teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 cup white flour, 1/2 stick unsalted butter,2 large onions, thinly sliced, 20 oz of your choice of belgian beer ( I prefer a sour brown ale)2 or 3 sprigs fresh thyme, bay leaves 1/2 tablespoons red currant or other jelly you prefer (try to make it tart though)1 tablespoon vinegar

1. Season the beef cubes with the salt and pepper and dredge with the flour. Shake off any excess.
2. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large heavy skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the meat cubes and sauté until nicely browned on all sides. Work in batches so as not to crowd the beef cubes, or they will steam instead of sauté. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, if necessary. Transfer the beef cubes to a heavy Dutch oven.
3. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter to the skillet and melt over medium heat. Add the onions and cook stirring occasionally, until browned, about 15 minutes. If necessary, raise the heat toward the end of the cooking time. It is important to brown the meat and the onions evenly to give the stew its deep brown color. The trick is to stir the onions just enough to avoid burning the but not so often as to interrupt the browning process. Combine the onions with the meat in the Dutch oven.
4. Deglaze the skillet with the beer, scraping with a wooden spoon to loosen any brown bits, and bring to a boil. Pour the beer over the meant. Add the thyme and bay leaves.
5. Simmer, covered, over low heat until the meat is very tender, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Before serving, stir in the red currant jelly and vinegar; simmer for 5 minutes. This sweet-and-sour combination will give this hearty stew its sprigs and bay leaves. Taste and adjust the seasoning and serve.

Cheers!

Saison...

Hands down one of my favorite beer styles to enjoy..and has been for some time now. I've been looking forward to brewing my own version of this Belgian/French Farmhouse ale for a long time now..and coming off of both an insanely busy work week and a very interesting culinary week-we went to Anthony Bourdains book talk and signing earlier in the week..which was a great experience-I was ready to get some brewing done!

This beer is loosely based on Ommegangs Hennipin (which by the way is both one of my favorite Breweries-Ommegang, and favorites of this style- this Saison is amazing), a little more complex in terms of malt bill and process than a Saison Dupont, which is said to be made of only 1 malt-Belgian Pilsner, but was not by any means a complicated beer to make.

Knowing that the malt bill is fairly straightforward (Belgian Pils, Belgian 2 row, cane, and Belgian candy sugar my focus was primarily on getting the wort down to the mid 60's F and very carefully control the fermentation temps..starting mid 60's and ramping up to as close to 90F I can around day 10 in primary..this should be much easier to accomplish in the cold (and snowy as of today) winter season of Chicago (as should all my temp issues) than it was all summer here..which was brutal and a true challenge to keep temps under 80 in most cases.

I will update as primary moves forward. Cheers!

Fermentables:

Grain:
-7 lbs Belgian Pilsner -
-2 lbs Belgian 2-row (it came uncrushed so I had to take the roller pin to it...)

Other:
-1lb Belgian clear candy sugar

-1 lb Cane sugar

*Sugar accounts for 18.2% of the fermentables.

Hops:
Bittering:
-2oz Czech Sladeck 7.8%AA-80 minutes
Flavor/Aroma

-.15 oz of Bitter orange peel

Yeast:
-Wyeast Belgian Saison, 400ml yeast slurry started for primary.

Stats:
80 minute mash. Water to Grain Ratio 1.25 : 1
-Batch sparged

-152F at mash in
-148F at sparge
-No Mash out

-85 minute boil

-Irish moss added at 5 minutes to flame out
-Final Volume 4.5 gallons

-SRM-5 *This is one point below the low end for style.

-IBUs-31
-Original Gravity: ??? You tell me..my hydrometer went tits up and started letting in water..but according to my tastybrew.com calculations we should be right around 1.070.

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