Watermelon Wheat 2015

Time for another brew session. Today I'm brewing what I consider to be a quintessential summertime beer, Watermelon Wheat. You do have to really like watermelon to enjoy this beer, and I do. The watermelon really comes through in this beer in both the flavor and aroma. I haven't been able to figure out why, but this beer tends to age fairly well and the fragrant watermelon almost takes on a floral perfume-like quality with age.

I haven't made this beer in a long time, but it's always been a crowd pleaser. Usually I wait to brew this beer until late summer when the Green River Melons folks have started showing up at the local Farmers Market. It's still a bit early for that, but Sam's Club had seedless melons for $4 so I decided to pick a couple up. These early season melons tend to be hit or miss, but fortunately the ones I picked up turned out to be really good.

To prepare the fruit, a few days before brewday, I diced up the meat and used a potato masher to puree the melon. This was then poured through a strainer with the juice going into one container and the pulp into another. Both containers went into the freezer. Freezing the pulp will help break down the cell walls allowing us to extract a bit more juice. Freezing the juice just keeps it from going bad before we use it in secondary. I'll also be treating the juice with some potassium metabisulfite before adding it to secondary. This helps ensure we don't get any unexpected critters into the secondary.

For those that have never made a watermelon beer before, don't expect this beer to turn out pink. The red part of the melon drops out with the yeast, so you'll be left with a straw colored wheat beer.

I changed up a couple things this time, primarily the hops. I've been wanting to try Huell Melon hops for a while and based on the description, I think they'll work well in this beer.

6 lbs 8.0 oz Fruit - Watermelon
6 lbs Rahr Pale 2-Row
4 lbs White Wheat Malt
8.5g Columbus (60 min)
28g Huell Melon Hops (5 min)
Rice hulls
1 Pkgs US-05

Don't forget the rice hulls in the mash (helps avoid a stuck sparge). Mash at 152F for 1 hour, 90 minute boil, ferment at 62F

Add fruit to secondary

Brewing Notes
No issues with the brew session. Fermenter is currently in the ferm chamber chilling.

Update 7/9/2015

I thawed out the watermelon juice/pulp overnight and put it into the secondary today. I also added 1/8 teaspoon of potassium metabisulfite dissolved into 1/4 cup RO water. This should help kill off any wild bugs that could have made it into the juice. This will sit overnight with a 1 gallon paint strainer bag stretched over the mouth (keeps bugs out while letting the juice off-gas). I'll rack the beer into the juice tomorrow. Oh and I ended up with about 1.5 gallons of juice.

Update 7/10/2015

Racked to secondary this morning. Believe it or not this pink beer will end up straw colored.

Update 7/20/2015
I started cold crashing this beer over the weekend to get the yeast and watermelon to drop. So far it's clearing up nicely but it still has a touch of pink. I'll let it continue to chill throughout the week before racking to a keg.

Update 11/22/2015
So this keg has been sitting around. The beer is good but my taste in beer has definitely changed since the last time I made it. One of the guys in my brew club brought an accidental sour watermelon saison to a meeting not too long ago. It was delicious. The lactic acid really brightened up the watermelon character. I decided to intentionally sour this beer and see what happens. For the souring, I added the oak cubes from the CS Experiment beer.

Update 5/27/2016
Pulled a little sample tonight. It's subtly sour right now, definitely much improved over the last time I tasted it. I'm going to let it ride a little longer and see what happens. It definitely seems to be heading in the right direction. 

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Smoke & Wood Imperial Porter

Smoked and wood-aged beers are styles that people tend to love or hate. I think one reason is smoked beers are very phenolic and some people are very sensitive to those compounds, so even the slightest smoke character can be overwhelming on their palate. Another reason is sometimes it can be hard to find good commercial examples.

One smoked beer I really enjoy and that I've mentioned before is Smoked Porter from Alaskan Brewing. Another is Smoking Wood from The Bruery. Smoking Wood showcases the wonderful flavors that come from combining smoked grain with aging on wood, and it is the inspiration for this recipe. The last time I was at The Bruery, I think they had about six different variations of Smoking Wood on tap.

I formulated this recipe based on Denny Conn's famous Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter. For smoked grains, I'm going with the new Mesquite-smoked malt from Briess, plus Rauch malt from Weyermann. For wood, I'm going to be using a new product for me, Honey Comb Barrel Alternative from Black Swan Barrels (HCBA). I recently ordered the sample pack from Black Swan, so I may try splitting the batch after primary and dosing with different varieties.

Here's the recipe as I'm making it today:

8.0# Muntons Pearl 2-row

2.0# Avangard Munich

1.25# Crisp Brown Malt

1.25# Briess Mesquite-smoked Malt

1.25# Weyermann Rauch Malt

1.25# Crisp Crystal 77L

0.75# Patagonia Chocolate Malt (350L)
28g Magnum (60 min)
14g EKG (10 min)
WLP001 Cali Ale yeast

0.5 Whirlfloc

0.5t Yeast nutrient

1" per gallon HCBA

Mash at 154F for 60 minutes, 90 minute boil, ferment at 60F

I used 9 gallons distilled water using Beersmith's London water profile for this beer. I wasn't quite as concerned about the water profile on this beer other than I wanted to make 100% sure that there wasn't any chlorine that could result in chlorophenol (band-aid) character.

Brewing Notes
The only issue I had was the OG came out higher than anticipated. I adjusted for efficiency, but I think my pre-boil volume was a tad low and my boil-off rate seemed higher than normal. I was shooting for 1.079 and measured 1.099 with a volume of 4.5 gallons. I decided to top off to 5.5 total volume, so that should bring the gravity down to 1.081. Wort tastes great, not too much roast and smoke character is noticeable but not dominating.

Update 6/15/2015
And we have blow-off. Fermentation kicked off strong with about 1.5" of krausen this morning. After work it was at about 3".  Sometime between then and now (10pm) it started pushing up into the airlock. I've hooked up a blow-off hose and I'll keep it there until fermentation slows down.

Update 6/21/2015

I brought this beer in the house last night. Fermentation had slowed substantially so I'll keep it at room temperature to finish things out. This also allows me to dial the temp of the ferm chamber way down so I can start lagering my Czech pilsner.

Update 6/27/2015
Adding the wood today. Gravity finished out at about 11 brix (1.021) which puts me in the neighborhood of 8.3% ABV. This is a full body beer but it's not sweet or cloying. Aroma is not overly roasty, with a bit of smoke and some toasted bread character,. Bitterness is really nice and it has a little more smoke in the taste than in the aroma. Smoke is complimentary, not dominating and not harsh whatsoever. No chlorophenols whatsoever, so that's good. I decided to go with hickory for this beer. From Black Swan's site, the hickory has the following characteristics:

Honey, BBQ, hickory smoked bacon, apple sauce, cocoa coconut

I treated the hickory by steaming it for about 10 minutes to help make sure it's as sanitary as possible. I'll be pulling samples fairly often to make sure I don't extract too much wood character.

Update 7/6/2015
Pulled a sample tonight after realizing I hadn't tried it since adding the wood. This is a really nice beer. Wood character is still on the subtle side. I'd like to get a bit more out of it so I'll probably let it go a couple more days before pulling another sample.

Update 8/9/2015
The Beehive Brew-Off wrapped up today. This beer took gold for 32B Specialty Smoked Beer. I really like the way this beer turned out. This will get made again with some other woods.

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Bohemian Pilsner

Today I'm brewing a lager, something I rarely do, and it's the first time brewing this style, Bohemian Pilsner a.k.a. Czech Pilsner (a.k.a. 3B - Czech Premium Pale Lager per 2015 BJCP Guidelines). As you can tell from my posts, I tend to brew ales, but I've been wanting to try my hand at some lagers.

Another first, I decided to start tweaking my water profiles. I've done very rough tweaking in the past...like cutting my carbon-filtered tap water with RO water in some of the pale beers I've made. These adjustments weren't really based on any specific measurements. This will be the first time using all distilled water and adding brewing salts to build up to a specific water profile.

The recipe is based on the Style Profile column from BYO magazine, adjusted for 83% efficiency. Since I've never brewed this style before, I'm sticking pretty close to the recipe. The recipe as I'm making it:

8.0# 11 oz. Avangard German Pilsner
9 oz Briess Carapils
34g Czech Saaz 4% AA (60 min)
41g Czech Saaz 4% AA (30 min)
20.5g Czech Saaz 4% AA (10 min)
20.5g Czech Saaz 4% AA (0 min)
2 packs of Wyeast 2001 Urquell Yeast in 2L starter
0.5 Whirlfloc
0.5t Yeast Nutrient

Mash at 154F for 90 mins, 90 minute boil, chill to 44F, aerate and pitch yeast. Raise temp to 50F over 36 hours.

Water Profile

• Ca - 7.5ppm
• Mg - 1.3ppm
• Na - 2.8ppm
• SO4 - 5.2ppm
• Cl - 4.7ppm
• HCO3 - 14.7ppm

Brew Water Recipe

• 9 gallons distilled water
• 0.5g Epsom Salt
• 0.3g Calcium Chloride
• 0.4g Baking Soda
• 0.4g Chalk
• 5 gallons of mash liquor acidified with 2.4ml 88% lactic acid

Brewing Notes

No real issues. I collected bit more volume in the BK than I'd planned, so the OG is a few points lower than I wanted (1.052 rather than 1.056). It's still within style guidelines, so no harm. I chilled down to 60F with my plate chiller then put it in the ferm chamber to continue chilling down to 44F. Hopefully it'll be there and I can pitch the yeast in the morning.

Update 5/31/2015

I was still a few degrees shy of 44F this morning so I had to wait a few more hours. Wort is now aerated and yeast is pitched. I'll gradually ramp up the temp to 50F over the next 36 hours.

Update 6/2/2015
Everything seems to be happily chugging along,with,this beer. I'm doing the final bump up to 50F today.

Update 6/21/2015

This beer spent the last week at 60F. Basically a diacetyl rest that also allowed me to ferment my Smoke & Wood Imperial Porter. I've now started dropping the temps for the lagering phase.

Update 6/27/2015
I went ahead and kegged this beer today so that I can clear out the ferm chamber for another beer. It has dropped very clear, but it has a little bit of haze. I treated it with gelatin so I'll let it work away on clearing the beer. I'll let it finish out its lagering phase in my keezer.

Not to toot my own horn, but in my opinion this turned out really well. Nice malt character with rounded bitterness, clean fermentation...I can't wait for it to carb up. The gravity finished out at about 6.8 brix (1.012). Definitely interested to see how this one stacks up against the competition.

Update 8/9/2015
The Beehive Brew-Off wrapped up today. This beer took gold in 3B Czech Premium Pale Lager. Not bad considering this is the first lager I've entered in a competition.

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Berliner 2015

Berliner Weisse has become one of my favorite sour styles to brew. They're easy to make and the turnaround time is fairly short compared to most sour styles. I brewed my 2015 version on Memorial Day and it's been happily chugging along this week. I basically used the same recipe and process as I did in 2014 except for the following:

• I used German Pils instead of Belgian Pils. 
• For the souring, I decided to try a blend of Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus, Wyeast 5223 Lactobacillus Brevis, and White Labs WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii
• For the yeast blend that I'll pitch after giving the Lactobacillus blend a head start, I'm using Wyeast 3191 Berliner Weisse Blend which is the blend I used on my first "successful" Berliner back in 2013. This is one of Wyeast's Private Collection blends, so it's not available every year.
• My 2014 version scored very well in last year's Beehive Brew-off (42 or 44 if I remember correctly) and went to the mini-BOS for the Sour Ale category. It didn't end up placing (but my Flanders Red #2 took gold) and it got knocked out because one of the judges said they detected DMS. I never detected any in this beer, but I decided to try a more traditional boil this time, so this version got a 90 minute boil whereas the 2013 and 2014 versions used a short 15 minute boil.

I usually give the lactobacillus a head start of 5-7 days because I like my Berliners to be pretty sour. That can come at a price though because most beer judges have commented they think my Berliners are too sour for the style. They are sour, but I don't believe they're too sour, especially compared to some of the more modern commercial examples I've tried. I liken it to someone complaining that a West Coast IPA is too hoppy compared to a traditional English IPA. That may be true but I still love a good West Coast IPA. Regardless, if you try this recipe/process and you plan on entering it into a competition, consider shortening the head start by a couple days.

This is a 10 gallon batch and I'm toying with the idea of putting half on tart cherries for a Cherry Berliner Weiss. I'm also toying with the idea of shortening the head start for half the batch.

Here's the recipe as I brewed it:

8.0 # Avangard German Pilsner Malt

7.0 # Weyermann Pale Wheat Malt
1.0 # Rice Hulls 

2.0 oz Aged Debittered Hops (Mash hops, 0.0 IBU's)

Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus

Wyeast 5223 Lactobacillus Brevis

White Labs WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii

Wyeast 3191 Berliner Weisse Blend

Mash at 150F for 90 minutes, 90 minute boil, ferment at room temp.

Brewing Notes
No issues to speak of. OG came in at 11.4 brix (1.046), so kind of like my 2014 version, this is an Imperial Berliner. It's still going to have a pretty low ABV though.

Update 5/29/2015 I went ahead and pitched 3191 at day 4 for half the batch. The other half will get it a day 6.

Update 5/31/2015

I pitched the yeast blend into the second half today (day 6). Something kind of odd, the first half that got the BW blend on day 4, the krausen from the lacto completely collapsed. It was still showing signs of fermentation but I don't remember that behavior before.

Update 6/27/2015
Doing a whole bunch of brewing stuff today so I decided to pull a sample. I don't have a pH meter (yet) so it's hard to say with any degree of accuracy, but the pH is down in the 3.2 neighborhood on both. It's hard to tell in the pictures below, but there is a slight difference in the color of the test strips. Both samples smell the same, lactic and wheat, but the 6-day pitch is noticeably more tart than the 4-day pitch, but they're both quite tart. Both taste amazing so I'm really happy with the results. There seems to be some added complexity in this version...maybe from the blend of lactobacillus cultures. I'm definitely going,to enjoy this beer. Still trying to decide whether to do part on tart cherries. They're both so good, I'm not sure I want to mess with them.

Outdoors

Indoors

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CS Brett Expirement

I've been on a brewing drought lately because I've been busy with a variety of projects. A buddy of mine moved to Denver earlier this year and was in town for my daughter's wedding (one of the things that kept me busy) and he brought me a vial of Brett Barrel III yeast from Inland Island. He got it at his LHBS in Denver and they indicated this is a brettanomyces strain from Crooked Stave.  Needless to say, I'm excited to brew a batch and give this yeast a try.

I'm a huge fan of all the CS beers I've been able to try, but I especially like some of the darker wild/sour beers (e.g. Nightmare on Brett Street, Motif Reserva, etc.), so I decided to go with a darker base beer for this experiment. Brett alone won't really sour a beer, so I'll probably pitch some dregs from one of my other sours once primary is done.

Here's the recipe as I made it:

6.0 # German Munich
3.0 # German Pilsner
1.0 # Chit Malt
0.5 # Flaked Oats
0.5. # Special B
0.5 # Carafa II
0.25 # Pale Chocolate Malt
28g Aged Hops (60 min)
INISBC-913 Brett Barrel III
Wyeast Nutrient
1.0 # D-180 Candi Syrup (rack onto syrup in secondary when pitching sour bugs)

Mash at 156F for 60 min. Ferment at room temp. I'll be saving this blend to use in other beers, so I'll rack to secondary, save the primary cake, then pitch some lactobacillus and pedio in the secondary.

Update 6/28/2015
I racked this beer to secondary yesterday. It has some really nice brett character, lots of stone fruit flavors in there. I added some yeast cake from my first Oud Bruin plus some from Chitty Bang Bang Oud Bruin. I also added two French Oak Medium+ cubes.

Update 7/22/2015

I recently picked up a pH meter that I plan to use for tracking progress of my sours as well checking mash pH. I decided to pull a sample and see where the pH was at after almost a month on the souring bugs. 

pH as of today is measuring 3.51. The beer is noticeably sour, but not quite as sour as most of my sours. Oak character from the cubes is subtle. Body is medium. I really like the direction this beer seems to be heading.

Update 10/27/2015
Pulled a sample today and this beer is delicious. It has a subtle oak character with just a hint of smokiness. Acidity is very nice, measured at 3.18 today. I think it's ready for kegging/packaging. I'm toying with the idea of treating it with potassium metabisulfite to halt the souring process because I really don't want the pH to drop any more.

Update 11/21/2015
This beer went into the keg yesterday.  

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