Still Cappin'

Today Señora HolzBrew and I bottled the english strong ale that we've been aging in a whiskey barrel for the last month.  I think these brews are at least one month away from initial tasting, but will probably be best in about a year.  I was excited to use my new custom-made bottlemark caps seen above!

-Holz

Dubbelicious

Roughly once a year I stumble across a Westmalle Dubbel at the store, a bar, or at a friend's house and I remember just how darn a great dubbel can be.  The Dubbel style beer was orginated in the 1850s at Westmalle Abbey.  Westmalle Abbey is a trappist brewery (i.e. monks!)  in the Campine region of the province of Antwerp (Flanders, Belgium).  The style can best be described as a smooth and creamy delicious malt-bomb.  The technical BJCP description can be found here.

Lately, I've had dubbel on the brain.  My last couple of batches have been english or german fermented and thus I feel compelled to brew Belgian.  Despite where my interests wander from batch to batch, my heart is never far from Flanders.  Accordingly, I hope to brew a large batch (approx 8 gallons) of dubbel in the coming weeks.  I recently purchased a fairly large sack of US two row malted barley and thus despite ideally using a belgian barley I will most likely use this as the backbone.  I also purchased a pound of both the D-90 and D-180 candi syrups, which I have been looking to use.

Here's my current thoughts on a tentative recipe, based mostly on what I've got in stock:

Dubbelicious
	Style: Belgian Dubbel	OG: 1.067
	Type: All Grain	FG: 1.012
	Rating: 0.0	ABV: 7.20 %
	Calories: 216	IBU's: 23.95
	Efficiency: 70 %	Boil Size: 8.98 Gal
	Color:   25.1 SRM	Batch Size: 8.00 Gal
	Preboil OG: 1.063	Boil Time: 75 minutes

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp
Primary	14 days @ 65.0°F
Secondary	28 days @ 50.0°F

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
18.00 lbs	82.76 %		Pale Malt (2 Row) US	60 mins	1.036
1.00 lbs	4.60 %		Caramunich Malt	60 mins	1.033
0.50 lbs	2.30 %		Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L	60 mins	1.034
4.00 ozs	1.15 %		Chocolate Malt	60 mins	1.028
2.00 lbs	9.20 %		Candi Sugar, Dark	60 mins	1.036

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
1.50 ozs	15.57		Styrian Goldings	60 mins	5.40
1.00 ozs	5.59		Hallertauer	20 mins	4.80
1.00 ozs	2.79		Saaz	10 mins	4.00

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg	Belgian Abbey II	Wyeast Labs 1762

Additions

(none)

Mash Profile

Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 154.0°F

Add 24.69 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 166.0°F

Sparge

Sparge 23.50 qt of 170.0°F water over 60 mins

Shiny New Homebrew Bottle Caps

This evening when I got home I received some new bottle caps in the mail.  There weren't any old bottle caps however.  They were self designed logo caps printed by: http://www.bottlemark.com/

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law designed the label.  I realize it may be hard to see the full glory given that these caps are still plastic wrapped, but trust me when I say they look great.  I highly recommend bottlemark.

Keep'em cappin',

HolzBrew

Whiskey Weizenbock

Lately, I've been thinking about ways to use the wheat that was sent to me this summer by our new friend Jason in Kansas.  The wheat was sent shortly after harvest and accordingly it was unmalted.  Admittedly, I was intimidated by the possibility of having to malt close to twenty pounds of wheat.  So I did what anyone would have done, I put the wheat on the shelf and ignored it for awhile.  Having received a fantastic malt mill for Xmas from my parents, I started to think about that raw wheat still sitting on the shelf.  After some reading I realized that I didn't have to malt the wheat as long as I used at least an equal amount of malted barley in the mash.  The enzyme content in modern malted barley is quite high and that means well milled wheat can be broken down into simple sugars by the enzymes in the malted barley included in the same mash.  Enter, the malt mill.

Additionally, I had just purchased a 50 lbs. bag of US two row barley.  Third, while I usually brew ales, my garage has been pretty steadily maintaining a 50 degree temperature the last few weeks, which is the perfect temperature at which to ferment a lager (at least primary fermentation).  All of these factors led me to brew a weizenbock this afternoon.  Now, the recipe wasn't perfect.  This weizenbock is not exactly to style, and I had to call a few audibles.  A pure weizenbock would rely on german malts (munich and pilsner) as the backbone of the mash.  But being a poor graduate student, I couldn't simply ignore that brand new 50 lbs. of two row (what I mean to say is that I couldn't afford to ignore it).  Second, I stopped by my local homebrew store yesterday in hopes of picking up a German Bock yeast strain (WLP833) and unfortunately all they had was the White Labs 838 strain, Southern German Lager.  Again, beggars can't be choosers so I decided to move forward.  Despite both these deviations from the ideal recipe, I think I'll turn out a nice product.

As part of this beer's journey to completion I plan to age it for a few weeks in my recently acquired whiskey barrel (currently being used to age an english strong ale).  I noticed today that Mike, over at the Mad Fermentationist, used a near identical barrel to age a triple wheat bock.  Mike is an awesome brewer, so at least this concept is in good company (the execution is up to me!).

It was a chilly brew day at a high of 32 degrees, which gives everything a dramatic steamy look:

Whiskey Weizenbock

	Style: Weizenbock
	Type: All Grain	Calories: 208
	Rating: 0.0	Boil Size: 6.40 Gal
	IBU's: 26.19	Batch Size: 5.50 Gal
	Color:   17.8 SRM	Boil Time: 90 minutes
	Preboil OG: 1.060

		Estimated	Actual
	Brew Date:	-	02/17/2013
	OG:	1.064	1.062
	FG:	1.014	1.014
	ABV:	6.55 %	6.29 %
	Efficiency:	70 %	67 %
	Serve Date:	04/14/2013	/ /

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp	Estimated	Actual
Primary	14 days @ 48.0°F	02/17/2013	02/17/2013
Secondary	21 days @ 50.0°F	03/03/2013	-
Secondary	21 days @ 32.0°F	03/24/2013	-

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
7.00 lbs	45.90 %		Red Wheat	60 mins	1.037
7.00 lbs	45.90 %		Pale Malt (2 Row) US	60 mins	1.036
1.00 lbs	6.56 %		Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L	60 mins	1.034
4.00 ozs	1.64 %		Chocolate Malt	60 mins	1.028

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
0.75 ozs	16.74		Pearle	60 mins	7.80
1.00 ozs	6.68		Tettnang	15 mins	4.70
0.25 ozs	2.77		Pearle	15 mins	7.80

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg	Southern German Lager	White Labs 0838

Additions

(none)

Mash Profile

Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 156.0°F

Add 19.06 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 173.3°F

Sparge

Sparge 16.47 qt of 170.0°F water over 60 mins

Sippin' on wheat and whiskey,

Holz

Holz-date

Unfortunately I haven't had time to brew lately, but homebrew and beer is never far from my mind.  Last weekend I racked the English Strong Ale I brewed in early January to my new barrel.  I'm pretty excited about this brew project and I can wait to see how it turns out.

Mrs. Brew and I made the drive up to Indianapolis this afternoon.  While we were there we stopped at Flat 12 Bierwerks for a bit.  We loved the staff and enjoyed a number of their beers.  Among their notable offerings was a brandy barrel-aged IPA and a bourbon barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout.  It helped feed my barrel aging frenzy.

Age it in wood,

HolzBrew

Winter Brewing and Partigyle Woes

It's been cold here.  A cold white substance has been falling from the skies.  Not a surprise, it's Indiana and its January.  The semester starts tomorrow, so I thought I'd take some time to brew this weekend.  I decided to try my first partigyle (two beers, one mash) brew day.  I planned to brew two large beers (a barleywine and a strong ale) and I thought that I might run into some.  I was right.

The day started off fine as I cleared off the back deck.  It was a nice brisk saturday morning, clear skies and very little wind.  I started to boil a full ten gallons of water and fill a trash bag with my full grain bill.  The first mash filled the tun to the top.  After a 90 minute mash, I started to sparge and ... my first stuck sparge.  It was terrible.  It basically took all day to gather enough wort to brew both beers.  Sad to say, I found the limit of my system.

Unfortunately, I think this means I'll be steering clear of partigyle beers for awhile.  Thirty+ pounds of grain was to heavy and the mash just became a heavy batch of goo that wouldn't run clear.  Regardless, I think I wound up with two decent batches of brew.  I'm not sure how to enter a partigyle brew into iBrewmaster, so I entered it in as two separate batches.  I used a total of 30 lbs of Maris Otter and I entered in 15 for the first beer and 15 for the second.

21 yr itch ale

	Style: English Barleywine
	Type: All Grain	Calories: 372
	Rating: 0.0	Boil Size: 3.85 Gal
	IBU's: 81.63	Batch Size: 3.00 Gal
	Color:    9.6 SRM	Boil Time: 120 minutes
	Preboil OG: 1.104

		Estimated	Actual
	Brew Date:	-	01/05/2013
	OG:	1.114	1.110
	FG:	1.028	1.028
	ABV:	11.27 %	10.74 %
	Efficiency:	70 %	68 %
	Serve Date:	04/26/2013	/ /

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp	Estimated	Actual
Primary	21 days @ 68.0°F	01/05/2013	01/05/2013
Secondary	90 days @ 72.0°F	01/26/2013	-

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
15.00 lbs	100.00 %		Pale Malt, Maris Otter	90 mins	1.038

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
2.00 ozs	60.40		Northern Brewer	60 mins	8.50
0.66 ozs	14.42		Phoenix	30 mins	8.00
0.66 ozs	3.83		Fuggles	10 mins	4.50
0.66 ozs	2.98		Crystal	10 mins	3.50
0.50 ozs			Hallertauer	10 days	4.80
0.50 ozs			Goldings, East Kent	10 days	5.00

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
2.00 pkg	Safale S-04	Fermentis S-04

Additions
Amount	Name	Time	Stage
0.66 tsp	Calcium Chloride	15 mins	Mash
0.66 tsp	Gypsum	15 mins	Mash

Mash Profile

Light Body Infusion In 90 min @ 150.0°F

Add 30.00 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 162.0°F

Mashout 10 min @ 170.0°F

Heat to 170.0°F over 2 mins

Carbonation

(none)

Notes

This batch was brewed in partigyle fashion and this wort represented the first runnings. English Strong Ale in the Barrel Style: Old Ale Type: All Grain Calories: 235 Rating: 0.0 Boil Size: 6.38 Gal IBU's: 44.91 Batch Size: 5.50 Gal Color:   23.2 SRM   Boil Time: 75 minutes Preboil OG: 1.068 Estimated Actual Brew Date: - 01/05/2013 OG: 1.072 1.074 FG: 1.018 1.018 ABV: 7.07 % 7.34 % Efficiency: 70 % 71 % Serve Date: 03/27/2013 / / Fermentation Steps Name Days / Temp Estimated Actual Primary 21 days @ 68.0°F 01/05/2013 01/05/2013 Secondary 60 days @ 72.0°F 01/26/2013 - Grains & Adjuncts Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity 15.00 lbs 90.91 % Pale Malt, Maris Otter 60 mins 1.038 1.00 lbs 6.06 % Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L 60 mins 1.034 0.50 lbs 3.03 % Chocolate Malt 60 mins 1.034 Hops Amount IBU's Name Time AA % 1.50 ozs 34.02 Northern Brewer 60 mins 8.50 1.00 ozs 8.08 Goldings, East Kent 20 mins 5.00 0.33 ozs 1.40 Phoenix 5 mins 8.00 0.33 ozs 0.79 Fuggles 5 mins 4.50 0.33 ozs 0.61 Crystal 5 mins 3.50 Yeasts Amount Name Laboratory / ID 1.0 pkg Safale S-04 Fermentis S-04 Additions (none) Mash Profile Light Body Infusion In 75 min @ 150.0°F  Add 33.00 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 162.0°F Sparge  Sparge 15.46 qt of 170.0°F water over 60 mins Carbonation (none) Notes This beer was brewed from the second runnings from the 21 year itch ale. It was aged for two months in a wiskey barrel. To better (brew) days, HolzBrew

  

Homebrew for the Holidays

It truly is the best time of year, for homebrewers that is.  I'm sure many brewers out there will take some time this holiday season to brew up something new, but hopefully not something blue (I hate blueberry in beer).  Personally, I hope to complete my first partigyle mash (i.e. multiple beers from the same mash).  The first beer is a rather ambitious project that I am hopeful will stand up to the test of time.  I'm aiming to brew a big english barleywine for my nephew's first birthday this April.  The idea is that this is a beer that his parent's could enjoy every year on his birthday until his 21st birthday ( called the "21 year itch ale").  I'm sure this beer will be great for the next couple of years, but I'm not sure if it will hold up for over two decades.  The recipe is based on Gordon Strong's 7 year itch ale from his Brewing Better Beer.  The second beer will be an English Strong ale that I plan to age in my new Christmas gift (from Mrs. HolzBrew):

In addition to this beauty, I also received a gorgeous set of pint glasses designed by my brother-in-law and sister-in-law:

What a fantastic gift!

Happy Holidays,

HolzBrew