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Homebrew Recipe – Cherry Wheat

Inspired partly  by the estery flavours and sweetness I found in a glass of Franziskaner’s weissbeer and partly spurred on by the success of my Apple Ale I decided to brew my first wheat beer and my second fruit beer. This is the recipe and my experience in producing a cherry wheat beer.

Forethought

One thing I have noticed in my short but illustrious homebrewing career is that many of the beers I have produced lack the same sort of body as some commercial brews. It appears there are some special malts that claim to increase body and head feel. Quite by chance I was talking to my local homebrew shop owner about what to put in wheat beer and he recommended carapils. Just one of those grains. Carapils adds little in terms of colour, flavour and sugar content but it is claimed that it increases head retention and gives a fuller body in small amounts. So apart from further experimentation with fruit I will also be carefully monitoring how the carapils affects the body of this beer. (more)

Homebrew recipe – Apple Ale

This brew needs to have a flavour that will be bitter but sweet and slightly malty, reminiscent of a granny smith. Nose will have some Saaz hops but
these need to give way to the apple smell so flavour and aroma hops will be limited.

(more)

Homebrew – Red Ale

The next beer I will be brewing is roughly based on an Irish Red Ale recipe. Essentially I’m experimenting with grains and colouration.

It will be an another extract recipe and will be using goldings hops and some English ale yeast to give it a cleaner, fruitier flavour than cascade hops and US ale yeast.

(more)

My second extract brew

We recently moved home so I had to give up brewing for a month before we moved. Although it was hard not being able to brew during this period I also had a lot of fun as I and a few friends tasked ourselves with drinking as much of my homebrew as possible to lighten the moving load. We actually moved from an apartment to a house – partly because we wanted to and partly because we feel it’s the best environment to raise our new child. I also feel it’s best not to annoy the neighbours with a crying baby.

I haven’t written up my first extract homebrew. It was a kit from Dave’s Homebrew in North Sydney. I felt let down by it in a way. I guess I was expecting something more interesting than 3 kilos of spray malt, a few sachets of hops and a packet of yeast. My first self formulated recipe is a little more exciting but I feel that I’ll be on full mash grain brewing within a couple of months. Extract just doesn’t seem to be a huge leap from my kit experimentation – especially considering how much experimentation I’ve done with kit and sugar beers from day dot.

The aim of this ale was to be big. Big on malt flavour, big on hops and most importantly big on alcohol. In Australia we are deprived of beers with a decent amount of alcohol. Commercial beers are taxed, and taxed highly, on the percentage of alcohol. Beers used to average 5-6 percent in this country but since changes to the taxes on beer the big brewers have dropped their alcohol content. It’s unfortunate because they just don’t taste the same as they did.  I’ve previously stated I’d try and make a really big beer which have usually ended up being around 6%, this time though there have been no holds barred in adding lots and lots of malt and sugars.

Ingredients

• 3 x 1.5 kilogram Morgans LME (light, pale, lager – who knows, they keep changing the name)
• 500 grams cracked crystal malt
• Saaz and Cascade hops (~ 40 grams each)
• 250 grams honey
• Dave’s booster pack (1kg) which is 500grams LDME, 250 grams maltodextrin, 250 grams dextrose
• 300 grams dextrose
• 1 teapsoon Irish moss

Method

The crystal grain was steeped at 70 degrees C for 20 minutes in 3 litres of water and then sparged with a few more litres of water at 70 degrees. In reality my temperature control was not so good and the steeping was done at more like 75-80 degrees and the sparge water was closer to 80C. I hope this doesn’t release too many tannins as I have read can happpen.

2 of the 3 cans of malt extract were warmed up and added to the liquid from the malt. This concoction was then brought to the boil and the hops added. I used the hopping schedule from a Little Creature’s pale ale clone recipe I found on the net. I hope the flavour comes out similar.

45 mins

12g Saaz hops
12g Cascade hops

15 mins

10g Saaz hops
10g Cascade hops
1 teaspoon irish moss

zero mins (as you turn off the heat)

18g Saaz hops
18g Cascade hops

After the heat has been turned off, and this is challenging to do without clumping. Add the last can of malt extract, the booster pack, 300 grams of dextrose and 250 grams of honey and stir in. I had to take the hop bag out and heat the wort back up to really get out those lumps.

I cooled the wort down then pitched it onto the trub of my first extract beer which was brewed with US-05. This was then filled to 19 litres with cold water.  The original gravity (OG) turned out at 1120 – far too high for a beer. In fact the hydrometer I used had it marked as a desert wine.  I added another 2 litres of water but the gravity is still probably 1100 or so. The American Ale yeast that was used can handle up to about 10% alcohol but if a dry beer is wanted (which it is) then the yeast will die long before bottling. So, a champagne yeast will be pitched after the ale yeast has died. This should maintain the ale taste but ferment the remaining sugar.

Overall I’m really happy so far with the outcome of this wort. Maybe it was a little stronger than I expected but fingers crossed it comes out well.

Fermentation

After 48 hours the specific gravity (SG) of the brew has dropped all the way down to 1042. It still tastes sweet and malty so there’s a long way to go but it’s quite drinkable. You just need to avoid the chunks of yeast and grain silt.

Exactly one week later the beer is down to 1020 which I calculate as an apparent attenuation of 84% and an alcohol content of 13%. Fermentation has slowed rapidly and the yeast can’t possibly survive much longer. I went to a trip to the homebrew store but they were out of champagne yeast. The idea being to use this to “dry” the beer out the final 10 or so points.

Three weeks later despite adding yeast nutrient, rousing, swirling and every other trick in the book to try and bring down the specific gravity it’s still sitting at 1020.

Bottling

Almost a whole month after starting the final gravity is still sitting at 1020 and it’s time to bottle this barley wine. No sugar will be added to the bottles so if there is any carbonation it will be due to further fermentation of the sugars in the beer. I don’t anticipate anything more than a few bubbles in the final product. Even after months of maturation. It still tastes fantastic and I must admit I’ve been sneaking a glass or two straight out of the fermenter since it’s been sitting in the secondary.

India Black Ale

Siera Nevada Torpedo IPA

After the success of my Double Hopped IPA I thought I’d have another crack at it. This time though, there’s a twist. Two of them in fact.

I was in California in February for work and as usual I have to try every local beer when I go overseas. One of the ones I tried was a Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA – a real mouthful and as I was to find out a couple of them, a very strong beer (at 7.2%).

Now this brew isn’t just an attempt to copy the IPA I had but an attempt to redefine an IPA. It will be darker than an IPA, it will be an India Black Ale (IBA).

Ingredients

• 1 can of Sir Thomas Coopers IPA kit beer mix
• 1 kg of Munton’s amber dry malt extract
• 700 grams of raw sugar
• ~ 150 grams of molasses
• 1 bag of goldings finishing hops

Method

The method was standard for a kit beer. As usual I activated the yeast half an hour before adding it to the wort. Although this time the yeast didn’t show much activity before being added to the mix so I am a little worried about the state of the yeast. Only time will tell. The dry malt extract (DME) clumped up because I added it to the still wet fermenter about twenty minutes before it was mixed in with the sugar and molasses which had been pre boiled with about 1 1/2 litres of water. The finishing hops were made up like a cup of tea thanks to the morgan’s tea bag style hops preparation.

Specific gravity came out at 1054. I suspect that it should be closer to 1056 or 1058 due to the aggressive clumping of the DME. With than in mind the final alcohol percentage if it hits 1012 should be ~ 6.5%. Shy of the target of 7.2% but the result should be a dark, very hoppy and quite alcoholic ale. An India Black Ale (IBA).

For one of my future beers I will attempt a highly alcohol ale, possibly using Safale T58.

Transfer to secondary

A week later the brew is down to an SG of 1010 and still bubbling away merrily. The yeast have not fully settled down yet as the brew is quite cloudy but there’s a nice trub so it seems like a good time to do the transfer.

The amazing part is the colour. It’s the palest India Pale Ale I’ve ever seen. It’s yellow and paler than many blondes. So much for making an India Black Ale.

Bottling

After two weeks in the secondary the beer is about to be bottled. Tasting it gives the impression of a still rather young IPA with lots of citrus aromas and flavours with that bite that you expect of an IPA.  It’s still quite yeasty and cloudy which I expected the secondary fermentation to clear up a bit more. However,  it’s not as bad as before so the transfer off the primary trub has done its job. A second trub, smaller trub has developed which indicates a continued fermentation. My hydrometer was broken in an unfortunate dish washing accident and is yet to be replaced but my guess is the SG has dropped another couple of points to 1008.

This brew is looking like it will embody everything I love about IPA despite not satisfying the aim of the experiment. I can’t wait to taste the finished product.

Learnings

The impression I had from previous brews was the use of raw sugar and molasses would significantly darken the brew but in this case they haven’t. One contributor may have been the over dilution of the wort by filling the fermenter to almost 25 litres rather than the usual 21 litres or so. However, I think the main lesson to be learnt is that raw sugar does not contribute to colour.

The other learning, which I have read about a bit is that sugar – raw or otherwise contributes to a yeasty, slightly sour brew when used in significant quantities. Where I have used it in the past in larger quantities (more than 250grams or so) this seems to have correlated with an increased yeasty taste at least. Exactly what seems to have happened with this brew but I hope can be saved by the transfer to a secondary fermenter.

Homebrew: Milk Chocolate Stout

My first stout and my first brew using grains and chocolate. I’m hoping this will turn out to be a rich, sweet but smokey stout with a lot of chocolate and coffee undertones.

Ingredients

• 1 tin Coopers stout mix
• 200g Dave’s chocolate grain pack
• Morgan’s master dark roasted malt extract 1.5kgs
• 200 grams raw sugar
• 200 grams lactose
• 450 grams molasses
• 60 grams Cadbury’s bournville cocoa
• 4 tablespoons vanilla extract

Method

Brewed in the usual manner but the grains were steeped in a saucepan of freshly boiled water for 30 mins with the lid on. The cocoa, molasses and vanilla were brought to the boil with a litre of water and blended quite nicely. The sugar was simply added at the end as the OG was a little low. I don’t think it made a difference.

The original gravity (OG) came out at 1052 – much lower than I expected given the amount of sugars (including the unfermentable lactose). Final gravity by my guess will be around 1014.

Fermentation

Two days later and it’s bubbling away quite nicely. I will likely leave this brew to mature in the fermenter for about a week after initial signs of fermentation and SG have stabilised as it may need some time to settle. Three days later and it’s 1018. It tastes like a long black with cocoa, vanilla and just a dash of sugar. Beautiful.

One week later and the SG is still 1018. There are a few more “off” and yeasty flavours at this point but I believe these will go away with time so I will leave it another week in the primary then bottle.

Secondary Fermentation

Update: I picked up a brand new fermenter today which I will use for secondary fermentation. Transferring the brew from one to another is as simple as running a tube between them and turning on the tap. So I moved the stout from the primary to the secondary and will most likely leave it there for another one or two weeks as there is now no risk of that yeast cake going bad and attacking the rest of the beer.

What can I do with the spare fermenter but make another brew.

Bottling

A week after transferring to the secondary it was bottling day. The stout tastes just like a cold espresso but somewhat sweeter. Quite nice. I’m going to call it a breakfast beer. Something tells me it will take a while to finish. It’s far from a sessional beer.

Tasting

A week after bottling I made the mistake of cracking open one of the stouts. It was flat, as a pancake, with no head and not even a small fizz when opening the bottle.  Two weeks later and this time it wasn’t a mistake. There was a decent amount of carbonation, not too much mind you. The resulting liquid looks as appealing as a glass of cold coffee but the taste is fantastic. Sweet, chocolaty with some great coffee undertones. The vanilla added before fermentation is now non-existent – some of the brewers on the forums have mentioned this happens as the yeast seem to metabolise it so next time I will add the vanilla either to the secondary or while bottling.

Homebrew – Nut Brown Ale

Ingredients

• Muntons nut brown ale kit mix
• 1 kilo muntons amber spray malt
• 400g raw sugar
• 1 bag of fuggles finishing hops

Using the usual method of preparation the mix came out at 1050 OG. Assuming it finishes around 1010 then it should turn out at about 5.6 – 5.7%.

Bottling

The final gravity of this brew turned out to be 1014 after a week in the primary. Alcohol volume should be 5.2%.

30 740 ml bottles were used and after a few weeks it should make a nice drink. My next brew will be a chocolate milk stout using lactose, vanilla extract and cocoa. Stay tuned.

Tasting

I couldn’t help myself and after just a week of bottle conditioning cracked one open. The flavour is very earthy, almost overpoweringly so and there’s a definite hint of nuts in there – like walnuts and hazelnut. The colour is a lot darker than expected and the texture is almost reminiscent of a stout.

A month or so and it may be a beer to be very proud of.

Three weeks later and this beer has to be one of my favourite creations. The nut flavours have mellowed and it is tasting quite similar to White Rabbit Ale – maybe not as sweet and a lot more hoppy but beautiful.

Homebrew: Belgian Ale

My last brew – an American Ale came out a little too sour. For one of two reasons:

1) Sun exposure – I was actually away in America for a couple of weeks enjoying some of their Ales while this one was waiting to be bottled. Sometime while I was away the towel covering the fermenter fell off and my better half failed to put it back on

2) Too much sugar – I like my ales strong and to make this one strong I used dextrose and about half a kilo of raw sugar. Unfortunately too much sugar in your brew gives it a somewhat tart or sour taste.

So now the weather has cooled down a bit I thought it would be a good time to pick up the brewing again with a new type of ale.

Strong Belgian Ale Ingredients

1 Brewcraft Belgian Ale kit mix
1kg of light Dry Malt Extract (DME)
500g Belgian candi sugar
1 cup (approx 200gms) of raw sugar
T58 Safale yeast

Preparation

Candi sugar and raw sugar were boiled up together while the yeast was started with a couple of teaspoons of sugar. The DME was added to the fermenter and the kit and sugars were then pitched in. The Original Gravity (OG) came out at 1053, which seems rather low but considering DME clumps up and never dissolves fully until the yeast start eating it I’m not too concerned. It probably has an OG closer to 1060.

After a few hours it’s bubbling away like crazy. Usually with my beers it takes a good day.

Brewing

The beer was prepared on a Saturday afternoon and by Tuesday morning the bubbling had all but stopped. The specific gravity at this point was 1012. I’ll leave it another day and see but it looks like it’s ready.

Bottling

After a week the brew ended up at 1010 and should be 6.1% alcohol. Right now it has a very sugary fruity taste with a massive head but it should mellow out to a nice mildly rich ale.

Tasting

This beer is quite strong and has a malty, toffee taste reminiscent of a Belgian Ale but unfortunately it is very yeasty. Highly drinkable but not one I would share with my non-homebrewing friends.

Homebrew – Double Hopped IPA

India Pale Ale (IPA) as legend has it was invented because the journey beer took from Britain to the colonies in India was too harsh on regular beers so the amount of hops added to the ale was increased and the recipe changed to increase the alcohol content slightly. This combination helped the beer weather the long trip a lot better and gavethe new style its name – IPA.

Ingredients

• 1 tin Thomas Coopers IPA
• 1 packet yeast (included with  tin above)
• 1 packet of Morgans finishing hops – Goldings variety
• 1 kilo of Munton’s light dry malt
• 1 mug of raw cane sugar

Preparation

Preparation was straightforward for this kit brew but I did take the special step of preparing the yeast properly. Thirty minutes before pitching the wort I added the yeast to a small, warm, pre-boiled mug of water with a few teaspoons of the light dry malt. This was then covered up, left for fifteen minutes and stirred before leaving it another fifteen minutes and added to the wort.

The finishing hops were also prepared thirty minutes before the rest of the ingredients were added to the fermenter.  The hop bag, which is rather like a teabag, was simply steeped in hot boiled water for thirty minutes and covered up.

The content of the tin was then added to the fermenter with two litres of boiling water. The dry malt and raw sugar was then slowly stirred in. The fermenter was filled up to the 23 litre mark with cold tap water. The final steps were to add the hop  bag and the water it was steeped in and pour the now bubbling away yeast into the mix.

After taking a specific gravity reading the original gravity came out to be 1052.

Outcome

The brew began bubbling vigorously but not aggressively within the first twelve hours. After five days it had settled down and I took another reading. Two days later it was ready to bottle with a final gravity of 1009. With this reading it should be 6.1% alcohol. Perfect for a pale ale.

Tasting

Since this beer was looking so good in theory I was keen to try it out and within three days of bottling it I couldn’t resist and cracked open my first. Suffice to say I was not disappointed, although still young and very harsh due to the large amount of hops I could detect the fruitiness of a well brewed ale.

A month on, I’ve almost run out as it’s been a hit. The harshness has all but dissolved away and what we’re left with is a brew that has a very fruity aroma, quite a bite and a slightly malty after taste.

Some say there are two types of homebrew – the one where people ask for more and the type where when offered more people politely decline. This was definitely the former.

Is the iphone just a fad?

The definition of a fad varies a little from dictionary to dictionary but essentially what they all boil down to is this (from Wiktionary):

“A phenomenon that becomes popular for a very short time”

There is no denying that the iphone meets at least half the definition of a fad. It has become very popular in a very short period. Not long enough to make it to the list of enduring fads like the Rubik’s Cube or Skateboards.

In fact it wasn’t until the second iphone was created and launched world wide just over a year ago now that it really began to pick up pace.

The question is though, will the iphone just turn out to be a fad? Will all the cool kids be carrying around the next Motorola, Nokia or LG by this time next year?

One thing we can be sure of is that it’s starting to lose its street cred or “geek cred” as some call it. When you see grannies and stay at home mums using a phone that used to be the sole the domain of designers and the “technorati” you know it’s nearing the end of its adoption lifecycle. In fact someone did a lot of research into this a while ago and came up with something called Roger’s bell curve and the technology adoption lifecycle. The iphone is indeed in the late majority phase (where your slower than average adopters are). In other words it is no longer cool. Sorry Mr Stephen Fry.

This by no means proves it as a fad. No more than being called a shiny, stupid toy by the haters does.

What all this leads me to is an article I read about the death of the Croc shoe. Who’s death unlike the iphone I could not possibly even shed a single tear for.  What an ugly, ugly excuse for a shoe. At least the iphone looks nice.

You know those stupid pieces of footwear that started off as a fairly niche product suited for a single purpose that were very well marketed as being a shiny all rounder type shoe that might even work on public pavements. Kind of like sticking a phone on a multimedia player and calling it a smartphone. Yes! I am going somewhere. Crocs are to shoes as iphones are to, well … phones.

The article – named How Crocs Crashed was very positive and actually went on not to so much focus on how the Crocs fad failed but how you can keep your brand fresh. What I got out of it being a negative nelly and all is the exact opposite. I saw the massive parallels between what Apple are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

The keys to keeping a brand “hot” from Ries’ pieces. Along with my iphone take on them:

1. Dampen demand

This is one thing Apple certainly isn’t doing. In fact they’re adding so much fuel to the iphone fire I’m beginning to wonder whether they were behind the invasion of Iraq.

You just can’t escape the brand in Sydney. If you’re not walking past an Apple store you’re looking at an Apple ad on the back of a bus, on the side of a bus shelter in a magazine, newspaper. They’ve even managed to convince the media that there is no other phone. I’m sure this is the same in any major first world city.

Apple’s marketing department are flogging the iphone for all its worth. It’s almost as if they think it might dissapear overnight. A sure sign of a fad if ever there was a good sign.

2. Resist line extension

This is one area in which Apple, at least when it comes to the iphone, have managed to resist all temptation. Even when their biggest fans have yelled and screamed about it. If you pay any attention to the iphone you would have heard the rumours about the iphone nano, the apple tablet and a qwerty iphone. That’s it. They’re all rumours.

You maybe applauding Apple right now and thinking how smart their marketing department are. However, they aren’t just doing it because they’ve read Ries’ blog. They’re doing it because they’ve seen what it does to the big boys’ profit margins. It reduces them, drastically. In fact Nokia barely make a few dollars on most of their phones while Apple continue to make hundreds.

3. Control Distribution

Apple initially did the right thing in this area by making the phone exclusive to a particular provider in a particular country but the lock-in in their biggest market, the USA, is starting to have a damaging effect.

No longer is the AT&T/Apple partnership considered exclusive. It’s now considered a burden by an ever increasing portion of Apple’s customer and potential customer base. People might actually soon be ditching their iphones just because of AT&T.

4. Focus on Core Consumers

This is probably what will finally lose the battle for Apple. That young, technology savvy and high disposable income core that the iphone rode the wave of are now starting to tire of it. The endless lock in, the lack of customisation, the ever growing list of wants will finally be fulfilled by someone else if Apple don’t pay attention to it. This is where the flood gates will open and the wave of oppressed customers will finally escape. It will only take someone to open it and like the Croc the wave will just go somewhere else.

5. Expand globally

Well you can’t fault Apple on this one. They did this, but as with the Croc Apple flooded the market. There’s some countries that Apple just stepped into too quickly and lost a lot of face and rapport doing so.

Will the iphone just turn out to be a fad or it will it stay with us? Only time will tell but there’s no doubting that given some of the warning signs it will be an interesting product to follow.

Full disclosure: I am actually the author of iphones suck so I come full of bias. This is a blog after all and what are blogs if not opinionated.