#Homebrewing: Dunkelweizenguy's Outcome, Witty Hard Cider, and Stout Study v.03

A Hoppy Christmas Ale

"Dunkelweizenguy" fermented fast and furious, overflowing a bit (requiring we refill the airlock with sanitizing vodka), and then took about 2 weeks in a colder spot (near a window) to start cleaning and mellowing.  As of last night, it tastes like I ended up making 5 gallons of bootleg Sierra Nevada "Celebration Ale", which is nothing to sneeze at, unless your allergic to hops.

The aroma and taste are very hoppy, but not cheesy or perverse like tube socks in soup or a salad of rotting vegetables, and not overpowering as you'd expect in a thin light beer with nothing more to say for itself as hops invade taste buds, because the extra malt of this Dunkelweizen inspired recipe abides.

This batch turned out great-- the goal was a hoppy Christmas, and thanks to Brewcraft and Hop Union my hop list ended up making a bitter blanket of piny flavors and aromas. The list included: Palisade (7.8% Alpha), Chinook (11.7% Alpha), Citra, and Nugget  (12.2% Alpha).

Racking will commence in one hour ago.... mid afternoon and evenings are better for bottling, since the 6 stages of obligatory sampling are involved.

 

 Witty Hard Cider

 Meanwhile, after over malting an experimental batch of cider with wheat in November, I did another gallon 3 weeks ago, with 1/4 the malted wheat, and it's turned out way more drinkable, delectable, and delightful, if not teh "amazing and delicious".   The experimental batch was absurd, with big, bold, and filled with off flavors, like a Mary Shelley's Cider house Rules for making Hoegaarden.  Exactly-- makes no sense.

This batch, by contrast, with 1/4 the malted wheat, turned out pleasing.  and it just means more Christmas cheer on top of the bucket of Dunkelweizenguy, the outcome of this odd, if obvious combination that I've not had anywhere before.  It's got flavor elements of banana and apple, and I'm thinking by adding Cinnamon and some clove, we'll have something worth writing homeys about in by New Years.








Stout Study v.03

Egged on by the Dunkelweizenguy batch, and the mice eating at my inventory, I went back to the drawing board, using bits and pieces of grains and extracts I had handy, and went reaching for an offbeat stout for my long winter's 2014 nights.

 
The 80 minute boil included an ingredient list of 3.9 pounds of Mouton's Export Stout, 6 oz. of Northern Brewer Malted Wheat extract.

It also included grains that I mashed for a half hour below 150 degrees (for the most part), with a few short pauses where the temperature dropped below 135, hoping to keep the flavors of the grains more dry than sweet, which generally results from mashing, laughtering and sparging at higher temperatures.

The grains were a strange mix in a bag--  one lb. of Briess' Crystal 10, one lb. of roasted American 6 row (that promises to taste like sourdough according to Briess' lable), one lb. of Briess' "Carawheat", 1/2 lb. of dry malt extract powder, and 3 oz. of Wisconsin Wildflower honey.   Note to the future: impatient and tired of the rolling pin thing, I ground the up in a food processor, which may have been too fine to capture the desired flavors, but time will tell.

The Brix for the 6 gallon pale came in at just under 4 to start, which meant a predicted 2.5% ABV after the mash, but buy adding honey, the Brix raised to nearly 7, which suggests a ABV of 3 to 3.5% with any luck.  I am aiming for a stout without too much ethanol, like traditional stout, something that doesn't put a red hot bun on your nose after one beer.

The hops for this stout were small doses of my favorites, strong, piny and spicy:  one oz. of Centennial and Chinook.  I'm hoping Small doses of strong aromatic hops will add a nice touch to an offbeat stout.

I'm also dry hopping this stout so the aroma battles it out with the roasted flavor. 

It's the second time I've been unable to locate my Peat Moss for the boil.  I was kind of pissed off when I found it this morning, but it's more vital for light, clear beers, like the Wit I'm fixing to brew next with what grains and what extract I had left.










Public Service Announcement-- Beer reduces risks of Kidney Stones!?!
 

Dunkelweizenguy: A Hopped, Dark Wheat Christmas, and A Centennial Weizenguy

With Christmas a few weeks out, and based on inventory, I went for two batches of something a little unconventional, like Abby Hoffman at a prayer breakfast.

I started with several grains and malt mixtures, as well as several hop options, including little bags of Nugget, Hallertau, Szaas, Palicade, Citra, Centennial and Chanook, and went looking for a recipes to fit the bill.

For the first batch, the closest thing I could find in the BeerSmith software database was Dunkelweizen, but I decided to make it with way more hops than any recipe I could find.  So that's right-- I'm going straight for that "muddy blend of hops and malt", as one home brewer put it.

  According to BeerSmith software, Dunkelweizen was a popular beer style in Europe up to the 1950s, when it began to be associated with older beer drinkers, who emphasized it's health benefits to the deaf ears of the youth.  And so the market disfavored it, and commercial brewers stopped making it.

Starting with 2 lbs of caramel wheat grain, 5 lbs of Munich liquid malt, 2lbs of Northern Brewing's Wheat liquid malt, 1lb of dry malt extract and a half lb of honey, and half pound of dextrose, I heated grains in the 149 degree range for 30 minutes in the hopes of getting liquid from lautering the roasted wheat that's neither overly dry form lower temperatures, or sweet from temperatures in the 155 range.

After lautering, I ramped up the heat to boiling for 70 minutes, adding greater amounts of bittering hops (Nugget, Chinook, Palicade and Hallertau) every 10 minutes or so until the last 15 minutes, when I added aromatic hops (Citra and Palicade).

I ended the boil when the very bready aroma was greatly reduced, and at that point the gravity came to 14 Brix by spectrometer, or over .50 on the hydrometer.

The morning after I added Nottingham yeast at 85 degrees, which took a day to go ass wild, and it kept bubbling through the airlock for 4 days hence.

This second batch was brewed at a friend's house, was a similar radical departure from strict style guidelines, well outside the suggested hop additions and the collective words of wisdom on the home brewing message boards.

We chose a variety of malts, including Crystal 60L, Light Munich and a Rahr six row for base grains, as well as Northern Brewer's liquid Wheat malt extract.  The Rahr is used often in American wheat beers for it's high gravity, high protein qualities.  In addition, we used a pound of dry malt extract and corn sugar to give it an even higher ABV.   We were drinking Bell's Stout, as you can see here, which did not aid our detail orientation at a certain point, along with the protracted chit chatting.

Then we chose just two hops, the noble Saaz and Kenny and Zimmerman's epic and popular 90's variety, Centennial to give the Wheat beer mad, citrus flavor, however unconventional.

The Wheat beer promises a lighter color, a more diverse malt character, with less hop variety to "muddy" the mixture as grouches have grumbled.  But Centennial is no slouch in the bittering or aroma department, which makes it very popular at the IPA arms race going on among American craft brewers.

The hydrometer read well over 50 at the start, as the spectrometer topped out at 17 brix, which should bring this puppy juice in at and astonishing 9.50% ABV.   That testimony to drinking a little less beer while committing to brewing, at least the part where you keep adding malts.

We may have had a bit of a heavy hand in that department, but it was all in good fun.

We used 6 pounds of grain here, in contrast to the Dunkelweizenguy I made first.   Maybe this is just the "Weizenguy" to my "Dunkelweizenguy".

Stay tuned for our result around Christmas week.