Doble Double IPA

As part of my double brew weekend, I brewed up a double IPA. I always love the slew of Imperial IPAs that come out in late February/Early March, and thought it was about time I added my own to the mix. Plus, my Ryeteous Rye Porter got an infection, so I'm looking for something that I can have on tap in a month or so. Instead of brewing two lagers that would require time, I went with the Doble.
I've brewed my fair share of big IPAs, and I tend to focus more on the hops than the malt, since I tend to like IPAs that aren't too syrupy. I had a lot of whole leaf hops grown by my friend, Zeus and Centennial. I wanted to choose a complimentary hop that would balance the intense citrus and fruitiness of those hops. So I chose Chinhook, a hop I've used in some other beers of mine. I really like the piney/slightly smokey flavors that come from Chinhook and when paired with overly citrusy hops, I think it creates a nice complexity. I've been striving towards adding complexity in my hop profiles, so I'm hoping the desired result comes through.
The other difference with the Doble than previous brews, is that I chose to boil the wort for 90 minutes. I had time to spare, and have never done this. Based on what I've read, it should add some bitterness to the beer.
I was a little disappointed that my OG ended up lower than intended, so I'm thinking that I need to adjust my sparging techniques. I batch sparge, but I wonder if I am rinsing too fast, because my OGs have been lower than expected. That is however, the beauty of partial mashing...I still end up with a decent product, but am not getting as much out of the grains as I should. After two weeks of fermentation, the Doble has finally finished at around 7% abv. So its more "double" in IBUs than ABV. First pull out of the carboy was very tasty and very hoppy so, I'm not too concerned.

Going forward I would like to correct the sparging problem, or figure out another reason why my OGs have been so off.

As for the Doble recipe:
Mash @ 151 for 45 minutes
3 lbs Org 2-Row
8 oz Org Crystal 60
80z Org Crystal 40
1 lb Org Carapils

9.15 Organic Light Malt Extract (@ 20 min)
1 lb Honey (@ 5)

Hops: 1 oz Chinhook @ 90
1 oz Chinhook @ 60
1 oz Leaf Centennial @ 30
1 oz Chinhook @ 15
1 oz Zeus Leaf Hops @ 10
1 oz Centennial @ 5
1 oz Chinhook @ 2
1 oz Zeus Leaf Hops @ 1

2 packs Wyeast American Ale 2

I'm very excited to see how this turns out.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Gringo De La Noche

It seems like it's been a very long time since I've brewed or posted anything. With a busy holiday month, I didn't have time to brew in December, but made up for it by brewing twice this weekend.

My Friday night brewing session was my annual Imperalistic Mexcian Cerveza, the Gringo. This year I decided to brew a darker version of the Gringo, more in a Negro Modelo style. I have had some Vienna malt I've been wanting to use up, so a Vienna lagerish beer would be perfect. I have had success in the past by balancing out my "imperial cerveza" with Centennial hops. For the darker version, I wanted to go with all Cascade instead and I didn't use quite as many hops as I have with the other versions. I wanted to tone down the hops until I saw how they played off the darker malts.

As with all my pseudo-lagers, I use the California 2112 "steam" yeast which gives a nice clean finish and after lagering the beer for a couple months, I can get in the ball park. That said, the Gringo has always been it's own animal, clean and smooth with a nice hoppy citrusy presence with little bitterness. I'm hoping De La Noche continues the tradition.

Here's the recipe I went with:

Mash @ 150 for 1 hour

3 lbs Organic Vienna Malt

1 lb Organic Munich Malt

10 oz Organic Carapils

6 oz Organic Carafa 2

6 lbs Organic Light LME

Hops: .40 Cascade @ 60

.60 Cascade @ 15

1 oz Cascade @ 10

1 oz Cascade @ 5

1 lb Agave nectar @ secondary. Lagered for 3 months.

Yeast: Cali 2112

Very excited to see how it turns out!

Stay tuned, I brewed the following night and will be posting about my Double IPA this week.

Salud!

Bearded Brewer

Ryeteous Rye Porter

I have never brewed with rye before. I haven't drank a lot of rye beers, but have had several recently that I really enjoy. The two I really like are the wonderfully hoppy Red's Rye PA from Founder's and the very unique Cane and Ebel from Two Brothers. Northern Brewer recently released a rye malt extract that is a combination of rye malt, caramel malt and 2-row. I thought that would be a nice way to ease into the rye world, and planned on brewing a rye IPA. As the weather has been getting colder however, I found myself wanting a darker beer. I have had a rye porter from Iowa's Peace Tree Brewing Company which was quite good as well. So I decided to brew up a nice porter and use 3.15 lbs of the rye malt extract. I'm excited to see how it turns out. Normally I have an idea in my head of what I think the beer will taste like, but I have to admit I'm not quite sure what I will get with this one.
I had read in a BYO article about the idea of building complexity in a porter through layering dark grains. So I decided to use a variety of dark grains, in addition to some crystal malt to give it some sweetness. At the last minute, I was a little worried about the rye adding a bit too much bitterness, so I threw in a small amount of dark belgian candi syprup for balance.

Here's what I went with for my partial mash recipe:
Steep overnight in 4 qts of water (extract liquid added at 10 minutes left in boil)
8 oz Organic Carafa 2
4 oz Organic Roasted Barley
6 oz Organic Black Malt
8 oz Organic Chocolate Malt

Mash @ 151
3 lbs Org. 2-Row
1 lb Org Munich
1 lb Org Crystal 60

Extract @ 20
3.15 Rye Malt LME
3.15 Organic Light LME

2 oz Dark Belgian Candy Sugar @ 10

Hops:
1.5 oz Fuggles @ 60
.5 oz Fuggles @ 20

Yeast: White Labs 02 English Ale Yeast

I am curious to see how it turns out.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Final Touches

When I made the move from kits to creating my own recipes six years ago, I received a copy of Brew Your Own magazine in the mail with the annual label contest results in it. I was blown away and inspired to start doing it myself. I had never thought about that aspect of making my own beer...also making my own "brand. " Bearded Brewing was born and after many different drawings, I settled on my logo. The next step was creating my own labels. I've always used a really old school program called Microsoft Picture It!, but recently have started learning how to use Gimp (a free program that is very similar to photoshop). The next step was actually putting the labels onto the bottles. At first I used to buy labels in the homebrew shops, but found that they got to be really expensive. I eventually switched to inkjet sticker project paper sold at stores like Office Max and even Target. It was cheap, and I could easily cut out any size label I wanted, which is nice when bottling 22 oz bombers. It won't hold up forever in a fridge since it's not glossy finish, but it looks good when you give a friend a bottle or a six pack, and it actually holds up pretty well for a while in the fridge before getting soggy. Essentially, it's cheap and looks great til you get it wet. I use templates from 4th and Vine (which are the labels I used to buy at the homebrew shop). However, it looks like their website might be defunct.

I love the "professional" look of the labels on the bottles I give out, but thought it would be cool to have bottle caps. Until recently, it seemed way out of my price range since I would have to order a lot of them, and there would still be a really high price point.

Then I read an article in Zymurgy about a homebrewer who started his own bottle cap printing company, called Bottle Mark. I was really excited and even more so when I went to their site. You can order as few bottle caps you want at .12 cents a piece. Plus, you can load up a jpeg file, manipulate it on the site, and then even order a free digital copy to make sure it's what you want. Incredibly cool.

For $15 (including shipping) I got one hundred caps to start with. The customer service was awesome and the bottles looked great (and came quickly). My friend commented on how good they looked, not off centered or something you might expect from something as inexpensive and customized.

I have to say a six pack of bottles with my own cap on it looks sweet! In the future, I can see myself creating a cap for a special occasion like a wedding or a party, which I think is the company's big draw. Just had to share this self indulgence. Half the fun of home brewing is sharing your product, and the caps put the final touches on my beers.

Salud!

Bearded Brewer

1Up Pale Ale

Several years ago my wife and I decided we didn't want to travel for Thanksgiving and deal with traveling to Pittsburgh or Arizona every other year to appease grandparents. So we decided to stay in Minnesota, and to only invite my sister's brother. It has turned into the most stress-free enjoyable holiday of the year. We have a laid back time consisting of a lot of football and movie watching, video game playing and beer drinking. Last year I decided to brew a beer special for his visit, a California Common.

My brother in law is a video game developer who lives in California. He recently switched projects and moved to San Fransisco. Being in Northern California, Peter has started to become more interested in hoppy beers. Not ready to jump into the IPA territory, his gateway lately has been pale ales. I decided to brew up a beer for his visit again, this time the 1UP is going to be a nice easy drinking pale ale.

I decided to brew a pale ale with some vienna malt I had, as well as some victory to give it some nice biscuity tones to play off the caramel. I used Cascade and Centennial hops for the hop bill. Pretty straight forward pale ale:

Mini Mash:

2 lbs Organic 2-Row
1 lb Organic Vienna
.5 lb Organic Victory
.5 lb Organic Crystal 40
.5lb Organic Crystal 60
. 5lb Organic Carapils
* Mash @ 153

6 lbls Organic Light LME @ 15

Hops:
1 oz Chinhook @ 60
.5 oz Cascade @ 10
. 5 oz Cascade @ 5
1 oz whole leaf Centennial @ 0

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Hawkeyepa

Despite the fact that I have lived in Minnesota for the past 15 years, I have held strong to my love of my home state of Iowa, and the team I grew up following with a fervor, the Iowa Hawkeyes. This past weekend I had an opportunity to travel down to Iowa City with my family to watch the Hawks

come back from a large deficit to beat Pitt. It was fun game and a great experience to be in Kinnick Stadium.

I had been wanting to brew up an IPA for the fall, using the Centennial hops my friend Jesse grew for me this year. I went down to his house to help harvest them, and have been excited to brew with them. Inspired by my trip to Hawkeye nation, I settled on the name and label for the IPA recipe I've had in my head for a couple weeks now.

I wanted to keep the grain bill relatively simple, I like IPAs that tend to be on the lighter side of the malt spectrum, focusing more on the hops than the malt. I wanted use pilsner malt in the partial mash, and also wanted to use some organic victory malt to add some complexity and body. I wanted to use some Chinhook hops to add a little bit of piney flavor to play off of the citrusy Centennial hops. I plan on dry hopping with an ounce or two of Centennial as well.

Here's the recipe:
Partial Mash: Mash 1 hour @ 152
3.5 lbs Organic Pilsner
.5 lbs Organic Victory Malt
.5 lbs Organic Crystal 40
.5 lbs Organic Carapils

Malt Extract: 6 lbs Organic Light LME @ 20

Hops: 1 oz Summit (17% AAU) @ 60
.5 oz Chinhook @ 30
.5 oz Chinhook @ 20
1 oz whole leaf Organic Centennial @ 5
1 oz whole leaf Organic Centennial @ 1

Yeast: 1272 American Ale II

Salud and Go Hawks!
Bearded Brewer

Waxing bottles

Homebrewing is all about individual expression for me. I love the ease of kegging, but I also love bottling because I love designing labels and playing around with different bottles. This summer I bottled my Farmhouse Ale in champagne bottles. They are a little more costly, but look very cool and when used for a special beer, they add a nice touch. I feel the same way about waxing big stouts, it makes them look cool and special. Last year I used wax for the first time, and it was a pain in the ass. This year, it went much better, so I thought I'd share the secrets of my success.

First off, wax isn't cheap at first ($14 @ Northern Brewer). However, the 1lb bag will last you for a long time. From my experience, 12 oz bottles don't look good with wax and aren't really worth the time, but 22oz bombers look great.

Here's what I did, and what worked well:

Take a tin can, with the label removed, and put it into a pot of water filled up enough to surround the can. Put the wax in the can, and bring the water to a boil.

The can will move around a bit, so if you have some grilling tongs to hold onto the can it'll help.

After the wax melts (which takes about 10 min), you are ready to dip the bottle. Be sure to stir the wax with a spoon, sometimes the top layer is melted, but there are still wax clumps which

will clump up on your bottle.

The wax will drip down the bottle, but will dry quickly. In the end, you have a very cool looking bottle to impress your friends!

Salud!

Bearded Brewer