On Thanksgiving, I had a Bearded Brewing first, a double brew day. I was excited to have some time to myself (long story) and so I ended up brewing two beers, about 7 hours total.I wanted to brew a malty winter ale for January-February, when the winter here is a killer. It's the beer I want after walking my dog, and having my fingers and feet numb and the hairs of my beard literally frozen. So last year I brewed one using spruce extract. Despite using less than recommended, the extract came out way too strong. For the first several months there was an overpowering medicinal quality to the beer. I've let several bottles mellow for almost a year now. The flavor is much better, and there's nice body to the beer. But there is still enough extract to detract from the overall beer.
This time around I'm beefing up some of the caramel and body, and using "minty" Perle hops to give it some of the spruce essence. I'm avoiding the extract all together, and focusing on a nice malty, caramel winter ale. I'm excited to see how it turns out and I used a starter, so hopefully that boosts the abv and has good effect on it as well.
The second beer I brewed was the first in the Across the Aisle series, the Bi-Partisian porter. I'm excited for this. I missed my strike water by a few degrees, which was really aggravating. Hopefully mashing at 148 degrees doesn't have too big of an effect. For some reason I missed my strike temp and had to add water to bring it up. I was running out of room in the 2 gallon mash tun, so I had to leave it at 148. Very frustrating.But hopefully the beer turns out great. I'm excited for Dave @ Muckney's version as well. Stay tuned for more info on this.
Here's my organic recipe: (hops, grains and malt all organic)
2 lbs 2-Row
1 lb Crystal 120
.50 lbs Chocolate
.25 lbs Munich
.25 lbs Black Roasted Barley
3.5 lbs Light DME
1 oz Perle hops (8.5 AAU) @ 60
.50 oz East Kent Goldings @ 20
.50 oz East Kent Goldings @ 10
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
Also coming up, a much needed final 3 reviews of Ted's excellent beers, and a little about my Belgian Birthday Bash with the Brotino.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer
4 comments:
I enjoy reading your blog! This week I had two double brew days so I know how you feel! My meticulous mash and wort chilling always slow me down. The mash and chill tend to last around 2 hours each. I typically start my second batch mash during the boil of the first lending to about a 3 hour mash. The entire double brew day is about 12 hours. Your 7 hours puts my mind to work, there's a way to cut 5 hours!
Good to know about the Spruce extract, I am thinking about making one this spring, I have been reading about using spruce tips in the mash/lauter tun, have you had any experience with this?
Jake-
I've heard about using Spruce tips as well. I haven't heard about them in the mash, but at the end of the boil. The commercial examples are really good, like Alaskan Brewing Company's. I have yet to try using them, but I definitely don't recommend the extract.
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