Lucky Number 7.1

Today I tested the gravity of my newest beer, the Super-Secret-Surprise Beer (hereafter called S3). S3 has actually surprised me. From the yeast starter to the reading today, every step has resulted in something that I didn't expect. The final gravity of this beer is 1.010, which means that this beer, which started at 1.064, weighs in at a hefty 7.1% ABV! This is the first time that I've broken the 7% mark, making this the most alcoholic beer I've made thus far. While this is exciting, I don't think this record will be standing for very long, since the next beer, the Black Tie Affair, will probably end up around 8% ABV if everything goes according to plan.

Other than the record breaking, the high ABV means that the yeast did its job and is most likely done. This means that in a few days (planning on Tuesday), I will rack the S3 to secondary, where it will stay for about a month before I bottle it. After tasting the beer, I really think that it will benefit from this extra month of aging. Knowing the style that it's modeled after, I can say very confidently that S3 as it is right now is not very true to the style. However, this is why we age it. Aging it will mellow out some of those strange phenols that I'm tasting right now, bring out the malt character, and improve the overall profile of the beer. It's drinkable now, but not great. Waiting will help.

Anyway, tonight my sister is coming over, and we will be tasting the Waldo Lake Amber Ale. So, in a day or so, I will be giving posting our tasting notes of this pretty awesome beer! You'll just have to wait until then to see how it turned out! (Hint: It turned out really well!)

Until then, all hail the Bierkaiser!

Picture Courtesy of fermentarium.com

You Got Your Beer in My Coffee!

Last time I talked about my new projects that I've been working on. One of these is my Espresso Stout. Well, the other day I finally secured the espresso that I'll be using with it! In town there is a little coffee roastery called Mama Mocha's. Sarah, the girl who owns it, is really cool. She worked with me to find a good roast that would fit my new recipe, and I think she hit the nail on the head! The name of the roast is "Smoking Jacket Espresso." It's a dark, smokey roast (as the name suggests), and I think this will meld really well with the rich malty goodness that is the Imperial Stout. If you like coffee and are in town, I think you should definitely check out Mama Mocha's Coffee Roastery. It's located in the Gnu's Room Coffee Shop and Used Book Store. If you DON'T live around, you can order from her website. Like I said, she's really cool, and she makes amazing coffee. There's no reason NOT to buy your coffee from her!

Anyway, there's something else that I should mention about this beer. I forgot to explain last time just how important this beer is to me. I said before that it's important because this the first time I'll be brewing my own recipe, but it has another source of importance. This beer is going to be brewed to commemorate my wedding! The future Mrs. Misdemeanor and I will be brewing this together to drink on our wedding day. This will be the first time that she has ever brewed with me (and possibly the last), so I wanted to make sure that this beer was special. Since I'm able to pick the name of this beer (did I mention that it's my recipe?), I decided to name it something befitting the occasion. So, after consulting my fiancée, I've decided to name it the "Black Tie Affair." This not only suits the occasion, but the fact that this beer will be unbelievably dark. I'm really excited, and I plan to brew a batch of this "Black Tie Affair" for many years to come!

Photo from Mama Mocha's Coffee Roastery

Strawberry Fields and Espresso Trees

The past two days I've been working on something fun. For the first time, I'm creating my own recipes for new beers! Until now, I've been using recipe kits from Northern Brewer. Now, however, I am taking a step to be a little more creative.

This all came about because of a post on the Northern Brewer forums about someone trying out an experimental Strawberry Ale. He had tremendous success, and posted the recipe online. So, using this recipe as a base, I tweaked it. First, I converted it from all-grain to extract. Then, I raised the gravity a bit, added some Carapils malt to it to get a bit more color, and changed the hops used. All in all, I formulated the recipe to conform to the Blonde Ale guidlines (BJCP #3a, though the beer will eventually be in category #20). After brewing this beer and letting it ferment for a bit, I'm going to rack it onto about 5-7 lb. of frozen, quartered strawberries. I'll let that sit/ferment/infuse for about a week, and then I'll bottle it! Overall, I think it's going to be delicious!

The other beer that I'm working on is an Espresso Imperial Stout. Basically what it is is a dark beer, high gravity beer to which I'm going to add some espresso. This will give it a nice flavor, and a beautiful, creamy white head. I'm basing this recipe off of another brewer who, in turn, based his off of the Brew Your Own Magazine. The all-grain version of this recipe won first place in its category (BJCP #21a) at the Upper Mississippi Mashout, a very prestigious homebrew competition. I'm changing the original recipe to conform more to the Russian Imperial Stout guidelines (BJCP #13f) so that it can be aged a little longer in the bottle. I'm hoping to use the espresso from a local coffee roaster here in town. She makes great coffee, so I'm going to talk to her about getting some espresso for this recipe on Monday (possibly).

I hope these two recipes go well. I'll be brewing/tweaking them over the next few months, so it definitely gives me a new creative outlet for my brewing and something to talk about on my blog! Also, due to the large number of batches I have in the works, I now have a brewing schedule written out so that I can make sure I get everything done that I want to before I have to move. I don't know if you can tell how excited I am, but I'm really looking forward to this! I'll give more info as it comes, but until then, "Prost!"

Picture courtesy of Julien Haler from Paris, France.

This Beer is Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S

I went to go check on my beer today, and I noticed something interesting. The bubbles coming out of the airlock smelled extremely strongly of bananas. Now, this is pretty normal, but I thought I'd take the time to explain WHY it smells like bananas.

You may have heard of beer tasting or smelling like bananas before. This happens because the yeast, when fermenting, produces phenols that get in the beer. This is not altogether an undesirable trait, and in some styles, this is even a critical part of the beer! In Brew Your Own Magazine, Jamil Zainasheff (a prolific beer writer, homebrewer, and recent founder of a new brewery called Heretic Brewing) wrote a style profile for the German Hefeweizen. In it, he discussed the banana/clove taste that is consistent with the style. He said "The aroma of a good hefeweizen includes moderate spicy clove notes and fruity banana esters." This is definitely what comes to mind when I think of a Hefeweizen (one of my favorite beer styles, for what it's worth). He does caution though, "However, one of the most common mistakes in homebrewed weizen-style beers is having too much clove and banana character. Brewers might point to the BJCP [Beer Judge Certification Program] style guide which says these phenolic and ester compounds can range up to 'strong,' but do not think for a minute that it means a clove/banana bomb is acceptable." So, am I worried that I'm going to have too much banana flavor in my new Super-Secret-Surprise Beer? Well, yes and no.

I'll start off by saying that this newest beer is not a Hefeweizen. So, these phenolic characters aren't really what I want for this style of beer. There can be that hint of banana, but it's not really normal, especially not in any large amounts. That being said, I feel like I'm probably reading too much into the sniffing of the airlock. Every other time that I've brewed, the airlock has emitted some interesting smells that didn't end up in the final product. Also, even though it isn't traditional for this style of beer, I think that the banana flavor here would meld well. So, I'm not too worried about it.

I am wondering, though, why it's so strong this time compared to last time? After doing a little research, I think I know why. First, this is a new style of yeast that I've never used before. Different styles of yeast have different characters, and some smell more like bananas than others. But, more than just that, I think it's my fermentation temperature. Up until now I really haven't had to worry that much about controlling the fermentation temp. The combination of a cool apartment and tame yeast have allowed the temperatures to keep fairly low by themselves. Now, however, the ambient temperature in the apartment has risen, thus raising the original temperature of the beer. Also, this beer, as mentioned before, has been fermenting like crazy. At one point the fermenter even got up to 73 degrees. THIS, I believe is the main culprit with the banana aroma.

In the future, I will probably try to control the fermentation a little better. I can do this through a few different ways, but the easiest seems to be something called a Swamp Cooler. For now, though, I don't think I'll be able to do that, just because money is tight.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about what makes your beer B-A-N-A-N-A-S!