My Maibock

So old SeñorBrew™ is taking a little holiday, and in the downtime, he has been reviewing recipes and adding them to his brewing app. Looking back over the blog, he realized that the award winning maibock recipe has not been posted here. It is high time we correct this oversight, after all this is the beer that took first place at the state fair in the land of cheese, beer, and bratwurst, not necessarily in that order. That's right, the fine state of Wisconsin. And yes, it is called, "My Bock". Recipe below. My Bock
	Style: Maibock/Helles Bock	OG: 1.074
	Type:	FG: 1.018
	Rating: 3.5	ABV: 7.34 %
	Calories: 242	IBU's: 23.39
	Efficiency: 75 %	Boil Size: 12.13 Gal
	Color:    9.9 SRM	Batch Size: 11.00 Gal
	Preboil OG: 1.071	Boil Time: 90 minutes

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp
Primary	21 days @ 54.0°F
Diacetyl Rest	2 days @ 72.0°F
Lager	75 days @ 33.0°F

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
18.00 lbs	60.00 %		Pilsner (2 Row) Ger	60 mins	1.037
5.00 lbs	16.67 %		Cargill Munich	60 mins	1.037
2.00 lbs	6.67 %		Briess 2-Row Caramel 10L	60 mins	1.035
1.00 lbs	3.33 %		Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L	60 mins	1.034
1.00 lbs	3.33 %		Briess Carapils	60 mins	1.034
1.00 lbs	3.33 %		Wheat, Flaked	60 mins	1.035
2.00 lbs	6.67 %		Pilsner Dry extract	60 mins	1.044

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
1.00 ozs	17.88		Nugget	90 mins	12.80
1.00 ozs	4.22		Hallertauer	30 mins	4.20
2.00 ozs	1.30		Saaz	3 mins	4.00

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
1.00 pkg	Munich Lager	Wyeast Labs 2308

Additions
Amount	Name	Time	Stage
1.00 tbsp	Yeast Nutrient	15 mins	Boil
2.00 tsp	Irish Moss	15 mins	Boil

Mash Profile

Medium Body Infusion In 90 min @ 152.0°F

Add 35.00 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 166.0°F

Carbonation
Amount	Type	Beer Temp	CO2 Vols
9.2 psi	Force Carbonation	34.0°F	2.50

Notes
DME and yeast nutrient used in starter Note 90 min mash and boil 1st place in category 08 WI state fair
www.iBrewMaster.com	Version: 1.531

 

New favorite LHBS

Señor Brew™ has a new favorite local homebrew shop, or LBHS. It's not the closest one to Casa Brew™, but everyplace is on the way home, if you go the right way. And it turns out this LHBS has a microbrewery and tasting room attached to it!

It's Surf Brewery, in Ventura California.  They have a number of tasty beers on tap, including their delicious South Swell Double IPA, which features ingredients from the Southern Hemisphere.  Of course they have a full assortment of homebrew supplies and ingredients.  Señor Brew™ bought some grain for his next brew while he was there, as well as the nice flight pictured above.

New way to split a batch?

Señor Brew

™

 has been thinking; I know, this is dangerous.  But as those loyal readers of this blog (I think we're up to 30 now) know, Señor Brew

™

 likes to get the maximum amount of variety out of his short amount of brewing time.  Partigyle brewing, and splitting a batch among yeasts is one way to this.

But what if you were to boil a batch of beer, say for an hour, draw off a part of it, chill it and get it in the fermenters while you're still boiling the rest of it, maybe adding extra hops to finish it out. The second beer would be more bitter, with more concentrated flavor, and a higher alcohol content due to the longer boil. It would be fairly pronounced, because with the removal of a portion of the volume for the first beer, the remainder would have a lower volume to surface area, and evaporation rates would go up. Plus while the total amount of chilling time would be about the same, each portion would chill rather quickly, and the first part would be chillin' while the second part be boilin' (A reggae song just came while Señor Brew was finishing this sentence).


I'm thinking that this would work for a pale ale/IPA, bock/doppelbock, etc.


What do you think, Brewbuds? Has anybody tried this? Pros, cons, ex-cons?

There's a Party in my Gyle! (3 beers in 1)

On August 12th  Señor Brew™  finally had some time to get a brewday together.  To make efficient use of that time, he decided to make 3 beers out of one mash, one strong beer (you could call it a barleywine), and two medium ones, an Oktoberfest and what he likes to call PseudOfest.

He did this by using different runnings from the mash to brew the different beers.  This is known as parti-gyle brewing, as Randy Mosher, author of Radical Brewing and Tasting Beer, describes so well in the linked article.

The whole point of the brewday was to have an Oktoberfest ready by at least the second weekend of the official Oktoberfest festival, which happens to coincide with Senor Brew's birthday.  Since  Señor Brew™  is out of his award winning barleywine, he thought it would be a good idea to have a strong beer on hand as well.  Of  course an Oktoberfest, being a lager, needs extra time to ferment, and even a longer time to lager to give it that smooth lager finish.  And a barleywine should be aged for many months to really mature into it's flavor profile.   Señor Brew™  can be impatient, so he decided to split the later runnings, post-boil into two different carboys, one with the Oktoberfest yeast, for the Oktoberfest, and one with an ale yeast that would be ready much sooner, the PseudOfest, which is already kegged and delightfully quaffable.  The first runnings  of course were used for the barleywine.

The brewday actually went quite smoothly, unlike most where at least something seems to go wrong.   Señor Brew™  had his old propane turkey fryer burner going to boil 3 gallons of wort for the barleywine, while at the same time, the big natural gas burner was used to boil about another 9 gallons of wort for the O'fest and PseudOfest.

I've exported the recipes for the Oktoberfest and Barleywine from my brew app into separate posts, Barleywine and Oktoberfest.  (Hey I've got to hit my quota to average at least one post per week through the end of the year somehow.) The efficiency is set very low to reflect that only part of the sugars from the mash were used in each brew.  The total efficiency would have been in  Señor Brew™ 's normal range for his setup.  Purists will note a couple things--one, the barleywine's grain bill is not typical, but this is because it was an after thought to the Oktoberfest, which the grain bill is more appropriate for.  I'm going to call it German Barleywine, due to the Munich and Vienna malts.  Also, there was no decoction mash for the Oktoberfest, just a single infusion with some melanoiden malt thrown in to approximate one, even though those same purists will say it's a poor substitute.  Señor Brew™  doesn't care, it makes a fine tasty Oktoberfest.

Señor Brew™ also got a little kooky with an extra ingredient.  We had a package of wheat pasta in Casa del Brew™  lying around, which was not likely to be consumed-- Señora Brew™  is gluten intolerant, and  Señor Brew™  saves his daily carbohydrate allocation for homebrew.  So we grind it up, and into the mash it goes!  There's no entry for it in the brew app I use, so it got listed as wheat DME (dry malt extract).  Close enough for homebrew.

Finally the PseudOfest recipe is not included, because it would be redundant.  Just substitute your favorite fast fermenting ale yeast for the Oktoberfest, ferment warmer (upper 60s to low 70s), and let her rip!  No need to lager it either.

German Barleywine Recipe

So here is what I did with the first runnings of the mash for my Oktoberfest:

	Style: English Barleywine
	Type: All Grain	Calories: 368
	Rating: 0.0	Boil Size: 3.00 Gal
	IBU's: 30.59	Batch Size: 2.75 Gal
	Color:   21.0 SRM	Boil Time: 60 minutes
	Preboil OG: 1.123

		Estimated	Actual
	Brew Date:	-	08/12/2012
	OG:	1.113	1.124
	FG:	1.028	1.034
	ABV:	11.14 %	11.79 %
	Efficiency:	35 %	39 %
	Serve Date:	12/10/2012	/ /

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp	Estimated	Actual
Primary	21 days @ 47.0°F	08/12/2012	08/12/2012
Secondary in keg	100 days @ 70.0°F	09/02/2012	-

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
10.00 lbs	39.60 %		Vienna Malt	60 mins	1.036
10.00 lbs	39.60 %		Pale Malt (2 Row) US	60 mins	1.036
1.00 lbs	3.96 %		Munich Malt 5L	60 mins	1.037
1.00 lbs	3.96 %		Munich Malt 20L	60 mins	1.035
1.00 lbs	3.96 %		Caravienne Malt	60 mins	1.034
10.00 ozs	2.48 %		Melanoiden Malt	60 mins	1.037
10.00 ozs	2.48 %		Wheat Dry Extract	60 mins	1.044
1.00 lbs	3.96 %		Turbinado	15 mins	1.044

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
0.50 ozs	17.30		Northern Brewer	60 mins	10.60
0.50 ozs	13.29		Northern Brewer	30 mins	10.60

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
1.00 pkg	Denny's Favorite 50	Wyeast Labs 1450

Additions

(none)

Mash Profile

Light Body Infusion In 60 min @ 150.0°F

Add 32.00 qt water @ 165.3°F

Carbonation

(none)

Notes
Substituted a lighter and darker Munich for 10L Munich Added wheat pasta and melanoidin just for this batch Entered pasta as DME, boiled it before adding to the mash First runnings used (approx 3 gal)
www.iBrewMaster.com	Version: 1.520

Slippy Piggy's Oktoberfest Recipe

Hey Brew Buds!  My brewing app let's me export my recipes to my blog, all nicely formatted.  Here's my Oktoberfest recipe, check it out: 

	Style: Octoberfest/Marzen
	Type: All Grain	Calories: 172
	Rating: 4.0	Boil Size: 9.50 Gal
	IBU's: 23.54	Batch Size: 8.25 Gal
	Color:    9.3 SRM	Boil Time: 60 minutes
	Preboil OG: 1.048

		Estimated	Actual
	Brew Date:	-	08/12/2012
	OG:	1.052	1.053
	FG:	1.016	1.014
	ABV:	4.72 %	5.11 %
	Efficiency:	50 %	51 %
	Serve Date:	09/26/2012	/ /

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp	Estimated	Actual
Primary	14 days @ 47.0°F	08/12/2012	08/12/2012
Secondary	2 days @ 70.0°F	08/26/2012	08/25/2012
Lager in keg	30 days @ 40.0°F	08/27/2012	08/27/2012

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
10.00 lbs	41.24 %		Vienna Malt	60 mins	1.036
10.00 lbs	41.24 %		Pale Malt (2 Row) US	60 mins	1.036
1.00 lbs	4.12 %		Munich Malt 5L	60 mins	1.037
1.00 lbs	4.12 %		Munich Malt 20L	60 mins	1.035
1.00 lbs	4.12 %		Caravienne Malt	60 mins	1.034
10.00 ozs	2.58 %		Melanoiden Malt	60 mins	1.037
10.00 ozs	2.58 %		Wheat Dry Extract	60 mins	1.044

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
1.00 ozs	23.54		Magnum	60 mins	11.00

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
1.00 pkg	Octoberfest/Marzen Lager	White Labs 0820

Additions

(none)

Mash Profile

Light Body Infusion In 75 min @ 150.0°F

Add 32.00 qt water @ 165.3°F

Carbonation

(none)

Notes
Substituted a lighter and darker Munich for 10L Munich Added wheat pasta and melanoidin just for this batch Entered pasta as DME, boiled it before adding to the mash Batch was split with first runnings (approx 3 gallons used for a barleywine )
www.iBrewMaster.com	Version: 1.520

Enegren Brewery

Hello Brew Buds!

Some of you with OCD may have noticed that Señor Brew™ has updated the "What's on Tap" section of the Brew Blog in the sidebar (scroll down, it's on the right). At the top of the list is Enegren Alt, the first guest tap El Kegerator™ has been graced with. Actually that is not true, we've also had Enegren IPA on tap during the Brew Blog hiatus, but nonetheless, Enegren Brewery is the first non Noble Square brew on tap at Casa del Brew™.

"So what is this Enegren Brewery of which you write, Señor Brew™?" I can hear you Brew Buds thinking. (Yes, Señor Brew™ can hear your thoughts as you read this blog, it's part of the high level HTML* programming language incorporated in the site). It is now Señor Brew™'s official local microbrewery. Located in the adjacent town, Moorpark, CA, just 10 minutes away from Noble Square Brewing, they serve up some tasty microbewed deliciousness, including the aforementioned Alt and IPA.

Enegren was founded by a trio of homebrewing buddies who decided to go pro, the Enegren brothers and some other dude who didn't get naming rights because he was outvoted three-to-one. (We think one of the brothers voted twice). They've got a tasting room, which isn't open enough, although they just recently added Wednesday nights. It also doesn't have air conditioning, but if it is really hot in the tasting room, and you ask nicely, they may let you chill in the beer cooler for a while.

Pictured above in the tasting room are Matt Enegren, and his lovely girlfriend/employee Becki Kregoski. Becki actually works for two different local microbreweries, Enegren and Wolf Creek. She also has a great food and brew blog, Bites 'n Brews, which has way more followers than Noble Square Brewing, but Señor Brew™ is not jealous. At all. (Señor Brew™ is also very happy that the HTML* thing only works one way).



*acronym for Hear Thoughts (on) My bLog

Beer Drinking Socialists, Drinking at Work, and Eggs in Your Beer

Great article about beer and Labor Day on Slate from Troy Patterson. I get the impression he was drinking heavily while writing it, but there are way too many great links for him to finish it inebriated.

A highlight of the article includes the use of the word, "squiffy" for having a few too many.

Please note, Señor Brew is neither a communist nor a socialist, but he does appreciate the contribution of the working man to our great country, and there is a good chance he will be a quite squiffy this Labor Day weekend.