Wedding Beer Reprise

Well, I'm finally back to reality... sort of. In the blink of an eye our wedding has come and gone. It was a wonderful day and an absolute blast! There were moments shared with loved ones that will never be forgotten. Obviously, the one memory that will stay with me forever was seeing Jen walk down the aisle. The rainbow was pretty incredible too... love you Mom :)

Some say good beer is more of an experience than anything else. It can serve as a reminder of the good times in life. I can attest to this. The effort put into brewing the beer for my wedding was well worth it. It made me feel pretty damn good to see everyone enjoying the fruits of my labor. All three beers served were well received and went FAST. The compliments I received meant the world to me. It's nice to know that ten years down the road I can brew these same recipes and instantly be brought back to this one special day. I would be remiss if I didn't at least post a couple pics of the big day:







As a side note: I feel bad because I forgot to plug Barley Legal's Big Brew Day, which coincidentally was the same day as our wedding. Over 500 gallons of beer were brewed by our club! I will make sure to not miss one in the future. Below is a short video produced by beerstainedletter.blogspot.com that documents National Homebrew Day at Iron Hill in Maple Shade. Yours truly (black jacket/tan pants) does make a cameo at 1:19 from footage taped during a group buy:





That's it for now. Stay tuned for lots of posts in the next few days...

The Home Stretch

Well it's officially been over a month since my last post. I was afraid life was going to limit my ability to update my progress. The good news is there are no horror stories of infected batches or exploding bottles. The better news is that I have over eleven cases bottled, carbonated and ready to roll. The best news is that I love the way each turned out!

I won't get into too much of the details since I've already posted the recipes and notes on the process. There's has been a lot to learn by brewing this much beer in five gallon batches with such a small time table. The most important of these lessons comes down to one word: BALANCE.

In order to make an enjoyable, highly hopped beer you must strike a balance between the bitterness of the hops and the flavors from the malt. You can use original gravity and IBU rating as measurements. This chart illustrates the point and is a good gauge of balance. I'm not sure where it originated, but it's great:

In the example above the beer brewed has an OG of 1050 at 20 IBU. The chart characterizes this beer as "slightly malty." So you can see that there's a range of flavor profiles you can achieve at different points on the scales with the yellow area signifying good balance. Even though the range of each flavor profile is subjective to the drinker, the overall concept still makes sense to me. Two beers rated at 20 IBU will each have a different percieved bitterness or maltiness depending where they fall on the scale.

I feel my brewing came a long way in a short time because of the repetition I got in. You start to develop a rhythm which is important in brewing. Because you start to do routine things...well, routinely... you'll ultimately end up allotting more energy towards creativity. This is what I think everyone who ever picked up the paddle hopes to achieve. Below is the final lineup I'll be proudly serving at the rehearsal and reception:

Happy Hoppy American Pale Ale

Sunny Side Wheat



Oatmeal Stout



Imperial Dampfbier (Iron Brewer Entry)



Stocking up for one hell of a party:





The finishing touches:



Well this is it... my last blog post as a single guy. I can't wait to share this day with all my family and friends. Prost! See you on the other side.

Sun is shining, the weather is sweet...

Unlike the past couple days, last weekend was beautiful. I was hard at work brewing batch #3 for the wedding. The final count was another ten gallons brewed, which officially puts me over the halfway mark. I had to split my brew day in two because I ran out of gas on Friday...literally, not figuratively :) It turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Sunday was a beautiful day for outdoor brewing: Sunny with a chilly breeze. The cool air didn't bother you at all once close to the fire and boiling wort. It felt like the seasons changing on that exact day... that much closer to May 7th.

As I mentioned before when brewing the test batch, this beer doesn't follow the Reinheitsgebot. I went for a crowd pleaser and brewed a wheat beer with orange zest and coriander added to the boil. Just like every batch before, I tweaked the final recipe compared to the test batch. Adding coriander should balance the orange zest nicely.

Another nice surprise was when I calculated my efficiency. Friday's batch ended up around 78% and Sunday was my all-time best at 84%. Some minor tweaks including finer crush, longer batch sparges and higher sparge temperatures probably contributed to the exceptional numbers. This is a huge jump from my consistent low 70's. Here's the recipe and some pics:

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan Weizen)
Yeast Starter: 1L
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Target Original Gravity: 1.052
IBU: 29
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60 minutes
Color: 6.8 SRM
Mash: Single Infusion - Batch 1 at 151 for 60 min - Batch 2 at 153 for 60

Grain Bill:
4.5 lb White Wheat Malt
3.5 lb Pilsner Malt
1.1 lb Flaked Wheat
0.75 lb Honey Malt
0.5 lb Rice Hulls

Hop and Other Addition Schedule:
1 oz Hersbrucker (3.5%) at 60 minutes
1 oz Tettnanger (4.6%) at 30 minutes
1 oz Orange Zest at 5 minutes
0.4 oz Crushed Coriander at 5 minutes

Another sign you could be marrying a homebrewer: When you receive a spice rack as a wedding shower gift (thanks Michael and Els!), the coriander is emptied within the first week.

Steaming spent grains

The last few minutes of the boil for batch #2 of the weekend

Orange zest and coriander added with 5 minutes to go

Aerating the wort

Fermentation within 24 hours was huge!

99 bottles of beer on the wall....

WOW! I can't believe over two weeks have passed since my last post. There's only about a month to go and I can confirm the rumors are true. Time truly flies when you get close to the big day. No pressure... There are only a dozen cases of beer to brew amongst the typical stress surrounding a wedding. It seems to me there's no fun in a stress free wedding!

Here's where we stand at the moment:

• 3.5 Cases of oatmeal stout have been bottled (woohoo!!). The samples tasted exactly the way I anticipated. They'll have over a month to bottle condition, which should give them some time to mature.
• 2 Five Gallon batches of IPA have been brewed. They've been fermenting for 10 days. The hydro samples were pretty perfect and gravity readings are where I expect. Secondary fermentation and dry hopping will commence today.
• 2 One liter yeast starters of Weinhenstephan Weizen are spinning now. My hope is to brew two five gallon batches of wheat beer on Friday. Hopefully I'll find time to wash some bottles too.

So, at the moment I'm only 23 minutes behind schedule :) That estimate may not be entirely accurate, since I won't have everything bottled by April 1st like I initially planned. I'm making progress though. Most importantly, both recipes look and taste really promising. I may sound like the stress is building, but in all honestly I'm just getting excited! Here's the recipe for the IPA I made and some pics of my progress:

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Wyeast 1056 (American Ale)
Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Target Original Gravity: 1.056
IBU: 61.5
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60 minutes
Color: 11.24 SRM
Mash: Single Infusion - Batch 1 at 152 for 60 min - Batch 2 at 154 for 60 min

Grain Bill:

• 9 lb. Domestic 2-Row
• 1 lb. Crystal Malt 60 L
• 0.75 lb. Aromatic Malt

Hops

• 1 oz Cascade (5.4%) as first wort hop
• 0.25 oz Centennial (8.8%) at 45 minutes
• 0.5 oz Cascade (5.4%) at 30 minutes
• 0.25 oz Centennial (8.8%) at 20 minutes
• 0.25 oz Citra (14%) at 15 minutes
• 1 oz Citra (14%) at 5 minutes
  

First wort hopping. This is when the first hop addition occurs while sparging.

Hop additions ready to go.

Lots of beer fermenting away... a sign you could be marrying a homebrewer.

Sign #2 that you're marrying a homebrewer: The dishwasher is used for drying bottles while you're left to hand wash the dirty dishes.

Last night getting the starter ready and preparing to wash some yeast when I transfer the IPA.

Brewing for the big day... 5 gallons at a time

This past weekend was officially time to start brewing for the wedding since we only have two months to go. I decided to brew the stout first since it would probably benefit the most from longer aging. Saturday was a fun, but long day. Since I decided to brew ten gallons of each kind and my all grain setup yields five gallon batches, I knew there would be some hours involved. My intentions were to get started by 9AM and be done the two batched early... that didn't happen. I used the same recipe and tried to match the process exactly each time. If anything, I hope to learn how to be consistent from batch to batch.

If it wasn't obvious from the picture, I went with an oatmeal stout. It's the type of beer that you've tried it for the first time, it's hard to turn down. Plus it's a staple homebrew recipe for those looking to brew with an adjunct. Here's the recipe:

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Ringwood
Yeast Starter: 1L
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.051
IBU: 28.2
Boiling Time (Minutes): Batch 1 for 60 - Batch 2 for 75
Color: 35.2 SRM
Mash: Single Infusion - Batch 1 at 152 for 60 min - Batch 2 at 155 for 60 min

Grain Bill:

• 7.25 lb Domestic 2-Row

• 1.2 lb Quick Oats


• 0.5 lb Biscuit Malt


• 0.5 lb Chocolate Malt


• 0.5 lb Roasted Barley


• 0.25 lb Black Patent Malt


• 0.25 lb Crystal Malt 80L
  


• 0.1 lb Crystal Malt 40L (leftovers)


• 0.5 lb Rice Hulls
  

Hope Schedule:

• 1.75 oz Fuggles (4.2%) at 60 minutes

• 0.25 oz Fuggles (4.2%) at 25 minutes

Action shots preparing the yeast starter:

Big thanks to Chris at Iron Hill for supplying some Ringwood yeast

This was some of the thickest slurry I've used, so I only added about 25ml to the starter.

Two identical starter ready to go.

The day game of a double header:

Weighing out the specialty grains.

Ready to crush.

The Phil Mill in action

Refreshments... this one is a cascade SMaSH (single malt/single hop)

A beautiful sight...

And the night cap:

A couple transition pics. I quickly transferred, pitched the yeast and cleaned the equipment for batch #1 while the second mash was going.

Light refreshments during the day, but dark ones at night.

Pretty cool lookin' pre-boil pic

Full blast. I did have some minor, controlled boil overs since the 7.5 gallon kettle was at maximum capacity

Happily fermenting less than 12 hours later.

Overall it was a successful brew day. I was surprisingly consistent by hitting an OG of 1051 with both batches. I was aiming for somewhere around 1056. My efficiency was a little over 70% for each batch. Had I hit 75%, I probably would have reached my target OG. Two batches down, 4 to go...

Flying Fish Brewery Tour and Wedding Beer Update

Last Saturday I scored a couple tickets to a XPN sponsored event at Flying Fish Brewery in Cherry Hill (Thanks Tyler and Megan!). 88.5 XPN is member supported public radio broadcast from the University of Pennsylvania and Flying Fish is the largest craft brewery in New Jersey. If I could make a recommendation for both it would be checking out Funky Friday on XPN every Friday from 5pm to 7pm while sipping a Flying Fish Grand Cru.

The event consisted of a tour of the brewery and tasting of a couple of their beers. I was drooling at some of the equipment they had. It was interesting to compare their setup with that of Ommegang Brewery where I visited last Labor Day. Both produce beer, but the layout and design was unique to each. It's a lot like the uniqueness when comparing homebrew setups. You need to determine what setup works best for the brewer given the space available. Here are a couple pics I took:

Where the magic happens. I think this is a pretty typical size for a 40 gallon per batch brewery. One thing I noticed was the large amount of pumps used to transport everything from the grains thru the finished product.

Conical fermenters with a huge blowoff tube attached that was bubbling like crazy as the CO2 is released. I forget exactly how many fermenters lined the walls, but they took up a large portion of real estate in the brewery.

The bottling machine was said to be by far the most expensive piece of equipment. Flying Fish is distributed with in a 90 mile radius, so it's guaranteed fresh.

Wedding Beer Update: Before the tour I finished brewing another test batch. Its ingredients don't follow traditional German purity laws. It does, however, use a famous German yeast strain named Weihenstephan (Wyeast 3068). Coors brews a similar style "craft" brew. I have you figured it out yet? I won't say what it is, but I will say it was delicious when transferring for secondary fermentation this weekend. Along with this I also bottled the IPA test batch. These two recipes will be served at the wedding as long as there aren't any bad surprises. Pictured below is my yeast starter for the final test batch and the washed 3068:

Brewing for the Big Day

For those of you that may not know in less than three months I'll marry the girl I fell in love with almost nine years ago. Jen and I decided it would be a great idea to brew a majority of the beer for the reception. Not only will it give a personal touch, but it'll save us some money. Ultimately, it's the perfect excuse for me to brew a lot of beer in the next couple months. So, for the past couple weeks I've been doing my homework and devising a plan of attack. I've decided to brew three different styles:

1. A light, easy to drink beer that will appeal to the masses... first thought here was a Kolsch, but the test batches didn't come out as expected. It wasn't bad, but didn't have the “wow” factor.

2. A dark, full bodied beer... I'm leaning towards either a porter or stout since I've had success with these styles up to this point.

3. Last, but certainly not least, a full on hop assault in the form of an IPA. This is my personal favorite style, so there's no substitute for this one.

The goal is to have everything brewed and ready to bottle by early April in order to give it enough time to bottle condition. What's that?!?! No, you read that correctly... I'll be bottling around 12 cases of homebrew. Crazy? Probably. Fun? You're damn right! Fortunately I've already de-labeled enough bottles for the occasion. With the hard part is out of the way it was time to stock up on ingredients. The great thing about linking up with brewers more crazed then me is that they buy in bulk.

You want hops? WE'VE GOT HOPS! Three pounds of citra, centennial and cascade to be exact:


You want grains? WE'VE GOT GRAINS! Over eighty pounds of domestic 2-row and imported pilsen malt to be exact:



The final piece of the puzzle was finding an inexpensive way to mill all these grains. Thanks to a fellow brewer Tom, I secured a pristine second-hand Phil Mill for a resonable price:


So, game on! It's time to roll up the sleeves and get to brewing. I've already put together a recipe and brewed an IPA. Based on the inventory above you can probably guess what it entails. I don't want to give too much away, but I can say it's being dry hopped in the secondary right now with a couple days to go. Not quite sure what's next, but I'll continue to make it up as I go along.


To be continued...