Holiday Stout

Today I started to brew what to me is a very different beer, a bold and intriguing holiday stout with cherries and chocolate! It is categorized as an imperial stout but it should be quite interesting because of the chocolate and cherry adjunct. To be truthful, the original recipe I based this on came from the BeerTools Pro recipe database called "Black and Tam's Double Chocolate Cherry Stout". I adjusted the recipe to fit the ingredients I had on hand and this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:
1 lb American Black Patent
1 lb Black Roasted Barley
8 oz Munich 20L Malt
8 lb Ultralight Extract (MoreBeer)
3.0 lb Dry Amber Extract
2 oz Northern Brewer (8.00%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz Willamette (5.00%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1 min
23 gr Fermentis S-04 Safale S-04
1.0 lb Dried Cherries, no pits - added during boil, boiled 0 min
3.0 tsp Hershey's cocoa - added during boil, boiled 0 min
2.0 tsp Cinnamon - added during boil, boiled 0 min
2.0 tsp Cloves, Nutmeg (1 tsp each) - added during boil, boiled 0 min

This brew was the first time I had the opportunity to use my new immersion chiller. That together with doing the boil in the kitchen instead of in my back yard as I did in my previous effort, made this a much smoother and efficient operation. But there are always inprovements but this went very well with a couple of exceptions.

Here is the immersion chiller with my boil kettle:

I'm using my double ring burner with an external propane tank so doing the boil was no problem.

This was my brewing plan:

Prep the boiling area.

-burner and gas tank

-wash boil kettle

-wash immersion cooler

-sanitize fermemtation bucket, lid, airlock, stirring spoon, measure cup etc

Boil 2 gal water and let cool (for yeast and to make-up the loss due to boil)

Mash tun (really steeping because these grains don't have any enzymes)

-bring 2.5l water to 150℃ and add grains in bag

-maintain at 150℃ for 30 minutes.

Boil kettle - steeping

-add 4 gal water and bring to 150℃

-sparge from mash tun (2liter)

-sparge additional 2 liter

-add DME slowly and stir

-add LME slowly and stir

-add 4 tablets alpha-galactosidase (Beano, 600 GaIU) and stir, leave for 30 minutes

-bring to boil and turn off heat

Boil kettle - boil

-add 2 oz Northern Brewer hops, boil 50 minutes

-add 1 oz Willamette, whilfloc insert immersion chiller, boil for 10 minutes

-turn of heat

-hydrate the yeast

-add 1 oz Willamette

-add cherries and cocoa, stir wait 15 minutes

-add cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves

-cool to 20℃ or so.

Fermenter

-siphon into fermenter

-add remaining hops for dry hopping

-shake rattle roll the fermenter to get good aeration.

-pitch the yeast

This what the wort looked like after the steeping and the DME and the LME were added:

Looks like a stout to me. And the wort tasted damned good even at this stage. Before continuing with the boil, I added the Beano and let it do its magic for 30 minutes. Not sure what this will to the F.G. and the alcohol content but this is something I wanted to try.

After the boil, I was so excited about using the immersion chiller that I forgot to add the whirlfloc! But the immersion chiller did its job, cooling the hot wort down to 25℃ in under 30 minutes. I don't have a pre-chiller so I added a bag (sanitized of course) of ice into the cooled wort to bring it down further to yeast pitching temperature.

After adding water to bring the wort volume back up to 5 gals, the O.G. came in at an amazing 1.098! The predicted O.G. is 1.093 so I'm not sure what this means.

I'm doing the fermentation in a plastic bucket fitted with a valve and because I'm not planning on doing a secondary fermentation, I will be able to bottle straight from the bucket, saving an extra racking step.

I had planned to use my aeration pump to do the aeration prior to pitching the yeast but the package I sent it in still has not arrived yet so I had to "shake the baby" which was a bit of a chore.

Well the yeast is starting to wake up and seeing the tremendous work it has in front of it. It will be a busy several days ahead for the little buggers. I plan to ferment for up to 2 weeks to give the yeast plenty of time to bring down the S.G. and up the alcohol.

Overall, I was very pleased with how this brewing effort went, especially compared to my last effort which was a back breaker. Doing the boil next to the sink so that I don't have to move 5 gals of liquid is a much better way to go. I should have got the chiller earlier.

This type of high gravity brew will need a long conditioning time, the original brewer suggested it gets better over time, up to a year. So I'm planning on drinking some this holiday season and saving the rest for next year. Can't wait to taste it.

***UPDATE*** 15 hours later

Wow, this is the most vigorous fermentation ever. I started with the airlock but it was clogged when I woke up this morning. I removed the lid and saw this:

So I removed the kraeusen and replaced the airlock with a blow off tube:

Here is some kinky blow off tube action:

Damn, I can hear the bubbles coming through the blow off while I'm typing this. Those yeasties are having a ball.

A visit to the states

I spent almost 4 weeks visiting family and friends in the states. And of course a lot of beer was consumed in the process. I'm only familiar with the United States and Japan but the craft beer has really broken out into the mainstream in the states. Not quite there yet here in Japan unfortunately but with fierce advocates such as the Beer In Japan web site, I hope this situation is changing.

My first stop was in Charlotte North Carolina to see my grandson and family. After picking me up from the airport my family took me to a local (NC style) BBQ joint. I love NC style BBQ and I try to make it here from time to time. Anyway here was the beer list from the place:

I was too hungry so I forgot to take pictures of the BBQ which was excellent, sorry. But here is a picture of some BBQ I made recently to fill in this space. Just as good the the NC stuff!

The next day, I went to the supermarket to pick up some necessary supplies (6 pack naturally), and this is what I was confronted with:

Mind you this is just the regular local supermarket, not a beer specialty store. I ended up with this, A Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA, which is a double IPA. Right now, this is my favorite beer style. The Drifter Pale Ale turned out to be very nice as well.

My next stop was to Pittsburgh (home of the Superbowl champion Steelers) to visit some old friends. One of them being my ex. So one night she says I have to accompany her to visit one of her friends. After trying and deciding I could not get out of it, I told her I would go but we had to take separate cars so I could leave early if I wanted to. So she agreed to that. That is how I met Bill the brewer.

Bill turned out to be a very interesting man. For one thing, he built his house, and by build it, I meant almost every single nail in it. This is what his house looks like:

So Bill meets me as I got out from my car and after the introductions, he takes me into his basement and asks me if wanted a beer. Before I could ask what he had, he apologised because all he had was some Yuengling on tap, he actually apologized! For those of you not familiar with it, Yuengling is a very good lager made by one of the oldest (if not the oldest) continuously running brewery in the United States and has an excellent reputation for making very good craft style beers. I say craft style because they are a major regional brewery and not a microbrewery.

This is his beer on tap inside his homemade keg fridge:

Before I cold say the words myself, he says "I'm a home brewer". While he was saying this, I started to look around his basement and saw this:

These are 5 gal carboys filled with mead, some of which has been aging for over 10 years!

and this:

and this:

He had the most complete homebrewery I have ever seen. Most home breweries, especially those here in Japan, the equipment is set up to do the brewing and then taken down and stored away until the next time. Most of us here just don't have the luxury of a permanent brew setup like Bills. I wish I would have taken some better pictures because what I'm showing here just does not do justice to Bill's setup.

Anyway, after this introduction, I told my ex that it was a good thing that we came in 2 cars because she may be leaving before me!

Here is what I think he has:

Mash tun with a stirring motor to do what he says is reverse PIM (never heard of that before).

2 hot liquor tanks where he can do the boils

a steam pot (a modified pressure cooker) which he can use to maintain the mash temperature or sterilze his counterflow chiller or whatever else he needs steam for.

A LONG straight counterflow chiller.

The 2 pipes shaped in an extended "V" is Bill's counterflow chiller. It runs from his brew setup and runs to the other end of his basement.

And all of it is connected with a system of pipes, valves and pumps so that he never has to lift anything during the brewing process. He kegs his beers so there are no bottles involved as well.

Unfortunately he said he had not brewed in 5 years since he had to go back to work. But he did offer the fire up the equipment if I should come back for another visit. I had not planned on it but the offer was/is tempting.

The next day we went to church. Really we did. Here is the church:

But what kind of church you ask?

A little bit of Pittsburgh history is in order here. When Pittsburgh was steel town, many workers came here from many countries in eastern Europe and most were catholics of one sort or another. And this led to many catholic churches in the Pittsburgh neighborhoods, each one with a priest/pastor who spoke the language of the local congregation. I went to a Lithuanian catholic high school in Pittsburgh when I lived there. But as Pittsburgh matured and the steel industry was no longer the predominant industry, many of the people in the neighborhoods moved away, either to the suburbs or to other cities/states where there was better economic opportunity. This meant that a lot of the local neighborhood churches no longer had congregations big enough to sustain it. That left a lot of real estate of former churches available in Pittsburgh for the taking. So the Church Brew Works came into being.

It is now a full working brew pub and microbrewery. Where the altar used to be are the copper brewing kettles.

And here is the very happy me with the beer "sampler".

Each "sample" had to be at least 200ml. And of course none of it went to waste. Although most of the beers were very good, there were 2 that stood out for me, one was a super hoppy but not all that bitter IPA named "Thunderhop IPA" and a seasonal triple bock flavored with coriander. The Thunderhop was amazing in the hop flavor but because it did not have the corresponding extra bitterness, it was very refreshing and easy to drink. Damn, I wish I had some now. But the triple bock really stood out for me. I'm going to have to try some coriander in my next batch of home brew.

There was an enclosed courtyard with outdoor seating. The brick walls were covered with hop vines, very nice:

Next stop on my tour of the USA was in San Diego, home of Stone Brewing. Coming up next