Where do all the Cherries go?

Hi all,

My family & I have just returned from a two week break at our Apartment in SW Turkey. At this time of Year the Monday market is full of trays of cherries. I would like to buy them all but limited myself to a 2 KG bag. As i am shameless here's a barefaced plug for my apartment!

http://korentravel.com/begon.htm

Highly unlikely that anyone reading this will ask me about it which is a shame as its a fantastic chilled place to be in.

Anyway, i destalked the cherries this morning and gave them a warm water wash over to remove dirt and hopefully keep any Turkish yeasts onboard the skins.

The first batch to have the cherries is a Apple & Pear Cider spiced with Three vanilla pods i picked up at the spice market in Dubai at Christmas.

Theres nothing fancy about the making of the cider. Its bog standard cartoned apple juice, tinned pears (two of). If there is any magic here it is in the quality of the vanilla pods (still dripping pure vanilla essence) and the yeast combination which is Burton WLP023(highly sulphurous) and Brett C(A wild Edge).

I removed a small amount of the cider for tasting tonight and poured in the cherries. I took a few photos of the plastic FV as previous experience has shown a radical change in colour of the beer/cider once the yeast goes to work on the cherry skins.

I will update with photos as the colour changes in the cider.

The second batch is a 8.2 to 9% (i lost track) Solera of Belgian golden ale, Apricot soaked Saison, and Russian Imperial stout. Its had been on a couple of kilos of figs for a year or so and has at least 5 yeast varieties in it (Duvel, Dupont, Chimay, US-05, Brett C) and whatever wild yeasts were present on the figs and on the newly introduced cherries.

I introduced some cocoa powder to the beer 1/2 a year or so ago. When i removed the airlock there was an immediate smell of oranges and chocolate and a note of a liquer. Looking into the neck of the FV i could see a chocolate plug had formed.

I sterilised a kebab skewer (did you notice that Turkish influence there)? and popped the chocolate plug. I have decanted by siphon one pint of this beer. Half to go into a steak and ale pie and the other half to be tried by Myself and Mrs I.

I then hit a small problem, it takes time to get cherries into a FV through a restricted hole!

Once that was done i could take time to truly enjoy what i can only describe as 'yeast strata' at the bottom of the FV.

Yeah i know,total beer geek but lets be honest, how often will i get the chance to observe yeast stratification with background cherries? :)

You would think that after getting on for two years in the making that there wouldn't be much activity in a beer? Well, after the introduction of the cherries this beer started releasing CO2 like crazy within 5 minutes of the first cherry going in. I assume it's being released from solution and not a sign of ferocious reawakening yeast, it was impressive to see nonetheless. To truly stamp myself with beer geekness i hereby admit that i took a video of said CO2 release. How geek are you, Let's see shall we? Will you watch it? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0wRdSGkWzs&feature=plcp

So that's what i did the day after my holidays! I am really enjoying my adventures into the world of wild beer making, its great fun and allows a good bit more creativity than the 'standard' realm of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The link below will take you to a brewing book that really opened my eyes to the different directions we can go in brewing if the mood takes us.

Wild brews

Lastly, I was free associating in my head while my hands were doing their work today and i realised that this beer should be a hit with the ladies. It's dark and mysterious, it has chocolate, ripe figs, apricots and for the killer sex fruit its got cherries in it and a touch of the exotic about it which led (eventually) through the wonder of free association to the name 'Dark Sin'. I'll have to find an art deco black and white picture to go with the name nearer bottling time.

Steam Punk IPA MkII first trial

Hi all,

I am sitting here this evening sipping the first bottle of SteamPunk IPA MKII.  Steam punk MkII is simply a four gallon batch of Steam Punk Mk I removed from the FV at 1.022 gravity and added Brett C. The beer continued to ferment down to a FG of 1.003 or thereabouts and sat there looking at me!

Don't know about you guys and your experience of Brett C but i am finding Brett C to be a tremendous tool to have in the brewers pallete. It has taken the SteamPunk Mk I (which i very much enjoy in a chewy complicated Big Ale kind of way) and massively cleaned it up. In the nose there is star anise and malt while on the tongue there is Omani lemons and they are both way brighter and clearer than in the Mk1! I am now a true believer in Brett C and will be unleashing a fresh culture on a part of The Ripper IPA before departing offshore.

Strange thing this brewing lark eh? One day you can be making a bog standard (mostly) Summer type beer with a tip of the hat towards Deuchars IPA and the next day you find yourself sampling a not fully carb'd off the map weird beer that doesn't exist anywhere else. In this particular case it tastes nothing like its 7.3% ABV so to my mind it qualifies as a Stealth Weird Wild Beer (try saying that after a few of them). I look forward to trying this again towards the end of  June once its fully carb'd and blended in the bottle. Have i said before? What a hobby! :)

Ripper IPA

Hi all,

Its been a while since i posted or indeed brewed. Life has been very busy and sadly the brewing was squeezed out for a while. I'm now back on track and received inspiration for my latest brew jus the other day when i stuck a nice big new kitchen knife into my hand! Hence the aptly named 'Ripper IPA'. It is a nice simple brew to match with a nice simple person.

Ripper IPA

20 imp gallon batch

60 minute boil

Ingredients

11kg marris Otter

2 kg Wheat malt

1 kg Munich malt

1 kg Crystal malt

13 oz hallertau FWH

3.5 oz First Gold FWH

8 oz Bobek 5 minute

11.5 oz bobek 60 minute aroma steep

3.5 oz Cascade 60 minute aroma steep

2.5 oz Apollo 60 minute aroma steep

2 kgs Table sugar( Shock horror) :)

Huge Burton yeast starter

100 grmms Gypsum, 4 campden tabs & 3 Protaflocs

I am aiming towards a 4.5% or below batch of slightly chewy but dryish and citrusy IPA. I have went for a full on rolling boil in the hope of a slight caramel coming through into the finished beer alongside the crystal.

As you can see there is a massive amount of Bobek hops in this beer, a mate from Jim's beerkit very kindly sold me a 1/2 kilo (540grmms actually, thats how generous he is)! Being a long term believer in less is more except when it comes to hop additions i went all out with the 1/2 kilo and used the lot in this brew. Continuing the citrus theme i included Apollo and cascade for their lemon/orange tones. I expect this to be a nice refreshing little beer, only time will tell!

Exploded garage

Enough hops to be going on with

Stainless Mesh wrapped copper pick up pipe to improve filtration and reduce blockages(it worked).

Excessive FWH'ing with Hallertau & First Gold.

A wee mash shot, great to be back at it!

1/2 KG Bobek( Cheers Pdtnc)

I love this shot! 5 min Bobek hops.

My burner in action

Nice rat brewery shot

Cane sugar, if its good enough for the Belgians...

I am currently crashcooling the brew and as is often the case i appear to be off in my calcs :) The hydro sample is sitting at 1.048 @ 50 degrees. Ah well skullsplitter here we come!

Edit, Later the same evening.

In the end i transfered just under 90 ltrs of wort with a final gravity of 1.052. This gave me a BHE of 82%, rather chuffed with that. I'm putting it down to my liquor to grain ratio change and improved heat retention with the ratio going from 2.5:1 to 4:1. A watery mash but the improved efficency is a nice bonus.

Anyway, the Burton yeast is smelling tremendous.

Its been pitched at 25 degrees into a 30 degree wort, i want the esters to come out on this yeast so i am playing with it a bit to see how it performs when stressed a bit.

One full FV.

I am expecting the Burton yeast to be climbing out of the FV in the morning as the headspace is small and i have done everything i can (heat/oxygenation) to get the yeast off to a flyer. Roll on the morning! :) Cheers.

Boring price bit

15 kilo grain £16.50
43 oz hops! £ 26.40
2kgs cane sugar £2.00
gas, cam&prota £5.00
Yeast FOC (reuse of a WLP023&US-05 pair of phials)

£49.90/150 bottles = 33p per pint bottle

For those that pay the price that is asked by the government via the man in the shop for beer this will appear to be a stupidly low price. For those that are like myself, driven to brew the best beer they can will see that this is an expensive homebrewed beer. As ever, its all about the hops in price & presence. Roll on July and first taste of this bad boy! :)

Further edit

After much phaffing about i now have all of the bottles ready for this beer. Luckily i had cracked through my jobs list this week so i had a some time this morning to finish and print out the labels. Not 100% comfortable about using the original No1 serial killer as the label but as its Ripper IPA for my handwound, what else could i do? :) Cool in a strangely disturbing way?

Scottish SteamPunk Imperial Pale Ale part 2

Hi all,

As seems to be my habit, the major changes were made during the hop introductions. This was partly driven by cost (using the Pioneer & Libery FW hops to clear them for the hop bin) but mostly by nose! The final recipe looks like this.

SteamPunk Imperial Scottish Pale Ale

Ingredients
10.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter
4.00 kg Munich Malt
3.00 kg Wheat Malt,
1.00 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L
0.50 kg Oats, Flaked

3.50 oz Pioneer (120 min) (First Wort Hop)
3.50 oz Liberty (120 min) (First Wort Hop)
3.50 oz Cascade (120 min) (First Wort Hop)

3.50 oz Simcoe (5 min)

10.50 oz Cascade (5 min)

3.50 oz Green Bullet (120 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) 
3.50 oz Simcoe (120 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) 
2.50 oz Nelson Sauvin (120 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)
Big Starter Burton Ale (White Labs #WLP023)

Technical

Batch Size: 15 Imp gallon
Boil Time: 120 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00%

Measured Original Gravity: 1.062 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG(Non bretted portion) 
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.94 %
Bitterness: 102.8 IBU
Est Color: 7.9 SRM

The brew fermented well, albeit at a sedate pace due to the cool brewhouse temperatures. I later gave a part of the brew the chance to do its thing at higher temperatures and i can say that WLP023 Burton yeast IS an explosive beastie (more on that later)! I can't believe i've used a kilo of hops in a 15 gallon brew. Ah well, my own fault for hopping by nose and enthusiasm!

The batch was 60 ltrs in total. 20 ltrs of this was decanted at a gravity of 1.022 to a better bottle for the introduction of Brett C. I was interested to see if there would be much further activity in the Better bottle at raised indoor temperatures. The Burton yeast did not disappoint and leapt into action with the temperature change from the garage to the house. Albeit for a very limited period of time. The beer hit its FG at 1.019 but was eventful up to that point..

While this was going on i  had been culturing some of my WLP645 Brett C. The plan being to send a couple of phials of it through the post to other interested brewers. This i duly did and was left with a MASSIVE 400ml culture of Brett C. Even after storage of back up phials for myself i still had a huge amount. What to do?

Obviously the only thing to do was a massive overpitch of Brett C into 20ltrs of The SteamPunk! The smell off the airlock is sweet and tropical with slight zing of sherbety funk, a true Big IPA! This batch will if all goes to plan achive a FG of 1.003. It may go lower due to the overpitch. As i am still learning my way around Brett C i'll have to wait for the outcome and make random predictions as it goes. If it achieves 1.003 we will have an IPA fit for the 'Hop Loft' at Delerium Tremens in Brussels af 7.75% ABV. Only time will tell.

The 40 ltr  remainder of SteamPunk was ran through HopThang on 2 oz's of Nelson Sauvins for Six hours.

It was fascinating to watch a piece of equipment i had designed and built come alive and do its thing(Thang). The video is on YouTube, link below.

  I was in Dubai on the 23rd December and was lucky enough to find my way to the spice market ( truly you can just follow your nose). I bought a few different spices for use in cooking and some specifically for brewing. In use through this beer will be two flowers of star anise, an Omani dried Lemon and an Omani dried Black lemon (both crushed).

I have also prepared 20 grmms of Whiskey barrel oak shavings to complete this potpourri!. These shavings were boiled three times to sterilise and reduce their oakness and then soaked for 10 days in a huge belt of Asbach Brandy. This heady combination will be used in HopThang today along with a further handful of Nelson's and will be circulated for a number of hours.

I am really enjoying this brew as i have taken myself off my own personal knowledge map and I am currently travelling in the bit where its says 'Here thyr by dragons'. Its a grand adventure! :)