Berliner Weisse and Decoction Mashing

Decoction mash

I'm moving across the country, and my intentions were to quiet things down on the homebrewing front for the move, but when a friend asked me to introduce him to the craft, I just couldn't resist. I had three weeks total to brew a beer from grain to bottle, so I chose a Berliner Weisse. I also decided to try out a decoction mash, which I had never attempted before.

A decoction mash is a traditional technique used in many European styles, especially in Germany. It was used to maximize the yield of poor quality malt and has since stuck around. The decoction mash involves removing a portion of the mash, boiling it, and then adding it back into the main mash. Some recipes call for double or triple decoction mashes. Why? Well, according to Randy Mosher in Radical Brewing, "it heightens malty grain-derived flavors." From what I noticed during the process, some of the grain in the decoction caramelizes, so the beer should have that carmel flavor to it, but I'm not sure why a brewer couldn't just add caramel malt or other specialty malts to a mash and derive a similar effect. 

Which brings us to the next point; many people call this process an unnecessary hassel. They maintain that with the advances in grain quality, one can have as good results using only the common infusion mash instead. I figured I'd try it out, and see if I can establish a foothold in the controversy. 

Between arguing over the mash spoon, they posed

Berliner Weisse, aka Mover's Ale aka Exodus Idaho aka Cross Country Ale -- I could go on...

Batch Size: 8 gallons (we were brewing for three people)

 Malt:

6 lbs. German Pilsner Malt 

4 lbs. White Wheat Malt

Hops: 

1 oz. Liberty (I had this in the fridge leftover, but you could use any low AA spicy hop)

Yeast:

Wyeast Lacto Delbrueckii (my homebrew shop didn't carry Berliner Weisse yeast).

Dregs of Jolly Pumpkin, Russian River, and some other stuff (House Blend added later)

Mash Schedule

Add malt at 100°F ------- 10 min rest

Remove 1 gallon bring to boil for 10 min; meanwhile, bring main mash to 120°F

Add decoction back into main mash bring up to 145°F ----- 15 min rest

Finally, bring up to 155°F -- 10-15 min

I sparged with 166°F, but I'm not sure this was necessary.

Beginning of fermentation and settling out

I added the hops, brought the wort to boil and then shut it off, since the Berliner Weisse is traditionally brewed without a boil. I also left hops in during the chilling.

I pitched the Wyeast Lacto culture and waited a several days before I pitched the house yeast blend. My yeast profile here is not ideal for this style. I would recommend just using the Wyeast Berliner Weisse, but like I said, I couldn't find it (may be a limited release). 

Three days after brewing.
Same beer with different fermentation rates. Strange, right?

Anticipated gravity: 1.036 (75% efficiency)

Actual gravity: 1.035 (not too shabby)

Can't wait to see how it turns out. 

Flanders Red: The Graduation Ale

In an effort to make this blog a bit friendlier to homebrew neophytes, I'm going to write a description of the style of beer before I do a tasting of it. I don't like to get too caught up in categorizing, especially since the most interesting beers break conventions. Nonetheless, when I attempt a traditional style, I think it's only appropriate to give some background. 

Style: The Flanders Red resembles a red wine more than a beer. It has a spicy vanilla character from the oak aging, and the presence of tannins gives some astringency like wine. Traditionally there are a lot of esters that give fruity flavors akin to currants or cherries. The style is a classic sour ale with a tart finish attributed to wild yeast fermentation (brettanomyces) and bacteria (pediococcus and lactbacillus), but the traditional yeast (saccharomyces) play a part as well. The style is clear, maintains good head retention, and a vinous burgundy color.  

Examples: Rodenbach Grand Cru, Duchesse de Bourgogne, Ommegang Rouge, New Belgium La Folie. American examples that take influence from the style: Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and Russian River Consecration. 

The Graduation Ale Tasting (my version of a Flanders Red)

Aroma: Whole lot of oak. Vinegary with a wine-like spiciness. Earthy loam-like smell, but no barnyard or hay smell that often results from a wild yeast fermentation. 

Taste: Slightly sweet, but then turns tart and acidic with the slightest astringency and a bit of fruity currants. Finishes with a strong oak flavor and a bit of wine/tannin flavor. I suppose this is to be expected since the oak that I used was brand new and hardly diluted. In the U.S. this style is often aged in winery barrels that have lost most of their oak influence. With time, the oak will dissipate and the ale will balance out (Name of beer should be amended to the post-graduate ale).

Appearance: Ruby brown, burgundy. No head whatsoever, but I just bottled this beer three weeks ago so it will need some time. Since the beer sat in the fermenter around eight months, I imagine that it may take awhile for the bottles to carbonate. I know some people add a pinch of dry yeast.

Mouthfeel: Clean with a good body, definitely not light but not too heavy either. Again, it really reminds me of a lighter red wine. Not enough carbonation, which vindicates my plan to age this beer for at least another four months.

Overall: For those of you who have been following the blog, this is the oak dowel experiment beer. The dowel really imparted an influence of oak into the beer--maybe a little too well--and there is definitely a nice tart sour flavor. I'd say it was a success, but I'm not sure if the dowel is worth the trouble. The last sour wheat I made turned out a beautiful tart flavor without the added oxygen of the wood, and I think cubes would be easier to use than the dowel for oak flavor, but I'll withhold an opinion until the results are conclusive. This beer should be great once the oak balances out and the carbonation gets up to par. I will leave it to sit for awhile longer before I give it another taste. My wedding is in November so I may call this the Nuptial Ale and cut my losses now. 

Sour Blonde Wheat Ale Tasting

Sour Blonde Wheat Ale

Brewed the Sour Wheat Ale a little over two months ago, and it should be ready for a tasting by now. This brew clocks at 4.5% ABV, and unlike the Flanders Red Ale that I fermented with this same yeast concoction, this beer never formed a pellicle; however, it was not nearly exposed to as much oxygen nor did it have a lot of time. Before bottling, when I tasted it out of the fermenter, I was very surprised at how sour it got in such a short amount of time. I also couldn't taste any of the coriander or orange.


Aroma: Clean citrus, esters and mildly sweet--almost like the smell of cotton candy. No funk or barnyard animals in this one. A bit of orange. No spice smell.

Appearance: Cloudy, as a wheat beer should be, and nice golden straw color. Head forms right away, but isn't thick and dissipates quickly. I'd chalk this up to another recipe that doesn't account for head retention but I know that the Berliner Weiss style, which this brew is loosely based upon, has a head that dissipates quickly. So I think it's just the style.

Flavor: Wheat-lactic goodness. A very pleasant, sharp, acid-tang that lasts awhile. A hint of sweetness. Some lingering esters, a bit of the orange, and maybe some spice, but really not much at all. Very clean taste. Cannot detect the alcohol over the tanginess. Lemons too. Maybe just a bit of that hay-like character that Bretts are notorious for. No hop bitterness, although I do wonder what a little more hops would do to this beer. The sour taste may be a little too aggressive for some people, but I like it.

Mouthfeel: Crisp body. Very drinkable. Dry and clean. It needs a little more carbonation for the style, I think, but that will certainly come with more time in the bottle. This beer lacks body. I've had some interesting Berliner Weisses before that had a creamy consistency, and I wonder how the hell the brewer got it that way--I think I'm thinking of the Southampton Berliner.

Overall: This is a great beer and isn't going to last too long around the house. The lack of body is definitely the weakest part. I feel like if there's going to be an aggressive wild-sour taste there needs to be some structure behind it. Otherwise it's like drinking wheat lemonade.  Then again, this may just be the style. Very refreshing beer.

Bugs, Bretts, and all kinds of stuff clinging onto the carboy glass of the Flanders Red Ale

Dry Hopping Hodgepodge IPA

This is the first time I used Chinook in an American IPA recipe. It was recommended by the local homebrew shop as what they use in their IPA. I was reluctant since I really don't like their house IPA, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

I usually use Simcoe hops in my IPA since I love the clean woodsy pine taste, and Simcoe doesn't seem--at least to me--to have all the harsh resiny flavors. Chinook, I came to learn, is the forerunner of the harsh resiny hops, which I suppose is fine for hopheads, but I prefer having a more balanced IPA. With that said, I figured I'd explain a bit about hop usage and scheduling time.

The rule of thumb is that the earlier the hops go into the boil,  the more bitterness and less aroma they will impart. The scale tilts the opposite way as the hop is added toward the end of the boil. So a hop addition at 5 minutes left in the boil will add only those wonderful aromas we love when we pour a glass from the bottle or keg.

Dry hopping is the most effective method to make an aromatic brew. All you do is add fresh hops or hop pellets to the carboy after the fermentation has calmed down and let it sit for a few weeks. Apparently, in the past, dry hopping was used to help preserve beer, too.

I prefer to use whole hops because they impart the best aroma in my opinion, but many homebrewers hate using whole flowers because they're a pain to siphon out of the fermenter when the beer is ready to bottle or keg. Instead, they prefer hop pellets, which of course work well, too. I merely attach a bit of sterilized steel wool around the end of the siphon which acts as a buffer from the whole hop flowers and allows the siphon to flow without obstruction. 

Brew in a Bag--Hodgepodge IPA

This is my first experience with the brewing in a bag technique, and I thought it went well with little complaints. This method is best for people with limited resources who like to have complete control over their grain bill. 


Brewing in a bag gives the versatility of all-grain brewing without having to buy, clean or mess with a mash tun. I found it great for the apartment brewer, although I would recommend having a place to hang it outside as it can get a little messy.




All you need is a bag large and sturdy enough to hold wet grain and wrap it around the top of the pot as shown in the first picture. Then maintain the mash temperature with some towels or a fleece blanket as I did. I brought the water to about 161°F and then added the grain little by little to avoid doughy clusters, constantly stirring. The grain dropped the temp to about 156°F and the blanket worked incredibly well to insulate the mash. At the end of the hour, the temp was about 151°F--not bad for an outside temp of 42°. 




 
After the hour mash I hung it up and let it drain. I squeezed this bad boy as dry as I could, rinsed it with about two more gallons of sparge water at about 167 ° and squeezed it all over again. Then I did a 90 minute boil with the hop schedule as planned. All in all it was pretty simple. I was a little disappointed that both my local homebrew shops had no simcoe hops--terrible I know--so I just used a bunch of left over hops I had lying around in the fridge, hence hodgepodge.

Hodgepodge IPA


Grain Bill
14 lbs 2 row
12 oz. crystal 45
12 oz carapils
10 oz dextrose


Hops
3.5 oz chinook       90
.75 oz chinook       45
1 oz centennial      30
1 oz magnum        flameout
1 oz centennial      flameout


Dry Hop in secondary
1 oz chinook         2 weeks
1 oz centennial      2 weeks
1 oz columbus       2 weeks


.25 oz chinook      5 days at end
.25 oz columbus   5 days
.25 oz amarillo      5 days
.25 oz magnum     5 days


Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast


OG ----- 1.070  (roughly 7% ABV).
60% efficiency. So the brew in the bag isn't all that efficient of a method. But maybe I am missing something here--it was my first time.

Hail during the boil. Luckily we had a roof over us.

Dark Rye Tasting

Appearance - Dark brownish amber. If held up to light, can detect cloudiness. Little head and head retention. The recipe should be amended for the head; maybe flaked barley, carapils, rice hulls, or some wheat malt, although some of these might battle out the clean body taste below.

Aroma - Carmel, rye and malt. No hops, no alcohol.

Taste - Clean and light body. Maltiness, caramel, light carbonation. Some hop bitterness, but I think it needs a little more. Finishes very spicy, which I love about rye beers. 

Notes and Amendments: This beer needs more time in the cellar to balance out the maltiness. It's simply not there yet. I love the rye finish, but I think I'd use more hops next time, and maybe use chinook or fuggles instead of the magnum. I think I will use a different yeast too. Something a little more tart and dry, like a belgian strain, Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale or White Labs WLP550. Also, I'd put something in there for head retention. Of course there are things I'd change about the recipe, but all in all a pretty good beer. 

Brewing Dark Rye

Before this blog was conceived, I brewed a Dark Rye beer in November around thanksgiving. I brewed it to pair with my annual St. Patty's day homemade corned beef. I thought the spicy-smooth, malty rye would be a good option to battle out the saltiness in the beef. But I also have some sours on hand if the rye beer is no match. I guess I'll have to wait and see. 

This is my second Dark Rye. Last time was a disaster. It's difficult to count all the things that went wrong with the first beer, but I'll try. First, I was brewing outside and it was quite cold, so I left the heat on the burner as low as it would go during the sparge, and the bag burned a little. I was about to dump the beer right then and there, but for some reason I continued. I remember having to scrub the burnt nylon off the pot for what seemed like an hour. 

The next mistake was during the fermentation. I brewed the beer right before I left on a four week hiking trip. I was worried about high krausen while I wasn't around (krausen is the foam that forms on top fermenting ales), so I used a blow-off tube, which is basically a wide tube that allows for more space and ends in a bucket of sterilized water. Well, the fermentation must have been vigorous because when I came back home after the hike, the tube was out of the bucket on the ground. This means the beer was exposed to oxygen for who knows how long. 

I tasted the beer and it wasn't terribly bad, so I bottled it. But after a month there was no carbonation, so I re-opened the bottles and dropped a few particles of dry yeast in each. After another month, the beer was carbonated and ready to go. 

Despite all these mistakes, I felt like I learned an incredible amount from this batch and so I had an affinity for it. The beer, however, was absolutely terrible, although I did learn how to identify a beer with too much oxygen exposure. 

Anyway, I figured I'd give it another shot. This time I used British ale yeast instead of London ale. I did not use a secondary for the beer, but left it on the primary for about two months and bottled it in the middle of January. It's been sitting at cellar temperature for a little over a month now.

Dark Rye

5 Lb Pale Ale DME 

1 lbs Rye Malt 3L

3 lbs  Caramel 60 L

1 lbs rolled rye

2 oz. Black patent malt 580L 

1.5 oz. Tettnanger 60 min
1 oz Magnum 20 min 

Original Gravity: 1.056

Final Gravity: 1.014

Bottled with 1/4 cup brown sugar

I'll do a tasting for it next post.

Sourdough Starter and Cakes

As promised, I made a sourdough starter off the dregs of my hard cider, which I fermented using the wild yeast native to the orchard. The cider wasn't all it could've been, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun experimenting with this yeast culture.

The process is quite simple: drink a bottle of hard cider down to the dregs, leaving about an inch left in the bottle and swirl it. Drain it into a mixture of warm water and all-purpose flour. The consistency of the mixture should be watery--I did about 60/40 water to flour. Stir it up and let sit in a warm place. The next day I fed it about a 1/4 cup flour and stirred it again. When the starter starts to froth or bubble, you know you're doing well. Continue feeding every day, making sure to pour off about a 1/2 cup of the starter before feeding if you're not using it that day.

Mine was frothing within four days and I used it in a batch of sourdough Pancakes.

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup warm water
1 Egg
1 Tbsp cane sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

I substituted the water with club soda, which I had lying around. I find that the carbonation of the soda helps to fluff the cakes a bit.

I would also add that I mixed the ingredients and let them sit overnight. That way, the yeast has a chance to infiltrate the entire mixture, and result in the best sourdough.

They were pretty good for only a week old starter.

The Hard Cider Incident: Part II

The cider has been sitting in a roughly 50 degree closet in my basement apartment for nearly four months. 

Appearance -- Cloudy, golden yellow-straw colored. Initial thin white head that dissipates quickly. No clarity because I didn't bother transfering the cider into a secondary to clear it out.

Smell -- Cinnamon and faint hint of apple. Strong alcohol aroma. Lingering mustiness. 

Taste -- Very tart and a little sourness. Clean with hints of apple and cinnamon. Definitely detect some acidic flavors as well as alcohol. Very warming. 

Feel -- Thin and heavy carbonation. Really have to let the gas dissipate before you get the taste. Dry and astringent.

Overall I thought the cider wasn't a complete failure, but definitely not something I would give to a friend. This one is staying in the depths of the closet for awhile. I was surprised how much it improved over these past 4 months. Next year, I will try again and let it age in a secondary with some wood, possibly bourbon-soaked oak. Also, I'm not so sure about this wild yeast, something is still a bit off. I think I will give this strain a try on a gallon batch of beer for an experiment. I also have plans for it in a sourdough starter. 

Rating of my first hard cider: 4/10

The Hard Cider Incident: Part 1

This fall I tried my hand at hard cider. I went to Bishops Orchard in Garfield, WA where they had some old fashioned cider presses. My friends and I impressed ourselves by cranking out nearly ten gallons of cider in a half-hour. The cider was pressed from spartan and golden delicious apples, which I believe are fairly sweet. I had no idea but  hard cider is apparently better if made from tart apples.

My research recommended pasteurizing the cider by heating it up to 160-170 degrees Fahrenheit, just shy of boiling, to ensure that no wild yeast would be involved in the fermentation. But as you can tell from my first few posts, I couldn't let an opportunity to harvest my own strand of wild yeast go to waste. So, I didn't heat up the cider at all, but instead I left it alone to spontaneously ferment, which of course it did, exactly five days after I pressed it.

The unfermented cider was incredibly sweet when I tasted it. And my hydrometer confirmed this: original gravity of the cider was 1.074, which usually translates to around 6.8% ABV. My research tells me that average gravity for a cider is 1.050. So this cider was very sweet. As a result I decided not to add any adjuncts such as honey or dextrose. However, I did add some cinnamon sticks a few days before I bottled. The cider sat in the primary for five weeks and clarified pretty well.

When I took a reading at the end of the fermentation I was shocked, the final gravity was a smidgen under 1.000. To give you an idea, water has a specific gravity of 1.000, so my cider had a density slightly less than water. At first I wasn't sure this was possible, but alcohol has a lower density than water, so a fluid with a high percentage of alcohol could be under 1.000. For those of you who haven't already done the math, this cider has an ABV of 9.7%.

Before I bottled it, the cider smelled musty and tasted very dry with absolutely no sweetness, since all the sugar had been metabolized. There were a lot of off-flavors that I couldn't put my finger on. But the cinnamon was nice. I hoped that the cider would get better with age, so I bottled it with some dextrose and it's been sitting ever since. I've cracked open a few to get acquainted with the progress, but next post, I'll do a proper tasting.

The Oak Dowel Experiment

Toasted Oak Dowel 

For all of us who can't afford or don't have 
the space for a gigantic oak barrel, 
there's the dowel method. I found that 
if you have the right tools it should cost 
around five dollars, give or take. It's also
 a nice conversation starter when people 
come over and happen to catch a glimpse.

As far as I can tell, the method was developed by Raj Apte who recommends using an oak chair leg with the hardware cut off as a stopper in a glass carboy. After doing a little research and examining the pros and cons, I figured I'd experiment and see what comes of it.

Pros: Like a barrel, the dowel allows oxygen to seep into the fermenter, which help Brettanomyces create their distinctive sour flavor. Also, the dowel should impart some oak flavor, although, this reason seems secondary; oak cubes ultimately have more surface area and will impart their flavor more efficiently.

Cons: The greatest danger of using the dowel is that it may swell and get stuck. If using a glass carboy, this would turn your 5 dollar barrel project into a seventy dollar mistake, so use caution. Some people use very thin dowels, but I wanted to take the chance and see what the extra surface area can give me. 

Found this on homebrewtalk.com, not sure of the original source. 

First, I went to the local building supply and picked up a half-inch American oak dowel. I cut it down to around two-and-a-half feet, making sure to remove the colored ends. I wrapped it in aluminum foil and toasted it in the oven around 300 degrees for four hours. I did not bother charring it, which some people recommend. I hope to one day try out different temperatures for different brews. 

For those of you who have cut oak before, you'll know how aromatic the wood can be, so remember to consider this before you throw it under heat. I love the smell, but I can see how it could be overwhelming. I didn't take any chances and did it while my fiancée was out of town.

Flanders Red 

I read that brand new oak, freshly toasted, can dominate and ruin the subtleties of a brew. So, I thought I would soak it in some wine before I put it to action, diluting the flavors, and hopefully mimicking a used wine barrel as much as possible. I chose to use it in a Flanders Red style (I'll put up a recipe soon) and figured a pinot noir was the best way to go for this style. 

On the way to the store, I actually considered buying a $10 wine in which to soak the dowel, but I thought better of it and used three-buck-chuck instead. I stuck the dowel in an Erlenmeyer flask and let it sit in the wine for a week, occasionally filling the flask as the wood and evaporation claimed the wine. Then, I flipped it over and did it all over again. After a month, I thought it was ready to use.

I hollowed out a bung with a knife and stretched it over the dowel. I'm sure there was a better way to do it, since the process took me nearly two hours of trial and error. Finally I got it on and I slipped the dowel into a Flanders Red that had been conditioning in a secondary fermenter for a month. I was a little worried that air might slip between the bung and the wood so I epoxied the top of the bung to get a tight seal. 

As of now, the beer has been in the secondary fermenter for 5 months and the dowel in for 4. 
Also, a healthy pellicle has formed on the top. Last time I tasted it, the sour flavor was at full-force but with very little oak flavor. I'll let it sit for another few months 
before I give it another test.

Pellicle after four months on the dowel

Sour Blonde Wheat Ale

I figured there's no better way to start off a homebrewing blog than with a brand new beer. 


I know that I will be relocating in the next few months, so I tried to get rid of all the excess ingredients. Hence, this was what I came up with. The wort is basically the same as a Belgian white ale--akin to Allagash or Hoegaarden--but I pitched a yeast concoction I cultivated off the dregs of a Jolly Pumpkin La Roja and Russian River's Consecration ale. The gravity is a bit high for a white ale, but like I said before, I wanted to get rid of some weight. 


I almost called this a Berliner Weisse, since traditionally that's what a sour wheat ale is, but I understand that the Berliner Weisse has a distinct partial boil (some say 15 minutes, others say five), which I didn't use, nor do I think it would matter with an extract batch. The Berliner Weisse also is soured with lactobacillus yeast, whereas my yeast starter most definitely contains brettanomyces, pediococcus, as well as lactobacillus. Which means this might pack quite a pucker. Finally, the BW is quite sessionable, sometimes around 3-4% ABV. So, sour blonde wheat ale it is. 


Sour Blonde Wheat


4 lbs Wheat DME
3 lbs Extra Light DME


.75 oz Tettnanger -- 60 min
.25 oz crushed coriander -- flameout
.25 oz orange bitter -- flameout


Pitched Dregs of JP La Roja and RR Consecration.


OG-- 1.045


The boil was interrupted for ten minutes because I ran out of propane. Learn a new lesson everyday in this hobby.

Krausen but not much air lock activity

I'm hoping this beer will lighten up a little bit as the yeast metabolizes all the sugars.
I'm not sure why it's so dark.