12 posts tagged “brewing”

I've been distracted lately while other things have been happening, and I haven't had much time to comment on them. Here's a bit of catching up...

(#--- This is a test ---#)
static w a := 64 / a
static g := 32

packet v a b := a array[w b]
packet b := word 8
packet p z i := b sign -zvma z array[i] sign -o
packet r := v [form [k :: word g, n :: b array[w 128]]] 2

##| STATIC EXPRESSION TYPE ERROR
static k := w ()

##|-- End of file

test.pi0:2:15-20: error: static binary operator '/' types mismatch...
static w a := 64 / a
              ^^^^^^
test.pi0:11:13-16: ...evaluated here:
static k := w ()
            ^^^^

Apparently, it has gotten really fricking hard to find hops (for making beer) in this country.  I've had to alter the last three of my recipes to make up for the fact that East Kent Golding hops cannot be had for love nor money here.

[I posted this in the comments for this thread at MakingLight earlier today.  It's a great recipe.  You should brew this on Black Friday instead of burning your hard earned liquidity on feeding it right back into the gaping maw of the global corporate neofeudal imperialist police state.]

Tumultuous Uproar Imperial Stout

(makes 5 gallons, or about 35 bottles [375 ml])

Ingredients:
10 lb pale malt extract
1.5 lb 2-row barley
0.5 lb roasted barley
0.5 lb carafe barley
0.5 lb chocolate roast barley
dash of barley flakes
0.25 lb black patent barley
1 oz bullion hops pellets
2 oz east kent golding hops pellets
1 vial of liquid dry english ale yeast
4.5 oz dextrose powder
2.5 oz star anise
6 gallons bottled spring water

Instructions:

Step 1: Put about 1.5 gallons of spring water into a 2 or 3 gallon pot (not your big 3.5 or 4 gallon pot) and heat to between 158 F and 160 F. Yes, you need a thermometer, and yes, 155 F is way too cold and 165 F is way too hot. Also, don't skimp and use tap water for this. You want the spring water because its pH balance is already managed for you, and it's a huge pain to measure and tweak your tap water. Use the spring water— you'll be much more calm about everything.

Step 2: Turn off the heat, dump all the loose specialty grains into the pot, put the lid on the pot, cover the whole thing with a towel to keep it warm and happy, and leave it alone for 45 minutes. This will make your house smell wonderful. If you have more than two large pots and a trivet for the first pot, you can get a jump on step 4 here.

Step 3: Place the largest metal colander you have in your main brewing pot so the handles catch and it suspends in the top. Pour the loose specialty grains from the first pot into the colander. Try to keep all the grains in the colander and let the sweet wort fall into the pot. I use the largest colander and brew pot I could buy at Sur La Table, and it's almost not big enough. Resist the temptation to compress the grains to make them fit, as that will release tannins you don't want in the wort.

Step 4: Rinse out the first pot and use it to heat another 1.5 gallons of spring water to 180 F. Yes, use the thermometer. 175 F is too cold. 185 F is too hot.

Step 5: Use pyrex measuring cup or a ladle, and slowly drizzle the the 180 F water over the grains in the colander. This will take a long time. Try to be patient. Keep the temperature of the water at 180 F, and it will go faster as time progresses. You can stop when you're out of water and wort is basically not dripping into the pot from the colander anymore.

Step 6: Remove the spent grains and dump them in the compose pile. Or feed them to the pigs. Or spread around in your garden. You're done with them.

Step 7: Heat the wort in your main brewing pot at high temperature until almost boiling.

Step 8: Turn off the heat. Pour the malt extract into the pot and stir it into the wort. You did turn off the heat first, right? Trust me, if you didn't turn off the heat, you're feeling really stupid right now. Turn off the heat before you pour ten pounds of malt extract into a pot of near boiling wort.

Step 9: Turn on the heat and bring the pot to a rolling boil. Watch the pot constantly. Don't leave the stove even to cross the room for a second, much less to go to the bathroom. A foam will develop on the surface of the wort, and it can rise quickly with almost no warning, boil over the top of the pot and create a huge sticky mess. You will really not like cleaning it up. Watch the pot constantly while you bring the wort to a boil.

Step 10: If you've made beer before, but never one as strong as an imperial stout, then read step 9 again. You have over 12 lb of sugar in that pot. It will boil over more quickly and more easily than what you're used to with lighter weight worts.

Step 11: Add the bullion hops to the wort, and boil the hell out of it for a whole 30 minutes. With the hops in the wort, it's now even more likely to boil over. It's also what will make your housemates complain about the awful smell. Now might be a good time to start Night On Bald Mountain playing on the MP3 player with track repeat. (I like the disco version on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack for this. Sadly, the rest of the house doesn't.)

Step 12: Add half of the east kent golding hops (1 oz) to the wort, and keep boiling the hell out of it for another 20 minutes. Switch the MP3 player over to the opening theme from Beetlejuice.

Step 13: Add the star anise and the rest of the hops to the wort, and keep boiling the hell out of it for another 10 minutes. Switch the MP3 player over to the imperial march from Empire Strikes Back.

Step 14: Turn off the heat and cover the pot with the lid. Carry the pot over and put it into the sink. Surround the outside of the pot with ice cubes and pour cold water from the tap into the ice. Leave there for 45 minutes. Do not take off the lid for any reason. (Alternatively, you could use a wort chiller. I do. Speeds up the process of bringing the temperature of the wort down to the point where the yeast will like it.)

Step 15: Sanitize your primary fermenter and its airlock with benzalkonium chloride. (My brew supply store stocks it under the brand name "One Step".)

Step 16: Pour 2.5 gallons of spring water into the primary fermenter. You may have a little spring water left over. Save it for when there are two many snipers suppressing access to the local well.

Step 17: Pour the cooled (probably still warm, but not near boiling) wort into the primary fermenter.

Step 18: Pitch the yeast into the primary fermenter, close the lid and install the airlock.

Step 19: Put the fermenter someplace cool and dark for 10 to 20 days. After it starts fermenting in about 18 hours, a steady stream of CO2 will start bubbling out the airlock. If it's too cold (like under 50 F), then fermentation won't happen. If it's too warm (like over 80 F), then fermentation may be too aggressive, and it will blow through the airlock and make a huge mess. So, make sure the fermenter is located somewhere that cleaning up such a mess will be easy.

Step 20: Rack the beer from the primary to a well-sanitized secondary fermenter after the airlock stops bubbling. This will almost certainly take at least 10 days with this beer. It might take as much as 20, if it's cold enough. Whatever. Leave it in the secondary fermenter for another 5 or 6 weeks. I've let it go for as much as 8 weeks, and it hasn't hurt the beer any.

Step 21: Sanitize 36 strong 375 ml bottles. I retained a collection of the old St. Peters Brewery bottles (before they switched from oval to round), and these work great. You don't want to use cheap bottles that were made for crap beer. If the beer is over-carbonated, the bottles will break in storage or transport and that will make a sucky outcome into an utterly intolerable one.

Step 22: Add the dextrose to a 0.25 cup of tap near boiling tap water. Stir until dissolved. Pour this "priming sugar" into the secondary fermenter with the beer you're about to bottle.

Step 23: Bottle the beer. Use oxygen-sealing crown caps. Very important. Order them special if necessary.

Step 24: Leave the beer in the bottles for at least 4 months before you even think of opening one to see if it came out all right. It will be ready to enjoy after about 6 months. It will be really good in 8 to 12 months. After that it will slowly deteriorate and be truly awful at around 2 years old.

Step 25: Taste and adjust recipe to suit.

(Note: much of this recipe, and the instructions for brewing, came from Griz at San Francisco Brewcraft. The addition of the star anise was my idea. I argue that the addition of savory to this traditional recipe is an innovation that should be accepted everywhere.)

Sadly, Michael Jackson has died.  A brief moment of silence, please.

Apparently, the lambic-style batch is working.  I brewed the latest batch of Too Many Secrets porter today.  While cleaning up, I took a sample from the lambic fermenter to see whether I was going to have to pour it out and clean out the carboy.

I wouldn't do this for just anybody.  My friend Van Mojo tagged me with it, and I'm not about to let him down over something this trivial.

I racked the Tumultuous Uproar! imperial stout tonight.  I was worrying a bit about this batch because there's something in the flavor that I don't usually detect at this stage.  I hope it's not too much tannins, caused by trying desperately during the sparging process to get the first runs to come out at a rate that wasn't glacial.  On the other hand, it might be a bit of tea flavor from the adjucts I added.  It wasn't anything that I would classify as reason to pitch the whole batch just yet.  It was just something to worry about in the taste I got when I racked it.

This morning, I took an inventory of my homebrew and discovered that I was down to the last five bottles of last year's batch of Revolution! strong ale, so of course, I slapped labels on four of them and they're going to be special x-mas gifts to some of my best friends.  I just finished drinking the fifth one with my pizza.

The latest batch of Revolution! Strong Ale is in the bottle.  This was the batch that I screwed up in the brewing process by forgetting to add the malt extract until after I had already done the finishing hops and was about to cool the wort.  I added the extract, brought it up to a boil again and quickly ran out to the backyard and picked all the Golding hops growing on the vines my wife planted for me last year.  I added those to the wort and proceeded as normal, hoping that this would mostly work.

8 lb liquid pale malt extract