Java Nut Pale Ale and Huckleberry Corn Ale

Well, it’s been a while since my last posts.  This time I have brewed up two 5 gallon batches of beer with only one mash again.  Only this time I combined the first and second running and then put them into two different boil kettles.  I used the same grain recipe as I used for the Custer Pale Ale v2 beers.  For a review of that grain bill here it is:

16 lbs 2-Row Pale Malt
3 lbs Crystal 20
2 lbs White Wheat Malt
18 oz Boxed Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

The two different beers to be made were Huckleberry Pale Ale and a Pale Ale with White Coffee.  As for the huckleberries, my wife and I just picked them on the weekend of our anniversary where we went on a camping trip (Aug 6^th weekend).  We wound up getting 6.5 lbs, which should be enough for one batch of beer with 1.5 lbs left over.  I decided on the ratio of 1 lb per gallon of beer because while reading Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher he recommended using 1 to 3 lbs per gallon of beer for blueberries, which are pretty close to Huckleberries, but with a slightly different flavor and aroma.  I presumed that the higher value would be for a darker beer where the berries would get lost in the malt.  So, after reading about how some other people’s huckleberry ale recipes turned out I decided that the 1 lb per gallon ratio would give my beer the huckleberry flavor and aroma I was looking for in pale ale, but not so much that it overwhelms the base beer.

Now as far as the white coffee goes… I have read many times over about using coffee in beer, but I didn’t want to try the same old thing that everyone else was trying.  I wanted to try something different that isn’t talked about much if at all.  When I was taking a Differential Equations math class this last spring, my teacher always came into class with two 1 liter bottles of mountain dew.  The class was early in the morning so she would be asked why she didn’t drink coffee.  She told the class that she doesn’t drink black coffee or espresso drinks, but she would occasionally order up some white coffee if she really felt tired.  The class naturally asked what white coffee was and she told us that it was like a green tea with a lot more caffeine than black coffee or espresso.  She went on to say that she liked it because it didn’t have the bitterness of black coffee and actually has a bit of a sweet nutty flavor.  The class also asked her where she orders it and she said that it was just at a local espresso stand.  When the teacher was telling the class this, I was thinking to myself “that sounds like it would be great in beer.”  However I didn’t want to jump in right away, I wanted to first find out where I could pick some white coffee beans and secondly find out what other people say about its taste and how it is made as well as find out if any other beer has been made with the radical ingredient.

Through my research, I found out that the Smart Foodservice Cash and Carry and URM in Spokane both carry the white coffee beans.  I also found two brewing companies that make beer with white coffee beans.  One of the brewing companies makes a Farmhouse Café Blac Saison aged on fresh vanilla bean and the other makes a Porter called Last Snow that has a predominantly coconut flavor according to the blog that I read about it.  The Saison is made by Trinity Brewing Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  And the Porter is made by The Funky Buddha Brewing Company in Boca Raton, Florida.  My research on brewing with white coffee beans informed me that it is typically brewed with an espresso machine and that it has a nutty flavor with a slight sweetness as my teacher indicated.  Since I don’t have an espresso machine I decided to try out what the coffee tastes like using my home coffee machine.  The beans really aren’t white, but rather a tan color and when it is brewed the water has a yellowish green color… much like green tea.  When I brewed the coffee I noticed that my coffee maker had a hard time percolating water through the beans, but other than that I found that a regular coffee maker gets the job done just as well as an espresso machine.  The flavor was also a lot like green tea, but with the nutty backbone that many people describe on the web.  I thought that it would make a nice compliment to the pale ale that I planned on brewing.  The quantity of white coffee I used in my brew kettle was 1 lb or 16 oz.  The radical brewing book told me that 4 to 8 oz. of black coffee works well for a 5 gallon batch of beer so I figured that since the white coffee has a little bit of a subtle flavor and aroma and since the amount added won’t affect the color of the beer I should double the recommended 8 oz.

When it comes to hops in these pale ales, I decided to stay close to the Cascade variety I had been using, but try to add a little hint of spiciness.  So, I went with Centennial hops.  I also had never tried Centennial hops knowingly so I decided to make both batches single hop beers.  The amount that I chose to add to these Pale Ales was a little bit on the light side so that the other ingredients have a good chance of shining thorough.  I also used the same hop schedule for both beers just to make it easy.  Here is what my hop schedule wound up being (for a 5 gallon batch and 60 min. boil):

0.5 oz Centennial pellet hops (15 min. into boil)

0.5 oz Centennial pellet hops (30 min. into boil)
1.0 oz Centennial pellet hops (45 min. into boil)

Now you might be asking why I went for two different boils if I used the same hop schedule and grain schedule for both beers.  Well the answer is easy.  In order to make the coffee beer with my chosen hot water brewing process I needed to put the coffee into the boil for the last 15 minutes.  And with the Huckleberry ale I am going to add the Huckleberries to the secondary fermenter to extract the freshest flavor and add the least amount of unwanted tannins.  Also with Huckleberries in beer I should mention that pectin, the gelling agent commonly found in fruit, isn’t in a very high concentration in Huckleberries and therefore pectinase should not need to be added to reduce pectin haze.

Java Nut Pale Ale and Huckleberry Corn Ale

(10 gallons all-grain) OG = 1.057, FG = 1.010
IBU = 39.18, SRM = 7.13, ABV = 6.22%

Grain (per 10 gallon batch):
16 lbs 2-Row Pale Malt
3 lbs Crystal 20
2 lbs White Wheat Malt
18 oz Boxed Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

Hops (per 5 gallon batch):
0.5 oz Centennial pellet hops (15 min. into boil)
0.5 oz Centennial pellet hops (30 min. into boil)
1.0 oz Centennial pellet hops (45 min. into boil)

Step by Step:

Mash the grains at 154 F using 5 gallons of water, run off the wort into one boil kettle and add another 5 gallons of water to bring the temperature up to 170 F and let it sit for about 10 minutes.  Next siphon the wort you ran off the first time back into the mash tun to allow all of the wort to mix.  Then run off half of the wort into one boil kettle and then the other half into a second boil kettle.  Then heat up both kettles to boiling temperature.  After the hot break wait 15 minutes and add 0.5 oz of Centennial hops to each boil kettle.  Then wait another 15 minutes and add another 0.5 oz of Centennial hops to each boil kettle.  Next, wait another 15 minutes and add 1 oz of Centennial hops and 1 teaspoon of Irish Moss to each boil kettle.  Also add 16 oz of white coffee to only one of the boil kettles at the same time as the irish moss.  Add 5 lbs of mashed and previously frozen huckleberries to the secondary fermenter of the beer without white coffee in it during the second week of fermentation.

Pale Ale Quest… Part II

As my second edition of pale ale quest, I would like to describe the method to my madness… at least for this batch.  After my last pale ale recipe, I found that I didn’t get the original gravity (OG) I was looking for due to the amount of water I added between mashing and sparging.  So this time I decided to measure the amount of water I add to the mash.  I also didn’t think that the Munich malt of my last recipe, Custer Pale Ale v1, gave me the malty character I was looking for.  So, this time I wanted to change it up a bit.  I asked my wife to look online at some recipes for pale ale and tell me what she found.  She wound up finding a recipe that used pale malt, caramel 20L, wheat malt and corn flakes.  Yes, I said corn flakes; not brewers corn flakes, but the cereal corn flakes with Tony the tiger on the box… cause they’re grrrrreat. 

Kellogg's Corn Flakes Box

At first I was a little hesitant as to whether or not the recipe would fit into the pale ale category or not just because of the adjuncts, but I did some research on the style and on corn flakes in general.  I found that adjuncts and specialty grains can be used in a pale ale recipe as long as they make up a small portion of the “grist.”  As far as the corn flakes go, I found that people who used them indicated that the toasted corn and added sugar give the beer a slightly toasty flavor while keeping the alcohol content up, color down and add a mild malty flavor.  I thought that the wheat malt would give the beer a nice balance with the toastiness by supplying a larger helping of mild malt flavor.  I thought that these two adjuncts fit right in with what I was shooting for.  That is, a malty flavor with high alcohol content light color and a hoppy goodness. 

Of course I couldn’t just take a recipe and use it as is... so I changed the original recipe up a little bit and added some additional pale malt, crystal malt and wheat malt.  The recipe I came up with had the following grain bill:

16 lbs of 2-row Pale Malt

3 lbs of Crystal 20L

2 lbs of Wheat Malt

18 oz of Corn Flakes (1 box)

Since I was using cereal corn flakes, I didn’t have to do a cereal mash because the process of making cereal has already pre gelatinized them for me.

Start of Mash

Because the grain bill for this recipe was 23lbs and I was expecting to get a high OG, I decided to not waste the extra sugars on my grain and do a second running to make 10 gallons of beer total.  This was a first for me since I usually only make 5 gallons of beer.  I boiled both batches separately and used one of the two 1oz Cascade hop bags, which I originally wanted to dry hop the single 5 gallon batch with, for the boil of the second running.  Half of the 1oz bag was added to the lower gravity batch at the beginning of the boil and the second half was added in the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Hot Break (Start of Boil)

As for the rest of the hops and for the yeast, I decided to formulate my own hopping schedule for the high OG batch based on my experience from the last batch of pale ale I made and also use the same yeast, Pacific Ale Yeast WPL 041, for both 5 gallon batches.  Since my ultimate goal is to use freshly grown non kiln dried hops, I chose to use the same type of hops I am growing, which are Cascade leaf hops; however, the ones I am using for this recipe have been kiln dried and packaged.  I also attended a homebrew meeting last Wednesday at Make Wine Make Beer where one of the fellow home brewers said any of us that go to the meetings can have some of his home grown hops for their batches since he often gets more than enough from his plants.  His varieties were Hallertau and Tettnang, so I chose to use Hallertau as a finishing hop. 

The quantity of hops I used was 1oz per boil phase, which are: bittering phase, flavor phase and aroma or finishing phase.  Then I decided to dry hop with the same amount as I used in my last pale ale recipe to give the beer a bit more flavor and aroma.  Since my last pale ale batch had the aroma and a low flavor profile, I simply decided to double the hop usage during the boil hoping for more of a bitter floral flavor.  My hop schedule was as follows:

1.0  oz Cascade (15 min.)

1.0  oz Cascade (30 min.)

1.0  oz Hallertau mixed with 1tbsp Irish Moss (45 min.)

1.0 oz Cascade (dry hop)

 

As I discussed with another fellow home brewer before the homebrew meeting, I often put the hops for each phase in a separate zip lock bag and label them for the time they should be put into the boil.  This practice tends to cause less human error when conducting the boil; however, this time the hops were all in the same 1oz bags that I bought them in and I just labeled the original packaging for the time.

Three of Five Ounces of Hops

Three of Five Ounces of Hops

When the 60 minute boil time was reached, I cooled the wort with my copper emersion wort chiller.  To try and save a little bit of time, I used the water from the wort chiller to rinse and scrub the residue from my mash tun and eventually the second boil kettle I used.  I then transferred the wort to my fermenter when 70 degrees was reached.  To aerate, I splashed from one of the sanitized fermenters to the other until it built up a good head and then I pitched the yeast.

The calculated OG for the first running came in at 1.113 according to the Brewzor app on my smart phone.  My OG of the first running wound up being 1.080, not due to lack of efficiency, but because when I took my reading of the OG after lautering I was shocked to see such a high gravity in the 1.1 range and didn’t think to compare my notes on what the OG was supposed to be.  I had already added the water to the mash tun for the second running and was beginning to bring the wort of the first running up to boiling temperature when I realized that I didn’t account for evaporation during the boil.  So at this point stupidity set in and I added extra wort from the mash tun to the boil kettle to bring the volume up.  If I had counted for evaporation when I lautered in the first place, then I would have added just enough water to bring my volume up and wouldn’t have watered my wort down.

My OG Reading

Since I still had some hot liquor to add to the mash tun for the second running, I added the same volume as I just took out and waited another hour for the mash to convert any remaining starches to sugar.  After boiling and cooling the second running, I wound up getting a 1.040 OG reading.  I anticipate that even with the lower gravity in my first running that I will get a 9.2% ABV.  That is assuming a 1.010 final gravity (FG).  The second running should get about a 4.0% ABV if I assume the same FG.

My Mash and Boil Setup

Draining the Wort

Well that concludes this edition of Pale Ale Quest.  To see the recipes for this batch, click on the recipes tab and browse to Custer Pale Ale v2.  Hopefully if you follow the recipe you will get the 1.113 OG for the first running and possibly a higher OG for the second.

Pale Ale Quest

My quest has started for entering my first Homebrew Competition. The goal is to enter a brew into the 2011 Fresh Hop Festival in Yakima, Washington. The festival will be held on October 1st, 2011 at the Yakima Millennium Arts Plaza. There will be Craft breweries from the area selling their own fabulous creations as well as a judging panel for home brewers that enter into the competition.

Logo from Yakima's upcoming festival (http://www.freshhopalefestival.com//)

I chose this festival as my first competition because of a few reasons. The first is that I grew up in Yakima, which I still visit family and friends there occasionally. The second reason is that the competition seems fairly straight forward; you enter a brew into only one category and don't really have to debate which category your beer tastes like the most as you would need to do in something like a county fair competition. A third reason for entering this competition is that I have some time to try and perfect a different beer style that I haven’t brewed before, which is very hoppy pale ale.

Here is a list of the recipe formulation entry requirements at the Fresh Hop Festival:

• The entry must fall into the Pale Ale to IPA category
• The beer needs to be in the 40 to 120 IBU (International Bittering Unit) range <-wow that’s a lot of hoppiness
• The beer color should be between 5 to 15 SRM (Standard Reference Method)
• The entry must include 100% flavor and aroma hops from the 2011 harvest year. They can be commercially grown or homegrown but are not to be processed through kiln drying. Bittering hops do not fall into this rule.

Since the Yakima Fresh Hop Festival requires the home brewer to enter a very hoppy beer made with freshly picked hops, this year I decided to start growing my own hops.

Here are my hops and how they are growing so far.

 I also decided to grow my own because the price of hops for beer seemed to be the bulk of what I was spending my money on… no matter what style I was brewing.

After doing my research for the entry requirements I started to formulate my first try at a recipe. Since my new hop crop was just planted a week prior to my first recipe formulation I have decided to stick with the brewing supply shops hops (Brewcraft brand) for the duration of my recipe alterations all the way until the batch I will brew for the festival. I am doing this knowing that the freshly picked hops will have quite a bit more flavor, aroma and bitterness than the kiln dried and pellet style of hops.

When it came down to my recipe formulation, I didn’t want to have one of those bland hoppy beers.  Since I like a malt character to my beer, I decided to put a good helping, at least for pale ale, of Munich malt and Crystal 20L malt.  I also wanted to try for a pretty strong beer in terms of alcohol content, which I also haven’t tried to do in any of my previous brews.  In order to move into the strong beer direction with my recipes I knew that I would have to use a substantial amount of 2-row Pale malt or some other type of light malt.  Since the 2-row wouldn’t give me the malty character I was looking for, I decided to try and balance the 2-row pale malt with the Munich and Crystal malts.  Using a smaller proportion of crystal malt than Munich allowed me to both give the malty character while still keeping the beer in a pale color category.  The final grain bill I decided on was to use:


8 lbs of Pale Malt
5 lbs of Munich Malt
2 lbs of Crystal 20L

This recipe should have given me a calculated 6.8% ABV assuming 75% attenuation efficiency or 9.1% ABV with 100% attenuation for a 5-gallon batch.  Since 100% attenuation efficiency is unrealistic, I was assuming that I would get a 6.8% alcohol beer.  Since I wound up collecting about 7.7 gallons of wort and boiled it down to 6.7 gallons, I didn’t get the stronger beer profile I was hoping for.  I attribute the lack of efficiency to the fact that I didn’t measure out the exact amount of water I put into the mash tun.  In my future brews I think that measuring the exact amount of hot liquor I put into the mash tun will be the key to creating a strong beer.

As for the hop profile that I chose, I decided to both use up what I had on hand, Czech Saaz pellet hops, and to use Cascade Hops for the remainder.  In my future brews I plan on using Cascade Hops exclusively since that is the variety that I began growing.  I wanted to move towards getting more of a hop profile than I had been using in the past, so to do this I decided to use a 2oz package of kiln dried Cascade hops and the remaining 1oz of the Czech Saaz hops.  I had typically only used 1.5 to 2oz of hops for my past brews, so this increase wouldn’t give me an extremely high hop character compared to my last brews, but would give me an idea of how 1oz of hops could make a difference.  My final hop schedule wound up to be as follows:

1 oz Cascade at the beginning of boil
1 oz Czech Saaz at 30 min. into the boil
0.5 oz Cascade at 45 min. into the boil
0.5 oz Cascade at strike out while I cooled the wort using my emersion wort chiller.

I also fermented a portion of the beer with 0.5 oz Cascade hops (which at 70 degrees I dry-hopped). This leads me to the yeast.  I have only used a few different types of yeast strains to ferment my beer in the past.  I found that the dry Saffale Yeast T-58 has given me the best results as far as my taste buds go.  My friends have told me that the beers I brewed using that yeast strain have also been very appreciable; however, one of my friends that usually only likes light lagers and an occasional craft brew has told me that some of the beers I brew with the T-58 yeast strain have a wine like taste.  None of those beers have had any kind of adjuncts, such as fruit, which you would expect to give off that wine like taste he was referring to.  Since I liked this yeast strain and I have harvested some of it from my previous batches (this will be the third batch using that strain) I have decided to experiment with the 1.7 gallons extra that I collected.  The experiment is simply to ferment two batches of the same wort, one smaller than the other, and use two different yeast strains.  In the smaller batch (I used a 2.5 gallon bucket) I put the T-58 yeast strain and in the larger 5 gallon batch I decided to use the White Labs Pacific Ale yeast.  I also put the dry hops in the 5 gallon batch since it was my primary fermentation vessel and I was expecting a crisper beer profile using the Pacific Ale yeast.

After 2 weeks of fermentation in my basement, I checked on the progress of the beer.  I noticed that the 5 gallon batch with the Pacific Ale yeast still had a large cake of yeast on the top.  Because I was expecting it to have finished fermentation I took a sample of the beer and found that it was done fermenting based on my hydrometer reading of 1.010.  I also found that the 1.7 gallon batch was done fermenting based on the hydrometer reading of 1.012; however, none of the yeast was on the top of that fermentation vessel.  Both of the yeast strains were top fermenting according to the respective manufacturers which leads me to believe that some top fermenting yeast strains stay on the top of the beer no matter how exhausted they may be from fermentation.  Once I bottled the beer that had the Pacific Ale yeast and refrigerated it, the yeast finally had settled to the bottom though.

This concludes my blog for this edition of Pale Ale Quest.  If you liked this post and would like to hear more details about my adventures in home brewing, then leave me a comment.  If you would like the recipe from this post, simply browse to Custer Pale Ale v1 on my Recipes page.