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Maker’s Mark Barrel Imperial Stout

By Justin on Friday, September 16th, 2011 | No Comments

Wow, it has been a while. I guess warm summer months in a northern climate will do that to a blogger. Since I’ve last posted I’ve been enjoying the Steamin Hot Pils, I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I’ve also brewed two other batches that I’ll do a recipe and/or review of sometime, an American IPA a lot along the lines of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and an ESB, very true to style. The ESB is a lot like Fuller’s ESB, but not necessarily a clone. Just a few days ago we harvested our 2011 crop of Cascade hops and are drying as I type.

So how does that get me to this subject of this post? Well another beer I brewed recently is an extra special recipe I’ve been thinking about doing for quite sometime. It is a Maker’s Mark Barrel Imperial Stout. This is an extra special brew that will require a long period of aging before it is ready for bottling and enjoying, but will be well worth the wait.

The recipe base is an imperial stout that will be aged on oak cubes that soak in Maker’s Mark Bourbon. The soaking in Maker’s Mark has two purposes, one is to sanitize the oak cubes and the other is to impart the bourbon flavor into the beer. Not only will this beer be delicious but a lot of craft breweries have bourbon barrel aged beers in stores and these things are NOT cheap. $12 to $16 a six pack of bourbon barrel aged beer is a common price. How much does it cost to make a strong, very flavorful bourbon barrel aged beer at home? About $8 a six pack……not bad savings, not to mention you can make whatever you like. Below are some brew day pictures along with the imperial stout recipe. Down the road I’ll add some posts when the beer is transfered to the seconary with oak cubes and Maker’s Mark Bourbon, when I bottle the beer, and a final writeup come late 2011 or early 2012 with the beer is ready to drink.

Maker’s Mark Barrel Imperial Stout Recipe

Maris Otter Malt – 14 lbs.

Chocolate Malt – 1.25 lbs.

Roasted Barley – 1.25 lbs.

Crystal 40L – 1.0 lbs.

Crystal 120L 1.0 lbs.

Flaked Barley – 2.0 lbs.

Steamin Hot Pils Brewday Pics

By Justin on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 | No Comments

As promised a couple pictures from the Steamin Hot Pils brewday. The first is a picture of the grains before I mashed in. You can see lots of barley of various flavors (all light base malts) and the yellow specs are flaked maize. Finally a picture of the steaming boil………I can’t wait for bottling day! Have a Happy 4th of July weekend, brew yourself up a BeerEasy.com recipe this weekend!

Steamin Hot Pils

By Justin on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 | No Comments

It might have been a warm and humid Saturday two weeks ago, but it is always a good day to be brewing beer. Today I brewed up a new recipe, I call it Steamin Hot Pils. Think American Pilsner grains, German Pils hops, and Anchor Steam Beer yeast. If you want the recipe drop me an email. The Steamin Hot Pils name was kind of a play on words, since I’m using steam beer yeast and it was hot out, it just came to my mind. I also use a special technique with this beer known as first wort hopping. First wort hopping is when you put a flavor addition of hops into the wort as it is drained from the mash tun. The temperature of wort going up to the boiling locks a lot of flavor components of the hops into beer. And even though you’re boiling them the full 60 minutes, it only contributes to the bitterness like a 20-25 minute addition of hops would. I’ve used this before and enjoyed the resultant smooth hop flavor. As soon as I get the pictures off my camera I’ll be sure to post a few! Look for a review of the Carty Cascade 2010 beer and this beer as soon as we bottle it and age it.

Cascade Hop Growing – 2011

By Justin on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 | No Comments

It is mid April and thus far April has generally been cold and wet here in southern Wisconsin. But the Cascade hops have still awoke and the purple shoots have begun to poke through the ground. That’s right PURPLE shoots! When hops first poke through the ground they have a purple color, but the leaves then begin to open and take on the expected green colors.

This will be our fourth year of growing these hops and expect another good sized harvest. We’re guessing it may be a bit larger than last year, hopefully around a pound (16oz.) dry weight come this September. Here are a few pictures of Cascase hops poking through the ground (green stuff are weeds, purple shoots are the hops, and lots of sawdust mulch).

Carty Cascade Pale Ale 2010 — Finally

By Justin on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 | No Comments

So all the way back in very late August our Cascade hops were harvested. It was the third year of growing the three Cascade hop plants and we had a bountiful harvest — about 12oz. dry weight. The hops were vacuum sealed and stored until brew day. Over the winter this past year I was hoping to make the 2010 version of Carty Cascade Pale Ale……..well the weather (bitter cold) got in the way a couple times, as did other things, so it took until April for the brewday to commence.

The inaugural Carty Cascade Pale Ale (the 2009) version was brewed up and the beer was incredible! Since the inaugural batch was so tasty we decided we’d recreate the recipe with every year’s harvest and use additional hops for whatever beers we wanted to make. And so the brew day.

The recipe was the same, very simple grainbill and a nice showcase of our backyard grown Cascade hops.

9.0 lbs Maris Otter

1.0 lbs Wheat Malt

1.0 lbs Crystal 40L

Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

1.25 oz Cascades 60 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 15 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 0 mins

The brewday was wonderful weatherwise, in the 50s and 60s. The brewday from a technical standpoint also went perfectly. The basement is at annual minimum it achieves by mid-winter and doesn’t warm up until mid-spring……..right around 59F. But a cold fermentation works nicely for this beer, where we are trying to showcase the flavor and aroma of the hops. I’ll be sure to post a review once the beer is done, but fermentation has gone well and transfer day will be occurring in the next day or three. Until then enjoy some pictures of brew day. Lots of pictures, the hops, the grain, the wort, but by far my favorite ones are of the bittering addition of hops right after being added to the kettle. I love the green color of the hops against the orange/copper wort with white steam rising.

Lake Superior Porter Review

By Justin on Friday, January 21st, 2011 | No Comments

So back in July I brewed up another batch of my Lake Superior Porter. This beer is one of my favorite recipes and if you like Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, you’ll love this recipe, they are very very similar. The beer has been delicious for sometime now and I think it’s even gotten better over the past couple months.

On the right is a fresh pint of this tasty porter. The nose is rather roasty, some hints of chocolate and bittersweet. The flavor is a nice dose of roasty, chocolaty malts and finishes with just a bit of earthy hop flavor dancing among the lingering roast malt. The carbonation is moderate and body thick enough but not too thick.

So if the temperatures by you aren’t bone chilling cold or you’re boiling in the kitchen, brew up this fantastic porter today! I promise it won’t disappoint.

Mother Nature 1 Carty Cascade 0

By Justin on Friday, January 21st, 2011 | 1 Comment

So Carty Cascade Vintage 2010 has yet to be brewed. 7 degrees is just too cold to be boiling in the garage and recent weekends haven’t been much better. I brewed in Dec 2009 with temperatures in the mid 20s and had a lot of evaporation losses. To make up for that I had a few gallons of water nearly boiling on the stove I would add to the boil in the garage. That and heating water and boiling wort in single digit temperatures would just take a lot of the fun out of brewing. Keep your eyes open for a brew day report once the temperatures get into 20s or 30.

Carty Cascade Vintage 2010

By Justin on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 | No Comments

The 2010 version of Carty Cascade Pale Ale using exclusively homegrown Cascade hops will be brewed up soon, probably this weekend! Look for some posts regarding that brew and a recap of the hop harvest from this fall.

Happy 2011!

Lake Superior Porter Brew Day

By Justin on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 | 1 Comment

Since supplies are running low in my basement, it was time to brew my 2nd batch in as many weeks. Today I brewed up a recipe available in the BeerEasy Member’s section, my Lake Superior Porter, with a couple new wrinkles to the recipe. It was a hot and humid day so I got an early start before things got unbearable.

Below are a few snap shots of the brew kettle, before the boil and during the boil. The recipe tweaks for this batch were to increase the chocolate malt to 1.0 lb and increase the Crystal malt to 0.75 lb. The brew day went very smoothly! I think the smell of a porter or stout wort might be my favorite!

Enjoy brewing up this delicious porter today, get the recipe by becoming a BeerEasy.com Member!

Simcoe Pale Ale Brew Day

By Justin on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 | No Comments

Mmmmmm….pale ale. It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a brew day, but I had to share my Simcoe Pale Ale brew day. I bought some Simcoe hops, a hop I have enjoyed from commercial beers but had not brewed with. So I crafted a super hoppy pale ale recipe, quite bitter, and extremely hoppy. I paired the Simcoe with a little bit of Amarillo.

The hop schedule looked this:

0.50 oz Galena 13.2% AA – 60 minutes

0.25 oz Simcoe 12.2% AA – 60 minutes

0.50 oz Simcoe 12.2% AA – 20 minutes

I blended 1.5 oz each of Simcoe 12.2% AA and Amarillo 7.5% AA, for a total of 3 oz or 84 grams. I added 7 grams of the hop blend every minute from the 12 minute mark to the end of the boil.

After the primary fermentation is drawing a close, I will dry hop with 0.5 oz each of Simcoe and Amarillo.

I’m thinking maybe the name of this recipe should be ‘Can You Handle It? Pale Ale’ because the hop flavor and aroma will be off the charts. A solid 61 IBUs will provide a firm bitterness in what will be a mid 5% ABV brew.

I’ve included a few pictures from today’s Simcoe Pale Ale brew day. I can’t wait for this one to finish up!