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Cascade Hop Growing – 2011

By 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 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.

Mother Nature 1 Carty Cascade 0

By 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.

Lake Superior Porter Brew Day

By 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!

Northern English Brown

By on Friday, February 12th, 2010 | No Comments

Here is a beer I brewed up back in the fall that I hadn’t shared up this point.  Northern English Browns are malty beers with just enough hop bitterness to keep the beer from being overly sweet.  Commonly malt flavors include nutty and biscuit.  Northern English Browns typically are a bit drier on the finish and a little more hop oriented than their Southern English brethren, which tend to be a bit sweet on the finish.  The picture is a bit darker than what the beer really looks, the color is more medium brown with some amber hues when held to a light.

NorthernEnglishBrown_001_2

Here’s the recipe for this brew, it’s quite tasty!

  • 8.00 lb Maris Otter
  • 0.50 lb English Crystal 55L
  • 0.75 lb Biscuit Malt
  • 0.25 lb British Chocolate
  • 1.00 lb Flaked Barley
  • 1.5 oz Kent Goldings – Bittering, 60 minutes
  • 0.5 oz Kent Goldings – Aroma/Flavor, 5 minutes
  • Wyeast 1968 Extra Special Bitter Yeast

Maibock Pale Ale Review

By on Monday, January 18th, 2010 | No Comments

If you’re wondering how the marriage of Maibock grains and and a healthy helping of German hops turned out, keep reading.  I’m quite pleased with the appearance of this brew, a nice golden color with a frothy white head.  Here take a look:

MaibockPaleAle

More importantly is the aroma and flavor.  The aroma is moderately malty, quite bready and a bit sweet, the hops also shine as well, spicy and a bit floral.  I wish the hop aroma would have come through a bit more, but I’m not complaining, this beer is very inviting.  The flavor is malty upfront and remarkably smooth.  At the swallow the moderate hop bitterness and spicy German hop flavor cleanse the palate.  I very much enjoy how both the malty flavors and hops shine in this beer, it really captures what I was intending.  German malt flavors akin with Maibocks and a hoppiness typically seen with American Pale Ales (albeit a German hop flavor/aroma).

Would I do anything different next time?  Yes.  The hops just don’t come through quite as much as I wanted.  I’d prefer the hop flavor and aroma both to be a bit more noticeable, but not too much more.  The bitterness is about right.  The thing I like most about this beer is the exceptional smoothness and the fact the malt and hop flavors are both quite evident.

Brew this one up today!  Let me know how it turns out!

Justin

Carty’s Cascade Pale Ale – Vintage 2009

By on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 | 2 Comments

What better to do on a cold December morning?  Brew!  Today I brewed an American Pale Ale, using the Cascade hops grown in my buddy’s backyard this summer. The recipe I crafted was quite simple, I wanted to showcase the hops.  I’m curious to how these Cascade hops will compare to Cascade hops grown in the Pacific Northwest.  They smelled quite similar, maybe a bit more spicy and little less citrusy, but overall quite similar.

So the brew day started at a chilly 23F.  But no worries, I had my winter jacket and hat on.  The brew day went well despite the cold temperature, although running the hose to the wort chiller was kind of a pain, the hose was quite stiff.  Some of the water froze in the hose while I was cleaning, but no big deal, I’ll let it melt in the garage.  Also using so many whole hops I knew siphoning the wort might be a challenge, so I tried something new, using a copper scrubber attached to the racking cane to act as a filter, I got the idea from another brewer on the web.  It worked very well, no clogged racking cane.  Although I’ll say this, no more brewing outside in subfreezing weather…back to the kitchen until spring or maybe a mild spell.

The recipe today was quite simple:

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

I will ferment this batch cool, in the low 60s.  With the simple grain bill, clean yeast and cool fermentation temperatures this beer will showcase the entire 2009 harvest of our Cascade hops.  I’ve attached some pictures of brew day if you’re interested.  If I have time I’ll also post a few things about two of my other latest brews, a Northern English Brown, which tastes fantastic and an update on the Maibock Pale Ale which I’m enjoying as I write this.

The pictures:  1) a cold start!  2) the grains, toward the ‘top’ of the bag you can see the crushed wheat malt atop the other grains 3) the mash after doughing-in 4) the bittering addition 5) wort before the boil got going 6) wort with the bittering hops added

Maibock Pale Ale

By on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | 1 Comment

So the title of this post is a bit confusing, is it a maibock is it a pale ale?  But trust me, it makes sense.  My buddy and I brewed up a batch on Saturday, we wanted something with nice malt presence and a good amount of hop flavor and aroma.  Instead of the typical American citrus hop we decided to change it up and went with the spicy German hop Tettnanger.

The recipe I came up with used a lot of German pilsner and German munich malt and a bit of caramel malt, hence the maibock part of the beer recipe, basically similar malts I would use in a maibock recipe.  We bittered with Perle and made a 15 minute, 5 minute and zero minute addition of Tettnanger hops.  For yeast we went with Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast, as this should give a rather clean fermentation, allowing the hops and malt to shine.  If you want the recipe, give me a shout, otherwise here are a few pictures of the fermentation that is going strong in my basement.

Cascade Hops Growing Nicely!

By on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | No Comments

So last April (2008) my buddy and I planted three Cascade hop rhizomes along a fence in his yard.  Last year our harvest, as expected was quite minimal, but we got some good vine growth.  By early April this year our hops were poking through the ground.  By the end of May the hop vines had already matched last year’s entire growth.  Over the weekend we went over to their place for a cookout and to enjoy the great weather.  WOW!  Look at those hops!  The vine growth is tremendous and there lots of little hop buds all over the place.  We’re hoping to have enough to completely hop a batch with our own hops, which by the looks of it should be very doable.  I hope to take some pictures and share sometime soon.  Do you grow your own hops?  How is the growing season treating them where you live?

So how’s that IPA?

By on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | No Comments

So a couple months ago I posted about my 1120 IPA recipe I crafted.  I know the world is eagerly awaiting the report, so how was it?  Ok, no one is dying to know, but if you were curious here’s the report.  Enjoy!

Like I said in my previous reports, my racking cane got clogged so my volume was a bit light and my efficiency was a bit off being my first batch with my new water supply, so this is a high end APA or a low-end IPA, either way a damn tasty beer!

I was a bit concerned about the slow performance of the Nottingham yeast, but like I said I was fermenting this rather cool, in the 56/57F range.  Well the beer turned out great, this was the first time I used Amarillo hops and really enjoy them, I prefer this Amarillo/Cascade blend over soley Cascade.  I’ll stop rambling about the beer, here’s my review with a picture of the beer!  Try the recipe out, if you like hops, you’ll love this!

At a couple months age (and even at just over one month) this beer is fantastic. It pours fairly clear golden-orange color with a moderate white head. The aroma is quite hoppy, lemon-citrus qualities from Amarillo and Cascade hops. The flavor is moderately hoppy with a noticeable, yet not tongue splitting hop bitterness. The beer finishes with a nice linger of hop flavor and a bit of sweet, nutty malt. The carbonation is moderate and body medium.This beer turned out wonderful, a refreshing, very flavorful pale ale!

1120apa-001

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