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Maker’s Mark Barrel Imperial Stout

By 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 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 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 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).

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!

Simcoe Pale Ale Brew Day

By 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!

Cloning Commerical Beer Recipes

By on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 | No Comments

So you love Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or maybe Guinness Stout is more your style and want to make a Guinness Stout Clone.  Where do you begin?  It’s not as easy as throwing some ingredients together and it’s not as hard as finding the Holy Grail, it’s somewhere in between.

Having brewed many, many batches of beer and thereby getting a feel for different grains, hops, and yeast certainly helps.  But that will take some time and you might want to brew a clone of your favorite ale sooner than later.  Well having someone who fits that billing might be helpful, but not everyone has the luxury of a buddy who has brewed beer for years.  So one way to get there more quickly is by critically drinking beer.

Critically drinking beer, seriously, what does that even mean?  Well if you want to quickly gain an appreciation of the many grains and hops available to the brewer, critically drinking beer will certainly help you out.  Drinking your beer critically is simply pouring your beer into a clear glass instead of gulping it down right out of the bottle and making notes about what you see, smell, taste, and feel.  Start by buying some random six packs of commercial craft beers at the local beer store.  Buying mix and match six packs are a great way for trying a lot of different beer without buying entire six packs.  After you’ve got the beers chilling in your fridge, take one out that looks good.  Go to the brewery’s webpage, many brewers will list ingredients (grains and hops) used in the beer (they won’t give you the exact amounts, afterall they want to you buy their beer, not make it!), then taste and smell the beer carefully.  This will allow you to get to know what Amarillo hops might taste like or what roasted barley tastes like.  Trying different beers with the same ingredients is nice to see how different ingredient combinations or different proportions of ingredients might taste.

The nice thing about a clone beer recipe is it might not be exactly what you were shooting for, hell, your first couple clones might not even be close to the target, but you’ll still have a couple cases of tasty beer to enjoy.  As you brew more and drink more beer critically, you’ll get better at cloning your favorite commercial beer.

Let me know how your latest home brewed clone has turned out!

Justin @ BeerEasy.com

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

Carty Cascade Vintage 2009 Review

By on Monday, February 1st, 2010 | 1 Comment

I couldn’t be more happy with the way the Carty Cascade 2009 turned out!  Recall I was shooting for a straightforward APA recipe that would showcase the hops we harvested in September.  Here’s my writeup of a recent tasting and a picture.  I really enjoy the hops and look forward to future harvests!

The beer pours a dark golden bordering on amber with a very clingy white head.  The aroma is moderately hoppy, citrus and spicy with a noticeable sweet malt in the background.  The flavor is moderately hoppy but there is also a noticeable and competing malty flavor, a bit sweet, slightly bready and something a bit different than any other beer I’ve made, perhaps the wheat malt shining through.  (I’ve only used flaked wheat previously.)  The bitterness is medium-low and provides a nice balance combined with a slightly dry finish.  The carbonation is moderate and body is quite smooth.  Overall I’m very happy and very impressed with this beer and the hops!  I don’t know I’d change much with this recipe, it is quite tasty.

CartyCascade2009_012_2

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