I just recently launched an all-grain brewing blog, www.klaserhausen.com. It’s a labor of love, no ads, not selling anything or being paid by anyone.
My schtick is that I’m brewing EVERY beer in the BJCP Guidelines, and having each one independently evaluated by a credentialed and experienced industry professional, The Stig.
The blog is about the journey from brewing good beer to (hopefully) brewing great beer. I hope you’ll find it interesting, and I’m very open to comments, criticism and suggestions. Thanks!
Are you creating your own recipes in hopes that they conform to the BJCP style guidelines or are you using existing recipes that have previously been judged and adhere to the guidelines? Just curious…
The Stig is also my reviewer… but yeah, I stole the idea from Top Gear: same premise though.
@ Brewinhard: I make most of my own recipes, but I also take inspiration from “Classic Styles”, the ingredients suggested in the Guidelines themselves, and around the inter webs. If I directly rip a recipe, I give the source due credit.
Thanks man. Yeah, I personally liked the IPA too, and it was a hit for lots of people who proclaim themselves IPA haters. I think modern offerings like Heady Topper and Enjoy By set the bar VERY high for us home brewers to live up to, and I think The Stig’s pro palette found the beer a bit over hopped. But there are MANY commercial examples hopped to high heaven that do have those vegetal and tea-like tannic flavors. Achieving brilliant hop flavor and aroma while keeping tannins at bay is sort of a balancing act, and I used to think more hops was always better… turns out that’s not necessarily the case.
This week, we made an American Pale Ale with experimental hop varieties, “ADHA 529” & “Experimental Pine Fruit”. The results were OUTSTANDING!! Love these hops, hope they get named and sold.
Check out the full article: http://www.klaserhausen.com/receiver-function/
Recipe
10 lbs. American 2-row pale malt 0.25 lbs. 10L crystal malt
Mash @ 152 for 60 min (single infusion @ 1.5 qt/lb) sparge with 5 gal Boil for 60 minutes
4mL CO2 hop extract boil for 60 minutes 1 oz each ADHA 529 & Experimental Pine Fruit @ flameout, steep 10 min
WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast, 1500 mL starter
Dry hop 1 oz each ADHA 529 & Experimental Pine for 3 days
OG: 1.048 FG: 1.011 ABV: 5.0% IBU: 43 Color: 5.2 SRM
Fermentation Temperature: 65-68°
Very cool. I too am on a VERY long journey to brew every style in the BJCP Guidelines. I have brewed 10 styles so far. I’ll be looking forward to reading your updates.
This week, we brewed an American Stout using the cold extract method for all the dark grains. We ended up with something a bit closer to a Porter, and didn’t account for the dilution of the extracts in the final wort.
Before brewing, we compared hot steep grains to cold steeped grains. We tasted both raw wort, and wort mixed in Guinness, and we preferred the cold steep overwhelmingly in all cases. The cold steep was less astringent and had a deeper, more rounded roast/chocolate/coffee flavor. We steeped at a ratio of 1 qt/lb.
We cold steeped all the dark grains in this beer at room temperature, overnight.
11 lbs. US Pale 2-row
1 lb. White Wheat
1 lb. Roasted Barley (cold steeped overnight)
0.5 lb. Black Patent Malt (cold steeped overnight)
0.5 lb. Chocolate 6-row malt (cold steeped overnight)
Mash at 122° for 20 min, raise to 153° for 40 min, mashout at 168° for 10 min
Boil for 60 minutes
7.5mL CO2 hop extract boil for 60 minutes
1 oz each of Calypso (15.6% AA) and Belma (9.8% AA) @ flameout, steep 10 min
WLP090 San Diego Super, 850mL starter
OG: 1.052 FG: 1.014 ABV: 5.0% IBU: 59 Color: 41 SRM (calculated, observed closer to ~25 SRM)
Fermentation Temp: 65-68°
The resulting beer was a little diluted, as we failed to correct for the additional volume of all the cold steep extracts added late in the boil, which diluted the beer, making it a bit thinner and paler (though still technically dark enough) than we wanted it. I wonder also if my hop utilization was all a little thrown off by adding almost 1.5 gallons of extra water at the end of the boil… All in all, a good technique as long as you adjust accordingly.
