BIAB#21: Sorachi Squeak

This was Kev’s first solo brew on the new kit and the basic idea was to make a stout with a twist/something a little surprising in it.  Following a disappointing recent experience with adding vanilla to a Porter (BIAB#18), he didn’t want to achieve that by using any ‘crazy’ ingredients and so ended up looking to introduce additional flavour and character through hops instead.

There was only really ‘hoption’ as far as Kev was concerned, and that was to go for Sorachi Ace. Sorachi Ace is certainly a hop that gets a lot of attention, and not only because of it’s kind of cool and distinctive name, but also because it delivers a lot of different flavour to the typical citrus, pine, etc. associated with high alpha, American varieties. While lemon/lemongrass is the characteristic generally associated with Sorachi Ace, Kev has always found it to have a lot of coconut to it as well and it was that aspect he hoped to capture in the finished beer. It felt like it might go well as an late/aroma hop in a stout.

Stouts are definitely our most brewed style and we’ve been using pretty much the same Stout recipe for a few brews now. It’s always been perfectly nice, but there have been some concerns it was a bit too dry and thin. As he was flying solo, Kev decided to go back to basics and develop a new recipe that might remedy that.  And that is the recipe below:

Sorachi Squeak (25l)

Grain
5000g Pale Malt  (74%)
500g   Rolled Oats  (7%)
300g   Chocolate Malt  (4%)
300g   Roasted Barley  (4%)
300g   Caramalt  (4%)
100g   Carapils  (2%)
75g     Black Malt  (1%)

150g Lactose was also added in the boil

Hops
15g Magnum @ First Wort Hop [11AA]
10g Sorachi Ace @ 30m [14.9AA]
25g Sorachi Ace @ 0m – 30m Hopstand

65g Sorachi Ace DRY HOP for 4 days

Yeast
White Labs 004 (Irish Ale Yeast) – 170ml of slurry (2nd Generation)

Vital Statistics
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5.2%
IBU: 37
SRM: 40

Tasting Notes
Really very happy with how this has turned out. The Sorachi notes in the beer are just what was hoped for… not overpowering or jarring in anyway, but unmistakably there. This adds a depth and an interest factor to the beer that makes for very pleasant drinking. And, yes, there’s definitely more coconut than lemon. For Kev anyway, but perhaps that’s just him?

As a first go at a new base recipe, it’s really not bad either. Could do with more body, but comments from Keith at Brewclub (@beifbrau) suggest that more oats, and swapping our some Pale for either Munich or Vienna, might help with that. The recipe definitely has a lot of promise and will be tinkered with in future.

BIAB#19: Pilrig

After an unplanned, life and motivation-centred hiatus, I’m going to try and get back to blogging our homebrewing exploits again. Hey, I’ve been busy brewing too… so, I guess that’s a decent excuse.

I thought I’d just start with the most recent beer and see how we go from there, rather than take on the – frankly intimidating – task of catching up on all the brews I’ve missed out.

This was the first brew on a new kit. It may not be the biggest, fanciest or shiniest kit on the block, but it’s an exciting step-up in volume for us. In one swoop, we’ve gone from a maximum brewlength of about 10 to more like 25 litres. More beer! Sounds great. It should also allow us to get more control over the brew, especially mash temperature. This was an ongoing problem for us with our old kit.

For your delectation, here’s the upgrade. It’s an Electrim Digital Mashing Bin. So we’ll still be brewing in a bag and this will be used as both mash tun and boiler. This will allow us to reach and hold temperature much more easily and precisely.

For this first brew, we played it safe and went for 20 litres of something pale and not too hoppy. It was an also opportunity to use up an ’emergency’ pack of US-05 that Kev had in the fridge. It was getting old and couldn’t comfortably have managed much more that 20 litres at this gravity.

Pilrig (20l)

Grain
3500g Pale (75%)
1000g Munich (21%)
300g Wheat (6%)

Hops
10g Magnum @ 60m [11AA]
50g Citra @ 0m – 30m hopstand [14.5AA]

50g Citra DRY HOP for 5 days

Yeast
Safale US-05 (1 pack rehydrated)

Vital Statistics
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.014
ABV: 4.9%
IBU: 43
SRM: 5

Tasting Notes
Definite positives and negatives to this beer for me. On the plus side, using really fresh Citra has clearly proved a winner. It’s wonderfully fruity, with a hint of something a little dark and suspicious… just how I think Citra should be. Hopstand technique working well again.

Very much lacking in body and bitterness, though, and am struggling to disentangle the two a little. Less bitterness is fine… much as I’m very happy with ruinously bitter beer, not everyone is and maybe this will be a positive for others.

Or, maybe the hopping schedule of just 60m plus hopstand has left it lacking a little something that some hops in the boil can help with. Will be interested to hear what others make of it.

Definitely too light a body, though. It was mashed at 67c (according to the new digital display), so will try mashing higher on future brews, especially relatively low gravity ones. Think we might also need to start experimenting with caramalts for future attempts at the style.

And it’s under carbed. Again! Was looking to prime to 2.5 volumes, but it doesn’t really feel like it. Hoping the colder weather means it’s just taking it’s time and it’ll get there in the end.

Anyway, bottles will be tasted by others soon, will post any comments here.

SOLO BIAB#4: Wheat is this?

SOLO BIAB#3: Wheat Is This? (Wheat Wine)

As is often the way with blogs, I imagine, I have fallen very behind with posting, but do want to try and get all the recipes up here. So, I’ll keep this fairly brief.

Wheat Wine is an unusual beer style (certainly in the UK) and something that I’ve heard tell of, but never drunk before. I needed no further incentive or encouragement to give this a go. I found a Wit Wine recipe in Radical Brewing, made a few changes here and there, especially around removing the wit-style spicing, and came up with the following:

Wheat Is This? (6l)

GRAIN
1000g Wheat
430g Pale
390g Lager
400g Brown Sugar
HOPS
25g Hallertau Hersbrucker @ 60m
20g Saaz @ 20m
30g Saaz @ 5m
YEAST
White Labs Strong Belgian Ale Yeast (WLP545)

VITAL STATISTICS
OG: 1.006
FG: 1.085
ABV: 10%
IBU: 41
SRM: 9

This was my first properly big beer and found this really useful set of advice (originally from @thornbridgedom) on high gravity brewing from the Manchester Homebrew website. Thanks to the tip-off from @mpdutton.

Following this advice, I did a 90 minute mash and shook the bucket very vigorously both immediately after pitching (having remembered to fit the lid first!) and about 24 hours later. This, plus the persistence of WLP545, did a great job of fermenting the beer.

I only did a 6l batch of this as that was all that one vial of WLP545 could comfortably handle. The plan was to treat this as a kind of hybrid between a beer and a yeast starter… the yeast cake from this beer will be washed and used to make a second batch of something similar in the future.

I’m really happy with how this is starting to taste at three months old.  Still quite hot, but I’m pretty confident that will settle down and improve in time.  I was also really pushing the gravity/volume that one vial could handle without a starter, so some more undesirable/interesting (depending on how generous you’re feeling) flavours might have come from underpitching too.

I’m really happy with this beer, though.  Tasty in it’s own right, will give birth to a full 10l batch of something similar soon and was a generally successful foray into high gravity brewing.