Hopville.com

I found a website called hopville.com that looks pretty cool. I went ahead and added all my recipes to the site to share with others and hopefully get some good feedback. My profile is here. I have a new recipe that I came up with yesterday on there, I wont post it here till I am ready to brew it though.

Belgian IPA

I have been wanting to do a Belgian for a while now and I figure that I would do that after my Oatmeal Coffee Stout. Well I've decided to go ahead and do the Belgian anyway then do the Oatmeal Coffee Stout since I just did a Stout last week. So I crafted up a recipe over the last few days. The bad part was trying to find which hops to use. I decided to use my 2 favorite hops in the world Cascade and Simcoe. The trouble was finding the simcoe hops since there is such a shortage and the usual places are out of it and will be for a while. I did manage to find some at Austin Homebrew Supply, so I picked up 3oz of simcoe and 6oz of cascade. I am still trying to figure out which yeast to get, but I will know more in the coming week. Here is the recipe as it stands right now.

Belgian IPA

Grains:
12 lbs: Belgian Pilsner
4 lbs: Belgian 2-Row Pale
1 lbs: Belgian Aromatic
1 lb: Belgian Candy Sugar added to boil at 25min
.5 lb: Belgian Biscuit
.5 lb: Carapils

Hops:
1 oz: Cascade 6.0aa Mash
1 oz: Cascade 6.0aa First Wort Hops
1 oz: Simcoe 11.9aa 60 min
1.25 oz Various Hops ??aa 45min (EKG, Fuggles, Cascade)
1 oz: Cascade 6.0aa 30 min
1 oz: Simcoe 11.9aa 20 min
1.25 oz Various Hops ??aa 15min (EKG, Fuggles, Cascade)
1 oz: Cascade 6.0aa 10 min
1 oz: Cascade 6.0aa 5 Min
1 oz: Cascade 6.0aa DH
1 oz: Simcoe 11.9aa DH

OG: 1.092

Yeast: Wyeast Trappist High Gravity (3787)

Update 11.15.2008: Brew day. Day went very well, I missed my target OG by more than I wanted but thats fine. Hopefully my efficiency will get better over time. Hopefully the 1/2 gallon yeast starter that I made will kick in in a few hours.

Update 11.17.2008: 2 Days after brew day and the beer is fermenting like crazy. This is the most active fermentation I have ever seen. I am glad I have a blow off tube on this one cause a ton of nasties/yeast/hops/beer is spewing out. Hopefully the gravity can get low real low like around 1.020 or lower, we will see in a few weeks.

Chocolate Mint Imperial Stout

Tomorrow I will brew up a batch of chocolate mint stout. I got the idea from the wonderful book Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. I didn't use the recipe out of the book, but just made up my own version. If it turns out good which hopefully it will it will be like drinking a chocolate shake with a hint of mint as it goes down. So hopefully I will post updates with pictures and how things are coming along with the fermentation sometime this weekend.

Chocolate Mint Imperial Stout

Malt:
15 lbs: Marris Otter
1 lb: Roasted Barley
.5 lb: Chocolate Malt
.5 lb: American 80L Malt
.25 lb: Black Patent

Other:
1/2 cup: Cocoa Powder at 20 min
1 1/2 Altoids at end of boil
1 oz: Chinese Mint Leaves at end of boil

Hops:
1.0 oz: Target 10aa 60 min
1.0 oz: Willamette 5.5aa 30 min (Whole Leaf)
.5 oz: Target 10aa 15 min
.5 oz: Willamette 5.5aa 10 min (Whole Leaf)

Yeast:
White Labs WLP013 London Ale Yeast

OG: 1.060

Update 10.11.2008: My efficiency was kind off today. I need to invest in a emerson chiller cause I had to use ice to cool down the wort, so the og suffered. Anyway we will see what happens, it tasted really good. A nice chocolate taste with a mint backbone.

Update 10.20.2008: Moved to secondary to sit for a while I think. The gravity was only down to 1.030, which is way too high. I think a nice long sit in secondary will bring that down. Tasting it was nice, heavy on the chocolate and light on the mint.

All Hallows Eve Ale

I have been reading my Radical Brewing book and thought since Halloween and fall was quickly approaching that I would make a run at a pumpkin beer. Since I have never made anything like that I figured I would follow a recipe right out of the book. I have dubbed this All Hallows Eve Ale and I am hoping that it will be ready in time for Halloween, hell I might even start kegging by that point and take it to a nice party. Anyway here is the recipe and I hope to start on it this weekend sometime.

All Hallows Eve Ale

Malt:
8 lbs: American 2-Row Pale
4 - 5 lb: Pumpkin cooked at 350 for 90 minutes
2 lbs: American Crystal 10L
2 lbs: Alabama Wildflower Honey
1.5 lbs: American Wheat Malt
1 lb: Carapils

Hops:
.5 oz: Cascade @ 60 min
.5 oz: Kent Goldings @ 60 min
.5 oz: Cascade @ 10 min
.5 oz: Fuggles @ 10 min

Spices:
End of boil:
.5oz Coriander crushed
.25 oz All Spice
.5 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
.5 tsp Cinnamon
.5 tsp Nutmeg

To Secondary:
.5oz Whole Coriander

Update 10-6: After mashing this I had a stuck sparge and had to throw everything out. I have decided not to make it again and will be moving on to my next brew a Chocolate Mint Stout. So maybe next year I will be able to do this. Ill try to keep the same recipe and go from there.

Pictures from yesterday's brew day

The local homebrew club got together yesterday and made their "Rex Banner Ale" a Belgian Strong Ale which will go into a 55 gallon Jack Daniels bottle in a month or so to age. Me on the other hand brewed my "Honey Hope to It" IIPA, which I say came out really well. It was my 1st all grain batch and I am really pleased with the outcome. I took a few pictures which you can find on my Flickr page. Here are the links to my brew and to the brewday

Birmingham Beer Barons
"Honey Hop to It" Imperial IPA

"Honey Hop to it!" Imperial India Pale Ale

New beer, big beer. It's my 1st big beer so I hope all goes well. I am going to try and get this done this weekend or next.

"Honey Hop to it!" Imperial India Pale Ale

Grains:
12.00 lbs American 2-Row Pale
3.00 lbs Alabama Wildflower Honey
3.00 lbs German Pilsner
1.00 lbs Carapils
1.00 lbs American Crystal 10L

Hops:
1.0 oz. Magnum 60 min.
1.0 oz. Cascade 30 min.
1.0 oz Magnum 20 min.
1.0 oz Cascade 10 min.
1.0 oz Magnum 5 min.
1.0 oz Magnum DH

Yeast:
White Labs California V Ale

ABV: 10.7%

OG: 1.100
FG: 1.020

8.22.2008 Update:
Took gravity after one week of fermenting and it has dropped to 1.032. I am going to let it churn for a few more days before moving to secondary. I need it to fall to around 1.025 for a final gravity. As far as taste, it's hard to tell. The flavor is there, but I suspect that the active yeast was giving it a twang that I wasn't expecting.

8.27.2008 Update:
Moved to secondary and took another gravity. SG is not sitting at 1.028 which is close to where I want it. I think that it will drop more over the next week, so we will see. Also I added in 1oz of Magnum hops in to dry hop the beer. The taste now is more beer like, but its very sweet. I think next time I will wait till the last 4-5 minutes and throw in the honey.

9.9.2008 Update:
Moved from secondary to bottle conditioning today. Took a final gravity to day at 1.020, which puts the ABV around 10.7%. So hopefully in about a month they will be ready, although the longer they sit the better this will be. The smell I got from the finished product was of citrus and grapefruit and hops. I can't wait to taste this once it's done.

9.15.2008 Update:
So I tasted a bit early on this one. Obviously it was not carbonated, but that was ok. The beer was big enough to drink without it being carbonated at all. You smell citrus and hops, but tasted grapefruit and honey. It's a very unique beer, I can't wait to really get into it.

New beer... maybe

So a friend of mind gave me an idea to do a Pistachio Cream Ale. At first I thought, man that's sounds like a terrible beer. The more I got to thinking about it though it doesn't really sound that bad. So I have done some research over the last week and a half to see how I could make this. I went with only running a small batch to test it out first and then we will see where that goes. I figured I needed 2 lbs of raw pistachios (which come to find out isn't cheap) and then I went to tastybrew.com and drew up some calculations. Here is a list of ingredients as it stands right now. Hopefully this will turn out pretty good.

Pistachio Smachio Cream Ale

Grains:
3.0 lbs. Canned Corn
2.0 lbs. Pistachios
1 lbs. German Pils
1 lbs. Briess Caramel 10L
3/4 lbs. Belgian Biscuit

Hops:
1.0 oz. Hersbrucker 60 min.
1.0 oz. Hersbrucker Dry Hop

Yeast:
Wyeast Kolsch II VSS

ABV: ~ 5.2%

So hopefully this will turn out well. It will be a bit hoppy with the dry hopping, but I am a hop head and I am making the beer. So I will update with pictures as soon as I start making the brew.