The Lurker Chocolate Peanut Butter Coffee Porter

With coffee as the required ingredient for the next homebrew competition, I started doing some research and thinking about the type of beer I wanted to make and how to add the coffee.  I like the taste of coffee when it's not overly bitter, but I rarely drink it because I don't like caffeine.  In the spirit of the competition, I first thought I wanted to brew something without dark malts and really showcase the coffee without the intrusion  of roasted malt flavor.  After trying some different commercial examples (Mikkeller Spontankoppi, Ballast Point Victory At Sea, Kona Pipeline Porter, Haandbryggeriet Coffee Porter among others) I pretty much embraced something that was already intuitively known: darker beers lend themselves better to coffee additions.  In the end, I chose to brew something that incorporated other ingredients I've been wanting to use for a while, in addition to the coffee.

During San Diego Beer Week last November, I had a chance to try Karl Strauss' Peanut Butter Cup Porter and was amazed at how much peanut butter flavor came through in the final product.  They used powdered peanut butter when making it, which keeps undesirable oil out of the beer without compromising the peanut butter flavor.  They also incorporated cocoa nibs into the brew, the rawest and strongest form of chocolate flavoring.  I decided to try the same thing on a homebrew scale, using PB2 and also including cocoa nibs.  The addition of coffee would add another (hopefully desirable) element to an already complexly flavored beer.  All three flavors should make for something pretty ridiculously decadent-more calories than any reasonable person needs to consume at any one time-so I named it The Lurker because it should stay with you for a while, no matter how much Insanity you do.

Karl Strauss' version was a Brown Porter.  I decided to brew a Robust Porter and came up with the following recipe:

The Lurker Chocolate Peanut Butter Coffee Porter

Malts and Grains 9.00 pounds American Pale Malt (2-Row) 60.4% of grist 1.80 pounds Belgian Caravienne Malt 12.1% of grist 1.20 pounds German Melanoidin Malt 8.1% of grist 0.60 pounds American Wheat Malt 4% of grist 1.20 pounds Flaked Oats 8.1% of grist 0.60 pounds American Chocolate Malt 4% of grist 0.10 pounds American Black Patent 0.7% of grist 0.40 pounds German Carafa III De-Husked Malt 2.7% of grist 14.90 pounds Total Grain Weight (Water Amounts) 100% of grist Adjuncts 1.00 pounds Lactose (Milk Sugar) 1.00 pounds PB2 1.00 pounds PB2 - Chocolate Non-Fermentables 4 oz Cacao Nibs 16 oz Cold Pressed Coffee Hops 1.00 ounces Magnum 14.2% Pellets  Type: Bittering and Aroma Use: First Wort 14.2 AAUs 0.75 ounces Fuggle 5.6% Pellets @ 20 minutes  Type: Flavor Use: Boil 4.2 AAUs 1.75 ounces Total Hop Weight 18.4 AAUs Boil Total Boil Time: 60 minutes Yeast Name: Dry English Ale Manufacturer: White Labs Product ID: WLP007 Type: Ale Flocculation: High Attenuation: 75% Temperature Range: 65–70°F Amount: 500 ml

I brewed 7.5 gallons last Wednesday.  I mashed at 152 degrees F for an hour and had a rolling 60 minute boil.  The lactose was added with about 20 minutes left in the boil and should contribute some sweetness and body.  Two gallons were used to make Dregs beers (DREGS #9 and DREGS #10), and the other 5.5 gallons was innoculated with 500 ml of WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast and placed lovingly in the fermentation chamber.  I'll be adding the cocoa nibs and PB2/PB2-Chocolate in secondary in two separate additions, allowing at least a week (maybe more) of contact time for both.  I anticipate a restarting of fermentation with the addition of the PB2.  I'm not sure how many gravity points two pounds of PB2 will contribute, but the final beer should be pretty big.  The original gravity after chilling was 1.058.

As for the coffee, I want it to take a prominent role in the flavor, but not be overly bitter.  I'm going to cold press decaffeinated French Roast coffee (not sure what brand yet) and add sixteen ounces to the bucket at bottling.  I'm hoping that the coffee flavor will shine in the final beer.

Recipe Refinement | Special Competition Ingredient

3 Fountains IPA/Grassmarket IPA Split Batch

10 gallon IPA split batch coming out of the chiller

Recipe refinement is a glaring weakness of mine.  I rarely repeat brew a beer and I'm not exactly sure why.  Maybe it's because I always have an idea for something different and my brewing schedule can't keep up (it's getting harder and harder to find time to brew these days).  Or maybe it's because I usually want to drink something that I can't find anywhere else and the perfect pale ale, porter, IPA stout etc. has already been done beautifully by so many others.  In any case, I admit I don't have a whole lot of reference when it comes to the influence of individual ingredients.  Sure, I've played with hops and different yeasts and grains as well as some unorthodox ingredients, but comparative knowledge eludes me somewhat.  I have the capability of making 10 gallon batches, but it's only happened a few times.  So a few weeks ago I set out to brew an IPA with the influence of yeast in mind.  I had a lot of success making Chad Y's 100% Brett B Baltic Porter and I wanted another clean-fermented Brett beer to drink.  I've also been keeping up with Modern Times progress toward opening locally and have been following the Mad Fermentationist's brewing experiments as a Modern Times consultant.  So, I copied the malt bill for the Modern Times Super 100% Brett IPA test batch and adjusted the hops to my preferences.  I brewed 10 gallons worth of wort and pitched a massive starter of Brett B Trois in one 5 gallon carboy and Edinburgh Ale Yeast in the other.  I have no illusions about breaking new ground, as I know beers like this have been made before with plenty of success, but I am interested to see the difference between the two.  After 8 days of fermentation, the Brett IPA was at 1.012 while the beer inoculated with Edinburgh was at 1.018.  Both of them are being dry hopped aggressively as I write this, and I plan to put both on tap, adding a picnic tap to my kegerator exclusively for sour beers in the process.  3 Fountains 100% Brett IPA pays homage to the origin of Brett B Trois, cultured from Drie Fonteinen.  Grassmarket IPA references the historic grassmarket square in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Homebrew Competition

The longer that I brew the more people I meet and become close to who brew as well.  Over the years we've had quite a few different competitions amongst local brewers, operating at levels of seriousness varying between drunken party and near BJCP level judging.  All have been fun and educational-a great way to meet up with like-minded folks and brew something to talk about.  This time around we focused on BJCP Category 21 - Spice, Herb or Vegetable Beer.  Everyone interested in participating submitted two chosen ingredients, and one select ingredient was chosen in a drawing.

Scott: Coffee, Honey

Danny: Squash, Grains of Paradise

Cracker: Maple Syrup, Watermelon

Eric: Coconut, Vanilla

Sisco: Chocolate, Nutmeg

Lewy: Popcorn, Powdered Peanut Butter

Jeff: Cilantro, Jalapenos

Sean: Kids Cereal     

So coffee is the featured ingredient.  It doesn't have to be present in any particular way, but must be used at some point in the beer.  I'm thinking either cold-pressed (to cut down on bitterness and because it's nicely concentrated) or cracked beans.  Either way the coffee would be introduced in secondary and I'm planning to go decaf because caffeine makes me shake.  Recipe to follow. 

Red Dwarf | More Blending in the Future

Brewing with friends is fun

Last weekend, I woke up early for a triple brew session with Lewy and Eric.  My all grain system is gravity dependent and pieced together over the course of the last ten years.  In effect, it's not the most conveniently compact or mobile.  So I found myself loading cinder blocks (for brew pot height) into the back of my car at 6AM last Saturday morning.  My wife Erin, sitting on the couch in a warm robe with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand looked at me like I was crazy, and at that moment, I think she may have been right.  But by the time I got to Lewy's house and fired up the kettle it was time to brew, and all regrets related to comfortable beds and sleeping in vanished.  It was a beautiful sight, seeing three different systems cranking out beers that were completely unique and individualized.  Lewy made two separate 5 gallon batches.  One, a pale ale with hop additions on the fly and another an experimental batch meant to be fermented with wine and beer yeasts.  Eric brewed a dark Vanilla Bourbon Imperial Stout using the brand new stainless steel false bottoms he fabricated for both of our coolers (thanks man!).  I made another Flanders Red.

Custom SS false bottom

In October I brewed my third Flanders Red and named it Red Giant.  It followed recommendations from Wild Brews and other sources and ended up as follows:

6.5#        German Vienna
1#            Crystal 20
1#            Belgian Caravienne
1#            Aromatic
2.1#        Flaked Wheat

1.5 oz.     aged Perle hops (120)

I made Red Giant so I could start getting beers together for future blending after finding success the first time.    In fact, Red Giant was pitched on the conglomerated yeast cake left over from the first blending session (5 different yeast cakes with many different strains, dregs, bugs and oak cubes in each).  I left Red Giant on the yeast cake for an extended time in an attempt to coax extra funk into it.

Red Dwarf wort

Last weekend I brewed Red Dwarf which followed Red Giant's recipe exactly.  Prior to brewing Red Dwarf, I simply racked Red Giant into a fresh carboy, and then pitched Red Dwarf onto the cake again.  The difference between the two will be in the yeast contact time and the secondary additives.  I plan to leave Red Dwarf on the yeast cake for about 6 weeks, before transferring to secondary on top of roughly 7 pounds of tart cherries.  I also decided to mash Red Dwarf at a higher temperature (154ºF instead of 151ºF) to leave some additional complex dextrins in the wort for the bugs to eat away at.

I'm hoping that the similarities and differences in the two will make them good for blending with one another and that Lewy and others will have Flanders Reds of their own to throw into the mix.

Next up I'll be brewing 10 gallons of IPA and fermenting one with traditional ale yeast and the other exclusively with Brett Drie.  Recipe to follow.      

Thoughts scattered along a winding road... | Protectorate Jack IPA

Every beer has its place...

Matt Brynildson is the brewmaster at Firestone Walker.  He also makes amazing beers.  Firestone is responsible for a large portion of the impetus which compelled me to start brewing.  In college at UC Santa Barbara, Firestone was one of the only real craft breweries that could claim to be local.  On road trips up Highway 101 to Northern California to camp in Big Sur or visit friends, you'd drive past Firestone, sitting alone in what felt like the middle of nowhere adjacent to the Gaviota Coast in Buellton, CA.  I was never old enough during times that I drove by, so a stop there wasn't feasible.  However, I drank plenty of Firestone in college and always savored it.  When you and a roomate hustle together some money to buy beer, it's hard to turn away from the $4.99 thirty pack of Keystone Light (even with the "specially lined can" there would always be 1-4 beers that were undrinkable somehow) and instead spend $5.99 for a twelve pack of Double Barrel Ale, but it happened often enough.  Apparently I had my priorities more in line than I realized at the time.

If I was to try and characterize the evolution of my beer palette, Firestone would be first or second along with Sierra Nevada and Nectar Ales as the most influential beers at a time when I was especially impressionable (incidentally, Firestone now owns and brews Nectar Ales).  At NHC 2011 I had a chance to listen to a very articulate and entertaining Brynildson talk candidly about hops and generously share Double Jack and other outstanding beers with the audience.  His talk and a realization of his role as Firestone's archetype sort of snapped in line a lot of previously disjointed and seemingly unconnected thoughts about how I became a homebrewer.  Since then, I've been drinking a lot of his beers and I like almost everything.

Protectorate Jack

He shares a recipe and procedures for brewing Union Jack IPA in Mitch Steele's tome on hop-centric beers, IPA, and I decided to brew it as closely as possible to his specifications.  Union Jack is light and crisp with ample aroma from two separate dry hopping additions.  Even though Centennial and Cascade make up the bulk of the additions, there are small portions of Simcoe and Amarillo added into each dry hopping, making the nose that much more complex.  The recipe calls for London Ale yeast, which should provide a rounder, fruitier taste, and plenty of two row along with some light crystal and Munich malts.  I added a small dextrose addition to mine to dry it out and further accentuate the hops.  I named my version Protectorate Jack IPA after Oliver Cromwell's short lived era of rule as Lord Protector of the United Kingdom when the Protectorate Jack flag flew in place of the Union Jack.  Cromwell is a controversial figure, being the only one to rule England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland concurrently, but also maligned by many of his contemporaries and plenty of British historians.  He was one of a few historical figures to be posthumously executed.  I hope my beer is judged less harshly.  History aside, I'm excited to try and recreate what I think is one of the best West Coast IPAs around and maybe check in with a younger version of myself.  Perhaps I can understand his mindset a little more clearly, since the process that started me on this winding road seems to be slowly curving its way around toward full circle.  Check the recipe below:

Protectorate Jack IPA

Cheese Making | Lewy's Blackout IPA

The more that I brew, the more I become enthralled by the transformation that takes place during fermentation.  One good way to look at the steps involved in making a beer is simply the process of catering to the needs of a microscopic dynamo.  Proper temperature, pitching rate, oxygenation, time, darkness, food source and a myriad of other variables combine to make yeast (and the other organisms that ferment wort) do so in a way that speaks to our taste.  In a BN Sunday Session interview (begin listening at 47:00) with the owner and brewer of Cantillon, Jean Van Roy, he makes a telling statement about his role as brewer, saying, "The beer doesn't need a brewer...I'm not a brew master.  A master dominates the product, a master controls the product.  I can't do it...the beer is a partner."  His words make a lot of sense to me, as letting go of control is an essential part of brewing complex beers.  An artisanal product requires contact and connection with its producer, but will languish when that producer attempts to impose complete control.

Beer is just one of many products that are "alive" and influenced by yeast and bacteria.  Beer, wine, pickled foods, breads, cured meats and cheeses are just a few examples.  I've made bread for years, in traditional ways and using a bread maker, and have started to do so with more frequency.  Bread making is a craft that provides almost undelayed satisfaction.  You can bake a loaf of bread and eat it within a few hours or a day.  This makes it easy to experiment and easy to enjoy.  It also makes mistakes much more bearable.  But, there's something exciting about products that have to ripen and change over time.  It forces the producer to let go and have faith in the process and requires the embrace of uncontrollable variables.  It's one reason why I tend to gravitate toward beers that need aging and blending and other processes that require the influence of time to be effective.  It's also the reason why I started making cheese.

Cheese Making

Cooking curds

Partially pressed Jack cheese

Cheese and beer have a lot of similarities.  You can make a simple, enjoyable beer with basic, approachable processes, and plenty of room for error.  You can do the same with cheese and related products, making yogurt and cultured buttermilk and other simple dairy-based products that can be made and consumed quickly.  But the big, complex flavors you find in aged and bacterially influenced beers and cheeses requires patience and faith in the above-referenced uncontrollable processes.  So after making yogurt and getting a feel for the process, I made what will become my first hard cheese.  It's a Jack cheese made using a recipe provided by a cheesemaker named Brad Sinko and reproduced in Mary Karlin's excellent book Artisan Cheese Making at Home.  I made a few mistakes, pressing it in the wrong size mold, and struggling to maintain some of the temperature variables while cooking the ingredients, but the process was enlightening.  I was also able to use some of the left over whey to make bread.  The Jack will age in my fermentation chamber for the next two months while time conspires with the unknowable to make it into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Blackout IPA

Lewy's Blackout IPA

I also found time to make a beer.  In the course of close to 10 years and nearly 120 batches of beer, I've never reproduced a beer made by another homebrewer without altering it in some way to suit my tastes.  I decided to recreate an outstanding Cascadian Dark Ale made by my friend Lewy, following the recipe he provided as strictly as possible.  Blackout IPA is dark and hoppy, but different than most other similar beers I have experience with.  Lewy uses Glacier hops as the primary aroma component, making the beer unique and enjoyable.  He was nice enough to give me hops for the beer from his immense cache.  Read Lewy's original post here.  I hope my version can do it justice.  

Carnelian Red Rye IPA | DREGS #8

My hobbies are starting to rub up against one another, in a bad way.  I like to run.  For fun, 5Ks, half marathons, triathlons.  In the back of my mind, I always felt like brewing (and the subsequent drinking and consuming of calories) gave me a reason to exercise.  From an opposing perspective, exercising with intention seemed to provide me with license to imbibe.  Lately, it feels like the two are less complimentary than they have been in the past.  When I should be running, I find myself drinking a beer.  When I want to brew, I don't because I won't have time to run.  Maybe it's the holidays, but often I don't seem to have energy to do either.  Every time I find motivation, something interferes and prevents my good intentions from being realized.

Carnelian Gemstones

Yesterday, I got a decent run in right after work.  5 miles through a canyon nearby with no one else around.  I didn't feel tired or distracted or out of sync.  Then last night I brewed for the first time in over a month.  I used rye for the third brew session in a row and made a beer that I hope will be reminiscent of Alpine Nelson, but with more caramel malt character.  Carnelian Red Rye IPA uses sizable portions of Nelson hops in the flavor and aroma additions and in dry hop additions as well.  There's plenty of rye in the malt bill along with American 2-row and a variety of Caramel Malts rounding out the malt profile.  I used rice hulls for the first time to offset the gumminess of the rye and avoid a stuck sparge.  Safale US-05 yeast provides the magic.  It came out a nice deep red color (hence the name, Carnelian).  Check the recipe below:

Carnelian Red Rye IPA

I had a bottle of Oude Gueuze Tilquin á L'Ancienne that I'd been wanting to drink.  Gueuzerie Tilquin blends gueuze the traditional way, using worts from a variety of Belgian producers like Cantillon and Boon.  It's a beautiful beer in my opinion.  It's very tart and aromatic.  There's heavy citrus notes in the taste and the finish is wonderfully dry.  It's funky, but not in your face.  I decided to make a dregs beer using the yeast dregs, so I made an extra gallon of wort when brewing Carnelian RedRye IPA.  I admit, the profile of the base beer doesn't exactly scream wild fermentation, but I guess that's sort of the point with dregs beers.  You get to combine ingredients and processes that aren't "supposed" to play well together.

DREGS #8: Gueuzerie Tilquin - Oude Gueze Tilquin á L'Ancienne

Next, I'll be brewing Lewy's Blackout IPA.  It'll be the first time I've replicated one of his recipes exactly and it's a personal favorite of mine.  Can't wait...

Mixing Ingredients In A Big Pot | Crystal Rye

About a month ago, I set off to brew my third Flanders Red.  I had a new recipe and couldn't wait to get started.  I've been a dedicated patron of the largest homebrew supply store in the area for 10 solid years.  In that time, I've watched them expand their home brew shop as well as their brewing, and despite my appreciation for the beer they make, have found myself a little disappointed in the selection, knowledge base, business hours and customer service on the homebrew end.  As I started to measure out my Flanders recipe, two of the five malts that I had planned to use were sold out.  Both Special B and Caramunich were out of stock.  I had experienced similar disappointment often in the past, arriving with a recipe in hand, only to find that I can't brew the way I'd planned and changing it on the fly for better or for worse.  I decided to head elsewhere.

The Best Damn Homebrew Shop inside of Krisp Market reminds me of what my old homebrew supply store used to be like.  It's homebrewing done on a smaller scale and without pretense.  Why is pretentiousness a factor?  I've waxed philosophical in the past about homebrewing being more than just mixing ingredients in a big pot.  I still feel like it's a creative outlet akin to art, and that exclusivity and elitism cheapen it in the extreme.  You take simple, fresh ingredients, combine them with intention, control (but ultimately just embrace) the intangibles in fermentation, and end up with a product greater than the sum of its parts on many different levels.  There's no reason why you should have to navigate any false terrain in the process.

The Best Damn Homebrew Shop has a good selection of malts, many that are new to me.  One of the most interesting is Caramel/Crystal Rye.  Rye adds a distinctive spicy, dry flavor to a beer when utilized correctly and with appropriate subtlety.  I'm a huge fan of Alpine's Nelson which makes great use of rye in conjunction with Nelson Sauvin hops, and I've used rye with some success in the past (most recently with Ryenoceros IPA).  Crystal Rye is something I don't have experience with, though.  It's toasted like any other crystal malt and ends up at roughly 100 L. Tasting it in its raw form gives the impression that it will impart the same flavors as its unkilned counterpart but with the additional roundness and intensity of flavor you'd expect in a crystal malt.  The last two beers I've made have used Crystal Rye and I'm excited about the possibilities.  Recipes and descriptions below:
 

Dotted Line Rye Mild

A recent issue of Zymurgy focused on SMASH beers and included a Rye Mild recipe.  Two weeks ago I decided to brew something similar but substituted Crystal Rye for standard Rye and made some adjustments to yeast and hops to suit my preferences.  The Maris Otter base malt and single bittering Fuggles hop addition are classically British. I pitched WLP039 East Midlands Ale Yeast to maintain the British flavor profile. The result is a 4.8% ABV Rye Mild that's conditioning right now and should be on tap in a few days.

Handsome Grandson Double Rye IPA

Yesterday, I brewed a double rye IPA with Lewy, Eric and my new friend, Bill.  I looked at a lot of different recipes when formulating this beer and decided to stay relatively true to what's worked in the past.  A large amount of American 2-Row provides the bulk of the fermentables with a pound of standard Rye and a half pound of Crystal Rye adding complexity.  Over a pound of the hops I bought a few weeks back find their way into this beer (Chinook, Amarillo, Columbus, Centennial, Cascade), and I'm hoping that they leave some room for the rye to shine in the final product.  I'll be dry hopping it three times before it's done.