Cheap Beer Labels

Whenever I share a homebrew or take a homebrew to a club meeting, it never fails that someone asks a technical question about the beer. What was the OG and FG? What yeast did you use? What was the grain bill? This would require me to dig my phone out and check my saved recipes, if I remembered to save them to the cloud. Instead of digging around for this information, I thought why not place this all on a beer label so people could view this information right on the bottle!

I created this beer label which I feel gives a good synopsis of the beer. In order to attach the labels to the beer bottles, I used a very cheap method that only involves two things all homebrewers should already have: milk and gelatin. Please note that if you print this label with an ink jet printer, expect disaster. Use a laser printer to print the labels.

Here is how to make the label adhesive and the best way, IMO to attach the labels:

1/2 c warm milk (~90F)
1 tsp gelatin

Sprinkle the gelatin over the warm milk and let proof for 20 minutes.

Stir the mixture until no more gelatin is visible. Be sure to have everything ready to apply the labels; the adhesive will begin to get sticky within 30 seconds of applying it to the back of the label.

Apply the adhesive to the back of the label

                                   

Using your fingers, it is best to press the label onto the bottle at the center and work your way towards the edges of the label to remove any air pockets. Don't worry if the label appears wet, it will dry.

 After you have applied all of the labels, it is a good idea to wipe the bottles down with a wet cloth to remove any adhesive residue. These labels will come off cleanly after a quick warm water soak!

Gr(e)atzer!

After picking up a 6-pack of last years Sam Adams Longshot, I was introduced to my first Gratzer. Brewed by Cesar Marron, it was a very enjoyable session-able beer that filled your mouth with the pleasantries of wheat, smoke and hop spice from the Saaz hops. It was a beer that I truly enjoyed (best out of the 6-pack) and wanted to reproduce.

One of the great things about being in a homebrew club is the ability to combine resources to produce a beer that would have otherwise been difficult to make solo. I would not have been able to make this beer if it weren't for a friend with a smoker who could smoke enough wheat malt for myself and a fellow brewer. A traditional Gratzer is brewed with 100% oak smoked wheat malt; the oak imparts a softer smoke character than the traditional rauch smoked malts which can tend to be "hammy". In order to keep this as traditional as possible, I used Lublin hops which are a Polish hop variety. They are very close in nature to Saaz hops (they are actually bred from Saaz hops) and tend to be spicy with noble hop aromatics.

Gratzer

6 lb - White Oak Smoked Wheat Malt
1 lb - Rice Rulls
2 oz - Lublin Hops [3.8%] @ 60 min
1 oz - Lublin Hops [3.8%] @ 15 min

Mash-in @ 120F for 20 minutes
Raise temperature to 148F for 90 minutes to ensure full conversion

Boil for 90 minutes.

Fermented at 70F.

OG 1.028
FG 1.003 (Yikes!)

About the FG, I initially pitched a vial of WLP029 (German Ale/Kolsch) but after ~36 hours of no activity, I began to worry about the viability since I did not make a started to test the yeast. Being paranoid, I pitched a WLP001 yeast cake into the Gratzer and let it fly. Within 4 hours, there was very vigorous activity. I believe this is why the FG was so low.

Tasting notes:

Absolutely beautiful beer; one of my favorite brews ever actually...

Aroma: Smoke... Reminds me of sitting around a camp fire but without the eye watering sensation of smoke in your eyes. The hops cut through the smoke with a sharpness to remind you that this is going to be a bitter beer. Spicy, earthy, and full of smoke phenolics, it attacks your senses immediately.

Appearance: Beautiful straw color and very hazy. Large and long standing head that produces lacing around glass as it falls.

Taste: I imagine this is what bread would taste like if baked in an oak fired oven. Big bread notes with bitter oak phenols. Hop flavor is spicy/grassy but isn't as pronounced as the aroma; still firmly bitter. Very dry beer which I think the smoke is lending to the dryness.

East Coast Yeast Parts 1 & 2

A few months ago I was lucky enough to procure a few East Cost Yeast products from love2brew.com. The two I have been most excited about are ECY20 Bug Country and ECY03 Farmhouse Brett (Saison Blend). Just in case you are not familiar with these, here are their descriptions from the East Coast Yeast website:

ECY20 Bug Country - Over 20 different isolates to overwhelm the senses; the blend is the mother-bugger for sour or wild ales. Contains various "wild" Saccharomyces species, Brettanomyces, Lactobacilli, and Pediococci.

ECY03 Farmhouse Brett - Saison Brasserie blend with a pure Brettanomyces isolate from a small but fascinating producer of saison. Produces a fruity and funky profile with some acidity gradually increasing over time.


There were two things I wanted to accomplish with these yeast blends.

First, I wanted to create a base beer to split between both blends in order to compare and contrast the differences. The ECY20 is such a sour producing beast, there will be an order of magnitude difference between the two beers.

(A top shot of the ECY20 in the starter. It will form a pellicle 6 hours after shaking the starter!)

Second, the 5 gallon Balcones whiskey barrel I purchased a while back is ideal for inoculating with bugs. Especially Brett, Lacto and Pedio. I aged a batch of Scottish 70 in this barrel to extract the whiskey character from the barrel and hopefully there is very little to none left over that will carry into this batch. Before filling the barrel, I gave it a thorough cleaning with hot water to ensure it was clean and all the staves were tight.

For the ECY20, I grew up a gallon starter of yeast to ensure there would be enough bugs to chew through the wort and to leave some residual yeast behind in the barrel for the next batch of beer. The ECY03 was pitched directly into the 6 gallons of wort.

Here is the recipe for the beer I used to split between the two fermenters:

Grain Bill:
15 lbs - Castle Belgian Two-row
5 lbs - Riverbend Pilsner Six-row
4 lbs - White Wheat
8 oz - Acid Malt

Hop Profile:
2 oz - Santiam [6.1% aa] @ 60 min
1 oz - Lublin [3.8% aa] @ 60 min
1 oz - Saaz [3.8% aa] @  5 min

Mash Profile:
Single Infusion @ 159F for 60 minutes. Single Batch Sparge

(ECY20 in the barrel on the left and ECY03 in the carboy on the right)

Bramling Bitter

In my attempts to brew a good English Ordinary BItter, I wanted to try a few new hops and grains to make this a truly English beer. To make a great English beer, you will need to start with English malts; the most widely used of course is Maris Otter. Although I did not use Maris Otter as my base, the Riverbend Heritage malt is very similar in lovibond and possibly flavor profile. I want to follow up on that at a later date with a mini mash of each to test the difference. 

A twist on this beer are the selection of hops, Sovereign and Bramling Cross. Sovereign hops are very earthy/green tea characteristic and is a good middle of the road hop to accentuate a more powerful hop. The center stage hop in this beer is Bramling Cross which is a breed derived from Bramling and Manitoban hops (hence the "Cross"). Some English hop sites consider this an American style hop since it is very aromatic and flavorful but unlike American hops, it has a very constrained citrus profile but exudes black currants. In a low gravity beer like an Ordinary Bitter, it really shines!

Ingredients:

Malt -

7lb - Riverbend Heritage 6-row Malt

1lb - Crystal Maris Otter (55L)

8oz - Victory Malt

3oz - Acid Malt

Hops -

0.5oz Bramling Cross (7.8% AA) @ 60 min

0.5oz Sovereign (5.3% AA) @ 60 min

0.5oz Sovereign (5.3% AA) @ 20 min

0.5oz Sovereign (5.3% AA) @ 10 min

0.5oz Bramling Cross (7.8% AA) @ 0 min

0.5oz Sovereign (5.3% AA) @ 0 min

Water Prep:

My water has a very low mineral profile so I wanted to shoot for more of an English water profile. The addition of the 3oz of Acid Malt reduced my mash pH to 5.3 and the additions of Gypsum will help with the hop bitterness

Strike Water -

4g - Gypsum

Sparge Water -

8g - Gypsum 

Mash @ 152F for 60 min and boil for 90 min. I have started to do all of my boils for 90 min just to reduce the risk of DMS.

Measured OG - 1.040

Pitched a 1500 ml starter of Wyeast West Yorkshire Ale yeast. 

Measured FG of 1.007

ABV 4.3%

This beer was fantastic! It was served during our Halloween party and was quickly drained and I might have helped with that. Will make this one again very soon. I will up the Bramling Cross hops and try the Maris Otter base malt to compare to the Riverbend Heritage malt. 

Homebrew Article in b-metro Magazine!

Myself and other members of our homebrew club, the CarboyJunkies, were fortunate to have local magazine, b-metro, run an article on homebrewing! Two of us were brewing that day and a few other Junkies came by to say hello and join in the fun. The day consisted of brewing, pictures and Q&A from Brett Levine from b-metro. I was very relived that the article was technically correct and that they ran the final article by us for any technical updates; it really irritates me when reading homebrew articles that were obviously written with no review by someone with brewing knowledge.

You can read the article below.

http://b-metro.com/something-is-brewing-in-birmingham/13200/

Cold Press Coffee Porter

My wife asked me the other day when I was going to brew another beer for her. She was never a beer drinker until a few years ago when she started to taste stouts and porters and really enjoyed them. Since the weather is turning cooler, it sounds like a good opportunity to brew a porter with the added kick of cold press coffee.

I have had a few really terrible homebrew versions of a coffee porter and coffee stout. All of them had the same thing in common, the brewer would make a pot of coffee and dump it in at some point during the process. This would cause the beer to be very astringent and acidic due to the acid pulled from the coffee beans during the coffee brewing. One method to circumvent this is to make cold press coffee which is the process of combining cold water and coffee grounds and letting it steep 24 hours in the refrigerator. Here is the exact process I used:

Sanitize a quart mason jar. Add 12oz of filtered cold water and 2T of freshly coarse-ground coffee beans. Shake to combine and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Strain through a coffee filter to seperate the grounds from the liquid. I added this at flame out or you can add it to secondary. 

I followed the guidelines for a Robust Porter style:

Ingredients:

Malt -

7lb - Riverbend Heritage 6-row Malt

2lb - Munich Malt

1lb - Crystal 120 Malt

0.5lb - Victory Malt

0.25lb - Carafa III

3oz - Acid Malt

1lb - Corn Sugar

Hops -

1.5oz UK Fuggles (3.6% AA) @ 90 min

1oz UK Fuggles (3.6% AA) @ 60 min

Water Prep:

My water has a very low mineral profile so I wanted to shoot for more of an English water profile. The addition of the 3oz of Acid Malt should also lower my mash pH to 5.3 which is my target for brewing a darker beer.

Strike Water -

1g - Calcium Chloride

1g - Gypsum

Sparge Water -

1.5g - Calcium Chloride

1.5g - Gypsum 

Mash @ 154F for 60 min and boil for 90 min. I have started to do all of my boils for 90 min just to reduce the risk of having DMS. 

Ferment with Wyeast 1056 @ 66F

Measured OG - 1.055

I did seem to miss my mark on the pH of the mash. I got busy with something else and did not check the mash at 30 min so I checked it at 50 min and the measured pH was 5.26 which was very low from my target of 5.3 pH with the EZ Water calculator. I am thinking the Riverbend Heritage malt is the cause of the miscalculation as it has a higher SRM than a traditional base 6-row malt. 

11/18/2013 - Update:

Measured FG - 1.009

ABV 6.1%

The finished beer turned out ok but not great. It has a slight bitter after-taste, the same type of bitterness you would encounter in a fruit pit such as a peach. The coffee flavor is present but not overpowering, the bitterness is just too much to really get a grasp on the intricate flavors of the coffee. The next time I will back off on the Crystal 120 and add some lighter crystal to balance out the flavor and not add the Gypsum. I will also use a more robust coffee and up the amount to bring out more of the coffee notes. 

Ward Labs Water Report

There has been a lot of buzz recently in regards to water profiles in brewing. My guess is since the new water book is being released by John Palmer and Colin Kaminski, a lot more people have taken notice to this very important ingredient in beer. One valuable resource to a homebrewer is their local water report that is provided by their water supplier. Although they provide readings in ranges, this will get you fairly close to your water profile. one major issue with water supplier reports is that your water source may change due to weather patterns or time of season; its never going to be very accurate. 

Luckily the good people at Ward Labs provides us with a cheap way to test our H2O by sending off for a water report. To submit a water sample, download the order form from here:

http://www.wardlab.com/images/SampleForms/HomeBrewer.pdf

I sent my sample in a thoroughly rinsed plastic vodka bottle that fit perfectly in a USPS flat rate box. Ward Labs will perform the analysis and email you the results along with the invoice for payment. They accept credit cards over the phone or you can pay by mail. 

Below is my water report:

My water is on the soft side with not a lot of sulfate. Ward Labs does measure sulfate as sulfur so you will need to convert this to the actual mass of sulfate per liter (just multiply the SO4-S by 3; it will get you close enough). Another thing to note is my pH level which is a bit high. 

A great resource to tweak your water profile, based on your grain bill, is EZ Water Calculator:

http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/

Download the spreadsheet and you will be able to plug in your water profile (don't forget, multiply Sulfate by 3), and your grain bill and it should give you a fairly accurate report. I would still advise to check your mash pH with a properly calibrated pH meter just to be on the safe side.