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)