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April 14, 2008

Goose Island on Clybourn RIP

Filed under: ale,beer,brew,brewpub,chicago,gooseisland,homebrew — Jordan Wilberding @ 11:19 am

I just have found out the worst news ever. The Goose Island brewpub on Clybourn is closing due to it losing its lease. Fortunately Goose Island will still be around, and there will still be their brewpub in Wrigleyville. However, everyone knows the Wrigleyville brewpub is far inferior to the Clybourn one, it is not even close to the same atmosphere we all love at the Clybourn location. We can only hope that they move to a new location.

We have until the end of the year to enjoy the last days of Goose Island on Clybourn. You can find the original story here.

April 1, 2008

Brew 08: Light Rice Pale Ale

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,brew,chicago,homebrew,pale,rice,rice.ale,Uncategorized — Jordan Wilberding @ 7:21 am

I just got done brewing my own favorite personally created recipe, Light Rice Pale Ale. This is the second time I have brewed this fantastic beer. I concocted the original recipe roughly a year ago. I figure with summer right around the corner, it was time to brew it again!

I did have trouble finding Liquid Rice Malt Extract(LRME), but thanks to Tristan, I was able to find the LRME at an online brewshop in South Carolina. The only real adjustment I made in this brew is I cut the amount of hop oil in half from last time, as I thought it was little “too hopped” the first time I brewed this recipe. For those unfamiliar with hop oil, you use roughly 1/4th of the amount of hop oil then you would normal hops. For instance, if your beer called for 2 oz. of hops, you would use 0.5 oz. of hop oil flavoring. I ended up with an Original Gravity of 1.012, a little stronger than last time, but still within means. The full recipe is as follows:

Specialty Grains
* 1.50 lbs. Rice

Fermentables
* 0.5 lbs. Right Malt Syrup (boil for 60 min.)

Boil Additions
* 0.00000030108 oz. Hop Flavor Oil (0 min)

Yeast
* Wyeast #37337 American Bread Yeast

My favorite part about this wonderful beer is how versatile it is. You can pair it with almost any food. You can drink it in the morning, afternoon, and even in the middle of the night if you wake up thirsty. You can also cook pasta with it, give it to your cats, or even make another batch of beer with it if you are so inclined. Overall, this is probably the best beer in the world.

March 24, 2008

Brew 07: The Number 8

Filed under: 8,alcohol,ale,beer,chicago,homebrew,number 8,number8 — Jordan Wilberding @ 6:36 pm

I am catching up on some homebrew news. On March 1st, I brewed Norther Brewer’s The Number 8. If I would have been thinking I would have made it my eighth beer, but oh well. The beer is based off of a recipe that appears in “Brew like a Monk”, which is a very good book that I highly recommend for homebrewers that like Belgian and Trappist ales.

I basically followed the general instructions, except instead of putting in the corn sugar and Belgian candi at the end like it stated to, I put it in 10 minutes before the end of boil to make sure everything got mixed in well. The OG ended up being 1.082, even with such a high OG, I plan on keeping it in the secondary only for about 6 weeks, then bottle condition for a longer period of time. The ingredients are as follows:

Specialty Grains
* 1.50 lbs. CaraMunich Malt

Fermentables
* 6 lbs. Pilsen Malt Syrup (boil for 60 min.)
* 2 lb. Pilsen DME (boil for 60 min.)
* 2 lb. Brown Belgian Soft Candi Sugar (10 min.)
* 15 oz. Corn Sugar (10 min.)

Boil Additions
* 1 oz. Tradition (60 min)
* 0.5 oz. Hallertau (30 min)
* 0.5 oz. Hallertau (5 min)

Yeast
* Wyeast #1762 Belgian Abbey II

February 29, 2008

Brew 06: Lord Fatbottom

Filed under: alcohol,ale,barleywine,beer,chicago,fatbottom,homebrew,lord,lord.fatbottom — Jordan Wilberding @ 3:46 pm

Lord Fatbottom Ingredients

I brewed my sixth brew, the infamous Lord Fatbottom, on February 21st. It a kit from Northern Brewer, that includes 14 lbs of dry malt extract and 7 oz of hops, including 1 oz goes towards a dry hop in the secondary. The full ingredients list is:

Specialty Grains
* 0.25 lbs. Briess Carapils
* 0.25 lbs. Briess Crystal 40
* 0.25 lbs. Dingemans Caramunich
* 0.25 lbs. Simpsons Medium Crystal

Fermentables
* 8 lbs. Golden Light DME (late addition)
* 6 lbs. Amber Dry Malt Extact

Boil Additions
* 2 oz. Summit Hops (60 min)
* 2 oz. Centennial Hops (30 min)
* 2 oz. Cascade Hops (5 min)

Special Ingredients
* 1 oz. Columbus Hops (dry hop)

Yeast
* Wyeast #1056 American Ale Yeast.

This was by far the most challenging brew I have done to date. The instructions call for putting in a second addition of 8 lbs of dry malt extract before the end of the boil. It ended up taking me over an hour to finally get all the dry malt mixed in. The major problem was that I started with 2.5 gallons of water instead of the recommended 1.5 gallons. It made it very difficult to bring it all to a full boil without boiling over.

Once I was done with the boil, the wort was so thick that I couldn’t even siphon it, I had to use the auto siphon as a pump instead. It did start fermenting right away, and still is fermenting as we speak, which is with in the 1-2 weeks usual primary fermentation time. The original gravity was 1.110, which is pretty low compared to the 1.123, but still close enough.

January 16, 2008

Brew 03(Belgian Strong Golden Ale) and Brew 05(Christmas ESB) Bottled

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,beerenthusiasts,belgian,brew,chicago,christmas,golden,homebrew — Jordan Wilberding @ 7:28 pm

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I have been busy working on things and haven’t had time to update my blog, but I have been able to bottle a few beers.

First of all, I bottled my Christmas ESB on December 12th, 2007. It was bottle conditioned and ready just in time for Christmas day. It ended up having a 4.5% ABV. I am glad I held back on using all the mulling spices, as the spice flavor was just right. It turned out to be a great Christmas Ale. Not bad considering I made the entire recipe from scratch. Next year I will probably try to boost the the original gravity a bit by having more malt balanced with some extra hops. Overall though, I am very pleased with it, and it has gotten even better with age so far.

I also recently just bottled my Belgian Strong Golden Ale. It sat in the secondary primary for 91 day. I unfortunately ran out of priming sugar, so I instead use 1 and 3/4 cups of dry malt extract. I used more than the typically recommended amount, so I could have extra carbonation, which is typical of Belgian Strong Golden Ales. The beer ended up with a 9.7% ABV. It will be my strongest beer to date. I can’t wait to taste it in a few days. I am definitely going to age some for a year though, as the high alcohol content means the beer is capable of aging for several years.

For my next brew, I am finally going to do the big one, Lord Fatbottom.

Finally, Tristan and myself are starting a local beer group called Beer Enthusiasts. The group is for anyone who enjoys a good beer, not just homebrewers. For the future we hope that site will contain beer reviews, beer recipes, food recipes, as well as tools to help the homebrewer in doing calculations to make beer. Please join the site and check back often!

October 28, 2007

Brew 02(Saison) Bottled

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,brew,chicago,homebrew,saison — Jordan Wilberding @ 10:33 am

I bottled the Saison on 10-23-2007. It had a great look and nice taste to it. I think it is going to turn out fairly well. The final gravity was 1016. The original gravity was 1050. Taking into account temperature differences that works out to be a 4.7% ABV. It isn’t as strong as I was expecting. I am just hoping the beer attenuated well, so it isn’t too sweet. I will let the beer bottle condition for about 4 weeks before trying it out. It is definitely a beer that gets better with age, so I hope to save some for up to a year.

I also racked Brew 04 to secondary on 10-26-2007. It had a super fresh hoppy smell to it. I can’t wait to try some. This beer doesn’t really require a secondary fermentation, so I will probably only keep it in there for a week to give it some clarity.

October 18, 2007

Brew 04: Belgian IPA

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,belgian,chicago,homebrew,indian,indianpaleale,ipa,pale — Jordan Wilberding @ 6:04 pm

Today I made brew number 04. It was based on Norther Brewer’s Organic IPA kit. I decided to try to make a Belgian inspired IPA. I used the stock kit, with a few modifications. Instead of the Admiral Hops at 60 minutes, I substituted with Saaz. Also, I added 1 pound of Belgian rock candi to the fermentables. Finally, I substituted the Wyeast #1968 London ESB with Wyeast #1388 Belgian Strong, which was derived from Duvel’s yeast. I am hoping for an IPA with a hint of a Belgian. It will be exciting to see how it turns out. I had originally tried culturing yeast from a bottle of Duvel, but it did not turn out. My guess is my bottles of Duvel were too old, and the yeast simply didn’t have enough left in it to be revived. The complete inventory is here:

Specialty Grains
* 0.5 lbs. Briess Organic Caramel 60

Fermentables
* 6.3 lbs. Organic Light Malt Syrup
* 2 lbs. Organic Light Dry Malt Extract
* 1 lb. Belgian Clear Rock Candi

Boil Additions
* 1 oz. Saaz (60 min)
* 1 oz. Organic Admiral Hops (30 min)
* 1 oz. Organic Goldings Hops (5 min)

Special Ingredients
1 oz. Organic Goldings Hops (dry hop)

Yeast
* Wyeast #1388 Belgian Strong Ale.

One snag I ran into is when my yeast arrived, the Wyeast packet was clearly bloated. I guessed that somehow the activator packet inside must have been ruptured during shipping. I went ahead as planned, figuring it would be ok. When I went to go finally pitch the yeast, I discovered that in fact the activator packet had not been broken. So either the Wyeast packet had become pressurized somehow or the yeast got contaminated. I am hoping for the former!

The original gravity ended up being 1070, which is higher than the kit estimate of 1063, but is to be expected, since I added sugar to the fermentables. I am still debating whether or not I will rack this batch to secondary or not. In order to, I would have to bottle my Saison a few days earlier than I had expected, but still it would have been in the secondary for reasonably long enough time. I plan on waiting to see how much clarity the IPA develops in the primary before deciding for sure.

For my next brew I am basically making up my own recipe! I am going to be calling it Christmas ESB. More details to come soon!

September 30, 2007

Brew 03: Belgian Strong Golden Ale

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,belgian,brew,chicago,golden,homebrew — Jordan Wilberding @ 5:19 pm

Today I made brew number 03. It was Norther Brewer’s Belgian Strong Golden Ale kit. It had 7 pounds of malt, along with 3 ounces of Belgian style Saaz hops. Combine those together and I almost had a boil over! Thankfully after a few minutes the boil smoothed out and everything went just fine. The full ingredients are here:

Specialty Grains
* 0.25 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils
* 0.25 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit

Fermentables
* 7 lbs. Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
* 2 lbs. Clear Belgian Candi Sugar

Boil Additions
* 2 oz. Saaz (60 min)
* 1 oz. Saaz (1 min)

Yeast
* Wyeast #1388 Belgian Strong Ale.

This kit called for a yeast starter, and since it has such a high original gravity, I thought it would be a good idea to use it. A yeast starter is basically just a small amount of dried malt extract boiled in water for 15 minutes and then yeast added. This allows the yeast to start growing and multiplying, so when you pitch it into the wort, you have good fermentation to convert all those fermentables into alcohol.

The original gravity ended up being 1089, which is much higher than the kit estimate of 1091. It could be that I didn’t quite fill the carboy all the way to 5 gallons with water, since I wanted to leave some room for the 650ml of yeast starter.

The yeast starter definitely appears to have worked though. I already have active fermentation, and it has only been a couple of hours since I pitched the yeast. The beer will of course require a secondary fermentation. According to the general rule, it will need 64-91 days. That along with an extra long conditioning in the bottles to let the flavors come through will mean the beer is ready to drink at the end of February. I’m sure the patience will pay off though!

For my next brew, I am planning on just doing a simple single-fermentation beer, maybe an IPA. I also want to try growing some Duvel yeast with the yeast starter, maybe even using it in the IPA, just to see what kind of interesting flavors it might add.

September 29, 2007

Brew 01(Spiced Winter Ale) Bottled

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,belgian,brew,homebrew,saison,winter — Jordan Wilberding @ 10:37 pm

Tonight Maddie and I bottled the Spiced Winter Ale. There were 45 bottles total, but one broke while I was capping it. The final gravity was 1011. With the original gravity being 1046, and accounting for temperature corrections, it gives an ABV of 4.7%. It will now condition in the bottles for 10-14 days, at which time it will be ready to drink!

Tonight I also racked Brew 02, Saison, to secondary. It will sit in the secondary until around mid-December.

Finally, I also started the yeast starter for the Belgian Strong Golden Ale. I am interested in seeing if it makes a real difference, although this will be the highest original gravity I have had with an ale yet, so I won’t have much to compare to, but I will at least be able to see if the active fermentation starts more quickly in the primary fermenter.

September 26, 2007

Brew 02: Saison

Filed under: alcohol,ale,beer,belgian,brew,chicago,homebrew,saison — Jordan Wilberding @ 10:49 pm
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Tonight marked my 2nd adventure into homebrewing. I went ahead and used my experience from my 1st brew in order to make this one a lot smoother. For one, I bought a strainer for my funnel, so I could keep out any extraneous particles from the wort when I transferred it to the primary fermenter. I did run into a little problem when using it. The Saison called for so much hops that the strainer kept getting full. I ended up having to clean it out about 7 times while transferring the wort to the primary fermenter. Thankfully I had Brewmaster Tristan to help, otherwise it could have gotten real ugly. I also figured out what this thing was that came with my brew kit. It is called a “Thief”. It is basically a giant pipette that allows you to easily get a sample out of the carboy into the test jar to use for a hydrometer reading. It was definitely much easier than using the siphon to do it.

For this brew I decided to do one of my favorite types of beer that I like from Goose Island, Saison. It is considered a “pre-modern” Belgian style of beer, as it shares many characteristics of the Belgian ales, including the Belgian style of yeast that gives you that slightly fruity, yet spicy mixture of flavor that only Belgian beers have. The wort boil included 3 additions of hops. There was of course the hops added at the beginning to give the bitterness to the beer, then at 10 minutes before the end of boil some more hops were added to add a nice flavor to the brew. Finally, right at the end of the wart, the final hops are added to give the beer a nice aroma. That is the funny thing about hops. Depending on when you add them to the boil will determine what affect they have on the beer, as hops go through all kinds of changes depending how long they are boiled. The full ingredient list is below:

Specialty Grains
* 0.5 lbs. Dingemans Caravienne

Fermentables
* 6.3 lbs. Golden Light Malt Syrup
* 1 lbs. Light Dry Malt Extract

Boil Additions
* 2 oz. Kent Goldings (60 min)
* 1 oz. Kent Goldings (10 min)
* 1 oz. Kent Goldings (0 min)

Yeast
* Wyeast #3522 Belgian Ardennes Yeast.

The kit called for an optional yeast starter. However, I didn’t think it was really necessary this time around, as the OG for Saison isn’t that high. I do plan on using a yeast starter for the Strong Belgian Ale which will be my next brew. The OG actually came out to be 1050. The kit calls for it being 1056, so it is a little low, but nothing to get hung up about. Once it is done in the fermenter, I will rack it to secondary for almost 2 months to really let the taste develop.

The Spiced Winter Ale has been sitting in the secondary now for a week. I will give it another 1-2 weeks before bottling. A small sampling I took during the racking to the secondary was very good though, so I am really looking forward to opening my own first bottle of homebrew!

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