Colorado Kitchen Brew

The beer from my Dark Saison project is finally finished bottle conditioning. Time to pour a glass and see how it came out. The Final Gravity came in at a very low 1.004, which results in a 5.8% ABV. That's a bit stronger than the 5.4% I was expecting, Going into the glass, the beer is rather pretty. As you can see from the picture, it has a deep garnet tone and nice clarity against the early evening sun. The head is rocky, firm and leaves decent lacing behind. At this early stage of development, the Saison yeast is really out front with a lot of clove and sourdough bread aromas. I'm guessing that part of  it can be attributed to the insane temperatures here the last few days. The beer has been exposed to temps in excess of 80 degrees. Behold the downside to no basement and minimal A/C. A nice heavily toasted bread scent sits in the back of all the yeast notes. I'm guessing that with age, the yeast will settle down and the bread aromas will come through more. When I...

Being a brewer on a budget, I don't have an extra fridge to lager in. That poses a bit of a problem, because I love a good Pilsener on a hot Summer day. To my palate, the closest style to Pilsener in the ale department is a German Kölsch . To that end, I've wedded a Bohemian Pilsener influenced recipe with a Kölsch yeast strain to create my Bohemian Kölsch pseudo-lager. I realize that the finished product won't be as clean, crisp and clear as a traditional Pils, but I'm hoping to come close. I want a full five gallons of this beer. Since my kitchen setup isn't conducive to five gallon all-grain batches, I've taken the partial-mash approach. I've also thrown in a bit of Irish Moss toward the end of the boil to help with clarity. Here's the five-gallon recipe: Grains: 3.5 lbs German Pilsener 8 oz Munich 8 oz Crystal 10L 4 oz CaraPils Hops: 1 oz Saaz: First Wort Hopping 0.5 oz Merkur: 60 min 1 oz Saaz: 7 min Extras: 3 lbs Pilsen ...

I follow a lot of beer websites. Occasionally, a deal comes up on one of them that's too good to pass up. When a chance to get a nice discount on kits at Northern Brewer came along, I pounced. I purchased the partial mash version of Surly Cynic and gave it a whirl. The kit was purportedly created by the brewers at Surly Brewing and is a copy of their take on a Saison. I won't post the recipe, because that would allow all of you to cheat and not buy the kit. The only change I made was with the yeast. I wanted the full Saison experience, so I picked up Wyeast's French Saison instead of the prescribed  Belgian Ardennes . Otherwise, I followed the kit's instructions. The yeast got to work within eight hours of pitching, but it wasn't the fastest worker. The fermentation lock bubbled regularly for a couple weeks before dying down. Cynic is fairly light, so it was ready to bottle after three weeks. After a couple of weeks of bottle conditioning, it was good to g...

I dry-hopped my English IPA last week, so I'm writing this short blog about my dry-hopping technique. Dry Hopping is underway. The amount of hops you use is a matter of taste, but I usually use 1-2 ounces in a 5 gallon batch. I'm a big fan of using leaf rather than pellet hops for dry-hopping, but they can be messy. I like avoiding the mess and have found that the best technique for me is to use a hop bag and marbles. The hop bag keeps stray hop particles from getting into the beer, while the marbles stop the hops from floating on top of it. By not floating, more hops are in contact with the beer for better hop utilization. Boiling the marbles keeps them clean. Before using them, the marbles need to be sterilized. This is especially true if they have been in the hands of kids, like mine have. Boil the marbles for 15 minutes, put them in the bag with the hops, pull the bag shut and drop it in the fermentor. I usually leave the hops in the secondary fermentor for th...

If you remember the All Things Scottish skit from Saturday Night Live, you'll know what goes in place of the periods. This week's brew is a Scottish Ale that attempts to split the difference between the Scottish 80 Schilling and Wee Heavy. If all goes well, it will have the modest strength of the 80, with the flavor profile of the much stronger Wee Heavy. There's an old story about the high cost of hops in Scotland back in the day that I'll spare you from. But because of it, Scottish beers are very malt forward and low on bitterness. To that end, I've assembled a complex grain bill and let the hops sit in the background. English Maris Otter is the base malt, due to Scottish Golden Promise not being carried at my local store. If I had access to it, I would be using it. Here's the recipe for five gallons of Scottish goodness: Grains: 11 lbs Maris Otter 8 oz English Medium Crystal 4 oz English Extra Dark Crystal 4 oz English Chocolate Malt 2 oz Roaste...

A few members of the family I just finished racking my English IPA to a secondary fermentor. As part of the process, I saved some of the yeast in the primary for future use. Here then, is the start of a series of articles on yeast culturing. Back in the "good old days," homebrewers didn't have a ton of yeast choices. In some cases, brewers would even use bread yeast from the baking section of the grocery store. In practice, you hydrated the packet of dry yeast you got at the homebrew or grocery store and pitched it. The packets were cheap and worked, but there wasn't much variety to be had. Nowadays, there are several dozen strains available. While a few strains are still dry , most are liquids that come in pitchable tubes , or smack-packs . The liquid yeasts give consistent results and provide tremendous variety to finished beers, but are pricey. If you only use each pack, or tube once, you will quickly discover that yeast makes up 15%, or more of the cost ...