Miscellaneous Musings: Thoughts for 2014

2013 was a good and busy year. I did a lot of new things that really expanded my brewing knowledge and techniques. Hopefully some of them helped people who've stumbled upon this site.

I brewed my first SMaSH Beer, Sour and Wheatwine. New stove-top Mashing techniques were introduced. 2012 beers were revisited after time in the Cellar. Non-Alcoholic beer was also tackled. I even threw in a Clone for good measure. Oh, and I went auto racing, which has little to do with beer (or does it?), but it is my blog, so I can write about what I want to.

That's a lot of ground covered in just one year. So where do I go from here? How do I keep things fresh?

Thankfully, there are still lots of new things I want to try.

More Sours are definitely in order, with a proper Lambic at the top of the list. With that in mind, Turbid Mashing will join my list of stove-top Mashing techniques. More wood aged beers are also in the pipeline. Since my desire to brew Big Beer has waned, there will also be a heavy emphasis on delicate Session styles in 2014. I also hope to tackle making my own specialty grains.

After two years, there are still quite a few beer styles that I have yet to tackle. This includes some fairly obscure beers that don't get a lot of press. Look for a Kentucky Common, Czech Dark Pseudo-Lager and Dampfbier in the coming months. Of course, it wouldn't be me if several more Belgian beers didn't show up as well. Finally, look for some "blast from the past" beers from my original brewing days back in the 90s, because it's always fun to revisit pass successes (I promise not to post past disasters). I'm sure I'll also come across additional ideas as I go along.

That's it for 2013. I hope everyone has a happy and homebrew filled 2014!

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Out of the Bottle: Oak Aged La Petite Orange

I said in my previous post that I'd saved some of Northern Brewer's La Petite Orange kit to age with Sherry Infused Oak Cubes. The aged beer is ready to go, so let's see what the Oak and Sherry did. I've had more than a few Barrel Aged beers that were completely dominated by the wood and whatever alcohol (Rum, Bourbon, Sherry, etc) the barrel originally contained. In my beer, the oak and sherry are subtle. That's what I was shooting for, so I'm quite happy with that. The flavors and aromas from the original beer are still present. There's no point in revisiting them. What I really care about is the changes the wood made. Vanilla is the most significant contribution. There's also a very mild almond note at work. The Sherry really cuts through in the aroma. It provides an extra helping of dark fruits, plus a little more alcohol heat. The beer is definitely more wine-like than before. On a side note, I took my own advice and bumped the priming su

Out of the Bottle: Big Beers and a Haze

I'm doing a 4-for-1 with this installment, and will be bundling my finished beers going forward, rather than writing a blog for each. That should leave me space for more brewing oriented posts. This month, I've got beers I posted the recipes for back in November, December and January. First out of the gate is Enchanted Nightmare Imperial Stout. This beer is an amalgamation of extra grains and hops I had that were combined with some 2-Row and additional hops to create a 9.95% ABV Stout for the depths of Winter. So what if it wasn't actually ready until the Spring Equinox arrived? A beer like this can't be rushed. My beer pours nearly pitch black, and has nice ruby highlights. The head could stand a touch more staying power, but is appropriately dense. In the mouth, the body is a little lighter than I expected. The carbonation is very soft, and feels just about right for this beer style. When I bottled this beer, I was slightly worried that the whiskey and oak were a li

Kitchen Brewing Part 3: Sparge and Boil

The mash emerges from the oven. Now that we're finished with Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, it's time to Sparge. As you can see from the photo, the grains have absorbed a lot of liquid. In a traditional all-grain setup, your Mash Tun has a valve at the bottom to release the first running of Wort. The grains are then rinsed with the sparge water to extract any remaining sugars. My stove-top method doesn't afford such luxury, so a different method is called for. The grains have gained a little weight. There are a couple of choices at this point. One choice is to lift the grain bag out of Pot A and place it into the sparge water in Pot B to steep for 10-15 minutes or more. The other is to lift the grain bag up, put a colander under it and slowly pour the sparge water through the grains into the original pot. I prefer the former, because I get a better extraction rate from my grains. All that absorption means that the grains weigh a lot more than they did going i

Colorado Kitchen Brew

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