Colorado Kitchen Brew

With its earliest written references dating back to 1366 AD,  Sahti is a style of beer from Finland that I've been wishing to brew, but was nervous about tackling. Thankfully, I came across Ilkka Sysila's excellent article on brewing the style. It pushed me over the edge, and inspired me to take a stab at brewing this ancient beer. The grain bill for Sahti is quite simple, but also created my first challenge.  Pilsner, Munich and Kaljamallas (Finnish Dark Rye) are the typical grains for this style. Where my challenge lay was in finding Kaljamallas.  This Finnish malt can be purchased online, but isn't exactly inexpensive. The lowest price I could find was $10 per pound before shipping. As a less expensive alternative, several articles I read suggested using Crystal Rye. However, they all admitted that its flavor is sweeter than the Finnish grain. Rye Before and After Since I wanted a malt as close to Kaljamallas as possible, but didn't want to break the bank to do

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

Back in 2012, I did a post on making your own Candi Sugar for Belgian beers. Nine years later, it's time to make Brewer's Invert Syrup for British beers. While these syrups are available commercially, they're tough to find in the US, as there are only a handful of homebrew shops that carry them. They're also not exactly cheap, so why not make your own? The sugar I prefer to use for making Invert Syrup is Turbinado. Complexity is what I want from these syrups, and I feel that Turbinado, as well as other raw sugars, create more complex flavors than plain white table sugar does. However, table sugar works just fine.  Here's the basic procedure for making one pound of Invert Syrup: Mix one pound of sugar with approximately 1 cup of water to make a thick syrup. Over Medium heat, gently stir the liquid until the sugar is dissolved.  Add 1/4tsp of Cream of Tartar. You can optionally add roughly 2Tbsp of Lyle's Golden Syrup at this step to help avoid crystalizing your s

While 2020 was easily my worst year ever, all of those weeks cooped up at home meant I had more time than usual to brew. One of my final brew days of 2020 was devoted to this Barleywine.  My beer is loosely based on various takes I found on Great Divide's Old Ruffian , which is a beer that used to be a regular member of their lineup. That's not the case anymore, which is why I decided to tackle my own.  The main area where I've diverged from what I came across online is with the specialty malts. I've bumped them all up just a tad. In addition, my homebrew store doesn't stock Crystal 80, so I went with Crystal 77. I'm fairly certain my hop schedule is different as well. To finish my beer off, I'll be adding an oak spiral toward the end of secondary fermentation. This beer won't be ready until mid April at the earliest, so I have quite the wait ahead. My 5 gallon brew is below: Grains: 17lbs Rahr 2-Row 12oz Crisp Crystal 77 12oz Briess Victory 8oz Briess F

If you hit the  way-back machine to 2013 , you'll find a post similar to this one. My Barleywine was basically an end of year excuse to clear out a collection of leftover ingredients. It's 2020, and I'm doing it again by making an English Imperial Stout.  This time, I didn't have quite as many leftovers, so I had to buy the 2-Row and Warrior hops. Everything else was either in a box in the basement or the fridge.  The idea behind using two yeast strains was taken from a recipe I stumbled across a few years ago for the long unavailable Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter . That beer used both an American and English strain for fermentation. My guess is that at this strength, the SafAle US-05 will make up for the fermentation limitations of the LalBrew London. Plus, if it was good enough for Gonzo, it's good enough for me.  As a last step, I'll add an oak spiral that's been soaked in Whiskey. I'm hopeful that the oak will be subtle rather than overpowering.

The New England/Hazy/Juicy IPA is a beer style I've been having great trouble getting into.  Part of it might be a "get off my lawn" issue regarding what my brain thinks an IPA is supposed to be. I grew up with two IPA styles: an English IPA that is bitter, amber, moderately strong and uses English hops, and an American IPA that is bitter, amber, moderately strong and uses American hops. In the case of the American (now considered West Coast, blech) the more "C" hops the better, damn it. The clarity had better be good too, because I must be able to see through my glass. Pale and hazy is the realm of Wits and Weizens, not the IPA gosh darn it. And by the way, who took all of my VHS tapes?   All that said, now that I'm on the wrong side of 50, it's time to open up the mind a bit.  The brewing process of the Hazy IPA is what intrigues me most. It's probably the main reason I'm taking a stab at the style.  Most everything regarding hops happens late

I recently stumbled upon a box of homebrew that I'd been cellaring for quite some time. Nearly three years, to be exact. I'd kind of forgotten about it, so finding the box was a pleasant surprise. Half the fun was deciphering my markings on the caps. I'm sure it made perfect sense to me at the time. Three years on, not so much. The first beer I deciphered was a bottle of my Kitchen Sink Barleywine . Let's see what happened over the years. First off, the beer is as bitter as ever. I was expecting that side of the beer to dial back, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However, the hop aroma has become much more subdued. The pine is still there, but the citrus has mostly faded. With much of the hop aroma out of the way, the biggest development in the nose is a prevalent mix of toffee and tobacco. They give the beer an almost English Barleywine character. Once in the mouth, more changes are in store. The aforementioned bitterness still hits right away, but t

I'd never even heard of Poland's Grodziskie, until I read about it in a Zymurgy article. Not content to simply read about the beer, I've decided to go ahead and brew one. Besides, who wouldn't want to try a beer made entirely from Smoked Wheat? I've mostly followed the plan laid out in the Zymurgy article. The Mash schedule and hop addition times are as prescribed. However, I don't have easy access to the Lublin hops used in the magazine brew, or the correct yeast strain. In place of the Lublin hops, I've used Polish Sybilla. The beer also calls for a clean ale yeast. I've turned to White Labs ,Dusseldorf Alt yeast to fill the role. In a few weeks my efforts will be rewarded. Here's the five-gallon brew: Grains: 5 lbs Weyermann Oak Smoked Wheat Hops: 0.75 oz Sybilla (6.4% a.a.): 105 min 0.5 oz Sybilla (6.4% a.a.): 30 min Total Boil Time: 120 min Yeast: White Labs WLP036 - Dusseldorf Alt Mash Schedule: Acid Rest: 100F for 30 min

What I believe to be the first non-alcoholic Saison to find its way to the internet is finally ready. This beer was a total experiment on my part, so I had no idea if it would be any good. You know what? It is good. Let up start from the top. The beer is rather cloudy coming out of the bottle. I was warned that buckwheat makes for a very turbid beer, and that's definitely the case. A dense white cap takes an aggressive pour to form, but sticks around afterward and leaves bits of lace behind. Now it's onto the stuff we really care about. Heating the beer to eliminate the alcohol also killed the yeast. Bottle conditioning the beer with fresh yeast brought the yeast esters right back. There's a definite rustic funk here that Saison yeasts tend to produce. Behind that funk is a nice dose of floral and citrus hop aroma, in addition to some very complex grainy notes. I've eaten plenty of buckwheat over the years, and know its flavor well. It really adds a lot to

It's November, which means it's time to brew a pumpkin beer! What's that? Pumpkin beers are already off the shelf? Oops. Oh well. I'm brewing one anyway. The pumpkins I bought have been staring at me for too long. I'd hate to see them go bad. This year's beer is a bit of an experiment. The recipe is basically what happens when my Power Outage Pumpkin , Burton Warmer , and Taddy Porter Clone all come together in the same pot. Hopefully the result will be worth the effort. Rather than shoot for a specific weight of pumpkin, I simply baked a couple of Sugar Pie Pumpkins (thank you allrecipes.com ), chopped them up, and tossed them in the Mash. Fresh pumpkins are a pain in the butt to prep, so I figured I might as well use everything. Despite my grumblings, I still think the flavor and aroma of fresh baked pumpkin is worth the additional work. The total weight of the two pumpkins after being cleaned out was roughly five pounds. Last year's beer u

I think what I'm doing here may be a first, at least according to an admittedly brief Google search. I'm making a non-alcoholic Saison. For those of you who didn't stop reading at "non-alcoholic", I think you'll find what I'm attempting to be pretty novel. Saison is a yeast driven style that I also feel benefits from some hop character. When you boil off alcohol to make a non-alcoholic beer, the live yeast in your beer dies off with it. Any hop aroma and flavor that was present takes a hike too (the bitterness remains, thankfully). That's a definite double whammy of flavor and aroma loss with a beer like this. To bring those losses back, I'm doing some experimentation. Here's the order of business before getting to the actual recipe. First off, the term non-alcoholic is a bit of a misnomer. Commercial N/A beers actually do have around 0.5% of the stuff. That means I can bottle condition my beer and let fresh yeast do a little bit of w

It's been 20 (20???) years since my roommate and I brewed Gushing Geyser , but I can still recall a bit of what the original beer was like. So, does this new iteration taste like I remember? Pretty darn close. Out front on the nose, there's a nice light roasted note that's complemented by a caramel sweetness. The Willamette hops bring a nice earthy and floral note. The aroma reminds me of why I liked them so much 20 years ago. Overall bitterness is mild and very clean. If I recall correctly, the original beer had a slightly rustic (I swear that's a flavor) edge. The original beer utilized Bullion hops rather than Newport, which pretty much explains the difference. A medium-light body makes for easy drinking, while the moderate ABV makes it safe to have more than one. The beer does have a bit of what I've heard many homebrewers refer to as the"extract" taste. I can't completely describe the flavor, but I know it when I taste it. The closest I can

I finally hit the proverbial Weissbier nail on the head with my Winter Weizenbock . With the warmer months ahead, it's time to brew a less hefty version for both my Wedding and Summer imbibing. The new beer's grain bill is quite literally 75% of its Bock strength sibling's. The time consuming triple-decoction mash lives on, as does the yeast. I switched from Opal to Sybilla hops, simply because I had the later on hand. Here's the recipe for five gallons: Grains: 3.75 lbs Weyermann Light Munich 3 lbs Weyermann Pale Wheat 2.25 lbs Weyermann Dark Wheat 3 oz Weyermann Dehusked Carafa II Hops: 0.5 oz Sybilla (6.4% a.a.): 60 min Total Boil Time: 90 min Yeast: White Labs WLP300 - Hefeweizen Ale Yeast Mash Schedule: Acid Rest: 104F for 20 min Decoction 1:      Heat ~1/2 of mash to 155F and hold for 20 min      Heat Decoction to boiling and boil for 15 min Protein Rest: 125F for 20 min Decoction 2:      Heat ~1/2 of mash to 155F and hold for 20 min  

In keeping with the theme from the Twitter Bitter I brewed recently, below is a Session beer version of an American Porter. All of the Porter style points are hit, but with an alcohol content of around 4.5%. To make up for the beer's lack of heft, I've thrown in a bit of Dextrin Malt to compensate. This is the second beer for my Wedding in May. Hopefully it will please both my fiance and guests. The full 5-gallon brew is below: Grains: 5 lbs Great Western Premium 2-Row 1 lb Weyermann Light Munich 12 oz Great Western Crystal C60 8 oz Bairds Chocolate Malt 8 oz Briess Carapils 6 oz Bairds Black Malt Hops: 1 oz Glacier (5.6% a.a.): 60 min 1 oz Glacier (5.6% a.a.): 15 min Mash Schedule: Saccharification Rest: 152F for 60 min (No Black or Chocolate Malt) Mashout: 168F for 15 min (All Grains) Total Boil Time: 90 min Yeast: Safale US-05 Original Gravity: 1.047 Estimated Final Gravity: 1.011 IBU: 29 SRM Color: 28 Fermentation Schedule: 2 Weeks

The beer below is inspired by the Kölsch/German Pils hybrid I brewed last Summer. My fiance said the original beer was one of her favorites, so I'm brewing a mild variation on it. This time around, I'm using a local Pils malt in addition to some Kölsch Malt that I had good luck with last year . I've also upped the ante by switching from a single to a double decoction mash. The hops and yeast are the same. The final beer should be perfect for our warm late Spring wedding. Here's the recipe for 5 gallons: Grains: 6.5 lbs Colorado Malting Pilsner 1.5 lbs Global Malt Kölsch Malt Hops: 1 oz Spalt (5.3% a.a.): First Wort Hopping 0.4 oz Magnum (14.7% a.a.): 60 min 1 oz Spalt (5.3% a.a.): 7 min Total Boil Time: 90 min Yeast: Wyeast 1007 - German Ale Mash Schedule: Protein Rest: 125F for 20 min Decoction 1:      Heat ~1/2 of mash to 155F and hold for 20 min      Heat Decoction again to boiling and boil for 15 min Saccharification Rest: 149F for 30 mi

Well, that was easy. After only five short weeks, the Bitter I brewed based on suggestions from Twitter was done. Having consumed quite a few bottles while doing research for Grad School, I figure it's high time I finally write about how my beer turned out. My goal was for a Session Beer and that's what I got. With an ABV of around 3.5%, this is a beer you can drink several of (a Session's worth?) without fear of getting loopy. The body is light and refreshing, although a bit too tingly for a proper Bitter. But how does it taste? Not earth shattering, but pretty decent. The nose is primarily earthy hop, plus a bit of a toasty aroma. I was expecting some fruitiness from the yeast, but there isn't much there. The flavor is light, but interesting. Next time, I'll dial back the Amber Malt. It's a little too prevalent and doesn't quite balance the toffee undertones at work. Bitterness is just right and brings a black tea bite to the beer. It lingers thro

What do you do when it's your first chance to brew in over a month, but the local homebrew store is closed? My initial reaction was to panic. Of course my homebrew store had to be closed on the one day I had time to shop! How typical! Then, I started to go through what brewing supplies I already had at home. Leftover Malt Extract from a beer kit ? Check. Some random specialty malts? Check. Hops? Check. Yeast? A spare packet of dry that I'd forgotten I even had. The beer I decided upon is an American Brown Ale . For grains, I used all of the liquid extract I had. The Caramel 60L was leftover from my Power-Outage Pumpkin brew day. My Chocolate Malt was leftover from an Oatmeal Stout . The Hops were around from my last online shopping spree. It's brewing time! Oddly enough, the ingredients I had on hand let me put together a beer eerily close to one of the first beers I ever brewed back in the mid 90's: Gushing Geyser Brown Ale. That beer netted me my first e

At long last, I have time to actually write about beer again!  Life has been crazy busy (there are things that take precedence over beer, believe it or not), so I've been kept away from my passion for a few weeks. It's time for to that to finally change! Without further ado, it's time to talk about how my second Weizenbock turned out. First off, the picture doesn't do the beer justice. I haven't had time to take the usual daytime shot, so this one was taken in my not so scenic kitchen. But hey, you've got to do what you've got to do. This beer is the result of my longest brewing day ever. As I found out, a triple-decoction mash takes forever and ever and ever. I try not to think about how many hours I spent brewing this beer. Thankfully, the results were totally worth the effort. Let's start with the pour. My Weizenbock has the proper hazy chocolate hue and a rocky cap that stays and stays. Head retention is exemplary and a nice bit of lace i

2014 I can't believe it's been a year since I bottled my last Old Ale . I suppose time flies while you're having fun. Anyway, it's time to see what's taken place in the last 12 months. Things have changed quite a bit the last 12 months. First off, the flavors meld better than they did before. This is still a complex flavored beer, but the balance of the different pieces is more cohesive. Bitterness has faded just a bit, but still carries the black tea bite that was there before. 2013 The rum-like qualities have really cut through with time. There's an almost vinous quality to the beer that wasn't around before. This is especially true in the nose. A slightly heavy body persists that is drier than before. The beer finishes with lingering toffee and rum flavors. Overall, I'm quite happy with how this beer aged. I'd still tweak the recipe if I brewed it again, but time has made for a much more cohesive brew.

My Sweet/Oatmeal Stout hybrid is ready to go. This beer gets a bonus round, because I bottled both a regular and N/A version of it. This is a nice chance to see what kind of a difference removing the alcohol makes. The beer itself is intentionally light, but not insubstantial in body. The regular beer's ABV barely cracks the 5.0% barrier. I'm not super happy with how the flavors blended to together. You can sense some sweetness from the milk sugar. It sits across the room from the roasted grains as an odd counterpoint. I definitely need to play with balance next time around. Bitterness is light and bolstered by the roasted grains. The nose has a touch of fruitiness to it. The N/A version is very close. The roasted flavors are slightly more pronounced. There's less fruitiness in nose too. The rest is pretty much the same. This includes my questionable balance of lactose and roasted grains. So, this definitely isn't the best beer I've ever brewed. The flavor