Jordan's Graduation Stout

I've lived with the same two guys for my entire college career. We've each taken breaks, changed our majors, transferred schools, worked our butts off, and finally found what we really enjoy doing. It's been a long six years, and now the first of us has graduated. Jordan's a fan of big bold stouts, and seeing as he graduated in December that was the perfect style to make. I knew I would be serving this out of a keg at his graduation party, so in lieu of trying to fit a 10%+ ABV stout into everyone's stomachs along with all the delicious gumbo I opted to serve something a little smaller that still packed a warming punch, a Mole Stout.

I had to throw this brew together in a quick pinch, so I adopted this recipe from The Mad Fermentationist's Breakfast Stout Riff with some minor changes, mostly in the extras. I added dried habaneros, a split vanilla bean, cocoa nibs, and a cinnamon stick. This was all a few months ago, so I'm writing this post just to keep a record of this beer because it turned out really good. The heat was strong, and mostly in the back of the throat, but not unbearable. I wanted to use ancho chiles for more balanced heat/flavor, but they were out of stock at work and I had the habaneros already. The heat totally overpowered the vanilla, cinnamon was detectable, as was the cocoa, but I could have used more of each or lowered the peppers. I might also mash at a higher temp if I brew this again, although the beer didn't finish at a really low gravity it felt a little thin even with the flaked rye and might benefit from some dextrins. 

I also racked a couple liters of this into a freshly emptied itty bitty whiskey barrel. A 5 gallon Corsair barrel has been on my wish list for some time, but given that we've been moving every couple years it hasn't seemed wise to invest in one if I'm just going to have to move it while it's full. So I picked up one of the small 2 Liter Wasmund Barrels to subdue my barrel desires. This is the first beer that went in to it after the whiskey, and it came out tasting rather harsh. Next will be the Old Ale that is also destined for my Homebrew Club's barrel project, that post is soon to come.  I also plan on giving the barrel a coat of Gulf Wax to slow the evaporation, which currently happens at a frighteningly quick rate due to the crazy surface area to volume ratio.

Mole Stout

--------------

Mash Temp: 151

Estimated OG: 1.072

Estimated IBU: 42

Efficiency: 70%

Batch Size: 5.0

Boil Time: 60

Grain Bill

----------

12.0 lbs Pale Malt - 77.52%

1.25 lbs Flaked Rye - 8.07%

0.8 lbs Chocolate - 5.3%

0.45 lbs Carafa II - 2.9%

0.34 lbs Black Patent - 2.2%

0.34 lbs Caramel 120 - 2.2%

0.28 lbs Roasted Barley - 1.8%

Hops

--------

2.4 oz Williamette Pellets - 5.3%AA @ 60 mins

0.4 oz Williamette Pellets - 5.3%AA @ 30 mins

0.2 oz Williamette Pellets - 5.3%AA @ 0 mins

Yeast

--------

WLP 001

Extras

--------

1 whirlfloc @ 15 mins

0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 mins

3 large dried Habanero Chiles, shredded

1 split Vanilla Bean

1 Cinnamon Stick

2 oz Cocoa Nibs

Notes

---------

5.2 gallons at 1.074

Chiles, Vanilla, Cinnamon, and Nibs all put in a muslin bag and dipped in a bowl of Four Roses Bourbon. Added that to the primary after 2 weeks, left in for 7 days before kegging. Finished out at 1.021. Kegged and force carbed.

I bottled up a couple sixers of this beer straight from the keg using a DIY beer gun made from a picnic tap with a racking cane and #2 drilled stopper. I submitted a couple bottles to a home brew competition (Bluff City Extravaganza) and this beer won bronze in Category 21: Spice/Herb/Veggie Beer!

Caitlin & Eddie's Baby Brew: Part 1

A couple buddies of mine have a baby on the way, so naturally we decided to predetermine this baby's affinity for craft beer by brewing some celebratory sours. The goal was to have something ready by the time the baby is born (June-ish) and something that would age very well in the bottle so they could open one every year on the baby's birthday. Seeing as it's already February, these two goals are impossible to meet with one beer, which is a great excuse to brew two beers! Given the celebratory nature of these beers, it seemed appropriate that we make a day out of it and have a couple friends over for a tasting while brewing.

The first brew is intended to be the beer that will bottle age well, and will spend roughly a year in primary with ECY 20 which contains many strains of Brett, as well as Sach, Pedio, and Lacto. I'm hoping the complex array of Brett strains will scavenge oxygen from these bottles for years to come. When we were planning these beers we tossed around the idea of using fruit, blueberries if the baby were a boy and raspberries if a girl. Turns out she's a girl, Annabelle, so raspberries might be added to one or both of these beers closer to bottling. Each bottle will also get a nice coat of pink or red wax.

My first inclination when planning a beer that would bottle age well was to crank up the ABV as high as I could reasonably make it. But after recently doing a little cellar clearing and opening some high ABV beers that were noticeably over the hill with a few years age I opted to keep the ABV below the tolerance threshold for all the bugs involved. After tasting a few 10 year old sours that are around 5-6% ABV I'm definitely convinced that keeping active cultures in the bottle slows the rate of oxidation and increases shelf life. I also included Dextrin Malt in addition to the high mash temp to give the Brett plenty of big meals to slowly chew on.

Big Fetus: Golden Sour
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.5 gal
Expected OG: 1.058
Expected IBU: 12.1
Efficiency: 65%
Boil Time: 60 mins
Mash: 60 mins @ 160

Grain Bill
----------
9.0 lbs Pilsen - 62.07%
2.0 lbs Wheat Malt - 13.79%
2.0 lbs Pale Malt - 13.79%
1.0 lbs Quaker Old Fashioned Oats - 6.9%
0.5 lbs Carapils (Dextrin) - 3.45%

Hops
-------
1.0 oz Hallertauer Pellets - 4.6%AA @ 40 mins.

Extras
-------
0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrients - boiled and added in primary (+14 hours)

Yeast
-------
ECY 20 Bug County

Notes
-------
-Starter prepared morning of brew day 2/18 with 8 oz. canned 1.042 wort. Strong activity by pitching time. A small amount of starter wort was added back to the ECY 20 bottle to prop the remaining bugs up. This will be refrigerated in case I feel like plating it for isolation purposes or something.

-First boil on the blichmann burner - took forever to reach boiling due to both propane tanks being low. Ended up about a quarter gallon under volume with 5.25 gallons at 1.054, meaning I also need to adjust my efficiency down a little.

-Having a tasting during the brew day proved to be a slight distraction, nearing the end of the boil I hadn't sanitized the carboy or set up the plate chiller. The wort may have waited in the boil kettle an extra 10 minutes or so, probably slightly increasing IBUs. I also forgot to add whirlfloc and the yeast nutrients, so nutrients were boiled and added to primary the next morning, when signs of fermentation had already begun.

-Carboy kept in closet at ambient temp (60)

-By Sunday 2/23 (+5 days) Sacch had fermented out all it could and bubbling totally stopped. So begins the wait for pellicle formation.