D Day 1

Decoction mashing isn't a walk in the park.

For anyone who doesn't know, decoction mashing is an old method of conducting a step infusion mash without using hot water to reach each step. Instead, you infuse at one temperature and then take a portion of the thick mash, bring it to the boil, and then add it back to the thin mash, raising the temperature to the next step. This method was used in parts of Europe, namely Germany and Czech Republic, in the past when the malt wasn't as well modified as modern malt and wood was used for mash tun construction (although I'm unsure of the exact details). Some brewers still use this style, saying that the boiling of the grain caramelises some of the sugars, adding flavour and colour (or maybe it's just because they are absolutely insane). Also, I'm pretty sure that some German guy back in the 1700's said something like:

"Ha! Dekoktion Maischverfahren ist ein Spaziergang im Park!"

Well let me tell you 'mr nobody', decoction mashing IS NOT a walk in the park. It is hot, stressful and long. You dirty bastard.

Not that I didn't know this, trust me, I had a fair idea that this might be a long brew day. I had my book out, I decided to give all the math a go. I jotted down all my planned gravities and volumes, not very well, but I tried to not rely on a computer, I wanted to connect with the tradition of a decoction mash. Little did I know that all of this was going to be completely useless against the beast that is decoction mashing, and the second time I was hastily pouring boiling water into the mash tun to bring the temperature up, this really hit home.

So, if you read my last post, this is the first beer out of two that i am brewing for my German Sausage Party or: Deutsch Wurst Partei.

Here is the "planned" recipe:

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RAUCHIG

German Smoked Ale

Malt:

3kg - Weyermann Smoked Malt

2kg - Munich Malt

200g - Chocolate Malt

200g - Flaked Wheat

Hops:

30g - Hallertau Mittelfruh @ 45mins

30g - Hallertau Mittelfruh @ 15mins

Yeast:

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

Mash schedule:

Mash in 22L @ 50°C for 15 minutes: protein rest.

Draw 9L of thick mash out of the tun, put it on heat and bring to the boil, then add back to the tun, this will bring the mash to it's next step, 63°C: saccharification rest, sit for 45 minutes.

Batch sparge with 18L of water at near boiling.

Get 20L of wort at ~1.060

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So it seems fine, right? A nice dark, hoppy smoked ale with a good amount of Munich to add some body and sweetness, some chocolate malt for colour and a toasty bite, some flaked wheat for a nice creamy head, and all decocted to add some dark toffee and really bring out the malt.

Here it goes.

Had my strike water on the heat, want to just overshoot my first rest temperature of 50°C. When it looked hot enough I poured it into my mash tun and then set everything else up while I waited for it to cool.

Overshot quite a lot, more than I had planned, hit about 70°C... It's alright, it will cool by the time I need it.

I've started milling my grain a little finer than I usually do, I think I was having some issues with efficiency because I didn't have it fine enough, what do you think? Too fine?

The new grind seems to work really well, I don't think the husks are too mashed up. Speaking of mash, how's the water going?

68°C.

Don't worry, I knew it wasn't going to cool that quickly, I was just being hopeful. Time to add some cool water... Added some cool water, waited a bit longer, and eventually said "fuck it! 55°C is good enough!"

Stop judging me, Fritz.

Mashed in, first time ever doing it at this low a temperature, definitely looks different.

I then waited 15 minutes to let the enzymes do their thing. Decoction time.

I pulled the first 9 litres of thick mash out. There is only 5.4kg of grain in this recipe, I'm pretty sure that 9 litres of the thick mash is all of the grain.

No worries, I boiled it.

It feels so wrong, but so right at the same time.

I boiled it for about 10 minutes and started to put it back into the main mash, I eventually just poured the whole lot in.

It didn't reach the target temperature of 63°C, instead it only just got to 58°C.

Fuck. This is where I start stressing. Then it hits me: ANOTHER DECOCTION! THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE FOR RIGHT?! YES! YES!

I take only about 5 litres of the mash this time, because of the smaller temperature increase.

After boiling it again for 10 minutes, I just dumped the whole thing back into the mash.

61°C.

I just sit down and stare straight ahead.

No, no I didn't just sit there, I boiled the kettle and poured it into the mash tun. Twice.

62°C.

This is when all felt useless. Time to have a beer.

As I'm sitting there, enjoying the last smoke beer I made, with it's delicious smoked cheese taste, I have an idea.

I can fucking decoct it... AGAIN!

"WHAT NO OSCAR THAT'S FUCKING MENTAL!" - Fritz

Yeah? Well I did it anyway.

It worked. I just got above 63°C.

I waited for 45 minutes while the low temperature mash took place, little did I know more trouble was just around the bend...

Stuck sparge.

Because I had put more water into the mash that I needed, the pressure on the grain bed was quite high, and this caused it to compact down, blocking liquid from getting through. It would have been bad, but I just poured some of my heated sparge water in, stirred it up and kept going. I was not in the mood for any more shit. It worked, but the remnants looked like a post apocalyptic wasteland...

Well, time for the boil. But first, another beer.

This is HOLY MALT. I made a blog post about the brew day recently, and this is now one of the last bottles. You know what that means. It is awesome.

It almost looks like a black IPA here, but in the right light, it glows like a red sunset. Sticky burnt toffee, tongue searing bitterness, pine needles, tropical fruit, biscuity bread crust, this beer rules.

How's the boil going?

Ahh my favourite part, the velvety protein foam on top, swirling elegantly with every small stir. Everything seems so calm now that I have the sweet wort in my grasp and everything is under control.

The boil went without a hitch, it felt so good.

I no-chilled the beer, but not before I collected 2.5L of wort from the kettle into my new 3L Erlenmeyer Borosilicate flask! Real wort starter! I had a small extract starter in the flask before, but I decided to give them some more sugar and keep them healthy, that's why I split the two.

Anyway, until the next decoction.

Cheers!

EDIT: Today after it had cooled over night, the gravity came in at 1.052, but I got 23L instead of the planned 20. Pretty close, even with all the hiccups. Pitched the yeast and a few hours later, activity!

Build up to the biggest brew day of my life.

In the next couple of weeks, i am going to undertake some crazy, crazy brewing things.

Here's the plan:

I'm going to host a German sausage fest at my house, we are going to source some awesome kransky and bratwurst, probably smoke them and eat them with home made sauerkraut. To go along with these, i am going to make 2 beers, a Rauch-Ale and a Munich Dunkel Kellerbier, inspired by this recipe from the golden days of Brewing TV.

Both beers i am going to use the decoction method to brew, the Rauch-Ale will be single decoction with a mash out and the Dunkel will be TRIPLE DECOCTION.

Not only am i completely terrified of decoctions, i am completely terrified of decoctions.

The other thing is that i will be serving them in corny kegs which i am converting to casks. They will be cask conditioned, low carbonation, and served at ambient winter temps.

And lastly, i will be getting my brother, who works as a video technician for Penguin Books to be filming the whole thing, with detailed instructions on how to do everything (including how to make sauerkraut!).

So stay tuned, this is going to be fun.

I had an accident...

So i used the HOLY MALT yeast cake from the previous post to pitch a smoked imperial porter on to, here is said yeast cake:

And here is what it looked like about 10 hours after pitching:

Look at that headspace...

Don't worry, i am good at sanitising and had it all under control.

Oh, and here is a picture of the fresh hops i racked the HOLY MALT onto. 40 grams of Chinook and 40 grams of Cascade. AWESOME!

HOLYMALT

I made a beer yesterday.

Beer style: Imperial Red IPA

Malt Bill:

6kg Pale Ale
900g Half Amber/Biscuit
800g Crystal 60L
150g Carafa III
100g Crystal 120L

Hops:

25g Cascade @ 60mins
25g Cascade @ 50mins
25g Cascade @ 40mins
25g Cascade @ 30mins
40g Chinook @ 10mins
40g Chinook @ 0mins
Then dry hop with friends fresh Chinook/Cascade hops off his vine after primary.

23L, OG 1.060, Wyeast American Ale II

Beer name:

You know when you just want to make a ridiculous beer? That's how i felt yesterday. Brew day was kinda weird, had a few issues that i don't normally have. I took some pictures, and thought i'd share this little adventure with you. Let's begin!

Banana smoothie and a coffee, breakfast of champions.

Heating the strike water in off-screen pot.

This illustrates my new mashing setup pretty well, i've had it for a while, just never gotten around to posting about it. A really nice member of the Aussie home brewer forums gave it to me after he upgraded. His name is Jesse and he runs a hop business called Hop Dealz in Melbourne, i definitely recommend checking it out, because he is an awesome guy, and he sells good hops.

Mashing in an actual mash-tun and not using BIAB is SO MUCH BETTER. Even though i'm all for BIAB for new brewers, setting up a mash tun makes a huge difference. First of all you have much better temperature stability and secondly you can make much bigger beers. The only downside is cleaning it out, which isn't really that big of a downside at all.

Alright, malt all weighed out, time to crush! 

"Hey Hamish, can i use your drill?"

"No, my girlfriend has it and she's not home"

Alright, time to get Amish on this shit.

Fuuuck it was slow. But that's ok, i say to myself. It feels kinda nice actually, you can really feel the grain crushing under your own weight, and the sound it makes is really great. 

I am at one with the grain.

Well, until the hopper decides to come loose, and all the non-crushed grain goes pouring into the bucket full of my blood, sweat and tears.

It's totally cool, just re-crush the grain. But this time, do it a different way.

I'm pretty sure homebrewing turns you into a genius or something...

Crushed grain by my own fucking hands? This beer is going to RULE.

Great picture.

Alright, mash is underway, i guess it's time to heat up the sparge water and drink a beer! Which beer shall i drink? Oh how about this homebrew i made recently called the 'Burnt Toast and Jam'.

If you read my last post, you might remember a secret beer that i had been working on, and i didn't want to give anything away because it might be shit. Well, it's not shit. It's definitely not what i expected, but it's really good in its own way.

Basically it's a really dark, bittersweet ale with some peated malt to give the 'Burnt Toast' vibe, and then after fermentation i added a bunch of Blackberries to give the 'Jam' vibe.

It is a different beast. While being super dry and bitter, the dark crystal gives it this underlying syrupy-ness, (like jam) and then the acidity and tartness of the berries cuts right through. Weirdly enough, one of the most refreshing beers i've made.

Anyway, how's that mash looking?

Good. Yes.

Lautering time, and then i sparged it good.

I love brewing jargon.

Boil is underway and after the first hop addition, i get my first ever boil-over... I thought it would never happen to me. Everything just happened so fast!

It wasn't that bad, i lost maybe half a cup. Can't stop now though, i'll clean up later. Hop time.

Ooooo, fresh hops! A brewing friend gave me these from his harvest. I added a few of these along with pellets during the boil, but most of them will go in after primary fermentation. I need their aroma, and because i'm going to be no-chilling my beer, most of that might not hang around.

Recently i've been having a bit of a brewing crisis. I no chill my beer, which is when you put your post boil hot wort into an airtight container and let it sit overnight (or for as long as you want) to cool.

Some people don't like this for some reasons. Firstly there is the obvious: it is more susceptible to infections, which is absolutely true if you're not careful. Secondly, it will cause off flavours due to more exposure to oxygen and also because if it is left to sit at near boiling temperature, Dimethyl Sulfides (DMS), which cause sweet corn aroma and taste, won't be able to escape and will be trapped in your beer for all eternity! To be fair, i have no clue what DMS actually is, and i wouldn't have a clue if it was in my beer, but i know i am concerned about it because other people are. The last thing is that the cold break will be prohibited, meaning the proteins that form haze won't coagulate out of your beer and you will end up with hazy beer.

Anyway, as far as i can tell most of these are true except the last one. From what i've heard, the cold break happens no matter how fast the beer chills. I would have to confirm as all the beers i have brewed since no-chilling have all been wonderfully clear after a while in the bottle.

The others i am concerned about, but i am also concerned about water wastage, and my water bill. If you know of a way of chilling wort quick without wasting much water, let me know!

Anyway, i no-chilled the shit out of this beer, because all the beers i've made recently have been no chilled and have turned out great! I also put 40g of Chinook pellets in there as aroma additions (because the hot wort will stay hot for a while, and will still extract oils from the hops.)

This beer is probably the best smelling beer i've ever made. So. Much. Maltiness.

That brings us to the end of an exciting brew day, i hope you all enjoyed it as much as i did, even though there were mistakes, i still had an awesome time. Brewing is the best!

Also, if you haven't got this book, you should probably get it. I have been obsessed!

And to finish it all up and remind you just how small you actually are, here is an awesome picture of NGC 2841, a flocculent galaxy. Here is the full size, i recommend checking it out, it's very detailed.

Now that i think about it, it kinda looks like cold break being whirlpooled...

Why'd they name it NGC 2841 though? Why not something awesome like TERRORBANG!

Cheers!

Dan's Blue Cheese and Bacon burger and stuff...

So i've been back on the brew train pretty hard for the last couple of weeks.

So hard in-fact that i managed to pitch a beer straight on top of another beers trub, which i've wanted to do for a while, and fuuuuck me it is fermenting pretty quick. I pitched it this arvo at about 2, and by about 6 it was makin' giant yeast monsters through the masses of hops. Nice!

The first beer in question was an English Pale Ale. Pretty standard, a little medium crystal and a little rye, Fuggles and EKG. Racked it off into a secondary today on top of some more EKG, and then poured my other beer, which i had no chilled, on top of the US-05 yeast cake it left.

The other beer i will refrain from talking about too much, it's been an idea that's been brewing (HA!) in my mind for a while and i don't want any bad omens. Let's just say that it's a big IPA with lots of twists. If it turns out well, i'll let you know, and maybe taste.

Also, the reason i used US-05 for an English Pale Ale and not S-04 (which i usually prefer) is because i was getting a bit sick of malty beers (not really), and wanted something dry to combat this insanely hot weather we've been having in Melbourne recently. Also, i couldn't be bothered going all the way to the brew shop to buy anything different. Also, i love English hops and want to see if i can get them to come out a bit more. Like an APA style but with English ingredients. ALSO, it will be used to pay some of the people who are helping me out with this stage play i'm writing/directing later this year, and most of my friends want Coopers, not Red Hill Scotch Ale. But that's for another blog... Which i don't have.

Now on to something important, right?! How about these fucking burgers we made while brewing RESTRICTED INFORMATION. Thanks to Dan, the Californian who has been working at Deja Vu for a few months now on his OE, we managed to make Blue Cheese and Bacon burgers, which is a concept so insane that only an American could come up with for sure.

Don't eat me, love me.

This was just, like, ridiculous. Here's what we put in it:

BLUE CHEESE and BACON burgers:

- Homemade burger patties: mince with diced onion, egg, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce,  salt, pepper, orange rind and a bit of orange juice and paprika. (these were my creation, just so you know)

- CRISPY bacon. It has to be the CRISPYEST.

- Avocado.

- A big mushroom with Worcestershire sauce and butter, fried until soggy.

- Blue Cheese, the stinky kind.

- Green tomato relish.

Just smear the blue cheese all over those burger buns and grill them till nice and melted, then put everything together. Once your done find a good sized coffin and get someone to bury you, life's just not worth living anymore.

But before you do give your life up to the beauty of this wonderful burger, don't forget to wash it down with an Epic Hop Zombie, a Tuatara Double Trouble, an Anderson Valley Heelch O' Hops, an 8wired Hopwired and a Yeastie Boys Digital IPA.

Those were the beers we had that brew day, which Dan brought around (he is now obsessed with NZ beers), and they went perfectly with the monstrous burger.

Speaking of New Zealand again, i'm getting a bit worried. Is it tax in Australia that is hurting the craft beer industry the most? We went to the Catfish recently (great new set-up) during their Wellington craft beer event, and the beers were just amazing. Especially Garage Project La Calavera Catrina.

Nothing against the Australian Craft Beer scene, i've said it once, and i'll say it before, i think there are some of the best beers in the world being produced right here, and i know from personal experience that there are strong forces at work against it, but i want to see more variation and weirdness, it is what i believe to be the essence of craft beer.

Just as a note, this is in no way a professional opinion.

Anyway, here is an amazing picture:

Full sized picture here.

That's one of Saturn's moons, which apparently used to be a bigger planet, but has been smashed down to size.

Cheers!

New Zealand

So went to Gisborne, New Zealand with Becky for a month over Christmas and New Years to see the family and do some shows with my band, Nun of the Tongue. Caught up with old friends, swam lots and soaked up some well needed vitamin D. I also made a beer with my dad, who is now quite interested in pursuing grain brewing (as he had just been doing kits). It was just an extract brew with specialty grains. The beer we made was a clone of a famous Stone beer: Arrogant Bastard. I wanted to call it 'Ignorant Bastard', but dad liked the original name, so we just called it that. It turned out ok... Also drank quite a lot of this:

That is a 2 litre plastic bottle of (in my opinion) Gisbornes finest export, Sunshine Breweries Gisborne Gold. A brutally bitter, super refreshing beer. And you can get refills at the brewery, which is located right in town (a rather small city, of about 40,000 people). They also make Gisborne Green, the hoppier 'Pilsner' version of the Gold (everyone makes hoppy Pilsners in NZ instead of IPAs, i have no idea why), the Reserve Ale, which is basically a brown ale, and 'Black Magic'.

Black Magic is amazing, that's all i'll say.

About 90% of our beer money, that we had specifically saved to try awesome NZ beers while we were there, was used on Gisborne Gold... (it was only $10 for 2 litres!)

We did manage to try some amazing NZ beers, i'll list the good ones:

Three Boys Oyster Stout - Fucking amazing oyster stout, really rich and malty with some salty undertones. Definitely worth a go.

Kereru Kumara Brown Ale - Kumara is basically New Zealands answer to the sweet potato, but it is far superior to the sweet potato. This beer was amazing, super dry maltiness with a good hearty kick of sweet kumara essence.

The Mussel Inn Manuka Beer - The 'Captain Cooker'. This beer was really nice, super easy to drink, and because they use branches of manuka, and not the honey, it doesn't come out sweet, just very floral. It is worth mentioning this was recommended to us by Dave from Hashigo Zake, an awesome craft beer bar in Wellington. If you're there, go check it out.

And finally:

Garage Project: - We didn't manage to get to the brewery while we were in Wellington, and that made me very sad... But we did manage to try a few of their beers. I feel like they are the New Zealand version of Moon Dog, and they all come in cans! Anyway, the beers that we tried were:

Pernicious Weed - An insanely hoppy IPA, just hops everywhere, all up in your face. Delicious.

Angry Peaches - Awesome peachy beer, nice and bitter.

Day of the Dead - The chipotle dark lager, reminiscent of the Bock Naked by Moon Dog. Awesome, but not overpoweringly spicy (it does creep up on you though).

Now back home, to find a cupboard full of these that i made!

That is the Christmas beer i made with some friends for my friends. And yes, i waxed the shit out of the top of it using crayons and hot glue sticks. Just melt them in a can, in a pot with some water in it and then dip them.

Here was the recipe:

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Panforte Porter

Malt

Pale Ale Malt - 4kg

Crystal 120L -  700g

Choc Malt -      400g

Crystal 60L -    200g

Carafa III -       100g

Flaked Wheat - 200g

Hops

25g Chinook @ 60 mins

20g Fuggles @ 20 mins

Others

280g of Lactose @ 15 mins

100g of Sultanas at 30 mins

8 Cloves @ 30 mins

tsp of Cinnamon @ 20 mins

95g of Glace Cherries @ 20 mins

30g of Candied Ginger @ 15 mins

Yeast

Safale S0-4, fermented for 2 weeks and then bottle conditioned for a month.

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It tasted good, very winey. I think that was half because of the fruit, and half because of the amount of Crystal malt i used. Next time i think i would add more spices, and try and maybe dry hop most of the ingredients with some vodka.

WHAT ELSE HAS BEEN HAPPENING?

Well, i think my favourite beer that i've had all summer was the Belgian Summer Stout by Boatrocker. (We still have some left on tap at Deja Vu...)

The tartness of the raspberries made this beer so insanely refreshing, and once again reaffirmed my belief that stouts are definitely summer beers, stop the seasonal trend! (i'm looking at you Mornington).

Oh and a shout-out to Sean from Killer Sprocket, well done on your new smoked pale ale 'Bandit'. Experimental beers are the best beers.

Playing a gig tonight at Boney, will probably go to Deja Vu for a beer before hand.

SEEYA

Brew Dogs, beer and women.

So here's a topic that i think could use some more discussion: the treatment of women within beer culture.

Recently i watched the first and only season of 'Brew Dogs', a TV show hosted by the owners of Brewdog, James Watt and Martin Dickie, in which they travel around America, brew beers related to the current state they are in, all the while trying to take strangers "craft beer virginity". The trailer can be seen here.

They do make incredible beer.

Production wise, the show is terrible. A mush of cheap American TV cliches (double takes/record scratches galore), bad music, and a B grade action trailer voice-over. It really feels like they tried to emulate modern MTV reality shows, which i think they actually fell short on, creating a grotesque beast that would be more at home on public TV.

Content wise i loved it. Lots of brewing with weird ingredients, interviews with famous american brewers at their breweries, lots of beer tasting and food matching, and a good 'best of' breweries and pubs segment which will be useful when i head over there to drink beer. The hosts were also pretty fun to watch, and most of the time had good things to say. The beer virgin part was a bit weird though, there were some good moments, but what i found really off-putting was the fact that most of them were women. This is what i wanted to talk about.

The amount of casual sexism littered throughout 'Brew Dogs' astounded me.

About touching super-heated coins.

Aside from the fact that they would mainly target (or maybe only air) their "craft beer virgins" segment with women, in which they would demean and sleaze all over them (quite often asking for kisses on the cheek, joke about marrying them, or ask them if that was the best thing they've had in their mouth), they also would casually call each other 'women' like it was a bad thing.

As far as i can see, they are trying to have this 'one sleazy guy, and one sensible guy' chemistry which just comes across as sleazy, because Martin: the sensible guy, never actually tries to stop the ultimate awkwardness of his friend, James, as he rampages around continually hitting on every single female they come up against.

For instance, in the first episode they go to a famous restaurant to do beer and food matching. The chef is an attractive young female.

James: "And Amanda is one of the hottest chefs in the country" 

Martin: "Don't you mean hottest new chef?" 

James: "No, i mean hottest chef."

They then agree, before even meeting her, that whoever does the best pairing gets to go on a date with her, like a trophy. Amanda, who probably lives happily in reality, is really weirded out by all of this. Here is a face that explains the awkwardness of this scene perfectly.

"Please let this be a nightmare."

I could go on, but if you want to hear it all, then watch it. TO BE FAIR, THEY ARE FROM SCOTL- SHUT UP! Everyone knows that sexism is unacceptable wherever you are, and just because maybe your culture has more of it, doesn't make it any more right. One thing i will say though, is that although i found these things rather disturbing to watch, i did enjoy the show, nor will i stop buying and drinking Brewdog beers...

The reason is because this is a pretty normal way to behave in beer culture.

This isn't the first time i've seen or heard of this type of behavior within the craft beer/home-brewing scene. I often see things like "what beer should i brew that the ladiiezz would like?" or "cider is craft beer for women" online and in real life and it hurts me. It hurts me, because it hurts people i love.

Can't we come together? I mean, aren't we already fighting a war? A war against shit beer? If a guy likes shit beer or cider, you don't say "shit beer is for men" or "cider is craft beer for men"...

Why do some men seem to think they have a monopoly on beer? That unless you're a male, you don't understand beer? Is it because they are afraid? Just like how some Australians are afraid of immigrants taking their jobs, are 'BEER MEN' afraid that women will drink all the beer AND take all their jobs making it? Surely this simple minded, ignorant, offensive view can't be something that is held by people in a society so advanced as ours...