Homebrewing goes on nonstop, although otherwise I’m mostly too busy to go near a blog. But since it’s Friday, and since I promised beer blogging when you guys voted us to the top in that crazy Wizbang contest, here is the latest brew that is just about done bottle fermenting.
White Labs Irish Ale yeast, prepped for 36 h. in a 1 l. starter culture
8 oz. 80L crystal malt
4 oz. 40L crystal malt
11 oz. chocolate malt
6 oz. black patent malt
4 oz. roasted barley
3 cans John Bull dark extract
20 BU mixed bittering hops
1/2 oz. cascade hops for aroma
The gravity reading was clearly wrong (1.055, ha) so I can’t say how big it is. But it’s BIG. The color is pitch black while secondary fermentation mellowed the hops from intolerable to something like a Lagunitas. The thinnish head comes from adding a packet of yeast nutrients in secondary, drying it out and increasing the alcohol, but for a guy who finds Guinness saccharine the crispness is worth it. One bottle takes me a long time to drink. Of course I bottled half in 22 oz. bottles; it’ll be fun to see how I get through those. Hic.
My next batch is an OG 1.075 pale ale with Cali ale yeast, but something feels off. Fermenting yeast usually rises fast and mostly exhausts itself in a week or so, but this one took a few days to get started and has gone on tepidly bubbling for over a week. Most likely I’m growing bacteria this time.
Question for the community: do Belgian breweries take some precaution against stealing yeast out of the bottom of their bottles? I’ve tried to culture that beautiful stuff twice and came up empty both times.
Also on the topic of Friday theme blogging, Tom Levenson’s Newton blog this week is sublime.
apikoros
Tim,
I’d bet they are pasteurizing it in the bottle. Probably forced to by USDA regs. Since it is a wild culture, that’s probably smart, actually. Who knows what plant pathogens we could be importing along with our Belgian Ales?
myiq2xu
Beer is to be enjoyed, experienced and imbibed.
It is not supposed to be a geek-trip through Techville.
demimondian
Are you trying to culture from the bottom of a Lambic? If so, it’s a brettanomyces strain — they take special prep, because they’re self limiting.
LiberalTarian
Geek is good. I love home brew!!
Voice of Reason
myiq, beer is indeed to be enjoyed, but if you want the beer you keep imagining in your mind you have to descend into geekville. And Tim is inspiring me to do just that — I moved to Canada from California one year ago, and these fucking Canuks don’t know their suds from shinola. I’m very seriously tempted to embark on my own home-brew venture.
Tim, I’d be very interested in hearing if you manage to get your hands on the quality yeast of those Trappist ales out of Belgium. If I could brew something even halfway to Orval in my house, I might have to reconsider what I do with my weekends.
Phillip J. Birmingham
Ah, a nice session beer.
Seriously, that’s a pretty big beer, so unless you got a good starter going, you might expect a little lag. What’s the gravity now?
I’m drinking my 1.040 bitter right now. I like the big beers, but there’s something about a beer you can drink two quarts of and still feel fine in the morning.
myiq2xu
Then with my full approval he needs to put up the BJ version of “Brewing for Dummies” cuz what he said might as well be Greek instead of “geek.”
laneman
I gotta ask, why the crock load of crystal malt on tops of using extract?
3-4 oz crystal in an all grain 5 gallon (I assume that’s your batch size) is big. But in an extract batch can you even taste it?
laneman
Or did I just answer my own question. You need a lot for it to even register.
-10 points for back-to-back posts
Mike D.
It would be extraordinary if they didn’t take measures of some kind to keep their s3kr3t y345t out of the hands of enemy brewers, foreign and domestic. You wouldn’t believe the James Bond crap Hawaiian plantation owners went through to get viable, non-ass-sucking pineapple specimens halfway around the world to their home turf. Think “suitcase nukes”. That was only the start of their trouble. The barrel-shaped, sweet yet tart fruit you think of as a pineapple was damn near created from scratch, like Paul Bunyan. Fear my leet geek skills. I got your specific gravity right here.
Oh yeah, make mine reagent-grade 95% alcohol and classic green Gatorade. It’s a cytotoxin, for crying out loud. Why piss around with bread recipies and breakfasty hot cereals gone horribly wrong? But hey, good luck with the Liquid Donuts sans Colored Sprinkles Extra Stout.
Michael D.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm, crystal meth…
Malt. I mean MALT!!!
Synuclein
WAAAH…….
You’re totally making me miss homebrewing — used to do it regularly until I got hitched, slowed down with marriage, grad school and kids, and now have no time at all (plus a tiny house, no space for fermentation storage and a wife and kids who can’t stand the “godawful smell” of the wort…) on the upside, I’ve got a local booze store which gets regular supplies of the amber nectar (got a couple of bottles of Dogfish Head 120min IPA lightly chillin…Yummmm)
Krista
Dude, where have you been looking? I live in Buttfuck, Nowhere, and am able to get all kinds of beer, including Belgian beers, all sorts of lovely English beers, some neat local microbrewery stuff, and Quebec’s pride and joy, Unibroue, which will knock you on your ass.
Velvet Elvis
if you want to make a Ted Haggerd memorial ale:
http://hbd.org/brewery/cm3/recs/13_23.html
Dennis - SGMM
Here’s Mike’s Big Brewing Glossary which seems pretty comprehensive.
Punchy
Sounds like something in a porno…
Jen
Not a beer comment, but beverage-related.
Is there any task harder than trying to decipher coke rewards codes points? Could Coke have possibly printed these in something easier to read, such as Cyrillic? Sorry to vent, I have been trying to do this and failing so I came over here to complain. Dammit. Please resume your beer-geekery now.
Stooleo
Actually 1.055 sp.gr. seems about right for 3 cans of malt in a five gallon batch. Also I believe that the Belgium brewerys use a common ale yeast for bottle conditioning. So trying to culture from the bottle will do you no good. If you want to try to make a lambic I’d use the Wyeast lambic strain 3278.
Voice of Reason
They have state-run liquor stores here in BC, and their selection of microbrews from the US blows. They have Anchor Steam, which is fine but I don’t have to drink it every day, and some shitty beer from New York, and that’s it. Hoegaarden but no trappist Belgian ales. Some english beers which are fine. But I’m talking some of the really hoppy IPAs you get from the US (it’s probably someone mentioning Lagunitas which set me off).
Guess I should move to Buttfuck, Nowhere.
brendancalling
“Question for the community: do Belgian breweries take some precaution against stealing yeast out of the bottom of their bottles? I’ve tried to culture that beautiful stuff twice and came up empty both times.”
Not that I know of Tim: are you making sure to make a culture for the stuff, or maybe rinsing the yeast? I’ve never done this myself, but my supplier says it works very well.
We are kegging our ESB today. Good times!
One of these days all of us beer bloggers (my weekend beer blog appears at BMT, and there’s brewing diary every once in awhile at Daily Kos need to get together for homebrews and laughs: call it a homebrewhahah or something.
Like Eschacon, but drunker and not as sweaty.
Bob In Pacifica
All of my recipes involve mixing the beer in my stomach.
demimondian
I love the fact that Wyeast tries to claim a trademark on the specific names for their Lambic yeasts
bob
IPA is becoming a major popular style in microbrews. I’ve known home and micro brewers since Carter legalized it back in ’78 (too bad he didn’t finish off pot prohibition, too) and have tossed back many an IPA. I consider my role to be one of quality control and testing of the final product, which is to say I have ANOTHER beer to see if it is as good as the last one. The best beer in the world is the one in your hand.
Mark ex homebrewer
Regarding swiping the yeast from the bottle of a Belgian beer. Many years ago in the 80’s, culturing yeast from a bottle of Belgian beer was the only way I knew how to make a Trappist Ale. I did it successfully from a bottle of Chimay and made a decent Belgian clone. Tried it another time and it didn’t take.
So what’s the verdict? I doubt very much the Belgians would go to the trouble of stopping you from culturing their yeast. Depending on where the beer has been stored or the temperatures exposed to it in transit to your local beer store could affect it. You should have patience particularly if you have been using store bought yeast strains. They are virulent and strong. The stuff in the Chimay bottle is like a tired world traveler who may need some time and TLC to come back to life.
My advice? Keep trying. When you get a culture going, brew with it and save the dregs from the primary. If the beer is any good, then keep brewing with your purloined yeast.
And if all else fails, buy a slant (oops showing my age) of Belgian yeast from Yeast Labs or another yeast peddler and brew away.
Happy brewing!!!
Mark
Darkness
From my years working at a party store as a teen, I second the first post, that the beer is pasteurized, generally in the bottle, to really give it shelf-life. Coors doesn’t do this, hence the refrigerated trucks. Basically, I think, any unpasteurized beer must be kept refrigerated. And if the label does not say it has to be, everything in it is dead.
Speaking of needing refrigeration. For those of you in Ontario, we found a wonderful little brewery in Neustadt, just in the heart of the base of the Bruce Peninsula. Their 10W30 goes down good and they make a beer that is part Burgundy wine (Top Dog, I think it’s called) that is excellent. (I realize it sounds awful, must be tasted to be believed.) Definitely worth a diversion and you could steal yeast from them…
Krista
Just did a search at our liquor commission’s website, and we don’t have Lagunitas either, but we do have Chimay Reserve Trappist Ale, which sounds promising. There’s a lot of Danish stuff too, which is kind of surprising. This might sound dumb, but I wonder if a part of it is just that geographically, we’re that much closer to Europe. I just looked, and we really don’t have much of anything from the US, except for the terrible watery stuff, but we’ve got gobs and gobs of European beers.
You’ll just have to get your ass out here to Nova Scotia for a vacation. :)
Mark
Regarding my post about culturing Chimay yeast from the bottle. Don’t mean to be a prig, but a beer website says this:
The Trappiste fathers of Chimay use exclusively natural ingredients. This product has neither been pasteurized nor filtered. Serving suggestions: To fully appreciate Chimay’s aroma and flavour, serve lightly chilled in a wide mouthed glass.
I stand by my original post and say go for it. The yeast is weak and delicate. Culture the yeast from the bottle and enjoy while patting yourself on the back for a wonderful feat of yeast propagation.
zsa
My wife bought me a beer brewing kit for Christmas, so I’m a total n00b. The beer I made is actually drinkable, though. I’ve even served it to guests and they haven’t sued me yet.
My next try is going to be either a stout or a porter. It takes a lot of patience, I think.
I did have a conversation with my wife that went something like this:
Wife: How does beer brewing work?
Me: Well, you basically make a big batch of sugar water, throw in seasonings, add yeast and let the yeast convert it to alcohol.
Wife: So the yeast eat the sugars and, what? They poop alcohol?
Me: Uhhh, yeah? When you say it that way it sounds pretty bad, but that’s basically it.
Wife: So you’re drinking yeast poop. That’s nice. Yeast are like a bacteria, right?
Me: More of a fungus, I think.
Wife: Like athlete’s foot?
Me: Uhhh.
Wife: Or a yeast infection?
So … no more talking with the wife …
Johno
No way do Belgian breweries pasteurize… that stuff is bottle conditioned, if there’s yeast in the bottom. The live yeast is what lets you keep and age Orval for a decade without staling. There is no Federal law that requires a beer to be a pasteurized product.
The issue may well be that many Belgian breweries condition with a different strain of yeast than they use for fermentation – I know of a few who use lager yeast for carbonation, and that’s what makes it into the bottle.
Try building up the dregs of Ommegang products – yes, they’re American but very good. I’ve successfully ganked the yeast from a bottle of their Saison.
Emperor Lew I
I’ve been lucky enough to tour both Chimay and Orval while on vacation. Previous posters are right, neither brewery pasteurizes. It’s been years, but I seem to remember that both breweries filter the yeast before bottling (if anyone really cares I can check my notes at home tonight), then add more yeast at bottling.
This is a fairly common technique in Belgium. A number of tasy Belgian brews are botted with different yeast than is used for the main fermentation.
Orval gets that wonderful flavor from adding both Brett. and yeast for fermentation. Brewing Techniques magazine did a great write up of Orval before they folded. The article is still available on-line. Go to the Brewing techniques webpage, and search for “Orval.”
Hope this helps. I would have actually checked this webpage over the weekend if I knew beer was being discussed. :)
Joe
Goes back and forth…I’ve heard the trappist brands like Chimay use several strains throughout fermentation, always taking care to filter out, then using a completely separate yeast in the final bottle conditioning step to prevent casual drinkers from culturing their “secret ingredient.” At the same time, as per articles like this, it seems like it CAN be done (culturing from the bottle). FWIW, I’m only 6 months into brewing, so I’m no expert by any stretch.
Joe
zsaYou should take care to tell the wife chocolate is a fermented product as well, as is any wine and/or spirit she likes to mix into her drinks…then again, maybe don’t tell her so she still gets sauced every so often!
Emperor Lew I
Yeast can definately be cultured from the bottle. I’ve never actually tried it, but some friends in my old homebrew club have had pretty good results. The problem is when the bottling strain isn’t the same thing as the fermentation strain. You hit the nail on the head, some brewers go to a lot of trouble to get just the right yeast characteristics and they don’t want any yo-yo with a plate of agar from “stealing” all their work. There’s lots of information on yeast culturing out there, give it a try.
Belgian yeasts can be a bear to work with, too. I’ve had a devil of a time trying to clone Duvel with the commercially-available Duvel-type yeasts. I have subsequently found out that some yeasts can’t ferment malt sugars in the presence of adjunct sugars. Once my son is old enough that I can brew more than twice a year, I’ll test this idea on my own set-up.
I’ve been brewing since 1991, and I still enjoy it. I probably learned the most from my involvement in a homebrew club. I’d strongly encourage you to find one. Odds are, someone near you has already had decent success and can give you soem hands-on pointers.