Brew plans for the Fall/Winter

[xjmatt]

So the weather is FINALLY starting to cool off down here on the flats and the idea of standing next to a turkey fryer with 10-12 gallons of delicious boiling wort doesn't sound quite so oppressive. I don't know about everybody else but prior to this past Sunday I had not brewed for the previous 2 months because of the heat.

So what does everybody have planned for the fall/winter? Between it being harvest time for peaches now, wine grapes some now the rest any day, apples and pears in another month or two and even time to harvest honey from the bees it's prime time to take advantage of fresh stuff while we have it.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Christmas Beer: getting late to get this together but thinking a big beer, lots of spices(Cinnamon, clove, vanilla, maybe even cardomon), with a good malt backbone to hold those spices up against.
Hard Cider: Got an extra carboy that I'm thinking of tossing 4 gallons of unpasteurized cider into and letting the natural yeast do their thing for a year. Could be good, could be a scene out a of Freddy Kruger movie... who knows.
Flavors of fall Cyser: Just like a hard cider but this time pasteurize using your favorite method then add honey to bump it up, other fruits and spices to taste, and a yeast better suited to higher ABV and a wine-like environment, maybe even try and carb it, lots of possibility here.
Mead: Already done a traditional mead about 2.5 years ago and it's still coming along nicely but time to make another and this time I'm thinking something with some flavor: Orange, cranberry, blueberry, raspberry.... still on the fence as to the details but it'll be a melomel of some kind.
Dago Red: Despite the Western Slope being MUCH closer they want a lot for their grapes so I'm going to be hopping on the California harvest and getting in 100-200lbs of red wine grapes that will hopefully not end up as 15 gallons of expensive vinegar.

So that is my list of things I want to get done. I am sure there will be other brews in between but that is the list of special ones that will take some extra care and feeding to make something really exceptional and worth waiting for.

My next thought is, is anybody else interested in joining me on any of these? I have recipes in mind I'll share that will at least serve as a base to start from that you can then do with as you please. With multiple people doing the same thing we can share experiences, fermentation speed, tasting notes, and whatever else to see if we are all on the same path and help each other out. So you know what I'm up to. Anybody else interested?

[ColoradoXJ13]

On tap for the fall brewing, which won't start for another two weeks I have:

1. Chardonnay oaked belgian golden strong ale
2. Vanilla Caramel Cream Ale
3. Christmas beer (replicating last years but all-grain now)
4. Pliny the Elder IIPA clone (Russian River Brewing)
5. ESB of some sort
6. Russian Imperial Stout of some sort
7. build keezer

[husker267]

Here's my plans

1. Belgian Sour Ale using the wood chips from old barrels that Vinny from Russian River gave out at the NHC....might take a portion of it and add some sour cherries.

2. Munich Dunkel.....mmmm I can already taste it

3. Munich Helles....see above notes

4. A big beer either Imperial stout or barley wine...maybe a dopple bock (do you see a pattern?)

5. Sweet stout to be served on nitro

Matt....I've tried the natural yeast thing before...in my case it didn't work because other bugs got in there besides yeast (assorted bacteria, etc) It was REALLY bad. I'd be interested a doing some mead with ya...

[xjmatt]

Matt....I've tried the natural yeast thing before...in my case it didn't work because other bugs got in there besides yeast (assorted bacteria, etc) It was REALLY bad. I'd be interested a doing some mead with ya...

Yea I too have heard both sides of this one. Some say the best ciders are ones fermented naturally and others say you'll end up with a closet of horrors. I can easily see it going one way or another. I may back that off to a 2 gallon experiment so it doesn't tie up a big carboy.

Once I get everything together for the mead I'll let you know. I don't know if you've done a mead before but just so you know meads are a REAL practice in patience. As I mentioned mine is going on 2.5 years aging and since it's a strait traditional mead (nothing more than honey and water) it fermented out dry and has taken a LONG time to really balance out and come around. Good stuff though :D .

[ColoradoXJ13]

On tap for the fall brewing, which won't start for another two weeks I have:

1. Chardonnay oaked belgian golden strong ale
2. Vanilla Caramel Cream Ale
3. Christmas beer (replicating last years but all-grain now)
4. Pliny the Elder IIPA clone (Russian River Brewing)
5. ESB of some sort
6. Russian Imperial Stout of some sort
7. build keezer

Well, I knocked off #1 and #3 last weekend, my first time doing two all-grain beers in one day, with my buddy it took all of 6 hours, not too shabby, picking up a second burner was key so I could heat up the dough in water for the second mash while getting the first boil started.

I am doing a 10-gallon ESB this coming weekend, and I just ordered 4 corny kegs delivered for $105...going to pick up a chest freezer at Lowes this weekend and order all the hardware to set it up with picnic taps for the time being, I will build a collar and add taps in the future sometime. That only leaves me with 3 beers to brew...gonna have to come up with some new ideas...

[Alpine Spirit]

Well right now I have,
Apple Wheat - Drinkable
Bass Clone - Drinkable

Oatmeal Stout bottled
Saison Bottled

Pumpkin Porter to Make
Hard Cider to Make
Damn it after reading this I forgot about a XMAS Ale.

[xjmatt]

Damn! Everybody's been getting busy and I've been off slacking. Actually I was off getting married so now that THAT's out of the way I can really get to work(good thing she doesn't read this forum).

Since it's grape harvest time that is the first thing on the agenda and after looking into it I decided may as well go big. So this saturday I have almost 500lbs of grapes arriving on a refrigerated truck from California. That should be nothing but fun :D

I'm also in full search now for a local source of cider for my fall harvest cyser. If anybody has a line on where to find 4-5 gallons of cider let me know and that might be on the agenda for Sunday.

Upon further investigation and after talking to others I've ditched the spontaneous cider fermentation idea. With 500lbs of grapes in my house I just won't have time to mess with it and contamination risk is getting to high.

Christmas beer, No idea. Might brew that up sunday if I can't find cider.

I'll report back after the weekend and I'll do my best to take pictures, 500lbs of grapes... yea baby.

[_CJ]

Currently enjoying my Spruce Brown when the weather is cool. I'll be drinking more if it as we get into fall.

Five gallons of Pale Ale in the secondary. It's been there for a few months, but I don't have a functional kitchen to bottle it in yet.

Plans?...doubt I'll have time for the anual pumpkin. Maybe a Christmas beer. Maybe a red? Definitely want to try a steam beer...never done one of those.

[ColoradoXJ13]

did the 10-gallons of ESB this weekend and bought the chest freezer for my keezer, ordered a CO2 manifold and misc parts today, should have more than one keg on tap by the weekend, adding a pumpkin ale to the list that I am going to do this weekend depending on when my hops arrive...that leaves me with an Imperial Stout and the Vanilla Bourbon Porter...need to come up with some more ideas. Maybe a Schwarzbier, but I don't have lagering capacity...any ideas people? Maybe I'll do an oatmeal stout...I'd like some darker beers for the winter.

[Alpine Spirit]

How bout "Midas Touch" Dogfish Craft Brewery Recipe

Light Malt Extract
CLover HOney
Simcoe Hops
Saffron
Wyeast 1056 or WLP001
White Muscat Grape Juice Conc.

I am looking at getting this on going in the next couple of weeks.

[ColoradoXJ13]

How bout "Midas Touch" Dogfish Craft Brewery Recipe

Light Malt Extract
CLover HOney
Simcoe Hops
Saffron
Wyeast 1056 or WLP001
White Muscat Grape Juice Conc.

I am looking at getting this on going in the next couple of weeks.

I had one of these at the Kitchen in Boulder....it was ok, I don't think I would want 5 gallons of it though. I did try an experimental beer from New Belgium called Lips of Faith: Eric's Ale. It is 'a malted beverage fermented with peach juice and aged in oak barrels'...delicious, nice sour notes (not nearly as sour as La Folie) but had a distinct peach flavor with a champagne like finish...yum!

[Alpine Spirit]

I had one of these at the Kitchen in Boulder....it was ok, I don't think I would want 5 gallons of it though. I did try an experimental beer from New Belgium called Lips of Faith: Eric's Ale. It is 'a malted beverage fermented with peach juice and aged in oak barrels'...delicious, nice sour notes (not nearly as sour as La Folie) but had a distinct peach flavor with a champagne like finish...yum!

Damn that does sound good. :cool:

[jwjeep1]

Eric's ale was one of the things they did where they let one of the employees make a style they wanted. It's base is La Folie that was blended with a peach ale of some sort. I had it about 2 years ago at the AHA rally at New Belguim and really liked it too. I can't believe there's any still around, maybe they made it again. I would doubt that you could get it anywhere outside of the brewery tasting room though.

[ColoradoXJ13]

Eric's ale was one of the things they did where they let one of the employees make a style they wanted. It's base is La Folie that was blended with a peach ale of some sort. I had it about 2 years ago at the AHA rally at New Belguim and really liked it too. I can't believe there's any still around, maybe they made it again. I would doubt that you could get it anywhere outside of the brewery tasting room though.

They made a second batch, if you look at beer advocate there have been several Denver/Boulder/FoCo bars that have gotten some.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/28032
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/new-belgium-lips-of-faith-(erics-sour-peach-ale)/55559/
http://www.choicecitybutcher.com/beverages.shtml

[_CJ]

Falling Rock had some recently, but I got there a day after the keg kicked.

[xjmatt]

Well tick one off for my plan finally but this was a BIG ONE! GRAPES!

So got up bright and early this morning and got to work cleaning my big fermenters and then off to pick up some grapes. I took advantage of the homebrew store I bought them through and used their crusher destemmer to save myself hours and hours and hours of pain and labor. Here they are from left to right, 180lbs of Sangiovese, 180lbs of Syrah, and 108lbs of Cabernet Sauvignon:
468lbs of grapes total
http://www.adventuretimmy.com/Brewing/images/precrush.JPG

Now at home, crushed, sulfited, and cooling off, couple stems won't hurt anybody:
http://www.adventuretimmy.com/Brewing/images/crushed.JPG

Finally work for the day is done, just get to keep an eye on temps for the next couple days before inoculating!
http://www.adventuretimmy.com/Brewing/images/thekids.JPG

Now on to my cyser, and I need to get that christmas beer going or it's just going to taste like alcoholic cinnamon!

[Ooompa Loompa]

:eek: :eek: That's gonna be a lot of wine.

[xjmatt]

Progress update! The wine has been pressed, cold settled, and then racked off the heavy lees. I'll be tossing in some malo-lactic cultures today. Since they are all red wines they'll all benefit from decreasing the malic acid levels. Said and done after the pressings I ended up with about 36 gallons. Not to shabby :D .

Yesterday got on the ball with my Fall Cyser so it's now in the brew log as well. UV pasturized cider, honey, and some rasins and dates for a little extra something now happily bubbling away in the brewery. Going to keep an eye on this one so it doesn't ferment out to rocket fuel. Will figure out the spicing once I get a taste on it's way to secondary.

Was thinking of brewing today but then it started to snow....

[ColoradoXJ13]

eh, it stopped snowing, and I got 10-gallons of an American pale ale done, just my always-on-tap beer, needed a backup keg (I brew and split with a friend) although my one on tap is pretty much empty. I can't brew fast enough to keep the kegereator stocked.

Matt, for your cyser, it is just your typical dark brown apple cider that you find around fall time? I just picked up some sweet mead yeast and was thinking about tossing it in 5-gallons of real cider with 2# or so of dark brown sugar. Will that work? How long should it take to ferment/clear? I'd really like it to be ready for kegging for a ski trip in the beginning of Dec. Now I just need to find some real apple cider, haven't seen it at safeway or wild oats. Need to check whole foods and vitamin cottage.

[xjmatt]

eh, it stopped snowing, and I got 10-gallons of an American pale ale done, just my always-on-tap beer, needed a backup keg (I brew and split with a friend) although my one on tap is pretty much empty. I can't brew fast enough to keep the kegereator stocked.

Matt, for your cyser, it is just your typical dark brown apple cider that you find around fall time? I just picked up some sweet mead yeast and was thinking about tossing it in 5-gallons of real cider with 2# or so of dark brown sugar. Will that work? How long should it take to ferment/clear? I'd really like it to be ready for kegging for a ski trip in the beginning of Dec. Now I just need to find some real apple cider, haven't seen it at safeway or wild oats. Need to check whole foods and vitamin cottage.

Here in Lakewood the snow wouldn't make up it's mind. I'm actually guessing it did stop but then just kept blowing on us for the next couple hours.

For my cyser I went with Big B's UV filtered cider. 100% organic blend of sweet and tart apples. I did the same thing and checked safeway and wild oats first but whole foods ended up being the only place I could find actual cider. I'm sure the one in Boulder would have it but if you want I know Royal Crest Dairy up in Longmont is a local distributor for a lot of the Western Slope orchards. Might be able to find some more unique varieties from them.

For a recipe: If you've only got 30 or so days to work with you're going to have to be careful with your yeast selection because you don't want to ferment it out to dry or it'll just taste like alcohol. Big B's came in with a SG of 1.049 on it's own. Brown sugar will add 46 points per gallon so at 5 gallons you'll have a SG around 1.068. I've never used a sweet mead yeast but I'd bet it'll goto at least 10% ABV before it bites it meaning it'll CHEW through 68 points in no time and be ready for more. 2 options that come to mind are add more sugar (or since you've already got 2# in there I'd add a dark honey like wildflower or Ambrosia) to get it up in the 1.080 range and then ferment it and keep an eye on your gravity to make sure it doesn't ferment it dry, risk here is you might still end up with more alcohol taste than you want that will take a while to fade. Option 2 is go with your original recipe and then once it reaches 1.010-1.015 cold crash it in your fridge to stop the yeast and get them to drop out. You'll be around 7.5% ABV with 10 points or so residual sugar should make it drinkable young. 7-10 days in the fridge and it'll probably be crystal clear, rack it to your keg and taste it. If it's to dry then backsweeten with more cider until you like it then keep it cold and carb it.

Personally my cider's SG is 1.110 and fermenting it to 1.010 or so then adding spices to secondary for weeks, but I'm planning in it not being ready until this time next year!

[ColoradoXJ13]

For my cyser I went with Big B's UV filtered cider. 100% organic blend of sweet and tart apples. I did the same thing and checked safeway and wild oats first but whole foods ended up being the only place I could find actual cider. I'm sure the one in Boulder would have it but if you want I know Royal Crest Dairy up in Longmont is a local distributor for a lot of the Western Slope orchards. Might be able to find some more unique varieties from them.

Whole Foods only had unpasteurized cider, and king stoopids cider has a ton of preservatives in it. I'll keep looking, I don't really want to have to go up to longmont.

[xjmatt]

Whole Foods only had unpasteurized cider, and king stoopids cider has a ton of preservatives in it. I'll keep looking, I don't really want to have to go up to longmont.

unpasturized is fine. you're going to ferment it right, addition of alcohol is as good as any preservative out there!

[ColoradoXJ13]

unpasturized is fine. you're going to ferment it right, addition of alcohol is as good as any preservative out there!

You sure about this? Everything I have read says not to use unpasteurize. I could always use campdem, but I am leaving town on monday for 10 days...

[xjmatt]

You sure about this? Everything I have read says not to use unpasteurize. I could always use campdem, but I am leaving town on monday for 10 days...

Really? When it comes to meads, cysers, and melomels I pull a lot of my ideas from Ken Schramm's book 'The Complete Mead Maker'. He uses fresh pressed apples and ferments with the wild yeasts and says he's had more favorable results than with cultured strains. I'm not quite that brave just yet but if the pro's are doing it then I'd call it good.

In fact the same orchard contact I made out in Palisade this past summer who told me about Royal Crest distributing also told me they ship 55 gallon fiber drums of unpasturized cider to Wynkoop for their brewmaster to do as he wishes. He just said you have to sign a waiver saying you understand the dangers associated.

[ColoradoXJ13]

Really? When it comes to meads, cysers, and melomels I pull a lot of my ideas from Ken Schramm's book 'The Complete Mead Maker'. He uses fresh pressed apples and ferments with the wild yeasts and says he's had more favorable results than with cultured strains. I'm not quite that brave just yet but if the pro's are doing it then I'd call it good.

Interesting stuff...I have read that there can be E. coli in cider, I may just add 5 campden tabs tonight, then pitch the sweet mead yest tomorrow night, let it ferment out (or until I get back on the 7th and taste, then keg and add some apple juice concentrate if needed to get the sweetness I want out of it...just a $50 experiment, what the hell.:shrug:

edit: as is with all things on the internet, there is 'net conventional wisdom' which becomes conventional wisdom as soon as someone says it...so this could all be wrong, but what would killing the wild yeast and bacteria in the cider hurt if I am going to pitch mead yeast?

[xjmatt]

Interesting stuff...I have read that there can be E. coli in cider, I may just add 5 campden tabs tonight, then pitch the sweet mead yest tomorrow night, let it ferment out (or until I get back on the 7th and taste, then keg and add some apple juice concentrate if needed to get the sweetness I want out of it...just a $50 experiment, what the hell.:shrug:

edit: as is with all things on the internet, there is 'net conventional wisdom' which becomes conventional wisdom as soon as someone says it...so this could all be wrong, but what would killing the wild yeast and bacteria in the cider hurt if I am going to pitch mead yeast?

If you are going to pitch a commercial strain then there is no harm at all in killing off the wild ones. In fact it can be preferabe so that you don't have any issue with the wild strain competing with your commercial strain or contributing any flavor.

The only concern that pops into my head with sulfiting the must and then pitching your yeast 24 hours later is, is that enough time for the sulfites to do their work and dissipate so that they also don't hinder the strain you are pitching. I think that's more your field of work than mine but I do know that most commercial strains are fairly resistant to Potassium Metabisulfate so it's usually not an issue but you might want to check just to avoid potential complications.

Oh yea and most of my creations start out as "$50 so what the hell" and so far I've been pleasantly surprised by the results!

[ColoradoXJ13]

Ok, well I bought 5-gallons of the unpasteurized cider at Whole Foods (@ $7.69/gallon), for some reason, the total came out to $30.76 and I got a 5% discount (I think for not asking for shopping bags). Looking at the receipt now, she only charged me for 4, works for me...

anyway, crushed up 5 campden tabs, added a cup or so of the cider to it with 2.5tsp pectic enzyme, stirred, added to a carboy with about 4.5 gallons of the cider (warmed a bit of the cider in a pot and added 1# corn sugar). I didn't want to add all 5 gallons so I could have some headspace, I have no idea how vigorous the ferment will be. Going to pitch the WLP720 sweet mead yeast tomorrow night with no starter, hope this works.

Will let it ferment until about 1.010 (if I am back in town by then...gone from the 29-7th), then keg it. If it needs to be sweetened, I will add some apple juice concentrate to taste.

From what I have read, campden (potassium sulfate) dissipates in 24 hours, so I should be ok. I think you are right about commercial brewing strains being fairly resistant to sulfates.

Guess it was only about a $37 so what the hell investment, maybe the whole foods chick liked me?