Simplicity Stout (5/15/13)

Stouts are a great way to use strange ingredients. Since they're so strongly flavored, there's little risk of overpowering the flavor of the beer. As a result, they've become a kitchen sink beer for American (and Scandinavian) brewers. First came the coffee stouts, then the chocolate stouts and vanilla stouts. Then came spiced stouts, fruit stouts, mint stouts, even bacon stouts. Right now the highest-rated Russian Imperial Stout on BeerAdvocate is Three Floyd's Bourbon Barrel Aged Vanilla Bean Dark Lord.

This time, I wanted to take the opposite approach. No weird ingredients, no aging on wood, just an intense, full-bodied beer with a prominent roasted grain flavor. I did use five different types of barley in this recipe, but each plays a vital role. The two row is a fairly neutral base malt; the chocolate malt and roast barley together produce intense and complex roast flavors; the English crystal adds sweetness to balance the bitter roasted grains; finally, the flaked barley adds body. Since aroma is often where regular stouts are lacking, I also added a decent amount of Nugget as an aroma hop, which adds pleasant floral notes.

Had a stuck mash and didn't get very good efficiency. I did a long boil and added a bit of extract to make up for it.

First tasting 10/21/13: Good aroma, balanced flavor profile, excellent mouthfeel. Just enough alcohol in the aroma to add complexity. Subdued but noticeable esters. This beer is great now, but I expect it to continue to improve for at least a year. I will have trouble making it last that long.

ABV: 8.2%
IBUs (Tinseth): 40
OG: 1.082
FG: 1.019

Mash adjustments: 2.5 grams slaked lime, 5 grams calcium chloride
Sparge adjustments: 1 drop 88% lactic acid
Mash temp: 154
Mash length: 60 minutes
Efficiency: 60%

Yeast: Wyeast 1098 British ale yeast (close relation to WLP007)
Starter: 4 liters
Pitching temp: 65F
Max temp: 74F

Malts Mashed		Amount	%	Max Pts.
2 Row		15	79%	36.00
English Medium Crystal		1	5%	34.00
Chocolate		1	5%	28.00
Roast Barley		1	5%	25.00
Barley (flaked)		1	5%	32.00

Other Fermentables		Amount		Max Pts.
DME		2.25		42.00

Hops/Additions		Amount	Time	AA%
Magnum		1	60	14.0%
Nugget		2	5	10.0%

I performed a 90 minute boil to reduce volume.

5/21/13: Gravity is 1.019.
6/4/13: Bottled to 2.3 volumes of CO2.

Iced Coffee, Part 2

Last year, I wrote a post detailing my attempts to brew good iced coffee at home. I intended to follow up on it once I'd done some more experiments. Then summer ended and I stopped drinking iced coffee. Pretty much the same thing happened this summer, but I've made some progress. Iced coffee, for me, will never compare to hot coffee, but I've grown to appreciate both cold brew and chilled iced coffee.

For cold brew, I like a ratio of 1 part coffee to 12 parts water (i.e. 83 grams per liter). If you cold brew in the refrigerator, á la Barismo, use a medium (cupping) grind. If you cold brew at room temperature, use a medium-coarse (press) grind. (Room temperature coffee will melt the serving ice quicker, and hence become diluted faster.) Both methods produce good results in 12 - 24 hours.

Filtering cold brew can be challenging, especially if you make a lot of it. The first step is to remove the large particles of coffee with a metal chinois, china cap, or tea strainer. But even extremely fine metal filters will not provide an acceptable level of clarity by themselves. For a polishing filter, there are three options: paper, cloth, or synthetic. Paper filters are easy to find, but clog up very quickly. Organic cotton filters are a better option if you can find them, but they're still fairly slow and require careful cleaning. My preferred filtration medium is food grade monofilament nylon, so long as it's rated 20 microns or smaller.

In Peter Giuliano's influential post on iced coffee from last year (Japanese Iced Coffee), he argues against cold-brewed coffee, on the grounds that it is (allegedly) underextracted, oxidized, and lacking in aromatics. I'll discuss these objections individually, then look at what alternatives to cold brewing exist.

Giuliano claims that low brewing temperatures necessarily result in underextracted coffee. It's true that most cold brew is underextracted, if its extraction yield is calculated according to the traditional formula (Extraction[%] = BrewedCoffee[g] * TDS[%] / CoffeeGrounds[g]). But this is only true because cold brew is usually made as a full immersion brew. As Vince Fedele has argued, calculating extraction yield for immersion brewing requires a different calculation (Extraction[%] = TotalWater[g] * TDS[%] / CoffeeGrounds[g]). Making this adjustment puts cold brew back in the proper range of extraction, if performed properly.

Giuliano also claims that long brewing times result in oxidized (i.e., stale) coffee. In my experience, cold brew does certainly become oxidized, but not nearly as quickly as hot brewed coffee, because oxidation occurs more slowly at lower temperatures. Still, I prefer to drink cold brew within 12-24 hours of brewing. Even with refrigeration and nitrogen flushing, more than a couple of days is pushing it. Of course, many people enjoy the woody flavors that result from oxidized cold brew. (The entire success of coffee stouts is built on this fact.)

Giuliano's preferred iced coffee brewing method, which he calls the "Japanese iced coffee method", involves brewing hot coffee via pour-over directly onto ice. I've tried this technique dozens and dozens of times over the past couple of years. I've tried varying grind, dose, ice/water ratio, and water temperature. I've tried both V60s and Chemex, as well as immersion brews poured through a paper filter. Every single time, I get a unpleasant musty aroma.

Now that I'm using an espresso machine again, I've noticed a very similar aroma when making espresso over ice. I think, therefore, the most likely source of the unpleasant aroma is temperature shock. I've been reluctant to believe that temperature shock really exists, because no one I know of has given it an adequate scientific explanation. But I've found that by allowing the coffee to cool somewhat before adding ice, the unpleasant aroma can be minimized.

Upon re-reading Giuliano's post, I was struck by this passage on volatility:

"Cooling the coffee quickly, though, reduces volatility dramatically.  This effectively locks the ephemeral volatiles (like floral and fruit notes) into solution until the coffee is warmed again.  This happens on the coffee’s way down your throat (sorry to get graphic here), which sends a punch of beautiful volatile aromatics through your retronasal cavity to your olfactory receptors.  And that explains the olfactory-flavor punch of brewed-hot-quickly-cooled Japanese-style iced coffee."

Is it possible that the aromas that I perceived as unpleasant and musty are the same that Giuliano describes as 'floral and fruit notes'? My, how tastes vary! What it comes down to, I think, is this: Cooling coffee very rapidly results in a distinctive aromatic profile not found in cold brewed or slow chilled coffee. The degree to which this aromatic profile is desirable depends on both the coffee and consumer.

Since I have not yet found a coffee that I enjoy brewed directly over ice, I prefer to slow down the chilling process somewhat. My basic method is this: brew coffee at a 1:10 ratio (100 g/l). After brewing, cover and allow the coffee to cool slowly, until it's below 150˚F (66˚C). Then add ice and stir until the coffee is under 50˚F (10˚C). Strain the coffee over fresh ice and serve. The whole cooling process should take 5 - 10 minutes. For large batches, an ice bath may be necessary to hit this time frame.

There are two standard objections to this technique. The first objection is that the increased coffee/water ratio will decrease extraction yield, making the resulting coffee underextracted. The premise of the argument is true, however, this effect can be compensated for by using a slightly finer grind, as in bypass brewing, and/or by adding water at a slower rate.

The second, more serious, objection is that allowing the coffee to cool slowly allows an unacceptable amount of oxidation to occur. Oxidation is largely responsible for the staling of brewed coffee, and oxidation occurs much more rapidly at high temperatures. Therefore, the slow cooling to 150˚F involved in the above method means that more oxidation occurs than if the coffee were chilled immediately.

My response: When I brew hot coffee, I don't drink it when it's over 150˚F, because at that temperature it's impossible to taste all its subtleties. (Also, I don't like to burn my tongue.) I (gasp!) let it sit for a few minutes before tasting. If the above objection were valid, it would imply that all the hot coffee I'm drinking is stale. But the fact is, even at high temperatures it takes a little while for oxidation to reach a noticeable level—at least 20 minutes. Therefore, there's no reason to believe that allowing coffee to cool somewhat before adding ice will make it noticeably oxidized, provided the coffee is served soon after chilling.

Other iced coffee resources (not all of which I agree with):
http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/coffeeatthemoment/09-10-2011
http://beansandwater.tumblr.com/post/22588752858/iced-coffee
http://blog.barismo.com/2011/08/iced-coffee.html

Mash-up Quick Sour

Over the course of my first three attempts to brew a Berliner weisse, I've learned a few things about brewing quick (i.e., less than 6 months to complete) sour beers—having had to dump two of my first three batches. They weren't poisonous, but they also weren't worth drinking. Sour beer is the one style of beer in which even the most skilled brewers still routinely have to dump batches.

Lesson #1: If you want to make sour beer fast, induce a lactic acid fermentation before alcoholic fermentation. Alcohol seriously inhibits lactic acid bacteria, as do hop acids.

Lesson #2: If you're souring prior to fermentation (and don't have a completely sterile environment), keep the temperature above 110˚F (43˚C), in order to inhibit spoilage bacteria that produce nasty compounds like butyric acid (think vomit, parmesan cheese). Lactobacillus is thermophilic and can handle the heat. Above 115˚F, however, lactic acid bacteria are much slower to produce sourness. Above 140˚F, most bacteria are dead or inactive.

Rather than continuing my attempt to brew a perfect Berliner weisse, I've decided to switch my efforts to attempting the most delicious quick sour I could brew, borrowing techniques from both Belgian and German brewing traditions. My current approach is as follows:

Mash and lauter normally, but instead of boiling the wort, allow to cool to 112˚F (44˚C), then add a handful of crushed 2-row and cover with plastic wrap. Maintain this temperature until the desired level of sourness is reached, sampling daily (2-7 days is a reasonable window). The beer will taste a little bit more sour after most of the sugars have been fermented into alcohol, but it's a minor difference. If the beer starts to smell "off", raise the temperature to 122˚F for 30 minutes. After souring, boil the beer with hops, then cool to 70˚F and pitch your favorite ale yeast. Add fruit if desired after the yeast fermentation is complete.

The main challenge with this technique is keeping the beer at 112˚F. My current set-up consists of an electric heating element and a digital temperature controller, but I've also heard good things about the fermenter heat wraps that homebrew stores sell. If you have little money and much time, intermittent low heat from a stovetop might work. But that would also be a huge waste of energy.

Even though this technique involves spontaneous fermentation, it produces a very clean sour beer. The fact that the beer is boiled after souring also means that almost no bacteria are present in the finished beer, so contaminating your non-sour beers is not a concern. If you want a funkier sour, adding brettanomyces to secondary is always an option, but cross-contamination then becomes a concern again. If you want a sweeter sour, my preferred method is to add a fruit syrup to the glass when serving, as is traditional for Berliner weisse.

Vitals:

OG: 1.056 (pre-souring, pre-boil)
FG: 1.008
ABV: 5%?
IBUs (Tinseth): 15

Water adjustments: 5 grams of calcium chloride
Mash temp: 151F
Mash length: 60 minutes
Efficiency: 75%

Yeast: WLP545
Pitching temp: 70F
Max temp: 71F

Malts Mashed		Amount	%	Max Pts.
2 row		8	74%	36.00
Barley (flaked)		0.75	7%	32.00
English Medium Crystal		2	19%	34.00

Hops/Additions		Amount	Time	AA%
Cascade		0.75	60	6.0%

Beer Glassware

I don't like branded glassware. I find it incredibly tacky and commercial. I have purchased many branded glasses because I like their shape, but I generally remove the brandings with acid. It bugs me to no end that many beer bars devote an enormous amount of labor and shelf space to serving beers in branded glasses.

But it's not just branded glassware. Nearly as irritating to me are those who insist that every beer must be served in a style-specific glass. The only reason pilsners are served in pilsner glasses, while pale ales are served in pint glasses—and not vice-versa—is tradition. Sure, there's an interesting history behind most beer glasses, but with regards to the beer drinking experience, there are only a few aspects of glassware that matter.

Handle: The main benefit of a handled glass is that the beer warms up slower, because the drinker is not holding the glass directly. Therefore, handled glassware is appropriate for large servings of a beer that does not taste good warm. Glass mugs also tend to be thick and sturdy, which is good if you're serving drunk people.

Glass shape: Bowl-shaped glasses (e.g., snifters, tulips, wine glasses) concentrate the beer's aroma. In general, I think beer should be served in bowl-shaped glasses, unless there's a good reason not to.

Glass size: Highly carbonated beers should be served with a good deal of headspace in the glass, so that the inevitable foam can be served, and not dumped down the drain.

Lip flare: Glasses with flared lips (e.g., tulips) make drinking highly carbonated beers easier by allowing the drinker to drink beer from under the foam.

From a functional perspective, therefore, the only types of beer glasses you need are tulips and mugs. I will, however, admit that imperial stouts look funny in a tulip, and prefer to serve them in snifters.

Any glassblowers who want to make me a tulip-stein: hit me up.

How Old is Too Old?

Beer never becomes unsafe to drink, so retailers are under no legal obligation to sell fresh beer. Most people don't think much about beer freshness, so retailers who sell stale beer aren't punished by consumers. However, the age of a beer is vital to its flavor. I don't doubt that some people like the flavors that age and oxidation impart to beer, but I think that most people, like me, dislike these flavors.

Large American lager breweries have spent a great deal of money developing extremely low-oxygen brewhouses and packaging lines to allow their pale, weak beer to last six months in refrigerated storage. Retailers generally understand this shelf life and are able to move these beers on schedule. Craft beers are the problem. Craft brewers produce a huge variety of different beer styles, each of which ages differently. American IPAs are the poster child for beer freshness, since the vast majority of American IPAs are sold extremely stale. Furthermore, craft breweries are often unable to afford refrigerator space in stores, which only worsens the problem.

As my small contribution to fixing the beer freshness problem, here's my impression of the aging potential of various craft beer styles (assuming refrigerated or cellared storage):

American IPA - The most fragile of beer styles. Nearly all of the fresh hop aroma that the brewer has worked so hard to get in the beer will be gone in 1-2 months. The flavors that replace it include molasses, cardboard, and cat piss—none of which I like in beer. Do not age more than six weeks in the bottle/keg.

American/English pale ales - The fresh hop aromas in most American pale ales will fade just as quickly as in IPAs, but pale ales are generally less offensive to drink aged. Nevertheless, don't age them more than three months.

American/English dark ales - Roasted malts are powerful antioxidants. High alcohol stouts are the only beers I brew that actually benefit from extensive aging. Stouts get softer and more complex for at least the first year, and will be delicious for years after, since the roasted malts stave off oxidation. Lower alcohol dark beers don't need as much aging, but will still hold up to a year or two of storage without much trouble.

Belgian pale ales - Tripels, golden strong ales, and saisons have a better shelf life than American pale beers, since they're less reliant on hop aroma, and I think Belgian yeasts have some antioxidant capacity. (Need to confirm.) I'll happily drink a tripel at six months, maybe even a year. I don't recommend longer aging, though some do it anyway. For Belgian pale ales with Brettanomyces, see sour/wild beers.

Belgian dark ales - Dubbels, dark strong ales, and quadruples already have a lot of dark sugar/dark fruit flavors, so oxidative flavors are less obvious. They're not one of my favored styles, so I don't feel qualified to say how long they can be aged, but many people do age them extensively.

German wheat beers - Hefeweizens are known for their banana aroma. The ester associated with this aroma, isoamyl acetate, fades fairly quickly in beer. Less than three months is best with weizens.

Sour/wild beers - Most sour/wild beers take at least a year of fermentation before they're released, so freshness is clearly not paramount here. (Lambics are brewed with aged hops!) But if the beer is pasteurized (as most Flemish sours are), it's best drunk fairly fresh. If unpasteurized, sour/wild beers continue to evolve in the bottle, often becoming more sour and complex. However, aging a live sour/wild beer can also throw off the balance of flavors, and in the case of fruit beers, diminish fresh fruit aromas.

A note on barleywines: One style of beer embraces the flavors of oxidation, just as sherry does in the wine world. That beer is the barleywine. Barleywines don't have roasted malts or wild yeast to protect against oxidation. Nevertheless, they're often aged for many years. Aging does soften the alcohol bite, but it also brings the typical nutty, brown sugar flavors of oxidation. Many people enjoy this in a barleywine. I do not. I don't brew barleywines.

Can't find the date on a beer? For a guide to best by dates and bottling codes, visit http://freshbeeronly.com

Fermented Cabbage

About six weeks ago, I started fermenting what I thought was a small batch of sauerkraut. The recipe was simple: cabbage and salt. I chopped the cabbage and massaged it with salt to release the water. I put it in a mason jar and weighed down the cabbage with marbles*, so that all the cabbage was submerged. The kraut has been fermenting in the mid 60s since.

I used a fairly high level of salt (and, stupidly, forgot to take notes), so the fermentation proceeded fairly slowly. After two weeks of fermentation, the kraut was only slightly sour. So I forgot about it for awhile. Four weeks later, I tasted it again. Delicious. Still not super sour, but incredibly complex. Interestingly, this batch turned out tasting distinctly Asian, with flavors of sesame, soy sauce, and anise, even though no such ingredients were added.

It turns out that adding more than 2-3% salt to a vegetable ferment favors different strains of lactic acid bacteria, characteristic of high-salt Asian ferments like tsukemono (Japanese pickles), soy sauce, and kimchi.

I like the result a lot, but it requires different pairings than normal sauerkraut. This experiment makes me want to try high-salt fermentations of more traditional Asian vegetables like daikon and bok choy.

*I do not recommend the marble technique. Although effective in weighing down the cabbage, they're a huge pain to remove whenever you want to sample the ferment. Zip-locs filled with salt water are much more convenient.

Wedding Beers

For my brother's wedding last week, I brewed six batches of beer. They turned out pretty good. My cousin Spencer made wedding-themed labels for each beer. They also turned out pretty good.

Ale We Need is Love – An American amber ale. Lots of hop aromatics, but low levels of bitterness. Flavor notes: pineapple and jasmine aromatics, caramel sweetness.

IBUs: Some

Hoppily Ever After – An American IPA. Fresh hop aromas jump out of the glass. Very bitter. Flavor notes: grapefruit bitterness, passionfruit and pine aromatics.

IBUs: Many

RachAle – A strong Belgian-style ale. Pale to amber in color, highly carbonated. Flavor notes: black pepper, fresh bread, clove, apple.

IBUs: 26

 

Lovey Weisse – Modeled after the sour wheat beers of Berlin, but with two pounds per gallon of whole blackberries added during fermentation. Very light and drinkable, with a pronounced tartness. Available with or without homemade blackberry syrup.

IBUs: 12