Westvleteren Abt 12 Brew Day

With all the time we had off work for Christmas this year, we decided to spend a day brewing another beer. This was our first time brewing with our new 8-gallon MegaPot and BIAB bag (from bagbrewer.com). This was only our second all-grain batch, but we went big with Westvleteren Abt 12 from Beer Captured - a 10% ABV Belgian strong dark ale that involved over 12 pounds of grain.

We started the brew day at about 10:00 am with a 90 minute mash. We were shooting for a mash temperature of 150 F and had the water up to the strike temperature, but it took us a little bit to figure out the best way to hold the edge of the brew bag around the lip of the pot. We were also worried that the 6.25 gallons of water wouldn't fit in the pot with all that grain, so we started with only 5 gallons in the pot. It turned out all 6.25 gallons did fit, so that was a plus. By the time we got the grains in and all the water, the mash temperature ended up being in the mid 140s. I'm not sure if it's from the strike water being too low, or the added water being too cool, or the time it took to get the bag setup figured out.

The biggest test for our BIAB setup came at the end of the mash. Last time we tried BIAB, we didn't have a good strainer and the bag spilled a bunch of liquid over the sides of the pot onto the stove while it drained. This time, I got on a step-stool above the pot so I could lift the bag way up. The handles on the brew bag made it really easy to pull the bag up, despite the weight of the grains and all the water. I lifted it up and Amy put our new 12" strainer underneath. We let the bag drain while we brought the wort up to a boil and measured our ingredients. That whole part of the process was a million times better than our previous BIAB attempt.

After the mash, our pre-boil volume was somewhere between 5.25 and 5.5 gallons, which was a little higher than we were shooting for but we're still getting a handle on how much water we lose from getting soaked up by the grains. After the 90 minute boil, we were down to a bit over 4 gallons. That allowed us to put a little over 3.4 gallons in the primary and still end up with nearly 10 cups left over in the kettle.

We got a hydrometer reading of 1.088 and a refractometer measurement of 21.2 brix. A little lower than the 1.105 starting gravity we were shooting for, but I'm sure a big part of that is us still figuring out the efficiency and water levels for our BIAB setup. After a few more batches and rounds of adjusting the numbers in BeerSmith, we should get pretty good at hitting our target gravity.

We didn't finish the brew day until close to 3 in the afternoon, but it was a great way to spend a day off. Overall our first all-grain with our new setup worked great though. It was fun doing a Belgian too. The Belgian yeast actually smelled good prior to pitching into the primary, which is quite a departure from some of the funky-smelling yeasts of other types. Unfortunately, the yeast (according to Beer Captured) is pretty temperature sensitive and needs to be around 70 F during fermentation. I'm not sure we have anywhere in the house that stays a consistent 70 F, so that part may be a trick. Beer Captured also says we should leave the beer in the secondary for 6 weeks, and in the bottle for another 6 weeks, so it'll be quite a while before we're tasting it. Hopefully it tastes good!

---> [ The Quad Of My Dreams Tasting ]

Oatmeal Stout Bottling

A couple weeks ago Amy and I bottled the Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout clone that we brewed with my brother Craig. This was our first chance to try the beer after the "bourbon oak" from the secondary, so we were definitely excited to see how it was tasting.

The first step for bottling is to prep the corn sugar solution that will be used for carbonation. The range for oatmeal stouts is about 2 to 2.5 vols of carbonation, so we went with a target of 2.2. Using BeerSmith software, we calculated that out to 16g of corn sugar per gallon of beer. After mixing the corn sugar in with some water, we boiled it up in the microwave and then threw it in the freezer to cool it down so that the heat isn't hard on the yeast.

The next step is getting everything sanitized and putting all the bottles on a big "tree" where the sanitizer can drain from the bottles. After that was done we poured the corn sugar solution into the bottling bucket, then siphoned the beer from the secondary into the bottling bucket.

Once all that prep is done, it's time to bottle! Amy filled the bottles while I capped them and handed her more empty bottles. We got nine bottles out of the first carboy, then ten bottles out of the carboy with the bourbon oak, including one 22oz bomber.

We marked the bottles that had the bourbon oak with "B" to make sure we could keep track. Finally with all the bottling done comes the best part - tasting! The regular (non-bourbon) oatmeal stout tasted really good. Nice hint of roast and maltiness you'd expect from an oatmeal stout. The oatmeal stout that had the bourbon-soaked oak spiral definitely had a strong bourbon flavor with some oak. It'll be interesting to see if it mellows out at all while bottle conditioning. If you like your bourbon-aged beers very bourbon-forward and strong though, at the moment this beer has it in spades. Can't wait to crack open a bottle or two on Christmas Eve and see what everyone thinks and how Craig likes the beer he helped brew!

[ Oatmeal Stout Racking to Secondary ] <--- | ---> [ If This Is Too Good For You I've Got Some Crap ]

Christmas Miracle 2014 Tasting

Our Christmas beer, dubbed "Christmas Miracle 2014" has been ready to drink for a couple weeks now. The beer has good carbonation and all the target flavors are there - predominately cherry but also cinnamon and vanilla. With the 8% ABV and the strong cherry flavor, it certainly fits right in as a Christmas beer. Personally, I feel like the cherry may be a bit overpowering for me, resulting in an almost cough-syrupy beer. Amy is a fan though, and certainly it does taste like a decently-made beer and doesn't really have any off flavors.

Every year our friends Steve and Valerie host a holiday beer tasting, where everyone brings a couple beers hidden in bags, and we do blind tastings of all the beers to see what we think. One of the beers we brought this year was our Christmas Miracle home brew. Nobody knew there was a home brew in the mix, and with the blind tasting people likened it to some of the other cherry-based holiday beers. People who liked that flavor liked the beer, and the fact that nobody even suspected the beer was a home brew was....... a Christmas Miracle!!!!

[ 2014 Xmas Beer Racking ] <---