AHA/NHC Gold Medal Homebrew Recipes by Style

UPDATE: You'll find and updated list here, with the 2011 recipes included.

I took out links to all the pre-2004 recipes. The older recipes were kept at http://beer.tzo.com/beer rather than at the AHA website, and those older recipes seem to be unavailable now.

The AHA Wiki is great for some stuff. In the good news section, they have the last seven years worth of first place homebrew recipes:

• 2010 NHC Gold Medal Recipes
• 2009 NHC Gold Medal Recipes
• 2008 NHC Gold Medal Recipes
• 2007 NHC Gold Medal Recipes
• 2006 NHC Gold Medal Recipes
• 2005 NHC Gold Medal Recipes
• 2004 NHC Gold Medal Recipes

In the not-so-good news section, you need to weed through all seven years to find the one Belgian Dubbel recipe you want. Or you may end up sifting through all seven years only to find out that that a Brown Porter never got the gold in the Porter category because the Robust Porters and Baltic Porters always win; so you need to keep looking for that superb Brown Porter recipe elsewhere.

I decided to help them get organized, so here you go. The following list has the Gold Medal-winning recipe in each category of the AHA National Homebrew Competition (NHC) for the last twelve years. (This list was recently updated to include recipes from 2004 and earlier. The list of BJCP categories changed in 2005, so I've tried to fit the earlier entries where they make sense.)

BJCP 1A Lite American Lager
2009 O'Bama-Lot
2008 Billy Bob Mississippi Lager
2006 Champagne Lager

BJCP 1B Standard American Lager
2005 Standard American Lager
2004 Dougweiser

BJCP 1C Premium American Lager

BJCP 1D Munich Helles
2007 Munich Helles

BJCP 1E Dortmunder Export
2010 461 Dortmunder Export

BJCP 2A German Pilsner
2006 Drei Liebchen Deutsche Pils
2004 Edmontoner

BJCP 2B Bohemian Pilsner
2010 BoPils
2008 Liquid Sunshine

BJCP 2C Classic American Pilsner
2009 Classic American Pilsner
2007 Classic American Pilsner
2005 Golden Era Lager

BJCP 3A Vienna Lager
2008 Vienna Lager
2005 Little Vienna
2004 Vienna Eh? III

BJCP 3B Oktoberfest/Märzen
2010 Maerzen
2009 Oktoberfest Hallertau
2007 GB Märzen
2006 Oface Ofest

BJCP 4A Dark American Lager
2009 Danny's Bock
2006 Dark American Lager

BJCP 4B Munich Dunkel
2010 Tara's Slam Dunkel
2008 Munich Dunkel

BJCP 4C Schwarzbier
2007 Schwarzbier
2005 Let the Schwarz Be With You (recipe not available)
2004 Dark Helmet Schwarzbier

BJCP 5A Maibock/Helles Bock
2008 Helles Bock
2005 Heilige Helles

BJCP 5C Doppelbock
2007 Doppelbock

BJCP 5D Eisbock
2010 Isebock
2009 Eisbock
2006 Dominator
2004 EKU

BJCP 6A Cream Ale
2008 Kari's Cream Ale
2006 Cream Ale

BJCP 6B Blonde Ale
2004 Sweetheart Blonde

BJCP 6C Kölsch
2010 Helios Kölsch
2007 Kölsch
2005 Summer Kölsch
2004 Köelschde Toro

BJCP 6D American Wheat Or Rye Beer
2009 Bye, Bye, Miss American Rye

BJCP 7A North German Altbier
2006 Strike Team Chanukah Altbier
2005 Northern German Altbier

BJCP 7B California Common Beer
2010 NJ Steam 143

BJCP 7C Düsseldorf Altbier
2009 Dusseldorf Alt
2008 SummersALT
2007 JZ Alt

BJCP 8A Standard/Ordinary Bitter
2008 Standard/Ordinary Bitter
2004 Ordinary Bitter

BJCP 8B Special/Best/Premium Bitter
2006 Bob's Bitter
2005 True Brit

BJCP 8C Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
2009 Guvnah
2009 ESB
2007 Bears Bitter

BJCP 9A Scottish Light 60/-
2007 Scottish Light 60/-
2005 Scottish 60/-

BJCP 9B Scottish Heavy 70/-
2009 Scottish Heavy 70/-
2006 Sand Hill Scottie

BJCP 9C Scottish Export 80/-
2004 Export 80/-

BJCP 9E Strong Scotch Ale
2010 Scotch Bingerson's Rehydration Fluid
2008 If It Ain't Scottish, It's Crap Scotch Ale
2004 Fat Bastard Wee Heavy

BJCP 10A American Pale Ale
2010 Opening Day Pale Ale
2009 Lara Pale Ale
2008 Lara Pale Ale
2007 Amarillo Pale Ale
2006 Drunk Monk Pale Ale
2005 Screaming Viking Pale Ale

BJCP 10B American Amber Ale
2004 Drunk Monk Amber Ale

BJCP 10C American Brown Ale
2004 Janet's Brown Ale
2001 Steves Wicked Ale

BJCP 11A Mild
2010 Thomas Toes Mild
2009 Modest Mild

BJCP 11B Southern English Brown Ale
2007 Southern English Brown Ale
2005 English Brown Ale
2002 Dirty Nortchez House Special Brown

BJCP 11C Northern English Brown Ale
2008 Nutty Professor Ale
2006 Nut Brown

BJCP 12B Robust Porter
2009 Robust Porter
2008 Robust Porter
2007 Robust Porter
2005 Black Hills Porter
2004 Rocket Rod Romanaks Positively Porter

BJCP 12C Baltic Porter
2010 Three Kings Baltic Porter
2006 Baltic Porter

13.A. Dry Stout
2003 Dry Stout
2002 Dry Stout

BJCP 13C Oatmeal Stout
2010 Oatmeal Stout

BJCP 13D Foreign Extra Stout
2009 Redridge Stout
2004 West Indian Viagra

BJCP 13E American Stout
2008 Fostag Stout

BJCP 13F Russian Imperial Stout
2007 Leap Second Imperial Stout
2006 Russian Imperial Stout
2005 Veronica's Imperial Stout

BJCP 14A English IPA
2009 Blitzkrieg Hops
2005 13 Mile IPA

BJCP 14B American IPA
2007 Longbrook IPA
2006 Chicken Creek IPA
004 Inaugural IPA

BJCP 14C Imperial IPA
2010 Hop-Fu
2008 Pliny The Elder Clone

BJCP 15A Weizen Weissbier
2009 El Hefe
2008 England-Weizen
2005 Hefeweizen

BJCP 15C Weizenbock
2007 Bitezen Bock

BJCP 15D Roggenbier (German Rye Beer)
2010 Roggen
2006 Peter Nelson's RoggenBier

BJCP 16A Witbier
2006 Witbier
2005 Witbier

BJCP 16C Saison
2010 Saison Lite 139
2007 Saison d'Ete

BJCP 16D Biere de Garde
2003 Biere De Garde

BJCP 16E Belgian Specialty Ale
2009 Belgian Specialty Ale
2008 100% Brettanomyces
2004 Sorval

BJCP 17A Berliner Weisse
2008 Berliner Weisse
2004 Will Othe Wisp Weisse

BJCP 17B Flanders Red Ale
2010 Zed's Dead Red
2007 Flanders Red Ale
2004 Flanders Red Ale

BJCP 17D Straight (Unblended) Lambic
2006 Throwing The Dice Again
2005 Oh to Daisy

BJCP 17F Fruit Lambic
2009 Ms. Helen's Peche Passion

BJCP 18A Belgian Blonde
2010 Sully's Belgian Blonde

BJCP 18B Belgian Dubbel
2009 Belgian Dubbel

BJCP 18C Belgian Tripel
2008 Have A Nice Tripel
2004 hmmm...Tripel IV

BJCP 18D Belgian Golden Strong Ale

BJCP 18E Belgian Dark Strong Ale
2007 Belgian Dark Strong
2006 Belgian Strong Dark Ale
2005 Blunt Trauma

BJCP 19A Old Ale
2006 Old Ale
2004 Big Mo

BJCP 19B English Barleywine
2010 JJs Barleywine
2004 English Style Barley Wine

BJCP 19C American Barleywine
2009 Creative Destruction Barleywine
2008 Cheap Leather Jacket Barley Wine
2007 Old Blood & Guts - California
2005 Arrogant Barrister

BJCP 20 Fruit Beer
2010 Peaches-n-Cream Hefe
2009 Thanks, Curt (Blackberry Baltic Porter)
2008 It's All Mine So Keep Back (Berliner Weisse With Sour Cherries)
2007 Summer Breeze (American Wheat Beer with Apricot)
2006 Blackberry & Cream (Cream Ale with Blackberry)
2005 Kölsch Abuse
2004 Raspberry Wheat

BJCP 21A Spice Herb Vegetable Beer
2010 Zingibier (Belgian Strong Wheat Ale with Ginger and Spices)
2009 Mashing Pumpkins Spiced Saison
2008 American Wheat Ale With Lemon Verbena
2007 Mild Jalapeño Pepper Beer
2006 Vanilla Cream Stout (Sweet Stout with Vanilla Bean)
2005 Hot Chihuahua
2004 Peppered Honey Wheat


BJCP 22A Classic Rauchbier
2009 Brisket In A Bottle
2006 Classic Rauchbier
2004 Rolling Rauch

BJCP 22B Other Smoked Beer
2008 Burnin' Down The House Smoked Weizenbock
2007 Dare to Roeselare (Flanders Red Ale Aged in Oak)
2005 Love Potion #9

BJCP 22C Wood Aged Beer
2010 Spanish Cedar IPA

BJCP 23 Specialty Beer
2010 Old Ale With Grapes And Honey
2009 Janet’s Brown Ale (Imperial American Brown Ale)
2008 Ben Franklin's Ale Colonial Stock Ale With Molasses And Spruce Tips
2007 Chipotle Pepper Alder Smoked Bock
2006 Garden Gruit
2005 Bellringer
2004 Eye Opener Stout

The following styles haven't generated a gold medal in the last twelve years:
5B Traditional Bock
9D Irish Red Ale
12A Brown Porter
13B Sweet Stout
15B Dunkelweizen
16B Belgian Pale Ale
17C Flanders Brown Ale (Oud Bruin)
17E Gueuze
21B Christmas Winter Specialty Spiced Beer

Disaster at FHB

I had a minor disaster in the keggerator. It happened shortly after I had put on a new keg of English IPA.

Some time before I had disassembled the beer line to clean it out, and as I discovered later, I hadn't completed the re-assembly. I had failed to put a hose clamp on the barb coming off the back of the faucet shank. The parts were all acquired at different times, and while some of the barbs don't need a clamp, this one did.

I was alerted to the problem by Diane, whose hearing is better than mine. She noticed a hissing sound when she comes upstairs after watching some TV. It took me a while to shut down the CO2 and figure out what I was looking at. The inside of the freezer is white, the head on the puddle of beer at the bottom of the freezer was kinda white... and frothy? The new keg is empty? NNNOOOooo!!!!

As nearly as I can figure, the events that transpired were:

1. I put the keg on tap, get a short taste of the somewhat warm, non-carbonated beer. Yep, I've got the right thing hooked up.
   
2. The CO2 begins to carbonate the beer, but also begins to force the beer out of the line on the shank just behind the tap handle.
   
3. The keggerator, which is a converted chest freezer, slowly fills with the leaking semi-carbonated beer.
   
4. After the keg is drained, the CO2 bottle also starts to evacuate, producing a hissing sound.
   

I guess the good news is that the freezer is water-tight so I don't have to shop-vac the beer out of the dining-room carpet?

Brewing Water Chemistry

Unless you're using water that was deionized by distillation or reverse osmosis (RO) you'll need to start with your local water analysis report. You county or water district should produce one annually. My report is available online, but depending where you live you may need to write or call to request one. Make sure to get the water analysis report, not the water quality report which contains mostly pictures and PR. Among other things this report should spell out the calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulfate and bicarbonate in your water as parts per million (ppm).

John Palmer has a good section or how to read your water report. Good news if you live in an area with soft water, you will have control over the mineral levels in your brewing water. If your water is hard, dilution with distilled or RO water may be required. Now you only have to figure out how much of what to add to your water to get from where you are to where you want to be. In order to adjust the ion levels in your water, the minimum you'll probably need are food-grade gypsum, measuring spoons or a scale that measures in grams and a way to calculate the various ion levels. The old-school triple beam scales are expensive, but you can get the digital version for about twenty bucks.

When trying to figure things out, I was frustrated by seeing "CaSO4" in one place, "Calcium Sulfate" in another and "Gypsum" somewhere else. Turns out they're all the same thing. Depending on your water and what you're trying to accomplish you may need all the items in the water chemistry set:

Water Salts and Their Ions [1]
Household Name	Scientific Name	Formula	Weight
Chalk	Calcium Carbonate	CaCO3	40% Ca	60% CO3
Calcium Chloride	Calcium Chloride	CaCl2	27% Ca	48% Cl2
Gypsum	Calcium Sulfate	CaSO4	23% Ca	56% SO4
Epsom Salts	Magnesium Sulfate	MgSO4	10% Mg	39% SO4
Table Salt*	Sodium Chloride	NaCl	40% Na	60% Cl

*The table salt should be non-iodized. The salt you use could also be sea salt, rock salt, canning salt or kosher salt so long as it's not iodized. Gypsum and chalk should be food grade.

The weights in the table above are important because the ions you add for water treatment can only be added in pairs. You can't just add one type of ion to the water at time... much as I would like to. In order to add Soduim (Na) you will also have to add Chloride (Cl) when you use table salt. Gypsum will give you Sulfate as SO₄ and Calcium (Ca), so if your Calcium is too high and your Sulfate is still too low you may also need to use Epsom Salts to bump up the Sulfate without increasing Calcium. But then you have to worry about your Magnesium level. This can make the calculations somewhat complex.

Some homebrew software will help you with the calculations. If yours doesn't there are plenty of free download-able and online tools, or you may find that you like one of the freebies better. I like the spreadsheets available from EZWaterCalculator and John Palmer. Both Palmer and EZWater have US and Metric versions, but you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the tiny links on the Palmer site. Watch out on the Palmer spreadsheets. He hasn't protected the cells, so you can easily wipe out a vital calculation.

One real advantage for EZWater is the availability of some third-party videos that show you how to use the tool:
Brew Water Chem - Part 1
Brew Water Chem - Part 2
Brew Water Chem - Part 3
Skip the first four minutes if the first video (intro and how to order water analysis) unless you couldn't get a report locally.

You can also find several online tools. I prefer the Brewing Water Chemistry Calculator from Brewer's Friend, but you can also find calculators at Power's Brewery, ProBrewer, and Brewer' s Lair. Brewer’s Friend is nice because it warns about minimum and maximum levels for each ion, and reports how the ion concentrations impact the flavor. Based on on of the replies, I took a look at Bru'n Water and it looks very promising. I haven't had time to do anything more than download it and open it up (it's an Excel spreadsheet) but it appears to be very thorough, and covers more aspects of brewing water chemistry than any other single tool.

The Quickie Water Chemistry Primer is handy for understanding some of the issues involved, regardless of what tools you use. And John Palmer has some great information, including the only place I've been able to find a conversion chart between grams and teaspoons for everything you might want to add. My parting advice is don't worry if you can't match a water profile exactly; and if you're going to be off, undershoot rather than overshoot.


________
[1] Ray Daniels, Designing Great Beers, 1996

Cheap Corny Keg Rebuild Parts

My friend Colin was recently lamenting the high cost of home brewing. One surprisingly high cost items are the replacement O-Rings for the Cornelius (Corny) kegs that many homebrewers use. One thing you can do to keep those costs in check is to buy in bulk. The following table has the McMaster Carr part numbers for the rebuild parts to fit ball-lock kegs. The prices per keg are roughly one third of what I have been paying in the local homebrew store or on eBay. For the largest O-Rings, the price is a bit less than half. For the smaller ones, I can get a pack of one hundred for less than the price of three individual O-Rings. These fit the ball-lock kegs. You pin-lock guys may need to do a bit more research.

Item	Description	Part #	Price
Dip Tube O-Ring	Buna-N 5/16" ID x 1/2"OD x 3/32"	9452K172	$2.21 per 100
Post O-Ring	Buna-N 7/16" ID x 5/8" OD x 3/32"	9452K23	$2.48 per 100
Lid O-Ring	Buna-N 3 1/2" ID x 4" OD x 1/4"	9452K218	$12.69 per 10

Since the prices are good, you might want to go with the "deluxe" option. I've noticed that the kegs don't originally have O-Rings on the dip tubes. There is another custom piece of rubber which is more like a tiny washer. These are the Quad Seal O-Rings, which are much closer to those "OEM" parts than the round profile O-Rings. Or you can go with Silicone O-Rings and get the Cadillac at McMaster-Carr for less than price of the Vee-Dub at your local hardware or homebrew store.

Item	Description	Part #	Price
Dip Tube Quad Ring	Buna-N 5/16" ID x 1/2"OD x 3/32"	90025K368	$ 7.61 per 100
Dip Tube O-Ring	Silicone 5/16" ID x 1/2"OD x 3/32"	9396K74	$ 9.91 per 100
Post O-Ring	Silicone 7/16" ID x 5/8" OD x 3/32"	9396K24	$11.48 per 100
Lid O-Ring	Silicone 3 1/2" ID x 4" OD x 1/4"	9396K926	$8.53 per 5

Liquid/Dry Yeast Chart by Style

Homebrewers have two types of yeast to choose from: liquid and dry. Looking around on the web or talking to some homebrewers it's not hard to get the idea that liquid from White Labs and Wyeast are the only options for quality. And looking only at the dry yeast included in canned beer kits, it's hard to disagree.

Despite all you've seen and heard, good beer can be made from both. Liquid yeast has vastly more variety and is the only possible way to go if you're brewing sours. Dry yeast is less expensive, easier to store, and does not require you to make a starter for lower gravity beers. With almost twice the cost and half the cells, liquid yeast is over three times as expensive per cell count. The need for a starter is reduced because 11.5 gram packages of dry yeast have double what liquid yeast packages contain. With twice as many cells, dry yeast will typically reduce your lag time and potentially deliver a better beer as compared to liquid yeast without a starter, assuming the strain you've chosen is appropriate to the style you're brewing.

The problem has been trying to find a good source for translating from one type to another with predictable results. Nobody seems willing to say that liquid yeast "X" equals dry yeast "Y". Hopefully, my previous post is a good start. In some cases the liquid and dry yeasts are the same, so that part is easy. A great example is the Chico yeast strain, which is available from White Labs as WLP001 California Ale and from Wyeast as WY1056 American Ale. It is also available in dry form from Fermentis as Safale US-05. And liquid Nottingham is the same as dry Nottingham, it's just more expensive.

After a few easy matches, the rest seems to be tribal knowledge rather than provable fact. The best single resource I've found so far is Jamil Z's book "Brewing Classic Styles". The following info is mostly extracted from that source. A word of warning, the following chart is only intended as a starting point because some of these matches are only close, not spot on. For example, Saflager S-23 is Jamil's substitute for every liquid lager yeast - which seems unlikely. YMMV. Please post a comment if you have any additional information.

Category	Style	White Labs	Wyeast	Dry
1. Light Lager	Lite American Lager	WLP840	WY2007	Saflager S-23
	Standard American Lager	WLP840	WY2007	Saflager S-23
	Premium American Lager	WLP840	WY2007	Saflager S-23
	Munich Helles	WLP838	WY2308	Saflager S-23
	Dortmunder Export	WLP830	WY2124	Saflager S-23
2. Pilsner	German Pilsner	WLP830	WY2124	Saflager S-23
	Bohemian Pilsner	WLP800	WY2001	Saflager S-23
	Classic American Pilsner	WLP800	WY2001	Saflager S-23
3. European Amber Lager	Vienna Lager	WLP838	WY2308	Saflager S-23
	Oktoberfest/Märzen	WLP820	WY2206	Saflager S-23
4. Dark Lager	Dark American Lager	WLP840	WY2007	Saflager S-23
	Munich Dunkel	WLP833	WY2308	Saflager S-23
	Schwarzbier	WLP830	WY2124	Saflager S-23
5. Bock	Maibock	WLP833	WY2206	Saflager S-23
	Traditional Bock	WLP833	WY2206	Saflager S-23
	Doppelbock	WLP833	WY2206	Saflager S-23
	Eisbock	WLP830	WY2124	Saflager S-23
6. Light Hybrid Beer	Cream Ale	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Blonde Ale	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Kolsch	WLP029	WY2565	Safale US-05
	American Wheat or Rye	WLP320	WY1010	Safale US-05
7. Amber Hybrid Beer	Northern German Alt	WLP036	WY1007	Saflager S-23
	Dusseldorf Altbier	WLP036	WY1007	Safale US-05
8. English Pale Ale	Standard/Ordinary Bitter	WLP002	WY1968	Safale S-04
	Special/Best /Premium Bitter	WLP002	WY1968	Safale S-04
	Extra Special/ Strong Bitter (ESB)	WLP002	WY1968	Safale S-04
9. Scottish & Irish Ale	Scottish Light 60/-	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Scottish Heavy 70/-	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Scottish Export 80/-	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Irish Red Ale	WLP004	WY1084	Safale US-05
	Strong Scotch Ale	WLP028	WY1728	Safale US-05
10. American Ale	American Pale Ale	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	American Amber Ale	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	American Brown Ale	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
11. English Brown Ale	Mild	WLP002	WY1968	Safale S-04
	Southern English Brown	WLP002	WY1968	Safale S-04
	Northern English Brown	WLP013	WY1028	Nottingham
12. Porter	Brown Porter	WLP013	WY1028	Nottingham
	Robust Porter	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Baltic Porter	WLP885	WY830	Saflager S-23
13. Stout	Dry Stout	WLP004	WY1084	Safale US-05
	Sweet Stout	WLP006	WY1099	Safale S-04
	Oatmeal Stout	WLP002	WY1968	Safale S-04
	Stout	WLP013	WY1028	Nottingham
	American Stout	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Russian Imperial Stout	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
14. India Pale Ale	English IPA	WLP013	WY1028	Nottingham
	American IPA	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
	Imperial IPA	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05
18. Belgian Strong Ale	Belgian Blonde Ale	WLP500	WY1214	Safbrew T-58
	Belgian Tripel	WLP530	WY3787	Safbrew T-58
	Belgian Golden Strong Ale	WLP570	WY1388	Safbrew T-58
	Belgian Dark Strong Ale	WLP530	WY1762	Safbrew T-61
19. Strong Ale	Old Ale	WLP013	WY1028	Nottingham
	English Barley Wine	WLP013	WY1028	Nottingham
	American Barley Wine	WLP001	WY1056	Safale US-05

February Madness?

In retrospect, I'm not sure why I was quite so fired up about this but I decided to enter a bunch of IPAs in the Hop Madness IPA Bracket Challenge next February. I'm now in the process of brewing a lot of beer. Or certainly a lot for me:

1. Imperial IPA
   
2. English IPA
   
3. Rye IPA
   
4. Cascadian Dark Ale (Black IPA)
   
5. American IPA
   

I started at the top of the list and worked to the bottom. The Impy is smelling and tasting just lovely. Dry-hopping is a beautiful thing. The English IPA is overdue to be racked to the secondary, and it's just about secondary time the Rye and for the Cascadian. Hope I end up with quality and quantity rather than just the latter. Brew days seemed to go pretty well except for the Rye IPA. I was trying to get close to the recipe for Hop Rod Rye from Bear Republic. I cranked the mill way down to crush the rye and added some flaked rye, and the combination seemed to want to turn the mash into concrete. I added some rice hulls, but not nearly enough for 30% of the mash being rye porridge. Fortunately, the ginormous false bottom saved me, but it was still a case of surviving the sparge rather than conducting the sparge.

My next challenge is trying to figure out what to do as everything comes out of the fermentors. I'm going to need some help drinking all this stuff.

Liquid to Dry Yeast Conversion Chart

For whatever reason, nobody is willing to come out and and say that dry yeast "X" is really the house yeast of brewery "Y". For example, Fermentis says that Safale S-04 is "A well-known, commercial English ale yeast." Thanks, guys, that really narrows it down for me. Instead of just telling me that, why don’t you tell me which beers it’s in, so I know how it’ll make my beer taste? John Palmer is similarly unhelpful. The Cooper's website doesn't even provide a clue that they sell yeast. Mr. Malty has a great cross-reference for White Labs and Wyeast liquid yeasts, but so far nothing on any dry versions.

The homebrew forums are loaded with opinions about what ought to be substituted for what, why dry yeasts suck, etc. So, with all that 'verifiable' information out there, the opinions expressed in this chart are just opinions. YMMV. I'll keep adding to this as I have more info. If you have any additional or contrary info, post a comment. Please!

Dry Yeast	Brewer/Style	Wyeast	White Labs
Cooper's Ale	Cooper's Brewery	n/a	009
Danstar Munich	Hefeweizen Ale	3068??	300??
Danstar Nottingham	Nottingham Ale	n/a	039
Danstar Windsor	London Ale	1028	013
Muton's Ale	Munton's kits *	1968	002
Safale US-05	American Ale/California Ale	1056	001
Safale S-04	British Ale/Whitbread Ale	1098	007
Safbrew T-58	Belgian Saison	3724	565
Safbrew S-33	Bedford British Ale	n/a	006
Safbrew WB-06	German Wheat/Hefeweizen IV	3333	380
Saflager S-23 **	Pilsner Lager	2001?	800?
Saflager W-34/70	Bohemian Lager/German Lager	2124	830

_______________

* From what I can determine, Munton's standard yeast really shouldn't be substituted for anything. I love the Munton's website, which says they are "Passionate about malt." Not so much about yeast, I guess. If you sift through the marketing-ese, you find a very interesting description of their product. "It has very hardy characteristics." (This stuff is mostly bred for shelf life...) "If all malt brewing is undertaken we would recommend that you use our Premium Gold Yeast." (so our standard yeast is not recommended if you care about your ingredients...) "The major benefit for you of using Muntons Standard Yeast is its relatively low cost." (but hey, it is cheap.)

** Saflager S-23 seems to generate the most controversy on the homebrew forums with many people complaining that it generates fruity esters and many people saying it's clean. It SEEMS to be the case that if you ferment warm for a lager, about 60F or a bit less, Saflager S-23 produces a clean result, but it gets fruity at normal lager temps (50F and less.) I have not verified this.

December 6th is the day to brew Samichlaus

Samichlaus is brewed once a year on December 6. When it was first brewed in 1980 by Swiss brewer Hürlimann, it was the strongest lager beer in the world at approximately 14% ABV. Production of Samichlaus was stopped when Hürlimann was purchased by Feldschlössen, but production started again when the brand was acquired by Eggenberg Castle Brewery in Austria.

I've been wanting to brew it for a while, so I started to do some research but didn't find a lot of solid info out there. Here are the numbers according to All About Beer:

ABV: 14
ABW: 11.1
Color: (60 EBC)
Bitterness: 30
Original gravity: 1114

But that doesn't seem right. The advertised ABV is well known, but the actual ABV varies a bit from year to year. The color listed by 'All About Beer' is dark enough to be a stout, so the actual EBC must be something in the 30's? The OG is too low unless ALL the sugar was 100% fermentable and the chances of that are nil. The bitterness doesn't seem right - not enough there to balance out all that malty taste and residual sugar. Maybe more like 50? Maybe they accidentally swapped the IBU and EBC numbers?

There are more clues in Michael Jackson's review from several years ago.

"Trouble was that a beer so dense (original gravity 1228) can hardly be pale, and the Samichlaus interpretation had a markedly ruddy complexion. In recent years the brewery has accepted the traditional view that Christmas and winter beers should be dark. It seems to have done this almost reluctantly, still using more pale malt than dark, although it employs three different kilnings of the latter. Two varieties of hops are used."

So we're now looking at two hops and at least one pale malt and three dark malts. It would be nice to know which malt and hops. My recipe does have two hops, three kilned malts, and the light stuff is more than the dark stuff. But we now know that there is enough OG to make a beer of 17% alcohol if all the sugars were fermentable and the yeast could attenuate to that degree.

Which brings up a bit of bad news on the yeast. According to the folks at White Labs, it looks like I will have a tough time getting to an ABV of 14.

"With proper care, this yeast can be used to produce lager beer over 11% ABV."

I understand that they would want to under-promise a bit to allow some leeway, I'm thinking that I would need to do something extra to get to 14. I've seen other recipes where they finish out with Pasteur Champagne yeast, but that's going to have unwanted consequences. Maybe I need to rouse the yeast regularly during the ferment? How regularly?

Samichlaus Clone (working version)

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (G): 5.0
Total Grain (lb): 25.75
Total Hops (g): 106.52
Original Gravity (OG): 1.143 (°P): 32.7
Color (SRM): 20.0 (EBC): 39.4
Bitterness (IBU): 50.9 (Tinseth)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 73
Boil Time (Minutes): 120

Grain Bill
----------------
11.000 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (42.72%)
10.000 lb Munich Malt - 10L (38.83%)
2.500 lb Munich Malt - 20L (9.71%)
2.000 lb Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (7.77%)
0.250 lb Special B Malt (0.97%)

Hop Bill
----------------
64.0 g Northern Brewer Pellet (8.5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (12.8 g/Gal)
14.2 g Northern Brewer Pellet (8.5% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (2.8 g/Gal)
28.4 g Hallertauer Mittelfrueh Pellet (4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (5.7 g/Gal)

Multi-step infusion mash to maximize the amount of fermentable sugars.
Boil for 120 minutes.
Fermented at 50°F with Zurich Lager for 10 months.

Notes: Actual IBUs for this recipe should be over 50. This is because the sugar would be added near the end of the boil, but the IBU calculator doesn't recognize that. Target OG before sugar addition is about 1.112. It will be adjuncted with sugar because I'm worried about having a syrupy mess if I go all malt, and fortunately the Reinheitsgebot doesn't apply to me.

I won't be brewing this on the 6th (tomorrow), but I need to get the final pieces in place and brew it soon.

Brewing Software Review: beercalculus.com

Freeware website at beercalculus.hopville.com
Free recipe repository at hopville.com
Overall Grade B+

Hopville.com is an online beer recipe site, and Beercalculus is Hopville's online homebrew recipe calculator. You can join for free and save your recipes on the site. They become part of a searchable/browse-able recipe collection. Once you're a member you can save recipes under your own ID, or as 'anonymous.' Or you can just use Beercalculus without saving anything. Surprisingly, the site is not supported by advertising or subscriptions.

One of the big pluses for Beercalculus is that you don't need to install any software. All you need is a reasonably modern browser. The site has been around for a while so the software is fairly mature, and development is fairly active. As this review is written the strike water and other mash calculations are in re-development. Right now, you can enter grain temp and mash thickness in the current version. With any luck, they’ll add the ability to enter a variety of other variables in the next release.

Another plus is the wide selection of predefined ingredients. You can chose from 457 fermentables, 324 yeasts, 143 hops, and a bunch of miscellaneous ingredients. In part this is because there are a lot of options to choose from in real life and in part this is because there are multiple listings for the same ingredients. For instance you'll find "Columbus", "Columbus (Tomahawk)" and just plain "Tomahawk." You can decide whether you want to use "Crystal 60" or "Caramel 60" in your recipe. And so on. You can even add your own by searching for the missing ingredient, then clicking the link to add it. As the site says, "If you'd like to add a missing malt, go for it."

Yet another plus is the ease of use. You start on a page that presents the spectrum of known malts & other fermentables, hops, yeast, and miscellaneous ingredients. You can choose metric or US units. If you go with US, you can add your malt in pounds AND ounces. If you disagree with their values for ppg of °L, you can edit the entry for your malt or extract. If you fail to select a weight it will prompt you before you attempt to save the page. You can adjust the alpha acids if your Cascade hops are 5.7 rather than the default 5.5, and you can select leaf, pellet, or plug. The miscellaneous ingredients can be entered as ounces, pounds, teaspoons, tablespoons, liquid ounces, or gallons. One minor quibble is the lack of an "each" setting for things like Whirfloc tablets.

You start with "No style assigned." It's handy, though, to choose a style early on, because Beercalculus will give you guidance on how to achieve it. With no ingredient selected, the selection of "American Amber Ale" will produce the following guidance for the BJCP American Amber style:

• OG should be at least 1.045
• FG should be at least 1.010
• IBU should be at least 25
• SRM should be at least 10
• ABV should be at least 4.5

If you overshoot on an ingredient, Beercalculus will tell you the recommended maximum. IBU calculations for Garetz, Rager, Tinsleth, and an average are available.

You probably owe it to yourself to do some research as to what ingredients are proper for an American Amber, and Beercalculus will help you with that as well. For example, if you add Biscuit Malt, mouse over your entry, and click the 'info' link you'll see the following:

Use for English ales, brown ales and porters. Adds a biscuit like flavor and aroma. Can be used as a substitute for toasted malt.

For Cascade hops you'll see:

Use for: American ales and lagers Aroma: Strong spicy, floral, grapefruit character Substitutes: Centennial Examples: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale A hops with Northern Brewers Heritage

When you're done adding ingredients, click on the Process tab to add steps to the brewing process. You'll see times for hop additions and so on.

If you've signed up as a Hopville user, you can save your recipe after you've added at least one fermentable and one hop. And you can export your saved recipes as BeerXML. One more minor quibble is that you can only save all your recipes, rather than saving just one recipe at a time if you prefer. I wanted to give Beercalculus an "A" but the recent downgrade on process-related features nets to a B+. Still highly recommended.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

All done with brew day, just cleaning up. Crap...I forgot to get my OG reading.

No problem, I'll just run a bit out of the fermenter into the hydrometer jar. Hmmm...that's a bit frothy, I’ll wait ‘til it settles down to get an exact reading.

[Some time next morning] Crap! Great kräusen, but I'll never get a good reading now. OK…that was approximately .065-ish?

Brewing Software Review: QBrew

Freeware downloadable from www.usermode.org
Overall Grade C-

First, the good news: The program is quick and easy to use. Now the bad: It is at version 0.4.1, so it is far from being complete according to the vision of its creator. Due to being incomplete the fit and finish isn't exactly first-rate from top to bottom. And the last time it was updated was 2008, so it seems unlikely we will ever see Version 1.0, or even Version 0.mostly-done.

QBrew will open its own *.qbrew files, or the ubiquitous BeerXML files created by other programs. Since the last development work for QBrew was done in 2008 it doesn't have the 2008 Style Guidelines, and so a Black IPA recipe I created as a Category 23 Specialty Beer came through as a "Generic Ale." Even after I added "Specialty Beer" to the styles list it didn't show up until I closed and restarted the program. And the recipe I just had open didn't show up on the recent files menu item.

The configuration of the program seems incomplete. Even though I have "US" measurement units and a default batch size of 5 gallons selected under "Configure", my batch size comes up as 20.80 liters for a recipe imported from other software. You can select Tinsleth or Morey for IBU calculations, but neither is selected by default. There is a help selector icon, but almost nothing in the UI is selectable with it.

The UI Is a bit clunky in places but generally it works as expected. There is a calculator for alcohol based on OG/FG, and one for hydrometer correction. The database editor lets you add grains, hops, styles and miscellaneous ingredients, but when you click the plus button to add items they go to the top of the list and are named "Generic." I tried to add one ingredient twice before I figured out what was going on.

This software is OK as far as it goes, but I have a tough time recommending it when there are better options online, or as freeware. And there are better options out there. It's a shame because this project looks like it was off to a great start.

Brewing Software Review: BrewMate

Freeware downloadable from www.brewmate.net
Overall Grade B+

I almost didn’t review this package. The problem was that I tried to install it to the “Program Files “ directory on a Windows 7 PC. Windows 7 has a cow when BrewMate tries to write to the C:\ Program Files\BrewMate directory, and the program crashes at startup. After a PITA uninstall and re-installing to C:\ Brewing\BrewMate, Windows 7 will actually let the program run. You should be fine on any other version of Windows, or Windows 7 if you install to a similar "safe" location.

I’m on the initial settings and liking this program already. I can have my default grain measurement in pounds (like my large scale) and my hops measurement in grams (like my small scale.) IBU can be calculated using Tinsleth, Rager or the Average. Oh, and you can turn the “Style Nazi” on or off. It has default settings for all the standard stuff: Batch size, efficiency, etc, etc. There are a ton of other default settings from boil time to sparge temperature to mash thickness to anticipated system losses.

The program is super-configurable, because you can easily edit the lists of Styles Hops, Fermentables, Yeasts and Miscellaneous ingredients. You can adjust the values for anything already on each list, add your own, and delete the ones you don’t want. It includes all the standard BJCP styles and a few more. The various ingredient lists seem pretty solid. The UI is simple and easy use. You can override any of your default settings for a recipe. The “Style Nazi” feature just puts yellow highlights your values that out of style. That’s not too hard to take – I was expecting search lights and sirens. Along with the calculations that other software provides, BrewMate gives you BU:GU ratio and Balance. Unfortunately, those numbers aren't put into context for the style, so you'll need to look up a bit of info to make sense of them.

BrewMate also includes three timers, one for boil, one for mash and a generic stop watch. As you would expect, you can save your recipes and load them when you need. It stores your recipe in BeerXML and can read Promash files. It will also backup your recipes and settings, export to a text file in regular and “Forum Friendly” mode, and even “Publish” your recipe to the BrewMate website.

There are additional calculators for Carbonation, Refractometers, Boil off/ Evaporation, Hydrometer temperatures, Water Dilution, Gravity Adjustments and Alcohol/Attenuation. I'm hoping that they will add a mash calculator that lets me enter target temp and mash thickness, and gives me a strike water temperature and volume.

Minor annoyances: You can't select pounds AND ounces. Instead you see pounds and decimal fractions of a pound... but this problem isn't unique to BrewMate. BrewMate doesn't keep track of whether or not you've edited a recipe, so it prompts you every time you go from one recipe to another, and the button you need to click is the opposite of the button on the "more intelligent" software that keeps track of what you're doing rather than just nagging.

I haven’t done a side-by side comparison between the outputs of this program and others, and I haven’t made use of the additional calculators yet, but based on my test-drive, BrewMate is Highly Recommended. If this works as well in daily use, I have an new favorite. Just beware of the installation issue on Windows 7.

You can also find BrewMate on Twitter and on Facebook. (And Jamil likes BrewMate.)

South American Homebrew: Chicha (Part 1)

Chicha is a traditional Andean drink made primarily of corn. Some 'modern' interpretations include a bit of barley with the corn. The road to making chicha seems to have many side alleys and local detours, so there are many ways of getting to the end.

There are at least two main types of chicha, alcoholic and non- alcoholic. Within the alcoholic version there are high and low alcohol versions. There are also many varieties of corn that can be used to make Chicha, but the non-alcoholic version tends to be made of purple corn and the alcoholic version tends to be made of yellow corn. The corn tends to have been dried on the cob in the sun before the chicha-making process begins, but fresh corn is probably used in season. Chicha is almost always made by women, because men making chicha might offend the Peruvian goddess of grain Mama Sara (Zaramama.) Men brewing chicha in Andean society would be considered as bad luck and just plain stupid, since men don’t belong in the kitchen. This is an ancient tradition that continues to today. The chicha I drank in Peru was made by a woman.

The first step in making chicha is to make jora. This is the equivalent of making malt before making beer, so the corn kernels are placed in water to soak for a day or two, which will start their germination. The soak water should be changed twice a day or more to maintain the kernel’s freshness. Bacteria may start to work if the corn is kept soaking in stagnant water, and the kernels need oxygen for the germination process. After a couple of days, you should see sprouts start to appear, and inside the corn enzymes are forming that will help convert the starch in the corn to sugar.

The second step is usually to dry the jora. If you're making a bunch of jora you'll want to dry it so it doesn’t go bad before you get a chance to use it. Traditionally the drying is done by laying the jora out in the sun. You could also just make a small batch of jora and crush it for immediate use. Fresh or dried, your jora will need to be crushed before we can go on to the next step: extracting the sugar water. After it is crushed the jora may also be called pachucho, or possibly huinapu.

This third step is equivalent to 'mashing' for beer brewers. I don't have a lot of detail on this but my surmise is that the jora and a suitable amount of water are heated together, about two parts water to one part jora. They are gradually heated to a boil. As the corn and water are heated, they pass through a range of temperatures that help the enzymes created in the jora-making step to convert some of the starch in the corn to sugar. As the temperatures get above 170, those enzymes are destroyed. Cusco Peru is the epicenter for Chicha, and water boils at around 190 degrees in Cusco, rather than 212 degrees at sea level, so they get to a boiling temperature rather quickly. The boil should be continued for several hours.

If you're making non-alcoholic Chicha Morado, you're almost done. Just strain off the boiled liquid, cool it, add some lime juice to balance the sweetness, add a bit of spice and you're all set. The straining process can be accomplished with anything from cheesecloth to layers of straw.

Stay tuned for part two...

It's a boring old topic: Sanitation

I've always cared a lot about the sanitation aspect of brewing beer. I've been told that I'm a fanatic about it. Not sure if that's true, I haven't ever watched someone else brewing so I don't have much to compare to. I do have several not-so-fond memories of drinking a couple of commercial brews that were infected, so I'm pretty much ever-vigilant.

Back in the olden days (what I will call Finn Hill Brewing v0.1) I was brewing with a combination of extract and malt in the kitchen. With v0.1 everything had to be set up and torn down each time, so I cleaned at teardown and sanitized at setup.

Eventually, I moved on to Finn Hill Brewing v1.0. I was brewing with all malt in the garage. Woot! My wife and and were both jazzed about this - for different reasons. Still, everything had to be set up and torn down each time, so I cleaned at teardown and sanitized at setup.

Finally, my aching back convinced me to move on to Finn Hill Brewing v2.0: Permanent plumbing bits, and a pump. The immersion chiller was replaced by a counter-flow chiller, and various valves directed the wort from Point A to Points B, C and D. Only the hot liquor tank and sparge arm need to be set up and torn down each time. I'm still cleaning at teardown and sanitizing at setup. But I worry more.

I now have more points in the system where the stray hop fragment or barley husk could get trapped, and those points are no longer visible to me. "Back in the day" all my tubing was transparent so I could see everything. I still have some parts of the system composed of translucent tubing, and those have helped me to see potential problems. I see a lot of PBW, Starsan and Iodophor in my future.

I also need to take a second look at the layout because there are low spots that trap liquid. I'm picturing little hidden pools where critters will breed. Or maybe I can figure out a way to hook a CO2 bottle up to the system to blow it out? Things seem to be going well so far, but I still worry.

Cream Ale

Cream Ale was one of the few indigenous American beer styles to have survived Prohibition, due in part to its popularity in Canada. Thanks, Canadians! Its name is still a problem, due to the popularity of Cream Soda. At any given point in time there's probably some idiot out there trying to brew a Vanilla Cream Ale based on the name alone - give it up, dude. Tell yourself it's really a pale lager and move on.

After trying a Cream Ale brewed by the Brown Bros., I decided to give it a try. The grist for a cream ale can include a mixture of six-row American pale barley malt and corn adjuncts. I went with two-row and grits. For me the quintessential Cream Ale is Genesee, AKA Genny Cream. Their motto, "While other beers went light and low carb and metrosexual, Genesee Cream Ale bided its time and waited for the world to come to its senses again." The west coast champ is Kiwanda Cream from Pelican. Darron Welch, the head brewer at Pelican provided the recipe in an old issue of BYO.

I went a little different direction (more along the lines of the Brown Bros. beer Hallertauer hops and no specialty malt) and it came out tasty. I brewed it two weeks ago, kegged it two days ago, and I'm drinking it today because I had nothing else on tap. I've never tried a beer this young before, but it's super-drinkable. Despite high attenuation (FG: 1.0005) the taste has a sweet quality. It hasn't cleared entirely yet, but we're getting there. There's a little vegetable quality in the hops, which I hope will drop out as the beer clears up, but otherwise - good stuff!

Finnish Homebrew: Kilju

Since this is a homebrew site on Finn Hill, I thought it would be good to give a mention to Finnish homebrew named kilju. The pronunciation is sort of like "killed you," as slurred together by a drunk.

Kilju is prepared by making a mixture of water, sugar and yeast; and allowing it to ferment. The making kilju out of sugar, water and yeast alone is illegal in Finland. Adding some sort of fruit will let you avoid legal consequences, but kilju also has a strong association with the Finnish anti-establishment types, so the fruit is often left out.

Theoretically Kilju would resemble low alcohol rum due to the use of sugar, but the taste and color are apparently closer to vodka. Yeast strains known as turbo yeasts are sometimes used to ferment it out in as little as three days. Baker's yeast is often used due to its cheapness and widespread availability. If you use something resembling good sanitation, it should ferment out clear. That apparently doesn't always happen, which probably results in people not wanting to waste perfectly good kilju that just happens to taste sort of like ass.

Due to its low cost and simple process kilju is a favorite of students and alcoholics. Probably the drink of choice for nearly all Finnish underage student alcoholics? I haven't tried making Kilju and probably never will, but in case you want to, here are your resources: Underground, Mainstream

Hard Cider

My decision to brew a hard cider came shortly after I had a minor keggerator disaster: Blew two kegs in two days. The Flanders Red and the American Stout are no more. Not by heavy drinking, the timing just worked out that way. About a week later the final keg (the Framboise clone) blew. And they didn't blow up, they just went dry. And I haven't had anything on tap since.

I had heard that if you show up here with a corny keg, you could get it filled on the cheap. So, keg in hand I headed out to Minea Farms. I don't know how much it would have cost because the owner quickly talked me into buying a variety of apple juices rather than whatever might have been available that day. So, aside from the yeast selection the recipe is his. The Fuji and Gala cider was for high sugar content. The Granny Smith for tartness, the Honey Crisp and Jonagold for flavor.

Hard Cider
Batch size: 5.0 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.095
Final Gravity: ? (still working)
Color 7° SRM / 14° EBC (Gold to Copper)
Yeast: Lalvin D-47

Fermentables:
1 Gallon Fuji
1 Gallon Gala
1 Gallon Granny Smith
1 Gallon Honey Crisp
2 Gallons Jonagold

Combine all, and pitch the yeast. Since I had six gallons and can only ferment five at a time I saved off a gallon for drinking 'as is', and it was fabulous. Way, way better than the grocery store version which probably comes from a single variety.

The ferment took off like a rocket - it was good that I left plenty of headspace. Now I'm waiting until I can put it on tap!

Older Viscosity Barrel Project RIS

Several guys in the Cascade Brewer's Guild got together to brew a Russian Imperial Stout recipe for the "Older Viscosity Barrel Project."

I signed up late in the game, paid my $27 (a whopping good deal) and brewed my part of the project. The info I got was:

For a 5.75 gallon batch
15 lbs Gambrinus ESB Malt
1 lb Black Barley
1 lb Caramunich
0.75 lb Chocolate Malt
0.5 lb Special Roast
0.25 lb Aromatic Malt
1.0 oz Columbus (17.2%) 60 min
1.5 oz US Goldings (4.2%) 20 min
1.5 oz US Goldings (4.2%) 5 min
1 pkg WYeast #1098 (1500 mL starter)

I've got the recipe in BeerCalculus here. I switched to Maris Otter just for the purpose of the BeerCalculus recipe calculations because the Gambrinus ESB malt shows up with a much lower extraction efficiency in BeerCalculus. I mashed at 152 and got about 77% efficiency. I found out belatedly that the recipe expects 80% efficiency. I went with a 1000mL starter, which took off almost immediately, and the ferment progressed nicely.

Framboise Guess

I brought my Framboise Clone to Beerstock, and it generated a lot more interest than I thought it would. As a result of various discussions I promised a bunch of people that I'd provide the recipe, but you guys are going to have to settle for my best guess, because I can't find the version that I printed out and scribbled on.

The biggest problem is that I think I skipped pitching the Safale US-05 along with the Lambic Blend, but the non-updated version on my hard drive says I that I used it. Even so, I deleted it out of the listing here. I think the berries ended up being a pound and a half, and the times for primary/secondary are a little sketchy. (Sorry, guys.)

Getting the fruit was reasonably easy. The berries I got from Costco. You can order the raspberry juice concentrate from "FruitFast." The berries look kinda weird after a couple of days in the fermentor. This photo of the "ghost raspberries" shows how much lighter the beer was before adding the concentrate.


Lindeman's Framboise Clone

Expected Original Gravity: 1.058
Guestimated Alcohol: 6.5% A.B.V.
Calculated Bitterness: 11.7 IBU (Tinsleth)

Malt Bill
5 lbs. / 2.26 Kg Pilsner
2.5 lbs. / 1.13 Kg Wheat
1.5 lbs. / 0.68 Kg Crystal 20

Hop Bill
0.75 oz / 21g Saaz Boil - 60 3.3 AA

Yeast:
Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend

Extras:
2 lbs. Raspberries
32 ounces Raspberry juice concentrate
1¾ cups baker’s Splenda (measures like sugar!)

1. Mash at 150° F.
2. Sparge to collect 4.5 gallons of wort.
3. Boil 75 minutes, adding hops at times indicated.
4. Chill to 68°F, oxygenate well, pitch and primary ferment for two days.
5. In a bowl, add enough almost boiling water to cover the fruit. Add fruit/water to the primary and ferment for two weeks.
6. Rack, add juice and enough boiled water to bring the batch up to 5 gallons and ferment for two weeks.
7. Transfer to secondary fermentor and age for six months.
8. Add Splenda to taste