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

Olde Crufte and Codswallop

The next beer I'll be brewing is BJCP style 19B, English Barleywine. If you're brewing a barleywine it's almost incumbent upon you to include the word "Old." And since it's being brewed in the Pacific Northwest rather than England, "Olde" makes it much more authentic. Cruft is a software term, referring to the debris that accumulates on old code as the codebase grows. Crufte of course, is authentic cruft. You can Google codswallop.

I like the English Barleywines better than the American version. Or at least I like them earlier. The Americans need more time in the bottle to calm down. There is just a little specialty malt in this, and as per the style the specialty malt is mostly Caramel/Cristal. Most of the flavor profile comes from a whopping lot of 2-row malt, a two-and-a-half hour boil and a fair amount of English-style hops. The water treatment is being done to lightly "Burtonize" on the idea that this is really a sort of imperial English pale. That should also help the hops cut through the sugar a bit. I'm looking to do a small beer with the second runnings.

Olde Crufte and Codswallop
Expected Original Gravity: 1.116
Calculated Alcohol: 11.6% A.B.V.
Calculated Bitterness: 49.6 IBU (Tinsleth)
Color 9° SRM / 18° EBC (Gold-Copper)

Collect a pre-boil wort size of 7.5+ gallons. With a vigorous 150 min. boil, with losses due to evaporation and hop absorption the final amount should be over 5 gallons.

Malt Bill
Weight Malt
27lbs. 8oz. / 12.5 Kg 2-row Gambrinus ESB
8oz. / 0.23 Kg Aromatic
8oz. / 0.23 Kg Crystal 20
4oz. / 0.12 Kg Crystal 40
4oz. / 0.12 Kg Crystal 80

Hop Bill
2.00 oz. / 56g Boil 60 min. Willamette leaf 5.6
1.75 oz. / 49g Boil 30 min. Willamette leaf 5.6
1.00 oz. / 28g Boil 5 min. Goldings pellet 5.0
1.00 oz. / 28g Flame out Goldings pellet 5.0
1.00 oz. / 28g Dry Hop Goldings pellet 5.0

1. With initial grain temp of 68°, heat 9 gallons of water to 150°F to strike at 125°F
2. Mash grains at 120-125 for 30 minutes. After 15 minutes, boil one gallon of water and add one gallon of mash, stirring constantly to avoid scorching.
3. Return the decoction to the mash and mash grains at 150-152 for 60 minutes.
4. Mash out at 170 to collect 7.5 gallons of wort.
5. Boil 150 minutes, adding hops at times indicated.
6. Chill to 68°F, oxygenate well, and pitch a large starter of Nottingham.
7. Primary ferment for 21 days at 68°F.
8. Bottle and age for two years.

Yeast:
Nottingham

Extras:
1 Whirfloc, 10 minutes before end of boil
Volumes of CO2: 1.5, (or 3/4 cup of corn sugar at bottling time)

Initial Water Profile: Seattle/Tolt
Alkalinity, Total (as CaCO3) mg/L 20.2
Hardness, (as CaCO3) mg/L 26.9
Magnesium mg/L 0.36
Potassium mg/L 0.23
Sodium mg/L 1.83

Water Treatment: For each 10 gallons in hot liquor tank
½ Campden tablet, crushed (for chlorine removal)
1½ teaspoons gypsum
½ teaspoon Epsom salts (15 min. after the other treatments)

Brewing a Classic American Pilsner

This is my lawnmower beer. I've been mowing the lawn for several months, so I guess should have started brewing this earlier, but the really hot weather held off, so the timing worked out OK. I was originally hoping to put it on tap for the 4th to be all patriotic and stuff, but other work came up, so today is the day.

I was aiming for the pre-Prohibition lager as an essentially Czech style brewed by German immigrants using available American ingredients. This meant that adjuncts were pretty much required. I went for the "Bob's Redmill Grits."

On the down side, I probably should have used some 6-row barley, but I had the 2-row 'in stock'. I used Czech hops, although my brewing forefathers probably used Cluster. The color final product turned out to be a pale yellow. I was expecting a mid-yellow.

On the up side, it turned out pretty good! (Probably despite my various tweaks rather than because of them!)


Classic American Pilsner
Expected Original Gravity: 1.047
Expected Final Gravity: 1.013
Calculated Alcohol: 4.5% A.B.V.
Calculated Bitterness: 32.8 IBU (Tinsleth)
Calculated Color 3° SRM (Yellow)

Malt Bill
5 lbs. / 2.26 Kg Pilsner
2.5 lbs. / 1.14 Kg Pale 2-row
1.5 lbs. / 0.68 Kg Corn grits

Hop Bill
1.00 oz / 28g Perle First Wort 8.0 AA
0.50 oz / 14g Saaz Boil - 30 3.3 AA
0.50 oz / 14g Saaz Boil - 1 3.3 AA

Yeast:
Wyeast 2278 Czech Pils or White Labs WLP800 Pilsner Lager

Extras:
½ teaspoon lactic acid in sparge
Volumes of CO2: 2.5

1. Cereal cooker: Boil the Corn grits in two gallons of water for 30 minutes.
2. Protein Rest: Heat about 9 quarts of water to 146°F to strike at 133°F for 20 minutes.
3. Bring about 3 quarts of water to boil, add to mash to reach 150°F for 60 minutes.
4. Heat to mash out at 167°F and sparge to collect 6 gallons of wort.
5. Boil 75 minutes, adding hops at times indicated.
6. Chill to 60°F, oxygenate well, pitch and ferment for ten hours.
7. Chill to 50°F and primary ferment for three weeks.
8. Transfer to secondary fermentor and lager at 40°F.

Initial Water Profile: Seattle/Tolt
Alkalinity, Total (as CaCO3) mg/L 20.2
Hardness, (as CaCO3) mg/L 26.9
Magnesium mg/L 0.36
Potassium mg/L 0.23
Sodium mg/L 1.83

Orange Blossom Mixed Fruit Mead

25.C, Other Fruit Melomel
Calculated Original Gravity: 1.147
Calculated Alcohol: 14.7% A.B.V.

FERMENTATION Primary: 60 days Temp: 65 F Glass Secondary: 20 days Temp: 65 F Plastic   Tertiary: 90 days Temp: 65 F Glass FERMENTABLES 12 lbs. Orange Blossom Honey 3 lbs. Snowberry Honey 3 lbs. Thistle Honey YEAST Lalvin D-47 ( 1 Liter starter ) SPECIAL INGREDIENTS: 2 tsp. Yeast Nutrient 2 tsp. Yeast Energizer

The requisite carboy shot

PROCESS:
1. Split Batch after Primary ferment, moving two halves to secondary brew buckets
2. Freeze fruit before using to break down cell walls. To the First half of the batch, add:
• 2 lbs. Blackberries
• 2 lbs. Strawberries
• 2 lbs. Raspberries
• 1.5 lbs. Raspberries
• 2 lbs. Cherries
3. To the Second half of the batch, add:
• 5 lbs. Peaches
• 1 lbs. Nectarines
• 1 oz. Grated Ginger
• 2.5 tsp. Pectic Enzyme
4. Rack to carboys and Tertiary Ferment

My First Mead

I've been brewing beer for a number of years, and finally decided to try a mead. Or actually a couple of meads. I started by getting fifteen pounds of Orange Blossom Honey from Miller's apiary in California. Then I got another fifteen pounds Buckwheat, and three pounds of Snowberry and Star Thistle honey from Miller's apiary near Spokane. The two Millers don't appear to be related.

The Orange Blossom, Snowberry and Star Thistle honey went into the carboy yesterday. I hopefully heated the honey enough (145 degrees for 20 minutes)to zap the wild yeast and beasties without driving off the finer aromas. I didn't bother measuring the original gravity because the fruit is going to throw the numbers off when it is added.