Bannana Wheat

I decided to try out my first all-grain wheat recipe last weekend. It's really not all the different from all-barley, except you need to remember to include rice hulls so that the sparge doesn't stick.

I'd been wanting to use a bunch of VERY ripe bananas that my wife had sitting around in a beer. I had also recently had a "Banana Bread Ale", so I knew I wanted to throw them in. My wife hates banana smell or taste that's not from real bananas (like artificial flavor or esters from yeast), so I was hoping to get some of the type that she likes in there.

Recently, when visiting my LHBS, I sampled a wheat made with a London Ale yeast, which left it very clear and with a really nice taste. I had wanted to use that yeat on my beer, but they were out when I went to pick up ingredients. So, I got the Wyeast 1098 British Ale instead (London is part of Britain, right?). We'll see what this turns out like.

The recipe I found came from HomeBrewTalk.com (which I recently joined - I'm antiteam):

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
0.50 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 5.00 %
5.50 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 55.00 %
4.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 40.00 %
1.15 oz Hallertauer [3.00 %] (90 min) Hops 13.8 IBU
1.00 tbsp PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 90.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Safbrew WB-06 (Fermentis #WB-06) Yeast-Wheat


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 10.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Mash In Add 4 gallons of water at 172 F 154.0 F


Notes:

My typical mash schedule of 10 pounds of grain, 4 gallons of 172 degree strike water and two 2-gallon sparges of nearly boiling water.

Sorry, this is probably the least expensive and most simple recipe to win. The two things that make this good, in my opinion, are the higher mash temperature and lower fermentation temperature. Many of my Hefes have been a bit thin, even watery when I mashed at the standard 149/150. After reading many of Biemuncher’s posts and recipes I noticed some higher mash temps and fuller bodied beers. I now mash most of my beers at 154 or higher for a full 90 minutes.

Total price per 5 gallon batch is probably less than $15 and even less with bulk grains and by salvaging a quart of US-06 slurry. It’s a simple single infusion mash at a slightly high temp and whatever you do- don’t forget the rice hulls.

The only deviation that I took from this recipe (aside form the yeast) was to limit the Hallertauer to 1 oz, since I wasn't goign to buy another ounce of hops just for the additional 0.15 ounces.

I mashed at 156 F, which fell to 154 F by the end of 90 minutes.  I put the bananas in at 15 minutes, along with the Irish Moss.  My original gravity was 1.052, and I only got 4 gallons at that.  I really need to figure out my efficiency issues.  I'm thinking it might have to do with my sparging technique.  I think I'm going to go back to a batch sparge next time and see if that helps.  It's in the primary right now.

Brewferm Framboise (Raspberry No Boil Kit)

I received a Brewferm Framboise no-boil kit for my birthday a few months ago but never got a chance to make it back then. I finally had an opportunity to make it in between other recipes a couple of weeks ago, while my carboys were all tied up with other, longer secondary, projects.

Rather than using sugar as the recipe calls for, I followed conventional wisdom and substituted light DME. I had wanted to replace the yeast as well but I didn't have any on hand, so I had to use the pack that came with the kit.

The supplied yeast isn't very good. It imparted an almost chalky taste that seems to be subsiding over time. I think I would have preferred to use a California Ale to let the raspberry flavor come through a bit better.

Despite the fact that this kit was no-boil, I chose to boil it for about 15 minutes. This was for two reasons. First, it made the DME easier to dissolve. Second, when I looked at the can, which had been in my possession for 6 months (so it was likely much older than that), the ends of the can were visibly bulging. That indicates that the contents could have the start of an infection. When I opened the can, there was no bad smell or look but I chose to boil it to sanitize just to be sure. The alternative on a no-boil kit is to just throw it in the fermenter, which is dangerous if you suspect an infection, lest an infection run rampant. However, the trade off is that when boiling fruit the pectin will set, leaving a haze that will not clear. This is a purely visual issue and doesn't affect flavor at all. Needless to say, this beer is cloudy, but it's better safe than sorry.

The kit makes about 3 gallons in total. I bottled 6 to give to my sister, who bought it for me, and kegged the rest. I force carbed and upon pouring from the tap this beer has a red tinted, creamy, foamy head. There is definitely a raspberry taste present as well.

Overall, this isn't bad for a no-boil kit and would be a great choice for a beginning brewer. I highly recommend using DME instead of sugar and replacing the yeast (try a packet of Safale US-05).

Here you can see the creamy head, red color, and cloudiness of the beer.

Fruity Pebbles Ale

I had heard on a podcast recently about an Iron Chef style hombrew competition where the competitors had a "secret ingredient" unveiled on them at the last minute.  One of the ingredients was Fruity Pebbles.  I'd heard of using cereals in the mash before, but never a sugary cereal.  So, I had to try it out.

I just did a small 1 gallon batch.  I made up a basic recipe to use up some of the ingredients I had around.

2 lbs 6 oz  2-row Pale
5 oz Fruity Pebbles

6.0% AA Cascade:
1/2 oz @ 60 minutes
1/4 oz @ 15 minutes
1/4 oz @ flameout

Irish Moss at 15 minutes

Mashed starting at 158 F for 90 minutes.  Finished at 153 F.

O.G. is 1.040

I didn't realize until after that I didn't have any yeast and the local homebrew store isn't open on Sunday.  I decided to just pitch the dregs from one of the bottles of Peanut Butter Ale and one of the bottles of Sour Raspberry.  I also threw in some yeast nutrient and yeast energizer to help, since I was underpitching.  It took two days to start, but it seems to have finished out just fine.

The most surprising part of it all is that after I sparged the mash, the wort was a little bit oily.  Not to the point that it was with the Peanut Butter Ale, but you could definitely see and feel a bit of oil on the surface.  Must be from the cereal.  I'm not expecting any head retention on this beer.

In the primary

We're Featured on a Real Blog!

When eating with some friends at a local establishment, Belly Shack, I had brought some of my American Red in a growler since it's a BYO. Belly Shack has communal seating, so being the friendly guy that I am, I shared some of my brew with our table-mates.

It turned out that one of our table mates was a famous local-Chicago food blogger, there to review the restaurant! She even mentioned my beer in her review! I quote:

"Sweet, spicy, addicting, it was a suggestion from our communal dining partners, who were also kind enough to offer us a sample of the house-brewed beer (a damn jug of it) they had BYOB’d. Their brew was a red ale (unnamed) and tasted to us like a darker, richer Leinenkugal’s Red. (I can’t recall the brewer’s name, but I won’t forget his beer blog name) Finally a communal seating situation that involves table sharing of home-brewed beer! The dark rich ale held up to the parade of flavors on our palate and happily filled us up. And as nice as it would be to hang at a communal table shared by home-brewers at Belly Shack again, I’ll be happy just to try the rest of the menu including the highly-acclaimed tostones with chimichurri sauce, the roasted squash and the belly hot dog with kimchi salsa and egg noodles. Communal beer or not, I’ll be back to belly up."

And the best thing is that she plugged the blog too! Do you know what that means? That means that now 3 people in total have looked at this site! Fun!

Check out Elizabites for all of the best eating around Chi-city.

Peanut Butter Ale

I knew that there would be a lot of sugars left in the grains after a big beer like the double IPA. I decided to borrow a page from the "party guile" book and threw in the crystallized malts that I had around, let it soak in 4 gallons of water for a little bit then ran it off.

I did a 60 minute boil with 1 ounce of Cascade (again, what I had on hand) for bittering. At 15 minutes I put in 6 ounces of Peter Pan Reduced Fat Creamy (guess what? - on hand) for the rest of the boil as well as 3/4 lb of lactose for a bit of sweetness.

When I racked to glass carboys (3 1-gallon) for fermentation I made sure to try to leave behind as much of the oils as possible. They mostly form at the top of the water. I also tried to leave the peanut particulate at the bottom. The idea here is that you want the taste, but the oils will destroy head retention, and still probably will.

I just tried one tonight after a week of aging and while not amazing, it's drinkable. I mixed a little bit with the sour raspberry for a PB&J type of beer as well. Good times. I'll report back on how it ends up with some more aging.

 

Peanut Butter Ale

Peanut Butter Ale and Sour Raspberry Blend (a.k.a. PB&J)

Double Valent-IPA

I made this recipe on Valentines day (no, I'm not a bad husband - at least not because of this - my wife was working that Sunday). I decided to make her this as a Valen-times present.

I'd had my eye on this recipe at HomeBrewTalk.com for a while:

Crosseyed PA (Double IPA)

Grains
14.75 lbs 2 Row (US)
1.00 lbs Munich
.25 lbs Crystal 20L

Adjuncts
1.00 lbs Corn Sugar added at boil start
Whirlfloc tablet added @ 15 min

Hops
2 oz Centennial (10% Alpha) @ 60 min
2 oz Chinook (13% Alpha) @ 60 min
1 oz Centennial (10% Alpha) @ 15 min
1 oz Galena (13% Alpha) @ 5 min
* 2 oz Galena (13% Alpha) Dry hopped for 7 days
All my hops were in pellet form

Yeast
1000mL starter of #WLP001 California Ale

I used 1 tbs of 5.2 Mash Stabilizer in my strike water

Mash in with 5 gallons of water at 167.1F and hold mash @ 155F for 90 minutes
Drain Mash Tun and sparge with 3.67 gallons of water @ 168F
Boil volume should be 6.50 gallons
Flame on and boil for 60 min to get a final volume of 5 gallons into primary.


I had a bunch of BMC drinkers, and "I don't like hoppy beer" drinkers destroy a keg of this in no time at a BBQ in my backyard. It destroyed them in return, with an ABV of about 9%

I had to sub Caramel 10L for the Crystal 20L because that's what I had. I also had to sub Nugget in place of the Galena in the 5 minute addition due to availability at the homebrew store.

I know that as grain bills get bigger, efficiency gets worse, but this was terrible. I got 4 gallons at 1.090, which is 80% of the 5 gallons at 1.090 that the recipe calls for. I'm assuming that's at an assumed 70% efficiency. I haven't done my own efficiency calculations yet, but that's only because I know it's going to be abysmal.

I changed some things up for this brew. I tried a fly sparge with a hot liquor tank and a cPVC manifold I built. I also built a cPVC manifold for the mash tun and this was the maiden voyage. Those all surely affected things - possibly for good and for bad.

This beer is in secondary as I write this post. It'll be in the keg (and a few bottles so I can hand it out to my hophead friends) in a few weeks. I'll update about the outcome.

In the secondary with the Galena.  This was a plug instead of pellets and, as you'd expect, the particulate is larger.  That should make racking that much easier later on.

Update: I kegged this the other day.  It finished out at 1.018, which should give it an ABV of about 9.5%.

Raspberry Hard Lemonade

The Hard Lemonade recipe from HomeBrewTalk.com was used again, but this time I tried using frozen raspberry lemonade for a two gallon batch.

The end result was good, but in the end the raspberry was pretty much imperceptible unless I told people about it. The value-add over regular lemonade was minimal.

I'm going to skip the raspberry next time around. In fact, I think I'm going to skip the lemonade all around. The limeade just works so much better in this. With spring around the corner, I'd love to have 5 gallons on hand for the nice weather.

Did this one in a 2 gallon water jug again.