Marshall's Matrimonial IPL

Marshall Mashing

When one of my best friends asked if I would brew a beer for his wedding, I was immediately honored and of course said yes.  I've know Marshall for almost 3 years ever since the first club meeting at AHP way back in 2010.  We we both pretty early in our brewing careers looking to collect some feedback on some of our ordinarily beers.  While I can't remember for the life of me what brought I'll never forget Marshall's. He called it Palate Wrecker and it was a big bastard of an IPA which he severed directly out of a 5 gallon keg keg he'd brought with him.  I thought it was an outstanding beer and given my known affinity for hoppy beers it was clear early on we'd be a good match. It wasn't long before we started brewing a couple of beers together and enjoying even more.

For his wedding Marshall requested a "clone" my most infamous beers - Scott's BIG IPL a beer I have so far produced 6 times now (7 if you count the one I did at Karl Strauss) so by now I've got it pretty much down.  The major problem I ran into was a lack of lager yeasts at the shop, I guess turnover on them has been low and someone recently bought most of his stock.  I therefore I to make a starter with Saflager 34/70, while not ideal was really my best option. 

Tucked in for the night

At this point I've got working with Minute rice down pretty well.  When getting ready to figure out my mash volumes and temps I remove the rice as well as about a half gallon of the strike water.  To prep the rice I bring four quarts of water to a boil and add a pound of rice  I then let it go for about 10-15 minutes while I finishing heating the strike water to temperature.  Once all is said and done I add about after the strike water, the grain, the other half of the strike and finally the entire pot with the rice and water and stir it till everything is incorporated.   I'm pretty sure I need to work a little more on the extract potential on of the rice as I think I'm not hitting gravity correctly because of it.

I had a couple of problems with the sparge,  First was Marshall accidentally disconnecting the tube from the false bottom.  It was pretty obvious as the first vorlauf was entirely grain. The other was a stuck sparge caused by compression around the false bottom, the root cause could either be double milling the grain (which I've done on every batch) or the rice. Or something else entirely.

Personally I think it's going to be a great batch and can't wait to try it in April.

Cheers

-SNB

Judging a Collaboration Homebrew Competition

The judging necessitates

A few month's back Shawn Burch, a fellow brewer, came up with a cool idea for a competition - a Collaboration Homebrew Competition.  The way it was designed to work is that interested participants would be randomly pair up with another brewer.  They would then get together, design a beer and brew it together.  The end product would then be judged with the winners taking home bragging rights in addition to some nice prizing including the "Pimp Paddle".

I volunteered to arrange and host the judging half which took place at my house a few nights back.  I can tell you that forcing myself to start reviewing the odd beer here and there for this site was really great prep.  The last time I judged I felt less then confident about what I was doing, this time I had no problem being descriptive, identifying what I was tasting and offering feedback when needed.   This is good considering the fact that a few of my brewing compatriots and myself are planning on becoming BJCP certified.

My score sheets

In talking with some of the brewers on hand I found there were a few methods of collaboration that went into this.  Several groups did straight collaborations and brewed a single 5 gallon batch.  Others brewed a 10 gallon batch with each participant taking home 5 gallons to ferment, they then selected either the better version or blended them together.  Finally one group brewed separately then came together and blended for the final beer.   As someone who enjoys concept of collaboration brewing it was nice to see the various methods that people came up with.

In total we ended up with seven entries, this was a little surprising as we had enough interest to round out several additional teams.  I also assembled a crack team of seven judges (including myself) and two and a half stewards to help keep the judging blind.  As far as the judges I felt we had a great range of judges from full BJCP certified, to people with more then enough knowledge to be BCJP, to a couple of guys who have never judged before.

The Final Four

I divided the group of judges into two panels and separated them in two areas of my house.  As some of the judges were also participants I instructed the stewards Eric (OC Eric) and Don (BackHouse Brew) to make sure that no one judged their own beer. In the first round I judged four beers with Daniel (beancurdturtle) and Steve (SteveM) while Shawn (oleolsson), Robert (Brew Captain), Joel (JJkings52) and Joey (PunkMonk) judged three beers.  Judged and scored using BCJP score sheets each group was instructed to advance their favorite two beers to the finals.  My group selected an American Brown and a "Belguim" to join a Wit Beer and a Dubbel in the main event.

For the finals we regrouped the judges which included zero competitors and was made up of Steve, Joey, Robert and myself. Robert suggested arranging it so that all beer could be poured at the same time so that we could debate which one was our favorite.  To do this I brought out fresh taster glasses including the four Brewing TV tastes I won by hobbit-fing John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff a few months back.

After sampling all the different beers we determine the winners.  I swore the tasting panel to secrecy so that they could be announced at the AHP Anniversary Party.  Fortunately with the magic of scheduled posting this post did go live till then so here are the Winners

3rd Place Goes to

Shawn Olsson and Cesar Alfaro
(Deconstructed Belgian Cream Ale)

2nd Place Goes to
Shawn Burch and Daniel Vaughn
(Belgian Dubbel)

1st Place and the Pimp Paddle Goes to
Vince Bunting and Mark Laun
(American Brown Ale)
 

BaseCamp Dessert aka Bourbon-Vanilla

Breakfast on the Left
Dessert on the Right
Clear shift in color

Over the weekend I kegged up my two beers that started their lives as a split batch of porter.  They started this journey back in March as a 10 gallon batch of porter brewed specifically for SCHF.  Right out of the gate the Breakfast version of the beers I've been calling my BaseCamp series got over a pound of maple syrup but it wasn't until secondary that the other beer, name Dessert, started its story.

As I mentioned last time the base grain bill was inspired by Denny Conn's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter, Dessert represents a slight variation on that original beer.  The beer started this process when I added 4 vanilla beans (the processing of which I botched) to secondary and set it aside to age and meld flavors.

After several weeks in secondary it was time to keg it up and finish the process.  During transfer I tasted some of the vanilla porter that it had become along the way, frankly I was blown away by how much I enjoyed it.  The vanilla was up front and a part of the beer but not in an overpowering way.  When I do this beer again I need to be careful on how I handle the bean remembering that the bulk of the vanilla guts went down the drain in the first attempt. 

Needed to get it transferred quick
so I transferred the at the same
time using two sets of equipment

When I came to add the bourbon I reviewed some notes of Denny's and found he used around 10 ml of bourbon per pint of beer.  For five gallons this came out to be was 400 ml or 13.52 oz which I rounded to 14oz.  For the bourbon I sent my wife to the store to pick some up for me, she came home with some Makers Mark.  This differs from the Jim Beam Black Bourbon that Denny uses but I've used it before and it's Eric from AHP's favorite brand.

I've been tasting the final blend over the last few days as I've been carbonating it and I've been digging the flavor balance.  I recently read an article by Denny "Recipe Formulation: A Road Map to Good Beer" in the latest issue of Zymurgy.  In it he details the process on how he created the recipe for this beer.  It started as his attempt to replicate the flavors he was getting from barrel aged beers without it touching a barrel.  I can see this when I taste the beer but would shy away from saying it's completely successful.  Then again this is my version not his so it could be an unfair judgement. Never-less it's a pretty damn tasty beer.

Now the update I know you've been waiting for - BaseCamp Breakfast aka Maple-Bacon-Coffee!  When we left this beer I had jammed a pound of oven cooked bacon into the secondary fermenter to dry bacon my beer.  3 weeks later the beer had taken on a slight bacon-ness in both flavor and aroma. At the time I'd been worried about getting the bacon out of the fermenter, fortunately the beer had broken down the bacon and it slid right out.  To finish the beer off I added coffee and a very slight amount of liquid smoke.  For the coffee I had to change to a different method as I lacked the time to to a cold extraction.  For a quick coffee boost I asked Bonnie to pick me up some espresso from Starbucks that I tossed straight in the keg.  Taste wise it is ok but long term I will still lean towards cold extracted coffee for beers that will be around longer then a weekend.

If you're hitting up Southern California Homebrew Fest this weekend try to stop on by both the Brewcommune and AHP Brewclub booths to sample both versions of BaseCamp Series 1.

Cheers

- SNB