34

Happy Birthday to me

For the second year in a row I spent my birthday leisurely brewing a big imperial stout. You may recall that a year ago I mentioned that I always try to take my birthday and spending it doing things I love, which for the past two years has meant brewing a beer.

The beer this year was a slight retool of the Kate the Great clone that I brewed last year. I had started to tool-up a monster of a beer in BeerSmith about 6 months ago but decided I wanted to give the recipe another shot after the fate that had befallen 33.  As you may recall from the "Barrel" Aged 33 post due to it's close vicinity to Halvtreds it caught a brett infection that somewhat diminished the final flavor of the beer.  This really bugged me as my in process tasting was reveling an incredible beer was developing.

Brewing of the beer went really well and considering that last year I had to sub in some DME to meet my targeted gravity I was quite pleased to have hit it without any this year.  The biggest cause of this was my focus on the efficiency of the system and the process I've been using for sparging. I've spent some time studying other brewer's processes and the flow rate while sparging does appear to be a big contributor to the system's efficiency.  The rule of thumb that Shawn has advised be to follow four oz in a quarter minute. (Note: I texted Shawn to confirm this and he replied - "Yes.  One pint per minute, but measuring 4oz in 15 second allows for quick adjustment and dialing in." He cautions - "Don't exceed 90 min total (per Noonan)")

The 521 Blend of "Barrel" Aged 33

Another big deal for the day was the birthday present from my wife and daughter of a Duda Diesel plate chiller.  I've had A LOT of issues with my immersion chiller leaking while cooling, which resulted in some severely missed gravities and no loss of frustration, and really wanted to follow Shawn in getting a plate chiller.  I'd been eying Duda Diesel as the cost effective solution after first hearing about them over at Chism Brewing Voyage.  I had originally planned on buying one direct however between first coming across them and my birthday I mentioned them to Eric at Addison Homebrew Provisions who then went on to start carrying them (which is where Bonnie bought mine).  I still have some set up work to do it get the temperature efficiencies to where I want it.  So far I've been able to drop the wort from boiling to 80 in about 5-6 minutes.  From there it give it an ice bath to reach pitching temp in the mid 60s.  Pretty damn good considering it was taking 30-45 minutes to get to 90 using the immersion chiller.

I'd made a big starter using WLP007 and my stir plate which resulted in active fermentation in about 3 hours.  In fact the fermentation was so strong that dispite keeping the temp in the 60s I experienced on of the worst blow off I'd seen in years!  oops

Cheers

-SNB

33

Happy Birthday to me!

As long as I've been working I've always set out to not work on my birthday, it just doesn't seem right to me. This year however I felt that it would be fun to spend 6 hours brewing, which is technically working but not to the same level.  I think it's really telling about how much I enjoy brewing when it's something I want to do on days I set aside doing nothing.

When I set out to craft the recipe for my birthday brew I had a couple of thoughts in mind.  I wanted it to be big with agability, nothing below 10%.  This opened the doors to Imperial Stouts, Old Ales, Barley Wines and American Strong Ales.  I also had a bunch of oak chips and cubes that have been sitting on various spirits since summer that I wanted to play with.  My plan would be to brew it on my birthday, ferment it and bulk condition till July, then age it in 1/2 - 1 gallon growlers on the various oaks till December when I'll blend it back together and keg it.  I'll enjoy the first glass on my next birthday when I finish up brewing next years batch.  

I spent a lot of time reading various recipes online, in various magazines (BYO, Zymurgy etc) and in my books but nothing seemed to be jumping out at me.  The previous year I'd toyed around with brewing an anniversary beer based on Stone's Double Bastard but decided I really wanted a stout as I really like how Imperial Rhino Stout came out. 

The Grain Landscape

On my way back from Houston I happened to catch Mike's (the Mad Fermentationist) tasting notes on his Kate the Great clone.  Apparently Todd Mott, Portsmouth's head brewer, sent a brewer a clone recipe for his infamious stout who then posted the recipe up onto Homebrewtalk. After reading through the couple dozen pages and the various versions it produced (including Mike's) I decided that I had found my recipe.

The next obstacle would be to determine how I would brew it.  I really wanted to do it all grain for several reason however I ran into a slight problem as my mash tun won't be able to hold the shear volume of grain that would be require for a 5 gallon batch. If you ever wonder about that check out this link. I therefore decided to sub-out part of the two row for 3 lbs of light DME.

When it came to my birthday I got a more relaxed start than my last several all grain days, it was my birthday after all.  Bonnie was nice enough to bring me a breakfast sandwich and we set Sydnie up with a table and chair so that all of us could hang out together, which was a great birthday treat for me.  I took a gravity reading after I finished sparging and found I was right on target.  It also happened to be one of the tastiest wort's I've ever produced, so tasty in fact that I poured myself a glass of it to enjoy while I brewed.  

5 Gallons of Stout

The only real issue I had came as I was bringing my pot up to boil.  I noticed that my burner was quieter then it should be and sure enough ran out of gas shortly there after.  It was nothing that a quick run to Home Depot couldn't solve but I really should invest in a backup tank.  The only disappointment came when I took my OG reading, which despite nailing my pre-boil gravity came up 8 points short of target grrrr.

For yeast I used a massive starter that I had put together several days ahead.  I also used a more generous amount of nutrient and hit it with triple the O2 at each oxygenation step. I'll keep it in primary till it get very close to it's target FG then move it to secondary for a while.  I'm really looking forward to this one.

Cheers

-SNB