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

Kate The Great

Every year I make a list of beers that I want to try and set out to land a bottle or two.  In 2010 the list included Black Tuesday, Darkness, Dark Lord and Surly Four.  In 2011 it was about developing a taste for sours  was hitting off various Cantillons and Drie Fonteinen but also included beers like Westvleteren 12, Pliny the Younger, Marshal Zhukov and Surly Five (plus Mo's Bender).  Of all the beers I tired there was one above all that I needed to try.  So I decided that in 2012 I would set out to land legendary Kate the Great from Portsmouth Brewery.

A quick history on Kate the Great - First released in 2005 it lwas a quite sleeper of a beer until 2007 when it was named the Number One Beer in the USA (Number Two on Planet Earth) by Beer Advocate Magazine.  Almost overnight Kate became on the the rarest and most talked about beers. Not helping the fact annually only 1,000 22oz bottles were released until 2012 when the volume to 12oz allowing the quantity of bottles released to raise to 2,000.  2012 also marked the first time the beer was released in a unique bottle as all previous years had used a default Portsmouth Brewery label stamped with Imperial Stout.

The first and only? Kate the Great Label

Sadly 2012 might well mark the last year of true Kate the Great as after eight and a half years Tod Mott the creator of Kate the Great has left his post as Head Brewer at the Portsmouth to pursue other ventures, taking the recipe with him.  While Tod has plans to rebrew the recipe he will do so under another name and future plans for "Kate the Great" have yet to be decided by Portsmouth Brewery.

To obtain the beer I responded to a ISO:FT [ISO- Rare, Churchills 12 FT- Kate, Cantillon, Allagash Sours, 07/08 Abyss, list...] started by jsilva. I still had a Churchill's Finest Hour 2012 that I'd almost just put in a box anyway for a BIF that I got zero wants out of (bullet dodged).  So I considered it out and available to trade. I didn't want to however do a 22oz for just a 12oz so I started the conversation simply with -

Do you have or have access to a Kate the Great glass?

I figured that if I was going to enjoy Kate the Great there would be no better way to do it than in the official glass.  This was a special glass produced for the 2012 Kate Day in conjugation with Portsmouth's 20th Anniversary and featured a close up of Kate bitting off the cap to the bottle - "Twist off... my ass!" The Kate arrived first with the glass getting to me several weeks later.

I decided that my upcoming Tenth Wedding Anniversary (#Scott&Bonnie10Years!) would be the perfect opportunity to open it.  Once the day came I arrived home around 5:20 and pulled the Kate out of the fridge to warm a little. We were going out to dinner later so while Bonnie was getting resdy I gathered my glass and opened the bottle.  Here is my review.

Great looking combo

Appearance: Pours deep and black, with a fourth inch of tan head.  Not a ton of lacing but still an enjoyable experience throughout.

Aroma: I personally don't get as much port as I expected, in fact I don't get any. What I do get is a nice roast aroma with some chocolate and wood traces. 

Mouthfeel: It sits remarkably heavy in my month.  Thick, rich and cream with a very full mouthfeel. Wonderful! I've only had a few stouts as rich and creamy as this one.  Literally everything I look for in an Imperial Russian Stout.

Taste: It was a little cold of the starting block but nothing that a little hand warming couldn't fix.  I get a lot of dark stone fruit similar to what I've tried on quads, almost a plum. A lot of roasty goodness with some fug and chocolate undertones. A very slight warming not unexpected from a beer with a 12% abv.

Overall: I honestly thought this beer was spectacular and lived up to the hype.  Currently Kate the Great occupies the number 3 slot on BeerAdvocate's list of Top Beers for Russian Imperial Stout.  When you consider the fact that most of the top beers on that list are barrel aged while Kate is not it's a pretty impressive feat. 

While I had most of it I probably lost maybe a sixth when my daughter decided to jump on me. I had moved to the couch to finish it up while Bonnie finished getting ready for dinner. Apparently after a little bit Syd decided that it would be a good time surprise me by jumping on me. Result - me covered with most of my remaining glass of Kate. Awesome. Bonnie's Notes: You ended up with Kate the Great all over you because of Syd the Wild

It definitely makes me want to revisit the recipe for Kate the Great that tried back on my birthday as 33 developed some odd infection that I'm hoping will be covered via some faux barrel aging.

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