Wild Fermentation - The Soda Chronicals

Sandor Ellix Katz's book, Wild Fermentation, is quite possibly one of my most favorite books.  He takes such a relaxed approach to fermentation, which is quite a contrast to most of the brewing sites I read.  Despite what Charlie Papazian says, it's really hard to just relax and stop worrying, even with the aid of a homebrew.  If I have to pin down a moment when I decided to embark on this homebrewing adventure, it would be right after I read through this book for the first time.  The guy is inspirational, what can I say.  I've been meaning to try out his gingerbeer recipe for a while now, but have been too lazy to care for a starter.  My imminent trip to the South Land on Christmas day spurred me to finally whip up a wild starter last week.

According to Katz's book, all you need to start is
2 teaspoons grated ginger (skin and all)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup of water
Stir together and leave in a warm spot, covered with some plastic wrap

Just like a sourdough starter (or a pet), you have to feed the thing every day with more ginger and sugar. I have a notoriously bad time with sourdough starters in this apartment. Something about the air just isn't friendly for the wee beasties to flourish. It took a while for this starter to start bubbling, and I think the activity I did get was a direct result of the yeast nutrient I added. I guess the lack of wild yeast in my apartment is ultimately good for my homebrews, but it's bad for any kind of wild fermentation process. The starter never looked particularly vigorous, so I really hope than when I crack open a ginger beer when I return, it will be carbonated.

When your starter is active, mix together:

2-6 inches grated ginger root
1.5 cups sugar
2 quarts water

Juice 2 lemons and reserve liquid.

Boil for 15 minutes. Cool and strain (if it's above 80 degrees, you risk killing the yeast in your starter). Add the juice of 2 lemons and the strained ginger bug. Add enough water to make 1 gallon of liquid. Bottle in sealable bottles (I used beer bottles and capped them, because I have the equipment to do so). Leave the bottles in a warm place to ferment for 2 weeks. Chill before opening and be prepared for carbonation!

I can only hope the last bit is true for me. Also, I was a little lax on sanitation with this brew. I mean, the starter sat out on top of my fridge for a week and barely showed signs of yeast habitation, let alone bacteria or mold. I think I should do a test with a bowl of weak wort and see how long that takes to become infected. The point of sanitation is to prevent infection with wild beasties, bacteria and mold. If they wouldn't go after my starter, I suspect the sanitation issue in the bottles might not be a big deal. (I'll give you all the gory details if this does go terribly wrong.)

IC Stout

This is a homebrew blog, but most of my posts so far have been about other people's beers.  I'm working on a small scale, so I can only turn out a new beer every 2-4 weeks.  This one is good but was not what I was shooting for.  The 'IC' stands for Identity Crisis.  I intended for this to be a chocolate stout, but when I went to the brew store, I was talked into buying the ingredients for their oatmeal stout.  The first brew store I checked out in the central MA area was the West Boylston Homebrew Emporium. I bought some yeast from them and all was good. Later, a friend and fellow homebrewer told me that the prices were lower at the Strange Brew shop in Marlborough. They are nice folks at Strange Brew, but their prices are definitely not lower and the drive out there is almost 3 times as long. Also, instead of letting me follow my own recipe, the woman at the counter insisted I use their house recipe for oatmeal stout.  I will be sticking with the Homebrew Emporium in the future, mostly because it is closer.  

Back to the stout.  It pours a very dark brown color with a thick tan head.  The head is probably the nicest of my homebrews yet.  It disappears quickly, but leaves lacing down the side of the glass throughout the drinking.  The smell is chocolately with a floral, hoppy character to it.  The taste progresses from sweet and malty to chocolate to bitter.  The finish  more like eating a bar of very dark chocolate than it is bitter from the hops.  That's a good qualit

y, since I'm fond of bitter chocolate.  The body is...quite light.  I was expecting the oatmeal to add more oomph to it, and I'm disappointed with that.  The taste definitely has improved over the bottles I opened earlier, and I suspect this will only continue to be true.  

Recipe, 5 gallons

13 November 2008

Oatmeal Stout

6.6lbs Muntons Dark Liquid Malt

4oz Malto-dextrin

3oz Dark Crystal

3oz Roast Barley

8oz Chocolate malt

7oz Flaked oats

1oz Centenial Hops (bittering)

1oz Cascade (aroma)

Wyeast liquid #1084 Irish Ale

1 tsp irish moss

5oz priming sugar

Soaked grains at 158 degrees for 20 minutes in 2 gallons of water.  Removed and added the malt and malto-dextrin.  Brought to a boil while stirring and added bittering hops.  Boiled for 50 minutes.  Added Irish moss for 10 minutes and finished with aroma hops.  Strained the wort into the bucket and added water and ice to fill up to 5 gallons.  The ice was a solid chunk, which dropped the wort down to 52 degrees when I pitched the yeast.  I really need to use smaller chunks of ice next time.  The yeast got off to a slow start.  Racked to a secondary after 8 days and bottled after 9 more days with 5oz of priming sugar.

OG: 1.052, FG: 1.018 which gives me an ABV of 4.6%

I'm pretty sure that the oatmeal and roasted barley actually needed to be mashed, which I didn't know enough about at the time to do.  I've done some reading since then, and I think I can handle it from now on.  I think I will move up a bit on the homebrew scale and start with partial mashing 2-4 lbs of grain with my brews.  For things like the smoked ales and that really, really awesome looking rye ale in the last issue of BYO magazine, partial mashing is a must.  Gah.  I've got a long list of beers I want to brew and only a limited space to do them in.  

***

We have our first winter storm of the year going full blast outside.  I think I'm going to brave the weather and treat myself to a bowl of pho at the Vietnamese restaurant down the street.  After that, it might be time to bake some gingerbread cookies.  Yum!

Harpoon Rauchfetzen Ale

This is an interesting smoked beer from Harpoon's 100 Barrel Series.  It's both the first I've had of this series and the first smoked beer I've tasted.  After reading about smoked beers in the previous edition of Brew Your Own magazine, I was looking to try out the style on my last trip to Mass Liquors.  According to Harpoon's website, Rauchfetzen means "wisp of smoke," which is definitely appropriate since the smoke flavor is present but not in any way overwhelming.  The ale pours a clear amber color with a fairly thick white head.  The smell is amazing, like sticking your nose in a container of lapsang souchong tea.  Now that I think about it, the fact that I adore the flavor of Chinese smoked tea might explain my interest in trying smoked beers.   The flavor is malty and smokey with a hint of oak and the finish is pleasantly bitter.  The carbonation is medium and the body is on the light side.  I really like this beer and will seek it out again and others of this style if I can find them.  One of the recipes in BYO was for a smoked porter that looked quite doable.  Maybe when I get home from break I will brew it up.  

Ommegang Hennepin Saison

This is a pretty awesome example of a saison.  The beer pours a sparkling straw color that is only slightly cloudy with a foamy, white head.  The aroma coming off the beer is quite complex, with a strong yeast smell and hints of citrus and coriander.  I really like the bubbles that stream continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top, keeping the head a stable half-inch thick.  I have trouble finding words for how saisons taste.  I'm a big fan of the style, because the flavor is so unique.  It's definitely quite tart, with an initial fruit flavor and a very dry finish.  The beer is heavily carbonated and also very alcoholic, which leaves a warm feeling in my stomach.  

The label says it's bottle conditioned, which means they leave the yeast in the brew unpasturized and allow it to carbonate naturally.  I really hope they use the same strain of yeast to ferment and to carbonate, as I would love to use it in a homebrew some day.  It's fairly easy to grow yeast from a bottle conditioned brew by adding it to a pint or two of weak wort.  After the weak start that the hefeweizen got, I'm planning to create starters from all of my yeast from now on.  The only problem is that some breweries use lager yeasts to condition their ales by adding them just before bottling.  The only way to find this out is to try to use it!    

Scotch Ales

A couple of weeks ago I had a couple of sips of Founder's Backwoods Bastard Scotch Ale at the Armsby Abbey. It was definitely beer envy. I was drinking a wheat wine, which was good, but not as spectacular as that Scotch Ale. Since then, I have been thinking about scotch ales quite a bit. I even bought a couple to try out. No Founders, though, as it's hard to find around here.

Belhaven Wee Heavy

Belhaven Brewery claims to be the oldest surviving brewery in Scotland, a claim which leads one to have high hopes for this Scotch ale.  Pouring it into my glass, I was intrigued by the beer's very beautiful deep garnet color and creamy, tan head, which quickly disappeared. The aroma coming off of it was very fruity and almost red-wine like. This wee heavy has a very strong malt flavor which is balanced by a light hop bitterness.  It's not very carbonated, but I don't miss that in strongly flavored beers.  I would definately buy this beer again.

Smuttynose Scotch Ale

I am a huge Smuttynose fan.  Their beer is great and the neat designs on their bottles always make me want to pick up a six-pack when I'm at the store.  This Scotch Ale is part of their big bottle series, where they sell limited run and seasonal brews in 22oz bottles.  

This beer is darker than the Belhaven one.  It has a dark, cloudy amber color.  I will attribute the cloudiness to chill haze.  (I'm secretly pleased that even commercial breweries have trouble with this.)  The head was light tan and quite foamy, and when I sipped it, there was thick lacing down the side of the glass.  The ale has a nice floral aroma that does not prepare you for the bold malt flavors that hit your tongue when you sip!  The flavor is sweet and malty, with a pleasant bitter finish as the beer heads down your throat.  This is a very alcoholic beer (over 11% abv) and you can definitely taste it.  I would also purchase this beer again.  Yum!

***

I bottled my oatmeal stout on Sunday.  I think once the flavors have a chance to mellow out that it will be a very nice beer.  I attempted to bottle my cranberry hefeweizen yesterday, but the hydrometer reading was 1.021, which is too high for that kind of beer.  Instead I racked it to a secondary fermenter so it could sit for another three days.  The cranberry chunks clogged up the siphon and were a pain to deal with.  The next time I try to make a fruit beer, I will either use a flavor extract or keep the fruit in a stocking like a giant tea bag.  Because of the chunks, it was not a quiet siphon into the second bucket.  I had to repeat the homebrewers mantra several times (Relax.  Don't worry.  Have a homebrew.) to make myself feel less panicked about the whole process.   A sample sip of the brew shows a predominant bubblegum flavor to it that I really hope goes away after a few weeks in a bottle.