Let's see how long these cases last...
Are you brewing up any extract recipes? Do you have anything that turned out pretty good? Go ahead and give this recipe a try and see how you can improve it...there sure is plenty of room for that! Good luck!
In my previous post I gave a recipe and short write-up about an extract ale I had come up with as part of research I am doing for a post on all-grain vs. extract brewing. Wow, this is hard work, but someone has to do it... Somehow the beer turned out a little better than I was hoping for – perhaps in part because I am bit of a pessimist. It is a very easy-drinking beer with a mild flavour and mild bitterness. This beer has no stand-out quality and no real defining character, just a simple session ale. I guess at the end of the day this is what I was hoping for so I should be happy, but I feel for the next one I would like to try and get a bit more malty-sweetness in there and off-set it with a bit more hoppy-aroma (not necessarily bitterness). Just off the top of my head I think I am going to go with caramel-type malt and maybe drop one or two of the other specialty grains. Along with that I would like to try it as a single hop ale, maybe just sticking to the all-rounder Cascade as hop of choice. To top off the aroma I might just sneak in another addition near the end. I think this is definitely something I will do again especially seeing as I can get 20ltrs of perfectly drinkable beer for such little effort. To pick up your own DME you can get to the guys over at Beerlab (and more recently Beerguevara are also stocking up) and they will probably also be able to hook you up with anything else you will need to get kicking. Let's see how long these cases last... Are you brewing up any extract recipes? Do you have anything that turned out pretty good? Go ahead and give this recipe a try and see how you can improve it...there sure is plenty of room for that! Good luck!
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After religious weekly brewing, rigorous research and countless recipe tweaks you feel that you have finally reached some modicum of brewer status. The time has come to unleash your potent juice on the world and to dominate the beer kingdom as we know it. Rafiki will proudly lift you above the masses on the hill...whoa, getting a bit carried away here...Well, truthfully in my case, it is more like trying to brew a mini-batch all grain at least twice a month, drinking lots of beers from other breweries (deemed “research”) and reading up on different malt and hop varieties to try piece together some workable recipes! Constant trial and error until I can find something that works that can be fine tuned into something more-ish. As I have mentioned in a different post this is perhaps not the best way to go about it, but the best way to learn is from your mistakes and experience! Now, with a couple of brews under my belt and a recipe I am starting to like, I am still just as “beginner” as the next guy when sipping on the likes of some DPBC IIPA or some Kraken from Triggerfish. All of the brews I had done leading to this point were all tried-and-tested recipes, this was the first time I was going "off-book". How bad can it be? Malt, hops, yeast, wait, bottle, wait some more then drink. Instead of just drinking it myself I thought it a good idea to have some friends over and serve it to them to get some outsider perspective. Ultimately I would love to be a real brewer when I grow up, so why not get some good, honest feedback to put me on the right track. A couple of things to consider for this however – most people do not understand terms such as efficiency, mashing, hop profile, off-flavors and all these wonderful “beer legalese” in use by brewers and beer nerds. Consequently they will not be able to properly express how they feel about your beer beyond an “ooohh, nice” or "erm, yeah that's ok, do you have any other beers?”. Then it hit me, why not print out a sheet for them to use as a review template – these judging sheets contain all the words, categories and descriptions required for good feedback that would have been too hard for my friends to come up with. So with this idea in mind I set out and found a good template over at www.beerguide.com.au (pdf link) and printed a copy for my guests to use as a template. Now armed with some pens, a sheet of paper and the cloak of anonymity we set off. Obviously you have to keep in mind that your friends are going to like whatever you make as they kind of "have to" - that is after all what friends are for. But to sip on my beers, I had one rule: honest feedback, even if it was to hurt my feelings. It will not be personal, but for the better of my brewing future and ultimately their happiness as they are going to have to keep tasting it! I provided each their tasting glass and a bottle of Warbrew Pale Ale Batch #1 as I explained what to expect from the style. The beer poured out a dark amber color, more in line with an Amber Ale, however not the end of the world. What I feared most was the smell and taste. Being a "hop head", I had added probably more than I should have...actually nearly enough for a 20ltr batch now that I know better. This beer even smelt bitter if that is possible. Other's tasting notes ranged from "peppery, earthy", "some zestiness, with heavy bitter undertones, loss of malt" and I even heard someone utter "medicine cabinet" immediately followed by an apology. Not exactly what you want to hear, but fair game. It clearly was not my best effort and guessing what ingredients work together and when to add hops is obviously not the best plan in the world. At least one of my guests kind of enjoyed the beer, and more importantly, everyone finished it. The overall vote was that this was not a beer they would order at a bar, not a session ale and there is no defining character - almost like too many things have been added and there are too many things happening with nothing standing out to make it a good beer. As soon as someone said this, it made complete sense: I had tried to merge five different malts and four different hop varieties. Sure that can work, perhaps if you have been brewing for a decade, but not for me trying to put together my first recipe from random ingredients. This is going to be tough, but this is definitely going to be fun and a huge learning curve. With my pride held high, I publicly deemed my first attempt at a pale ale a big swing and a miss. I had over-hopped like when you put too much salt on your popcorn at the cinema. No amount of Coke will make that popcorn taste any better and you've spent too much on it to throw it out now. At least the feedback I received was honest and seemed to be unanimous about the fact that the beer was far too bitter and not "full" enough. This easily translated into "less hops less often" and "find a better way to mash" as clearly the pot with a blanket was not working. Luckily I had found an article on building a cooler box mash tun and had already thought that this will be ideal for Batch #2. Much to everyone's relief I had some more "professional" beers available to go with the pizza's we were making after the tasting. I had prepared the bases earlier that afternoon all thanks to Lucy "The Brewmistress" and her pizza base recipe in African Brew. Although I am not a spiritual or superstitious person, I picked up a Lucky lager which is in a pretty cool bottle - a little green Buddha. I was hoping this would make the beer go down well, but honestly I was just hoping for some dope pizza bases! They did turn out pretty awesome even if I do say so myself and I can highly recommend all the other recipes in the book, well worth a read! I guess next time I will know better - both with my beer and with my tasting evening. For the next one I plan to have at least three beers at the ready which should hopefully be towards the end of next month. More beers will mean more glasses and more preparations, but let's leave that for the next post. In the meantime it is back to the drawing board, peering over some proper recipes and getting through some more reading on malts and their different characteristics hoping to weave the right combination together.
For some more pictures of our evening you can check out the gallery otherwise be sure to check back to see how Volume 2 played out, pretty sure my Black Rye will be a hit. Salute! |
Homebrewed
some writings on some of my beer projects a.k.a. taking my little Defy to the next level... Archives
October 2016
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