Azacca!

I have been monitoring a new hop that was recently introduced as experimental hop #483 of the American Dwarf Hop Association.  I was eager to learn when (if) it would become available to homebrewers.  A patent was filed in May 2013 for a new hop named Azacca.  After a quick google search, I learned that Azacca is the Haitian God of Farming:

"Keep him well supplied with copious amounts of food, booze and sex and he will never desert your farm. If you own a farm think carefully about this.  He's a bit of a hillbilly, being barefooted with denim dungarees, a straw hat and pipe, and an exagerrated country drawl.  Azacca loves his grub but has simple tastes : boiled maize, bread soaked in oil and rum. And he eats like a pig, hiding away with his food and troughing the lot in double quick time. Unlike his sophisticated brother.  Azacca knows everything that's going on in the lives of the commoners and often spurts out everyone's embarrassing secrets after a skinfull of rum."

Sounds like a solid dude.


One of my online hop sites got a few pounds and I pounced on it.  I decided to mix it equally into my mosaic pale ale recipe that turned out so tasty.  Given the ease of the 15 min boil, I turned this one over to a new assistant brewer, my 3 1/2 year old son.  He rocked it out in no time, crushing the grain in the mill, the hop additions and finally pitching the yeast.  What a kid.  Unfortunately, he will be devastated when I explain to him in 6 weeks that he can't try it.
 
Grains
6 lbs Light DME
1 lb c-40 steeped to 170

15 min boil
2.5 oz split Mosaic/Azacca at 15
1 oz split Mosaic/Azacca at 5
.5 oz split Mosaic/Azacca at 0
1 oz split Mosaic/Azacca dry hop two weeks

US-05 at 66 ambient, raise to 68 for 2 weeks, then dry hop for two weeks

Results
7 pre boil at 1051 with DME added, back down the water next time
6.75 gallons post at 1053

Water Adjustments
2 tsp gypsum

Mosaic Pale Ale

This beer is a nod to one of my favorite new beers, Two Brothers Sidekick Extra Pale Ale.  I am pretty certain the hops in that beer are Mosaic and the new experimental hop #483 from the Yakima Valley hop breeding program.  However, since I can't get my hands on the experimental hop, all Mosaic hops will have to suffice.  I brewed this batch in tandem with the all Centennial pale ale.

Grains
3 lbs Pilsen DME
3 lbs Muntons Extra Light DME
1 lb c-20 steeped to 170

15 min boil
2.5 oz Mosaic at 15
1 oz Mosaic at 5
.5 oz Mosaic at 0
1 oz Mosaic dry hop two weeks

US-05 at 66 ambient, raise to 68 for 2 weeks, then dry hop for two weeks

Results
6.25 gallons pre boil at 1052
5.9 gallons post at 1056

Water Adjustments
2 tsp gypsum

Centennial Pale Ale

With 4th of July coming up, I felt like I owed it to my country to brew a centennial pale ale, so I did.  Just like that.

Grains
3 lbs Pilsen DME
3 lbs Muntons Extra Light DME
1 lb c-40 steeped to 170

15 min boil
2.5 oz Centennial at 15
1 oz Centennial at 5
.5 oz Centennial at 0
1 oz Centennial dry hop two weeks

US-05 at 66 ambient, raise to 68 for 2 weeks, then dry hop for two weeks

Results
6 gallons pre boil at 1052
5.6 gallons post at 1056

Water Adjustments
2 tsp gypsum

"Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."

Texas Blonde Ale

We recently visited Austin and had our fair share of the local Fireman's 4.  It's not going to win any awards, but it is an easy drinking summer beer.  And my wife really enjoyed it.  So I thought I would brew up a similar batch.  I made this one as a second mash with the Sour Peach Ginger Ale and I think I am just about done with the double all-grain batches.  It is too much of a pain with all of the pumps and hoses going around.  I think I will still do two brews in a session, but I will  make the first one an extract brew while the mash is recirculating on the other.  I have really liked the last two extract beers that I brewed.  My buddies Shawn and Chris helped again as I scrambled to work around the pump that stopped working and came up short on mash runnings.  I sparged some more to make it up and had to boil down some more to hit the gravity numbers.  Like I said, I think I am done with trying to pull off two all grain brews on my system.

Grains
3# Vienna
2.25 flaked maize
3# 6 row

Hops
1 oz Brewer's Gold at 60

Mash at 150

Wyeast Kolsch Ale 2565

No water adjustments

6.1g collected at 1030
4.5 post boil at 1041
64.7% efficiency
Target OG 1042

Sour Ginger Peach Ale

This recipe piqued my interest.  I have a growing affection for sour beers.  I like peach and I like ginger, so I thought I would give this one a try.  It should make a nice late summer beer.  I brewed this beer with my buddies Shawn and Chris.  Brew day was fun, but one of my pumps crapped out again so I spent a lot of time making adjustments and plumbing changes to get around the pump failure.  It was nice to have both friends lend an extra hand as I was scrambling to fix things.  I hit all of my numbers and the yeast took off nicely by the next morning.

Grains
9# 2 row
1# flaked wheat
.5# acid malt

Hops
1 oz Progress at 60 min
1/2 oz ginger root at 15 mins

Mash at 150

WL AHS Persica Ale Yeast 299

2oz peach flavoring at kegging

7g collected at 1042
5.5 g post boil at 1052
75.1% efficiency

Water adjustment: .5 epsom

Raspberry Wheat

I was brewing the Lambic and my other kettle looked lonely so I decided to brew a raspberry wheat extract for the heck of it.  I generally don't like extract beers because of that twang everyone talks about, but I thought the raspberry flavoring would mask it pretty well.  Raspberry is pretty forgiving and can hide a lot of flaws in beer.  I don't like messing with real fruit so I used the flavoring from Williams.  I haven't used liquid malt extract in a long time, and I doubt I will much again.  The stuff is so goopy and difficult to dissolve.  Numbers came out spot on so that was good.  I brewed this in my HERMS kettle and boil and chill was a breeze with the integrated chiller.

Malt
6 lbs lme 60% wheat 40% German two row

Hops
1 oz hallertau at 60

Wyeast Bavarian Wheat at 65-68 for 12-14 days, then keg condition for 3 weeks

4oz Williams Raspberry flavoring at kegging

Results

1.035 pre boil at 7g
1.042 post boil at 6g

Water Adjustments
.5 Epsom
.1 chalk

Ca=36

SO4=61

Mg=17

Na=27

Cl=70

Carb=67

Hard=162

Alk=59

Lambic - The Journey Begins

I have wanted to brew a sour for a while now so I took a run at this easy recipe.  It is a very simple recipe and has won many awards, so I am hopeful that my several year investment will be worth the return.  I brewed this on my 10 gallon electric kettle and the whole hops completely clogged my recirculation pump during chilling.  I finally got it cooled using my old immersion chiller.  I just knew there was a reason I kept that thing sitting around collecting dust.

Malt    
3 lbs golden light DME
3 lbs wheat DME
4 oz malto

Hops
2 oz aged williamette whole hops at 60

Results
1.044 pre boil gravity
1.056 post boil gravity, only 4.5 g into plastic ferementer

I was shooting for 1.044 post boil, but came in a bit high

Ferment for one month then transfer to secondary

Wyeast lambic blend at 68

Water Adjustments
.5 tsp Epsom
.1 tsp chalk

Ca=36

SO4=61

Mg=17

Na=27

Cl=70

Carb=67

Hard=162

Alk=59

Heady Topper

There are only a few beers in my humble opinion that live up to the hype.  Pliny the Elder being one of them and Heady being another.  I had Heady a few years ago and thought is was really good, but not exceptional.  I'm not sure if it is due to their recent brewery ramp up, or due to the fact that the case I received from my friend Shawn was straight from the brewery, but I was blown away by my latest sampling of Heady.  It has an amazing dankness to it, peachy flavors, with waves and waves of hops.  It also blows me away that it is so good from the can.  The warning on the can is absolutely correct, drink it from the can.  I've had it from a glass and from the can and the can wins every time.  I brewed this clone from an online brew shop.  The shop did not give the exact details of the hops, but they said they would "work" with me if I liked the beer.  I didn't use their S-05, but used the actual Conan yeast that I received from a buddy on HBT.  Since I have a 1/2 case left of the real Heady, I was dying to brew this one up.  I brewed this on my full HERMS system and hit all numbers spot on, awesome.

Grains:
13.2# 2-row
.5# c-20
1.3# corn sugar

Hops:
Warrior at 60
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 15, plus irish moss
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 10
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 3
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 0
Dry Hop Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade

Results:
6.9g collected at 1057 without corn sugar, 1068 with corn sugar at 7.1g
6.1g post at 1076
Conan yeast
82% efficiency fly sparge
Mashed at 151-153 (target 151)
Ferment at 66, raise to 68.

Forgot to add my brewing salts, darn again.

New Zealand IPA

I really wanted to brew this IPA with all NZ hops.  They have been growing some really interesting varieties lately.  I brewed this as a tandem brew with my Heady Topper clone.  I did a single batch sparge and came up rather short on volume, but hit my target gravities exactly.  I think I rushed the runoff.  My recirculation pump overheated as well so the mash temps were a bit off.  The 1056 took off in a matter of hours and produced a really nice krausen.  The 4 oz dry hop should be tasty.

Grains:
11.5# 2-row
.5# c-20

Hops:
Hop Total: 4 oz pacific jade, 2 oz Moteuka, 2 oz NZ Hallertau
Split as follows:
.5 oz Pacific Jade at 60 (was closer to .8 oz)
3.5 oz mix of Pacific Jade, Motueka, NZ Hallertau
4oz dry hop mix of Pacific Jade, Motueka, NZ Hallertau

Results:
Mashed at 150 (Target 152)
Batch sparged
5.5 collected at 1053
4.7 post boil at 1062
Wyeast 1056
65.8% efficiency
Ferment at 66, raise to 68

Forgot to add my brewing salts, darn.

15 Minute Cascade Pale Ale

Now that is a hop addition!

With the segmented brewing experiment deemed a total failure I stumbled across a recipe on HBT for a 15 min boil with extract and steeped grains.  It really piqued my interest so I decided to brew it on a weeknight.  Man was it easy.  I haven't made an extract brew in ages.  The simplicity and speed of my brew night was amazing.  I finished it all in under two hours with cleanup.  I brewed with whole fresh cascades from freshops for the first time. If this ends up a being a winner I will certainly add it to my regular pipeline.  6 hr all grain days are becoming harder and harder to come by.  I may experiment with a pliny hop combo or even use some hop extract post boil to kick up the bittering.  This was a really fun brew night.

Grain/Extracts

3lbs Light Pilsen DME
3 lbs Golden Light DME
1 lb C-60 add the grains to the water and steep until the water temp reaches 170 and pull them out.

Hops

Smells super fresh

2.5oz Whole Cascade at 15 min
1oz Whole Cascade at 5 min
.50 oz Whole Cascade at flameout
1oz Whole Cascade dry hop.

2 tsp gypsum

Pre boil gravity 1.053 into 5.375 starting volume before extract addition and steeping
Post boil gravity 1.056
Ferment at 65 with Notty

First time with whole hops, oh my!

The finished product

Homebrew Competitions

When I first started brewing I was very hesitant to enter homebrew competitions.  I finally summoned up the courage to enter a local competition with a few extract brews that I thought were decent.  The beers scored well, not award winning by any stretch, but respectable.  I was much more focused on the overall score than the comments.  As my brewing knowledge expanded, the reverse has now occurred.  I am much more interested in the comments than the overall score.

That first score sheet had so many technical terms that it all went over my head.  Now that I know what the judges are talking about, the comments are extremely helpful.  Thankfully, I have kept all of my score sheets over the years and it is really interesting to go back and see flaws in your beer that you can now correct with better process.  I try to enter at least one competition a year.  BJCP judges are very good critics, much more so than your friends who come over and don't want to offend you by telling you your beer isn't that great.








I entered my Dale's Pale Ale, Chocolate Stout and English Cider into the 30th Annual Kansas City Bier Meisters Competition and all scored well, with the English Cider taking 2nd place in the cider category.  I am still awaiting the score sheets so I am anxious to see the comments.  The beers were the best beers I have produced, in my humble opinion.  The 2nd place cider award is "my" first winner.  I put "my" in quotes because the history of the cider is somewhat comical.  My sister actually brewed this batch back on December 30, 2011.  I racked it after a month and put it in the secondary as usual.  However, we ended up selling our house and moving a month later so I had to decide whether to throw it out or throw it in a keg.  I chose to put it in a keg and that keg ended up sitting in a storage locker for 6 months.  A few months later I decided to put the keg in my kegerator and carb it up, not expecting it to be any good.  Much to my surprise, the cider was excellent.  So after almost 14 months of ageing, I entered the cider into the competition and took that 2nd place award.  Funny how things turn out.

Segmented Brewing - Citra Amarillo Wheat

This brew was part of my segmented brewing experiment.  I used my single kettle e-BIAB setup with a full volume continuous recirculation run off my Johnson Controls A419 temperature controller.  I created a make-shift thermowell out of thermoplastic tubing and brass barbed connections and snaked the probe through the top of the kettle barbed fitting.  It worked well in testing and during the mash.  I then ran off the wort into a bucket to hold until the sparge was complete on the sister brew that was going through my HERMS system.  Once the mash was complete over there I dumped the wort into the HERMS kettle, sanitized and waited for the next night to boil.  66.8% efficiency, which wasn't that bad considering it was no sparge and the grain had been around a while.  Again, souring is the main enemy of segmented brewing and this one did smell a bit funky when I opened up the kettle before the boil.  There was a lot of foam on top of the wort.  I boiled off an extra 10 minutes before adding my first hop addition to drive it all off.  It smelled fine going into the fermenter so only time will tell.  This was an interesting brewing experience.  Here is my time breakdown:

First night:
Measure water into kettles, measure and crush grain, test and prime pumps = 1hr

Second night:
Heat strike water, mash, mash out, sparge, clean mash tun = 3 hrs

Wednesday night:
Boil, chill, pitch and cleanup = 3 1/2 hrs

Total time was 7 1/2 hours.  I really enjoyed splitting the time over several days so I did not feel rushed or that I was taking time away from the family.  The bonus of two beers in one session is really appealing. 

Grains:

5# 2-row                     6.4 at 1040

5# wheat                     5.4 at 1047

Mash at 149               66.8% Efficiency

Additions:

60 min boil

0.7 oz Citra First sign of boil, around 70 min mark

.65 oz Citra at 20 min
.65 oz Citra at 15 min

1 oz Amarillo at 10 min

1 oz Amarillo at 0 min

1 oz Amarillo Dry Hop 10 days

Notty at 65-68

OG 1047

Water Adjustments (tsp)

.6 Epsom Salt

.102 Chalk

Ca=36

SO4=61

Mg=17

Na=27

Cl=70

Carb=67

Hard=162

Alk=59

Segmented Brewing - All Simcoe IPA

This brew was part of my segmented brewing experiment.  It has become increasingly more difficult to find 6+ hours to brew so I have been reading about splitting the brew day into a mash on one day and a boil the next.  I have also been trying to come up with a plan to brew two separate beers out of my 3 vessel system at the same time.  I recently purchased a third pump and that sealed the deal.  I mashed this all Simcoe IPA in my HERMS system and mashed a sister beer in the boil kettle as an e-Biab mash.  I mashed out both beers for 10 mins at 170 to pasteurize the wort.  I ran off the sister beer wort from the boil kettle into a sanitized bucket, rinsed the boil kettle, sanitized it, and then sparged the IPA as usual.  Once the sparge water was used up I dumped the sister beer from the bucket into the HERMS kettle, sanitized it, and covered it for the night.  This beer sparged as usual into the boil kettle and then I sanitized it and covered it for the night.  Efficiency was 80%, down a tad probably because I rushed the sparge and perhaps some older grain.  The next night I cranked up the boil and added my hops as usual.  Souring is the main enemy in a segmented brew so I will be interested to see if 20 hours is too long to wait between mash and boil.  Some brewers use this method with no issues and some report souring of the beer because lacto gets in the wort as it sits overnight.  We will see.   

10 lbs 2 row                         7.25 at 1.049
1 lb flaked oats                    6.25 at 1.056
.5 lb crystal 60                     80% Efficiency
.5 lb cara-pils

Hop schedule (All Simcoe Hops)
.75 oz @ 60
1 oz @ 20
1 oz @ 10
2 oz @ 1
2 oz Dry Hop for 7-14 days

OG 1.056
Mash at 152

US-05                                  

Vista, CA Water Profile
Water Adjustments (tsp)	Ca=57
.854 Epsom Salt	SO4=136
.825 Baking Soda	Mg=22
.155 Canning Salt	Na=71
1.254 Gypsum	Cl=88
	Carb=147
	Hard=233
	Alk=122