The Hop-Shot

Last night I bottled the Belgian IPA. For a few of the bottles, however, I tried something a little different.

I've been reading around about hop tea, and the added hop flavor that it can add to your beer. There's not a ton of information out there on the subject, but it's basically how it sounds. You steep hops in hot water to extract some flavor from the hops. Supposedly, this adds quite a bit of flavor and aroma, but since there is no boiling involved, no alpha acids are isomerized. So, no bitterness should be added to the tea.

Well, I decided to take this a wee step further. Instead of simply steeping the hops, or put them in a coffee maker, I threw some in my espresso maker. I figured, with the heat, and added pressure, there may be a bit more flavor drawn out. This created some fairly potent hop tea. I added about 4 'shots' of 'hop-spresso' to the secondary along with my hops for dry-hopping. This sat for a little over a week, and was bottled last night.

To take it one step further, a few bottles were set aside, and into them, I added just a bit of hop-spresso. Maybe half an ounce. These eight bottles will be a test to see if my 'hop-shot' idea works. Hopefully, they will just burst with hop flavor and aroma.

We'll see in about three weeks!

If anyone has any experience with hop tea, or putting it into beers, let me know. I'd love to hear how it went.

Sorry for the Delay

It's been a while since I've been able to write up a new post on the ol blog. Part of that has been due to the fact that my computer at home has crashed and I have to share SWMBO's laptop. It also hasn't happened just due to being very busy at work, home and everything in between.

But the main reason for the lapse in posting is due to the fact that I've got a new assistant brewer growing inside SWMBO's belly! In just six short months I'll have the great responsibility of showing the next generation how to take pictures, how to properly berate the 'Canes (and they've deserved it lately), and how to brew awesome beer (but not partake until legally of age!). Just getting prepared for it's arrival has kept me from posting on here as regularly.

Without SWMBO's help drinking my beer, my pipeline is a lot longer, therefor, I can't brew as often either.

Thankfully, she can still go with me to the Canes games and do some hefty cheering. Although, lately, there hasn't been much to really cheer for. As of right now, the Canes are 2-4-2 and the only wins have come in the Shootout against Tampa, and against a Florida team who had just gotten back from playing in Europe. We even gave the Islanders their first win of the season just last night.

If there is a picture that can sum up how the Canes are taking this season, it's this one right here:

On the beer front, the IPA has finished fermenting and gone through the secondary, been dry hopped with and ounce of Cascade and Centennial each. It's even already been bottled; last weekend! I did get a chance to sample a bit that wouldn't fit into the last bottle, and it was pure hoppy goodness. I'm excited for two weeks from now.

C-Ward-O Defies the Economy and Other News

Today, Cam Ward signed a six-year contract extension worth an average of 6.3 million a year. And then he promptly laughed in the economy's face.

"Who says it's hard to get a good paying job these days?" he asks. Certainly it's not for the now 3rd highest paid goalie in the league. Personally, I believe that's about half a mil too much per year, but in terms of superstars, not too big of a deal.

What this really says, as Bubba over on Canes Country puts it, is that the Canes are here to stay and here to be competitive. It's a message to other players that may not want to play so close to the Tropic of Cancer, that this team is willing to pay for its superstars, and it's not planning on putting its fans through limbo, a la Phoenix Coyotes.

In other, only slightly related news: HOCKEY SEASON STARTS TOMORROW! It's aboot time eh! Although the Canes don't start play until Friday (in which there will be loads of tailgaiting. 70F weather here we come!) I still can't wait to be able to watch some hockey tomorrow night. It's been a long off-season, although not nearly as long as most, but it's very exciting to see how the '09-'10 Canes will stack up against the rest of the NHL.

In terms of brews, I was able to get a bit done this weekend. I ended up making a new IPA that I believe will kick the crap out of my last attempt.

First, a bit of some background. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make my hop purchasing a lot cheaper. Previously, I had been buying hops in the price range of 2-4 dollars per ounce. That can get pretty expensive when your favorite beer styles are IPA's that require several ounces of hops.

So I decided to buy in bulk. Hops Direct has a good reputation for fresh hops and very competitive prices. So I took the plunge and bought 1 pound of Centennial Leaf (it's the main hop for Bell's Two Hearted, so obviously my favorite hop), 1 pound of Cascade Lead, 1 pound of Czech Saaz, and 1 pound of Magnum pellets. For a whopping total of 50 bucks (including shipping), I've got enough hops to last for quite a bit. Now, I have hops that only cost roughly 80 cents an ounce. So, obviously it was time to throw some serious hops into this IPA.

Here's the recipe. So a total of 8 oz. of hops. I honestly can't wait to see how this one turns out. I did find out that leaf hops are pretty hard to mess with. They don't like to sink down to the bottom of the kettle and tend to hang out on the top, and need to be stirred in quite a bit.

You may notice that I'm trying something new out with the recipe. It's a bit of a gamble on my part. I tried some First-Wort Hopping for this brew. It's a technique that is usually only used when Mashing is done, but I've somewhat forced it upon my brew. It's a process where you steep some of your late hop additions in your kettle after collecting your first runnings. For some reason that appears to be unknown, the flavor and aroma of these hops are retained during the boil, and not driven off. In blind taste tests, 11 of 12 people apparently prefer the first-wort hopped beer over the other.

Since my brewing does not use any mashing, I added the first-wort hops while the brew was at about 150F after I had steeped the grains, and after I added my extract. Then with the hops in the wort, I slowly brought the brew to a boil. This technique may, or may not work, because when mashing is performed with grain, it lowers the pH of the wort and is able to use the hops better. I haven't really read anywhere that said that adding extract does or doesn't do this, but everywhere I've read about first-wort hopping doesn't know about using it with extract. If nothing else, I will have just increased the bitterness of the beer. Not a horrible thing to happen to an IPA.

As I'm writing this, I'm testing out the Milk Chocolate Porter (formerly Stout). The flavor of the beer actually came out pretty balanced and smooth. Very surprising. It's got a nice light malty and roasty smell to it, and a pretty sweet and lightly chocolatey flavor. It's very easy to drink. So I'm disappointed that it's not a Stout like I had aimed for, but I'm pleasantly surprised on how the beer came out itself. Easily one of my better tasting beers, even if I missed the mark on the style.

Weekend Recap

Twas a brew-filled weekend! Since there was no hockey this past weekend, it gave me plenty of time to move things around on the old pipeline.

To start things off, I needed to bottle The Schitze! Barleywine Friday night. I tried cold crashing it before bottling. With Cold Crashing, you basically chill the bulk beer down so that more yeast and sediment fall out of it. This supposedly helps clear the beer more effectively, so you'll have a clearer final product. Here's a picture, along with Boone helping out.


Once bottling was done, there was about half of a pint left that couldn't fit into a bottle. So I had my first taste test of The Schitze!! Holy Cow! That stuff will knock your socks off! The initial taste is pure goodness. Smooth, sweet, some hoppiness and velvety. Then the alcohol kicks you right in the mouth. It's harsh. It's like jet fuel. However, this is why this beer is going to be aged for almost a year. It's a super heavy beer. It's going to take some time for that alcohol heat to mellow out. That initial taste though... That is really going to picque my curiosity as this brew ages.


Since the Secondary was now empty, that meant I had room to rack my IPA to the secondary. I couldn't really get my hop bag to work, so I just dumped in my hop pellets. I ended up using an ounce of Cascade, and a quarter ounce of Centennial to dry hop. If nothing else, this brew should smell pretty good. Here's how the IPA looks today.




So, with the IPA out of the Primary Fermenter, it just meant I needed to brew something to fill it up. For a nice simple summer brew I decided to make a Belgian Witbier. Here's the recipe:

• 6.6 lbs of Malted Wheat Liquid Extract
• 4 oz of Flaked Wheat
• The Zest of 3 Oranges
• Some Crushed Coriander (I'm not sure how much, I only had seeds and crushed them by hand)
• .5 oz of Centennial at 60 minutes
• .25 oz. of Centennial at 20 minutes
• Wyeast Belgian Wit Yeast

Presently, the Wit is bubbling away at about 68 degrees F. I plan on trying to keep the temperature as regulated as possible for this brew. This Beer will only be in the Primary for about 2 weeks, and then it goes straight to the bottle. Wits are not clear beers (mostly) and don't stand up to long aging so there will be no reason to rack this beer to the Secondary.

Tuesday Musings

After doing some thinking, I've decided to put the Scottish Wee Heavy on hold for a bit. Instead, the next brew I make will be an American India Pale Ale.

If you read my first post, you saw that I really love a good hoppy beer. Well, after tasting my Amber and plugging in all the numbers into Beersmith, I've decided that the next two beers I've made probably won't be all that hoppy. At least to me. Like I said earlier, I was kinda brewing blind when it came to hops and how bitter they would make my beer. After I got Brewsmith and got the actual IBU's for my Amber(~27), I learned that 27 IBU's were not enough for me.

Neither the Bachelor Party Pale nor the Irish Red are any higher. So I decided to hold off on the Scotch Ale for a while. Not only that, but Scotch Ales are really more of a Winter beer. They're strong and hearty and wouldn't be very good on a hot summer's eve. I'll wait for the summer to brew that monster. By the time it gets cold, it'll be ready to drink.

So instead, I'll make an IPA. I need me some hops. And that's a real summer brew anyways. So as a new feature, I'm going to post the recipe on here in hopes that anyone with more knowledge may correct my mistakes before I make them! I made this brew at work today while on lunch, using the Beer Calculus feature on Hopville. I hadn't fined tuned this in Brewsmith, so this is just a rough draft of what this brew will be.

Malts:
6lbs 9oz of Light Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb of Caramel/Crystal Malt 10L
1 lb of Caramel/Crystal Malt 40L

Hops:
1 oz of Millenium Pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes.
1 oz of Centennial Pellet hops boiled for 20 minutes.
1 oz of Centennial Pellet hops boiled for 5 minutes.

Yeast:
I'll use Wyeast's American Ale II yeast. It should have a high enough attenuation for this brew to make it have a lower final gravity for the style.

I'll also dry hop this beer in the secondary fermenter. That just means I'll put some hops in a hopbag and place it in the beer in the secondary for about a week. This adds a lot of hop aroma to the beer. It doesn't add any bitterness to it. I'll use another ounce of Centennial Pellets for this.

Now, if I am really feeling adventurous(arrogant) about my beer, then I plan on adding a bit of fruitiness to this. The Centennial hops themselves offer a slight citrusy flavor to the beer, which helps a lot of IPA's balance the bittering effects of the beer. Like I said, if I'm really adventurous, I plan on adding about 1 ounce of orange zest to the boil with about 10 minutes left in the boil. I also plan on throwing about 2 ounces of orange peel into the secondary while I dry hop in the secondary.

I have no clue how this will come out. I have no clue if it will work. I have no clue if I'm just going to ruin a good beer. But it sounds interesting, and it may be a pretty cool beer at the end of it all. We'll see. In about 3 months.

So there we have it. Holding off on the Scottish Wee Heavy for several months, and going ahead with something lighter to drink in the summer months.

Let me know what you think!