#24 - Junga SHaMM [All Grain]

Following my previous brew with Junga hops there was a lot of curiosity from other brewers about type of flavour and aroma came from the relatively unknown hop variety. Unfortunately an imperial stout isn't a good beer for showcasing hops and given that I too was curious about their profile I decided to do a single hop pale ale using only Junga hops. I had been contemplating an English mild brew for a long time but generally I find them quite boring flavour wise so I upped the IBU's into american pale ale territory while keeping the malt profile roughly similar to a mild. I used a mild ale malt this time round which is a slight divergence from my usual Maris Otter malt for a couple of reasons; I want to see how it affects the flavour and if it makes any difference to the terrible efficiency I have been consistently getting.

5 minutes into the boil

Unfortunately the slightly different malt resulted in the same efficiency of 50%. I measured the mash PH this time and it was a bit high at 6 so I will try that PH stabiliser solution to see if that makes a difference.

Recipe:

Recipe: Junga SHaMM

Style: American Pale Ale

TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Boil Size: 26.21 l

Post Boil Volume: 22.71 l

Batch Size (fermenter): 19.00 l   

Bottling Volume: 17.00 l

Estimated OG: 1.053 SG

Estimated Color: 25.1 EBC

Estimated IBU: 46.2 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %

Est Mash Efficiency: 69.0 %

Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         

3000.00 g             Mild Malt (7.9 EBC)                      Grain         1        54.1 %        

1000.00 g             Vienna Malt (6.9 EBC)                    Grain         2        18.0 %        

500.00 g              Biscuit Malt (45.3 EBC)                  Grain         3        9.0 %         

500.00 g              Munich Malt - 10L (19.7 EBC)             Grain         4        9.0 %         

500.00 g              Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC)                Grain         5        9.0 %         

50.00 g               Chocolate Malt (1050.5 EBC)              Grain         6        0.9 %         

15.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min          Hop           7        20.4 IBUs     

15.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min          Hop           8        15.7 IBUs     

15.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 15.0 min          Hop           9        10.1 IBUs     

30.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min           Hop           10       0.0 IBUs      

1.0 pkg               Safale American  (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)  Yeast         11       -             

25.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days       Hop           12       0.0 IBUs      

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Single Batch Sparge [Shanes AG]

Total Grain Weight: 5550.00 g

----------------------------

Name              Description                  Step Temperature       Step Time       

Mash Step         Add 12.50 l of water at 167. 154.0 F                40 min          

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 21.77l) of 168.1 F water

Notes:

Mash high to increase the body in the beer. 

Multiple different types of malts added to add additional complexity to make up for the single hop. 

#23 - Cajunga Imperial Stout [All Grain]

I have not been blown away by any of the imperial stouts that I have had to date with each drink either being too syrupy or too watery. I wanted something that was somewhere in between in terms of body and flavour. 

I Made this beer with the intention of entering it in a local brewing competition but only got it bottled the week before and thought it was probably too young to be entering it. I tried it after a couple of weeks and it was surprisingly drinkable. I had never made an imperial stout before and had assumed that they took several months to become drinkable. This didn't seem to be the case as it was a bit 'ugh' after 1 week in the bottle but after 3 weeks it tasted really good! 

The recipe originally started off as an imperial porter as I love the additional emphasis on chocolate flavours that seem to be one of the few differences that I can identify between porters and stouts. The one issue is that imperial porters doesn't exist as a BJCP style and thus an imperial porter doesn't really fit in anywhere in brewing software. To make it fit I decided to put it into the imperial stout style but of course I wanted to make the "software indicators" fit within the style guidelines which caused me to increase the base grains and the roasted grain to compensate. I added the crystal malts as they were crushed and I didn't want to leave them lying around for too long. I would regard these as optional but given how well the final beer tastes I would be reluctant to leave them out in future in case the flavour suffered as a result. 

More hops were added than intended as I wanted to use up the full 100g bags (I hate having 10g of hops left over!). Also I have been recently paranoid that I haven't been getting good utilisation from my hops as the software thinks they are fresh when in fact they could be up to 2 years old, this also influenced the increased hopping rate. I saw Junga Hops on my local brewing supplier website and thought the name sounded cool so used them. They are a Polish Hop and are related to the Saaz hop variety. This is probably the wrong style of beer to showcase these hops as there is so much other stuff going on. The Junga hops were leaf and the cascade were in pellet form. The girlfriend had to give me a hand grinding the grain as my flimsy arms were incapable of grinding constantly. 

Grinding

I made a 1L starter with 3 days on a stir plate and pitched it at a warm 27 degrees. I have pitched at this temperature the last 2 or 3 brews and I haven't noticed any adverse affects. I mashed low at 150-151F to get a lighter body as I am not a fan of syrupy stouts. This was an all-day mash as I didn't have time to do everything in one day. I mashed in before I went to work and did the boil when I came home. 

Original gravity was 1088, final gravity 1016.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com

Recipe: Imperial Cajunga Stout 

Brewer: Shane Phelan

Asst Brewer: 

Style: Imperial Stout

TYPE: All Grain

Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Boil Size: 25.34 l

Post Boil Volume: 22.71 l

Batch Size (fermenter): 19.00 l   

Bottling Volume: 17.00 l

Estimated OG: 1.083 SG

Estimated Color: 116.5 EBC

Estimated IBU: 67.2 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %

Est Mash Efficiency: 69.0 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:

------------

Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         

6000.00 g             Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)         Grain         1        69.0 %        

1000.00 g             Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC)               Grain         2        11.5 %        

600.00 g              Black Malt (Stout) (1333.0 EBC)          Grain         3        6.9 %         

500.00 g              Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (78.8 EBC)    Grain         4        5.7 %         

500.00 g              Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC)   Grain         5        5.7 %         

100.00 g              Chocolate Malt (1050.5 EBC)              Grain         6        1.1 %         

40.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min          Hop           7        42.6 IBUs     

30.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min          Hop           8        24.6 IBUs     

95.00 g               Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min          Hop           9        0.0 IBUs      

25.00 g               Junga [12.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min           Hop           10       0.0 IBUs      

1.0 pkg               California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35. Yeast         11       -             

115.00 g              Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days      Hop           12       0.0 IBUs      

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Single Batch Sparge [Shanes AG]

Total Grain Weight: 8700.00 g

----------------------------

Name              Description                  Step Temperature       Step Time       

Mash Step         Add 19.50 l of water at 166. 152.0 F                60 min          

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 17.05l) of 168.1 F water

#15 - Ronk Christmas Bock [Extract]

Since its getting close to the festive season I went searching for a Christmas beer that sounded tasty. Seeing as I was still quite new to extract brewing and I had just started using BeerSmith (#14), I went looking on their website for a recipe. I went through the various recipies and came across "Happy Holidays Ale" which attracted my attention due to the simplicity of the ingredients and the addition of a speciality grain called 'Special B Malt'. It was great to see something that wasn't the same old iteration involving crystal grains.

Steeping grains

As was the case in the previous brew (#14), some of the ingredients were not available in the home brew store. I had to substitute the grains with something so I literally guessed that Carafa Special I Roasted Caramalt would do the trick. 

The resulting taste of this brew has been very good. Fairly good head retention which I reckon could be improved a lot with the addition of some flaked Oates. As it was a Christmas beer I would have liked a bit more of the cloves and cinnamon to come through. They were very much in the background and I couldn't detect them. The next time I think I would double their addition size to increase their potency. The hops come through very well in aroma and taste. They are not overpowering but are still upfront enough to be enjoyable. Overall a recommended recipe. :) 

Recipe: Ronk Christmas Bock TYPE: Extract

Style: Fruit Beer/Bock

---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------

SRM: 31.3 SRM SRM RANGE: 5.0-50.0 SRM

IBU: 21.4 IBUs Tinseth IBU RANGE: 5.0-70.0 IBUs

OG: 1.059 SG OG RANGE: 1.030-1.110 SG

FG: 1.013 SG FG RANGE: 1.006-1.024 SG

BU:GU: 0.365 Calories: 169.1 kCal/12 oz Est ABV: 6.0 %

EE%: 72.00 % Batch: 5.02 gal      Boil: 3.69 gal BT: 60 Mins

---WATER CHEMISTRY ADDITIONS----------------

Taste of Christmas! 

Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         

3.96 gal              Dublin, Ireland                       Water         1           -             

Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort

---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------

Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.088 SG Est OG: 1.059 SG

Amt                   Name                                                 Type           #        %/IBU         

6 lbs 9.8 oz          Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)                  Dry Extract   3        85.7 %        

2.00 oz               Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 45.0 min           Hop           4        19.3 IBUs     

0.45 kg               Honey (Boil 45.0 mins)                         Other         5        -             

1.00 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins)                    Fining        6        -             

4.00 Items           Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 10.0 mins)      Spice         7        -             

2.00 tsp              Vanilla (Boil 10.0 mins)                         Spice         8        -             

0.25 tsp              Cloves (Ground) (Boil 10.0 mins)           Spice         10       -             

0.25 tsp              Cinnamon (Powdered) (Boil 10.0 mins)   Spice         9        -             

1.00 oz               Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min            Hop           11       2.1 IBUs      

#14 - 60 Minute IPA (Continually Hopped) [Extract]

Ingredients for first extract recipe

After brewing with kits and experiments I finally moved up the ladder to extract brewing. I purchased a small 4 gallon stock pot and finally got round to using BeerSmith to its potential! My first brew was initially meant to be a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA clone based on this recipe but none of the Irish home brew stores had all the hops so I had to substitute. I think most hops were substituted quite well other than the Amarillo Hops which seem to be quite unique. I also had to get a slightly different type of grain (Crystal 60L) for the same reason as the hops. I'm thinking that with the amount of substitutions it is no longer a clone. :)

Steeping the grains, Crystal 

Initially I brought the water up to 65 degrees and put 

in the grains to steep for around 20 minutes. As my stove is so slow to heat the water, I was able to turn it down to the lowest output and that kept the temperature relatively constant. The colour change from a couple of minutes of steeping the grains can be seen in the adjacent image. 

After steeping, I removed the grains and didn't sparge them although I have read in several places that you should, so I might do that the next time. I then brought the water to a boil which took AGES due to the poor cooker. The length of time that it takes to bring it to a rolling boil really made me understand while all the yanks are using propane burners or huge elements in their kettles. It really is a time saver to have a decent source of heat.  

Once boiling, the endurance test began. The recipe calls for the wort to be continuously hopped for the full 60 minutes. I had two timers going, one for the total 60 minutes and the other which went off every minute to signal a hop addition. The idea behind this is to add a few pellets/cones every minute so that you end up spreading out the whole lot over 60 minutes. I was extremely paranoid about a boil-over so I had 2 tea towels ready to grab the handles and take it off the head at the first signs of boiling over. Thankfully the boil-over never really happened, probably due to the length of time it takes for the cooker to bring the wort to the boil.  

Once the 60 minutes had elapsed, I took the pot off the head and lowered the pot into a sink of cold water. I then ran down to my local store and got 2 bags of ice which I then dumped into the pot. The ice is surprisingly effective at getting the wort down to pitching temperatures. I have seen arguments about putting ice about whether it is a good idea or not but it is safe to assume that the ice is completely sterile as otherwise people would be getting sick when consuming it with their drinks.

High Krausen!

It took about 5 minutes for the wort to cool once the ice was added so I then transferred it to a freshly sanitised fermenter through a couple of sieves. There was a lot of debris in the wort due to the large amount of pellet and whole hops so the sieves got clogged repeatedly. I topped up the fermenter to the 19L mark with cold tap water and pitched the yeast. I had previously made a 1L starter with a sachet of Safale US-05 and some malt extract. Due to my experience of using kits I wasn't familiar with the necessity of using a blow-off tube.....It was necessary this time.....for several days in fact! Part of the problem was due to the fact that the capacity of the fermenter was only 23L (as opposed to the normal 30L) so the head-space was quickly filled with Krausen. It is due to reactions like this that I have added this  brewing t shirt  to my Christmas list. :)

#12 - Brewers Choice Traditional IPA [Extract]

Since my original coopers IPA in brew #3 had completely run out I decided it was time for another IPA. I so impressed with the process of making the Weissbier in brew #11 that I went with another Brewers Choice kit. When making kits you never have any experience of steeping grains (at least not initially) but this IPA had several types of grains to be steeped and a couple of types of hops. They were all contained in their own tea bag things but you could smell that "IPA smell" from one of the grain bags and I was really impressed with that. I didn't realise that certain types of grain could have such an affect on the taste.

Please excuse the apparent filth of the cooker but it was rusting before I moved in here. :P  I have the grains and hops steeping in a pot of boiled water which is sitting on a wooden board to keep in some of the heat. This steeping is done 3 times. The coopers malt extract is also heating up in the back along with a Alexander's Pale Kicker which I later dumped as it was old and smelt disgusting.

When bottling the brew I used dextrose for the fist time without a bottling bucket. If there is one method that makes the misery of bottling worse then this has to be it. It was an awful mess, when adding the dextrose to the beer, it foamed out of the bottles. When adding the dextrose first it then foamed meaning it took twice as long as it required waiting till the foam died down. I was also conservative with the amount I put in with slightly less than 1 teaspoon. I opened a bottle earlier in the week and it wasn't carbonated yet which has quelled my previous worry that the whole batch would start exploding. : /

I will update this as the picture changes.


Stats:
Started - 28.8.11
Racked - NA
Finished - 08.09.11
Bottled - 08.09.11
Code - 1012
Yeast Brand - B.C Yeast
Yeast Code -  DZB 6G
Y-Temp -  22.0
Beer/Product Type -   Brewers Choice Traditional IPA
Malt/Sugar Type - 1.5kG Coopers LME Amber
Volume -  23.0 L
OG - 1058 
FG -  1017
Proof  - 6.00 (Including 0.5% Priming)

#11 - Brewers Choice Bavarian Weissbier [Extract]

This brew was my 2nd attempt at making a beer that had that sweet distinctive Weissbier taste that I had hoped to emulate in brew #2. The key ingredient that was missing in that brew to create that taste was the correct type of yeast. This was not a problem with this kit. The Brewers Choice kits are also a bit more 'involved' than the traditional kit type as they have separate hops, grains, DME and an additional malt extract which you buy separately. 

I chose to buy an LME(wheat) for this brew as it was recommended as a means of getting the highest quality possible out of the kit. I also made my first yeast starter which I'm sure wasn't made correctly as I just used a bit of sugar and water to make it. I left it for 4 or 5 hours and it had grown quite a bit but I have no idea whether it was too much, too little and I wasn't bothered checking that website that tells you the correct amount of yeast to pitch into wort. Either way it was fine and it really does reinforce what I read on a forum recently, "its quite hard to screw up a batch of beer". I would tend to agree with this when kits are concerned. My tract record of venturing outside kit territory has been fraught with failure so far! :) 

The end result was very positive, it had 'the' taste that I was looking for and the first taste induces that "mmmm German beer" mental comment when you drink it.


Stats:
Started - 28.7.11
Racked -  28.8.11
Finished - 2.8.11
Bottled - 14.8.11
Code - 1011
Yeast Brand - Muntons Yeast
Yeast Code - NA
Y-Temp - 21.0
Beer/Product Type -   Brewers Choice Bavarian Weissbier 
Malt/Sugar Type - 1.5kG Coopers Wheat
Volume -  24.0 L
OG - 1055
FG -  1018
Proof  - 5.46 (Including 0.5% Priming)

#9 - St. Peters Ruby Red Ale [Kit]

I was informed about this kit after seeing a couple of videos making the kit and later tasting it. I was impressed by the little bit of extra hops that they supplied and it fed my urges to have more control over my batches. The kit also came highly recommended from several sources so I decided to give it a shot after seeing it stocked in my local home-brew store. 

This brew is quite slow to ferment and it really needs to be left in the primary fermenter for a full 2 weeks as it took nearly a week for the beer to get from a FG of 1018 down to 1016. I had a similar experience to that in the tasting video as I opened a bottle after 2 weeks and was very underwhelmed. I had high expectations yet the head retention was quite poor but the taste was still quite nice. 

This image is after opening a brew almost 2 months after bottling, I think I got a bad leaky bottle as there was very little hiss when I opened the bottle (Coopers Plastic bottles). The head disappeared relatively soon but the taste was quite nice. The colour is pretty much as you would expect. I'm hoping that by the time I have the next beer tasting it will have "sorted itself out". :) Overall a nice brew and I would recommend it. 

Stats:
Started - 10.7.11
Racked - NA
Finished - 20.7.11
Bottled - 21.7.11
Code - 1009
Yeast Brand - St. Peters Premium
Yeast Code - XHZB6G
Y-Temp - 26.0 
Beer/Product Type -  St Peters Ruby Red Ale
Malt/Sugar Type - Rye Malt Extract, Barley Malt Extract, Hops
Volume -  23.0L
OG - 1044
FG - 1016
Proof  - 4.25% (Including 0.5% for priming)