Tasting: Dai Tajín

Posted on February 24, 2015 by funkmetal

Dai Tajín is my first barrel-aged saison. As I mention when brewing, I struggled with what else to put in that Rum barrel and thought the saison would be a good bet. Early on, it tasted great, rum and saison perfectly balanced. Life got in the way and well, it spent a lot longer in the barrel than I had anticipated. At bottling, I just wasn’t sure if it was going to work out. I never picked up any real Rum flavors. This beer was bottled on Jan 30th, 2014, so we’re not even 4 weeks out in the bottle and the great news is that it’s perfectly carbed. This was something I’ve struggled with for the last 3 beers that have aged in barrels. This time I used The Mad Fermentationalist barrel-aged beer priming spreadsheet and it turned out to be just what I needed to get priming just right. Now, what about the beer?

Appearance: Amber to orange color, slight cloudiness. Solid foamy head which settles down into a thin, but persistent creamy head.

Smell: Tart fruits, slight funk (Bretty? won’t be the first time I’ve infected a batch in a good way accidentally), oaky, earthy. The tart, funk and oaky spirits really reminds me of Jester King Boxer’s Revenge.

Taste: Spicy, oaky, slight booze, long tannins and it ends dry. Slight carb bite, prickly. Very saison-like though the boozy nature makes it stand out from a typical saison.

Mouthfeel: Medium mouthfeel. Solid to high carbonation, but not past where I would like it. Tingly on the tongue but not distracting from the thicker smoothness.

Drinkability & Notes: I must say that I’m quite impressed with this beer given it was not something I’ve seen brewed before. I’m in love with the great nose and flavor, mostly because it reminds me of one of my favorite Jester King beers. While it’s not sour itself, it just begs to be innoculated. Next batch of Dai Tajín will be aged in-barrel with Jester King mixed culture.

Small Batch Sunday: Mosaic SMaSH

Posted on February 8, 2015 by funkmetal

I just had a pint of Lone Pint’s Yellow Rose and well, I can’t think of a better beer to start trying to dial in on our Small Batch Sunday series here. The last small batch was Stone IPA which is currently tasting really nice in the dry-hop keg. I’m bottling the Stone this afternoon and tonight will start into another just amazing IPA that is as simple as they come.

Yellow Rose is now available all-year around and most recently to me, it can be had in bottles. Hopefully I’ll be able to track down a six pack, or a bomber so I can do a side-by-side. I don’t think this beer can really be cloned right now simply because it varies somewhat out of the brewery. I’ve seen numerous mentions of getting radically different noses and flavor profiles from batch to batch. The silver lining is that everyone agrees that it remains an amazing IPA.

My initial impression of this beer’s smooth malt profile that just carries the hops was one that needed a really solid base that’s interesting. My go-to base malt for that sort of thing is always Thomas Fawcett Marris Otter, aka. The Crutch as my good friend once told me of a remark from a pro-brewer here in Texas. It’s hard to go wrong when putting Marris Otter in a beer at any level. Some of my best SMaSH (Single-Malt and Single Hop) beers were 100% Marris. What I’ve seen discussed around the net though was that Yellow Rose uses Wyermann Pilsen malt. I can believe that since it doesn’t seem to have any crystal in it (neither in color nor taste) and lets the hop shine. And it’s certainly easy enough to try a different base malt out next time.

Recipe Details

Batch Size	Boil Time	IBU	SRM	Est. OG	Est. FG	ABV
1 gal	90 min	66.0 IBUs	5.1 SRM	1.062	1.011	6.6 %
			Actuals	1.046	1.01	4.7 %

Style Details

Name	Cat.	OG Range	FG Range	IBU	SRM	Carb	ABV
American IPA	14 B	1.056 - 1.075	1.01 - 1.018	40 - 70	6 - 15	2.2 - 2.7	5.5 - 7.5 %

Fermentables

Name	Amount	%
Pilsen (BestMälz)	3.422 lbs	100

Hops

Name	Amount	Time	Use	Form	Alpha %
Mosaic	0.07 oz	90 min	First Wort	Pellet	11.6
Mosaic	0.35 oz	5 min	Boil	Pellet	11.6
Mosaic	0.35 oz	20 min	Aroma	Pellet	11.6
Mosaic	0.53 oz	5 days	Dry Hop	Pellet	11.6

Miscs

Name	Amount	Time	Use	Type
Phosphoric	9.80 ml	60 min	Mash	Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)	2.10 g	60 min	Mash	Water Agent
Calcium Chloride	0.30 g	60 min	Mash	Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4)	0.20 g	60 min	Mash	Water Agent

Yeast

Name	Lab	Attenuation	Temperature
Dry English Ale (WLP007)	White Labs	75%	65°F - 70°F

Mash

Step	Temperature	Time
Saccharification	147.9°F	90 min
Mash Out	168°F	10 min

Download

Download this recipe's BeerXML file

Woxbic: Lambic-style Beer; Second Barrel, Second Year

Posted on February 7, 2015 by funkmetal

ECY20 Bug Country going at it about 12 hours after pitching

About a year ago, I brewed my first lambic-style beer. I didn’t spend the time to do a turbid mash, but I did use the Wyeast guide for temperature infusions to provide a similar mash profile. During the past year, I’ve pulled a few samples, roughly once a quarter to ensure that the beer didn’t turn too acetic. Frankly, I’m impressed at how well it’s held up. This is almost entirely due to applying a layer of paraffin wax to the entire barrel. At this point, the year old beer is exceedingly sour, about 3.0 pH. It tastes full of lemon zest, sour grapefruit, medium oak, with just a hint of vanilla whiskey, due to the use of a whiskey barrel. Clearly not as neutral as the Lambic I’ve tasted from Cantillon, Boon, and Drie Frontain. Nonetheless, it’s entirely acceptable for a year old sour to be tasting this well.

For this year’s attempt, I’ve prepared a Rum Whiskey barrel. It’s had only two beers run through it, but it’s aged beer for nearly a year. It’s likely that there will be more barrel flavor contributed than the previous barrel, but that’ll be fun when blending.

Hot water rinsing. Filled and drained completely three times with 150F water. Soaked both heads as well.

Steam-sanitizing the barrel. I used the guide on Embrace the Funk to construct a barrel steamer from a pressure cooker and a few extras. This hits 212F and stays going for 15 minutes.

Looks really pretty after soaking in wax

After cleaning, I used a heat gun to melt a block of paraffin wax. This took about 20 minutes. Much faster than double-boiler and basting it on.

The recipe for this year will remain the same. The only major difference is the use of aged hops versus a small amount of very low AA hops. Last year I used Crystal @ 3 AA. This year I used two year old whole-leaf hops. Originally they were about 10% AA, but being old and exposed they provide a much lighter hopping and hopefully a bit more musty, cheesy funk one expects from great Lambic beer.

Fermentation Blow OUT, total Woxford-style

I can’t wait to see how this one turns out over the next year.