Ramping up a base beer

You looking good kid!

Tasting Atrial Rubicite Blend 1 (2013, front) with Atrial Rubicite Blend 5 (2015, back)

We’ve got a number of beers planned for the future and all of them include using sour, aged beer and blending with fruits.  In order to have enough of this base beer, we need to brew and age quite a bit.  To get started, we’re brewing up 13 gallons, max for the current system and get things aging while we wait for the various fruit seasons to occur.

Nothing special here, just my take on the base beer that Jester King uses for their fruited sours.  Enjoy!

Astroboy (aka Das Wunderkind)

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
13 gal 90 min 29.7 IBUs 3.8 SRM 1.040 1.005 4.6 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Saison 16 C 1.048 - 1.065 1.002 - 1.012 20 - 35 5 - 14 2.3 - 2.9 5 - 7 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsner (2 Row) Bel 15 lbs 68.13
Munich Malt 2.35 lbs 10.67
Oats, Flaked 2.333 lbs 10.6
Wheat Malt, Ger 2.333 lbs 10.6

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Goldings, East Kent 4.5 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 5.6
Saaz 2.25 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 7.6
Saaz 4.5 oz 5 min Boil Pellet 7.6
Goldings, East Kent 2.25 oz 5 min Boil Pellet 5.6
Cascade (2012 - Nikobrew 2012-11-23) 2.17 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 5.9
Columbus (Tomahawk) - 2012 Crop - Purchased 20130220 1.08 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 15.3

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 2.72 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 2.72 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.35 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Yeast Nutrient 2.36 tsp 5 min Boil Other

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Jester King Mixed Culture (JK01) Jester King 86% 50°F - 95°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 152°F 60 min

Some like it hot!

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Quite a departure from what we normally do but my good friend Mark Hamzy has been playing with using Jester King’s mixed culture in many places, including making hot sauce!  Mark shared with me his first small batch and it was a resounding success. Full of hatch and smokey flavor, noticeable sour bite; oh and hot!  Mark asked me, how can we make it bigger this time?

Why not do 5 gallons and age it in a whiskey barrel?  Neither of us had done this before and we didn’t exactly have a recipe.  Our best guess was to come up with a ratio of hatch roasted chilis to beer and yeast.  We brewed up a smoked-malt base beer, about 4 gallons, unhopped and targeting 1.040.  While the wort was boiling we worked on de-skinning and blending up roughly two cases of freshly roasted hatch chilis.

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After we’d collected enough chili we would mix in a couple ounces of fresh wort, some of the mixed culture and then pour into the barrel via a funnel.   We’ll age this combination for many months, checking on it as we go, topping it off with both fresh mixed culture and wort to ensure we get it sour enough.

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Wunder Hatch

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
4 gal 90 min 0.0 IBUs 7.0 SRM 1.045 1.009 4.6 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Wild Specialty Beer 28 C 1.02 - 1.09 1 - 1.016 5 - 50 2 - 50 2 - 3 2 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsen (BestMälz) 3.5 lbs 50
Smoked Malt 3.5 lbs 50

Miscs

Name Amount min Type
Phosphoric Acid 6.50 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 1.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 0.90 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Jester King Mixed Culture (0001) Jester King 83% 65°F - 77°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 156°F 40 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Barrel Fermented Woxford’s Revenge

Dat Glycol Loop!

Jester King uses shipping containers to bottle condition upcoming beer.

Now that the Battle Shed is up, it’s time to brew a beer and ferment it within with only ambient temperate to control it. I’ve had three beers age in one of my 5 gallon Balcones Whiskey barrel and have been waiting to have the shed ready to bottle the previous batch (Quad Damage) and then brew and prepare a Boxer’s Revenge inspired clone.

I brewed a test-batch earlier this year and the Boxer’s clone came out very nice. Slightly under carbed due to testing out new bottling method (pre-packaging yeast in gelatin caps) which worked well but needed a bit more sugar to get the right level. The taste and aroma were spot on. The only real concern was that it needed quite a bit more oak to make it more like Boxer’s. For this batch I’ll ferment it and again it entirely in the oak barrel.

Nothing special in the recipe besides using the Jester King mixed culture. Note: Mash @ 150F for 75 minutes. Enjoy!

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 90 min 22.4 IBUs 7.5 SRM 1.089 SG 1.009 SG 10.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Wild Specialty Beer 28 C 1.02 - 1.09 1 - 1.016 5 - 50 2 - 50 2 - 3 2 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsen (BestMälz) 16 lbs 71.11
Wheat Malt, Ger 5 lbs 22.22
Pale Moon (Blacklands) 1 lbs 4.44
Caramunich Malt 0.5 lbs 2.22

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Styrian Goldings 2.12 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 3
Cascade 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 5.9
Centennial 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 11.4

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Jester King Culture (0001) Jester King 86% 50°F - 90°F

The Battle Shed

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A lot of time has passed since I last posted and instead of brewing beer, I’ve been brewing up a shed. I’ve wanted to transition to using a conical for some time, but I didn’t want to purchase an upright freezer for each one one, which is the typical way to ensure that you can control the temperate at the homebrew level. One could go get a jacketed conical, or use some of the new immersion coil setups, but finding something that works well at a reasonable price at the homebrew size is quite a challenge.

IMG_20150402_170320Instead of cooling on the conical I had looked at cooling the entire shed. The previous shed-cum-rat-shack was just not salvageable since it was rotting from the bottom up. I had a new shed installed and then wired with 60A service which was plenty of electricity for cooling with room to run large appliances as well as potentially running an all electric brewing setup.

I looked at using spray foam for its speed and R-factor, but the price was just too high, over 4 times the cost versus simple R-13 batts. In short order, several friends and I had insulated the walls and ceiling. What took considerable more time was putting in the OSB walls. I no longer have my truck so I needed a way to get 14 or so OSB 8’x4′ sheets and ended up having Lowe’s deliver.PANO_20150605_162835

After that we started planning and cutting sheets to fit. We spent about two weeks using the evening hours to put it together. It can be said a carpenter or handyman, I am not. But it’s functional. Painting went quite a bit quicker, a coat of latex primer and then a latex top coat to keep things from getting wet.

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The key to ensuring the shed stays cold enough to ferment and age beer is the use of a CoolBot (insulation helps keep it that way). The Coolbot is a really neat and simple device. It has several temperate probes to get readings on the AC fins and the rooms and also a heat probe, to trick the AC itself to keep running which allows the Coolbot to control how long it runs.

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I plugged it in and it worked right off the bat. A quick test showed it cooled a carboy of water down from 80F to 65F in just a few hours. Over the next few days, I filled up the shed with homebrew and commercial beer.

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Under heavy stress, the Coolbot ended up freezing the coils. This wasn’t as bad as it sounds since Coolbot has a nice troubleshooting guide to help you tune things. After changing where I placed the fin temperate probe, I was back up and running.

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I’m highly impressed with the device. I’ve got a few more things to get the interior the way I’d like but for now, it’s completely operational which means it’s time to brew some more beer!

Here’s some more photos from the project.

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Pfunk it Up

3 Funks FTW!

Capturing some local microflora with apple juice. Two types of wild flowers and a control. Left out overnight in the Texas winter, now incubating at 75F.

Along side Jester King as one of my favorite breweries is Prairie Artisan Ales.  They’ve been churning out great beer after beer.  Prairie is always experimenting and playing with bold flavors while mixing in healthy amounts of barrel aging.  One of their earlier beers captured my attention.  Funky Galaxy.  When fresh, this beer delivers this amazing CDA/Black IPA punch, but with a light farmhouse funk in the nose, but enough citrus and tropical fruits that it drinks really easy.

Here’s the fun part: if you sit on this one for a few months the Brett transforms the beer dramatically.  Much of the hop aroma fades and/or is consumed by the Brett and produces one of the *funkiest* Brett B beers I’ve ever had.  Comparing a freshly bottled beer side-by-side to an aged one makes one wonder if these were even the same beer at all.

This one has been on my list for some time but never got to brew it.  I’ve had some really good success with using Jester King mixed culture yeast and bacteria.  The Boxer’s Revenge inspired one gallon batch is already amazing at two months, only needed a little more oak character before bottling.  This recipe has about 30 IBU so I know that the JK yeast will send plenty of sour punch with this recipe.  Mixing that with the roast and citrus hops should make for a very tasty brew.

The origin of the malt bill was inspired from Hops and Grain’s Dark IPA that they brewed a few years back that I really enjoyed.  I picked that back up here and bumped the gravity up to match the 8% of Funky Galaxy, and switched the hops to Galaxy and Citra for a really nice citrus/tropical fruit nose.  Looking forward to brewing a bigger batch on the full-scale equipment as well.

Here’s Pfunky Galaxy

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 60 min 29.3 IBUs 45.8 SRM 1.078 1.016 8.1 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Belgian Specialty Ale 16 E 1.03 - 1.08 1.006 - 1.019 15 - 40 3 - 50 2.1 - 2.9 3 - 9 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Organic Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) 14.25 lbs 77.03
Carafa III 1.25 lbs 6.76
Aromatic Malt 1 lbs 5.41
Caramunich Malt 14 oz 4.73
Oats, Flaked 14 oz 4.73
Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) 4 oz 1.35

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Citra 0.11 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 14.4
Galaxy 0.11 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 14.8
Citra 1 oz 10 min Aroma Pellet 14.4
Galaxy 1 oz 10 min Aroma Pellet 14.8
Liberty 1 oz 10 min Aroma Pellet 3.9
Galaxy 2 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 14.8

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Phosphoric Acid 21.40 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 4.80 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 4.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Whirlfloc Tablet 1.00 Items 15 min Boil Fining

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Jester King Mixed Culture (3711) Jester King 81% 60°F - 95°F
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis (WLP650) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F
Brettanomyces Lambicus (WLP653) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Protein Rest 146°F 30 min
Saccharification 155°F 30 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

Based on Hops and Grain Dark IPA, adjusted for Pairie Ale Funky Galaxy parameters (30 IBU, *loads of Galaxy hops). Using JesterKing mixed culture yeast.