Brewing Stories – Page 10

Patience can be a Virtue

Brewing beer is an exercise in patience. I’ve heard urban legends of homebrewers on top of their game who had a beer ready to drink in a week. Seven days from brew day to force-carbonation and enjoyment. I can’t help but wonder if they are just legend or if beer can actually be turned around that quickly(I know they can). I know it is not possible when you bottle-condition your beer, as I do.

I brewed a batch of porter on Memorial Day, 2012. I bottled it two weeks later, and made the mistake of trying it one week after that. I don’t know if it was the roasted malts or the yeast, but the beer literally tasted like sucking on a penny. If you haven’t tried it, make sure you don’t suck on a nice, shiny one, get one of the old, brown, funky-looking pennies. The flavor is quite strong, metallic and makes my mouth pucker up something fierce.

Of course, I started freaking out. It did not taste like beer. Much less, this did not taste like anything I wanted to drink. This was a deep, dark abyss of disappointment. It looked so promising on the pour; the head was small which is appropriate for a porter, the color was black as midnight, but flavor was so off I couldn’t even finish my glass of beer.

I started doing research for the cause of the off flavor: infection by bacteria, over-milling grain, sparge water too hot, etc, etc. There were so many possibilities available, my head was spinning. Most of the possibilities were eliminated due to knowing my process, but the one that wouldn’t go away was the possibility of infection. I was distraught.

The actual cause of the off flavor can be attributed to something I did not find online: impatience. With pale ales and the like, you can get away with drinking them the week after they are bottled, they just may lack carbonation. Not a big deal. Apparently, at least with this batch, dark beers do not fare as well.

I talked to members of my homebrew club and the owner of a local homebrew shop, but no one had a solution or advice. Starting to think I was going to have to uncap and dump the whole ten gallons, I tentatively sampled the beer after another week. The off-flavor was less, but still strong. At least I could finish this bottle.

I was so upset, it took me nearly two additional weeks before I worked up the fortitude to try another bottle. There was no off flavor. It actually tasted pretty good. There was rich, toasted malt sweetness with a noticeable bitterness. It came off much more like a stout than what I think of as a porter, but I enjoyed it.

Of all the beers I’ve made so far, this is the recipe several people have told me is the best I’ve made so far. And to think I almost dumped all ten-plus gallons of it after one week in the bottle. Patience saved a lot of enjoyment.

Do you have a brewing story where a little patience was a good thing? It doesn’t have to be with carbonation, maybe it was waiting a few extra seconds before writing off your sparge as stuck or something similar.

Share your stories in the comments below.

Brewing in a New Location

Sometimes you just have to ignore what the experts tell you. When you’re brewing, or doing anything you want to improve, you need to control for as many variables as possible. Change only one thing at a time and learn how that affects the outcome.

In the case of brewing, you don’t want to go changing your process and your recipe and your water and your equipment all in one fell swoop. You won’t have any idea which change improved (or screwed up) your brew.

None of my equipment changed, but everything else did. I hope it turns out. Right now, I haven’t been brewing regularly enough to really nail down my process, but over-all I’m happy with how my brew day happened. I got up early and got my grain weighed and ready to crush, then ran some errands and truly started my brew day.

Once I got to the crushing stage, it was just after ten a.m. The beer was in the fermenter by 2:30, but it took just over an hour to clean everything else and get it drying or put away.

You can put off brewing until everything is perfectly arranged and planned and won’t interfere with the rest of your life. And then sometimes, you just have to brew.

Have you done anything “the experts” recommend against? Tell me about it in the comments.

Ale to the Chief! The White House homebrew Recipes Released

The recipe for White House Honey Ale — One of the first beer recipes brewed in the White House by the kitchen staff

Much excitement greeted the post on WhiteHouse.gov disclosing the White House homebrew recipes for President Obama’s homebrewed beer. Just over a year ago, homebrewers nationwide talked about the fact President Obama had purchased a homebrew kit and actually brewed beer at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue.

At the time, it seemed like a non-event. Many people buy a homebrewing kit, try it, and that’s it. However, when Obama talked about having some of this homebrew on his campaign bus, there was renewed interest in the fact beer was now being brewed in the White House. What kind of beer was being made? Who was making it? What was the recipe good enough to serve to the President of the United States?

Someone even started a petition to get the White House to these special recipes. Reading the article, you can see a recipe kit was obtained at a homebrew shop, then beer enthusiasts on the White House staff tweaked the recipe to make it their own.

Mere days after the release of the recipe, I received email notices from at least two different homebrew supply shops with “Exclusive White House Beer Recipe Kits”. Who can blame them for capitalizing on the interest? But calling a recipe published on the most public website “exclusive” is stretching it, even for a marketing department.

What can I say? The recipes look pretty good. You can even purchase one of the “exclusive” kits on Amazon: White House Honey Porter. I’m partial to porters, so I might have to try one of these recipes just to see how it turns out.

I read that while many of our founding fathers brewed beer at their homes, which was common practice, this is the first time beer was brewed at the White House.

Whether you’re an all-grain brewer or brew from malt extract, you should be able to make a reasonable facsimile of these recipes in your homebrewery. Or, if you’re just getting started, these recipes look easy enough to be a good starting point.

Why not get in on the fun? Even the President’s doing it. OK, so he’s not actually the one brewing, the kitchen staff are doing the actual brewing, but why not shoot for a drink worthy of the leader of the free world? Pick up an equipment kit and a White House Honey Porter Kit and start brewing beer to lead the world!

The Recipe for Obama's Honey Porter