Harvest Sweet-Strong Cider

Today is my second attempt at a hard apple cider this year, more accurately, this is the second Tuesday in a row I've tried to make this.  Last Tuesday I used three gallons of awesome apple cider from a local farm called Kimmel Orchards.  I like their cider especially since it's not heat pasteurized, it's UV pasteurized.  This means it retains more of it's "apple-ly" flavors.  Last year I made cyser (cider and honey) with this cider.  Well this year I didn't get so lucky.  I added honey and sugar to get the gravity up to 1.110 and pitched some dry Windsor yeast, and nothing...

So I added two tsp. of yeast nutrient... nothing.  Frustrated I thought maybe my yeast didn't activate or the gravity was too high so I activated some wine yeast and pitched that... nothing.  More yeast nutrient...nothing.  I was about to tear out my hair.  I finally added two gallons of apple juice thinking the gravity was too high... nothing.  So I looked on the juice jugs and it said it contained 1/10th of a percent of Potassium Sorbate.

I went to my LHBS (Local HomeBrew Shop) and talked with Kirk.  He said that since it contained PS or Sodium Benzonate that yeast couldn't multiply and therefore couldn't ferment the cider.  So I broke down and went to Super Saver and bought some Pasteurized cider that didn't contain PS or SB.  This is some unfiltered stuff I found on sale for $3.95 a gallon:

I heated up about a gallon of it on the stove and added 1lb 6oz. of honey.  I also added about 6 lbs. of sugar so I could get the gravity up to 1.110 just like before.  This should make the cider strong and sweet just like a Muscato or a desert wine.

I also wanted it to have some fall flavors like a nice sweet mulled cider.  I added three cinnamon sticks, three tbs. of whole cloves, 2 tbs. of whole all spice, and four pieces of crystallized ginger.

I pitched some champagne yeast and put the lid on.  Cross your fingers, let's hope the airlock starts to bubble...

Wednesday morning update, the air lock is bubbling, and we have fermentation...

I went to switch over the cider for secondary fermentation and I go to pick up the bucket, it's empty...  I freak out and my mind reels to figure out what happened.  I used the bottling bucket to ferment in and it leaked out through the spigot and into the crawl space under my house.  In the mean time, the cider that wasn't supposed to ferment, started bubbling.  So I go from my five gallon batch in the basement to a three gallon batch in the keg.  I just wish I got to taste both batches.

36th State Prohibition Lager

I was inspired to brew this beer from watching the new Ken Burns documentary Prohibition.  Two of the major ingredients in this beer I grew in my home garden.   I used ingredients I grew just like a pro bootlegger.  I named it 36th State Prohibition Lager because Nebraska was the 36th State to vote in favor of the 18th Amendment, Ratifying the Bill.  The corn for the mash I grew in the back yard, and the Mt. Hood aroma hops was my first experiment in growing hops.

Above is my Nugget vines growing on the arbor in my front yard.  I have Mt. Hood on one side and Nugget on the other.  The Nugget is crazy and almost noxious the way it grows.  I was excited to get an ounce of Mt. Hood out of my first year.  Below is my homegrown corn grits.

I tried making this beer very different than what I'm used to.  My target gravity was 1.040.  I filled a large kitchen pot with one gallon of water and filled my brew kettle with 4 gallons of water.  In the smaller one I added my three pounds of dried and milled corn and a hand full of 2-row at 133 degrees, I turned up the burner and held it at 152 degrees for five minutes.  In my brew kettle I added seven pounds of 2-row and one pound of Marris Otter pale malt and held the temp at 140 degrees.  After the five minute rest in the smaller pot I boiled the corn for 30 minutes and it turned into a thick grits, almost like mashed potatoes.  After the 30 minutes I added the grits to the brew kettle and held the temp at 152 degrees for 30 minutes.

 
After the sanctification rest I poured the mash into my mash tun and began sparging with hot water.  After a 35 minutes sparge I began the boil with one ounce of Cluster hops.  At 45 minutes I added Irish Moss, and finally I added .7 ounces of homegrown Mt. Hood hops for a nice aroma.  This beer was also the easiest to boil with no "boil-over".  My Mt. Hood leaf hops below (they smelled amazing).

I cooled the wart and pitched some dry American lager yeast and took the beer to my root cellar to ferment at about 60 degrees.

My original gravity was 1.040, exactly where I was aiming.  I'll start secondary on Tuesday the 25th of October.

The lager turned out interesting.  It has a very European Lager flavor, a very stark bitterness that lasts a long time on the tongue.  The flavor is very smooth and it has a very light taste.  The color is also very very pale.  The experiment was successful on the bottle conditioning.  It has a good carbonation and the bottles make quite a "pop" when you open them.  Although, you need to drink the whole bottle that night because the next day it is almost too flat to drink.  Over all, not too bad for a beer I grew half of.

October Pumpkin Spice Ale

I bought this as a kit from Midwest Brewing Co.  It sounded tasty and I was more concerned with making a beer with a strong pumpkin presence than anything else.  I also wanted something seasonal that wasn't an Marzen Lager.

Again, I used a single infusion mash at 154 degrees and held that for 60 minutes.  I sparged for about 30 minutes and ended up with six and a half gallons of wart.  I started the boil and added one ounce of Mt. Hood.  While this was going on, I cored and baked three pie pumpkins for 40 minutes at 425 degrees.

 
At 45 minutes I added 1 tsp. of Irish Moss and five minutes later I added my 1 inch cubes of pumpkin meat.  At 2 minutes left in the boil, I added my Cluster hops, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  I immediately started cooling the wart and in about 15 minutes I pitched with Muntons dry yeast.

I left the pumpkin with the wart for fermenting.  I figured the beer could then continue to adsorb the flavor of the pumpkin.  My original gravity was 1.058.  Should have some nice warming alcohol for those cool autumn nights.

When I tasted my wort while siphoning it for secondary, it had a little pumpkin flavor with some subtle cinnamon notes.  It was still a little too sweet to really detect the flavors though.  I'm excited to keg this one.

Cheiftain Belgian Brown

I was really excited to brew this beer.  Not only because I haven't brewed in a month, but it's the first for my new experiment, Bison Head Blog.  I also feel this beer will be great to tweek into something very pleasant to drink year around.  I made a version of this about a year ago and I enjoyed it very much.  Right now it's in the middle of secondary fermentation, but here's a look back at the process to brew it:

This is an All-Grain Recipe with Belgian, English, and German influence.  I am going for a nice balance of hoppy flavor and malt sweetness.  I used a dry Belgian yeast, I like dry yeast, it's easy to use and I think it makes a nice beer, plus it's a little cheaper than liquid yeast.

I used a single infusion mash.  My mash was a little warm at 160 degrees, but I quickly cooled it to 152.  I held that for 60 minutes and spargged on the fly for about 40 minutes.  The mash had a very roasty smell, more than I expected.  It is also just a little darker than I wanted, but I suppose this is in part due to the chocolate malt, this could also be what the strong roasty smell is from.

I boiled the wart for 60 minutes adding one ounce of Norther Brewer at the beginning of the boil.  At 30 minutes I added two ounces of Willamette for some flavor, and at 45 I added some Irish Moss for clarity.  I tossed in two ounces of Fuggles with 5 minutes left in the boil for some nice hoppy aroma.

Above is my homemade immersion wart chiller.  I used 25 feet of flexible 1/2 inch copper piping, two 1/2 inch female thread ends, two plastic male threaded 1/2 inch barbs, and some length of vinyl to connect it to the faucet and a drain to the sink.  I cooled the wart in about 12 minutes, aerated the wart, pitched my yeast, and let it sit.

After a week, I siphoned the half fermented wart into a different fermentation bucket to keep it from getting a strong yeasty taste.  Here is the flocculated yeast trub in the bottom in my primary fermenter.  I will post my taste results when it is carbonated...