I ordered a bag of Maris Otter and split a bag of domestic 2-row with another member.  I should be good on base malt for six or seven batches.

I also bought some airtight pet food bins from Corrado’s to protect the grain from pests.

Time to brew!

• 9.5 # 2-row
• .5# homemade Crystal 60L
• .5 oz Summit 60 mins
• .25 oz Summit 10 mins
• .25 oz Simcoe 5 mins
• 1 oz Simcoe 2 mins
• WLP001 California Ale Yeast

Mash at 152 for one hour.

The brew day went well.  I hit my mash numbers dead-on.  I had incredible cold break, so I left more in the kettle than I would have liked, but it’s going to be good.  And unlike the Altbier that is still cold-conditioning, I should be able to turn this one around pretty quickly.

The combined use of a yeast starter and stir plate can also make each batch of beer consierably cheaper, since you won’t need to pitch two (or even three) tubes of yeast to get an adequate starting cell count.  At $6 apiece per yeast tube or pouch, that can add up quickly.

Even so, commercially-made stir plates average $80 – $100 from homebrew supply stores, so I have put off getting one.  I had considered building one myself; the process is simple and instructions are easy to find, such as those on the HomeBrewTalk forum: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-stirplate-cheap-easy-build-86252/

However, following a tip from my good friend and good brewer Brad Smith, I ordered a stir plate from stirstarters.com   These are basically identical to one I would build myself (the guts are based around a computer fan, just like the home-made version), and they only cost $45 apiece!

I know I could build one for cheaper, but I’d much rather use the time I’d spend building one to make more beer.  I accept that this attitude puts me squarely at odds with a sizable portion of the homebrew community, which strongly embraces a DIY mentality that I admire but cannot completely adhere to.  Sorry.

In any case, the thing works great, and my yeast starter was thick and healthy when it came time to pitch.  I strongly recommend.  Here’s a quick video of it in action:  Stir Starter video

After some thought, I decided the recipe needs some color and a touch of residual sweetness, so I thought I’d take a shot at toasting some of the 2-row myself, aiming to make a 40-60L crystal malt.  Whether or not this should still be considered a SMaSH is open to debate.

First, some background on crystal malt (a.k.a. caramel malt):

Crystal malts are wetted and roasted before kilning.  They produce strongly sweet toffee-like flavors.  Crystal malts are available in a range of colors, with darker-colored crystal malts (those kilned at higher temperatures) producing stronger, more caramel-like overtones. Some of the sugars in crystal malts caramelize during kilning and become unfermentable; hence, addition of crystal malt will increase the final sweetness of a beer. They contain no enzymes. (Wikipedia)

I followed the guidelines in Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing.

1. First, I soaked the grain in dechlorinated tap water for 24 hours. It developed a little bit of foam and a familiar aroma: is there a very slight mash going on here?
2. Next, I drained the grain well, and poured it into a pie plate so it sits about 2″ deep.
3. Then, with my crappy oven set as low as it could go (about 180 degrees), I roasted it for 2 hours, until it was mostly dry.  Around this time, I forgot that I was supposed to be taking pictures.
4. Next, I dumped the grain out onto a cookie sheet, and then raised the temperature to 200 degrees.  This quickly finished drying the malt, and filled the house with a really nice nutty-bready aroma.
5. Finally, I raised the temperature to 300 degrees.  The grain quickly started to toast.  After about 90 minutes (stirring every 15 minutes or so) the color was somewhere between a 40L and a 60L.   The smell was intense, very nutty and slightly burned.   The grain tasted more like a brown malt than a typical crystal (probably because of incomplete conversion during the initial low temperature “mash” step) but does have a nice residual sweetness.

I plan to age this for two weeks or so, to let the aroma mellow a bit (commercial toasted malts are often aged for months before being sold).  I think it’ll add a nice sweet, nutty touch to Pale Ale #2.

Every now and again I’m trying to slot in a “seasonal” to keep things from getting too mundane.  This month I’m going to make an Altbier.  It’s perfect for the weather we’re having, what with my cool-but-not-cold back stairway available for a long-ish cold secondary (fermentation temperature control is definitely my bugaboo as a brewer).  And it’ll make my lager-loving German friends happy (guys, please be kind when comparing this beer to those from your hometown of Düsseldorf.  They freaking invented this beer there).

The recipe is from a Midwest Supplies kit, with a quarter-pound of C60 added in to deepen the color a bit:

• 7# Domestic 2-row
• 2# Vienna malt
• 12 oz Cara Red
• 4 oz Crystal 60L
• 1 oz Carafe I
• 2 oz Crystal hops – 60 minutes
• Whirflock – 5 minutes
• 1 oz Hallertau – 5 minutes
• Wyeast 1007 German Ale, with 1L starter

Mash at 150 degrees for 60 minutes.  Cold secondary recommended.

I missed the initial strike temp a degree on the low side (again- I must adjust for this in BeerSmith).  The wort is quite a bit darker than I’d hope for (shouldn’t have screwed with the recipe, I guess).  But overall it went well.  I need to buy a few examples of Altbier to compare this to…

There are still several more steps to go: vote in the full Senate, hearing/vote in the Assembly Committee, vote in the full Assembly and signature by the Governor.

I have high hopes for this one.  Must wait three weeks before trying!

Michael Kane, owner of Kane Brewing, gave a fantastic talk.  He talked mainly about the process of moving from homebrewing to commercial brewing, and about some of the differences between brewing 5 gallons batches and 30 barrel batches.  A lot of great information for those of us who have contemplated a similar move- and who amount us homebrewers hasn’t?

Thanks again to everyone for putting the meeting together!

Wow.

It pours with a nice, pillowy head.  The first sense is aroma, of a strong smelly cheese.  Like a Bleu, Stilton maybe, but smoother.  More like a very soft, runny cheese, but way more pungent than Brie.

The taste has a good malt start, which is followed by wave after wave of yeast flavors.  Some of it is familiar- Belgians often have distinctive yeast tastes- but others are downright odd.  “Complex” is an understatement.  Again, a full, ripe cheese comes time mind (which might sound like a gross thing to associate with a beer, but trust me, it is not).  Combine that with the malt, and you’ve got one hell of a ride in a glass.   I couldn’t put it down.

A big thanks to Olivia for the awesome Christmas gift in glass.