Galactic Butterfly - Galaxy Single Hop IPA

I was watching some show on TV a few months back that was talking about the Mayan culture and I was so intrigued by the show that I watched the entire thing.   One part stuck out more then any other though...Hu Nab Ku.   The Mayans speak of the Galactic Butterfly or Hu Nab Ku as the supreme god and ultimate creator located in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.   The Mayan's fascinate me to no end and for some reason I knew that when I finally brewed my IPA with Galaxy Hops, some Mayan name was going to have to be involved. At the time I was watching the show about the Mayans, I had already procured the Galaxy Hops.  I had gone into Midwest Brew Supply looking for some Citra hops and the dude suggest Galaxy hops as a good replacement.   I was and still am extremely skeptical to think that one hop could replace or be a substitute for Citra hops.   I decided on a Single Hop IPA with these Galaxy hops and to create a similar beer as Bell's Two Hearted.  I guess you could say this is a Bells Two Hearted Clone but using Galaxy Hops instead of Centennial.   Can't wait to give it a taste in a month or so!

Galactic Butterfly – Galaxy Single Hop IPA

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
92%	12	0	American Two-row Pale	37	1
4%	0	8	American Crystal 60L	34	60
4%	0	8	American Dextrin (Cara-Pils)	33	1
	13	0

Batch size: 5.5 gallons

Original Gravity

1.059

Final Gravity

1.012?

Color

6° SRM

(Yellow to Gold)

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
first wort	90+ mins	0.75	Galaxy	pellet	13.0
boil	20 mins	1.0	Galaxy	pellet	13.0
boil	5 mins	1.25	Galaxy	pellet	13.0
dry hop	10 days	1.0	Galaxy	pellet	13.4

Bitterness

70.3 IBU

yeast

Wyeast 1272: American Ale II ale yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation and 80% attenuation

Alcohol

6.3% ABV

Calories

193 per 12 oz.

Tasting Notes from 2.16.12 with the Nordeast Homebrew Club -  Right after I poured out the first Growler people immediately started saying that they were blasted with Pine.  Like walking into a Forest, piney and earthy.   I personally got the pine in the taste of the beer.  The back-end of the bitterness was very piney.   The smell to me was of fresh pears.  It is an amazing hop to be sure and one that can hold up on its own!   I was told that it was a good substitute for Citra (Lemon, Mango, Pine) and I'd say that from my experience it's very close.  A combination of Sorachi Ace (Lemon, Earthy) and Galaxy Hops(Pear, Pine) together would probably replicate Citra a little closer in my opinion though. 


Appearance -  Although it was a nice orange color, it was very murky due to the fact that I carbonated it in 2 days to get it ready for the homebrew club meeting.  I did that by shaking the keg up to get the CO2 into suspension faster and so the remaining yeast and hop particles were in suspension.  Sticky lacing!

Aroma - Amazing aroma.  I only used 1 oz of Dry hops for 6 days.  Still fantastic aroma of pine, pear, and some earthyness.   Caramel sweetness comes through a bit as well.

Flavor - First sip and you get hit with a strong bitterness, the middle comes in with a caramel sweetness, and then the back end of the sip is bitter and piney from the hops.   Their is an underlying fruityness as well that probably is a combonation of the American Ale II yeast and the hops.

Mouthfeel - Great drinkable mouthfeel.  Medium carbonation.  Dry, but with nice body.

Overall - This is such a simple recipe and beer, and it is absolutely wonderful.  The beer in general is very drinkable.  The 70 Ibu's hit you right away but your palate adjusts really quickly and since the beer is a little bit on the dry side it goes down smooth and fast.  Not huge body in the middle but the crystal and the carapils provide just enough body in the middle to balance it out!

Flanders Red finally on Cherries! Weird ass dream!

I had a really weird dream on Friday night.   In my dream, I went to my fermenter to take a look in at my first sour beer (still in carboy) and it was completely clear like water.  Not so much like water, but more like that clear Crystal Pepsi.   Also (in my dream) it had half a pumpkin and some other random vegetables floating in it that presumably soaked up all of the color.  Anywho...I realized upon awaking that Saturday morning that I should probably do something with that beer.

My first sour beer I ever brewed was an American Style Flanders Red Ale that I brewed 11 months ago.  It's been in secondary (an Ale Pale) for the last 6 months and has been getting more and more sour, at least as far as I could tell from sniffing the air lock.   After my weird ass dream,  I decided to take a taste and figure out how it's doing and where I want it to go from here.   The sample was a nice ruby, brown color.   Smell was nice and tart with caramel and cherries.   Taste was a little tart, malty, oaky,  not sour on the end but actually a little sweet.   I don't exactly know what the different acids taste like, but I don't get a lot of vinegar at all (which I believe is acetic acid).  The bottom line is, it tastes good!

I decided that now was the time to split it up. 
3 gallons to Rest -
I siphoned 3 gallons into a 3 gallon better bottle for longer term storage.  I'm hoping that this will get nice and acidic over the next year or longer.  If not, I'll end up bottling this portion as is.  It definitely tasted pretty damn good right now, but not as acidic as I'd prefer.
3 gallons on Tart Cherries -
The second 3 gallon portion was sitting in the Pale and I dumped 4 lbs of Tart cherries into that mix!   I tasted  a tiny bit of the cherry juice and it was definitely very tart.  I think this will complement the beer very well as I don't think it's going to be as tart and sour as I want on it's own!   The first pitch of Rosealare tends to not be extremely acid.   Should be ready for bottling in about 6 months.   June is the perfect time to be drinking a Flanders ale with Cherries!

Nordeast Brewers Alliance Homebrew Club Meeting this Sat!

ECY 03 Farmhouse Brett and ECY 02 Flemish Wild and the Brewday from HELL!

So I started off my Sunday all bright eyed and ready to go.  I'd finished one complete week of p90X!  I'd recommend p90X to anyone who's gotten a little loose around the edges from brewing and drinking.  To reward myself (for this small accomplishment) I decided that I deserved a Brew Day!  Remember.... 90 is for 90 days...and X is for Xtreme!  Bring IT!!!

The Disappearing Yeast
In my head I wanted to do a 10 gallon batch of what I had planned on being a Saison Brett experiment that could be drank next summer.   I was going to pit WLP 670 American Farmhouse Blend (presumably The Lost Abbey strain (brett. b.) against the ECY 03 Farmhouse Brett.   I know at one point a few months ago I had that damn vial of WL hanging out in my keezer but for the life of me I could not find it, and it probably was a little old any ways.   That throw a little monkey wrench in my plans.  Luckily I had another vial of East Coast Yeast sitting in my fridge, ECY 02 which is a flemish blend.  I didn't think the Flemish blend would be appropriate for the Hoppy Siason Brett I had been planning so I ended up boiling two separate pots and leaving out the 60 minute hop addition for the Saison turned Flemish Wild Ale (too many IBU's can restrict Lactobacillus).   What started out as a Saison Brett experiment turned into a East Coast Yeast experiment and I can't wait to taste that ECY02 eight to twelve months from now!  So... I had that yeast/changing up my recipe at the last minute issue.

The Stuck Mash
Then I had the whole stuck mash issue.  This was a fun one to deal with...really fun.  I have never had a stuck mash or sparge before in almost 50 beers.  I've heard of them, dreaded them, learned to deal with them from horror stories, but had somehow eluded one for almost 3 years.   This was a 10 gallon batch so it wasn't exactly a small issue.  I don't know why I had a stuck mash since I've used unmalted wheat, wheat, oats, spelt, and lots of gelatinous stuff in my mash's before and never used rice hulls.  My guess is because I threw in a pound of unmalted wheat at the last minute.  I knew that I needed to either do a more complex mash schedule or do a cereal mash on the side if I really wanted to get much of anything from them, but I decided to just throw them in and hope that they create some long chain sugars that would be available for the brett, pedio, lacto, and whatever else is in these yeast blends from Al Buck.   Anyways, as I tried to run off my first runnings the grain bed would get so compact that it would slow my run off to a trickle. Since I usually batch sparge, I ended up switching it up a bit.  As the wort would slowly drain off I would pour some of my hot sparge water in the top and stir it up to hopefully thin out the mash some.   Then I'd vorlauf again and continue the process.  I did this a few times, and eventually it started flowing a little better.   I ended up eventually doing my first pseudo fly sparge as I trickled sparge water over the top of the grain bed.  I ended up with 10 gallons of sugary water in the end so I guess everything worked out.   I made it happen and that's all that matters.

The Truth Will be Told
I heard this quote (not word for word) from one of the brewers on the Surly website at one point and it stuck with me.  "Any brewer can make a fantastic beer under perfect conditions, but it takes a great brewer to make a fantastic beer when everything goes wrong."  Hopefully I prove to be the latter.

My original recipe was a sort of, psuedo Boulevard Saison Brett clone so the Saison portion should be something similar to that.  The Flemish funk portion should be something like a barrel aged Lambic type version of Boulevard Saison Brett.  And then I had an extra couple of gallons of 2nd runnings and added about .75 ounce of 3 year old Celiea hops.  Hopefully I'll be able to pour the dregs and propagate Boulevard Saison Brett yeast for future batch's!

The Wedge - Saison Brett

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
60%	8	0	Rahr Pilsner Malt	34	2
26%	3	8	American White Wheat	39	2
6%	0	12	Corn, Flaked	37	1
4%	0	8	Belgian Candy Sugar Light	36	0
4%	0	8	Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)	34	5
0%	0	1	Carafa III	32	525
	13	5

Original Gravity

1.052 measured

Final Gravity

Color

8° SRM / 15° EBC

(Gold to Copper)

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	60 mins	0.7	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	20 mins	0.6	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	15 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	10 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
dry hop	10 days	2.0	Amarillo	leaf	7.0

Boil: 6.5 avg gallons for 90 minutes

Bitterness

41.3 IBU / 23 HBU

ƒ: Average

BU:GU

0.77

yeast

ECY03 Farmhouse Brett ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 90% attenuation

Alcohol

6.4% ABV

The Great Divide - Flemish Golden Wild Ale

malt & fermentables

%	LB	OZ	Malt or Fermentable	ppg	°L
60%	8	0	Rahr Pilsner Malt	34	2
26%	3	8	American White Wheat	39	2
6%	0	12	Corn, Flaked	37	1
4%	0	8	Belgian Candy Sugar Light	36	0
4%	0	8	Wheat, Unmalted (Wheat Berries)	34	5
0%	0	1	Carafa III	32	525
	13	5

Batch size: 5.5 gallons

Original Gravity

1.060 measured

Final Gravity

Color

8° SRM / 15° EBC

(Gold to Copper)

hops

use	time	oz	variety	form	aa
boil	20 mins	0.6	Simcoe	leaf	13.0
boil	15 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
boil	10 mins	0.5	Amarillo	leaf	7.0
dry hop	10 days	2.0	Amarillo	leaf	7.0

Bitterness

15.8 IBU

yeast

ECY02 Flemish Ale ale yeast in liquid form with low flocculation and 90% attenuation

Alcohol

7.3% ABV

 ***I mashed high, in the 158-160 range
 
3.20.12 - Sampled it and took a PH reading.   PH is at 3.8.  The taste is a nice funky saison with wheat and hops and tartness all intermingling nicely.  Fruity brett with a little musty brett in the nose.  Very fruity and refreshing in the taste.  

5.18.12 - Added 1/4 ounce Medium Toast French Cubes to both ECY03 and ECY02 versions. 
5.28.12 - Bottled ECY03 Saison Brett version with 7.1 ounces of corn sugar in Champagne and Belgian (750's and 375's) to reach 4 volumes of Co2.

Apollo Hops - Need to get me some of these hops!

I need to get me some Apollo hops.  They sound amazing.  Dank, Orange, Citrus, Pine, tons of oil, and super high AA%!  I think I'll get me some of these!  Sounds like Amarillo on crack!

I recently heard about these hops because I had listened to a  podcast on The Brewing Network show Can You Brew It  where Jamil and crew breakdown a homebrewers beer called "The Dankness".  What initially interested me was the fact that they were going to talk about scaling up a homebrew recipe created by Nathan Smith to a recipe for commercial production.  This has been of particular interest to me because I've been wondering about hop utilization and how that will change (presumably increase) on a larger scale.  While their podcast fell a bit short in that, they did talk about these Apollo hops that I think I'll need to be using in my next version of The Chronic.  

On a side note of my hop utilization questions.   I ended up getting a pretty decent answer to this question.   Last week I attended a "Technical Tour" put on at Harriet Brewing by Owner/Headbrewer Jason Soward.  This was the first technical tour at Harriet and since Jason was a homebrewer-turned-Pro I figured he'd have a lot of answers to the few questions I have left about professional brewing operations.    Obviously one of my biggest concerns is scaling up a recipe.   On the tour I think I asked 10 times more questions then anybody else...but hey...I needed clarification...and that's what I do...ask questions (I am in sales).   Jason has a 10 hectoliter(8.5 bbl) bavarian brewhouse and he said that the hop utilization didn't change too dramatically from his homebrewing set up (keggle system).  If anything, he said his hop utilization increased 5-10%.  This was much less then I had imagined.  My research on larger systems had come up with people saying that they get 3 times more hop utilization going from a homebrew to a 15 bbl system (which didn't make sense in my mind).   Another thing I learned was how to do a decoction mash on a professional style brew house as Jason explained his process to me in depth!  It basically requires the monster of all brewing pumps! 

I also wanted to say that I was extremely impressed with Jason as the tour went along.  He was extremely technical and could rift back and forth from subject to subject with ease.  You could tell that he knows his shit inside and out and I'm extremely excited for Harriet's continued success.  I know that he will be around for a long time and that is a great thing for Minneapolis!    If you haven't tried any Harriet beers, SEEK THEM OUT!