Welcome to my May column.   Enjoy the nice weather by stopping in tp enjoy some great beers and food at our pub here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   And you can enjoy it on our beautiful patio.  Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of Beeer Nexus.  Now let's get to myr May column. 

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Altbier is to Düsseldorf as kölsch is to Cologne. In fact, the cities are about forty kilometers (twenty-five miles) apart, a quick train ride. The style gets its name from its old and traditional way of production before refrigeration.  Back in the day the  region had no ice cellars or anything else to store ice for the beer production in the summer, so they produced a beer with a warm and top-fermenting yeast, which needed no cooling during the [brewing] process.  Much like brewers in California who created steam beer because of a lack of consistent ice, brewers in Düsseldorf came up with their own solution for brewing in their conditions.  The style is about as narrow as saison, Altbier is all over the place. Some might taste like English brown ales; some like Baltic porters, some like a mild, and some even like an American red.

An Altbier is fermented at a moderate temperature using a top-fermenting yeast—which gives its flavor some fruitiness. Because Altbier is then matured at a cooler temperature, its flavor is more akin to lager beer styles than is the norm for top-fermented beers (such as British pale ale). 

Give this one a try - it's my Attitude Alt

2 cans (6.6 lb, or 3.0 kg) Light Malt Extract

1.25 lb (0.57 kg) Light Liquid Munich Malt Extract

0.5 lb (0.23 kg) Special b Malt (120° L)

0.5 lb (0.23 kg) CaraMunich Malt (60° L)

0.25 lb (0.11 kg) Carafa Malt (400° L)

1.5 oz (43 g) *Perle hops, 8.75% alpha acid (60 min)

1.0 oz (28 g) *Tettnang Hops, 4.5% alpha acid (15 min)

0.75 tsp (3 g) Irish moss (15 min)

2 packages Wyeast 1007 German Ale Yeast, or White Labs WLP036 Dusseldorf Alt Yeast, or white Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch yeast, or a sufficient yeast starter

*Use similar hops, if Perle or Tettnag hops are unavailable.

Directions:

Steep the grains in 2 gallons (7.6 L) of cool water. Heat the water to 170°F (77°C), then strain the grains. Stir in malt extract and add enough water to bring the volume up to 3 gallons (11.4 L), and bring to a boil. Add bittering hops and boil for 45 minutes, then add aroma hops and re-hydrated Irish moss and continue boiling for 15 minutes. Cool the wort, and then pour into fermenter with enough cold water to make 5.5 gallons (21 L). Aerate and pitch yeast when temperature drops to 65°F (18°C). Ferment at 65°-68° F (18°-20° C) for one week or until fermentation is complete. Age the beer in a secondary fermenter for one week at 65°F (18°C). Carbonate to 1.5-2.5 volumes of CO

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Now for a great recipe that anyone can have great success with.  I'll include some simple step by step directions so beginners can confidently make this extract gem  -  Rowdy Roddy's Pale Ale /2 pounds dry light malt extract

5 1/2 pound Crystal 20L malt, crushed

1/2 pound Am rican 6-row malt, crushed

12 ounce Centennial hops—60 minutes

1 ounce Cascade hops—15 minutes

1 ounce Centennial hops—15 minutes

1 ounce Cascade hops at flame out

1/2 ounce Centennial hops at flame out

6 gallons of tap water, split. If possible, place 3 gallons in the refrigerator to cool in a sanitized container

1 .5 gram package Safale US-05

Tie the American 6-row malt and Crystal 20L malt in a mesh hop-bag. Heat 1 gallon of water in a large pot to 160°F and remove from heat. Add malt and let steep for 20 minutes. 

Raise temperature slowly to 170°F. Make sure mesh bag isn’t sitting directly on the bottom of the pot. Remove the grain bag and add water to make 3 gallons total.
Bring the wort to a vigorous boil. As water is heating, slowly add malt extract, stirring constantly until completely dissolved. When boil begins, add 1/2 ounce Centennial hops in mesh bag.

After 45 minutes of boiling has passed, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1 ounce Centennial in mesh bag. 

After total of 60 minutes of boil remove from heat, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1/2 ounce Centennial in mesh bag and cover. 

Warning: After wort cools below 180°F everything that touches it should be sanitary, and exposure to open air should be limited as much as possible.
Cool wort by placing pot in ice bath until it is below 85°F. Transfer to sanitized fermentor (either a carboy or a fermentation bucket). Top off to 5 gallons using refrigerated water.

Sanitize outside of yeast package, fermentation stopper and airlock. Carefully pour yeast into cooled wort (it should be below 70°F), and agitate vigorously. Ferment in dark place, keeping ambient temperature consistent, preferably between 62-66°F.

Bottle after two to three weeks.

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In answer to several emails let me end by explaining the difference between Original gravity and final gravity.

Original Gravity

You measure the O.G. of your homebrew with your hydrometer after the wort has cooled, but before fermentation begins. This measurement gives the relative density of the sugar dissolved in the wort. Extract brewers should be able to come very close to matching the O.G. on a recipe, since the amount of sugar in malt extract is a fixed value. Sugar doesn't boil off, so the amount of extract you add to the wort determines exactly how much sugar you'll end up with. If you find that you're not getting the O.G. specified by the recipe, the most likely culprit is that you somehow didn't end up with the right amount of liquid. If you ended up with more than 5 gallons of wort, then the relative sugar density, and thus the O.G., will be lower. The opposite is true if you end up with less than 5 gallons of wort.

It's also possible that your O.G. measurement is off is because of the temperature of the wort. Hydrometers are calibrated to read the correct value at 60°F. My rule of thumb is that for every 8°F above 60°F, add 0.001 to your reading. Wort temperatures above 85°F produce inaccurate readings when using any adjustment formula.

All-grain brewers quickly learn that there is a lot of experimentation that goes into getting the correct O.G. of a recipe. For an all-grain brewer, the amount of sugar extracted from the grain is a product of the the way the grain is crushed, the mash temperature, sparge temperature and even the type of mash tun used. An all-grain brewer usually has to brew several batches and take careful notes before they can accurately predict the O.G. of a homebrew.

Final Gravity

The final gravity, or F.G., of a recipe is the same type of measurement as the O.G., but the measurement is taken at the end of fermentation. The difference between the O.G. and the F.G. tells you how much sugar was consumed by the yeast. As yeast eat sugar they produce carbon dioxide and alcohol, which are both less dense than sugar or water, so the density of the wort decreases.

The actual F.G. of a beer depends on yeast health, the type of yeast used, and the fermentation temperature. If your fermentation conditions are perfect then you may come close to the F.G. listed on a recipe, but predicting the F.G. is almost more of an art form than a science. There are a lot of variables that go into fermentation, so a beginning brewer shouldn't be surprised if the measured F.G. is off by about 0.005. Even advanced brewers will find that predicting the F.G. within 0.002 takes a lot of experimentation.

Since the actual O.G. and F.G. of a homebrew can be slightly different than what's on the recipe, I interpret the ABV listed on a recipe as a guideline. Your can calculate your actual ABV by taking the O.G. minus the F.G. and multiplying that value by 131.

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

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Happy April which means happy spring.   I for one am glad winter is officially over. As the nice weather begins its the perfect time to stop by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

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Recently I've gotten several emails from readers who say they are getting into a home brewing rut. Let me remind everyone to remember that homebrewing beer is a hobby that should be fun and enjoyable. It's not supposed to feel like a chore and or work,. For those that don’t or are just beginning to homebrew you might not realize that It’s really easy to get tired and burnt out from cleaning lots of equipment and pouring countless hours into a product that may or may not turn out the way you envisioned.

It’s very easy to overcomplicate the brewing process in hopes to optimize every ounce for ease and efficiency. Over time, some folks will have amassed so much extra equipment and brewing gadgets that their precious hobby starts to feel like an obligation. They likely feel they've invested so much time and money into homebrewing at this point that they can’t afford to quit! 

I’ve seen a lot of brewing hobbyists embark on a similar arc. They start with extract, move to all grain, and then continue to build until it eventually becomes bigger than what they originally bargained for. The hobby lust becomes less about the beer we’re brewing and more about those big shiny kettles, and in some cases, the pride one has about being a brewer.

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I’ve noticed that with ever incremental step some take toward getting more entrenched in the hobby comes with a time tradeoff and more commitment. Sometimes people don’t realize it until they’ve gone too far.  It can be very difficult to find 6 hours to dedicate to brewing beer while balancing family, friends, careers, kids, etc. 

Here are a few things you can do to get my brewing energy and enthusiasm back. Try using a recipe kit.  Its a nice change for those  who might be feeling lazy about crushing, designing, and prepping recipes. Maybe switch back to extract brewing for a batch, try overnight mashing, so to split the  brew day into two shorter days or brew with friends and made it a social event.  You might be surprised how much fun a non-brewer would have at a brewing party..

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As the spring weather is settling in a good Czech pils will be a perfect compliment.  So here's one for extract brewer's - Pithy Philly Pils.  This is a new take on one of the first beers I ever brewed when growing up near Philadelphia .

PARTIAL-MASH

Batch size: 4.75 gallons (18 liters)
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.015
IBUs: 40
ABV: 5.2%

MALT/GRAIN BILL
9 lb (4.1 kg) pilsner liquid malt extract (LME)
1 lb (454 g) Carapils

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE
2 oz (57 g) Saaz at 60 minutes [19 IBUs]
2 oz (57 g) Saaz at 30 minutes [14 IBUs]
½ tsp (2.5 ml) Irish moss or ½ Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes
2 oz (57 g) Saaz at 10 minutes [7 IBUs]
1 oz (28 g) Saaz at flameout

YEAST
Fermentis SafLager W-34/70, White Labs WLP833 German Bock Lager, or other lager strain of choice

DIRECTIONS
Mix your usual brewing water 50/50 with distilled water to make 5 gallons (19 liters) and heat it to 154°F (68°C). Mill the Carapils and steep at 154°F (68°C) for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the LME, and stir thoroughly. Boil for 70 minutes, adding hops and Irish moss or Whirlfloc according to the schedule. Chill to about 65°F (18°C) and transfer to a clean, sanitized corny keg. Fill to about 4.75 gallons (18 liters), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Seal the keg, connect a spunding valve, and set it to 6 PSI. On Day 5 of fermentation, set the valve to 12 PSI. Transfer the finished beer to bottles or a clean keg and lager (i.e., chill) for at least 2 weeks before consuming.

BREWER’S NOTES
Filling the keg not quite full (i.e., about 4.75 gallons/18 liters) allows some head space for the fermentation and spunding to work under pressure.

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How about one more for the road?  I developed this recipe  for my Fast Draw Pale when I I needed a quick drinking hoppy pale ale! It’s made from easily accessible ingredients and can be made in under an hour. Enjoy!

1.7kg Coopers Pale Ale (pre-hopped extract)

1kg Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 (500g Dextrose, 250g Maltodextrine, 250g LDME)

500g Light Dry Malt Extract

45g Amarillo Hops

30g Cascade Hops

Safale US-05 Yeast

Split up the hops evenly into three additions.

15g Amarillo and 10g Cascade. (15min, 1min, Dry Hop)

Bring 5L of water to the boil, turn off the heat and add 500g Light Dry Malt Extract, mix thoroughly.

Return to the boil for 5mins, add 15min addition of hops, boil for a further 14mins

Add the 1min addition of hops boil for a further 1min and then turn off the heat.

Pour through a sieve into your fermenter, add Coopers Pale Ale can and Coopers BE2, mix thoroughly.

Top up with cold water to 21L

When temp is 18-20c add yeast.

When fermentation settles down, usually after 5 days add the dry hops.

Leave for another 5-7 days until fermentation is finished.

Bottle or keg as usual.  

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

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Happy March to all!  It's a fun month featuring St. Patrick's Day.  It's the perfect time to stop by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

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Most home brewers will tell you that New England style beers are extremely easy to make; a can’t-miss recipe of flaked oats, two row malt, a low to mid-flocculating yeast that maintains that milky look we all pine after, and a combination of two or three hops out of a short list [Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy, etc.] that are added late in the boil, whirlpool, or in the dry hop at high krausen. TBut anyone who tells you that is wrong. New England Pale Ales and IPA’s are actually incredibly difficult. After nearly three years of study and test batches I finally got it the way I wanted it.  Over that time I obviously learned a lot; here are three of the most important tips for home brewers making NEIPAs

Tip #1 Don’t dry hop at high krausen, dry hop at the end of fermentation.

Every single time I added hops within the first 48-72 hours of fermentation, I’d always get an overtly bitter, taste-lacking finished beer. I’d go as small as 1oz or as high as 8oz. It wasn’t until I started dry hopping when the beer was done or close to being fully fermented out that I realized the difference it made in the finished product. 

Tip #2 Hot side hopping is a must; DO IT!

I began doing this early on in my experimenting but quickly ditched it in favor of no boil additions but picked it back up some years later when I started adding a mid-boil kiss of noble hops. I adopted this method but experimented with different low alpha hops in order to get a smoother bitterness with less bitterness bite. For example I found that Warrior hops provide a harshness to the beer that’s unbecoming of this amazing style but Cascade, when added at the right time during the boil not only provides the beer with the backbone it needs to help round out the flavor but it also adds an interesting citrus peel character that gives the beer that extra UMPH! If you will.

Tip #3 Cool Pooling! My go-to whirlpool temperature is 170 degrees.

Many articles will tell you that 180-185 is the sweet spot but I’ve found that temperature brings out more bitterness in a style where I’m already adding hot side hops. Even in the versions where I didn’t add anything during the boil, it came across similar to how it did when I dry hopped at high krausen.

At the end of the day, do what works for you and don’t stop experimenting in order to find what combination of ingredients & brewing methods work for you because at the end of the day, that’s what home brewing is all about.

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Let's try a recipe for a pale ale that's very popular at our brewery. I've adjusted for homebrewing so here we go.

Prince's Pale

PARTIAL-MASH

Batch size: 5.5 gallons (21 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
IBUs: 30
ABV: 5.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL
5.8 lb (2.6 kg) extra-light dried malt extract (DME)
13 oz (369 g) biscuit
13 oz (369 g) crystal 60°L

HOPS SCHEDULE
1 oz (28 g) Magnum at 60 minutes [30 IBUs]
0.5 oz (14 g) Citra at first dry hop (American)
0.5 oz (14 g) Mosaic at second dry hop (American)
0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Goldings at second dry hop (Belgian)
0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Goldings at second dry hop (British)

YEAST
Fermentis SafAle US-05 or similar (American), Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale (Belgian), and White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale (British)

DIRECTIONS
Mill the specialty grains and, in a mesh steeping bag, steep in 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of water at 152°F (67°C) for 45 minutes, then raise to 168°F (76°C). Rinse the steeping bag, add 5 more gallons (19 liters) of water, and bring just to a boil. Switch off the heat and add the extract in batches, being careful not to scorch. Bring back to a boil, and boil for 75 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill the wort to 66°F (19°C), split evenly into three fermentors, and pitch a different yeast into each portion. Aerate well. Ferment at 66–68°F (19–20°C) for 5 days, then add the first dry hop to the American pale ale. Ferment for 5 more days, or until fermentation is complete, then add the second dry hops. After a few more days or once gravity is stable, remove the hops or rack, crash, package, and carbonate to about 2.5 volumes (American), 3 volumes (Belgian), and 2 volumes (British).

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Guinness! The quintessential Irish beverage: can one even think of Dublin and not think of Guinness? Dry Irish Stouts are pitch black beers (that, despite Guinness' claim that they are, in actuality, “a very dark shad of ruby”) with a distinct roasted flavor akin to coffee. Roasted barley is the key ingredient here; this is what lends the beer that unique coffee and bittersweet chocolate character. Irish Stouts tend be to served on nitrogen, something that homebrewers cannot accommodate without special equipment, but even when on CO2 or bottle conditioned, a long lasting, tan, frothy head is expected.

These beers are easy to consistently brew. If you want a softer roast character, try cold-steeping the dark grains: immerse them in water in a covered glass jar, let steep for 24 hours, strain, and then add it to the last few minutes of the boil.

Grain:

5.25 lbs - Maris Otter Pale Malt (67%)

1.75 lbs - Flaked Barley (22%)

1 lb - Roasted Barley (11%)

Hops:

2.25pz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes (40 IBU) 

Yeast:

Wyeast Irish Ale 1084

OG: 1.042

FG: 1.011

Single Infusion Mash: 156°F – 60 minutes

Raise to 170°F – 15 minutes

Boil 60 minutes. Chill, pitch yeast at 68°F. Ferment at 70°F for ten days, or until FG is reached. 

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Here we are in February.  It's a fun month with holidays like Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, and Have A Beer Day (I made the uP) so why not  stop by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

First let me talk about something I've received uite a few about emails about - Cryo hops. If you break open a fresh, whole-cone hop, you’ll find a bunch of yellow, pollen-like powder within. That stuff is lupulin, and it contains the majority of the plant’s hop oils, which ultimately impart flavor and aroma in the beer it’s used in. Back  2014, global hop supplier Yakima Chief Hops invented a patented process of freezing fresh hops with liquid nitrogen, shattering them, separating the lupulin and the hops’ external green matter (a.k.a. brack), and pressing that lupulin into pellets with some excess plant material. The end result: Cryo Hops®.

Named for the Greek word kryos meaning “frost,” Cryo hops are essentially ultra-concentrated hop pellets. Most commercially available hop pellets used to make beer are billed as T-90 or Type 90 hops — meaning one pound of hops yields 0.9 pounds of pellets — but Cryo-style hops are T-45s, meaning only 0.45 pounds of Cryo can be pulled from a pound of hops. But due to the high lupulin content of Cryo hops, they contain double the alpha acid content of regular hop pellets, making them an overall more potent and efficient alternative. While there are a few different brands of lupulin-enriched hop pellets,  Cryo Hops and Cryo are also both trademarks owned by Yakima Chief Hops — Cryo has become a broader industry term. There are myriad benefits to using Cryo hops in beer, but where they really shine is in IPAs.

The most common style in which one will encounter Cryo hops is undoubtedly in New England IPAs. Since the dawn of the category, brewers have taken on the challenge of cramming in as many hops into their IPAs as possible with maximum dry-hopping. But with an absurd amount of hops going in, a lot of plant matter can end up in the beer itself. This generally causes more grassy, piney notes turning up in the final product. While that may actually be a desirable characteristic for some brewers, many find it to be a harsh or distracting quality against the lupulin’s alpha acids — the real bread and butter of the hop’s expression.

Cryo solves a problem that many brewers face when dry-hopping their beers to high heaven. With lupulin-enriched hops, brewers can harness a cleaner expression of concentrated hop flavor without any disruption from the presence of excess vegetal brack.

Also notable: due to the high level of brack in T-90 hops, more insoluble plant matter will be floating about in the fermentation tank, absorbing beer along the way. With Cryo hops, brewers get a bigger yield of finished beer. Plus, while Cryo hops tend to be a bit more expensive than T-90s, they deliver double the flavor without being double the price.

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 It seems we have a lot of extract brewers who read my column so let me start with something for them.  Here's my recipe for a great beer _ Easy Suqeezy New England IPA

The goal for a good NEIPA should be hazy appearance, lots of fruity aromas and flavors, with a soft mouthfeel.When looking at grain, flaked wheat and rolled oats will help you to achieve this soft and almost creamy mouthfeel. These can be added along with your steeping grains or mash if you are doing an all-grain brew. There is very little fermentable sugar that you will get from the oats, but they will add the mouthfeel you’re desiring in a NEIPA. Another benefit is that while these grains are soaking, it’ll smell like a delicious oatmeal breakfast.

A water profile with high amounts of Calcium Chloride can also help to provide a super soft mouthfeel. Hop choice and hop schedule make a huge difference between an okay NEIPA and an amazing

Volume: 5 gallons (18.9L)

Predicted SRM 6.33

Predicted IBU 60.63 

Original Gravity 1.073

Final Gravity 1.016

ABV- 7.39% 

Steeping Grain:

2lb (907.2 grams) Flaked Wheat
1lb (453.6 grams) Flaked (Rolled) Oats
2lb (907.2 grams) 2-row
0.5lb (226.8 grams) Carapils

Steeped at 162F (72.2C) for 20 minutes

Extract:

6.6lb (3kg) Golden Light LME (60 min)
1lb (453.6 grams) Golden Light DME (15 min)
0.5lb (226.8 grams) Cane Sugar (15 min)

Hops:

0.25oz (7.1 grams) Mosaic – 60 minutes
0.75oz (21.3 grams) Mosaic- Whirlpool
1oz (28.3 grams) Amarillo- Whirlpool
1oz (28.3 grams) Citra- Whirlpool
1oz (28.3 grams) Mosaic- Dry Hop Day 4
1oz (28.3 grams)z Citra- Dry Hop Day 4

1oz (28.3 grams) Amarillo- Dry Hop Day 4
1oz (28.3 grams) Mosaic- Dry Hop Day 7
1oz (28.3 grams) Citra- Dry Hop Day 7

Water:

1/4 tsp (0.85 grams) CaCl
1/8 tsp (0.5 grams) Gypsum

Imperial Yeast ‘Dry Hop’ A24 – 1 packet 

Heat 8 quarts (7.6L) of water to 162°F (72.2C). Add brewing salts. Add specialty grain including flaked wheat and rolled oats to water. Steep for 20 minutes. Remove steeping grain. Add water to reach 2.5 gallons (9.5L). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hop and extract schedule.

After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 64°F (17.8C). Top water off to 5 gallons (18.9L). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 68°F (20C) for 2 weeks, then cold crash the beer to 35°F (1.7C). Bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to approximately 2.25 volumes of CO2.

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Make it a Milkshake IPA!

Milkshake IPAs are super popular. You could easily give this even more of that soft, creamy mouthfeel associated with the milkshake IPA by adding lactose to this recipe!

I would recommend adding the lactose with 5-10 minutes left in your boil.

Lactose is a non-fermentable sugar. This means that your yeast will not be able to consume it to produce alcohol, thus, it will leave resulting thicker mouthfeel.

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Finally for more experience brewers here's a recipe fo my  King Kolsch.

• 10.3 lbs. (4.67kg) continental Pilsener malt

• 0.5 lb. (227g) Vienna malt

• 1.5 oz. (r3g) Hallertau 4% AA for 60

• Mash at 149. Boil 60 min (90 min if you believe the DMS thing).

• Ferment at 60 deg F with WLP029 or WY2565
  
  

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Happy New Year!  If you didn't get brewing equipment go treat yourself right now. If you did, let's start brewing! I'm always ready to help so just send me a question.  I personally answer all my emails.  Now as the new year begins why not  stop by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  

If you regularly have leftover bread at home why not brew your own Toast Ale. Alternatively, pop into your local bakery, cafe or market and see if they’re happy to give you their surplus at the end of the day. Most will be glad for you to take it off their hands or simply get out to the supermarket and buy some.  It will be worth it as you make my Toast In The New Year Ale!

Ingredients

For the mash:

·   3.5kg pale malt

·   1.5kg dried crumbed bread (approx 2.5kg fresh bread)

·   150g cara malt

·   150g Munich malt

·   500g oat husks

·   15.7 litres of water

During the boil:

·   5g German Hallertau Tradition hops

·   37g Cascade hops

·   20g Centennial hops

·   25g Bramling Cross hops

·   1 tsp Protofloc (also called Irish Moss)

For the ferment

·   11.5g Safale US-05 rehydrated yeast

·   60g Cascade hops

·   35g Bramling Cross

How To Make It…

1. SLICE, DRY AND CRUSH THE BREAD

Dry the bread in an oven at 90°C for about 1h. Time and temperature will vary depending on your oven, but generally the lower the temperature the better. Slicing the bread will speed up drying.

Once the bread is dry, coarsely crush to the size of large croutons (not to powder otherwise you will get a stuck mash).

2. MASH

Steep your grains in 15.7L of water at 67°C and mix. Cover and leave for 60 minutes.

he naturally occurring enzymes in the malt convert the starches in the grain into simple sugars. Toast ale is special because we’ve replaced some of the barley malt with bread, but malt is still required for the enzymes.

3. SPARGE AND LAUTER

Drain the liquid from the bottom of the mash tun (lautering) whilst rinsing the grains with 78°C water from the top to extract additional sugars (sparging). Sparge until you’ve reached 25L – you’ll use about 20L of water.

Ideally, you should sparge using a watering can or colander so that the water is distributed in a spray rather than the continuous gush of a hose. The back of a spoon also works. While sparging, don’t be tempted to push the wort through the wet grains. Grains in the wort may create unwanted tanin tastes.

4. BOIL AND ADD HOPS

Bring the wort to a boil. Add 5g of German Hallertau Tradition hops immediately at 90 minutes. These are the ‘bittering’ hops that give Toast its lip-smacking bitter taste. They balance out the caramel notes from the bread and the papaya and mango notes from the aroma hops that you’ll add later.

At 15 minutes (i.e. 75 minutes of boiling), add 1 tsp Protofloc, also called Irish Moss, which makes a brighter tasting wort.

At 5 minutes (i.e. after 85 minutes), add 12g Cascade hops and 10g Centennial hops. As you take the wort off the boil (i.e. after 90 minutes), add the final hops – 25g Cascade, 10g Centennial and 25g Bramling Cross. These are the aromatic hops that add a fruity, refreshing punch to Toast.

5. COOL, FERMENT AND CONDITION

Cool the wort to 20°C. You can use an ice bucket, but don’t mix unboiled water with your wort, which has been sterilised by the boiling. Add a 11.5g sachet of Safale US-05 rehydrated yeast to the cooled wort.

Let the yeast get to work fermenting. Try to keep your wort at around 18°C for 7 days. After five days, add another 60g Cascade hops and 35g Bramling Cross hops. This reinforces the fresh mango, passion fruit, and kiwi flavours.

Siphon the beer into sterile bottles, primed for carbonation. You should never pour the beer as this adds oxygen that will spoil the beer. Seal the bottles and leave in a cool, dark place (at around 12°C) for two weeks. This is a secondary fermentation stage that allows the beer to get some fizz and condition nicely.

Finally, drink and enjoy while raising a toast to the new year end of bread waste!

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I’m betting there are more than a few people out there who just got their first home brewing kit from Santa so I thought I’d kick start your experience with a basic brewing basic.  Always remember this:  Know your raw materials, and you’ll forever have the upper hand when you brew!

The most important part of making good beer is to fully clean and sanitize all of your equipment. The second most important part of making good beer is to understand, and always use, fresh high-quality ingredients. Know your raw materials, and you’ll forever have the upper hand when you brew.

Beer is traditionally brewed from just four ingredients: Keep in mind that these are merely the building blocks. Beer can also include spices, fruits, juices, chiles, coffee, purees, a variety of sugars, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. In the past year, I’ve tried—and, for the most part, enjoyed—beers that have included basil, cucumbers, peanut butter, and even cinnamon rolls. If it’s out there, there’s a good chance someone has tried to ferment it (some attempts, of course, turn out better than others).

It’s fun to play with exotic ingredients, but for now, let’s focus on understanding the four fundamental ingredients that comprise, at least in part, every beer you’re likely to ever brew.

Malt is to beer as grapes are to wine, as honey is to mead, and as apples are to cider. It supplies the sugars that yeast cells convert into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Without malt, beer as we know it would not be. It is as fundamental to ale and lager as rice and maize are to the great cuisines of Asia and Mesoamerica. 

Here are a few basics about malt that you should be aware of.  In coming months I’ll do the same for hops and yeast.

Malt is always made from a cereal grain (such as barley, wheat, rye, or oats) that has been modified to make its internal starches readily available for brewing. The degree to which a malt is modified from raw grain is called—wait for it—modification.

 Malt is always kilned (heated) to some degree. The degree of kilning may be so light as to be virtually unnoticeable or so aggressive that the kernels turn completely black. But it’s always there. The degree to which malt is kilned is called kilning (maltsters are an imaginative lot).

Malt generally falls into two broad categories: base malt and everything else. That everything else, usually called specialty malt, is further categorized into caramel/crystal and roasted malts, so a good taxonomy for the types of malts you’re likely to encounter is as follows:

Base malts, which are modified and then very lightly kilned
Caramel and crystal malts, which are modified and then moderately kilned
Roasted malts, which are modified and then heavily kilned

There are a few exceptions, of course, but this organizational scheme captures the vast majority of the malt you’ll come across. In the following sections, you’ll learn a little more about what each of these malt families is good for.

Common base malts include

Pilsner malt, which is sometimes called Pils malt. This is the lightest malt available. Pils malt forms the base for the vast majority of lager styles.

Pale malt, which is often called, simply, “2-row.” It’s usually a shade darker than Pils malt, though not by much. Pale malt forms the base of the majority of ale styles.

Pale-ale malt, sometimes referred to by its specific cultivar, such as Maris Otter or Golden Promise. These tend to lend a slight nuttiness or more rounded malt flavor to beer.

Munich malt, which comes in varying degrees of color. These are more highly kilned than Pils and pale malts, but they still act more like base malts than caramel or crystal malts. Munich malt is traditionally found in dark German lagers such as Bock and Oktoberfest/Märzen, but it has become popular for a wide range of styles.

Vienna malt, which is very similar to Munich malt. It forms the basis for traditional Vienna lager.

Wheat malt, which contains no husk and is almost always used in conjunction with barley malt. German wheat beer traditionally includes more than 50 percent wheat malt, with Pils malt supplying the balance.

Rye malt, which has similar properties to wheat malt and delivers a signature spiciness not unlike rye bread. Rye malt is typically used in small quantities, up to about 20 percent.

Further complicating base malts is the fact that they come from North America, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere. Each growing region contributes its own unique terroir, which means that Pilsner malts from Germany and the United States are likely to have a rather different taste and brewhouse performance.

Malt Extract

Malt extract is a convenient malt product that lets homebrewers brew beer without having to mash grain (many professional brewers admit to sneaking a bit of it in from time to time as well). Mashing is neither difficult nor complicated, but it does introduce opportunities for things to go wrong, and it takes time. A typical brew day that starts with a mash might last 5 to 7 hours, but you can easily brew beer from malt extract in just a couple of hours.

So what is malt extract? It’s what you get when you mash a bunch of malt and then remove most of the water. Malting companies mash grain just as one would when preparing to make beer, but instead of adding hops and fermenting the resulting wort, they process the wort to remove water. The result is a concentrated wort that brewers can reconstitute at their own convenience to make beer, just as you’d add water to a can of condensed soup. Malt extract is available in two forms: liquid and dry.

Liquid malt extract (LME) is more meaningfully—but less commonly—described as malt extract syrup. It has a honey-like consistency and could easily fill in for the titular character starring opposite Steve McQueen in 1958’s The Blob. Your local homebrew store is likely to have big plastic barrels of the stuff: All you have to do is tell them how much you need, and they’ll fill a pail for you to take home and brew with. Mail-order retailers usually sell liquid extract in plastic jugs or vacuum-sealed bags.

Dry malt extract (DME), sometimes called spray malt, is made by spraying wort into a warm vacuum chamber. As each little droplet of wort flies through the chamber, the water is almost instantly sucked out of it, and the resulting pile of dry malt compounds is bagged and shipped to homebrewers worldwide. Homebrew stores are likely to sell dry malt extract in plastic bags, usually by the pound or kilogram.

Liquid and dry malt extracts are effectively interchangeable, but because the dry product contains less moisture, you need less of it by weight than an equivalent amount of liquid extract. Dry extract has a much longer shelf life, but it comes with a slightly higher price tag. Both can make equally good beer, and the choice of one over the other is likely to come down to what your supplier carries and how you plan to use it.

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Oh, my it's December already.  Definitely time to start brewing or asking Santa for a home brewing kit.  Let's make a resolution that in 2024 you'll be brewing!   Get ready the holidays by stopping by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub and outdoor beer garden here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  

As the year ends it might be time for me to tackle many of the home brewing problems I’ve received from readers over the past 12 months.  Most fit into 4 categories.  Here’s suggestions to fix the issues and make for better brewing.  Even if you are and experienced brewer it’s worthwhile to be reminded of these crucial items.

Improper cleaning

The first step in brewing delicious beer is to clean the equipment. Brewing is a very complicated process. Keeping the brewery’s equipment clean can not only keep things tidy but also help protect the quality and flavor of the beer.
Important note: Please note the important difference between cleaning and disinfection. Proper cleaning of your equipment can remove dirt, dust, and scum, as well as fat, protein, and various viscous substances that may spoil the flavor of the beer. Disinfection will not have any effect on anything mentioned above, but it will kill unwanted bacteria, which cannot be done by cleaning alone.

Not disinfected properly

Brewing equipment that is not properly sanitized may be able to brew a beer with a weird taste, or it may stop fermentation. These conditions are caused by harmful microorganisms in the brewery equipment. During the brewing process, anything that comes into contact with beer needs to be thoroughly disinfected.

Use of poor quality water

The tap water taken directly from the tap in your local area may be very delicious, but when you add this water to the brewing, it may hurt the beer. Unfiltered chlorinated water will give the beer a metallic and plastic taste. The pH value and ion distribution of water in different regions are different, which may change the final specific gravity, pH value, and flavor of the beer.
With the development of craft beer around the world, many of these beer styles are made around the type of water available in their area. For example, Bohemia, the birthplace of Pilsner beer, has soft water and very few minerals.
Your local tap water may not have the minerals or pH balance required to produce the formula you are using. You can use the water treatment device to adjust the local water quality to ensure the flavor of your beer. Of course, you can also fine-tune your recipe and ensure that the mineral content in the beer is balanced.

Fermentation is slow or even not fermented

This question is one I’ve received most. When you put the wort into the fermentation vessel with yeast, it may take 6-8 hours to show signs of the start of fermentation. If there are no signs of fermentation, please don’t panic, this is very normal. But there is no response after 72 hours. Be sure to worry, this means that there must be a problem.

Check for signs of fermentation start: If you see bubbles in your air lock it means that the beer is fermenting or has begun to ferment.

Reasons for slow or no fermentation:

• The amount of yeast is insufficient. An insufficient amount of yeast may lead to slow fermentation, you only need to put some yeast into the fermenter to solve it.

• The wort is too hot. All yeast strains will have an appropriate temperature range. When the temperature is too high, the yeast may become unconscious or even die. The wort needs to be cooled before it can be introduced into the fermenter.

• The wort is too cold. As mentioned above, all yeast strains have an appropriate temperature range. When the temperature is too low, yeast strains can stop life activities, resulting in a slow fermentation.

• The disinfectant in the fermenter is not rinsed. Disinfectant residues can also kill the yeast. After disinfection, the inside of the fermenter needs to be rinsed to clean the residue of the disinfectant

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Let's end the year with Diana's Winter Warmer recipe.  Diana is an intern here after many years as a home brewer.

The recipe below is for extract brewing a 5.5-gallon batch. For an all-grain alternative, substitute 16 pounds of pale 2-row malt (such as Golden Promise or Maris Otter) for the pale ale LME. You can add the specialty grains to the mash, or steep them as you would for the extract version. Mash at 152°F. Sparge and lauter the mash into the kettle and bring to a boil, then proceed to step 4 below. 

Yeast

Wyeast 1028 London Ale

Steeping Grains

12 ounces Crystal 120°L

8 ounces Crystal 40°L

4 ounces chocolate malt

4 ounces black patent malt

Fermentables

12.5 pounds pale ale liquid malt extract (LME)

1/2 cup molasses (optional), not blackstrap

Hops

1 ounce Magnum 15% AA for 60 minutes

Spices

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon for 1 minute

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger for 1 minute

1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom for 1 minute

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg for 1 minute

Directions

One day before brew day, make a starter with your yeast.

Heat 1 gallon of water to 170°F. Remove from heat and add steeping grains to the water, contained in a mesh bag. Cover and let steep for 1 hour, then discard the malt.

Bring 3 gallons water to a boil. Add steeping tea from Step 2. Slowly add extract and molasses, if using, stirring. Add enough water to reach a total of 7 gallons. Bring to a boil on high heat.

When you reach a boil, start a countdown timer for 90 minutes. Add hops quantities at 60 minutes left and spices at 1 minute left.

At the end of 90 minutes, remove from heat. Cool the wort to below 70°F with an ice bath or a wort chiller. Remember to keep things sanitary for every stage after the boil.

Transfer the wort to a sanitized fermentation bucket or carboy. Add an airlock and cool to 62°F. Also cool the yeast starter to 62°F.

Once the wort reaches 62°F, aerate the wort and pitch the yeast.

Let the beer temperature rise to 68°F, hold there at least three days, then let it rise as high as 74°F until fermentation is complete.

Bottle or keg the beer.

Hello November- that means it's time to say happy Thanksgiving to everyone!.  The winter holidays are a great time to enjoy some outstanding beers and food in our pub  here in nearby Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  

Before I get to this month's recopies let me answer a question I often hear, especially from extract brewers who are considering moving to all grain.   The all-grain process does require additional equipment (see below) and will take about 6 hours of time on brew day. This time can be shortened with experience. The basic practices involved in All-Grain brewing are:
Mashing — Convert starch to sugar Mashing is the process of mixing a measured amount of 165˚– 175˚F hot water and milled grain to a temperature around 150°F to create a mash. Let this oatmeal-like mixture sit for 30-60 minutes.During the mash Enzymes naturally within the grain become active from the heat and convert starch into sugar.
Sparging — Rinse out sugar Sparging is the act of rinsing the sugar out of the grains and into the boil kettle. Hot water is sprinkled onto the top of the mash and allowed to slowly seep through. Sugar dissolves into solution and is carried down through the outlet valve and into the boil kettle. Sparging takes about 45-60 minutes to complete. Once in the boil kettle this sugar solution is called wort.
Boiling — Boiling is the same as it is in the Malt-Extract process. After the correct amount of wort has been collected (usually 1-2 gallons more than the volume you are making), the procedures are the same as if you were doing a full-wort boil in the Malt Extract process of brewing. You would add your hops, boil for one hour, cool and add yeast. 

All grain brewing isn't going to instantly make you beer good.  Extract can produce some outstanding brews and that's what it's all about.  However if you want to increase your control over the process and add a bit more creativity then give all grain a try.

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Let's start with an extract recipe for a wonderful oatmeal stout 0 it is a warming winter classic.  Oats add a distinctly smooth mouthfeel to any beer, but lend itself to the rich and dry stout style.

This Holiday Oatmeal Stout is built to reflect the complexity an oatmeal stout can have when emphasis is put on the coffee and chocolate flavors already present. Four different dark grains are used, with Special Roast to add counterpoint and nuance to the rich, dark flavors and aromas of the roasted grains. Here we go!

Ingredients

• 6 lbs—CBW® Traditional Dark Dry Malt Extract (DME)

• 1 lb—Pregelatinized Oat Flakes

• 0.5 lb—Special Roast

• 0.25 lb—Chocolate Malt

• 0.25 lb—Black Malt

• 0.25 lb—Roasted Barley

• 0.25 lb—Black Barley

• 1—Whirlfloc Tablet, Last 15 minutes of boil

• 1 oz—Kent Goldings Hops (5% AAU)—60 minutes, full boil

• 1 oz—Kent Goldings Hops (5% AAU)—last 15 minutes

• 2 pouches— Wyeasts 1318 London Ale III Yeast

Brewing Procedures

• Bring 2.5 gallons of water to 154ºF.

• Place all grains in steeping bag, and steep at 154ºF for 30 minutes.

• Remove grains, and add 3lbs CBW® Traditional Dark Dry Malt Extract (DME.)  Stir in until dissolved.

• Bring water to a boil and add 1oz of Kent Goldings hops.

• After 45 minutes of boiling, add 1oz of Kent Goldings hops.

• Continue to boil for 15 more minutes.

• Turn heat off and stir and dissolve 3lbs Briess CBW® Traditional Dark Dry Malt Extract (DME.)

• Cool beer to 70ºF.

• Transfer to primary fermentor and fill to 5 gallons with cool water.

• Pitch two packs of Wyeast 1318 London Ale III yeast.

Fermentation

• Primary Fermentation: 1 week at 68ºF-72ºF

• Secondary Fermentation: 2 weeks at 62ºF-70ºF

• Fermentation Notes: Force carbonate at 1.8-2.2 volumes, or bottle condition with ¾ cup priming sugar for 3-4 weeks.

Stats

• Original Gravity: 1.060

• Final Gravity: 1.015

• ABV: 5.88%

• IBU: 30

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Here's an all - grain recipe for a lovely beer. It features  a subdued roastiness which makes this Baltic Porter a balanced strong beer that will be calling your name pint after pint.

MALT/GRAIN BILL
10 lb (4.5 kg) Munich
5 lb (2.3 kg) Pilsner
8 oz (227 g) Carafa Special II
8 oz (227 g) British Crystal (65L)
8 oz (227 g) Briess Extra Special Roast
4 oz (113 g) Pale chocolate

HOPS SCHEDULE
0.5 oz (14 g) Columbus [16% AA] at 60 minutes
1 oz (28 g) Styrian Goldings at whirlpool

YEAST
White Labs WLP830 (German Lager)

DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mix with 5.2 gallons (19.8 l) of 163°F (73°C) strike water to reach mash temperature of 152°F (67°C). Hold the temperature for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge the grains with 2 gallons (7.6 l), topping up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort. Boil for 60 minutes and whirlpool, following the hops schedule.

After the boil, chill the wort to about 48°F (9°C). Aerate the wort with pure oxygen or filtered air and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 48°F (9°C) until activity shows in the airlock, then allow the temperature to rise to 60°F (16°C) over the next ten days. Hold at 60°F (16°C) for an additional two weeks. After fermentation, crash the beer to 35°F (2°C), then bottle or keg and carbonate to about 2.25 volumes of CO2. Age for about eight weeks before drinking to allow additional flavors to develop.

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Hello autumn- a great time to do some brewing.  Get ready for yourself brew day by stopping by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub and outdoor beer garden here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  

My Warm The Fall Chill beer a classic English barleywine that gains most of its character from rich Maris Otter base malt. Feel free to substitute your favorite bittering hops for the Magnum: If you want to play around with the yeast strain, be sure to choose one that has good attenuation properties and pitch lots of it.

My Warm The Fall Chill beer a classic English barleywine that gains most of its character from rich Maris Otter base malt. Feel free to substitute your favorite bittering hops for the Magnum: If you want to play around with the yeast strain, be sure to choose one that has good attenuation properties and pitch lots of it.

All Grain-  extract version at end of recipe.

OG (est): 1.109
FG (est): 1.025
IBUs (est): 62
ABV (est): 11.2%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

20 lb (9.1 kg) Maris Otter
8 oz (236 g) Simpsons Caramalt
8 oz (236 g) Simpsons Extra Dark Crystal

HOPS SCHEDULE

1.5 oz (43 g) Magnum [12.50 %] at 60 minutes
2 oz (57 g) East Kent Golding [4.00 %] at 30 minutes
2 oz (57 g) East Kent Golding [4.00 %] at 5 minutes

YEAST

Primary yeast: Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast (see Brewer’s Notes below) or 2 sachets of Danstar Nottingham
Bottling yeast: Danstar CBC-1

DIRECTIONS

Mash for 60 minutes at 149°F (65°C), then lauter and sparge to a pre-boil volume of 6.5 gallons (19.9 liters). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule, then chill the wort and pitch a huge population of healthy, well-oxygenated yeast cells. Pitch at 66°F (19°C) and hold for two days, then ramp the temperature to 70°F (21°C) and ferment until the specific gravity stabilizes. Rack to secondary and bulk age for at least 6 months, then bottle or keg. If bottling, add the hydrated sachet of CBC-1 along with priming sugar to assist with carbonation.

EXTRACT

Replace the Maris Otter malt with 15 pounds (6.8 kg) of Maris Otter liquid malt extract. Steep the Caramalt and Extra Dark Crystal for 30 minutes at 155°F (68°C), then add 7 pounds (3.17 kg) of Maris Otter liquid malt extract. Bring to a boil and continue as directed above, adding the remaining 8 pounds (3.63 kg) of malt with 10 to 15 minutes left in the boil.

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It's that time - here's an extract recipe for If You Must Pumpkin Ale

f you plan to serve this beer right away, the pumpkin will deliver a light but noticeable and pleasant tang, which your favorite saison yeast will accentuate. If you’d rather age it a little while, that tang will mellow, in which case White Labs WLP011 European Ale is a good choice 

MALTS

7.5 lb. (3.40 kg) pale 2-row malt

1.5 lb. (680 g) mild malt

12 oz. (340 g) amber malt

12 oz. (340 g) crystal 40°L malt

12 oz. (340 g) Briess Victory malt

8 oz. (227 g) soft white wheat malt

4 oz. (113 g) Briess Special Roast malt

HOPS

1 oz. (28 g) Fuggles @ 60 min

0.75 oz. (21 g) East Kent Goldings @ 20 min

0.5 oz. (14 g) East Kent Goldings @ 5 min

YEAST

Saison yeast or White Labs WLP011 European Ale

ADDITIONAL ITEMS

2 generous handfuls rice hulls, as lautering aid

5–6 lb. (2.27–2.72 kg) pumpkin, halved, innards removed, rind left on

8 oz. (227 g) parsnips, peeled and chopped

4–8 oz. (113–227 g) lightly toasted English or black walnuts @ 30 min

• 1 tablet Whirlfloc @ 15 min

Directions:

Place pumpkin halves cut side down in a large roasting pan with the chopped parsnips nestled in the hollows where the pumpkin innards had been. Add about 1/4″ (6 mm) water to the roasting pan. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about one hour. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature. Scrape pulp from pumpkin rind, mash parsnip pieces, and set aside.

Heat strike water to achieve a mash rest temperature of 152°F (67°C) and add to mash tun. Add pumpkin, parsnips, and rice hulls. Stir well. Mash in grains. Rest at 152°F (67°C) for 90 minutes.

While the mash rests, lightly toast the walnuts at 325°F (163°C) for about 12 minutes. Let nuts come to room temperature and crush in a paper bag (this will help remove some of the oils). Set aside.

Lauter and sparge to collect 6.5 gal. (24.6 L) of wort. Boil 90 minutes, adding hops, walnuts, and Whirlfloc as indicated above. Chill to desired fermentation temperature, pitch yeast, and ferment until specific gravity stabilizes at or near 1.009 (2.3°P). Bottle or keg.

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Let's end with some basic brewing terms and two in the above recipe. Extracting wort sugars from the grain bed involves two processes: lautering and sparging. These two terms are collectively referred to simply as runoff.

Lautering is the physical separation of liquid from the solids. Sparging involves rinsing the solids that remain with hot water so as to leave behind as little sugar as possible. The combination of lautering the grain and sparging it with additional water results in a kettle full of wort that is ready to be boiled with hops, just as you would if you were using extract.

Lautering and sparging aren’t mysterious, despite the esoteric names. They’re simply methods to get as much wort as possible out of your mash.

And with an end to lautering and sparging comes the end of the all-grain process. All-grain is just another way to satisfy the third of the essential steps, wort preparation. Once you have a kettle full of fresh wort, you can continue on to the boil, just as you did when brewing from extract.

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Where did the summer go?  Now that the kids are back to school and most folks are back to work make some time for yourself and stop by to enjoy some great beers and food in our pub and outdoor beer garden here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar!  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  

If I judge by the emails from readers it seems everyone is dry hopping their beer.  As such, let me give you eight excellent tips on how to successfully do it.

Dry Hopping Tips

Tip 1: Choose hops based on the aromatic qualities you’re interested in achieving. This sounds obvious but it’s not always easy to know what aromas a hop might add to your beer.  Most hops are loosely categorized into “bittering” and “aroma” types, which tells us nothing about what they might smell like in a finished beer. A hop’s oil content and type can also be considered, but also may not have a direct correlation to how the hop expresses itself aromatically. 

Tip 2: Save yourself the trouble and dry hop with pellets. Some brewers swear that whole cones produce better aroma intensity than pellets. But many experiments have shown that tasters can’t distinguish the difference between the two forms. Pellets are far more accessible to the average homebrewer, can be easily added to most homebrew fermenters, and they generally suck up less beer than whole cones, leaving you with more beer. That said, it’s also worth noting a third hop format has recently gained popularity.  Known as lupulin powder or cryo-hops, these products provide a concentrated dose of essential oils and resins in the form of a pellet.

Tip 3: Add your dry hops during secondary fermentation, once the yeast is finished with fermentation and removed from the beer.  At this stage, the concentration of alcohol and the pH in the beer should limit the potential for infection during the dry hopping process. You will also be giving the hops the opportunity to release their oils without yeast around to transform them.  Experiments have shown that yeast in solution can bind to certain hop particles and transform them into different flavor and aroma compounds in a process known as biotransformation. Many brewers are experimenting with biotransformation by adding hops during primary fermentation. While there may be some merit in this process, the primary counterargument is it’s easy to lose a lot of aroma through the blow-off tube as the fermenter is relieved of CO2 pressure buildup during fermentation.

Tip 4: Dry hop on the warmer side. And by warm you should think at or above temperatures used for common ale fermentations (65-75F). One reason for this is at warm temperatures, any small amount of yeast still present is more likely to be active. The active yeast will scour any oxygen introduced during the dry hopping process and clean up any “hop creep”.  Hop creep describes a set of potential problems in dry hopped beer.  It goes something like this: hops are added during secondary, enzymes in those hops turn some previously unfermentable sugars into fermentable sugars, and then the yeast ferment those new fermentable sugars.  That extra bit of fermentation leads to two outcomes.  First, you get a little more attenuation from your yeast.  This means a slightly drier, higher alcohol beer.  Second, and more troublesome, you may end up with diacetyl in your beer.  During fermentation, all yeast release a diacetyl precursor.  With a healthy culture, the yeast takes care of that precursor in the later stages of fermentation.  But when dry hopping, we no longer have an active and healthy fermentation. This may leave the diacetyl precursor to hang around and convert to actual diacetyl at some point down the road.  

Tip 5: Know that more hops doesn’t linearly equate to more hop aroma. The most well known scientific research on dry hop quantity was done by Oregon State University’s Dr. Tom Shellhamer in 2018. dry hopping at rates greater than 1.1oz/gal (8g/L) was an inefficient use of raw materials.  In other words, hop aroma intensifies as more hops are used, but the impact on aroma diminishes as you approach this threshold, and doesn’t add much beyond it.  Shellhammer’s second conclusion may be more interesting to some brewers.  He found the quantity of hops can also change the aroma type in the finished beer. The oils responsible for citrus aromas were more present at hopping rates closer to 0.5oz/gal (4 g/L), than the oils responsible for herbal/tea aromas, which were more present at 1.1oz/gal (8g/L).

Tip 6: Leave your beer on the hops for three days.  Is this a strict rule?  Not really.  Studies have shown that most hop oils are extracted from dry hop additions in the first 24 hours.  But a greater percentage can be drawn out over the course of a few days.  That said, dry hopping for an excessively long period (more than seven days) may lead to certain undesirable aromas and flavors including vegetal and grassy notes.

Tip 7: Dry hop your beer once.  This is just practical for most homebrewers.  Sure, double-dry-hopped (“DDH”) sounds cooler than a single dry hop, but your homebrew is not competing against others on bottle shop shelves.  The thesis here is pretty simple.  First, see the research on hop quantities mentioned above.  Next, factor in that every time you open the fermenter, you introduce oxygen and potential contaminants. Oxygen is a problem for shelf-life and flavor.  Contaminants can be a problem for not just your beer, but for your equipment as well.  Why expose yourself to these risks

Tip 8: Just dump in the hops. Blasphemy!  That’s not what the pros do. Correct. The pros spend a lot of money on specialized equipment that solve the problems of getting dry hops into five-story tall fermenters and turning tanks around as quickly as possible.  But in fact many still simply pour the hops in, straight from the bag.  If you are a more adventurous homebrewer, experiment.  Creating a hop slurry with de-oxidized water will result in a faster and more even dispersion of the hops in solution. Rumbling is an option for homebrewers with conical fermenters. This is the process of pushing CO2 into the fermenter’s cone in order to ‘rumble’ the solution, stirring everything up to get more contact between beer and hops. You can probably think of a hundred ways to put hops into a fermenter.  But why?  Just get them in there!

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Let's take a minute to salute all the readers who are new home brewers!  Here's a recipe I designed especially for you though ven the most experienced brewer would enjoy making and (of course) drinking it. In this extract recipe I give you  the basic building blocks of a tasty American Pale Ale. The 6-row pale malt provides a nice grainy character and the crystal provides some caramel sweetness and smooths out the mouthfeel. The hop schedule consists of two of the American classics and is designed to balance bitterness, flavor and aroma. This recipe can be made with the most basic equipment setup. 

Ingredients

• 5 1/2 pounds dry light malt extract

• 1/2 pound Crstal 20L malt, crushed

• 1/2 pound American 6-row malt, crushed

• 1/2 ounce Centennial hops—60 minutes

• 1 ounce Cascade hops—15 minutes

• 1 ounce Centennial hops—15 minutes

• 1 ounce Cascade hops at flame out

• 1/2 ounce Centennial hops at flame out

• 6 gallons of tap water, split. If possible, place 3 gallons in the refrigerator to cool in a sanitized container

• 11.5 gram package Safale US-05

• 
  Directions

Tie the American 6-row malt and Crystal 20L malt in a mesh hop-bag. Heat 1 gallon of water in a large pot to 160°F and remove from heat. Add malt and let steep for 20 minutes.

• Raise temperature slowly to 170°F. Make sure mesh bag isn’t sitting directly on the bottom of the pot. Remove the grain bag and add water to make 3 gallons total.

• Bring the wort to a vigorous boil. As water is heating, slowly add malt extract, stirring constantly until completely dissolved. When boil begins, add 1/2 ounce Centennial hops in mesh bag.

• After 45 minutes of boiling has passed, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1 ounce Centennial in mesh bag. 

• After total of 60 minutes of boil remove from heat, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1/2 ounce Centennial in mesh bag and cover. Warning: After wort cools below 180°F everything that touches it should be sanitary, and exposure to open air should be limited as much as possible.

• Cool wort by placing pot in ice bath until it is below 85°F. Transfer to sanitized fermentor (either a carboy or a fermentation bucket). Top off to 5 gallons using refrigerated water.

• Sanitize outside of yeast package, fermentation stopper and airlock. Carefully pour yeast into cooled wort (it should be below 70°F), and agitate vigorously. Ferment in dark place, keeping ambient temperature consistent, preferably between 62-66°F.
  Bottle after two to three weeks.

=======================================

Last month there was a very large positive feedback about the "beertail" recipes in my column.  So here's one more I'm sure you're going to like. It's called "Brooks Breezy Blend"

Makes 2 Servings)

Ingredients

1 cup frozen pineapple chunks (can be found in most grocery stores)

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 Tbsp. sugar

16 oz. Sour ale (if you don't like sours it works great with most IPAs)

1.   Carefully fill a clean ice cube tray with the beer, pouring slowly to prevent foam. Let freeze overnight. Because beer has a lower freezing temperature than water, it will gain a more slush-like consistency (but if you prefer more hardened cubes, you can dilute it with water prior to freezing).

2.   Feel free to enjoy whatever beer is left over in the can! Or, to get as much beer as possible in your slushies, cover the can loosely with saran wrap and refrigerate overnight as well.

3.   When ready to make your slushies, simply add the beer-ice to a blender, along with the other ingredients.

4.   Blend until fruit and ice are broken up and everything is well mixed. Add any leftover beer, which should no longer be as carbonated, and blend for a few seconds more, or until desired consistency.

5.   Split the mixture into two glasses. Garnish with raspberries or other fruit as desired

=================================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Can you believe it's August already?  It's hot outside but you can beat the heat by stopping by enjoying some great beers and food in our pub and outdoor beer garden here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my award winning Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our multi-award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  

I know this is a bit different for my column but I thought I'd give you recopies for three of my favorite "beertails" before we get to something for you to brew this month -a great summer ale.  

Here's a great beertail I know you'll enjoy

 -Arny's Super Summer Sour.

(Makes 2 Servings)

Ingredients

1 cup frozen pineapple chunks (can be found in most grocery stores)

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 Tbsp. sugar

16 oz. Sour IPA

1.   Carefully fill a clean ice cube tray with the beer, pouring slowly to prevent foam. Let freeze overnight. Because beer has a lower freezing temperature than water, it will gain a more slush-like consistency (but if you prefer more hardened cubes, you can dilute it with water prior to freezing).

2.   Feel free to enjoy whatever beer is left over in the can! Or, to get as much beer as possible in your slushies, cover the can loosely with saran wrap and refrigerate overnight as well.

3.   When ready to make your slushies, simply add the beer-ice to a blender, along with the other ingredients.

4.   Blend until fruit and ice are broken up and everything is well mixed. Add any leftover beer, which should no longer be as carbonated, and blend for a few seconds more, or until desired consistency.

5.   Split the mixture into two glasses. Garnish with raspberries or other fruit as desired

======================

Knockout Blackberry Beertail

(makes 10 servings)

Ingredients

4 bottles (12 ounces each) pale ale or lager beer, chilled

1 can (12 ounces) frozen raspberry lemonade concentrate, thawed

3/4 cup fresh or frozen blackberries, thawed

1/2 cup vodka

Ice cubes

Lemon slices

Directions

1. n a large pitcher, combine the beer, lemonade concentrate, blackberries and vodka. Serve over ice and garnish with lemon slices.

=======================

Ginger Rodgers Beertail

Ingredients

16oz pale ale 

2 Cups ginger ale

Chopped ginger to taste

Ice

Directions

Mix the beer and ginger ale in a pitcher.

Add the ginger and let it infuse the drink for 1-3 minutes.

Serve into glasses filled with ice.

Garnish with some ginger and enjoy.

===============================

Wheat beers are a great thirst quencher during the hot summer months. Throw in some passion fruit and mangos, and you will be sure to have a nice, refreshing summer treat!  Give this a try - at 5.2% it's a crushable refresher.

Hogan's Summer Wheat

Ingredients:

4.5 lb (2 kg) Wheat malt

3.5 lb (1.6 kg) Two-Row malt

1.0 lb (450 g) Flaked wheat or unmalted wheat

0.5 lb (225 g) Munich malt

0.5 lb (225 g) Rice hulls

0.5 oz (14 g) Northern Brewer whole hops, 8% a.a. (60 min)

0.5 oz (14 g) Mt. Hood whole hops, 3.2% a.a. (40 min)

0.5 oz (14 g) Cascade whole hops, 6% a.a. (5 min)

American Ale yeast

1 pint (475 ml) Passionfruit puree

3/4 quart (714 ml) Mango puree

Directions:

Mash for 60 minutes at 151 °F (66 °C). Ferment at 68 °F (20 °C) for two weeks, then cool and remove from yeast. Add puree of passionfruit and mango to the beer and age two weeks. Shake occasionally, then let it settle cold. Remove the beer from above the settled puree and carbonate to serve.

EXTRACT VERSION

Substitute 7.3 lb (3.3 kg) Weizen light malt extract or 5.9 lb (2.7 kg) Weizen dried malt extract for all grains. Use a Weizen extract containing at least 50 percent wheat with the remainder pale or Pils malt.

=================================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Beat the heat this summer by stopping by enjoying some great beers and food in our outdoor beer garden here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  Now let's get down to business!

First a few words about the most popular beer style in the country - hazy IPA.o execute a perfect hazy, brewers are looking for the following three characteristics. 1. The most obvious is the haze, which comes from protein interactions with hops and flavonoids, and is accentuated by yeast. This combination is responsible for the opaqueness of the beer.  2. A fruity, hoppy aroma. The aroma is more tropical than the stone fruits used in West Coast IPAs. The tropical hops contribute to the low bitterness of the brews.  3.A fluffy texture and mouthfeel. Most are looking for a smoothie-esque texture in hazies.

Experimenting with different yeast strains can help brewers produce these characteristics. But what makes a yeast strain suitable for hazy IPAs? First, low to medium flocculation. Flocculation contributes to the mouthfeel and murkiness by keeping the yeast suspended.   

Now lets get to work.  First a great recipe for our extract brewers then one for all-grain brewers.

My HAZE IS THE RAGE IPA is quick and tasty.  It uses malted oats for a luscious body to support a ton of hop oils. 

EXTRACT
Batch size: 5.5 gallons (20.8 liters)
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.012
IBUs: 77
ABV: 5.9%

MALT/GRAIN BILL
9 lb (4.1 kg) Pilsner liquid malt extract
1.5 lb (680 g) oat malt
1 lb (454 g) pale malt
8 oz (227 g) Golden Naked Oats

HOPS SCHEDULE
0.50 oz (14 g) Warrior [16% AA] at 30 minutes
2 oz (57 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Mosaic [12.5% AA] at whirlpool at 170°F for 20 minutes

Dry-Hop Schedule
2 oz each Citra [11% AA] and Mosaic [12.5% AA] on day 3 of fermentation for 7 days

EAST
Wyeast 1318 London III, Imperial A38 Juice, White Labs WLP066 London Fog

DIRECTIONS
Steep the grains at 150–165°F (66–74°C) for 20 minutes in 5 quarts (4.7 l) of water. Rinse the grains with an additional 5 quarts (4.7 l) of 170°F (77°C) water. Add 4 quarts (3.8 l) of water to the kettle and bring to a boil. If you’re doing a full boil, add 12 quarts (11.4 l) of water.

Remove the kettle from the heat and dissolve 1/3 of the malt extract (3 lb/1.4 kg) in the wort. Bring the kettle back to a boil and add the Warrior hops. After 20 minutes, remove the kettle from the heat and add the remaining extract. Return to the boil for a final 10 minutes. Cool the wort to 170°F (77°C) and stir to form a whirlpool. Add the Citra and Mosaic hops. Steep the hops for 20 minutes before chilling the wort to 66°F (19°C).

Aerate the wort, pitch your yeast, and ferment at 66°F (19°C) for 3 days. Add the dry hops and continue to ferment for 7 more days. Package, carbonate, and serve the beer. Consume within a month.

===================//

Now for a great recipe for our all-grain brewers.  I call the beer The Hazy Haze.

ALL-GRAIN
Batch size:  5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%
OG: 1.059
FG: 1.014
IBUs: 35
ABV: 6%

MALT/GRAIN BILL
6.9 lb (3.1 kg) Pilsen malt
1.8 lb (817 g) flaked oats
1.3 lb (590 g) malted oats
1 lb (454 g) DextraPils
1.4 oz (40 g) acidulated malt
4.16 g calcium chloride in the mash

HOPS AND ADDITIONS SCHEDULE
.5 oz (14 g) Bravo [15% AA] at FWH
4.16 g calcium chloride, 2 g calcium sulfate, and 1 g of yeast nutrient at 10 minutes
1 oz (28 g) Mosaic [12% AA] at late whirlpool
4.2 oz (119 g) Amarillo [8% AA] dry hop
3.2 oz (91 g) Mosaic [12% AA] dry hop
2.1 oz (60 g) Centennial [11% AA] dry hop 

YEAST
Imperial Organic Yeast A38 Juice

DIRECTIONS
Mash the grains at 154°F (68°C) for 45 minutes. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. (Remember to add the FWH hops.) Sparge the grains and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 30 minutes, adding the salts and yeast nutrient with 10 minutes left in the boil.

After the boil, spin the wort, add the whirlpool hops, and cover. Let rest for 10 minutes. Chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 64°F (18°C). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 64°F (18°C). When the yeast gets going, add the dry hops. Let the beer sit on the hops for 5 days. Crash the beer and package.

==========================/

Now for a few quick answers to questions sent (webmaster@beenexus.com) in by my readers.

Q. How should I sterilize y copper immersion wort chiller?

A.  Using the wort boil to sanitize your wort cooler is the easiest and most effective method.  If you want to use a sanitizer be sure it has a low pH.

--------------

Q. Can Oatmeal be steeped for partial grain stout batches?

A.  Oatmeal must be mashed to convert the starch into fermentable sugars.  When using oatmeal do it sparingly so that wort separation is not an absolute nightmare.  

------------

Q.  How can I best dry my homegrown hops?

A.  The best way is to spread the cones a few layers deep on a cookie sheet and place the sheet in a 130 Degree F oven.  Move those on the bottom to the top a few times and allow about 10 hours for drying.  Note that homegrown hops tend to have a lower alpha content than commercially gorwn hops.

=================================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Happy June to everyone!  Summer is coming and I invite you to stop in and enjoy some great beers and food in our outdoor beer garden!  Hope to see you here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of my Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!  Now let's get down to business!

It’s never too hot for hops! Maybe your favorite imperial hop-bomb isn’t the best beach sipper (don’t let me stop you!), but hops are a great thirst quencher that balances out malt sweetness that might otherwise be too much under the summer sun. Here's my take on a wonderful summer Pale Ale.  Here are both all grain and extract recipes.

.

Summer Beachgoer Pale Ale

(all grain)

Ingredients:

8.5 lb (3.9 kg) Pale 2-Row malt

10.0 oz (283 g) 20° L Crystal malt

5.0 oz (142 g) 80° L Crystal malt

5.0 oz (142 g) CaraVienne malt

7.0 oz (142 g) Wheat malt

0.4 oz (11 g) Nugget pellet hops, 13% a.a. (60 min)

1.0 oz (28 g) Cascade pellet hops, 5.5% a.a. (5 min)

0.4 oz (11 g) Nelson Sauvin pellet hops, 12.5% a.a. (5 min)

1.0 oz (28 g) Cascade pellet hops, 5.5% a.a. (dry)

1.0 oz (28 g) Nelson Sauvin pellet hops, 12.5% a.a. (dry)

White Labs WLP001 California Ale, Wyeast 1056 American Ale, Safale US-05 Ale, or Danstar BRY-97

Directions:

Mash grains at 154°F (68°C) for 60 minutes. Batch sparge at 168°F (76°C). Bring to a rolling boil for 60 minutes, add hops at specified intervals from end of boil. Chill wort to 67°F (19°C) and pitch yeast. After nine days, rack to secondary fermenter and dry hop. Let rest another nine days at 68°F (20°C). Keg at 2.5 volumes of CO2 or bottle condition with 4 oz (113 g) corn sugar.

-------------------

Extract Version

Ingredients for 5 gallons (18.93 L)

• 6.6 lb (3.0 kg) | Light liquid malt extract

• 8.0 oz (227 g) | 20° L Crystal malt

• 4.0 oz (113 g) | 80° L Crystal malt

• 4.0 oz (113 g) | CaraVienne malt

• 5.0 oz (198 g) | Wheat malt

0.4 oz (11 g) | Nugget pellet hops, 13% a.a. (60 min)

1.0 oz (28 g) | Cascade pellet hops, 5.5% a.a. (5 min)

0.5 oz (14 g) | Nelson Sauvin pellet hops, 12.5% a.a. (5 min)

1.0 oz (28 g) | Cascade pellet hops, 5.5% a.a. (dry)

1.0 oz (28 g) | Nelson Sauvin pellet hops, 12.5% a.a. (dry)

White Labs WLP001 California Ale, Wyeast 1056 American Ale, Safale US-05 Ale, or Danstar BRY-97

Directions
Put 2 gallons (7.6 L) of water in the boil pot and heat to 160°F (71°C). While the water is heating, put the specialty grains (20° L crystal, 80° L crystal, wheat, and CaraVienne malts) into a grain bag and tie off the ends so the grains can't escape.

Once the water has reached 150-170°F (65.6-76.7°C, immerse the grain bag in the water for 30 minutes. For more information on steeping specialty grains, visit the Intermediate section of Let's Brew on the AHA website.

After 30 minutes, remove the grain bag and let it drip until it stops. Add malt extract to the water and stir until totally dissolved.

Bring to a rolling boil for 60 minutes, add hops at specified intervals from end of boil.

Strain wort into sanitized fermentation vessel with 2-3 gallons (7.6-11.4 L) of pre-boiled & chilled water for a total volume of 5 gallons (18.9 l)

Pitch yeast when temperature reaches 67°F (19°C).

Secure air lock or blow-off tube.

After nine days, rack to secondary fermenter and dry hop.

Let rest another nine days at 68°F (20°C).

Keg at 2.5 volumes of CO2 or bottle condition with 4 oz (113 g) corn sugar

----------------------------------------/

 Now for a tasty, refreshing IPA that you can drink pint and pint of since it's only 4.1%.  First will be the all grain version then the extract.

The Refresher Session IPA

Estimated O.G. = 1.042
Estimated F.G. = 1.011
Estimated ABV = 4.1%
Estimated Bitterness = 50 IBU

Grain Bill:
6 lbs. Maris Otter
2 lbs. Dark Munich (Munich II)
0.5 lb. Crystal 60L

Hops (60 minute boil):
0.5 oz Warrior (15.7% AA) added as a first wort hop when draining into the brew kettle
0.5 oz Amarillo added at 15 minutes left in the boil
0.5 oz Columbus added at 10 minutes left in the boil
0.5 oz Amarillo added at 5 minutes left in the boil
1 oz each Amarillo and Chinook added at the end of the boil, during knockout
1 oz each Amarillo, Chinook and Columbus, added as dry hops after primary fermentation is complete, leaving in contact for 4-7 days

Yeast:

1 pack Wyeast 1056 American Ale, White Labs WLP001 California Ale, or Safale S-05 American Ale

Brewing Process:

• Mash at 154F for 60 minutes, proceed with boil as normal.

• Chill to 66F and pitch yeast.

• Ferment between 66F and 68F for 2 weeks.

• Add dry hops after primary fermentation is complete, either in the primary or a secondary vessel. For best clarity, rack to secondary before dry hopping.

Extract Version: Replace Maris Otter base malt with 3.3 lbs (1 can) of Maris Otter liquid malt extract and 1 lb. of light dry malt extract. Steep the Dark Munich and Crystal 60 malts at 150-155F for 30 minutes. Remove steeping grains, turn off flame and add extracts, mixing until dissolved. Add in first wort hop addition, turn the flame back on and boil as normal, following hopping schedule. Follow chilling and fermentation schedule as above, dry hopping after primary fermentation is complete.

=================================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

 Glad to see you again!  Help spread the word about my column and about the great beers I have on tap  here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

More than 40 years ago, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. set out to create a new American style, the American pale ale. Once considered crazy hoppy, it fortunately wasn’t too far ahead of its time. Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., states that “after 42 years Sierra Nevada Pale Ale still resonates as a favorite with brewers and drinkers at all levels. Pale Ale started out in 1980 as an anomaly in a world dominated by light lagers with a hop-forward yet balanced style. After all these years it still holds its own in a world now accustomed to a nearly limitless range of hop-forward styles, many that can trace their roots back to the original Sierra Pale Ale.

Here's my extract and grains recipe for that great beer that even beginning home brewers should be able to easily do 

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone

(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.053 FG = 1.011
IBU = 37 SRM = 11 ABV = 5.6%

Ingredients
0.25 lbs. (113 g) Briess Light dried malt extract
6.6 lbs. (3 kg) Briess Light liquid malt extract (late addition)
1 lb. (0.45 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
6 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g of 12% alpha acids)
3.5 AAU Perle hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g of 7% alpha acids)
11 AAU Cascade hops (30 min.) (2 oz./57 g of 5.5% alpha acids)
2 oz. (57 g) Cascade hops (0 min.)
1 tsp Irish moss
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Safale US-05 yeast (1.5 qt./1.5 L yeast starter)
7/8 cup corn sugar (for priming)

=======================

I get more than a few emails with brewing questions.  Here are a few -

Q. What is the big deal about chilling wort so quickly?

A.Getting the wort cooled quickly is important because it preserves flavor and produces a good cold break.  Hot wart can pick up bacteria.  If you cool the wort quickly the chance of spoilage is decreased because of the yeast you are pitching.

Q.  When measuring specific gravity, is the original gravity taken during the mash, durin boil, or after the wort has cooled?

A. Check the specific gravity of the wort after the boil to determine original gravity. Because original gravity is defined as the specific gravity of the wort before fermentation this is the only point in the process to determine it.

Q.  Does a conical fermenter help create better tasting beer?

A.  My opinion is that conical fermenters alone do not necessarily make better beer.  However they are the ideal shape for multipurpose vessel.  Their real advantage is that yeast will settle in the cone and can be removed from the fermenter with minimal beer loss.

Q.  I'm fairly new to brewing and use plastic buckets.  What is the best way to clean and sanitize a plastic fermenter?

A.   Be careful cleaning your plastic.  Extremely stiff bristles, while safe for glass carboys can scratch plastic if applied with force.  Any scratches can provide future safe havens for all kinds of microscopic contamination.  Use a sponge with a plastic handle and you won't have to worry.

Q.  What temperature should the wort be before I add yeast?

A.  I suggest cooling your wort to my target fermentation temp or a degree or two less and aerating it before adding yeast.

=================================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Happy Spring to everyone!.  As the weather warms it's a  perfect time to stop in to enjoy one of my beers  here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

Since April 1 is April Fool's Day let's start with a whacy, oddball project for you: brew a sour beer in your Instant Pot.  Yes, I really did say Instant Pot.  Not only is it fun and different you'll also have a few stories to tell your drinking buddies.  This method uses the Instant Pot's yogurt function to promote bacteria growth (the good kind) to create refreshingly tart flavors in unfermented beer (wort). That procedure typically takes months, even years, but with the help of my Instant Pot and a few workarounds, I can make it happen in just 24 hours. Here's what I did, and how you can try it too.  I expect a lot of folks relatively new to home brewing to give it a try so I'll simplify it and give you a few more details.

In addition to the Instant Pot you need these:

1 pound of pale ale dry malt extract

1 gallon of water

Good Belly Plus Shot probiotic juice drink

1 ounce Cascade hops

Beer yeast

1 gallon glass fermenting jar and airlock

Digital kitchen scale

Spoon

Sanitizing agent and solution

Sanitizing tub

Unless you want your brew to harbor foul bugs or germs, take sanitizing seriously. Mix sanitizing solution inside a large tub or bucket. In my case I used an old plastic fermenter along with StarSan. Now place everything that will come into contact with your beer inside. These would be the glass jar, its lid and plastic airlock. They only need to be submerged in the solution for 3 to 4 seconds. Remove these items from the tub and allow them to air dry.  

The first step of brewing beer is called "the boil." Essentially you'll be making "wort," the raw ingredients of unfermented beer. Begin by adding 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of water to either a stovetop stockpot or your Instant Pot's inner pot.

Stir in 1 pound of dry malt extract, or DME, while you bring the water to a boil. Boil this mixture for 5 minutes. This sanitizes the liquid. Next, cool the wort down to 110 Fahrenheit. Do that by using a wort chiller or placing the pot in a sink filled with ice.

Now pour the probiotic juice shot into the sanitized glass jar. Next add the warm wort (at 110 F) to the jar and cover it. Place the glass jar inside your Instant Pot's inner pot, then fill the pot with water. This is a good time to attach the airlock to the lid too. 

With that done, activate the Instant Pot's yogurt mode. Also select the "less" adjust toggle. This sets the heat level lower. What you should have now is a temperature self-regulating water bath perfect for your probiotic bacteria. Let the Instant Pot run for 24 hours. During that period, the bugs should start eating the sugars in your wort, and produce souring compounds as a byproduct.  

Pour out your soured wort into a pot. Next add 1 packet of cascade hops (1 ounce) and heat the liquid up to 180 degrees. Hold this temperature for 10 minutes. What you're doing here is sanitizing the wort of bacteria (and anything else). You're also developing flavors from the hops you just added. While you do that, preheat your oven for 180 F.

After that, place the pot in the oven and keep it there for another 10 minutes. This step should further encourage the infusion of hop essence. Next remove the pot from the oven and quickly chill it down to 65 F. The idea here is to cool your wort down to an optimal temperature for your yeast. The faster you do this, the less chance another opportunistic organism will set up shop before your yeast does.

Now that your wort has cooled down, add it to your clean and sanitized fermenter. Sprinkle in the beer yeast -- I used Safale US-05 -- over the wort and button up the fermenter. Do that by closing the sanitized lid. Lastly, attach the airlock (also sanitized) and seal it with a few ounces of water. Store the jar in a room temperature location away from direct sunlight. 

With the wort fermenting, you should notice some airlock activity within a day or so. I did after 24 hours. Water inside the airlock's water trap began a steady, rapid bubbling. This is caused by the yeast eating the sugars in the solution then producing alcohol and CO2 gas as byproducts. I plan to let my beer ferment for at least 10 days, then transfer it over to a secondary fermentation vessel. 

From there I'll bottle my brew and condition it for another two weeks, or longer. Will I have some fruity, crisp and refreshing sour NEIPA on my hands? I sure will. 

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I was going to give you another beer recipe but why not continue in the fun vain and go all the way with making a seltzer?  It's something different and easy for any level home brewer.  Hard seltzer is a great low-cal, low-carb alternative to beer. It is light, refreshing, and in some cases viewed as being healthier. Hard seltzer is usually 5% ABV and comes in multiple flavorings: citrus, stone fruit, berry, melons, etc… I will admit; I am not one to order or seek out a hard seltzer unless being asked to bring some to a social gathering or have on hand for friends. 

Here's what you'll need:

• 5 lbs Corn Sugar

• Water Modifier Salt Packet (added at the same time as the sugar)

• Yeast

• Yeast Rehydration Nutrient

• Yeast Fermentation Nutrient

• Fining Agent like Irish Moss

Step-by-step instructions to making Hard Seltzer:

1. Heat 5 gallons of distilled water to 180F

Depending on your heat source, this can take about 25 minutes or longer. Use a thermometer to check temperature.

2. Add the 5 lbs of Corn Sugar and the two Salt Packets and stir to dissolve both completely. Use a brewing spoon to mix vigorously.

3. Make sure to sanitize your fermentation vessel and rehydrate your yeast while you are waiting for your water to come to temperature. 

4. Rehydrate your yeast: boil 2 oz of drinking water and then allow the water to cool to 85-95 degrees.

a. Mix in the 2g of Fermstart and then sprinkle in the 5g of EC1118 yeast

b. Let it sit for at least 2 minutes

5. Begin chilling the sugar water via immersion chiller or ice bath etc

a. I used a plate chiller to cool my solution as it entered into the carboy. You can also use an immersion chiller and then transfer the water to your carboy/fermentation vessel.

7. Transfer the chilled water to the fermenter and pitch the yeast at 70 degrees.

8. Ferment at 70-74 degrees

9. Find an area of your house where the temp is consistent.

10. At the 24 hour mark: add 6g of FermFed DAP Free

11, 48 hours afterwards: Add the remaining 6g of FermFed DAP Free . AKrousen wiil form on top of the seltzer! 

12. After 10 days of fermentation, check your gravity reading and add Super Kleer (allow 24 to 48 hours for the seltzer to clear.) Fermentation is complete when the gravity reaches 1.000. If you do not reach 1.000 after 14 days, then you could have a stuck fermentation.   If your fermentation is stuck: you can add more FermFed DAP Free per kit instructions.

13. Sanitize your kegging instruments (if bottling: bottles, caps, bucket, tubing, siphon, etc…). Then you can add the fruit flavoring directly to your bottling bucket or if kegging directly to the keg.

14.  Enjoy your new hard selzter!

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Happy March to everyone.  Any month with St. Patrick's day and the first day of Spring is a great one.  It's also the perfect time to stopp in to enjoy one of my beers  here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

First let me remind everyone that your beer should be free of any off-flavors.  I'll be writing future columns on what to do if you find any and also will be happy to answer any specific questions you send to me here at BeerNexus.  When it coes to commercial beer feel free to send it back if any of these dominate the flavor.  By the way, that won't happen here at the Northside Lounge.  We regularly clean all our lines and I personally check every beer.

Off-Flavors

Butterscotch, movie theater popcorn butter: A flavor produced by diacetyl, which has a similar origin story as acetaldehyde (see “Green apple Jolly Rancher,” below), and can also be the sign of bacterial infection. However, at lower levels, a subtle butteriness is not a fault in some styles, like English ales.

Cheesy: Never positive, this is caused by isovaleric acid and is the result of a bacterial infection or the use of old hops.

Cooked cabbage, creamed corn: This unpleasant aroma comes courtesy of dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, a compound that can result from brewing with light malts. It can often be avoided with proper boiling and cooling methods, and is acceptable in very low levels in light lagers. 

Green apple Jolly Rancher: This is acetaldehyde at work. Acetaldehyde is a byproduct of fermentation, and its presence means the yeast wasn’t given enough time to reabsorb it.

Rotten eggs: A sulfurous, burnt match aroma that is caused by the presence of another yeast byproduct, hydrogen sulfide. It’s never welcome except at a very low degree in an English pale ale; however, a hint of sulfur when you twist open a beer bottle is not uncommon, and generally resolves with exposure to air.

Wet cardboard: A flavor that typically emerges when a beer has been exposed to excess oxygen, typically the result of spending too long in the bottle, and has staled. 

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In honor of Guinness for St. Patrick's Day and because this is the perfect time for a variety of stouts I'm going to give you a way to make a base one and transform it into multiple styles.  Some may call it magic, I just call it brewing!

One Size Fits All "Magic" Stout – six for the price of one

Let’s get back to the basics with one of the most versatile and forgiving beer styles: the stout. The roasted malts used in stout recipes naturally have familiar notes of dark chocolate, French roast coffee, or, if you veer in certain directions, sticky dried figs or brown sugar.

What’s great about this style is that every recipe starts with the same basic building blocks, and from there a brewer can decide to make a stout that is silky and sweet, dark and roasty, hopped to high heaven, or balanced and boring.

There are many complicated methods to tweak stout recipes; time-consuming ones like double mashing or expensive ones like using real vanilla beans. But there are also more approachable ways to change a base recipe with delicious results — and not too much effort. Mix and match the options below and you’ll be curled up on the couch with a fresh stout for the rest of this winter.

Base Recipe = Grains and Hops

Grain bill (Grist)

75-80% American 2 Row or British Base Malt

5-15% Roast Barley and/or Roasted Malts

5-15% Caramel or Crystal Malts (mix colors for a more complex flavor)

0-5% Huskless or Debittered Black Malt for color adjustment (brewing software like Beer Smith will indicate SRM)

Hops

50 IBU of hops, about 1 ounce 13-15% Alpha Acid hops (I like Magnum and CTZ) added at 60 minutes remaining in the boil

Yeast

American or English ale yeast

The Easy Way to Make it an American Stout

. For many classic beer styles, the biggest difference between an American version and a British or German version is simply the hops. (Think Porter or Pilsner.) That’s similar here.

To make stout more American in nature, add a few more hop additions using classic American hops that won’t clash with the roast flavors of a stout.

For example, add a couple of ounces of Centennial or Cascade at five minutes left in the boil, and another ounce or two at flame out.

Then, ferment with a clean American ale yeast. (I love White Labs 001, California Ale yeast, for a reliably clean fermentation, but Safale US-05 is a good dry yeast alternative.)

If you really want a stout recipe with a robust American attitude, you can also up the percentage of roasted barley by a percent or three to get some real intensity going.

Make It a Milk Stout

This style of stout is perceived as “sweeter” than other examples. It might seem like this would come from adding a pound or so of unfermentable milk sugar to the recipe, but lactose is only very mildly sweet. And since yeast can’t ferment it, lactose acts to increase body, not sweetness. Reducing the hop bitterness in the beer, combined with a slightly full mouthfeel, makes this style seem like a perfect drink to substitute for dessert.

The best milk stouts use lactose for between 5 and 8 percent of the grist.

To make our base recipe (above) a milk stout, lower the hops addition to achieve 40 IBU; and add 5 to 8 percent lactose toward the end of the boil, making sure to stir it so it doesn’t clump. Then, ferment as normal with American or English ale yeast.

Make It an Oatmeal Stout

Similar to milk stout, making our base beer into an oatmeal stout really only requires one additional ingredient to change the mouthfeel and balance of this beer.

Just as yeast can’t ferment milk sugar, and the excess sugars make the beer feel creamy in your mouth, beta glucans from oats aren’t broken up during the brewing and fermentation process. These gummy compounds left in the beer give it a slick, smooth mouthfeel, and better head retention to boot!

A good place to start with oats, which should be flaked oats so they are easy to add to the mash, is 10 percent of the grist. This is low enough that you shouldn’t run into sparge issues (because the gummy compounds stop runoff through the grain bed) — and it’s still plenty to create a noticeable difference in mouthfeel.

Of course, oats produce more than mouthfeel; they also have their own flavor. To play up that cereal-like oat taste, you can lightly toast the oats in the oven on a very clean baking sheet for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 175 degrees Celsius).

Flaked (and potentially toasted) oats should be added to your mash with the rest of the grains. Ferment as normal with an American or English ale yeast.

The Easy Way to Make it an Imperial Stout

There’s no real definition for what makes a beer imperial, but it’s generally accepted it’s elevated alcohol and increased intensity in flavor.

Increasing alcohol is simple enough: Give yeast more sugar, and they will do their best to turn it into more alcohol. An easy way to increase alcohol is by adding dry malt extract (DME) to the boil and/or adding some table sugar to the fermenter.

Adding DME is ideal because it has the protein and sugar composition of standard wort — because it is dehydrated wort. This means you’ll be providing your yeast with more fermentables without needing to increase the size of your mash tun, which when brewing on a homebrew scale is a very helpful thing.

The rule of thumb is a pound of DME increases the final alcohol about 0.5 percent ABV, so adding two pounds of DME to the boil will get you an additional 1 percent ABV. Generally, for a 5-gallon batch, adding a pound of table sugar will also result in a 1 percent increase in alcohol.

To make our base recipe imperial, there are a few changes. Increase the specialty malts a little to intensify the flavor. Let’s say an additional 10 percent overall, some of that coming from roasted malts, some of it coming from crystal or caramel. Add about two pounds of DME in the last 10 minutes of the boil, being sure to stir it to keep it from scorching. Increase the hops by 50 percent — and feel free to add a flame out addition at the end of the boil.

Twelve to 24 hours after fermentation has begun, make a pound of sugar into a syrup by adding a little water, allowing it to boil for several minutes, and letting it cool completely before adding it to the fermenter. (Boiling the sugar is important for sanitation.) This lets the yeast wake up and start working before they are bombarded with too much sugar, something that can stress them out and make them produce off flavors.

The Easy Way to Make It a Pastry Stout

Finally, the pastry stout. To achieve this newer, less-defined style, we’re going to throw in a little of all of the above techniques.

First, to give a beer a cake-like impression, it is important to increase mouthfeel. This can be achieved through adding both lactose and oats. Add 5 to 8 percent of each as a starting point. Then, during the boil, add a pound or two of DME for more intensity, but skip adding sugar. We don’t want to thin the body of this beer at all.

After fermentation, pull a little wort in a measured amount (8 to 12 ounces is a nice place to start). Then try dosing it with different extracts like almond, vanilla, or even raspberry until you achieve the ideal flavor. Be sure to count the drops you add as you go, because you’ll use that count to scale up the dosing amount for the whole batch.

Hint: the clear vanilla extract has more of an artificial “Birthday Cake” flavor than darker vanilla extracts.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Beer goes well with February and every other month for that matter. It even makes for a fun Valentine's Day gift as does stopping in to enjoy one of my beers  here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

First some general words for all home brewers.  I like to break brewing down into eight essential steps. From Manhattan’s smallest kitchenettes to St. Louis’s largest production facilities, all brewers share a common link in these eight fundamental processes:

·   Sanitizing equipment

·   Preparing yeast

·   Preparing wort

·   Boiling wort with hops

·   Fermenting wort into beer

·   Maturing young beer

·   Packaging properly aged beer

·   Serving finished beer with care and dignity

The details of each step invariably differ from one brewer to the next, even among different employees of the same brewery. And each step, in turn, includes a number of important tasks. But the goal of every step remains the same whether you’re a brand-new brewer or an experienced one.

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Here's one to get you morning off to a good start:

Wake Up Coffee Stout

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

**FG: 1.019

IBUs: 30

ABV: 7.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

10 lb (4.5 kg) Maris Otter

1 lb (454 g) crystal 45L

1 lb (454 g) crystal 65L

1 lb (454 g) pale chocolate malt

8 oz (227 kg) flaked barley

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.5 oz (14g) Magnum at 60 minutes [18 IBUs]

0.75 oz (21 g) each Chinook and Northern Brewer at whirlpool [12 IBUs]

0.75 oz Chinook at dry hop

4 oz (113 g) cracked whole coffee beans at dry hop

4 oz (113 g) coarse-ground coffee for cold brew at packaging

YEAST

Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) Yeast

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, wait 5 minutes, then stir to create a vortex; add whirlpool hops and allow 15 minutes to steep and settle. Chill the wort to about 62°F (17°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast.

Ferment at 63°F (17°C) for the first 3 days, then allow the temperature to rise 1–2°F (0.5–1°C) per day to 68°F (20°C). Hold at that temperature for at least a week, or until 2–3 days after fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized. Crash the beer to 35°F (2°C), add the dry hops and cracked coffee beans, and wait 5 days. Finally, steep the coarse-ground coffee in cold, filtered water—just enough to cover the grounds—for about 12 hours. Filter the cold-steeped coffee and add it to the beer to taste, then package and carbonate to 2.5 volumes of CO2.

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In honor of star trek’s Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly) recent birthday here is a riff on “Romulan” ale that relies on an extended 3-hour boil for kettle caramelization and color, a technique normally associated with Scottish ales. Golden Promise malt and a Scottish ale strain round out the “Romuan” twist. First I’ll give you the all grain version and then the extract.

ALL-GRAIN

OG (est): 1.083

FG (est): 1.021

IBUs (est): 45

ABV (est): 8.3%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

16 lb (7.3 kg) Golden Promise

HOPS SCHEDULE

2.5 oz (57 g) Fuggle [4.5 %] at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) East Kent Golding [5.0 %] at 15 minutes

YEAST

Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale

DIRECTIONS

Mash for 60 minutes at 150°F (66°C), then lauter and sparge to a pre-boil volume of 8 gallons (30.3 liters). Boil for 3 hours, following the hops schedule, then chill the wort and pitch the yeast. Pitch at 66°F (19°C) and hold for two days, then ramp the temperature to 70°F (21°C) and ferment until the specific gravity stabilizes. Rack to secondary and bulk age for at least 1 month, then bottle or keg.

 EXTRACT

Replace the malt with 12 pounds (5.4 kg) of Maris Otter liquid malt extract. Bring to a boil and continue as directed above. Perform a full boil if possible; otherwise split the extract between two proportional start-of-boil and end-of-boil additions.

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Let's finish with one that's good to enjoy when playing chess (or anything else)

Czechmate Pilsner

PARTIAL-MASH

Batch size: 4.75 gallons (18 liters)

OG: 1.056

FG: 1.015

IBUs: 40

ABV: 5.2%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) pilsner liquid malt extract (LME)

1 lb (454 g) Carapils

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

2 oz (57 g) Saaz at 60 minutes [19 IBUs]

2 oz (57 g) Saaz at 30 minutes [14 IBUs]

½ tsp (2.5 ml) Irish moss or ½ Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes

2 oz (57 g) Saaz at 10 minutes [7 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) Saaz at flameout

YEAST

Fermentis SafLager W-34/70, White Labs WLP833 German Bock Lager, or other lager strain of choice

DIRECTIONS

Mix your usual brewing water 50/50 with distilled water to make 5 gallons (19 liters) and heat it to 154°F (68°C). Mill the Carapils and steep at 154°F (68°C) for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the LME, and stir thoroughly. Boil for 70 minutes, adding hops and Irish moss or Whirlfloc according to the schedule. Chill to about 65°F (18°C) and transfer to a clean, sanitized corny keg. Fill to about 4.75 gallons (18 liters), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Seal the keg, connect a spunding valve, and set it to 6 PSI. On Day 5 of fermentation, set the valve to 12 PSI. Transfer the finished beer to bottles or a clean keg and lager (i.e., chill) for at least 2 weeks before consuming.

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Happy New Year!  It's the perfect time to make a homebrew and to get someone else involved in it.  It's a great hobby that anyone can enjoy.  Once you start you'll be hooked.  I'm here to answer any questions from first timers to experienced home brewers.  You can also ask me in person when you stop by for one of my beers  here in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

Since the coldest months of winter are about to hit why not try a beer to match up with freezing temps?  It's my No Cold American Barleywine.  When it comes to barleywine, the American way is to balance all that rich malt and alcoholic warmth with a bracing dose of hops. Here’s a partial-mash extract recipe for one you can drink fresh or lay down for months. 

No Cold American Barleywine

PARTIAL-MASH

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

Brewhouse efficiency: 72%

OG: 1.117

FG: 1.026

IBUs: 69

ABV: 12.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

14 lb (6.4 kg) pale liquid malt extract (LME)

1 lb (454 g) Victory

1 lb (454 g) dextrose

8 oz (227 g) Crystal 120L

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

2.5 oz (71 g) Warrior at 60 minutes [49 IBUs]

2 oz (57 g) Centennial at 15 minutes [13 IBUs]

0.5 oz (14 g) Chinook at 15 minutes [4 IBUs]

1 Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes

1 tsp (5 ml) yeast nutrient at 10 minutes

2 oz (57 g) Cascade at 5 minutes [3 IBUs]

2 oz (57 g) Chinook at flameout

YEAST

2 sachets Fermentis SafAle US-05

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and place them in a mesh grain bag. Steep in 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of 152°F (67°C) water for 30 minutes, then raise the temperature to 168°F (76°C). Remove the bag, rinse the grains, and add 5 more gallons (19 liters) of water to your kettle, then bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the malt extract in batches, being careful not to scorch. Return the heat and achieve a rolling boil. Boil for 75 minutes, adding hops, Whirlfloc, and yeast nutrient according to the schedule. Chill the wort to 62°F (17°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Allow fermentation to continue for at least 2 weeks. When final gravity is reached, package and carbonate. Allow the beer to condition for at least 2 months.

BREWER’S NOTES

To add barrel-aged or spirits character, start soaking toasted American oak chips in your favorite spirit on brew day. Add the chips to the fermentor about 5–7 days before packaging.

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Here's one for new homebrewers.  It's super easy and will make a great beer..  It's an extract-based juicy IPA best consumed fresh, as are all IPAs. 

Juice Bomb Away IPA

EXTRACT

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.066

FG: 1.018

IBUs: 46

ABV: 6.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) wheat liquid malt extract (LME)

1 lb (454 g) dextrin malt

12 oz (340 g) Simpsons Golden Naked Oats

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.5 oz (14 g) Magnum [15% AA] at 30 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Galaxy [14.25% AA] at whirlpool for 40 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Galaxy [14.25% AA] at whirlpool for 20 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra and Galaxy at dry hop, Day 2

1 oz (28 g) each Citra and Galaxy, dry hop in secondary

YEAST

Wyeast WY1318 London Ale III or White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale

DIRECTIONS

Crush the dextrin malt and Golden Naked Oats and place them in a nylon grain bag. Start heating 4.5 gallons (17 liters) of water. While the water is heating, dip the grain bag in, swirling it to thoroughly soak the grain. Heat for 20 minutes without exceeding 155°F (68°C)—turning down the heat as necessary. Remove the bag and rinse the grain with 2 quarts (1.9 l) of 165°F (74°C) water. Take the pot off the heat and add the malt extract. Stir the wort until the extract is fully dissolved, then place the pot back on the burner. Bring to a boil, and boil for 30 minutes, adding the Magnum at the start of the boil. Then whirlpool for 40 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule.

Chill the wort to about 65°F (18°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment between 65–70°F (18-20°C). On the second day of active fermentation, add the first dry-hop addition. After 4 days, rack the beer to secondary and add the second dry-hop addition. After 4 or 5 days more, the beer is ready for packaging.

BREWER’S NOTES

Water treatment: The hardest part of making this beer is adjusting your water chemistry, but don’t let that scare you off. The silky mouthfeel is worth the hassle. Use calcium chloride and calcium sulfate additions to adjust your water to about 150–180 ppm chloride and 90–100 ppm sulfate.

Hops: Substitute other tropical and citrus-forward varieties, especially if you can get some of the more interesting varieties from New Zealand or Australia.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Happy holidays craft beer fans!  It's the most wonderful time of the year to have a beer.  Actually anytime is but it just goes double now.  It's also time to stop buy for a coupe of Ho-Ho-Ho's and a few pints of some my beers.  They're all quite tasty.  We're close by to everywhere. in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   Come on in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

Since this is the holiday season and Santa wears red, let's start with a recipe for a Red IPA! That might not be logical but it's a great beer so give it a try. It features old-school malt layers, New World hop flavors, and that beautiful red-amber color... Love live the Santa IPA. 

PARTIAL-MASH (all grain at end)

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.061

FG: 1.012

IBUs: 62

ABV: 6.5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

5.25 lb (2.4 kg) extra-light dry malt extract (DME)

2 lb (907 g) Weyermann CaraAmber

8 oz (227 g) crystal/caramel 60L

8 oz (227 g) crystal/caramel 120L

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) Magnum at 45 minutes [27 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) each Citra, Motueka, Southern Cross at flameout/whirlpool [35 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) each Mosaic, Motueka, Southern Cross at dry hop

YEAST

Chico, Nottingham, or similar clean-fermenting, high-flocculation ale strain

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and steep in 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of 152°F (67°C) water for 30 minutes, then raise to 168°F (76°C). Rinse steeping bag, add 6 gallons (23 liters) of water, and bring to a boil. Switch off the heat and add the malt extract in batches, stirring frequently to dissolve and avoid scorching. Boil for 55 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, do a whirlpool step: Stir for 5 minutes to create a vortex, add the whirlpool hops, and steep for 30 minutes. Chill the wort to 65°F (18°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at about 68°F (20°C). On Day 4 of fermentation, add the dry hops. Allow the beer to ferment for 6 more days, or until fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized. Crash, package, carbonate, and enjoy.

ALL-GRAIN VERSION

In place of the DME, substitute 8.8 lb (4 kg) two-row pale malt. Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort. Boil for 60 minutes, continuing as above.

--------------------------//

Raise your hand if you don't like a good dry Irish Stout anytime of the year?  Seeing no hands up, this one will fit perfectly.  Here's a very tasty version (all grain followed by extract) -

Dublin Pub Stout

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.044

FG: 1.010

IBUs: 30

ABV: 4.2%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

5.5 lb (2.5 kg) Maris Otter

1.5 lb (680 g) flaked barley

1 lb (454 g) roasted barley

4 oz (113 g) acidulated malt

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) Fuggles at 40 minutes [14 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) Glacier at 40 minutes [16 IBUs]

YEAST

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 65°F (18°C), aerate the wort, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 65°F (18°C) for 2 days, then allow the temperature to rise to 71°F (22°C) over the next 3 days and hold until fermentation is complete. Crash to 35°F (2°C), then package and carbonate to 1.5 volumes of CO2.

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace Maris Otter with 5.1 lb (2.3 kg) light dry malt extract (DME) and the flaked barley with 1.7 lb (771 g) Carafoam, omitting the acidulated malt. Mill and steep the grains at 160°F (71°C) for 30 minutes, then remove the bag and allow to drain into the wort. Add the DME while stirring and stir until completely dissolved. Top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort. Bring to a boil and continue as above. 

-----------------------------//

Many people will get home brewing equipment as Christmas gifts so here are 5 basic reminders to help your brewing.  I'll give you more in subsequent months and of course there are many in past columns.

Keep your recipes simple. - Remember, brewing is more like baking and less like cooking. 

Use Fresh Ingredients The quality of anything you make to consume relies on having the freshest ingredients. 

Focus on Fermentation Never forget that you, the brewer, makes the wort; the yeast makes the beer. That is why any fermentation flaws can be the first element that can make a bad beer. Pitch enough yeast and make sure you ferment at a consistent and correct temperature. And, always make sure the wort is aerated properly.

Keep Oxidation to a Minimum. One of the biggest off-flavors for beer occurs due to oxidation. 

Chill the Wort Quickly Remember, bacterial infections can begin at any temperature below 180 degrees F. Also, you will get a cleaner beer because the proteins will fall out of the wort quicker.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Hello craft beer fans!   I've just put some of my best beers ever on draft so it's a perfect time to stop by to say hello and enjoy our great lineup of tasty beers.  We're close by to everywhere. in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   So stop in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus!

First let me touch on the topic of a few emails I received from readers this month about the “head,” the half- to one-inch layer of thick foam on top of a beer is the first sign of a well-made beer.  Aesthetically, it looks inviting but beyond that it influences the aromatic experience and adds an enjoyable texture to the brew. Tight, uniform microbubbles are the sign of high-quality brewing. If the foam is too large and sudsy, it might be a sign that the carbonation process was rushed or the beer was under-carbonated. I use a “low and slow” method of force carbonating beer, wherein carbon dioxide is slowly added to the beer over the course of several days, creating a tight foam that floats atop the beer for longer. Beyond production methods, the style of beer also influences the look, texture, and retention of a beer’s foam. Barley and wheat-based beers produce more natural carbonation during fermentation, while those with corn additives can easily fall flat (something you won't see at Northside).

Before we get to this month's recipes let me remind you that a useful tool to improve your brewing skills is to take detailed notes. It will help you remember what you did and figure out where you were right or wrong. It will go a long way to improving your craftsmanship, Also, keeping notes will help you understand how changes in raw materials or techniques affect the final taste and flavor of the beer.  

Now, let's get to the fun!  Let's start with a challenge - an American barleywine.  If this is one of your first, say, couple of beers you’ve ever brewed, you might want a bit more experience so try the second recipe below (Sunshine IPA) or one of many other ones.  Here's my Big Shot Barleywine

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.111

FG: 1.030

IBUs: 67

ABV: 10.6%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

10 lb (4.5 kg) Maris Otter

10 lb (4.5 kg) Vienna

1 lb (454 g) crystal 60L

8 oz (227 g) crystal 80L

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

8 oz (227 g) cane sugar at first wort

1.75 oz (50 g) German Magnum at 60 minutes [52 IBUs]

2 oz (57 g) Amarillo at 5 minutes [8 IBUs]

2 oz (57 g) Northern Brewer at 5 minutes [7 IBUs]

YEAST

Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 149°F (65°C) for 90 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle, adding sugar to dissolve. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 90 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 50°F (10°C), aerate thoroughly, and pitch plenty of healthy yeast. Ferment at 52°F (11°C) for about 6 weeks. When fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized, crash to 35°F (2°C), then package and carbonate to about 2 volumes of CO2. Age at least 6 months.

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the Maris Otter and Vienna with 16.6 lb (7.5 kg, or 5 cans) of Muntons Maris Otter Light liquid malt extract (LME). Mill and steep the crystal malts in a mesh bag at 160°F (71°C) for 30 minutes, then remove the bag and allow it to drain into the wort. Add the LME and sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Top up as necessary to get about 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of wort, then continue as above.

==================

Sunny IPA is one in which there's  just enough caramel and Munich malt to add complexity.  It's why basic West Coast IPAs have so many fans.  

Yield: 5 gallons (18.93 L)

Original Gravity: 1.059 (14.5° P)

Final Gravity: 1.015 (3.8° P)

ABV: 6%

IBU: 70

SRM: 6

Hops

1.0 oz. (28 g) Nugget pellet hops, 13% a.a. (60 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Cascade pellet hops, 6% a.a. (15 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Amarillo pellet hops, 10% a.a. (15 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Centennial pellet hops, 10.5% a.a. (15 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Cascade pellet hops, 6% a.a. (0 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Amarillo pellet hops, 10% a.a. (0 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Centennial pellet hops, 10.5% a.a. (0 min.)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Cascade pellet hops, 6% a.a. (dry hop)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Amarillo pellet hops, 10% a.a. (dry hop)

0.5 oz. (14 g) Centennial pellet hops, 10.5% a.a. (dry hop)

Yeast

American ale yeast with a sufficient yeast starter(250 billion cells)

Misc.

0.75 tsp. (3 g) Irish moss added 15 minutes before end of the boil 

Put 2 gal. (7.6 L) of water in the boil pot and heat to 160°F (71°C). While the water is heating, put the Wort A specialty grains (caramel malt) into a grain bag and tie off the ends so the grains can’t escape.

Once the water has reached 150° F (66° C), immerse the grain bag in the water for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes, remove the grain bag and let it drip until it stops. Add the rest of Wort A malt extract (2.2 lb pale DME, 1 lb Munich DME) to the water and stir until totally dissolved. Top off with water until you reach 3 gal. of wort.

Bring to a rolling boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at specified intervals from end of boil. Add Wort B (4 lb pale DME) at knockout (0 min) until totally dissolved.

Strain wort into sanitized fermentation vessel with 2–3 gallons (7.6–11.4 L) of pre-boiled, chilled water for a total volume of 5 gallons (18.9 L).

Pitch yeast when temperature reaches 65° F (18° C).

Ferment in primary at 65° F (18° C) until fermentation slows significantly (7–9 days).

Rack to secondary fermenter and dry hop for no more than 10 days at 68° F (20° C).

Keg at 2.5 volumes (5 g/L) of CO₂ or bottle condition with 4 oz. (113 g) corn sugar. 

=========================

Let's end with my All-Star IPA.

To keep the malt sweetness in check, use a modest dose of corn sugar in the boil. The sugar will ferment out completely, leaving the body of the beer drier, relative to its strength. 

Recipe

Batch Size: 5 Gallons

Boil Size: 6 Gallons

OG: 1.074

FG: 1.019

IBU: 100

Alcohol: 7.3%

Malt Extract & Sugar

10 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract

.75 lbs Dextrose (Corn Sugar) 

Steeping Grains

.5 lb Crystal 45 Malt

.5 Carapils Malt

Hops 

2 oz Columbus (15% AA) boiled for 60 minutes

1 oz Columbus (15% AA) boiled for 15 minutes

1 oz Chinook (12% AA) boiled for 15 minutes

2 oz Citra (13.7% AA) boiled for 0 minutes (ie: throw them in, and turn off the flame)

1 oz Columbus (15% AA) boiled for 0 minutes

1 oz Cascade (7% AA) boiled for 0 minutes

1 oz Centennial (10.5% AA) boiled for 0 minutes

2 oz Citra dry hopped for 3 days (1st charge)

1 oz Chinook dry hopped for 3 days (1st charge)

1 oz Cascade dry hopped for 3 days (2nd charge)

1 oz Centennial dry hopped for 3 days (2nd charge)

1 oz Columbus dry hopped for 3 days (2nd charge)

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 American Ale or White Labs WLP 001 California Yeast

Procedure

Steep the Crystal 45 and Carapils malt in 150F water for 30 minutes. Remove the grain and bring to a boil. Add the malt extract, dextrose, and 2 oz Columbus hops. After 45 minutes add another 1 oz of Columbus Hops and continue boiling. At the end of the boil, add 2 oz of Citra, 1 oz of Columbus, 1 oz of Cascade, and 1oz of Centennial, then turn off the flame. Chill and ferment at 68F. Allow a week to ten days for fermentation. Once fermentation is complete add the first charge of dry hops using a sanitized nylon sack. Remove the first charge after three days and add the second charge for another three days, again using a sanitized nylon sack. Remove the second charge, check your final gravity and rack the finished beer to bottles or a keg.

All-Grain Version 

Substitute 15 lbs of two row pale malt for the extract malt and mash with the other grains for 60 minutes at 149F. 

Other Hops

Another set of hops with a great flavor affinity is Warrior, Simcoe and Amarillo. Use the Warrior for the early bittering charges and similar amounts of Simcoe and Amarillo for the late additions and dry hops for a deeply piney and tropical take on the IPA.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

As we enter autumn I'm busy brewing some very special offerings for the season.  It's a perfect time to stop by to say hello and enjoy our great lineup of tasty beers on draft and in bottles.  We're close by to everywhere. in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   So stop in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

First let me answer a few email questions readers sent in about Phantasm.  It's a powder derived from Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc grapes in New Zealan.  It’s the coolest new ingredient in beer; one that requires quite a bit of experimentation to truly work its magic. Consequently, Phantasm brings a whole new perspective to the adage “the juice is worth the squeeze.” The product came from the brain of Jos Ruffell, founder of Phantasm and owner of Garage Project, a brewery based in the Aro Valley of Wellington, New Zealand. It’s an area near the Marlborough region, famous for producing exceptionally high-quality Sauvignon Blancs known for their intense tropical fruit aromas. Phantasm is by no means a hop replacement. Rather, it’s a product that can work alongside to enhance the fantastic flavor and aroma compounds already in hops. Plus, when used in tandem with hops, Phantasm can actually increase the efficiency and cost of a recipe. Because it can be so potent, brewers have the opportunity to replace quantities of hops with a small amount of Phantasm.  All of which reminds me of when you stop into the Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge I'm happy to tell you about how I make my beer and it's quality ingredients.

I've also received a few questions on non-alcohol beer.  A few craft breweries are diversifying into making nonalcoholic beer mainly for designated drivers and people in recovery minding their sobriety. Athletes and are also choosing the zero-proof lagers.  There are a bunch of ways to make nonalcoholic beer. On is to brew regular beer and then later remove the alcohol with pressure or heat. Another option is to control the fermentation, so the batch produces minimal or no alcohol to begin with. Broadly speaking, the technique is called manipulated or arrested fermentation. I prefer it because it preserves the flavor and body of the beverage without requiring additional expensive technology. To be sold as nonalcoholic in most states it needs to have less than 0.5% alcohol content.

I know you're waiting for the recipes so here we go.  Let's start out with one for experienced brewers then I'll give you one for extract brewers.  

Here is my homebrew- recipe for experienced, all grain, homebrewers.

 It's a Bavarian-style helles  that I call The Real Deal Helles.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.053

FG: 1.014

IBUs: 20

ABV: 5.1%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

8.8 lb (4 kg) IREKS Pilsner

11 oz (312 g) IREKS Sauer (acidulated)

8 oz (227 g) IREKS Vienna

HOPS AND ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.7 oz (20 g) Perle [8% AA] at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [5% AA] at 5 minutes

YEAST

White Labs WLP835 German X Lager

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and follow these steps for a decoction mash: Mash in at 144°F (62°C) and hold 20 minutes; raise the temperature to 149°F (65°C) and hold 20 minutes; raise the temperature to 162°F (72°C) and hold 20 minutes; remove one-third of the mash and boil it for 15 minutes (or remove two-thirds and boil the remaining one-third, depending on what works best for your system); return the boiled portion to the main mash, which should bring the temperature to about 171°F (77°C).

Vorlauf until runnings are clear, then run off into kettle. Sparge the grains and top up as necessary to obtain 6.8 gallons (25.7 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 90 minutes, following the hops schedule. After the boil, chill the wort to 46°F (8°C), aerate, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 50°F (10°C). When the gravity has dropped to about 1.018 (4.5°P), increase the temperature to 54°F (12°C). When beer has fermented completely, decrease the temperature by about 4°F (2°C) per day until you reach 39°F (4°C). Hold there for 4 days, then decrease the temperature to 32°F (0°C) and lager for at least 3 weeks—preferably longer.

NOTE - Use German malt varieties, or this beer will be a full flavored as it should.

---------------------------

This is a good recipe that's easy to do. It, forr an American Pale Ale, a style that everyone knows  and enjoys.  It’s not too hoppy or high in alcohol, but it’s got a great balance of sweetness and hoppiness that is typical from American-style hops. This is a great all-round beer to brew.  It's my  Universal Pale Ale.

5 gallons, extract with specialty grains

OG = 1.053

FG = 1.011

ABV = 5.6%

IBU = 37

SRM = 11

Ingredients

0.25 lbs. (113 g) Briess Light dried malt extract

6.6 lbs. (3 kg) Briess Light liquid malt extract (late addition)

1 lb. (0.45 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)

6 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g of 12% alpha acids)

3.5 AAU Perle hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g of 7% alpha acids)

11 AAU Cascade hops (30 min.) (2 oz./57 g of 5.5% alpha acids)

2 oz. (57 g) Cascade hops (0 min.)

1 tsp Irish moss

Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Safale US-05 yeast (1.5 qt./1.5 L yeast starter)

7/8 cup corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step Directions-

In a large soup pot, heat 5 gallons (19 L) of water to 166 °F (74 °C). 

Add crushed grains to grain bag. Submerge bag and let grains steep around 155 °F (68 °C) for 20 minutes. Remove grain bag and allow liquid to drip back into the pot. 

Heat liquid in brewpot to a boil, then stir in the malt extracts, add first charge of hops and begin the 60 minutes boil.

 With 30 minutes left in boil, add hops. At 15 minutes left in the boil, add Irish moss. At the end of the boil, add last charge of hops, cool wort and transfer to fermenter. 

Add water to make 5 gallons (19 L). Aerate wort and pitch yeast. Ferment at 68 °F (20 °C). 

If you prefer, rack to secondary when fermentation is complete. Bottle or keg when beer falls clear. 

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Hello beer fans!  Summer is about over, the kids are back to school, and it's a perfect time to stop by to say hello and enjoy our great lineup of refreshing, tasty beers on draft and in bottles.  We're closer than you think, right in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   So stop in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

First, let me answer a couple of questions readers sent in about clean tap lines.  Here at Brooks/Northside we pride ourselves on just that. - we have the cleanest lines possible!  Draft lines need to be cleaned at least every two weeks, as well as every time a bar a changes the line from one kind of beer to another. Unfortunately, there are many bars that are oblivious — or uncaring — about the importance of draft line quality control.  Ours are always clean since without routine and proper cleaning, beer systems accumulate microbes, proteins, and mineral deposits. The material that builds up in a dirty tap can give your pint a sour or buttery flavor. Don't worry, beer from dirty lines is very unlikely to make you sick.

Now let's get down to business.  This month I'll start with something special for our extract brewers (all grain directions directly follows).  It's an elegant homebrew recipe for a super-lean and dry rice lager, ideal for a refreshing tipple or enjoying with virtually any meal. 

Easy Days Rice Lager

EXTRACT

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.048

FG: 1.009

IBUs: 27

ABV: 5.2%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

4.4 lb (2 kg) Extra Light dry malt extract (DME)

2.2 lb (1 kg) rice-syrup solids

DIRECTIONS

Bring 5.5 gallons (21 liters) of water to a boil, shut off the heat, and add the DME and rice-syrup solids in batches, stirring and being careful not to scorch. Return the heat and achieve a rolling boil. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 52°F (11°C) and pitch the yeast. Ferment at about 54°F (12°C) for 2 weeks, or until terminal gravity. Then package, carbonate, and lager it cold for 3 to 5 weeks. (I usually start cracking them after about 2 weeks because I’m thirsty like that.)

ALL-GRAIN VERSION

Replace the DME and rice solids with 6.3 lb (2.9 kg) of two-row pale and 3.1 lb (1.4 kg) of flaked rice. Adjust the hop additions to 0.5 oz (14 g) each. Mill the grains and mash at 148°F (64°C) for 75 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, continuing as above.

-----------------------------------

I've had a few requests for a gluten-free recipe.  Here's a good one that will satisfy all drinkers not just those looking for something gluten free. This pale adjunct lager is light and crisp with notes of sweet malt and corn. This beer is a great example of how you can use pale millet as a base malt in place of two-row or pilsner. I like the malty profile that pale millet brings without being overpowering, while the malted corn adds a familiar lager sweetness and contributes amazing foam and lacing. Add the balancing bitterness and a bit of spicy hop flavor from Cluster hops, and you have a lager that can hold its own against any other.  

Enjoy Touchdown Lager

 ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

Brewhouse efficiency: 72%

OG: 1.051

FG: 1.009

IBUs: 21

ABV: 5.5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9.3 lb (4.2 kg) pale millet malt

2.7 lb (1.2 kg) malted corn

9 oz (255 g) Munich millet malt

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

2.1 tsp (10.5 ml) each Ceremix Flex & Ondea Pro enzymes at mash in

0.6 oz (17 g) Cluster at 60 minutes [15 IBUs]

0.7 oz (20 g) Cluster at 10 minutes [6 IBUs]

1 tsp (5 ml) Yeast X nutrient at 10 minutes

1 tsp (5ml) Irish moss at 5 minutes

YEAST

Fermentis SafLager W-34/70

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 145°F (63°C) for 60 minutes, adding enzymes at the start of the mash. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops, nutrient, and finings according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 52°F (11°C), aerate the wort, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 58°F (14°C) until complete. Crash, package, and carbonate to 2.7 volumes.

BREWERS NOTES

Mash & Enzymes: When adding the enzymes, first check that the temperature of your mash is not above target; mix thoroughly to ensure proper distribution. Make sure that the malted corn is well milled, without chunks, for optimal enzyme conversion.

Fermentation: Keep an eye on temperature during fermentation. If the fermentation stalls or takes longer than 48 hours to begin, raise the temperature or remove the vessel from temperature control and allow it to ferment at room temperature. The W-34/70 is stable and can ferment up to 74°F (23°C) without off-flavors.

-------------------------------------------------

Finally, consider making my Star Power IPA.  It's packed with juicy tropical fruit flavors and bright herbal aromas thanks to the abundance of U.S. grown hops.  I'll start with the all-grain version and immediately following with be the extract.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.074

FG: 1.013

IBUs: 100+

ABV: 8%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

8.5 lb (3.85 kg) 2-row pale ale malt

12 oz (340 g) Carapilsen malt

2.5 lb (1.1 kg) Vienna-style malt

1 lb (454 g) flaked oats

6 oz (170 g) Caramunich-type malt

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.75 oz (21 g) Columbus [14% AAU] at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at 20 minutes

1 lb (454 g) corn sugar at 10 minutes

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at 5 minutes

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at knockout

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at dry hop

YEAST

Fermentis Safale US-05, Lallemand BRY-097, Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale)

DIRECTIONS

Single infusion mash: Achieve a target mash of 152°F (67°C). Hold for 45 minutes, then raise to mash-out temperature and begin lauter phase.

Collect enough wort to boil 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters) and boil for 60 minutes, following the hops and additions schedule. After the boil is complete, begin a whirlpool in the kettle and let the knockout hops rest in the hot wort for at least 30 minutes before chilling.

Chill the wort rapidly to 68°F (20°C). Ferment at 68°F (20°C) for one week. Cool to 55°F (13°C) to settle the yeast. Dump the yeast from the bottom of the fermentor or rack to a clean, sanitized vessel. Add the dry hops and let the beer sit for an additional four to seven days at 55–57°F (13°C).

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the 2-row and Carapilsen malts with 6 pounds (2.7 kg) of light liquid malt extract. Mix the crushed Vienna-style malt, flaked oats, and Caramunich-type malt into 2 gallons (7.6 liters) of water to achieve a temperature of 152°F (67°C). Hold at this temperature for 45 minutes.

Rinse the grains with 2.5 quarts (2.6 liters) of hot water, add the liquid extract, and bring to boil. Top off the kettle to 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule and adding 1.5 lb (680 g) of corn sugar with 10 minutes left in the boil. Continue as directed above.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

It's been one hot summer so far.  Beat the heat and stop by for a great lineup of refreshing, tasty beers on draft and in bottles.  We're closer than you think, right in Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   So stop in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

As home brewers and beer lovers I know you love your hops, but when was the last time you thought about the malt in your beer?  Not too often so it's a good time to give malt the respect it deserves. With the number of craft maltsters increasing in this country — there are currently 67 members in the North American Craft Maltsters Guild — malt may finally be getting its day.  That begs the question, just what is a “craft malster”? The Guild defines a craft maltster as small (production is between five and 10,000 metric tons per year), local (over 50 percent of grains are sourced from fields within a 500-mile radius) and independent.  As important as sustainability is, I choose craft malt. because taste is crucial.  Malt provides all of the sugars and a good part of the flavor.

Before I get to this month's recipes ne quick word to answer several questions sent in about water for extract brewers. Since the malt extract itself already has an important water treatment in it, I believe the best water to use for extract brewing is either Reverse Osmoses or distilled water which doesn't contain any significant ion/salt concentrations.  If you are brewing a particularly hoppy or malty style you can consider playing a bit with the sulfite/chloride ratio. However I would not go crazy adding more water salts as you may not have a good measure of what is already in the malt extract. And obviously if you are doing a partial mash, you may want to adjust the mash portion of your water to make sure it has a good balance of brewing ions in it, and it has the proper pH. 

Now for a couple of recipes.  You can't go wrong with either of them.  Here's my 

Red/White/Blue Easy IPA -

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.058

FG: 1.014

IBUs: 58

ABV: 6%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) two-row pale

1 lb (454 g) Munich

12 oz (340 g) caramel/crystal 20L

8 oz (227 g) British medium crystal 45L

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) Nugget at 60 minutes [42 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) Simcoe at 5 minutes [8.5 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) Amarillo at flameout/whirlpool [7.5 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) Citra at dry hop

YEAST

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, turn off the heat and conduct a whirlpool step: Stir to create a vortex, then add the whirlpool hops and steep for 15 minutes. Chill to about 65°F (18°C), aerate well, and pitch yeast. Ferment at 69°F (21°C) for 6 days, then add the dry hops and hold at 69°F (21°C) for 3–5 more days. Once the beer reaches terminal gravity, crash, package, and carbonate to about 2.5 volumes. 

-----------------------------/

For our extract brewers here's a take on my Moe's Mosaic IPA. This SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) beer is easy to make and simply delicious. I chose Mosaic hops, the daughter of American IPA hop stalwart Simcoe. I paired the Mosaic hops with the sweet, clean Golden Promise pale malt. 

Original Gravity: 1.065

Final Gravity: 1.014

ABV: 6.7%

Bitterness: 66 IBUs 

Ingredients

12 pounds Golden Promise malt

1 ounce Mosaic hops, 12.3% AA (first wort hop)

1 1/2 ounces Mosaic hops, 12.3% AA (15 minutes)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (15 minutes)

1/2 teaspoon Wyeast yeast nutrient blend (10 minutes)

1 1/2 ounces Mosaic hops, 12.3% AA (0 minutes)

Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast

2 ounces Mosaic hops, 12.3% AA (dry hop; 5-6 days in secondary)

Directions

Heat 15 quarts tap water to 164°F and add to mash tun.

Mash-in slowly, adding all grains to the mash tun while stirring to prevent clumping. The mash temperature should equalize to 152°F.

In a separate container, heat 8.4 quarts tap water to 202°F.

Mash out by adding 8.4 quarts of 202°F tap water to mash tun, while stirring, after allowing the mash to rest for 60 minutes. Temperature should equalize to approximately 168°F.

Leave at mash out temperature for 15 minutes. In a separate container, heat 2.8 gallons tap water to 172°F.

Slowly drain off wort and add back to mash tun, recirculating until the wort runs clear and free of grain particles.

Drain mash tun to boil kettle, sparging with 2.8 gallons of 172°F tap water. Add first wort hops once the kettle is full.

After all mash runnings are collected, record preboil gravity. Bring wort to boil.

Allow wort to boil 60 minutes, adding hops, Whirlfloc and yeast nutrients as noted above.

Chill wort and transfer to a sanitized carboy or bucket with an airlock. Aerate by shaking or oxygenate with an oxygenation stone.

Pitch yeast and allow to ferment at 66°F to 68°F.

Once the gravity is within a few points of your target final gravity (about 1.014), rack beer to second sanitized carboy or bucket with dry hops in a sanitized hop sack and allow to condition for 5 to 6 days.

Bottle or keg 

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

We're really busy brewing as business is hopping. Now that's an appropriate term considering some of the great IPAs we have on draft.  I hope you get a chance to try those and many others of our terrific beers here in  Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   So stop in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus.

Now that your done with the standard opening paragraph lets get down to business.

First off, let me answer a question sent in from one of our readers who is just beginning to home brew, about dry hopping.  In today’s current hazy IPA-dominated craft beer market, “dry-hopped” almost feels redundant, and “double” or “triple dry-hopped”  is approaching that stage too. Let's get basic - dry-hopping means adding hops post-boil in the brewing process (usually during fermentation or conditioning). This is done primarily because during boiling, the compounds in hops lending beer different flavors and aromas are volatile and blow off at those high temperatures. While hops in the boil contribute bitterness to a beer, dry-hopping at various points during or after fermentation gives beer tropical, citrusy, berry, and floral notes, among others. 

Now for this month's recipes.  Let's start with something for our extract brewers and after that I'll give you one for all-grain brewers.  Now, let's get ready to brew!

Easy Peasy IPA

EXTRACT

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.066

FG: 1.018

IBUs: 46

ABV: 6.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) wheat liquid malt extract (LME)

1 lb (454 g) dextrin malt

12 oz (340 g) Simpsons Golden Naked Oats

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.5 oz (14 g) Magnum [15% AA] at 30 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Galaxy [14.25% AA] at whirlpool for 40 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Galaxy [14.25% AA] at whirlpool for 20 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra and Galaxy at dry hop, Day 2

1 oz (28 g) each Citra and Galaxy, dry hop in secondary

YEAST

Wyeast WY1318 London Ale III or White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale

DIRECTIONS

Crush the dextrin malt and Golden Naked Oats and place them in a nylon grain bag. Start heating 4.5 gallons (17 liters) of water. While the water is heating, dip the grain bag in, swirling it to thoroughly soak the grain. Heat for 20 minutes without exceeding 155°F (68°C)—turning down the heat as necessary. Remove the bag and rinse the grain with 2 quarts (1.9 l) of 165°F (74°C) water. Take the pot off the heat and add the malt extract. Stir the wort until the extract is fully dissolved, then place the pot back on the burner. Bring to a boil, and boil for 30 minutes, adding the Magnum at the start of the boil. Then whirlpool for 40 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule.

Chill the wort to about 65°F (18°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment between 65–70°F (18-20°C). On the second day of active fermentation, add the first dry-hop addition. After 4 days, rack the beer to secondary and add the second dry-hop addition. After 4 or 5 days more, the beer is ready for packaging.

BREWER’S NOTES

Water treatment: The hardest part of making this beer is adjusting your water chemistry, but don’t let that scare you off. The silky mouthfeel is worth the hassle. Use calcium chloride and calcium sulfate additions to adjust your water to about 150–180 ppm chloride and 90–100 ppm sulfate.

Hops: Substitute other tropical and citrus-forward varieties, especially if you can get some of the more interesting varieties from New Zealand or Australia.

Milkshake variation: If you are a fan of milkshake IPAs, substitute 1 pound (454 g) of lactose for 1 pound of the extract and add the lactose for the last 10 minutes of the boil.

========================

Now a recipe for our all-grain brewers.  It's my Super Surfer Blonde Ale.  It's the perfect warm weather drink.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.051

FG: 1.013

IBUs: 29

ABV: 5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

4 lb (1.8 kg) Pilsner malt

4 lb (1.8 kg) Maris Otter malt

1 lb (454 g) Vienna malt

8 oz (227 g) Victory malt

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) Tettnang [4% AA] at 60 minutes

0.5 oz (14 g) Cascade [10% AA] at 10 minutes

0.5 oz (14 g) Simcoe [12% AA] at 10 minutes

0.5 oz (14 g) Citra at dry hop

YEAST

Wyeast 1318 (London Ale III) yeast

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mix with 3 gallons (11.2 l) of 163°F (73°C) strike water to reach a mash temperature of 152°F (67°C). Hold this temperature for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge the grains with 4.3 gallons (16.2 l) and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort. Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule.

After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 60°F (16°C). Aerate the wort with pure oxygen or filtered air and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 60°F (16°C) for one week, then allow temperature to free rise to 70°F (21°C). Upon completion of fermentation, add dry hops and wait 2–3 days. Crash the beer to 35°F (2°C), then bottle or keg and carbonate to approximately 2.5 volumes of CO2.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Resist the temptation to go overboard on the dry hops. A half ounce isn’t much, but we want a small bit of resiny, fruity character rather than a full-blown session-IPA experience!

==================================

Let's wrap things up for this month with my Polite Pirate Pale bright and hoppy pale ale is a great complement to a wide range of dishes and a refreshing summer treat.

 This is a SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hops) beer.  These beers give you a great opportunity to understand the characteristics of your ingredients. In this case, I’ve included the addition of gluten-reducing enzymes, if you want a gluten-reduced beer. 

ALL-GRAIN

Estimated OG: 1.066

Estimated FG: 1.018

Estimated IBUs: 85

Estimated ABV: 6.3%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

12 lb (5.4 kg) Maris Otter (crisp)

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) Citra whole leaf at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Citra whole leaf at 30 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Citra whole leaf at 20 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Citra whole leaf at 10 minutes

2 oz (57 g) Citra whole leaf at dry hop

YEAST

Pacific Ale (White Labs WLP041)

DIRECTIONS

Mash for 60 minutes at 151°F (66°C). Boil for 90 minutes. For a gluten-reduced beer, add 10 ml (one vial) of White Labs Clarity Ferm when you pitch the yeast.

PARTIAL-MASH VERSION

For a partial-mash version, reduce the grains to 5 lbs (2.3 kg) and add 5 lbs (2.3 kg) of Maris Otter extract.

This recipe is built to yield a batch size of 5 gallons (19 liters) and assumes 72 percent brewhouse efficiency.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

With the warm weather settling in and Covid on the run I hope you get a chance to try some of our great beers here in  Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   So stop in and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. 

Let me start with an important reminder.  Old pros are sure to be familiar with these standard practices of maintenance. However, if you’re a new brewer on the scene, here are some basics to know:

1. Understand the difference between “cleaning” and “sanitizing.” In brewing terms, “cleaning” refers to the general act of washing your equipment’s surfaces. “Sanitizing” is when contaminants are purged on the microscopic level. There are specific products used for either phase, just as you use dish soap (cleaner) to rinse off a plate before putting it in the dishwasher loaded with detergent (sanitizer).

2. Always plan to clean and sanitize your equipment immediately after use, as contaminants are easier to remove before they’ve had a chance to dry.

3. Always start with a cleaning agent. Sanitizers are ineffective on equipment with soils on the surface, meaning bacteria and wild yeasts will remain.

4. For general cleaning of stainless steel and aluminum, use mild unscented detergents, PBW, or percarbonate-based cleaners. Using bleach on stainless steel can corrode and cause pits.

5. After cleaning, it’s time to sanitize. Do your research on the chemicals you plan to use, and always read the instructions on the bottle. Never let your equipment soak in a solution for longer than recommended, as the prolonged exposure can cause damage to your gear.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This month's recipe is for my Forever Amber Ale.  It is perfect for an easy brew day. Using both specialty grains and extracts, this makes for a deliciously malty beer with a prominent hop character. Whether this is your first brew day or you're a seasoned brewer, this amber ale will have you begging for another sip! 

The recipe below is for extract brewing a 5-gallon batch.  For an all-grain alternative - substitute 5.5 pounds 2-row pale lager malt, 2.75 pounds 2-row pale ale malt (such as Golden Promise or Maris Otter), and 14 ounces CaraPils malt for the pale ale LME. You can add the specialty grains to the mash, or steep them as you would for the extract version. Mash in two stages at 131°F for 10 minutes then 154°F for 60 minutes. Sparge and lauter the mash into the kettle on the first wort hops and bring to a boil, add sugar, then proceed to step 3 below

• 14 ounces Crystal 10°L

• 7 ounces Crystal 60°L

• 1.75 ounces Black Patent malt

• 7 pounds pale ale liquid malt extract (LME)

• 7 ounces brown cane sugar

• Hops

• 0.6 ounce Centennial 10.6% AA whole, 60 minutes for extract version, first wort hopped for all-grain version

• 1.0 ounce Cascade 8.6% AA whole, 20 minutes

• 1.0 ounce Cascade 8.6% AA whole, at flame-out

• Yeast

• Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat 2 gallons water to 170°F. Remove from heat and add specialty malts to the water, contained in a mesh bag. Cover and let steep for 1 hour, then discard the malt 

2. When you reach a boil, start a countdown timer for 90 minutes. Add hops quantities at times indicated above.

3. At the end of 90 minutes, remove from heat. Cool the wort to below 70°F with an ice bath or a wort chiller. Remember to keep things sanitary for every stage after the boil.

4. Transfer the wort to a sanitized fermentation bucket or carboy. Add an airlock and cool to 62°F.

5. Once the wort reaches 62°F, aerate the wort and pitch yeast.

6. Let the wort temperature rise to 66°F and hold for one week or until fermentation is complete.

7. Lower the temperature to 38°F then bottle or keg the beer and enjoy in one week (kegged) or three (bottled).

8. When you reach a boil, start a countdown timer for 90 minutes. Add hops quantities at times indicated above.

9. At the end of 90 minutes, remove from heat. Cool the wort to below 70°F with an ice bath or a wort chiller. Remember to keep things sanitary for every stage after the boil.

10. Transfer the wort to a sanitized fermentation bucket or carboy. Add an airlock and cool to 62°F.

11. Once the wort reaches 62°F, aerate the wort and pitch yeast.

12. Let the wort temperature rise to 66°F and hold for one week or until fermentation is complete.

13. Lower the temperature to 38°F then bottle or keg the beer and enjoy in one week (kegged) or three (bottled).

--------------------------------------------------

Let's go for a wonderful beer I call Don't Blink IPA.  You'll definitely be busy because there are a lot of hop additions, so don't blink or you might miss one.  It will come in at 64 IBUs and around 6.7% ABV. 

Malt/Grain Bill

5 lb (2.27 kg) 2-Row Pale Malt

8 oz (227 g) Caramel 40°L

12 oz (340 g) Corn Sugar at 60 minutes

4 lb (1.8 kg) Briess Golden Light DME at 15 minutes 

Hop Additions

1 oz (28 g) Centennial at 60 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Nelson Sauvin at 30 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Ella at 15 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Mosaic at 15 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Nelson Sauvin at 15 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Ella at 5 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Mosaic at 5 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Nelson Sauvin at 5 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Ella at 0 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Mosaic at 0 minutes

0.25 oz (7.1 g) Nelson Sauvin at 0 minutes

2 oz (57 g) Mosaic at dry hop

1 oz (28 g) Centennial at dry hop

1 oz (28 g) Ella at dry hop

1 oz (28 g) Simcoe at dry hop 

Mash for 60 minutes at 152°F (67°C). Boil for 60 minutes. Ferment at 66°F (19°C). Dry hop for 5 days. 

Yeast: Wyeast American Ale Yeast (#1056 

Add 1 Whilrfloc tablet to the boil at 15 minutes. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's end with my Yankee Doodle Pale Ale.  This is especially for beginning brewers though any level will enjoy making and drinking this great beer. 

Ingredients:

5 1/2 pounds dry light malt extract

1/2 pound Crystal 20L malt, crushed

1/2 pound American 6-row malt, crushed

1/2 ounce Centennial hops—60 minutes

1 ounce Cascade hops—15 minutes

1 ounce Centennial hops—15 minutes

1 ounce Cascade hops at flame out

1/2 ounce Centennial hops at flame out

6 gallons of tap water, split. If possible, place 3 gallons in the refrigerator to cool in a sanitized container

11.5 gram package Safale US-05 

STEP BY STEP DIRECTIONS

Directions

1. Tie the American 6-row malt and Crystal 20L malt in a mesh hop-bag. Heat 1 gallon of water in a large pot to 160°F and remove from heat. Add malt and let steep for 20 minutes.

2. Raise temperature slowly to 170°F. Make sure mesh bag isn’t sitting directly on the bottom of the pot. Remove the grain bag and add water to make 3 gallons total.

3. Bring the wort to a vigorous boil. As water is heating, slowly add malt extract, stirring constantly until completely dissolved. When boil begins, add 1/2 ounce Centennial hops in mesh bag.

4. After 45 minutes of boiling has passed, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1 ounce Centennial in mesh bag. 

5. After total of 60 minutes of boil remove from heat, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1/2 ounce Centennial in mesh bag and cover. Warning: After wort cools below 180°F everything that touches it should be sanitary, and exposure to open air should be limited as much as possible.

6. Cool wort by placing pot in ice bath until it is below 85°F. Transfer to sanitized fermentor (either a carboy or a fermentation bucket). Top off to 5 gallons using refrigerated water.

7. Sanitize outside of yeast package, fermentation stopper and airlock. Carefully pour yeast into cooled wort (it should be below 70°F), and agitate vigorously. Ferment in dark place, keeping ambient temperature consistent, preferably between 62-66°F.

8. Bottle after two to three weeks.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Greetings beer fans Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  First a shout out to one serious beer drinker, Paul Myhill, who spent the last year visiting every craft brewery and taproom in the entire state of Colorado;

for a total of 469.  I've only just read about him but I'd like to invite Paul and you to visit me here at the Northsidein Manville, NJ home of Brooks Brewery.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   I hope you come out and support your local brewery and bar even if it's a bit to far for Paul.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. 

Lets get right to it.  Lets start with a Scottish Light Ale.  You might remember when it was called Scottish 60 Shilling, (shortened to just “Scottish Light.”).  The BJCP changed it back in 2015.  It's a malty beer you can quaff  all day long as it come in around 4% ABV.  I'll give you both an all-grain and extract recipe.

 ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

MALT/GRAIN BILL

5 lb (2.3 kg) Maris Otter

1 lb (454 g) Munich

8 oz (227 g) British crystal 65L

8 oz (227 g) Victory

4 oz (113 g) British crystal 120L

4 oz (113 g) pale chocolate malt

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) Fuggles at 60 minutes [17 IBUs]

YEAST

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 156°F (69°C) for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until the runnings are clear, then run off about 1 gallon (3.8 liters) into the kettle. Bring to a boil and reduce by about 50 percent in volume, then remove from the heat. Run off the remaining wort, sparging and topping up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort. Boil 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 60°F (16°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at about 60°F (16°C) for 2 weeks, then crash, package, and carbonate to about 1.5 volumes of CO2.

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the Maris Otter and Munich malts with 5.5 lb (2.5 kg) of Munton’s Maris Otter liquid malt extract (LME) and 12 oz (340 g) of amber LME. Steep the specialty grains at 160°F (71°C) for 30 minutes, then remove the bag and allow it to drain into the wort. Add the LME and stir until completely dissolved. Top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, bring to a boil, and continue as above.

========================================

From the low alcohol Scottish Light, let's kick things up a notch with my  8% ABV Get Your Sunglasses Double NEIPA.  It's chock full of juicy tropical fruit flavors and bright herbal aromas.  You're going to love it!  Again, I'll give you all grain and then extract recipes.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

MALT/GRAIN BILL

8.5 lb (3.85 kg) 2-row pale ale malt

12 oz (340 g) Carapilsen malt

2.5 lb (1.1 kg) Vienna-style malt

1 lb (454 g) flaked oats

6 oz (170 g) Caramunich-type malt

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.75 oz (21 g) Columbus [14% AAU] at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at 20 minutes

1 lb (454 g) corn sugar at 10 minutes

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at 5 minutes

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at knockout

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at dry hop

YEAST

Fermentis Safale US-05, Lallemand BRY-097, Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale)

DIRECTIONS

Single infusion mash: Achieve a target mash of 152°F (67°C). Hold for 45 minutes, then raise to mash-out temperature and begin lauter phase.

Collect enough wort to boil 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters) and boil for 60 minutes, following the hops and additions schedule. After the boil is complete, begin a whirlpool in the kettle and let the knockout hops rest in the hot wort for at least 30 minutes before chilling.

Chill the wort rapidly to 68°F (20°C). Ferment at 68°F (20°C) for one week. Cool to 55°F (13°C) to settle the yeast. Dump the yeast from the bottom of the fermentor or rack to a clean, sanitized vessel. Add the dry hops and let the beer sit for an additional four to seven days at 55–57°F (13°C).

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the 2-row and Carapilsen malts with 6 pounds (2.7 kg) of light liquid malt extract. Mix the crushed Vienna-style malt, flaked oats, and Caramunich-type malt into 2 gallons (7.6 liters) of water to achieve a temperature of 152°F (67°C). Hold at this temperature for 45 minutes.

Rinse the grains with 2.5 quarts (2.6 liters) of hot water, add the liquid extract, and bring to boil. Top off the kettle to 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule and adding 1.5 lb (680 g) of corn sugar with 10 minutes left in the boil. Continue as directed above.

==============================

Let's end this month's column with an easy extract recipe for beginning homebrewers.  It's my Easy Peasy Pale. This recipe is can be made with the most basic equipment setup. You can do this in a small apartment kitchen. I've added basic directions for each step.  This easy-drinking pale ale has a touch of citrusy sweetness with a lovely a balancing bitterness. Enjoy!

Ingredients

5 1/2 pounds dry light malt extract
1/2 pound Crystal 20L malt, crushed
1/2 pound American 6-row malt, crushed
1/2 ounce Centennial hops—60 minutes
1 ounce Cascade hops—15 minutes
1 ounce Centennial hops—15 minutes
1 ounce Cascade hops at flame out
1/2 ounce Centennial hops at flame out
6 gallons of tap water, split. If possible, place 3 gallons in the refrigerator to cool in a sanitized container
11.5 gram package Safale US-05

DIRECTIONS

1. Tie the American 6-row malt and Crystal 20L malt in a mesh hop-bag. Heat 1 gallon of water in a large pot to 160°F and remove from heat. Add malt and let steep for 20 minutes 

2. Raise temperature slowly to 170°F. Make sure mesh bag isn’t sitting directly on the bottom of the pot. Remove the grain bag and add water to make 3 gallons total.

3. After 45 minutes of boiling has passed, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1 ounce Centennial in mesh bag.
   
   

4. Bring the wort to a vigorous boil. As water is heating, slowly add malt extract, stirring constantly until completely dissolved. When boil begins, add 1/2 ounce Centennial hops in mesh bag.

5. After total of 60 minutes of boil remove from heat, add 1 ounce Cascade and 1/2 ounce Centennial in mesh bag and cover. Warning: After wort cools below 180°F everything that touches it should be sanitary, and exposure to open air should be limited as much as possible.
   
   

6. Cool wort by placing pot in ice bath until it is below 85°F. Transfer to sanitized fermentor (either a carboy or a fermentation bucket). Top off to 5 gallons using refrigerated water.
   
   

7. Sanitize outside of yeast package, fermentation stopper and airlock. Carefully pour yeast into cooled wort (it should be below 70°F), and agitate vigorously. Ferment in dark place, keeping ambient temperature consistent, preferably between 62-66°F.
   
   

8. Bottle after two to three weeks.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Hello all from Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.   I'm back with more recipes, tips, and information on brewing.   All of which means, break open a beer right now and enjoy this month's column.  And if you want a great draft beer you'll find here at the Northside, home of Brooks Brewery.  Our 20 taps feature a wide selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   I hope you come out and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. 

Lets get right to it.  I have three terrific recipes for both the extract and all grain brewer.  Let's start with a fruit beer..  It's a style long dismissed as gimmicky and relegated to a bit part never getting the respect it deserves. Yet the craft of brewing with fruit is poised to enter a golden age,   Here's my take on which I call -

Juicy Fruity Ale.

The Lachancea yeast strain provides soft acidity to help show off the fruit without having to fuss with kettle-souring. The use of puree here is likewise meant to be nice and easy—though there is no substitute for good, fresh passion fruit if you can source it. Meanwhile, a few late-boil Mosaic hops further support the tropical notes without dominating.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

Brewhouse efficiency: 72%

OG: 1.046

FG: 1.008

IBUs: 12

ABV: 5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

3.5 lb (1.6 kg) German pilsner

3.5 lb (1.6 kg) white wheat malt

8 oz (227 g) rice hulls

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.3 oz (9 g) Mosaic at 30 minutes [12 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) Mosaic at flameout

6.1 lb (2.8 kg) Oregon Fruit passion-fruit puree

YEAST

Lallemand WildBrew Philly Sour

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 148°F (64°C) for 60 minutes. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill the wort to about 68°F (20°C). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 70–75°F (21–24°C) for 2 weeks. Once gravity has stabilized, add the fruit puree and ferment another 7 days. Then crash, package, and carbonate.

BREWER’S NOTES

Want to dry hop with Citra and give that passion fruit some more oomph? Do it. Want to use a different fruit altogether? Go for it. Options abound.

------------------------------------//

As we get deep into spring this stunning refresher will be one you'll want to brew again especially to enjoy in hot weather.  It's an amazing Coconut Lime Kolsch,  First comes the extract version, then the all grain one.

EXTRACT

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.049

FG: 1.009

IBUs: 25

ABV: 5.1%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

7.9 lb (3.6 kg) pilsner liquid malt extract (LME)

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.75 oz (21 g) Hüll Melon at 60 minutes [18 IBUs]

1 tablet Whirlfloc at 15 minutes

0.75 oz (21 g) Hüll Melon at 10 minutes [7 IBUs]

1.75 lb (794 g) toasted, shredded coconut at secondary

Zest of 4–5 key limes or 2 large limes at secondary

YEAST

White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch, Wyeast WY2565 Kölsch, or Fermentis SafAle K-97

DIRECTIONS

Heat 6 gallons (23 liters) of water to 158°F (70°C) and shut off the heat. Add the extract, mixing completely until dissolved. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops and Whirlfloc (or Irish moss) according to the schedule. Chill to about 60°F (16°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 65°F (18°C), allowing the temperature to rise to 68°F (20°C) after 2 or 3 days. When fermentation is complete, crash to 35°F (2°C) and hold there for 2 or 3 weeks.

To toast the coconut, spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 15 minutes or until lightly brown. Allow to cool completely. Then you put the lime in the coconut (i.e., combine the zest and toasted coconut) in a mesh bag or “hop sock” and steep in the fermentor. Taste the beer after 3 days and again every 2 days until it tastes how you like it. Remove the coconut/lime and package, carbonate, and enjoy.

ALL-GRAIN VERSION

Replace the extract with 8.25 lb (3.7 kg) of German pilsner, 1 lb (454 g) Weyermann Vienna, 4 oz (113 g) each of acidulated malt and Weyermann Carahell. Mill the grains and mash at 146°F (65°C) for 1 hour, then raise the temperature to 158°F (70°C). Vorlauf until the runnings are clear, then sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of wort. Boil for 90 minutes instead of 60, adding hops and Whirlfloc (or Irish moss) according to the schedule, then continue as above.

--------------------------//

Lets end with something a bit stronger.  I call it "If It's A Double IPA It Must Be Good".  It is and it is.  This is a tasty and hazy one - first is the all grain recipe and then the extract one.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.074

FG: 1.013

IBUs: 100+

ABV: 8%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

8.5 lb (3.85 kg) 2-row pale ale malt

12 oz (340 g) Carapilsen malt

2.5 lb (1.1 kg) Vienna-style malt

1 lb (454 g) flaked oats

6 oz (170 g) Caramunich-type malt

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.75 oz (21 g) Columbus [14% AAU] at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at 20 minutes

1 lb (454 g) corn sugar at 10 minutes

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at 5 minutes

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at knockout

3 oz (85 g) Citra [12.5% AAU] at dry hop

YEAST

Fermentis Safale US-05, Lallemand BRY-097, Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale)

DIRECTIONS

Single infusion mash: Achieve a target mash of 152°F (67°C). Hold for 45 minutes, then raise to mash-out temperature and begin lauter phase.

Collect enough wort to boil 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters) and boil for 60 minutes, following the hops and additions schedule. After the boil is complete, begin a whirlpool in the kettle and let the knockout hops rest in the hot wort for at least 30 minutes before chilling.

Chill the wort rapidly to 68°F (20°C). Ferment at 68°F (20°C) for one week. Cool to 55°F (13°C) to settle the yeast. Dump the yeast from the bottom of the fermentor or rack to a clean, sanitized vessel. Add the dry hops and let the beer sit for an additional four to seven days at 55–57°F (13°C).

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the 2-row and Carapilsen malts with 6 pounds (2.7 kg) of light liquid malt extract. Mix the crushed Vienna-style malt, flaked oats, and Caramunich-type malt into 2 gallons (7.6 liters) of water to achieve a temperature of 152°F (67°C). Hold at this temperature for 45 minutes.

Rinse the grains with 2.5 quarts (2.6 liters) of hot water, add the liquid extract, and bring to boil. Top off the kettle to 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule and adding 1.5 lb (680 g) of corn sugar with 10 minutes left in the boil. Continue as directed above.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

A big hello from Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  Winter is winding down and we're moving slowly past Covid.  What a great time for a beer!  That's just what you'll find here at the Northside, home of Brooks Brewery.  Our 20 taps feature a great selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   I hope you come out and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, and say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. 

Lets get right to it.  First I'll give you a recipe that fits perfectly with today's trend for lower ABV beer.  However unlike many of those on the market this one packs loads of flavor.  It's my version of a Czech-style dark lager—a session-strength lager with layers of malt flavor and spicy hop character.  This is for all grain brewers.  I'll have a recipe for extracts brewers right under that one.  At the very end is the Mail Bag section with some great tips for all home brewers.  

-------------------------------------------------

ALL-GRAIN  for Dark Knights Lager  

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)---

IBUs: 28

ABV: 4.8%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

6 lb (2.7 kg) floor-malted Bohemian pilsner

1 lb (454 g) Victory

1 lb (454 g) Caramunich

12 oz (340 g) pale chocolate malt

8 oz (227 g) Carafa III

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

2 oz (57 g) Saaz [3% AA] at 60 minutes

1 oz (28 g) Saaz [3% AA] at 20 minutes

YEAST

Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to obtain about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 50°F (10°C), aerate with pure oxygen or filtered air, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 50°F (10°C) for 14 days, then increase the temperature to 60°F (16°C) and hold for 2 days after fermentation is complete. Crash to 35°F (2°C), then bottle or keg and carbonate to about 2.25 volumes.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Water profile matters here. Consider using a 50/50 blend of your standard water and distilled/RO water for mashing and sparging, unless you already have extremely soft water. One metric to watch is calcium. If diluting drops the calcium below 50 ppm, either skip it or add it back via a brewing salt. Finally, the Carafa III addition is essentially cosmetic. If you don’t have any or don’t want to add the expense, you can leave it out.

---------------------------/

Here's something special for al my extract recipe fans.  This might become your favorite beer to make and more importantly, to drink.  That means it has to be a hazy IPA of course.  Here's my take on it -

Extract for - Hazy Daze Delight

Batch size: 5.5 gallons (20.8 liters)

OG: 1.057

FG: 1.012

IBUs: 77

ABV: 5.9%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) Pilsner liquid malt extract

1.5 lb (680 g) oat malt

1 lb (454 g) pale malt

8 oz (227 g) Golden Naked Oats

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.50 oz (14 g) Warrior [16% AA] at 30 minutes

2 oz (57 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Mosaic [12.5% AA] at whirlpool at 170°F for 20 minutes

Dry-Hop Schedule

2 oz each Citra [11% AA] and Mosaic [12.5% AA] on day 3 of fermentation for 7 days

YEAST

Wyeast 1318 London III, Imperial A38 Juice, White Labs WLP066 London Fog

DIRECTIONS

Steep the grains at 150–165°F (66–74°C) for 20 minutes in 5 quarts (4.7 l) of water. Rinse the grains with an additional 5 quarts (4.7 l) of 170°F (77°C) water. Add 4 quarts (3.8 l) of water to the kettle and bring to a boil. If you’re doing a full boil, add 12 quarts (11.4 l) of water.

Remove the kettle from the heat and dissolve 1/3 of the malt extract (3 lb/1.4 kg) in the wort. Bring the kettle back to a boil and add the Warrior hops. After 20 minutes, remove the kettle from the heat and add the remaining extract. Return to the boil for a final 10 minutes. Cool the wort to 170°F (77°C) and stir to form a whirlpool. Add the Citra and Mosaic hops. Steep the hops for 20 minutes before chilling the wort to 66°F (19°C).

Aerate the wort, pitch your yeast, and ferment at 66°F (19°C) for 3 days. Add the dry hops and continue to ferment for 7 more days. Package, carbonate, and serve the beer. Consume within a month any longer and the glorious hop notes will begin to fade.  

--------------------------------------/

The Mail Bag

I've had a few emails with all sorts of questions.  Here are a few takes on the them that the general reader might find interesting.

1. On Nitrogenisation with Guinness.   Nitrogenisation is the key to making a beer that’s rich and creamy, with a smooth texture. Guinness pairs nitrogen gas and carbon dioxide when the beer is poured in pubs on draught,  to balance out the texture. In order to replicate this effect for a Guinness served in a can, little white balls called widgets are used, to blast the stout with nitrogen gas. This creates the thick, creamy head like one on draft.

2. Concerns over using lactose.  There are plenty of ways to get body without adding lactose. With the increasing number of lactose-intolerant people in the general population, it’s risky and unnecessary to add it for body. Try oats, unmalted wheat, or mashing at a higher temperature to produce more unfermentable sugars. Oats in particular are a great choice for adding a nutty and earthy character to your beer. 

3. On making a stout.  I often use unexpected malts to add layers of complexity. I love the Gambrinus honey malt, as it gives a really nice sweet and nutty characteristic that adds complexity and balance to the roasty malts in stouts and porters. Weyermann’s Carafoam is another one—specifically Weyermann’s for the fruity and biscuit character it has to it. Cara Red is another one that’s not traditionally used It adds more raisin, dark cherry, and dark fruit notes along with some of that crystal caramel/toffee character. 

4. On hop schedule.  Trying to work out the best dry hop schedule? Try this: Add 1/3 of your hops during active fermentation (day 3-5) & add the other 2/3 after fermentation, or at the tail end of fermentation (day 7-10). This technique will help you utilize the full potential of your hops and get you closer to that unforgettable hoppy juicy bomb! 

5. On hope schedule, part 2. Looking to boost your hot side hop schedule? Consider medium temperature whirlpool and lower your wort temp to around 160-170 Degrees F. Next, let your hops steep for 20-30 Mins. With this, not as much isomerization (bittering) will occur and you will pull out more hop oils/aroma juice that will make it into your pint at the end! 

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Hello from Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  I don't know about you but I've had enough winter. I can do without freezing cold and snow.  I do admit to liking one thing about winter and that's the beer.  For me there no better time of year. You will find a lot of that great beer and many of your year around favorites on our  20 taps feature a great selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   I hope you come out and support your local brewery and bar.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, or even better, say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. 

Before I give you this month's recipes let me answer a couple of questions readers have emailed me.  First is about adding fruit to your beer.  Fruit can be added to beer at any stage of brewing and in many forms, from fresh, to frozen or preserved, to flavoring.  Fruit is usually added to the beer during the fermentation process so the yeast can consume the sugar in the fruit. Lately, however, some brewers have been adding the fruit after fermentation to complete to maximize flavor. These beers may taste better, but they also risk refermentation.   That happens when the yeast and microbes in the beer keep processing sugar while in its final packaging (can, bottle, etc.). This releases more CO2 than usual.  

I've also received a couple of emails asking me to explain cryo hops.  Cryo Hops line—a lupulin powder, is created by proprietary cryogenic processing. The powder is a concentrated form of lupulin—the yellow pollen in a hop cone that contains resins and aromatic oils and is the active ingredient in hops—derived from whole-leaf hops. The cryogenic process involves submerging the whole hop cones into nitrogen, then separating the lupulin glands from the leafy material. Because this powder is twice as potent as traditional hops,  brewers who use it can reduce the amount of hops they typically use by half; it also enhances hoppy aromas and flavors while cutting down on vegetal off-flavors.

Now for one of those delicious winter beers I mentioned earlier.  I call it Snowy Stout - this will be a partial mash with extract recipe. 

ABV: 10.1%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

11 lb (4.9 kg) pale liquid malt extract (LME)

1.5 lb (680 g) roasted barley

1 lb (454 g) chocolate rye malt

8 oz (227 g) caramel/crystal 80L

8 oz (227 g) chocolate malt

8 oz (227 g) Special B

8 oz (227 g) Victory

6.4 oz (181 g) brown malt

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

2 oz (57 g) Warrior at 60 minutes [72 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) East Kent Goldings at 30 minutes [9 IBUs]

1 tablet Whirlfloc at 15 minutes

1 tsp (5 ml) yeast nutrient at 10 minutes

1 oz (28 g) East Kent Goldings at 10 minutes [4 IBUs]

YEAST

White Labs WLP001 California Ale

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains. Heat 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of water to 158°F (70°C) and steep the grains for 30 minutes. Remove the grains and drain well. Add LME and stir thoroughly to completely dissolve. Bring wort to a good rolling boil, and boil for 60 minutes, adding hops, Whirlfloc (or Irish moss), and yeast nutrient according to the schedule. Chill to 65°F (18°C), aerate well, and pitch plenty of healthy yeast. Ferment for at least 2 weeks before sampling. When fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized, crash, package, and carbonate. And yes, this is a great beer for bottle conditioning.

-------------------------

How about a straightforward strong ale that will stand up to any chill?  Here we go with my Resistance Ale recipe for both all grain and extract brewers:

ABV: 7%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

10 lb (4.5 kg) Maris Otter

1 lb (454 g) British amber

8 oz (227 g) British crystal 45L

8 oz (227 g) British crystal 90L

8 oz (227 g) Special B

8 oz (227 g) aromatic

HOPS SCHEDULE

2.75 oz (78 g) East Kent Goldings at 60 minutes [41 IBUs]

1 oz (28 g) East Kent Goldings at flameout/whirlpool [5 IBUs]

YEAST

Wyeast 1318 London Ale III

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. At flameout, conduct a whirlpool step: Stir 5 minutes to create a vortex, then add whirlpool hops and allow 20 minutes to settle. After the whirlpool, chill to about 60°F (16°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. After 5 days, allow the temperature to rise to 65°F (18°C) for 3 days, then allow it to rise up to 70°F (21°C) until fermentation is complete. Crash, package, and carbonate to just less than 2 volumes of CO2.

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the base malt with 10 lb (4.5 kg) of Munton’s Maris Otter liquid malt extract (LME). Steep the specialty grains at 160°F (71°C) for 30 minutes, then remove the bag and allow it to drain into the wort. Add the LME and stir until completely dissolved. Top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, bring to a boil, and continue as above.

========================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I had fun writing it.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Arny

Hello and best wishes for a joyous new year from Manville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  I can guarantee you that in the new year our 20 taps feature a great selection of Brooks beer in addition to guest brews, wine, spirits, and cocktails. We also have an outstanding  menu of great pub style food that is served all day and night.   I hope you come out and support your local brewery and bar.  We have both indoor and outdoor seating.  When you visit  be sure you ask for me, or even better, say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. As always if you have any questions just write me here at BeerNexus.  

I've received some emails asking for some tips in making a NEIPA.  No surprise there since it's the number one style out there.  Here are ten general tips that will be a benefit to anyone home brewing one regardless of the specific recipe.  You can skip these and go directly to the recipes below.  First is an all grain, then one for extract brewers.

 1. Remove most of the kettle hops to late in the boil: NEIPAs are all about hop flavors instead of bitterness so the amount of early kettle hops used are restrained. Most kettle hops are added first wort, and/or late in the boil, and/or steeped after the boil.  2. Add hops during active fermentation: Add hops at the start of fermentation or during the most active fermentation (high krausen). It helps increase hop aroma and flavors. 

3. Increase the dry-hopping amounts, do multiple additions: The amount used is usually higher than normal when compared to other dry-hopped beers. Often multiple additions will be done, sometimes with short contact time (3 days or less). Increase the dosage and reduce the contact time to give a bright hop flavor. 4. Use fruit-forward hops: Stick with hops that impart a tropical, juicy sweetness.  Most popular ones are Citra, Galaxy, and Mosaic. 

4. Use a yeast that is fruity/estery: Yeast choice most definitely makes or breaks the style, so choose wisely. I like WY1318 London III which has become for many the go-to yeast for brewing NEIPAs.  5, Use a yeast that does not flocculate (settle out) well: We want some of the yeast to stay in suspension as it helps hang on to the hop oils.     6. High Chloride with lower Sulphate Water : Adjust the brewing water to increase Chloride (Cl) while keeping Sulphate (SO4) somewhat restrained. This helps create the silky smooth and rich mouthfeel. Chloride accentuates flavor by making a beer fuller bodied, rounder, and to appear sweeter. Sulphate accentuates hop bitterness/dryness.  7. Do not finish too dry: To help promote that smoother, softer mouthfeel, an NEIPA final gravity should not be too low. We don't want to dry out the beer too much as that also helps accentuates hop bitterness, which we don't want.  8. Use a base malt with flavor, limit crystal malts: Using a base malt with a bit of flavor behind it helps enhance the body and mouthfeel. We like to use Maris Otter (2.5-4L) but only at 50%. 9. Use high-protein adjuncts: High-protein adjuncts like wheat malt (1.5-2.4L) and flaked oats (1-1.5L) help provide a silky/rich mouthfeel without increasing the final gravity and making the beer too heavy or too full bodied. 10, Do not filter or use finings: You want to keep as much stuff in suspension as you can as it's binding with the flavorful hop oils we want to retain. 

Now let's put those tips to use.  First my all grain recipe for Boomer IPA , below that is an extract recipe for my Juice Bombs Away IPA..

Boomer IPA

OG: 1.058

FG: 1.012

IBUs: 44

ABV: 6.0% 

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) 2-row malt

2.5 lb (1133 g) red wheat

1.25 lb (567 g) flaked wheat

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.10 oz (3 g) Magnum at first wort hopping

1 oz (28 g) Citra at whirlpool

1 oz (28 g) Mosaic at whirlpool

2 oz (57 g) Citra at dry hop (4 days) 

2 oz (57 g) Mosaic at dry hop (4 days)

YEAST

Safale S-04

DIRECTIONS

Mash 60 minutes at 150°F (66°C). Collect 6.5 gallons (24.6 liters) and boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule. Chill to 65°F (18°C) and pitch healthy yeast. Let the fermentation free rise to 68°F (20°C). After fermentation has ended, dry hop for 4 days then cold crash to 34°F (1°C). Force carbonate to 2.4 volumes of CO2.

-----------------------------

Juice Bombs Away - NEIPA

EXTRACT

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.066

FG: 1.018

IBUs: 46

ABV: 6.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

9 lb (4.1 kg) wheat liquid malt extract (LME)

1 lb (454 g) dextrin malt

12 oz (340 g) Simpsons Golden Naked Oats

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.5 oz (14 g) Magnum [15% AA] at 30 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Galaxy [14.25% AA] at whirlpool for 40 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra [11% AA] and Galaxy [14.25% AA] at whirlpool for 20 minutes

1 oz (28 g) each Citra and Galaxy at dry hop, Day 2

1 oz (28 g) each Citra and Galaxy, dry hop in secondary

YEAST

Wyeast WY1318 London Ale III or White Labs WLP007 Dry English Ale

DIRECTIONS

Crush the dextrin malt and Golden Naked Oats and place them in a nylon grain bag. Start heating 4.5 gallons (17 liters) of water. While the water is heating, dip the grain bag in, swirling it to thoroughly soak the grain. Heat for 20 minutes without exceeding 155°F (68°C)—turning down the heat as necessary. Remove the bag and rinse the grain with 2 quarts (1.9 l) of 165°F (74°C) water. Take the pot off the heat and add the malt extract. Stir the wort until the extract is fully dissolved, then place the pot back on the burner. Bring to a boil, and boil for 30 minutes, adding the Magnum at the start of the boil. Then whirlpool for 40 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule.

Chill the wort to about 65°F (18°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment between 65–70°F (18-20°C). On the second day of active fermentation, add the first dry-hop addition. After 4 days, rack the beer to secondary and add the second dry-hop addition. After 4 or 5 days more, the beer is ready for packaging.

Feel free to substitute other tropical and citrus-forward hop varieties, especially if you can get some of the more interesting varieties from New Zealand or Australia.

Milkshake variation: If you are a fan of milkshake IPAs, substitute 1 pound (454 g) of lactose for 1 pound of the extract and add the lactose for the last 10 minutes of the boil.

=============================

Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I think it's a very special one.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Hello and best wishes for a joyous holiday season from here in Mainville, NJ at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  We have a great selection of beer with 20 taps and we serve wine, spirits, and unique cocktails. Our great pub style food is served all day and all night.   Come out and support your local brewery and bar.  We have both indoor and outdoor seating.  When you visit  be sure you ask for m, or even better, say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. As always if you have any questions just write me here at BeerNexus.

Now for something different (but still with beer) for the winter/holiday season I’m recommending you try Wassail.  Here’s my version of it.  You can use your homebrewed brown ale or just go buy any good one at your local store which is what I do since I don’t always have time for a special brewing session during this busy season.

This is a Charles Dickens-inspired Wassail, a traditional warming harvest cocktail. I'm a huge fan of making wassail or mulled ale in the winter. Wassail is most often made with spiced apple cider, but my version calls for a combination of brown ale and sweet, rich oloroso sherry—just as warming a combo and arguably even more complex and delicious.

While the drink is fantastic on its own, particularly for pleasing a winter holiday gathering, any leftovers can be reduced to make a syrup.  You can even share this recipe with friends who are not home brewers.  It's easy and fun.

Dickens' Wassail

Ingredients:

·   4 12-ounce bottles brown ale (such as Sam Smith nut brown ale)

·   4 ounces oloroso sherry

·   2 apples, scored

·   1 teaspoon lemon zest

·   1 long orange peel studded with cloves

·   2 cinnamon sticks

·   6 cardamom pods

·   1/2 cup brown sugar, packed 

·   Garnish: 10-12 apple slices

·   Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg

Serves 10-12.

1.   Add the beer, sherry, apples, lemon zest, orange peel, cinnamon and cardamom into a pot and simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes, until the apples soften.

2.   Add brown sugar to taste (about 1/2 cup) and stir until dissolved, then remove from heat.

3.   Divide among 10 to 12 punch cups or mugs, garnishing each with freshly grated nutmeg and an apple slice.

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Now this get back to our favorite beverage - beer!  How about something different to counter all the heavy, big ABV beers we have during the winter?  Here's my easy extract recipe for a Cream Ale.  Cream ales are easy to drink but not so easy to define. That’s partly because they’re part ale and part lager: Brewers typically deploy ale and lager yeasts, brew it warm like an ale, and cold-ferment it like a lager. The result is a refreshing, uncomplicated, and clean brew , with subtle fruitiness and a crisp edge to finish, and with slightly more bitterness than a typical American lager. A key note for the uninitiated: The “cream” refers to the beer’s silky mouthfeel, not the addition of any dairy product.  By the way, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a beer that’s delicious and thirst-quenching and doesn’t make you ask too many questions.

"Scream For Cream Ale"

Ingredients

6.6 lbs CBW® Golden Light LME  Extract, LME

Corn Sugar 0.75 oz

Cascade (5.0% AA hop)  -  60 min boil

0.5 oz  Cascade (5.0% AA hop)  - 20 min boil

1 vial WLP080 Cream Ale Yeast Blend

1 capsule Servomyces Yeast Nutrient - 10 min boil

Procedures

1.   Bring water to boil

2.   Remove from heat, add extract, sugar, and first hop addition

3.   Boil 40 minutes, add final hop addition

4.   Boil 20 minutes

5.   Cool to 66ºF, oxygenate wort

6.   Pitch 1 vial WLP080 Cream Ale Yeast Blend

Primary Fermentation: 1-2 weeks at 66ºF

Secondary Fermentation: 2-4 weeks

Fermentation Notes: Bottle condition or force carbonate

Alcohol by Volume: 5.3%

IBU: 16

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Finally for the all grain brewer here's my (formerly) secret recipe for Happy Holiday Ho-Ho Ale.  Enjoy!

This easy and delicious holiday ale will be the talk of any holiday party this winter, as the blend of spices, roasted malt, and orange peel will bring out the holiday in everyone, but the key to brewing this beer is in not overdoing the spices.  Repeat - do NOT overdo the spices.  

Ingredients:

10 lbs. 2 Row Base

8 oz. 90 L Crystal Malt

8 oz. 60 L Crystal Malt

6 oz. Chocolate Malt

1 oz. Black Patent Malt

0.1 oz. 5% Alpha Acid Glacier Hops for 60 minutes (5 AAU)

0.75 oz. 5.7% Cascade hops for 10 minutes

1 oz. 5.7% Cascade hops for 15 minutes

0.75 oz. 5.7% Cascade hops for 5 minutes

1 tsp. Irish moss for 15 minutes

2 packs Fermentis Safale US-05 dry yeast (or a starter). You can also use Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast or White Labs WLP001.

At bottling:

1 Tbs. Orange Peel, Bitter

1 Vanilla Bean

1 Cinnamon Stick

1 Tbs Fresh Ginger

5 oz. Corn Sugar (if priming)

Procedure:

Mash at 150°F for an hour or until starches are converted. Mash out at 170°F and sparge to kettle volume of 6 gallons. Bring to a boil and add the first hop addition. Boil for 45 minutes and then add 1 Tsp. Irish Moss. Boil 5 more minutes, and then add Challenger Hops. Boil 10 more minutes, and then turn off heat and add Cascade hops. Chill beer to 70°F and pitch yeast. Ferment for 7-10 days until fermentation is completed.

At bottling, make a spiced tea to add to the fermented beer prior to carbonation by following these steps:

1. Add a quart of water to a saucepan with the Orange Peel and cinnamon.

2. Slice open the vanilla bean lengthwise, open it up, and scrape the inside of the bean with a knife to get all of the good vanilla flavor. Add this and the bean’s husk to the water.

3. Peel and chop the fresh ginger. Add this to the water.

4. Bring the mixture to a boil then remove from heat and steep for 10-15 minutes.

5. Once it has steeped, filter the liquid out of the remaining spices into a sanitized container (a sanitized French press is ideal for straining solids).

Some brewers may feel confident in adding the entire amount of the tea to their beer at this point, but in order to prevent over-spicing the beer, it is better to build small samples of spiced beer and then use some basic math to scale the quantity up to the full batch size.

1. Measure out 100 mL of the finished beer and add this three clean glasses.

2. Measure out some varying amounts of spice to add to the samples. Typically, I use 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 mL in each respective 100 mL sample.

3. Once you have added the spice tea to the 100mL samples, taste them from least spiced to most spiced, and decide which version tastes the best to you.

4. Once you have that ratio, scale the preferred amount up to suit your five gallon recipe. If you aren’t sure which of two versions you like more, split the difference and use that number.

To scale the number of mL per 100mL sample to the number of cups per 5 gallon batch, you can simply multiply the mL of spice tea by 0.8 to get the number of cups to add to the 5 gallon batch. I’ve done the math for three sample sizes below:

• 1.5mL x 0.8 = 1.2 cups per 5 gallons

• 2.5mL x 0.8 = 2.0 cups per 5 gallons

• 3.5mL x 0.8 = 2.8 cups per 5 gallons

So, you would add 2.8 cups of spice tea to the five gallon batch if you liked the 3.5 mL sample best.

Once the spices are added, you can force carbonate in the keg or add the priming sugar for bottling, and then package your beer.   Happy brewing and drinking!

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I think it's a very special one.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!

Hello from Mainville, NJ  here at Brooks Brewery at the Northside Lounge.  We're proceeding along in  expanding our entire brewing system that was flooded out with storm Ida.  I hope we will be fully operational soon making more great Brooks beer than ever before.  Come out and support your local brewery and bar.  We have both indoor and outdoor seating.  When you visit  be sure you ask for m, or even better, say hello to our award winning head Brewer Artie Hanneman.  We both really enjoy meeting the readers of BeeerNexus. As always if you have any questions just write me here at BeerNexus.

First, let's try a SMASH beer this month. SMASH (single malt and single hop) brewing is a way to cut down on various brewing ingredients and appreciate what each aspect of a recipe brings to the table. There really is no better way to get to know your ingredients than using one at a time. As the name implies, SMASH recipes consists of one (base) malt and one hop variety, which can be used for multiple additions.  This style of beer can yield an excellent beer b While these beers appear simple, they can be very complex. 

Artie & Arnie's Session SMASH recipe

 This elegant single-malt-single-hop beer can spotlight any hop you want—in this case, Zappa, which can boldly express tropical fruit, mint, spices, citrus, and pine.  Remember you can substitute any hop you want for the Zappa. Be sure to use one you like since this a single hop beer.  Extract version follows the all-grain one.

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.047

FG: 1.010

IBUs: 38

ABV: 4.9%

MALT/GRAIN

9 lb (4.1 kg) two-row pale

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.6 oz (17 g) Zappa at 45 minutes [16 IBUs]

0.7 oz (20 g) Zappa at 15 minutes [10 IBUs]

0.7 oz (20 g) Zappa at 5 minutes [4 IBUs]

1.25 oz (35 g) Zappa at whirlpool [8 IBUs]

1.25 oz (35 g) Zappa at dry hop

YEAST

White Labs WLP001 California Ale

DIRECTIONS

Mill the grains and mash at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Lauter, sparge, and top up as necessary to get about 6.5 gallons (25 liters) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. Conduct a whirlpool: Stir for 5 minutes to create a vortex, then add whirlpool hops; allow 20 minutes to settle. Chill to 68°F (20°C), aerate, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 70°F (21°C). Add the dry hops after 4 days of primary fermentation. When fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized, crash, package, and carbonate.

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the two-row malt with 6.2 lb (2.8 kg) of extra-light dry malt extract (DME). Bring 5 gallons (19 liters) of water to a boil, then switch off heat, add DME, and stir until completely dissolved. Boil for 60 minutes, continuing as above.

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Here's one of my all-time favorites.  Here's your chance to make the pride of London right at home.  Extract version follows, at bottom.  

London ESB

Here’s on of my favorite recipes.  It will re-create the kinds of flavors you’d find at pubs all over England on any given day—a showcase of English malt and hops, pouring a beautiful brilliant jewel-toned orange.  It’s my London ESB.

Here’s how you do it  with all grain and extract (follows)

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)

OG: 1.051

FG: 1.012

IBUs: 35

ABV: 5.1%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

8 lb (3.6 kg) Maris Otter

8 oz (227 g) British Crystal (45L)

8 oz (227 g) British Crystal (65L)

HOPS SCHEDULE

1 oz (28 g) East Kent Goldings [5.4% AA] at 60 minutes

0.75 oz (21 g) East Kent Goldings [5.4% AA] at 30 minutes

0.75 oz (21 g) East Kent Goldings [5.4% AA] at 10 minutes

0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Goldings at flame-out

YEAST

Wyeast 1968 London ESB

DIRECTIONS

Mash the grains at 152°F (67°C) for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule.

After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 66°F (19°C). Aerate the wort with pure oxygen or filtered air and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 68°F (20°C) for 5 days, then allow the temperature to rise to 70°F (21°C) through the end of primary fermentation. Crash the beer to 35°F (2°C), then bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to just under 2 volumes of CO2.

IPS FOR SUCCESS

If your water is a bit soft, consider a 0.25 tsp addition of gypsum to the mash—this will brighten the flavor and crisp up the hop bitterness, both key features of the style.

EXTRACT VERSION

Replace the grains with 6.6 lb (3 kg) of light dry malt extract (DME) and 5 oz (142 g) each of British Crystal 45L and 65L. Steep the grains at 160°F (71°C) for 30 minutes, then remove the bag and allow to drain into the wort. Add the DME while stirring and stir until completely dissolved. Top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort. Bring to a boil and continue as above.

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Hope you all enjoyed my column this month.  I think it's a very special one.  Be sure to try all my recipes on BeerNexus and follow my brewing tips.  Hope to see you at the Northside Lounge for some great Brooks beer!

See you next month!  Cheers!