BobbyFromNJ Part1 Brew Pot Build Project

A top notch homebrewer with some of the best videos on YouTube!

Bourbon Oak Stout

 By Matt..our famous contributing writer/brewer on Brewtoob

            Every now and then my cousin comes to visit. There are two things about my cousin coming to visit that are always true; he never calls and he always brings a gift. I wasn’t surprised when he showed up a few years ago in late fall (unannounced) in his fur hat carrying a jug of what looked like spring water.  [note: make sure you consult the laws of your country before accepting moonshine from your hillbilly cousin]. Anyway, there are places to order charred oak barrels in the internet. Shortly after my cousin’s visit, I sent away for one of these barrels in order to age the gift he’d brought me.

            Of course, to do what I’m suggesting you’ll need a source of unaged liquor. If you don’t have a cousin that lives in a mountain shack, use your imagination – I’ve even heard that some distilleries now sell unaged liquor precisely for this purpose. I confess that I’m ignorant in the ways of aging in oak barrels. For what it’s worth, though, the whiskey turned out pretty good. I bottled the whiskey and left the bung off the barrel so that it could dry a bit.

            But I digress.

           

            As soon as the barrel was empty, I was thinking about what beer I’d put in there to absorb that caramelized, woody, biting goodness. I had decided long before the bourbon was ready, that I would age some beer in the spent barrel.

            I ended up using a breakfast stout that I was brewing later that week. I suppose you could use any beer if you try something like this, but I would recommend something dark and strong; this method does not produce a subtle beer. You’ll want something that has a chance to compete with the woody bourbon taste, and a darker, maltier also beer will also pick up a nice sweetness from residual caramelization in the barrel.

I aged the beer in the barrel after fermentation had finished because I was worried about wild yeast and contamination. I worried for nothing in this case, but this is always a risk. After a couple of weeks I emptied the barrel into a bottling bucket, primed it with a smaller than average amount of sugar and bottled it. I waited a few months before I was bold enough to open one – I’d smelled it in the bottling bucket!

            The flavor of this beer is strong. If you don’t like whiskey, don’t even think about it. If you don’t like oak, don’t even think about it. I like both whiskey and oak, but I must admit that the taste is quite strong.  I like the beer I made, but I expect it would be too much for some people. On that note, I wouldn’t recommend more than two weeks, but my methods are hardly scientific. Furthermore, I suspect that if I used the barrel a second time, that some of the intense flavors might be muted on the second go. I’m not even going to try to guess the alcoholic content of this beer, but it warms with every sip. Give it a try!

Yeast Starter/Yeast Harvesting Frequently Asked Questions | Beer Geek Na...

Homebrew Wednesday Experiment Updates 3-27-13

This is a great idea! sjporr has proposed an international home brew experiment. He gives you a base recipe and you tweak it with your own ideas then ship it to other participants for a taste test! TimeForAnother1 (Australia and New Zealand) and Harrybrew69 (UK) both stepped up to help out in those regions.

Brewing Eats: A Big Salad Dressing from a Big Beer.

This is a great sipping beer but we couldn't help make something delicious with it. From a famous local chef Jeff Gompers and published by www.brewtoob.com, a most awesome dressing recipe for your next salad using Sour in the Rye:
 
Frisee and Beet Salad with Sour in the Rye Dressing

Serves 4 people

Salad Ingredients

1 large head frisee (or any kind of lettuce)
1 Large beet diced small (red or gold)
1/2 Cucumber skin on diced small
7 Grape tomatoes cut in half
2oz crumbled goat cheese

Dressing Ingredients

1 Shallot
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 Tablespoon honey
1 Cup vegetable oil
1/4 Cup cold water
1/4 Cup Sour in the Rye beer
Salt & pepper to taste

Method of Preparation

Salad

In small pot boil beet until tender, cool in a large bowl of ice cold water for 3 minutes then peel and dice small. Combine frisee, cucumber, beets, grape tomatoes and goat cheese in a large bowl.

Dressing

Rough chop the shallot then put it in a blender with garlic, Dijon mustard, honey, cold water and Sour in the Rye beer. Start blender on low to medium and slowly add oil then salt and pepper to taste. Lightly season salad and toss with dressing and enjoy. Cheers!

Counterflow wort chiller, build and test

Our latest from Down Under from Time4Another1

How to Brew Beer at Home: Start to Finish. Tips & Tricks. For the Beginn...

Say Goodbye to Sediment in Bottled Home Brew

HBW 69 - Taking Apart a Regulator - Detailed Kegging info

The Beginner's Guide to Making Home Brew

Homebrewing An All-Grain Black IPA With Scott (part 1 of 4)

Our most recent video from the crew at Albany Brew Crafters
 

Our newest video from Cigarfellas: Home Brew 101

Our newest video from Cigarfellas. Perfect for the beginner homebrewer!

Oatmeal Stout All Grain Recipe

Oatmeal Stout All Grain recipe by Matt Jones..home brewer and contributing writer for Brewtoob.
 

Ingredients:

7.5 lbs   Pale 2-row

.5   lb     Crystal Malt (60L)

.5   lb     Chocolate Malt

.5   lb      Flaked Oats

.25 lb     Roasted Barley

2     oz    Kent Golding Hops

1 pkg     Irish Ale Yeast

            This beer is my wife’s favorite. Every fall she will start dropping hints. When I start to see the flaked oats piling up in the pantry, I dust off this recipe. In the name of full disclosure,  I tend to shy away from excessively malty and excessively dark beers. This one is dark in color, and contains a fairly decent (and strong) malt bill, but the end result is a mellow, creamy, sweet and full of roasted goodness. It has become one of my favorites as well.

            This makes a great brew for the colder months, and it makes a great starting point for experimentation. Most recently, I’ve decided to branch out with this recipe. I used it as a base for my breakfast stout – I added some coffee to the beer and made it a oatmeal/coffee stout. I love it. I’ve also got less conventional with the recipe, adding things such a melted chocolate! This is a great bear standing alone, and a great base to hold up against other bold flavors. Brew it once, and go from there. Make it your own. It is sure to be a crowd pleaser every time!

           

            The first step is simple, and it will make your house smell great. Toast the oats on a baking sheet at 325 degrees for an hour and fifteen minutes. The oats will start to turn a golden brown and smell delicious. Remove the oats when you’re happy with the smell. It will become more nutty and intense as the process goes on, but be careful to remove the oats before they burn! I used the same process to make roasted barley.

            Roasted barley, generally speaking, is not malted. Malting refers to the process of germinating (aka sprouting) the barley seed. After the seed has sprouted, the seed is dried – trapping the sugars. Roasted barley does not undergo this process. I used leftover seed barley (I plant it as an ornamental grass – try it!) and roasted it in the oven. Not to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but you can also save money by buying 2-row in bulk and home roasting it to make caramel and other specialty roasted (or smoked!) malts. If you are the type of brewer that likes control of the process and starting from the most basic ingredients, give it a try. If consistency is your thing, you may want to shy away from this method.

            First step is to heat up your water in your mash tun and add the grains. I allowed for a protein rest at around 120 degrees. I think we allowed it to rest for slightly under a half hour. This rest will help your enzymes convert starches at higher temps. For the non-eggheads, it helps your mashing efficiency.  It isn’t necessary, but recommended.

 I also added some pH stabilizer – which I often don’t, but my friend had some sitting around. (I did this brew in a friend’s garage – try to brew with friends and you’ll learn twice as fast!)

After the rest, I raised the temperature in the mash tun to 165 degrees and allowed the mixture to rest for an hour and fifteen minutes. Heat up your sparge water. Drain your wort into the brew kettle. I heated the sparge water to about 170 degrees and sparged through a colander in order to minimize disturbance to the grain bed. If you’re wondering about how much water you should be using step to step, there are many calculators available online. This grain recipe is meant for a 5 gallon batch, but your water numbers may vary depending on your equipment (boil-off, etc).

I boiled for 60 minutes. I added a half once of hops at 15 minutes. I added a full ounce of hops at 30 minutes. I threw in some yeast nutrients in the last 5 minutes of boil, and I added the last half-ounce of hops at flameout.

Use a chiller or ice bath to cool the wort to about 70 degrees. Pitch the yeast. Oxygenate the beer (aka shake it up a bit). I only did a primary fermentation on this – I left it for two weeks at 65 degrees. I kegged and force carbed it, and was enjoying it soon after. I apologize that I don’t have gravity readings, but I’ve made this beer enough times that I don’t even measure. Assuming an 80-90% efficiency, you should end up with a beer in the 5%-6% range. Happy brewing!

Honey Porter Extract Recipe

Ingredients:

6.6 lbs LME

.75  lb Munich Malt

1 lb Crystal 20 Malt

1 lb Honey

6 oz Black Malt

3 oz Chocolate Malt

2.5 oz Golding Hops

Ale Yeast

¾ cup Corn Sugar (priming)

            A few weeks ago, my friend came over for a beer. This beer quickly turned into several, and our discussion turned (as it often does) to his farm. This year he’d added some top bar beehives. While I tend to shy away from anything that stings, I do love honey. Soon, he offered me some of his precious honey if I promised to return some part of it in the form of alcoholic libation.

            Although I do love honey, I’m often reluctant to use it in brewing. In my experience, meads take too long and my results rarely please me. In beer I’ve had similar disappointment. I find it tends to thin out the brew and that the taste and sweetness of the honey are fermented out.

            In the past I’ve experimented with several ways to remedy this – with results ranging from disappointing to disastrous.  Honey is delicate. Honey is fragile. Wild and unfiltered honey tastes better, but contains more wild yeast. Here in lies the problem.

            If you simply add honey to the fermenter, wild yeasts may (and have) take over the beer and (often) produce bad tastes. Conversely, if you boil the honey for 60 minutes, you’ll zap all the delicate tastes of the honey along with the yeasts. I’ve even tried back sweetening this porter with unfiltered honey; this resulted in exploding bottles. This made me shy away from the process.

            I have, however, through guessing, philosophizing and copious amounts of drinking, found a method that seems to satisfy me (and anyone that I hand one of my Honey Porters). My beekeeping friend agrees, although he’ll drink anything.

            Without further ado, here is the recipe.

            Start the process by chilling 2.5 gallons of sterilized water. Next, we’re going to steep grains. I always steep when I brew extract. Generally, I use an old pair of panty hoes, but this time (based on the amount of grain) I did it without a bag so that the grains could move around more.

            Heat slightly more than ½ gallon of water on the stove to about 165 degrees. When the water reaches temp (or close), dump in the loose grains and stir. You’re essentially making a tea. Think of this method as ‘loose tea’ while the grain bag method is ‘bagged tea.’ Let your grains steep for at least a half hour. Keep the temps between 140 degrees and 160 degrees. Use a lid, and goose it with some stove heat if it drops.

            While the grains are steeping, use a separate pot to warm 2 gallons of water to 165 degrees. When the grains are finished steeping, place a strainer with a piece of cheese cloth (or grain bag, or pantyhose, etc) over the 2 gallons of 165 degree water. Pour the grains and the steeped water through the strainer. The strainer should catch the grains.

Next, use a ladle, pitcher or mug to pour some of the hot water from the pot back over the grains allowing the water to drain back into the pot. This step, called washing, is not strictly necessary, but will help release flavor and add mouth feel to the finished product. I usually ladle (slowly) about a gallon of water over the steeped grains. Let the grains drain slowly, and never squeeze or press them!

Now it is time to crank up the heat. Add your malt extract and bring to a boil. Stir constantly to avoid scorching. We will be doing a 60-minute boil. Start timing when the wort starts boiling.

After it has been boiling for 15 minutes, add an ounce of your Kent hops. After thirty minutes of boil, add another once. After 60 minutes, remove the pot from heat and add the remaining hops.

Next, cool the wort. I used an immersion chiller, but a simple ice bath will work as well. Add the 2.5 gallons of chilled water (from the first step, remember?) to the fermenter. This will help chill the wort when you add it. Luckily, this is your next step. Combine the warm wort with the chilled water. Pitch your yeast when the beer is only slightly warmer than room temperature (or whatever the package says). I fermented for 10 days at around 67 degrees.

I put this brew into a mini-keg, but it is simple to bottle as well. To bottle, mix the sugar with 1 cup water and boil for three minutes. Pour the mixture into the bottling bucket and siphon beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. Cap and bottle. Enjoy in 2 weeks. Happy brewing from Matt Jones, home brewer and regular contributor to Brewtoob.

Worst Beer Blog Ever

A humble title to say the least and we mean the least. This blog is one to be reckoned with. Brewtoob peruses the internet for great home brewing videos but we also seek unique and special beer bloggers. You know, beer aficionados with the true love of fine brews, home brewing and something to offer the reader of good value. The Worst Beer Blog Ever fit the bill perfectly.

The author is better known as The Beer Baron. His big goal with this blog is to educate, interact with fellow beer enthusiasts and be a source for a better drinking experience.

You can also find him on twitter (@TheBeerBaron) and Facebook.  With an extensive background in the craft beer industry, taking the plunge to home brew and soon to be a cicerone, he has earned a place on our blogroll.

For those of us who understand that beer is everything that represents happiness, Worst Beer Blog Ever has it all.

Beer Education Links: For the serious beer advocate

Message Board: Advice from experts or those who think they are

Tap Hunter/Events: Golden nuggets around town

Magic Mystery Page: Bovice the puppy owns this for now :D

Awesome Beer Pics: Also called beer porn…very funny

Interesting Links/Related Blogs: A list of beer experts who are talented writers, unlike Brewtoob, that’s why we do videos :D

City/State Craft Beer Beer Guides: A work in progress but will be a gold mine for road warriors.

Archives by Category: Find it all here

Home Brewing: This is last because it is the best

Contact/Advertise: Let everyone see your site on a cool beer blog site!

But…no one can do it alone! The Worst Beer Blog Ever is looking for contributors. Spread your word, share your knowledge and get your name out there! Add more juice to your Google page ranking by logging in and contacting The Beer Baron with events, local beer guides, articles, recipes, advice or beer classes thus adding additional backlinks to your blog, Twitter, Facebook Page or website. And of course, the most important - It's great to be surrounded by like minded beer enthusiasts!

As The Beer Baron would say…. Kumpai!!

How to build a Sparge Arm

Brewtoob has 11 videos on how to build a sparge arm. We picked this one because of it's simplicity, ease of use, simple parts and zero moving parts which can easily malfunction.

The homebrewer is HomeBeerBrewery. An excellent homebrewer with 147 videos on YouTube featuring his techniques.  Highly recommended, his videos are well done and his process is clear and easy to replicate. You can also find him on Facebook.

The first video shows exactly how to build this particular sparge arm to custom fit your Mash Tun.

The second video shows the Sparge Arm in use. A nice video showing how he brews an all-grain. The Sparge arm in action comes up at the 8th minute.

Happy brewing and cheers!

DIY Kegerator

Building a kegerator doesn’t have to be a difficult project. There are dozens of good videos out there showing you how. Brewtoob has 31 "how to" videos on how to build your own kegerator. The following two videos show different techniques but work just the same.

This video was created by Doverworks. It features Steve from Riverwalk Brewing who shows us how to make a kegerator out of a freezer or old fridge. Steve’s own kegerator is a 4-tap monster. A nice DIY project.

This great video shows a completely different technique with an easy step by step set of instructions. This homebrew beer keg also features easy to add on beer taps similar to the one above.
How to build a kegerator the old school way! by Wilderness Outfitters of Appalachians.

Both of these videos and many more DIY projects are featured on Brewtoob. If you've got a few videos of your brewing experiences, upload them to our site and share your knowledge. Stop by and have a look and see what your fellow brewers are doing! 

Easy Belgian Tripel Extract Recipe

  -->

Belgian beers can be especially intimidating to the new home brewer.  They often have frighteningly foreign sounding names and complex tastes. The good news is that much of this taste, however, comes from the yeast. Yes, yeasts are the stars of Belgian style brewing, and (luckily) they’ll do most of the work for you. Belgian yeasts are fantastically complex – typically finishing with fruity and spicy notes.

If you already have a favorite Belgian beer, you may want to try harvesting the yeast from the bottle for your own brews. You’ll be surprised how much of the flavor is attributable to the yeast. For this brew, I used yeast harvested from a bottle of La Fin du Monde.

Furthermore, this recipe is as simple as any other beginner’s recipe with one simple caveat: steeping grains. I would always recommend steeping grains for in extract brewing. They’re a great way for a beginner to get a feel for dealing with less refined ingredients, and a fantastic option for anyone looking to customize an off the shelf kit.

Ingredients:

9.5 lbs Pislner stlye malt extract

.75 lb Belgian candy sugar (I’ve used table sugar with good results, too)

1 lb Carapils

2.5 oz Mt Hood Hops

Belgian Yeast (I recommend Wyeast 1214)

6 gallons of quality water

7.5 oz (for carbonating)

Additional Hardware:

A second fermenter for clearing and conditioning

Although I don’t always make a starter for my yeasts, I do recommend it for this brew. Start at least 24 hours before hand (if you choose to use a starter). There is a lot of work for the yeast to do here, and you want it to hit the ground running. If you detest starters, use two (or three) vials of wet yeast instead.

            Put three of the six gallons of water (in a sanitized container) into the refrigerator. Later, you’ll use this water to cool down the wort. Next, take your carapils and put it into a grain bag (pair of panty hoes, silk bag etc). Put the remaining three gallons of water into a five gallon pot, place the grains into the pot and put the heat to it. Make sure that your grains aren’t resting against the bottom of the pot.

            When the water reaches about 150 degrees, cut the heat. If you’ve got a lid for the pot, put it on. Allow your grains to steep for about a half hour. After the half hour has passed, remove the grain bag. Allow the bag to drain, but don’t squeeze! This will release more astringent flavors into the wort. Bring the wort to a boil.

            Once you’ve reached the boil, add your hops and two pounds of the malt extract. Of course, stir to avoid scorching. Boil for forty-five minutes before adding the remaining 7.5 lbs of malt and the Belgian candy sugar. Stir to integrate and boil for another 15 minutes.

            After the 60 minute boil has finished, place the pot into an ice bath until it cools to about 90 degrees. You can hasten the cooling process by adding the cooled water to a fermenter and mixing in the hot wort. This is what I did, but I used a plastic fermenter. I wouldn’t recommend this method for glass carboys – they’ll crack if faced with extreme temperature changes.

            At this point, you can take a gravity rating if you wish. I didn’t, but you should expect something between 1.07  and 1.08. This is a strong beer. Add your yeast and ferment at around 70 degrees.

Fermentation times may differ, but use gravity readings to tell when primary fermentation has stopped. Gravity readings measure fermentable sugars, and when you get the same number over several days, no more fermentation will occur without the addition of more fermentables.

When fermentation has stopped, transfer to a secondary fermenter. This adds time to the process, but it clears the look and taste of the beer. Allow the beer to sit in a cool, dark space for another two or more weeks. Bottle using 7.5 ounces of corn sugar, boiled and mixed into the fermenter before bottling. Make sure to use sturdy bottles, as this recipe is highly carbonated.

            This is one of my favorite beers to brew. I brew this recipe (or one close to it) often, but my family and friends are always drinking it as quickly as I can brew it. The basic hops/grain elements of the brew are solid, but (again) the yeast is the star. I use this recipe whenever I want to test out a new Belgian yeast. I can compare more readily in light of the fact that these ingredients are widely available and consistent in potency and quality. Feel free to experiment, and happy brewing. 

Another great recipe by Matt Jones..writer and homebrewer. Cheers Matt from the gang at Brewtoob!

Homebrewing 101

There are hundreds of homebrewing videos out there. Brewtoob alone has 1000 to choose from. If you're just starting, it's hard to dig through all the information out there. Brewtoob has found a few good ones though and has just started a new category called Homebrewing 101. Here's a  few top picks from that category that we just love. Tell us what you think!

This one is by the American Hombrewers Association. It's super basic and a fun watch!

This next video, "Homebrewing 101" was created by Tim Corkum and his son Cody. You can find them on YouTube. The homebrewer is Chris Compagnone who does an excellent job explaining each process step by step. A perfect video for the beginner.

These and many more videos about homebrewing can be found on Brewtoob. If you're a homebrewer and would like to share your knowledge, tips and DIY projects, Brewtoob can now upload videos from users from the desktop AND from all mobile devices and we would love your articles or recipes too! Promote yourself, your business or your site..Brew it, Shoot it (or write it) and Share it! 

Green Tea Pale Ale Extract Recipe

This is a great extract recipe contributed to Brewtoob by Matt Jones. Thank you Matt for sharing your knowledge!

Brewtoob is a video sharing site for the home brewing community. We'd love your videos but if you're camera shy, we'd love your articles! Spread your word and share what you know!

Green Tea Pale Ale (Extract)*

Ingredients

Fermentables:

6 lb LME

1 lb DME

8 oz Carafoam

2 oz Special B

Hops:

1 oz Magnum (60 min)

1 oz Centennial (15 min)

2 oz Goldings

Other additions:

1 oz Green Tea* (15 min)

2 oz Green Tea* (after flameout)

*Quality bulk green teas are better than the bags. I recommend visiting an Asian market or quality foods store if you are able.

Yeast:

Wyeast 1450

            I’ve been making wine, mead and beer for over two decades. In that time, my methodology has ranged in complexity from apple juice and baking yeasts to growing and malting my own Maris Otter, but I still enjoy a good extract brew.  Too often all grain brewers can look down on extracts. They contend that the process lacks complexity. In my experience, this complexity is lost only in the process of brewing – not in the end result.

The ingredients for extract brewing are only marginally more expensive than all grain (although the equipment required for all grain is considerably more expensive) and the final product tends to be more consistent from batch to batch with extract.  Extract brewing is also a huge timesaver. It’s a great way to test out new ideas on a small scale without spending huge amounts of money and time on a larger grain bill for a brew that you might not like. Furthermore, if you’ve only done extract brewing, this is a great recipe to take another (albeit simple) step.

First, you’ll need to steep the specialty grains. These grains are different than base malts (which need to be mashed to release the fermentable sugars). The Carafoam and Special B will contribute to this beer’s body and mouth feel, but won’t significantly contribute to end ABV. Specialty grain malting is an easy way to add complexity and customize an extract brew.

Start by steeping the crushed grains (i.e. add grains to a steeping bag or a pair of panty hoes and put into the water) in ~160 degree water for around 30 minutes. Steeping (unlike mashing) is less scientific. Don’t fret your temps too much - anything between 145 and 165 is close enough for jazz. I steeped the grains in a few gallons of hot water, opting to add more water afterwards to reach my preboil volume. Smaller amounts of water make the temperature easier to control.

After about a half hour, I top off the kettle to just under six gallons. Even with extract I prefer to do full boils. However, if you lack the room in your kettle, you can always use distilled or sterilized water added directly to your fermenter to reach the five-gallon mark. Always use the best water you can find –for this I used mineral spring water that comes from a warm spring a short drive from my house.

Add your extracts and bring the wort to a boil. When it starts to boil, add in your 60 minute hops. Stir constantly and make sure the extract isn’t scorching and the kettle isn’t boiling over. I use a spray bottle with room temperature water to cool down hot foam overs.  After 45 minutes, add the 15-minute hop and green tea additions and boil for another fifteen minutes.

When the 60-minute boil is over, cool down your wort. I used an immersion chiller (and used the hot water runoff to do a load of laundry), but feel free to use a sink filled with ice or whatever you can find – always be resourceful! When your wort is still hot (but not boiling) add the other two ounces of green tea. You want to make sure that the green tea isn’t heated to the point where bitter and astringent tannins are released.

When the wort is cooled, add to the sanitized fermenter. I just added the yeast without a starter (as I usually do,) but use a yeast starter if you feel you must. Add your dry hopping additions and ferment for a week at ~65 degrees. I also allowed two weeks for clearing and settling at ~50 degrees (in my basement). I kegged and force carbonated this beer, but obviously you can use corn sugar and bottle, too.

This beer is one of my favorites. Despite the fact that all the ingredients are inexpensive and readily available, the end result is something quite unique. The base beer is essentially pale ale – my favorite beer style. I feel the amount of green tea in this recipe gives a subtle under taste that you are able to find if you’re looking for it. It blends nicely with the floral attributes of the hops, and allows for a somewhat more refreshing finish. Still, some may find this brew somewhat bitter. If you dislike a high IBU pale ale, try adding only .75 ounces of Magnum when the boils starts.

Notwithstanding, feel free add or subtract the amounts of green tea – or even try this technique with other beer styles. The choice is yours and the possibilities are limitless. Happy brewing!

*NOTE: If you simply must brew this all grain, try the following rather than the DME and LME;

10 lbs of pale 2-row           

8 oz Carafoam

2 oz Special B

Matt Jones