Monday, December 28, 2009

Big, Two Hearted Clone Attempt

My favorite beer in the world is Bell's Two Hearted Ale. It is utterly perfect. Hoppy but with a big malt backbone. Effervescent and fresh. A nice thick head that laces all over the glass. And don't get me started on how much I love Centennial hops. This is the one beer that I can see no wrong in. Plus, at $2 a bottle at the Whole Foods bar on North and Kingsburry, I can get it whenever I want served perfectly in the proper glassware.

This was also the beer that made me want to start brewing. So, despite the easy availability, low cost, and expert service of Two Hearted at local bars, I have decided to try my own. After some time searching around HomeBrewTalk.com and a little tinkering on BeerCalculus.com, I think I found a pretty good recipe. But honestly, who knows. That is the fun thing about brewing:

9.9 lbs. Breiss Light-Gold LME
1 lb. Crystal 40L
1 oz. 9.2% Centennial pellets @ 60min
1 oz. 9.2% Centennial pellets @ 30min
1 oz. 9.2% Centennial pellets @ 15min
1 oz. 9.2% Centennial pellets @ 1min
1 oz. 9.2% Centennial pellets dry-hopped for 14 days in the secondary
White Labs American Ale Yeast
(I meant to add some Irish Moss at 15min, but spaced)

Can I mention again that I love that this beer is all Centennial? Awesome.

This was a really fun beer to brew, and it let me try some of my new techniques and equipment. Also, it taught me some new lessons. First, wow were there a ton of hops in here! So much that it clogged my new auto siphoning thief when I tried to take an O.G. sample. The hops also made the boil was really cool to watch; turbulent but rhythmic, but in my new 7.5 gallon pot there was never a risk of boil over.

Second lesson: it takes damn near an eternity to boil 6 gallons of water on a little gas stove. All told, end to end, this brew was a 3 hour process from first flame to sealing the primary. Not too bad I guess, but there was a lot of waiting around for water to boil. I guess my next upgrade will be one of those outdoor burners, which I can just hook up to my grill's propane tank.

Third, I should have sprung for bigger piping on my wort chiller, but that is all Home Depot had that would fit as a kit. The 5 gallon final volume took about 35 mins to cool to 75 degrees. Not to bad, but it could have been faster.

Also, things I am adding to my wish list: a metal paddle and a drilled ball valve on my brew kettle.

After just two brew sessions, this is starting to take over my life. And I love it.

Early Lessons and New Equipment

Brewing my first batch of beer taught me many lessons, some real and some imagined. Still, I have acted to correct each of them.

First, time heals all. Letting my beer sit longer in the bottles turned what I thought of as a sweet, somewhat watery beer into a more balanced (some would say dry) beer with a nutty complexity. So, I have now resigned myself to letting those babies sit until I cannot bear it any longer.

Second, doing a small boil and mixing with water in the primary leaves me feeling anxious. While it turned out a decent beer, I swear this technique made it watery and lacking a full mouthfeel. Thus, I have procured a 30 qt brew kettle to do full boil batches. This will also help me make the switch to all grain, which I plan to do quite soon. I already have my eye on an unclaimed water cooler in the basement of my building to become my mash tun.

Third, cooling off 2.5 or 3 gallons of water in the sink is hard. Even in an ice bath with a little siphoned circulation, it took forever. This may have also affected the mouthfeel, and when I go to full boils, the problem will only get worse. Thus, I have ponied up and gotten a wort chiller.

Well, actually, I went to the hardware store and built one. For about $25 and an hour of my time, I had a serviceable wort chiller. 20 feet of 1/4 inch copper tubing and 20 feet of nylon tubing, some hose clamps, a hose to tube adapter, and a sink adapter, and I was off to the races. We will see how it works with my next batch.

First beer - mild success

Beer turns out to be the perfect Christmas gift. After a few weeks of moderate work, my first beer, Midwest Supplies' Autumn Amber kit, turned out to be a fairly popular success. This beer was a pretty middle of the road amber ale:

6 lbs. of Gold LME
2 oz. Special B
8 oz. Crystal 80L
2 oz. Roasted Barley
1 oz. Hallertau @ 60 min
1 oz. Fuggles @ 1 min
Mutton's dry yeast

After 6 days in the primary and 10 days in the secondary, both at 68 degrees room temp, I bottled with priming sugar and put up. At day 7, I pulled a few bottles to put in the fridge. They definitely tasted young, not that I am sure what that means, and a bit watery. I wrote this off to the fact that I had such a small boil volume (2.5 gallons), and that I had to water that whole thing down. This may have been an incorrect assumption as after two weeks the beers have started to mature nicely. Totally different profile than at week one. Not as much water or fruity character, and much nuttier. I am serving a case of this at my NYE party, so by then it should be even better.

I gave this beer as gift to friends and family, and reactions have been fairly positive. Most of the crowd were occasional beer drinkers, more used to commercial brews. Their reactions were overall pretty good. Most liked that it was dry and not to sweet, although this is almost the opposite of my initial reaction (IPA fan). Also, they seemed to like the "complexity of this". What I was most pleased with was that lined up beside old standby Pilsner Urquell in the fridge, my beers seemed to be getting consumed at a 2:1 rate. Not bad for a first try.