0 IBU 100% Brettanomyces fermented IPA

A Crooked Stave WWBG clone recipe

There are few things I enjoy more as a brewer and beer enthusiast than (1) randomly discovering a new brewery that makes excellent beer, and (2) being introduced to a new beer style or process that works out magically. My introduction to Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project gave me both.

I randomly stumbled across Crooked Stave while on vacation in Fort Collins in 2011, shortly after Chad Yakobson started gypsy brewing out of Funkwerks (another great brewery, if you don’t know about it). This was my first experience with 100% Brettanomyces fermented beers. The first two beers that I had from Crooked Stave were WWBR and Pure Guava Petite Sour. It was hard to believe – other than the fact that both were gushers - that they had gone from boil kettle to bottle in about 6 weeks time.

One of my favorite examples of this fast, 100% Brett fermented style is Wild Wild Brett Green (WWBG), a highly hopped, dank, tropical fruit bomb that when consumed fresh presents more like an IPA than anything else. I was intrigued and wanted to make something similar myself. Chad helped me design the recipe below. My recipe is almost entirely his recipe, except I substituted East Coast Yeast Brett blends for Chad’s proprietary Brett strains, and used Amarillo and Nelson hops instead of Galaxy due to the limited supply of Galaxy at that time.

 

WWBG (1.1) Amarillo

[Not so] American IPA

 

Type: All Grain	Date: 3/30/2012
Batch Size: 11.50 gal	Brewer: Luke
Boil Size: 14.73 gal	Asst Brewer: Eric
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Blichmann 20 Gal brewing system
Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0	Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 23.18 lb Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) (2.0 SRM) Grain 79.99 % 2.90 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 10.01 % 1.45 lb Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM) Grain 5.00 % 1.45 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 5.00 % 2.25 oz Amarillo Gold [10.30 %] (0 min) (Boil) Hops - 7.75 oz Amarillo Gold [10.30 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 7.75 oz Amarillo Gold [10.30 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops - 5.47 oz Amarillo Gold [10.30 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops - 1.23 oz Nelson Sauvin [12.20 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops - 1 Pkgs BRETT blend #1 (ECY) (East Coast Yeast #ECY04) Yeast-Ale   1 Pkgs BRETT blend #9 (ECY) (East Coast Yeast #ECY05) Yeast-Ale
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.065 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.065 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.18 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 7.18 %
Bitterness: 0.0 IBU	Calories: 290 cal/pint
Est Color: 5.7 SRM	Color: Color
Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body	Total Grain Weight: 28.98 lb
Sparge Water: 4.82 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Single Infusion, Medium Body Step Time Name Description Step Temp 60 min Mash In Add 36.24 qt of water at 162.8 F 152.0 F 10 min Mash Out Add 20.29 qt of water at 203.1 F 168.0 F
Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash with fly sparge.
Notes
3/30/2012: 0 minute hop addition was at flameout, Aroma steep addition was 15 minutes post flameout, and the hops soaked for 15 minutes before chilling to 67F. Pitched one carboy with ECY04, and one with ECY05 Batch size of 11.5 gal yielded closer to 10.5 gal (5.25 gal into each fermentor) due to the large hop loss. 04/10/12: 10 day gravity reading (with shitty, non-precise hydrometer): ECY04: 1.014 ECY05: 1.025 Transferred to kegs for secondary/dry-hopping. ECY04 dry hop: 35g Nelson Sauvin/60g Amarillo (waiting on ECY05 to come down in gravity before dry-hopping) 4/19/12: ECY04 removed dry hops and added 2nd dry hop (110g Amarillo). Put in keezer to dry hop at 39 degrees for 2-3 weeks. (check back on 5/3/12). ECY05 - Added 1st dry hops (95g Amarillo). Gravity was still high. Will give it through 4/29/12 before switching out hops. *Additional gravity readings were taken, but not recorded. I believe both versions eventually got down to about 1.007 before cold crashing. ECY05 was left to condition for an additional month before the 2nd dry hop addition was added.

Tasting Notes and Thoughts:

ECY04 - Aromas were mostly tropical (papaya with some pineapple) and citrus, with slight traditional Brett earthiness in the background. The mouth feel was medium with some dryness from the hop compounds. After a couple of weeks on draft, the flavors became integrated and more complex. The Brett gained more fruit ester complexity over time at the expense of the "fresh fruit" aroma.

ECY05 - This version went to my friend Mark's house, so I was less familiar with it and am reporting based on memory. I remember more (but light) barnyard notes, with slightly less tropical flavors - more in the direction one would expect from a beer fermented with Brettanomyces.

While I would not call either version an outright “clone” of WWBG, I would say that both were cut from the same cloth as the beer that inspired them. The propriety strains that Chad used in the Crooked Stave version were specifically chosen for their clean, low ester profile, and their fast attenuation. Galaxy hops also have a distinct aroma and flavor that is difficult to achieve with other hops.

Both of these test versions were good, but I preferred the ECO4 to the ECY05 for this style. It's cleaner and the Brett doesn't compete with the hops. This could have been due to the faster fermentation and quicker consumption of the ECY04, but I would say it’s primarily due to the characteristics that ECY05 produces (barnyard, horse blanket, etc.). Even in the original WWBG version brewed by Crooked Stave, I noticed a big change in the character from when I had it fresh to when I had it a couple of months later. The hops faded and complex Brett notes began to develop. Even so, the next time that I try something similar I will use a more fruit-forward Brett strain (e.g., Trois, BKY C2/C3).

American Black Ale (Black IPA) Tasting Notes

Even though I can drink, and even enjoy, a well-made American Black Ale (Cascadian Dark Ale, Black IPA, etc.), it's a rare day that I order one given a number of options to choose from. I find myself picking a quaffable APA/IPA if I am in the mood for hops, or selecting a porter/stout if I'm craving a dark, malt-driven beer. Roasted malts and hop aroma/flavors can be made to work together, but the whole isn't necessarily better than the sum of its parts.

Here are tasting notes from my American Black Ale that had 17 oz of hops in the flameout and whirlpool, and another 14 oz of dry hops. The recipe was designed as a 12 gallon batch, but I only netted about 9 gallons of beer, thanks to those thirsty hops.

My goal was to make an American Black Ale that accentuated the hop characteristics and downplayed the dark malts as much as possible. For the recipe, read the original post. Here's how my version turned out:

Appearance

It pours from the tap with frothy, cappuccino-like head that fills half the glass and then persists for over 10 minutes, leaving behind sticky tan lacing and a thick ring of foam that persists until the glass is empty. The beer is deep brown to black. When held up to a light it remains opaque except for a reflection that makes its way through the bottom of the glass, highlighting the beer's clarity. I don't typically think of dark beers in terms of their haziness, but this beer has none.

Aroma

Even after 2-1/2 months in the keg, a big hop presence leads the way, first with pine and cedar, then followed quickly with orange rind, dank and catty notes. Getting past the hops, a hint of fruity dark chocolate is present, but I'm reaching for it. The color makes me look for aroma characteristics that correspond to a dark beer. No sign of roast or toast in the nose.

Taste

Bright citrus hops are the first thing coating the front and sides of the tongue, followed by a flavor that I can only describe as reminiscent of a dark chocolate bar infused with pieces of orange. There's a lingering bitterness (more than I care for).

Mouthfeel

Medium body and dry, with a slightly oily presence, which I'm assuming is from the massive amount of late addition hops in the recipe. The hops cling to the back of the tongue, leaving behind a lingering dry astringency that substantially adds to the perceived bitterness. 

Overall Impressions/Final Thoughts

For the style, I'm happy with how this beer turned out. There is more hop aroma wafting out of the glass than I have ever encountered in an American Black Ale. The Midnight Wheat has done its job in adding color while contributing little to no roasted malt flavor. It still provides some dark chocolate undertones, but they are more muted than the commercial examples of the style that I have tried.

If it is possible to go overboard with hops, this recipe is living proof of it. Changes I would consider for the next attempt would be to reduce the total volume of hops (0.75-1.0 oz/gal), raise the original gravity (1.077-1.085), or both. The malt balance is great, but the astringency on the finish contributed from polyphenols in the hops is a bit over-the-top for my taste for a beer of this gravity.

Recirculating Dry Hops: Extract More Aroma Oil in Less Time

When I think of a good “hoppy” beer, my mind conjures up interesting aroma and flavor profiles. Bitterness units barely factor in. A hop forward beer that has lost (or never really had) aroma becomes a boring and uninteresting beer.

What if you could get more aroma oil extracted from your dry hops with less time? Would you do it? That question almost sounds rhetorical.

Early last year I came across an Indie Hops blog post titled, “More Aroma Oil, Faster: The Dry Hopster’s Holy Grail.” With a title like that, I had to keep reading. The post cited a study by Peter Wolfe and Dr. Tom Shellhammer at the Oregon State University Department of Food Science which compared the aroma/flavor potential of two dry hopping materials (whole cone hops vs. pelletized hops) and the effectiveness of two methods for dry hopping (stirred vs. unstirred). All dry hopping took place at 23.2°C (73.76°F). Both sensory analysis (a tasting panel) and instrument analysis (measurements of compounds) were performed on samples taken at 0.5 hours, 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 24 hours, 4 days, 7 days, and 12 days of exposure to hops.

Peter Wolfe’s thesis, A Study of Factors Affecting the Extraction of Flavor When Dry Hopping Beer, is published on Oregon State University’s website. I read all 92 pages of it, which took me a while because I found myself searching Google every other page to research a new [to me] unfamiliar term.  There were several interesting findings in the study. Here are a few highlights:

• Pelletized hops resulted in faster extraction and more hop aromatic compounds compared to dry hopping with whole cone hops.
• Stirring hops resulted in higher overall aroma compound extraction and more intense aroma perception than unstirred hops.
• Stirred pellet hop aroma compounds were nearly fully extracted after 24 hours.

“Say what? 24 hours?!”  (That was my reaction, anyway.)

Aroma, Aroma, Aroma

As pervasive of a practice as dry hopping is in modern beer brewing, there is a lot of confusion as to what is exactly going on during the dry hopping process. This gives rise to all kinds of practices and procedures for how to achieve the best results. This post is not attempting to address every aspect of dry hopping (bitterness contribution, antimicrobial properties, etc.). For that, I would recommend reading Peter Wolfe’s thesis as well as the book, For the Love of Hops, by Stan Hieronymus.  This post is only addressing the primary goal of dry hopping: aroma.

By far, the greatest reason that dry hops are used today is to add hop aroma and flavor (a combination of aroma, taste and mouthfeel) to beer. While other hop components (alpha/beta acids, polyphenols, glycosides and bio-transformed hop compounds) affect the overall flavor experience (see section 1.3 of Wolfe’s Thesis), the primary components of hops that directly contribute to aroma while dry hopping are terpene oils and sulfur compounds. The goal when dry hopping is to extract those compounds out of the hops and into the beer.

Most homebrewers follow a similar procedure to one another when dry hopping: steep the hops in fermented beer. Regardless of whether whole cone or pelletized hops are used, if hops are placed in bags or allowed to free float, or if the dry hops are added to the primary, secondary or keg, the universal practice for dry hopping at the homebrewing level is to allow the hops to soak in beer post fermentation without any form of agitation.

On the other hand, the commercial breweries that are best known for aromatically hoppy beers all use some form of agitation or extraction beyond simply steeping the hops in the beer. Dogfish Head, Russian River Brewing and Firestone Walker use a “Hop Cannon,” Sierra Nevada uses a “Torpedo,” and New Belgium and Stone use “The Slurry Method” (chapter 8, For the Love of Hops). Commercial breweries have efficiency and time constraint requirements that homebrewers do not have, but as Peter Wolfe found in his study, a greater level of hop aroma compounds are extracted through agitation.

My dry hop agitation setup

After reading Peter Wolfe’s thesis, I was determined to come up with a way to agitate dry hops at the homebrewer level. The first idea was to build some sort of false bottom stir plate for my fermentation fridge, and then spin a large stirbar in a glass carboy to agitate the hops (I still like this idea). However, I recently obtained a stainless steel conical fermentor and wanted to move my fermentation of hoppy beers to the conical. What I came up with was the following setup, which as it turns out is almost exactly the same setup that was used for agitation in the study conducted by Peter Wolfe (I ran it by him).

Below is a diagram (and below that, a video) of how I do my dry hop agitation. The setup is slightly different than what is pictured below. I do not own a Blichmann brand conical, and I use the standard inline head rather than the center inlet head. I’m also sans a racking cane on the conical at the moment. I would highly recommend one is used with this setup. Without a racking cane, hop matter will come through the racking arm port. It will require a significant amount of dumps from the bottom to get all of the hops out. I waste a lot of beer dumping hops out of the bottom before I have clean enough beer to rack to a keg. A racking cane will allow the tube to point up and out of the hop slurry so that clean beer can be racked without having to dump any hops.

Here is a YouTube video of my setup in action:

Continuously recirculating dry hops in the fermentor

What you’ll need

Assuming you already own a conical fermentor, to pull this off you’re looking at purchasing the following:

• (1) March or Chugger Pump (I use one that I already had)
• 3-4 ft of 1/2” ID tubing (I use silicone, because I can boil it before use to sterilize it)
• 4 connectors for the inlet and outlet tubes. Everyone’s setup is different, so this will vary depending on your configuration. My conical uses 1.5” triclover fittings, and my pump is 1/2” NPT, so I purchased:
  (1) 1.5”x1/2” barb fitting and (1) 1.5”x1/2” barb with 90° bend (I like the 90° fitting more because it can get out of the way, so I’d go with 2 of those if I did it again).
  (2) Blichmann Stainless QuickConnector - 1/2in. 90° Elbow Barb. For whatever reason, the Blichmann elbow barbs barely have any barb at all on them. The Blichmann straight barb fittings are much more grippy and in line with what you would expect a barbed fitting to be like, so I would go with those next time.
• (4) hose/tubing clamps (large) for the fittings

Non-conical fermentor configurations:

I have not attempted this in any fermentor other than my conical. I would like to see how other brewers approach this situation with carboys and Sanke kegs. If you have recommendations to share in the comments, please do so.

Carboys:

In addition to the stirbar idea that I mentioned above, a carboy cap can be modified to accommodate two racking canes, like this. You can then follow a very similar process to what I did with my setup. You would want to ensure the hole was not cut too large, because oxygen making its way in will be counterproductive to the goal of making an aromatic hoppy beer. If you would rather use a stopper than a carboy cap, Morebeer sells a #6.5 stopper with 2-holes, but the 2nd hole is too small for a racking cane, which means that changes would be needed. A ball valve would need to be added to this configuration to be able to adjust the flow rate of the pump.

Sanke kegs:

Before I purchased my conical, I used the Sanke fermentor kit from BrewersHardware. As with the carboy cap above, the blowoff hole could be modified to accommodate a 2nd racking cane.

Results to come in a follow-up post. Stay tuned...

Color-blind: An American Black Ale

Color-blind: An American Black Ale

American-Style Black Ale. That’s the name the Brewers Association has settled on in their 2012 Beer Style Guidelines for the artist beer formerly known as Black IPA, Cascadian Dark Ale (CDA) and India Black Ale (IBA) (as well as some lesser known variants such as American Dark Ale and Avery’s New World Porter).

First off, we can all drop the suffix “style” from the name, given its unhelpful redundancy (it is a style by way of its inclusion in a style guideline). That leaves us with American Black Ale (ABA).

When I first heard the new name, I was a little unsure about it. It’s generic and boring, unlike the paradoxical beverage that it refers to. It’s also descriptive and absent of any regional ties within the U.S. This is a subject that I won’t get into because it has already been argued by Matt Van Wyk in favor of CDA, and then rebutted by Greg Koch in favor of Black IPA.

ABAs seem to parallel their IPA cousins in how they are expressed regionally (I’d like to state my bias: most of the American Black Ales I have tried have been on the left half of the country, and to this date none that I have tried have called themselves American Black Ales).

In the Pacific Northwest, they hold firmly to the moniker Cascadian Dark Ale (a name reserved almost exclusively for this region), and generally have a more “balanced” Northwest approach to the malt/hop bill. Even if the beer is hopped to high heaven, in most cases there will be a distinguishing malt character supporting the beer. Pacific Northwesterners are not afraid to let a little bit of roast and dark crystal malts party in your mouth with the citrus and pine flavors of regionally appropriate “C” hops.

Just like how West Coast IPAs tend to be dry on the palate, lighter in malt character, ludicrously dry-hopped, and then dry-hopped again, Black IPAs from California not-so-shockingly embody the same characteristic as their IPA cousins. They just wear a black suit to the party. “Balanced” isn’t often used to describe a good example of a Black IPA from the West Coast.

It’s likely that the American Black Ale style will be included in the next revision of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) style guideline (used by the American Homebrewers Association), which is due for a revision if they keep with their self-proclaimed 3-5 year revision cycle (last revision was 2008). The 2012 Brewers Association style guideline (used at GABF), gives us the following description:

American-style Black Ales are very dark to black and perceived to have medium high to high hop bitterness, flavor and aroma with medium-high alcohol content, balanced with a medium body. Fruity, floral and herbal character from hops of all origins may contribute character. The style is further characterized by a balanced and moderate degree of caramel malt and dark roasted malt flavor and aroma. High astringency and high degree of burnt roast malt character should be absent.

The marriage of roasted malt flavors with the tropical/citrus/stonefruit hop flavors that I seek in an IPA, produce an ugly kid with an annoying personality. The flavors are not complimentary and detract from each other. For a dark, hop-forward beer to keep my attention, the roast, chocolate and even the darker crystal malt characteristics need to be subdued.

In my first stab at this style of beer, I took an IPA recipe that I’m familiar with and then added Midnight Wheat by Briess, a 550°L bitterless black malt that has the lowest “roast” character of any black malt that I could find. It was specifically created to limit the bitter, astringent and roasted characteristics found in dark roasted malts. The goal was to create a beer that would fool a blindfolded taste tester into thinking the beer was an IPA.

Color-blind: An American Black Ale
Batch size: 12 gal
Estimated OG: 1.067
Estimated IBU: 59
Estimated SRM: 31.7
Estimated ABV: 5.7%
Estimated total efficiency: 75%

Grain:
84.0% (24.76 lb) - Rahr 2-Row - 1.8°L
6.0% (1.77 lb) - Midnight Wheat - 550°L
4.0% (1.18 lb) Carapils - 2.0°L
3.0% (0.88 lb) Crystal 60 - 60°L
3.0% (0.88 lb) White Wheat Malt - 2.4°L

Hops: (all pellet)
60 min - 1 oz Millenium (15.9% AA)
10 min - 1 oz Zythos (10.9% AA)
10 min - 2 oz 7Cs (9.9% AA)
10 min - 1 oz Falconer’s Flight (11.4% AA)
10 min - 1 oz Amarillo (10.3% AA)
10 min - 1 oz Galaxy (14.0% AA)
0 min - 2 oz Zythos (10.9% AA)
0 min - 4 oz 7Cs (9.9% AA)
0 min - 2 oz Falconer’s Flight (11.4% AA)
0 min - 2 oz Amarillo (10.3% AA)
0 min - 1 oz Galaxy (14.0% AA)
+25 min - 1 oz Zythos (10.9% AA)
+25 min - 2 oz 7Cs (9.9% AA)
+25 min - 1 oz Falconer’s Flight (11.4% AA)
+25 min - 1 oz Amarillo (10.3% AA)
+25 min - 1 oz Galaxy (14.0% AA)
dry hop - 2 oz Zythos (10.9% AA)
dry hop - 4 oz 7Cs (9.9% AA)
dry hop - 2 oz Falconer’s Flight (11.4% AA)
dry hop - 2 oz Amarillo (10.3% AA)
dry hop - 2 oz Galaxy (14.0% AA)
dry hop - 2 oz Cascade (6.4% AA)

Yeast:
WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast (decanted 1.7 L starter +1 vial)

Mash:
50 minutes @ 152°F (Midnight Wheat added 20 minutes into the mash)
Mash out @ 168°F and fly sparge for 35 minutes.

Boil:
90 minute boil.
0 minute hop additions added at flameout.
+25 minute hop additions added after 0 minute additions had been whirlpooling for 25 minutes, then stirred in hop spider for 5 minutes with a sanitized stainless steel spoon before recirculate through chiller to drop temp.
15 minute rest to allow for settling of trub, then transferred to conical fermenter at 70°F. Conical was put in fermentor fridge and dropped temp to 64°F before pitching 2 liter yeast starter. Held at 65°F for 2 days before allowing to naturally rise to 67°F until completely fermented.

Results/Notes: (tasting notes)

• This was the first time since getting my mill that my pre-boil and original gravity readings were exactly on the numbers. I added the Midnight Wheat about 20 minutes into the mash to further reduce any potential astringency that might come from the malt.
• The hop bill on this recipe was big (38 oz). I’ve realized that for beers with massive hop additions, my hop spider isn’t an ideal solution for getting good extraction of the hop oils into the wort, while keeping the hops out of the plate chiller. I need to work on new solutions for future batches that allow me to recirculate back into the boil kettle while chilling (my ground water isn’t cold enough to go straight out, even in the winter).
• I seem to have found my limit for my continuously recirculating dry hop setup. 12 oz of hops in my conical chokes the pump. It also leaves such a large hop pile at the bottom of the conical that I can’t properly dump enough of them out of the ¾” ball valve before it clogs.
• I need a rotating racking cane for my conical that can be turned up and out of the hop pile. A lot of dumps were required before I could get hopless beer to transfer into kegs.
• I designed the recipe as a 12 gallon batch expecting I would end up with 10 gallons of beer. After hop losses in the kettle and several yeast and hop dumps, I netted 8.5 gallons of beer in kegs.

Tasting notes can be found at this post.