Messages

316

All Grain Brewing / Re: Hops and malt.... a delicate balance

« on: August 22, 2011, 11:28:47 am »

But truly, like I said, you're done.  You're really just splitting hairs at this point, if it's that awesome already.

I don't want to say it's "awesome" already. I understand that once you hit a certain point you just start nit picking but I really do feel like I have some work to do on it to get it to the awesome level.

I like ideas of more munich and I have also been given the idea of trying aromatic malt in place of or with the munich to amp up the malt.

317

All Grain Brewing / Re: Hops and malt.... a delicate balance

« on: August 22, 2011, 10:56:51 am »

bittering level - In this particular bee, the IBUs were in the 50's so not overly high. And remember, this beer was the latest of many I have made where I have received these comments. I have received them on both very bitter beers, and what I would call, mildly bitter IPAs and Pale Ales.

Water profile - I have a high carbonate water so when I make and IPA I dilute 50/50 with RO water. My carbonates range in the 95-105ppm range during the seasons so I dilute down to <50ppm. I also add sulfate because my water ranges from 30-40ppm during the seasons. I add a few teaspoons of gypsum to the mash to try and bring the sulfate over 100ppm up to 150ppm. I have used the water spreadsheet provided by you Martin.

Malt - I have used many different types over the years. I find pils gives me the least amount of "maltiness" and I don't use it in IPAs meant for a competition just for that reason. I also use a lot of Canada Pale Ale malt and Breiss Pale Ale malt as my base malt for IPAs. I have also tweaked my recipes over the years to use less and less crystal malts. I usually end up with and IPA around 6-8 SRM now. I find I prefer this flavor profile better.

Thanks

You call that high?  Man, I wish I had that water!  Flint's water comes from Lake Huron IIRC.

WIth Bru'nwater, I have been within 0.1 pH most times, once was within 0.2.  Always good to check, though.

Yeah, Flint's water comes from lake Huron through the Detroit system. I called last month to shore up my numbers with the guys at the water plant and he gave me all the ranges through the year for our water.

318

All Grain Brewing / Re: Hops and malt.... a delicate balance

« on: August 22, 2011, 10:46:08 am »

Water profile - I have a high carbonate water so when I make and IPA I dilute 50/50 with RO water. My carbonates range in the 95-105ppm range during the seasons so I dilute down to <50ppm. I also add sulfate because my water ranges from 30-40ppm during the seasons. I add a few teaspoons of gypsum to the mash to try and bring the sulfate over 100ppm up to 150ppm. I have used the water spreadsheet provided by you Martin.

Do you check your pH after adding the gypsuum?  I add gypsum to the kettle for hoppy beers so it won't effect my pH.  I don't need it any lower, which adding gypsum to the mash would do.

I do Denny but I need new ph strips because my old ones don't register very well. I need to buy some colorphast strips. Would the ph affect the "maltiness" of the finished beer that much?

Also, because I know my water profile to start, and I use the water spreadsheet provided by Martin, I figure I'm very close to the ph that I should be. Am I making a bad assumption here since I cannot effectively test the ph?

319

All Grain Brewing / Re: Hops and malt.... a delicate balance

« on: August 22, 2011, 10:19:19 am »

Try it with the base malt switched to Maris Otter - I use that as my house ale malt and I usually score very well in the IPA category (40+)

I like Marris Otter but can't shell out over 20 dollars more per bag routinely. I might try that to make an IPA for competitions only though.

320

All Grain Brewing / Re: Hops and malt.... a delicate balance

« on: August 22, 2011, 10:18:24 am »

bittering level - In this particular bee, the IBUs were in the 50's so not overly high. And remember, this beer was the latest of many I have made where I have received these comments. I have received them on both very bitter beers, and what I would call, mildly bitter IPAs and Pale Ales.

Water profile - I have a high carbonate water so when I make and IPA I dilute 50/50 with RO water. My carbonates range in the 95-105ppm range during the seasons so I dilute down to <50ppm. I also add sulfate because my water ranges from 30-40ppm during the seasons. I add a few teaspoons of gypsum to the mash to try and bring the sulfate over 100ppm up to 150ppm. I have used the water spreadsheet provided by you Martin.

Malt - I have used many different types over the years. I find pils gives me the least amount of "maltiness" and I don't use it in IPAs meant for a competition just for that reason. I also use a lot of Canada Pale Ale malt and Breiss Pale Ale malt as my base malt for IPAs. I have also tweaked my recipes over the years to use less and less crystal malts. I usually end up with and IPA around 6-8 SRM now. I find I prefer this flavor profile better.

Thanks

321

All Grain Brewing / Hops and malt.... a delicate balance

« on: August 22, 2011, 08:25:54 am »

Okay friends and brewers, I need some help. I just got back my score sheets from the Michigan Beer Cup this year and once again my IPA received high honors (41.5 this year) but lacked one quality, balance. I hear this time and time again with my beers, IPAs especially. I need some hints, tips, tricks, or ideas on how to take my beer to next level.

What I hear from judges who blindly taste my beer in comps and from people who know me and are willing to give me honest feedback is that I have a clean tasting beer with no off-flavors and tastes great. There's just one thing missing, the malt. I hear many comments about the hoppiness is great and the flavors and aromas are good-great for and IPA but there isn't any malt to balance the beer.

A little background on my setup. I batch sparge using a cooler (bluish-grey color since that matters) and I do single infusion mashes. I usually boil everything for 90 minutes and will routinely do a 2 hour boil if necessary. I like to add 5-10% Munich malt in my IPAs to try and achieve that "maltiness" I am looking for but never really seem to get there. I have tried mashing anywhere from 149-156 degrees to vary my final gravity. I usually reach 1.008 to 1.014 for a final gravity on my IPAs.

If you need any more info before you'd like to critique my process or recipes just let me know. Thanks for all the help!!

322

All Things Food / Re: Jerky

« on: August 18, 2011, 07:00:55 am »

You could also try Alton Brown's method. He puts the meat on furnace filters and bungies those to the front side of a box fan and turns in out and leaves it for a few days. The curing of the meat in a salty solution will drive off any harmful bacteria that would have been present in the meat.

That's the theory anyways....

323

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: REally? A sweet IPA? please help

« on: July 26, 2011, 11:46:01 am »

OG:  1.070
FG:   1.013

That doesn't seem like it should be overly sweet too me even if you only had 30-40 ibus.

324

Ingredients / Re: Deformed Hop Plant

« on: July 12, 2011, 06:50:56 am »

Mine are the same. Because the spraying happened so soon in the spring they shot right through that and are big and bushy now. They're so out of control they broke the stake I have them attached to.

325

All Things Food / Re: BBQ Style

« on: July 11, 2011, 10:08:23 am »

I smoked some rainbow trout once, very nice, has a similar flesh to salmon.

326

All Things Food / Re: Fish Taco's

« on: July 11, 2011, 05:39:05 am »

Alton Brown had a pretty good recipe for fish tacos.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/fish-taco-recipe/index.html

They're more in the SoCal version but use tilapia instead of mahi-mahi (which I prefer) but the tilapia works well in this. He also makes a version of crema that I did not make this but it sounds delicious.

327

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: French Saison yeast quirky?

« on: July 08, 2011, 07:45:39 am »

I've had my saison I made with 3711 in the keg for alomst 2 weeks and there's not much clearing going on. I believe this yeast is a low floc-er.

328

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Ask Sierra Nevada’s Experts and win a trip to Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp!

« on: July 06, 2011, 07:09:48 am »

Here's a pic of the ad where the winners were posted.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/1aStEyb9jYW1qdr0cxeOJcQSh1ia3g09hEDL6g1FUfU?feat=directlink

329

Beer Travel / Re: Traverse City, Michigan breweries

« on: June 28, 2011, 09:14:20 am »

I've never been impressed with the beers from North Peak in Traverse city but I like their bottled beer. I think someone else brews it though. I agree with Jeff, Shorts is your best bet for great beer and the drive up into wine country is gorgeous. I wouldn't hesitate to Hit NP for food though, great food.

330

All Grain Brewing / Re: Tell me about Kolsch please

« on: June 28, 2011, 08:39:08 am »

You want pils malt for sure, preferably german but Rahr works well. Not briess.

 What's your reasoning for "not briess?" I've heard people don't like Briess pils and I have only ever used weyermann and best malz so I can't attest to why.