Recipe Recap: #11 - #15

Today's Recipe Recap will cover brews #11 through #15. This was a dark time in my brewing - of recipes #9 through #15, my only success was #12. It gets better though, and I won't be discouraged!

#11, Harold-is-Weizen Hefeweizen
A disaster in a bottle. I overpitched the yeast from a previous batch. Since the yeast didn't get a chance to grow and produce the characteristic clove & banana flavors, this beer ended up tasting like nothing. Nothing except cooked corn, that is. I forgot to do a 60 minute boil. Since this has a significant amount of Pilsner malt in it, the DMS levels in the final beer were very high. To top it all off, this beer was so overcarbed that half of the bottles I opened were gushers. I eventually gave up and dumped more than half of the batch to make room for new stuff.



#12, Pliny the Elder clone
There were definitely some problems. The massive amount of dry hopping left the beer a muddy brown-green color that took weeks in the fridge to settle out. The carbonation was just a little bit higher than I'd have liked (it gushed while warm but was fine when refrigerated). The body was thicker than the original Pliny, so my next attempt will use less Crystal, more Dextrose and mash at a lower temperature. The dry hop was pretty long, so I ended up with a more 'raw' hop flavor, though it wasn't so bad as to taste vegetal or grassy. I also used Colombus as the main bittering hop, which lent a harsher, oilier bitterness that made it less drinkable.

On the bright side, this was still a tasty beer, and definitely the best I had brewed so far. I'll definitely be iterating on this one, and intend to try a more updated recipe from MoreBeer (as opposed to the 'original' old school recipe I followed). The new recipe uses less Crystal, more Dextrose, more CaraPils, mashes at a lower temperature, bitters with Warrior and has a very slightly different ordering of hop additions. It also dry hops for a shorter time. This should lead to a smoother, drier, more drinkable beer.



#13, Arrogant Bastard clone
On the bright side, this does taste pretty close to the original.

On the other hand...

I accidentally bittered with Simcoe instead of Chinook (shame, since Simcoe costs twice as much). Read the labels on your hops!! My evaporation rate ended up way off, so I finished with around a quart and a half of extra wort and missed by OG by quite a lot. Worst of all, I overcarbonated this one by a ton. There were no gushers, but the flavors came out incredibly harsh due to the level of co2. Letting the beer flatten by swirling it constantly helped the taste. There may have been some astringent qualities to it, but that may have been a sensory side effect of the carbonation.

Not terrible, but not a success either. The ones in glass bottles can't be helped, but I was able to release some of the CO2 in the plastic bottles to improve the beer.



#14, English Apple Ale
Ugh, where do I begin. Lots of problems here. Tons of astringency from the apple juice - I'll probably use filtered apple juice next time in the hopes of getting less astringency from the apple matter. "Earthy" english hop flavor in the Mr. Beer kit didn't go well with the apple (frankly, I didn't expect any hop flavor in the Mr. B kit at all). Over carbonated, just like the last several batches, which combined with the English malt and apple astringency to create a beer that is super harsh and hard to drink.

Next time, I'd use filtered apple juice, American two-row (or some neutral, light extract), a clean bittering hop with no flavor hops and a way lower carb level (2.1 - 2.3). I'm not sure whether I'd use English or American yeast on the next batch. I went too crazy on this one, and should have started with a simple, neutral beer that happened to have apple juice in it.

On the bright side, the apple flavor was noticeable and there was a good residual sweetness in the beer.



#15, Munich Madness Oktoberfest/Marzen
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. Sensing a pattern yet?

First off, I 'innocently' adjusted the recipe with more hops because I had leftovers. I didn't want to leave just a few grams sitting around in the freezer, so I'd have tossed them out. I used 25 gm of bittering hops instead of 20 gm, and 15 gm of flavor hops instead of 7 gm. Yes, I used more in my 3 gallon batch than the original recipe calls for in 6 gallons (14 gm).

Then, I ended up with way too much pre-boil volume because I hadn't yet figured out the impact of grain absorption. I decided to boil longer instead. I ended up with too little wort and instead of topping it off, I thought I'd just have a stronger beer.

Finally, it's slightly overcarbed but not too bad. It doesn't gush, but I'd personally prefer something around 2.4-2.5 instead of 2.8.

Tastewise, the Hallertau character is way too dominant. I'm finding more and more than I'm actually not a big fan of Hallertau, and the fact that I used more than double what the recipe called for in the flavor addition is really obvious. The beer is also too big, with an alcohol warmth due to the high ABV (6.9% instead of 5%!!). It isn't as drinkable or dry as the style calls for, it is hard to detect the 'toasty' flavors that the style is supposed to have, and there is a very strong caramel flavor that reminds me of the recipes in which I used too much Crystal 15. I'm not even sure I can taste the munich malt behind the strong crystal flavor.

This one might still turn out to be okay with some cold conditioning, so I won't call it a failure, but I also won't call it a success.




On the bright side, my beers start getting WAAAAY better at #16 and beyond...