All Grain Brewing: Legally Blonde (Belgian Blonde Ale)

Beer: Legally Blonde

Brewing Date: 02/05/2014

Brewing Breakdown

So the reason I brewed this beer was I wanted to try a Belgian Style, and had picked up some Clear Belgian Candi Sugar so thought lets give a Blonde style a crack. The name was coined by my roommate, who knows I am studying law and thought it would be fitting. 




Brewday Specifics

Anticipated OG - 1.066
Actual OG - 1.060                                         
Anticipated FG - 1.015
Actual FG - 1.013
Chilled







Mash (90 Minutes - Stepped Mash: 45°C for 15 min, 60°C for 15 min, 66°C for 30 min, 76°C for 10 min)

Variety	Grist %
German Pilsner	78%
Light Crystal	5%
Carapils	2%
Candi Sugar Clear (Last 10 min of boil)	16%

Boil (90 Minutes)

Variety	Time	IBU
Hallertau	60 min	20
Saaz	5 min	3

Yeast

Wyeast - Belgian Strong Ale 1388

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Dark golden hue, when held against the light it is extremely cloudy. 

Aroma: Up front smell of pineapple, ending with a funkiness of the yeast.

Taste: Firstly comes an almost fruit bowl like taste, with a hint of hot alcohol (which has mellowed as time has moved on), moving to a strong belgian funk at the end. 

Carbonation: On the high end of the scale, the head lasts forever on this beer.

Conclusion: That is the last time I ferment in a carbouy I previously fermented a batch of cider in. I think that is why there is a slight fruitiness to the beer. However, that said, the hot alcohol taste has mellowed over time and it is quite an acceptable beer. At 6.17% it is quite a heavy hitter, and my partner loves it, despite not usually liking Belgian beers. I am quite fond of it at the moment. 

Improvements for next time: Next time I would like to use a carbouy without anything but beer in it beforehand, and see how much fruity funk is actually coming from the Belgian Strong Ale Yeast. Further idea's is to actually make my own Belgian Candi Syrup, or even make a Candi Syrup of a half decent bottle of white wine that has had sugar added and reduced on the stove top. 

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All Grain Brewing: Beard Ale

Beer: Red Beard Ale

Brewing Date: 18/04/2014

Brewing Breakdown

Why did I brew this beer? 

Well basically it was for me and a good friend, to have something dark for the incoming cooler months. I wasn't trying to replicate anything here, it was really a mash up of what he said he liked, and what I thought could possibly work well together. The fact that my mate has a huge red beard also led me to attempt to replicate something with a slight red hue here, hence the CaraRed. This really was a throw together and see what happens type of brew. 

Brewday Specifics

Anticipated OG - 1.060                                         
Anticipated FG - 1.015
No Chill

Mash (60 Minutes - Single Infusion 67.5°C)

Variety	Grist %
Marris Otter	70%
Victory	28%
CaraRed	1.75%
Roasted Barley	0.25%

Boil (90 Minutes)

Variety	Time	IBU
Northern Brewer	90	12
Amarillo	15	11
Amarillo	5	4
Amarillo	0	0

Yeast

Wyeast - Irish Ale 1084

  

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HOMEMADE COLA

Beverage: Homemade Cola
Brewing Date: 10/05/2014

Brewing Breakdown

So there is a simple reason why I made my own cola, and it is in fact that the only place commercial mass produced cola belongs is as a cleaning product (Trust me your tiles and bench tops would never be cleaner). 

I also recently tried an organic cola that was made from the kola nut, which was really nice whilst dining at http://swampdog.com.au/ . Anyway, I digress, so I searched the internet far and wide to make a cola that would be made from easy to source ingredients such as your local supermarket.  

I also wanted to first make a small batch of syrup, once I have understood the ratio's and flavours I am hoping to have this on tap at my place. So below is the first trial recipe:





Recipe for Matty's Cola Syrup

Ingredients:

2 cups water
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 finely zested large orange
1 finely zested lime
1 finely zested lemon
2 teaspoons of coriander seeds crushed in a mortar and pestle
1.5 teaspoons of dried lavender
1 star anise section
1 vanilla pod spilt down the middle
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of minced ginger
1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon citric acid


Method: 
Dissolve both sugars in the water first, then mix in all ingredients and boil for 20 minutes. After this is complete cool liquid down (I used a water bath), separate the liquid from all ingredients (I used a Brew In A Bag for this), and then bottle and label. 

NOTE: you can either carb up your own soda water or buy some from the store, just add to taste, I have found you only need 1 part syrup to 6 parts soda water. 

Tasting notes:

The cola does not taste like coke first of all, it is absolutely delicious with the star anise (think liquorice) and vanilla coming to the forefront. Whilst the other flavours especially lavender play a role in the background. 

The colour is also very different from cola, and if you want to mimic that dark coke colour then you need to add a caramel colouring agent (which I won't be adding). 

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All Grain Brewing: Rye English Special Bitter

Beer: Rye English Special Bitter

Brewing Date: 20/02/2014

Brewing Breakdown

The inspiration for this beer came from a very good night (terrible next day) at Archive, West End Brisbane. The beer that sparked my curiosity was Sunshine Coast Brewery's Rye ESB, which had full on caramel and big malt flavour from the word go. 

So I scoured the internet, and to my surprise I found a clone recipe here. Unfortunately, my LHBS did not have any Caramel Rye, so I decided on the fly to use CaraMalt instead (same deal with hops, Brambling Cross were subbed for EKG).  

To start off, what can I say except that I unfortunately milled my grain way too fine (long story) this time resulting in a Stuck Sparge. This was a first for me, and led to sparging being very tedious and slow. However, that said we had delicious wort in the end!

Brewday Specifics

Anticipated OG - 1.060
Actual OG - 1.056
Anticipated FG - 1.016
Actual FG - 1.010
No Chill

Mash (60 Minutes - Single Infusion 67°C)

Variety	Amount (in grams)	Grist %
Marris Otter	5000	78%
Rye Malt	700	11%
CaraMalt	300	5%
Amber Malt	150	2%
Dark Crystal	150	2%
Chocolate Malt	150	2%
Total	6450	100%

Boil (60 Minutes)

Variety	Amount (in grams)	IBU	Time
Challenger (UK)	20	17	60 min
East Kent Goldings (UK)	34	17	60 min
East Kent Goldings (UK)	25	6	15 min
Brewbrite	4		10 min
Challenger (UK)	25	4	5 min
Total	104	44

Yeast

Wyeast - Thames Valley 1275

Tasting Notes 30/04/2014 

Appearance > A deep red amber hue, without any transparency.

Aroma > Subtle piney hop aroma, not full on, could be said to be lurking in the background.

Taste > Solid hit of malt upfront, with a blending towards minimal caramel flavours, whilst quite smooth there is a bitter kick at the end. 

Carbonation > At the low end of the spectrum, hanging on by a thread.

Conclusion > This is a good beer, it isn't a beer that is out there so to speak, approachable could explain it quite well. I was happily satisfied the other day with 3 glasses whilst brewing a pale ale, so I would call it slightly sessionable. However, I was slightly disappointed with only receiving a slight caramel taste which I was hoping to really make shine (which I would say was due to the missing Caramel Rye).  

Improvements for next time > It would be nice to see a version with Victory to bring that biscuit like flavour. Furthermore, possibly lowering the bittering addition of hops whilst bringing more IBU's through in the later additions to smooth out that perceived bitter kick. If I was to brew this again, I would be naturally conditioning and bottling instead of kegging. 

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