The Brew Blog Forum

Recipes :: Re: Interesting Ingredients

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:07:37 -0700

Hi Bob,

Adding the orange peel 10 minutes before the end of the boil should work. My first batch of my pumpkin ale didn't have much orange flavor, but I'm not sure if it's the amount I used, or the boil time. I used an ounce of dried orange peel and boiled for the full 60 minutes. I would think reducing the boil time would help, and maybe adding another ounce would too.

Good luck, and let me know how it turns out.

Rick

Recipes :: Re: Interesting Ingredients

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:57:23 -0700

By: Bob Stevenson

Hey !
I am looking to brew a WitBier and wanted to give it a orange flavor.... what is the best way to do this...I was going to add orange peels to the last 10 mins of the boil...If anyone knows the correct way to do this I am all ears....

You wisdom, experience and advice would be greatly appreciated....

Thanks
Bob B)

Recipes :: Re: Interesting Ingredients

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:54:29 -0700

By: Bob Stevenson

Tips and Guides ::

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:53:31 -0700

By: Bob

Thanks Rick,
I have a week until I bottle and then another two weeks before I can try it but I will let you know.
Bob

Tips and Guides ::

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:44:31 -0700

By: Rick+Rodriguez

Hi Bob,

Interesting question. Since I've never used maple syrup for priming sugar, I wasn't sure what to tell you. I asked a few friends, and here's one suggestion:

To figure out how much to use to prime with, you can compare it to corn sugar. Corn sugar has about 45 points per pound per gallon (ppg), while maple syrup has about 35 ppg. 45 divided by 35 is 1.29, so multiply that by the amount of priming sugar you usually use.

I hope that helps, and please let me know how it turns out.

Tips and Guides :: Maple Beer

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:31:31 -0700

By: Bob

Rick, Maybe you can help me.
I brewed an October fest and added a quart of pure maple syrup to the boil. Now I would like to add syrup when I bottle instead of corn sugar. This is supposed to give the beer a nice maple flavor but I can't find anywhere where it tells me how much syrup to add for a 5 gallon batch.
Do you have an idea?
Thanks
Bob

For Sale/Wanted :: Pin-Lock Kegs for Sale

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:12:57 -0700

By: Rick+Rodriguez

I have 2 pin-lock kegs that I would like to sell. I'm asking $25 for all each. I decided that having a mixture of ball-lock and pin-lock kegs are too inconvenient, so I'll also take ball-lock kegs in trade.

If you have registered as a member, you can reply to this post. If not, you can email me by clicking on my name and click where it says "Send Email".

Recipes :: Re: Interesting Ingredients

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:22:33 -0700

By: Rick+Rodriguez

Hi John,

I moved your article to the forums, I think it'll get read more here.

As far as interesting ingredients goes, I made a pumpkin ale, a Christmas ale and an oatmeal maple porter. The pumpkin had pumpkin (duh), cinnamon, nutmeg, and orange peels. The Christmas ale had ground clove, vanilla bean, ground ginger, honey, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The oatmeal maple porter had flaked oats and maple syrup.

And no, the Dawg Slobber Ale doesn't have dog slobber. The two dogs like to go take a nap while I'm brewing, so they weren't around to get any in it.

Reviews :: Phat Stout Taste Test

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:47:51 -0700

By: Rick+Rodriguez

It's been way too long to do this review, but I hope that later is better than never. My Phat Stout was a very good beer, one of - if not the - best brew to date. I found that letting it bottle condition for a couple more weeks made a big difference, and I saved (reluctantly) six bottles to age until next year. Actually, they may not last that long, but my intentions are to open one again next January. I've read in a few places that aging can round out the flavors, and the last few bottles that I drank seemed to confirm that.

I did save one for this review, and being a week into February, it's had that much longer to condition. For this review, I looked hard for some stouts from local breweries, but apparently, stouts aren't very popular. Or maybe I didn't look hard enough. Whatever the case may be, I found one from Clipper City Brewing in Baltimore, MD, and one from Mendocino Brewing, who has a brewery in Saratoga Springs, NY and one in Ukiah, CA. The Clipper City's offering is called Peg Leg Stout, and the Mendocino Brewing's offering is called Black Hawk Stout.

For starters, pouring into the mugs proved to be a little messy. I have three 16 oz. beer mugs, and poured a 12 oz. bottle into each. Both mine and the Peg Leg developed a head that over flowed the mugs, and the Black Hawk just peaked at the top, letting just a drop run down the outside. The Black Hawk's head quickly dissipated, followed soon after by the Peg Leg. I poured the three just before writing this paragraph, and mine still has about 3/4 of an inch of foam sitting on the top.

All three are very dark, too dark to see through the glass, so I don't know how clear they actually are. I held each up to the light, and no light passes through. I'm not an expert on stouts - or any beer for that matter - so I believe that they are supposed to be that way. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

The taste of the three are very similar, with a small exception for the Peg Leg. Mine and the Black Hawk almost taste the same, and could possibly contain the same ingredients. But looking at their website, they don't. They used Cluster hops, and I used Chinook, while we both used Cascade. The Peg Leg has a sweeter taste to it. It's not a big sweetness, but definitely a sweetness. It almost tastes like it could have some honey, but their site doesn't mention that. They do, however, suggest molasses and caramel, so maybe that's it. The Black Hawk, as well as mine, has a hint of roasted malts. I used roasted barley in mine, and that definitely shows itself. Mine also seems to be a little heavier than the Black Hawk, but not too much. Their website states that the Black Hawk has 5 % ABV, and the Peg Leg website says that it has 8 % ABV. I have no idea what mine has, but for anyone who knows the formula for calculating ABV, the OG was 1.068, and the FG was 1.018.

I have to say that my Phat Stout turned out very nice. I will be brewing this one again, and I hope to achieve the same results next time.

Ok, I need to go let the alcohol work out of my system. After drinking three beers at once, all within the time it took to write this review, I'm feeling very tipsy.

Recipes :: Mead - First batch underway

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:03:24 -0700

By: Jason+Colby

Mixed up (can't really say "brewed" ) my first mead last night using honey from the group brew last year. ~80% blueberry blossom honey, 20% wildflower.

It was going to be all blueberry, but I goofed up and put too much water into the fermenter to start with and. So, when I went to add the heated water and dissolved honey to the fermenter, I found that A) it wasn't all going to fit, and 2) it was going to be of lower gravity than I had planned on. (The underlying problem was that I forgot to take into account that adding honey adds volume as well as gravity points.) So, I brought some of the must back into a pot, heated it gently, and added some of the wildflower honey to get the total amount of fermentables up. I mixed this all up with the original must to homogenize and then moved about a gallon of it over into a separate container. A nice bonus is that the second container is clear, so that I can keep an eye on what's happening.

This morning I'm already seeing some activity on the surface of the smaller container, as well as bubbles in the airlock of the big guy.

I'm using Lalvin D-47 dry yeast and following the staggered nutrient schedule I found on this webpage: http://home.comcast.net/~mzapx1/ ("Hightest's Honey Haven" )

I know there are some very experienced mead-makers in the group. What kinds of yeast and nutrients do you usually use?