Also true for Barleywines. I'm enjoying Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale at the moment:
Posted on 11/11/2009 6:11:36 AM PST by Willie Green
PORTLAND, Ore. - Learning to brew your own beer in Portland, a.k.a. Beervana, would seem to be pointlessness personified. Yet 80 homebrewers and brewers-to-be spent a rainy Saturday morning doing just that in a stark warehouse warmed only by two boiling kettles.
"It's not pointless at all," said Michel Brown, a well-known Portland homebrewer who began making his own beer 38 years ago at the age of 17. He was teaching the advanced class in the back room at F.H. Steinbart, the 91-year-old brewers supply store. Steinbart regularly offers free classes such as the one Saturday.
"By brewing your own, you can make just the beer you want," Brown said. "When was the last time you saw an ordinary bitter on tap in a pub? When did you last see a 60-shilling Scottish ale or a peanut butter porter?"
He knows odd brews because he's made beers with ingredients such as ham and cheese; Bac-O-Bits; peanut butter and chocolate; and Nutella. His CXI Pumpernickel Ale is the 11th anniversary Widmer/ Oregon Brew Crew Collaborator beer, and yes, pumpernickel bread is an ingredient.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Too bad he couldn't taste it for four more years.
back then the drinking age was 18.
I’m just a simple ale lovin’ guy. All these half-arsed flavored beers really turn me off. Peanut butter flavor? Ham and cheese? Sheesh.
Home brewin’ ping
pumpernickle ale sounds pretty good
I like beer flavored beer. I don’t think beer should be sweetened with honey or cherries. I like the german theory - they can only use water, hops, yeast, and grain.
As for me, give me an insanely hopped IPA.
Cheers!
“As for me, give me an insanely hopped IPA.”
Me too! I love IPA’s. The advantage to liking an IPA is that very few people will drink your beer.
My German friends taught me that every beer from the local brewer contains a loaf of bread :)
Heh, pretty neat stuff. I experimented quite a bit in my homebrewing days, though it was mostly with specialty grains and a few adjunct fermentables (rice syrup, honey, etc.) I did one fruited beer - a cream stout with sour cherries that was rather nice. I also did a spiced ale with unsweetened cocoa that turned out decently, albeit with a bit of a lingering aftertaste.
My best brew, though, was a strong (around 9% alcohol) Belgian abbey-style beer. I used an excellent kit from Brewferm as a base and then added my own blend of grains and fermentables to customize it. The final product took about six weeks’ aging in the bottle before it was really ready, but man oh man was it gooooood!
BTW, there is a famous beer out of Bamberg (IIRC), called “rauchbier” (smoke beer) It uses smoked malt. Not my thing, but I think it would be good addition to a pot of barbecue sauce!
I too am glad there is a bit of experimentation going on even if many attempts result in poor brews. I’m just a beginner but I try to go to my local homebrew club and engage in peer reviewed research once a month.
Also true for Barleywines. I'm enjoying Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale at the moment:
Bump for later malty goodness suggestions...
Very true that.
One other recipe we tried was a smoked Heffeweisen. I cooked the wort over an open oak fire. It was a pain making sure we didn't burn it but the flavor was really, really good.
L
I finally got it through my head NOT to boil neither DME nor LME!
Anyone have ant experience using Peanut Butter (PB2) added to your wort?
Dunno if it should be boiled or just steeped???
Dick Gaines
**********
If done right, the honey in beer is eaten by the yeast to make alcohol, and is not merely a flavoring, which is simply a hook to make girls like beer.
The only drawback is that compared to regular sugars, honey can take as long as 12 months to be fully used up by the yeast.
That's why I do not brew with honey: I wanna get drunk next week!.
To use peanut butter in my PBS (Peanut Butter Stout aka Reeses Peanut Butter Beer) I take the jar of peanut butter and place a paper towel on it. It will gradually wick off the oil. Keep changing the towel until the oil is mostly gone and the PB is a solidified mass. Keeping it in a very warm place will help that.
Once the oil is all gone, toss the whole jar in. Sadly, unless you use a big jar, the flavor is hard to detect.
Add some chocolate malt in, even some dry cocoa powder and let it go. Do try to skim the oils off in the boil however.
Give it a shot Gunny, I think you will like it.
Hope this helped.
Cheers,
knewshound
ThankYa knewshound!!!
Actually, I had in mind using PB2 (powdered pb w/o the chocolate) in a Pale Ale or similar.
and hoping the pb wouldn’t darken it too much, just leaving a mild pb flavor...
Can you make beer with just DME? It looks like Beer Tang. The stuff in my local supply store has no directions, and my “cookbook” has it listed only as an extra ingredient. Would you just reconstitute it, pretend it was malt syrup and proceed from there?
Hey man, nows your time to get a lock on the treebark/cow manure molassis.
I’m with you.
If you plop down at one of my poker games with a gay peanut butter flavored beer, you’re liable to get yourself run out of there.
Domestic only for me.
I had never heard of powdered PB but that sounds excellent since it is the oils that you need to remove since they inhibit yeast growth and tend to put off flavors with hops.
Remember, since you are removing the solids and the oils, you will need to use a good bit to get any PB flavor at all.
Let us know how it turns out!
Cheers,
knewshound
Although you CAN make it with just DME, it might be a bit one dimensional. None the less, it WILL be beer. Perhaps just not as complex as you might like.
You might want to check out my link to Brewing 1A. It will fill you in on the steps that the poorly run brew shop left behind.
http://knewshound.blogspot.com/2007/11/homebrewing-1a.html
Use the DME exactly as I use the LME in the article.
Give it a shot, all you have to lose is 25 bucks for a kit. I suspect however that you will produce a pretty tasty brew :)
Cheers,
knewshound
http://www.bellplantation.com/
I’ve made beer from kits using LME. I guess I wasn’t clear - how much DME to how much water? The bags come in all different sizes and several different kinds, even a giant pail which I’m sure I could turn into another fermenter. Do I boil the water first and then add the DME, or mix together and then boil?
What I’m thinking about is trying to do some different hops and yeast tests, and if I used just plain DME, that would eliminate one variable entirely. I’m thinking about a five-gallon batch divided into 5 one-gallon jugs. My local homebrewing club meets at a time and place that just doesn’t work for me, so I have to get all my information on line.
You will typically find that most recipes using DME call for somewhere near 6 lbs (more or less) per 5 gallon batch. Use DME in the same proportions as LME.
Add it to boiling water after you turn the heat off, stir VERY well, then put the fire to it.
Your idea of trying variations is a good one but you will have issues with the hops since the only real changes to their character happens during the boil. Adding them after will affect aroma only.
The yeast however is an entirely different matter. You will see dramatic differences in flocculation, clarity flavor and body depending on the strain you use.
I might suggest joining a dedicated brewing forum such as www.homebrewtalk.com or one of the hundreds of others for some excellent ideas and assistance.
Hope this helped.
Cheers,
knewshound
Beer Ping!
A low to medium ping list aimed at all of us who, well, love our beer…
FReepmail rzeznikj at stout or GOP_Raider to be added or struck from the list…
I was a Sam Adams Boston Ale fan (still am) but at almost $10 for a 6-pack, the American Ale is less expensive and mighty tasty. And I was ready to hate it when I first tried it.
The Coopers Bitters is in the bottle.
Pretty strong stuff, I had use some additional hops as it was brewing... I think a month or two should smooth it out very nicely.
Have 3 gallons of pasteurized, no preservative cider in the carboy now along with a London ESB yeast. Bubbling very good! Gonna let it go for another week or so, so it’s nice and dry!
Hard cider with turkey! Yum!!
An excellent beer thread - Thanks!
An excellent beer thread - Thanks!
I brewed a version of Lagunitas Brewerys Brown Shugga today. It called for more than a half pound of dark brown sugar. Naturally I added the full pound :)
The original gravity was 1.10 and it should finish about 1.025 for an AVB of over 10%.
YIKES
Cheers,
knewshound
If you are in Northern Calif by chance and would like to attend, please let me know.
***Northern Cal is a big place. Will it be near Silicon Valley?
and what flavour is yours again? stale urine?
Sacramento.
It is only semi-close :)
just ran the grain bill for my annual Holiday brew (tomorrow’s main event...)
1.10 OG?
YOWZA!
It is starting to finish now. I have been bumping the temp up one degree a day and it is 70 now. I will cold crash everything in my fermentation chamber tomorrow night ( I have 26 gallons fermenting at the moment ) and keg on Wed or so.
I love brewing weather !
Cheers,
knewshound
Got the batch mashed & batch-sparged this morning, then on hold til after dinner tonight.
“A watched pot never boils”? Well, an unwatched pot always boils over...missed it by about 2 minutes. So not too much to clean up, any way.
Back under control, now.
It’s always brewing weather here. If not on the covered patio, then in the adjacent bike shed (about a 1-car garage). It was snowin’ and blowin’ today, too!
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