Thursday, December 27, 2012

#42/50 NB Irish Dry Stout

1759 Guinness Draught logoThis is the Northern Brewer recipe for Guinness. This is Ireland's most popular and well-known beers, this stout has a pronounced roasty, coffee-like flavor and aroma, imparted by a generous helping of roasted barley.
Guinness (pron.: /ˈɡɪnɨs/ gin-is) originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803) at St. James's Gate, Dublin. A feature of the product is the burnt flavour that is derived from roasted unmalted barley. For many years a portion of aged brew was blended with freshly brewed beer to give a sharp lactic flavour and fatures a characteristic "tang". The draught beer's thick, creamy head comes from mixing the beer with nitrogen when poured.
Prior to 1939 if a Guiness brewer wished to marry a Catholic girl, his resignation was requested.

Lovely day for a guiness with bird and man
13A. Dry StoutAroma: Coffee-like roasted barley and roasted malt aromas are prominent; may have slight chocolate, cocoa and/or grainy secondary notes.
Appearance: Jet black to deep brown with garnet highlights in color. A thick, creamy, long-lasting, tan- to brown-colored head.
Flavor: Moderate roasted, grainy sharpness, optionally with light to moderate acidic sourness, and medium to high hop bitterness. Dry, coffee-like finish from roasted grains. May have a bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate character in the palate, lasting into the finish. Balancing factors may include some creaminess, medium-low to no fruitiness, and medium to no hop flavor. No diacetyl.
Mouthfeel: Medium-light to medium-full body, with a creamy character. Low to moderate carbonation. For the high hop bitterness and significant proportion of dark grains present, this beer is remarkably smooth. The perception of body can be affected by the overall gravity with smaller beers being lighter in body. May have a light astringency from the roasted grains, although harshness is undesirable.
Overall Impression: A very dark, roasty, bitter, creamy ale.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

#41 Stephen King’s - The Dark Tower - Graff (Cider/Wine)

I decided that I wanted to make a hard cider.  This sounded easy enough.  Get some cider and add yeast.  I decided to do research by sampling a number of ciders.  Well that didn't help.  I soon realized that there were a number of ciders that I didn't care for the taste.  I decide to read up on possible cider recipes.  This also didn't help.  There are a number of books on Amazon just on this topic.  I quit.  I then looked for the most popular cider recipe on homebrewtalk.com.  This recipe had 2k+ responses and almost 400k views.  So, that's how you got here.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graff-malty-slightly-hopped-cider-117117/
Graf is a strong hard cider or apple-based beer widely consumed in In-World.
Brandon O's Graff  
Captain Greencoat's Graff bottle label from Homebrew TalkSlightly malty, slightly hoppy, with some good apple flavor.  If you like a clean, malty, not too tart easy drinking cider style beverage then this is your drink.

Brandon’s approach on how can I make something that will taste good faster and also have body?

Brewing
Steep 8oz 60L and 1 oz (never more than 2 oz) torrified wheat (head retention) in .75 gallons of water @ 155 degrees for 30 mins.  (If you use cheap store brand juice, switch the 60L to 120L. Cheap juice tends to turn out a tad tart and this will balance it.)
Brandon O's HomebrewTalk profile picutre
This is not a picture of me.
Sparge with .25 gallons
(Option JG:     .5 lb 60L
1oz Flaked Barley
1oz Flaked Oats)

Fermentables 2lb DME (suggestion is for 1lb amber and 1lb light)
Hops .5 oz of Cascade (you favorite hops ( right around 6% AA, using 18.5% AA summit hops can take a month after kegging for strong bitterness to blend nicely))  WARNING! IF YOU ARE GOING TO CHANGE THE AMOUNT OF HOPS USED, MAKE IT LESS NOT MORE, it's really just too bitter with any more. (30 min)
Cool and add 4 Gallons of apple juice.
Yeast Nottinham or Safale-05 (Clean fermenting yeast)

Ferment 2 weeks at 64-68 degrees then keg or bottle.
VERY drinkable as soon as it is carbonate.  This will get better with 2-3 weeks of aging.

linkwithin_site_id 2127225

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