Simpler recipes. There's this overwhelming tendency to think that a complex beer must have a complex recipe, that a distinct beer needs a recipe that stands out. The thought is surely mistaken, and some of the best beers I've ever made have been ones with little distinctive about them. Consider my basic porter recipe: 81% pale malt, 8% chocolate malt, 8% medium crystal malt, 3% brown malt; hop it to 30 IBU with no finishing hops; ferment with a British/English/London type yeast. It's a great beer, but nothing about this recipe stand out, except maybe brown malt and what it leaves out. Even better example--weizen: 60% wheat malt, 40% pils or american 2-row, 15-20 IBU with any noble hops, german weizen yeast (I like white labs platinum series Bavarian weizen yeast). Also a great beer. And if you said to me "I already did that recipe, but I want to try a variation" I'd tell you to try either (1) a different weizen yeast or (2) splitting the wheat and pils malt 50/50 or 40/60. I wouldn't tell you to try adding 2 pounds of munich, and 3 oz. 15L crystal malt. I'm not saying that would be a bad beer, or even a bad weizen, but you shouldn't think that it's going to make a better weizen or a better beer just because it is unusual and would stand out in a stack of weizen recipes.

It's worth emphasizing that what stands out is often the amount of ingredients or process in the beer. Imagine a beers who's hop bill is 1 oz. chinook for 60, 1/4 oz EKG and 1/4 oz. Cascade at 40 minutes, 1/2 oz. EKG at 30, 1/2 oz/ oz Cascade at 20 minutes, 1/4 oz each at 10 and 5 minutes, and 1/2 oz. cascade, EKG and Amarillo dry hops. This beer immediately stands out to you. With good reason, you want to see what that tastes like. But do you have any reason to think that this beer will be better or more interesting that a beer that's hoped with 1/2 oz. Chinook for bittering, 1 oz each cascade and EKG for 30 minutes and 3/4 oz cascade and EKG dry hops? No. But I bet if you're a brewer, 3/4 times, you make the first one.

So my next several beers will be attempts to make something special without extra process. I'm going to chose a few grains that I think will make the beer good, and I'm going to choose them with a purpose in mind. I'm not going to try to make a beer that does ten different things in my mouth, which never, in my experience, makes a beer better.

Here's an example, a bitter that I just made (an 8.5 gallon batch): 12 lbs. maris otter, 1 lb. 60 L crystal, 1/4 lb. special B; 1 oz simcoe hops (12.2%) for 60 minutes and 2 oz. whole crystal hops for ten, fermented with white labs british ale yeast. Mashed at 151 degrees for 60 minutes (or there abouts, as I made a few adjustments while mashing.) If anything stands out about this beer, it's the small amount of special B and the limited use of hops.

Another example is a brown ale I haven't made (but hope to): 8 lbs. pale malt, 3/4 lb. 145L crystal malt, 1/4 lb. black patent; an English ale yeast; 25-30 IBU, no finishing hops.

Here's a dry stout (probably the next beer I make): 8 lbs. pale malt, .5 lbs. 145L crystal, 1 lb. roast barley, target to 50 IBU. Depending on how I'm feeling, I might add .5 lbs. of flaked barley for some head retention, but I don't know about that. I'm not really sure why I want the head on my beer not to settle.

I got a new kettle for Christmas.

The first beer I made was an IPA. Here's the New Year's Day 2010 beer recipe:

• 14 lbs. Paul's Pale Malt
• .3 oz. magnum, 14.4% AA, 90 min
• 1 oz. simcoe, 12.7% AA, 60 min
• 1 oz. East Kent Goldings, 4.5%AA, 30 min
• 1 oz. EKG, 10 min
• pinch Irish moss
• Safale US-05, from a starter

Mashed at 151 for 60 min, which caused about 10 degrees heat loss, raised 6 degrees and held for 30 more minutes.

I boiled off about 3/4 of a gallon more than I intended over 90 minutes. My final volume was about 4 and 3/4 gallons at nearly 1.084 OG. I'm hoping for lots of attenuation.

Wow, the world gets in the way. Many plans to brew have been written and scraped since I last posted. Finally, during a trying and troubled weekend (possibly the worst for brewing in months, but I couldn't have known on Saturday morning) I managed to make a holiday ale.

The goals was a well-balanced, caramel, nutty and bitter-sweet beer, sweet but balanced, complex and comforting. A winter ale for the approaching holidays.

The recipe:

• 12 pounds domestic 2-row
• 10 oz. 40L crystal malt
• 6 oz. Special B
• 8 oz. Victory Malt
• 2 oz. chocolate malt
• 1 oz. 8% UK Target pellets, 90 min
• .5 oz. 5% fuggles pellets, 30 min
• .5 oz 5% fuggles pellets, 10 min
• .75 oz. 3.5% czech saaz leaf, 10 min
• Safale S04, English Type Ale Yeast

My original gravity was 1.067. I had to stick my hand in the chilled wort, so I'm not wagering too much that this is really good because I'd say there's about a 25% chance of spoilage. I mashed at 151, bumped it back up to that temperature after 30 minutes, and after 20 or so more minutes, heated it to 161 to finish everything up.

I lost my brewing software and about three years worth of recipes when I forgot to backup before a re-install.

Looks like I'm doing my next beer old-school pen-and-paper style.

The plan is to make a nice pale ale that registers about 5.5% alcohol and a modest .75 BU:GU. So probably 1.054 and 39 IBU. I have no way to calculate color, which is good because worries about color inhibit making choices that focus on flavor and aroma.

Budgetary considerations force me away from Maris Otter malt, which from my LHBS isn't very good anyway (Warminster, not Crisp.) For this reason, I'm going to use a little victory malt to give it a slightly warmer than domestic 2-row feel. I've decided to try a small amount of dark crystal malt, 120 degree, but only 6 oz. I'm not big on full bodied pale ale, so I'm mashing at 151 and using white labs Dry English Ale yeast. My LHBS hasn't really caught up with the hop crisis (i.e., they're still in crisis even if the hop crisis is not) and has poor availability in many varieties. Something I've tried before and really, really liked was a small dose of Chinook for bittering. In large quantities, I find the bitterness of Chinook piney and assertive, but in small quantities, that pine becomes fairly subtle and enjoyable. I'm going to do Willamette and Saaz for the rest of the beer. Here's the total plan:

10 lbs. Briess 2-row domestic malt

1/2 lb. victory malt

6 oz. 120L Briess crystal malt

Mashed at 151 degrees for 45 minutes, then raised to 158 for 15 minutes.

1/4 oz. Chinook 90 min.

1/4 oz. Chinook 60 min.

1/2 oz. Willamette 30 min.

1/4 oz. Saaz 30 min.

1/2 oz. Saaz 15 min

1/2 oz. Willamette 15 min.

White Labs Dry English ale yeast.

That yeast, by the way, is going into the Next Week fourth aniversary IPA.

Wow, it's been ages since I wrote about beer. I'm still brewing.

This is a picture of someone else's beer. I would take a picture of my own, but then I have to bother with my camera, and this is just eye candy anyway.

I accidentally made an imperial IPA yesterday. Not quite accidentally. My intention was to make an IPA with a gravity of 1.075 which is the BJCP brightline between IPA and Double IPA. I boiled off about 3/4 of a gallon more than I expect and consequently I have a beer with a gravity of 1.086. I'm hoping this doesn't compromise the bitterness too much. 

The recipe: 

• 14 lb. Cargil 2-row, 
• 1 lb. Paul's light (10-20L) crystal malt
  
• 1 oz. Simcoe pellets, 13.2 AA, 90 min
• .75 oz. Amarillo leaf, 8.4 AA, 90 min
• .25 oz. some cascade a friend grew, 20 min
• .25 oz. cascade leaf from my LHBS, 7.4 AA, 20 min
• .125 oz. Amarillo leaf as above, 20 min
• .25 oz. cascade leaf as above, 10 min
• .125 oz. armarillo leaf as above 20 min 
• Dry hops, .5 oz. cascade and 1 oz. yet to be determined

Mash at 147 for 45 minutes, then raise to 158 for 15. 90 minute boil. White Labs Dry English Ale yeast.  

Commentary This beer is pretty close to my ideal hoppy strong ale. It should be very well attenuated and so not too heavy, should have just a touch of sweetness and solid malt character to provide a stage for the hops. The metaphor I use for Imperial IPA (and the pale ale family in general) is that malt is the stage upon which the hops perform. Some people like the building metaphor and compare the malt to the foundation. But this metaphor ignores the fact that the hops should be a lively show. Buildings are static. Good IPA is dynamic.

For my next trick, I'm thinking about an americanized strong bitter. I'll use american hops but likely british hopping rates. I'm thinking about a combination of cascade and willamette with three finishing hop additions, like at 30, 20, 10 and then lightly dry hopped, perhaps with 1/4 oz of cascade and 1/2 ounce willamette. I'll bitter with what ever sounds cost effective.

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I'm not trying to be picky about this: just the opposite. I want people to use this stuff as they see fit and it would be bad if some dumbass law about copyright prevented them from doing so.

I don't think I'll do any more 10 gallon batches. While this seems more efficient, it's really a pain in the ass. Half my system is sized for 10 gallons, but half is sized for 5, and the attendant frustration as my wort takes an hour to chill, the sparge takes an hour and a half, and the wort won't reach a good roiling boil is too much. I'm going to go back to smalller batches and pay more attention to craft and less attention to volume.

Today's brew went well. I'm still struggling with effiiciency, which I'm now supposing I should blame on insects that have been chewing my grain. Seriously. Oh wait, it didn't actually go well because whole hops jam my whole system to hell. I nearly kicked my kettle over when it wouldn't drain. Hop bags.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this IPA. I cut back the bittering hops to .8 oz. of magnum. I did the water Burton like, which with my local water just requires a bunch of gypsum (1.0g/L). No other pH control (another potential source of failed efficiency.) We'll see if the Burtonized water gives the good hop bitterness that it is supposed to.

I also skipped the aroma hops: just 60 minute and FWH additons. Also, the mash went like 147 for 30 and 158 for 30, no mash out.

I think for my next beer, I'm going to do a nice autumn brown ale.