Stacey's Brew Blog
Brewing and drinking beer
SODA!!!!
Ok so a lot has happened sense I last posted. I made the sarsaparilla a few times over with mostly good results. Tried it with maltodextrin for mouthfeel, real vanilla, and a few other tweaks. All of that was in 5 gallon batches. As beer brewing keeps getting put off and 5 gallons of the same soda is a bit much I’m trying soda syrup. I’ll make a few cups or so of syrup and mix it with home carbonated water on a glass by glass basis. My first one is a lavender “lemon” soda. For the procedure I hobbled.together a few different things from around the internet.
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Ingredients:
.05 pound each of:
Lavender bosoms
Coriander seed
Lemon grass
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
A pinch of saltBreak up the coriander a little bit, not enough to powder it, just break open about 2/3s of the seeds.
Put the water and sugar in a sauce pan and heat. Once the sugar is dissolved add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes. Transfer everything to a French press. Pour the liquid into a heat safe jar, cap and refrigerate.
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Next time:
Only simmer for 10 minutes – the last one came out pretty dark and has an annoying caramel flavorReduce the lemongrass: it fills the pot so much I thought I wasn’t going to get more than a few drops out of the batch.
Add an acid to balance the sweet.
Sarsaparilla: round one
Force carbonating some sarsaparilla soda tonight. The tea I made from the Sarsaparilla and orange peel last night was good so I have high hopes. My recipe:- Roughly 2 tablespoons Sarsaparilla
- about a tablespoon of orange peel
- a teaspoon of vanilla extract (use whole vanilla bean when available, I don’thave any right now)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 5 cups waer
Bring the water to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Add sarsaparilla and orange peel. Boil for about a minute. Remove heat and cover for 5 minuets or until the tea is cool enough to sample with a spoon. Add the vanilla and sugar. stir to dissolve the sugar. re-cover and allow the tea to cool until it can safely be put in your carbonation vessel. My small batch carbonation system is made from a plastic water filter holder so it has to be pretty cool. Pressurize to 60PSI and shake until the pressure remains mostly constant. Refrigerate, pressurizing periodically. (My carbonation rig won’t fit in the fridge, just the filter part.)
I’ll try a sample when I get home from work tomorrow.
I’m thinking next time I’ll use more sarsaparilla, the non-carbonated version is not as potent as I had thought it would be… we’ll wee how it comes out.
Cape Ann Brewing: A Happy Visit
Bavarian Wheat: strong banana aroma, very smooth.
Fishermans Brew: Rich smooth… ooops I started another beer and forgot.
Fresh Hop IPA (Jackie): Really tasty. Citrus aroma; strong, clean hop flavor. Thinking about taking home a growler of this one.
Coffee infused pumpkin stout (Jackie): Smells like French roast coffee beans. Subtle squashy pumpkin flavor, strong coffee flavor. Three of my favorite things (pumpkin, beer, and coffee) all at once!
Navigator (the both of us, split even: 75/75): Toasty winter ale. Not what I usually get very enjoyable. (Jackie) Smother that the same in a bottle, without the biscuity taste. I like it better this way(Stacey)
Nachos: Thin crispy chips with mild corn avocado relish/salsa dipped in sour cream with cheese sprinkled on top. Awesome.
All in all a good time. You should come here with us next time!
Beer 4 – Jackies Beer – Recipe
Some poking around has lead me the make this recipe for Jackie’s beer (her comments and alterations to follow)
Jackies Route 113 IPA
Brewer: Jackie Email: – Beer: Jackies Route 113 IPA Style: India Pale Ale Type: Extract w/grain Size: 5 gallons Color: 14 HCU (~9 SRM) 
Bitterness: 113 IBU OG: 1.088 FG: 1.014 Alcohol: 9.6% v/v (7.5% w/w) Grain: 1 lb. American 2-row
1 lb. British paleSteep: 25 Min in a grain bag at 160°. Boil: 60 minutes SG 1.147 3 gallons 9.9 lb. Light malt extract
1 lb. Light dry malt extractHops: 3 oz. Nugget (12% AA, 60 min.)
2 oz. Nugget (12% AA, 45 min.)
1.75 oz. Cascade (6% AA, 30 min.)
1.75 oz. Cascade (6% AA, 15 min.)Carbonation: 5oz priming sugar boiled in 2 cups water. Beer 3 – Bottle, Condition, Consume
So, the corrected starting gravity of this beer was 1.0515 and the final gravity is, well I don’t know. I started bottling and was about half way through my bottling bucket when I decided to get off the floor and check my terminal gravity, unfortunately I had bottled more than planned and my hydrometer rested on the bottom of the bucket. Estimates on % alcohol content are in the 4-7 range, my personal guess being in the 6 vicinity.
Once bottled it took its sweet time carbonating – at the 2 week mark only a light sparkle was detectable, it took almost a full month to get to full carbonation. After a month of waiting, when we started drinking this batch regularly it matured slowly but very gracefully. Early bottles had strong Belgian yeast tones with an orange floral aroma while in later bottles, the smooth sweet orange flavor overcame the yeast.
When I make this recipe again I may use a different yeast to speed things up a bit and use more of the earthier flavors, angelica root and other spices yet to be determined.
Jackie is making the next batch, currently searching for an IPA receipt, watch here for her progress.
Cape Ann Brewing just around the corner,
Stacey
Beer 3 – Ferment
The beer started showing signs of fermentation in 12 hours or so with fairly rapid bubbles through the airlock. About a week and a half in, the airlock had slowed to a crawl and I finally found some new vinyl tubing (my old tube was too dirty to clean) to transfer my beer to my brand new (read: found on the street) secondary fermenter.
While transferring, I found a large portion of the yeast had floated to the top of the primary and smelled awful, but the beer below, flowing into the secondary, smelled amazing, like a mountain of oranges with sugar on top. I did my best to leave the floating yeast cake in the primary.
As I was advised in the brew shop, I topped off my secondary fermenter; it took almost 2 pints of water to limit the exposed surface area. Which it appears may not have been necessary. The transfer to the secondary reawakened enough yeast to overflow my airlock and now, after almost a week in the secondary, the airlock is going every three seconds like clockwork.
As I found the incredible reawakening of my yeast a bit odd I looked it up. Apparently WLP400 (the yeast I used) takes about 3 weeks to reach terminal gravity and many people recommended stirring it regularly which would explain the resurgence after the transfer.
See you on bottling day,
Stacey
Beer 3 – Brew day
time line bulleted process for this brew
- Clean
- Steep grain in 2.5 3 gallons of water at 155F for 45 Min
- Remove grain and come to a boil
- Add honey and malt extract
- Return to boil
- Add bittering hops (.5 oz Citra 11.1% aau) and .75 oz bitter orange peel boil for 15 Min
- Add one lb LDME
- Boil for 30 Min
- Add finishing hops (.25 oz Amarillo 8.7% aau) and boil for 5 Min
- Add crushed coriander (1 oz), remaining bitter orange peel (.25 oz), sweet orange peel (1 oz), lemon balm (1 oz – 1 cup of tea), and chopped angelica root (1 oz – 1 cup of tea)
- Boil for 10 Min
- Remove from heat and cool quickly
- Combine with 2.5 gallons of water in fermenter
- Measure gravity
- Pitch yeast
original gravity 1.05 at 75F
Beer 3 – Recipe modifaction/shopping
Went to the home brew shop today, swapped out some of the hops, and made a few minor substitutions in the grain, gonna start cleaning tonight and brew tomorrow.
This web page generated by The Beer Recipator.Wonky Wit V2
This web page generated by The Beer Recipator.Bard’s, gluten free beer
“Ingredients: Water, Sorghum, Hops, Yeast”
Tastes a lot like molasses (almost a little burnt flavor) but with a much smoother mouth feel, not nearly so thick.
wikipedia tells me
In China, sorghum is fermented and distilled to produce maotai, which is regarded as one of the country’s most famous liquors.
and
Sorghum is in the subfamily Panicoideae and the tribe Andropogoneae (the tribe of big bluestem and sugar cane).
witch I’m guessing is why it was chosen as a fermentable material to replace wheat, barley, rye and oats. Though I wonder if that would make this not beer but maotai. Also I’m gonna say the relation to sugar cane would explain the molasses flavour.
While hops are on the ingredient list they are almost non existent in the flavour profile leaving a very sweet sweet beer.
need to make a rating system for my reviews …. rating coming soon.
Reviewing (drinking) away,
Stacey