FOOLCiRCLE

So I brewed in the first time in like two months yesterday, and you know what, it felt pretty damn good!

So I took off from work yesterday for two reasons; (1) we don’t get a break from New Year’s Day to Memorial Day so I wanted to take a break, and (2) I wanted to brew, – bad. I’ve been digging around in my older grains and hops trying to take inventory of what I have so that I can use it up before I buy new stuff. Looks like what I dug up was enough to do six scheduled batches so far! I’m going to be working with two different yeast strains and running three beers consecutively off of each strain. First strain is White Labs WLP060 American Ale Yeast Blend, which I have never used, and second is WLP001 California Yeast, my fail-safe.

The WLP060 is supposed to celebrate the strengths of California – clean, neutral fermentation, versatile usage and adds two other strains that belong in the same  clean/neutral” flavor category. Homebrewers have speculated that it may be a blend of the WLP001, WLP051 Cal IV, and WLP810 San Francisco Lager but this blend has never been proven. The additional strains create complexity to the finished beer, and will taste more lager like than just WLP001. Hop flavors and bitterness are accentuated, but not to the extreme of WLP001 by itself. While the WLP001 is the most popular strain, famous for clean flavors, balance, and the ability to be used in almost any style Ale. It ferments dry and has a very nice, soft malt flavor.

So with the WLP060 I have lined up a Gold > Amber > Porter combo and with the WLP001 I have lined up a Pale Ale > American Wheat > ABA combo. Yesterday I brewed the Gold. It is really an American Pale Ale in style brewed with just a touch (1 to 232 ratio) of extra specialty malt to lend toward a more golden color, plus it was brewed with all Brewer’s Gold hops (which I have never used before), so naturally I had to try to accentuate the hop profile plus lend a gold characteristic, thus Fool’s Gold. This beer is very different from Pyrite for all you old schoolers. The Amber will be reminiscent of the Angler Amber Ale, but is not a reproduction with just about all aspects of that original recipe changing. And the Porter that will follow is very kitchen-sinky, a nice way to eat up some specialty malts.

With the WLP001 combo, which I’ll start with my second attempt at an all whole hop pale ale. The first was the Homegrown Mild about a year ago, and that turned into a hot mess. But now I have a Bazooka screen in the kettle I can use, so I have higher hopes. And with these higher hopes I am hoping that because of using all whole hops plus a “strainer” I will pull clearer wort because this pale ale will essentially be a five gallon starter batch for a twenty gallon batch of American Wheat that Garrett and I are planning. Then to finish the yeast off I am making a second attempt at our ABA we brewed in the past, not quite the same recipe but similar enough that it should be familiar.

Oh, FYI for anyone that is still interested, the Bazooka screen in the kettle with pellet hops DOES NOT WORK. It clogged solid in less then one gallon of extraction. Wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the problem so I went with my gut, sanitized my hand and arm for two minutes, reached into the kettle (cooled wort) and unscrewed the Bazooka and ran things as before. Sure I had other options, but that’s what I did, deal with it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Homebrew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.