Home Brew: White House Honey Ale

My brother brought to my attention President Obama's homebrewing exploits at the White House.  One of his recipes was for honey ale.  As luck would have it, my friend Taryn has an apiary and we had discussed making a honey beer.  This seemed like too big a coincidence to pass up.

Here is the link to the original recipe:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/01/ale-chief-white-house-beer-recipe

I had to make a few changes to use up ingredients I already had, also substituted the yeast for something better (I think).  Here it is:

Steep for 30 minutes at 155 degrees:

8 oz biscuit malt

10 oz pale crystal malt

2 oz medium crystal malt 

Bring to a boil.  Add:

6 pounds liquid malt extract (light)

1 pound dry malt extract (light)

1.5 oz East Kent Golding hops (pellets)

2 tsp gypsum

After 45 minutes of boiling, add:

.5 oz Fuggles hops (pellets)

After 50 minutes of boiling, add:

1 pound honey

After an hour, I let it cool, topped it up to 5 gallons and pitched Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale

Mango hefe follow up

After letting the hefeweizen ferment for 2 weeks, I added the puree of 4 mangoes (heated to 160 degrees to pasteurize) and added them to 3 gallons of the hefe.  I let that ferment 2 weeks and then bottled.

The result was, as I expected, a nice beer, but with subtle fruit notes.  The mango hefe in Vegas must have used juice or extract, rather than fermenting the fruit.

The beer is still pretty tasty, although one of the bottles massively foamed up when I opened it, so I need to be careful...

American craft beer - top 50

A must read for fans of American craft beer:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/news/show?title=2012-best-beers-in-america

My precious...

Mango Hefeweizen

A few weeks ago Sith@Heart and I were in Vegas, and we stopped for dinner and a few beers at the Triple 7 brewery at the Main Street Station casino (downtown, not strip if you are looking for it).  Their beers were generally decent, but what really caught our attention was the seasonal - a mango hefeweizen.  It was excellent - if you are in Vegas and head to Freemont St. make sure to try it out.

So I am going to try and make one of my own.  The Triple 7 was so sweet I think they may have used extract or puree to add to the beer, as opposed to using raw fruit in the fermentation process.  I am going to try the raw fruit and see what happens.

First step - the hefeweizen.  I opted for a German style:

Steep 5oz Caramunich type 3 (60L) for 30 minutes at 150F. (steep in 1/2 gallon, sparge with 1/2 gallon)
Add 1.5 gallons water.  Bring to boil.
Add 6 lbs. liquid wheat malt extract, .8oz Hallertau hop pellets (4.3% AA)
Boil 1 hour.
After boil, cool, add water to make 5.5 gallons.
Pitch Wyeast 3333 German Wheat.

I am going to let that primary ferment for a week or so, then add mango puree to the secondary fermenter and see what happens.

Globe story - beer and food

Growing recognition of the wide number of possibilities that can be had paring beer with food.  Makes me simultaneously hungry and thirsty.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/trends/trends-features/beer-vs-wine-which-goes-best-with-food/article2419001/

Interesting article on homebrew set up

Thanks to iRob for this one:

http://gizmodo.com/5900668/the-home-brewing-laboratory-of-every-beer-drinkers-dreams/gallery/1