Foam Dome Tasting, &c.

Survey says ... not too bad! It is really a rather successful Irish-style stout that many of my relatives enjoyed while camping. Today, I think I'm going to bottle Mulligan ESB and fantasize about what to brew next weekend.

ESB, APA: Who Really Knows?

Tonight I bottled Foam Dome Stout and managed to get just shy of 24 full bottles out of the batch (the last bottle is about 95% full). I was actually surprised and impressed by this, seeing as when I racked it from primary to secondary I walked away and the siphon broke without getting the last bit of beer from the carboy; who knows, maybe this was a good thing.

I also racked Mulligan ESB from the primary to secondary and tested/tasted it. Its final gravity after the primary was 1.012; with its OG of 1.056, that leaves it about 5.7-5.8% ABV. I think I'll take another reading after the secondary, because while that seems like pretty good attenuation, it tasted rather sweet so I think the yeast can squeeze a little more out of it.

One interesting thing that happened when I tasted Mulligan was that it rather tasted a lot more like an American pale ale than like an ESB. In fact, it was almost verging on IPA territory, at least in aroma and flavor. Had I gone a little heavier on bittering hops it might well have ended up a solid IPA. Nomenclature aside (I'm keeping the ESB appellation for now), I was rather impressed at how well it seemed to come out. I was really afraid this one would taste "homebrewey", or otherwise have off flavors from using tap water, but actually I think it turned out pretty well for my first-time non-dark-malt recipe. Could it be I had brew karma from having Cole around? The world may never know.

More Seven-Eleven Feedback

Well, it turns out most people seem to like Seven-Eleven Porter. It was discovered at poker last week that it is actually quite good when mixed with Blackacre Butte #2. I think for the future that if I pared back some of the darker malts a little bit I could get a less oppressive, but still good, flavor out of the Seven-Eleven; it also needs to be a little bit more hops to counteract some of those roasty flavors.

I want to try to bottle Foam Dome today or tomorrow so that it will be ready sometime during lake week. Space will be at a premium, but I want to try to get, say, 4 bottles each of #2, #3 and #4 to have a side-by-side-by-side comparison.

I didn't get to brew this weekend, but I have been thinking about my next project and I think I want to do a witbier -- and maybe, if I'm feeling like it, rack it onto a few pounds of cherries in the secondary. Could be interesting.

Tastings

I forgot to mention in my last post that Cole and I did a back-to-back tasting of Blackacre Buttes #1 and #2. As expected, #2 was considerably more flavorful, but #1 was lighter bodied and way more reasonable as a session beer. As an experiment, we tried mixing the two together, which yielded a pretty good result with the best qualities of each brew.

We also cracked open a Seven-Eleven Porter, though it had only been a week in the bottle. Roasty, dry, a little astringent; it really tastes more like a stout than a porter. With its body, it could probably use a little higher alcohol content to balance out its utter darkness. More time will probably help it, too.

Mulligan ESB

On Saturday my buddy Cole came over and brewed with me. This was nice, as he has a wort chiller and it made the cooling process very simple. Perhaps next time I'll try going with *both* an ice bath and the wort chiller. In addition to the chiller, two more experiments were conducted with this beer: first, and probably foremost, I used tap water instead of bottled for this brew; second, I aerated the entire wort by agitating the carboy after pitching the yeast. It will be interesting to see the final results.

The Recipe:
10 lb 2-row pale malt
1 lb crystal 120°L

10.25 AAU (23g @ 12.5% AA) Galena hops @ 60 min
5 AAU (23g @ 6% AA) Cascade hops @ 15 min
2 AAU (10g @ 5.5% AA) Tettnanger hops @ 5 min

1 Irish Moss tablet @ 15 min

Wyeast 1968 - London ESB

Single infusion mash for 60 mins at about 148° using about 13 qts and sparged with ~180-190° water until I had about 25 qts for the boil.

OG: 1.056
Est. IBU: 54.1

The only odd thing which happened was related to my quest to increase mash efficiency. I took a sample of the wort pre-boil and got a gravity reading of 1.026, which seemed extremely low. In hindsight, I think I just took a sample from the top of my kettle after sparging without actually mixing up the wort; this would mean I just got the tail end and none of the early-mash goodness. My boil took me from 25 qts to 20, so I'm guessing my pre-boil gravity was actually more along the lines of 1.045, based on my measured OG.

Using 1.045 for my pre-boil gravity, I would have got just over 69% mash efficiency, which is right in line with the numbers I've been getting. My sparging at between 180° and 190° was an attempt at better efficiency, but it's hard to say whether the temperature made much difference, seeing as my efficiency is getting marginally better with each brew session. I think my next attempt should include trying to get a finer crush at the homebrew store.