First State Brewers Blog

My friend Brian and I got 2nd Place in American Brown Ale Category for the brown ale we brewed 20 gallons of some months back. I thought it was a very well formulated beer that had tons of flavor, and we did formulate it to fit the ABA style guidelines, so I am pleased and not entirely suprised that it placed.

I am trying to remember if Brian and I placed for any of our other beers other than the Gnarleywine (3rd place at Malt Madness) this year - I think the IPA could easily do well if we can get some carbonated in the bottles - which may have to wait until I put the second 5 gallons on tap next year. It will most likely taste a little different since we used the Safale S56 American Ale Dry yeast instead of WLP001, but based on prior experience I don’t expect it to be too different.

It has been a decent year for competitions - Those 2 joint prizes, and 2 other second places for my belgians (Abbey Brown and TnT), and a first place for the Choking Sun Stout - Not a bad year at all!

So here is what the judges had to say about my two entries in the Belgian Dubbel category:

Travelers & Tourists: 31.5 Overall

Judge #1: 31/50 (Recognized BJCP Judge)

Aroma: Malty aromas with plum ester, no hop aroma, light spiciness (6/12)
Appearance: Deep amber, thick long-lasting off while head, clear (3/3)
Flavor: Dark malt flavors, raisin flavors, no hop flavors, skewed to malt with a dry finish (14/20)
Mouthfeel: Smooth with high carbonation, low alcohol warmth, moderate body - dry but not astringent (3/5)
Overall Impression: Dark rich with all appropriate flavors. Bit rough of a finish, aging may help. (5/10)

Judge #2: 32/50

Aroma: Raisins, Marshmellow, Malty. Nice! (10/12)
Appearance: Brown with slight haze (2/3)
Flavor: Malt & rasins with malty finish. Alcohol evident, some heat in aftertaste. Spicy with some phenols, appropriate for style. (12/20)
Mouthfeel: Medium. Med-high carbonation, appropriate for style. (3/5)
Overall Impression: A very good representation of the style, however the alcohol heat takes away from the smoothness. Needs more malt dextrins for smoothness. Possibly aging this would improve it also. Well done! (5/10)

Malady Abbey Brown: 34.5 Overall

Judge #1: 34/50 (Recognized BJCP Judge)

Aroma: Rich malty aroma, cherry ester aromas, light spicy phenol aroma. No hop aroma, no alcohol or solvent. (8/12)
Appearance: Deep amber, thick long lasting off-white head, clear (3/3)
Flavor: Light malt flavor - may need a touch more flavor. Balanced to a bit sweet with a vanishing (?) finish (14/20)
Mouthfeel: Light body, smooth, no alcohol warmth, high carbonation (3/5)
Overall Impression: Great aroma but a bit light in malts. May need a bit more grain. Clean (6/12)

Judge #2: 35/50

Aroma: Malt, esters, clean! spicy (9/12)
Appearance: Copper, nice & clear! Looks good! (3/3)
Flavor: Malty sweet with some lingering sweetness in the finish. Alcohol is in background, where it belongs. A smooth finish that makes you want more. Possibly a bit high on the maltiness (15/20)
Mouthfeel: Medium Lign, I wonder if the gravity is on the low side for style. (4/5)
Overall Impression: Very clean, smooth, and correct style. Alcohol is soft and brew is malty. Good example of style, though more complexity would make this better. Possibly ferment a few degrees warmer, or use a more assertive / complex yeast. Nicely done. (8/10)

So there it is. Neither of my dubbels did bad, but they clearly preferred the Abbey Brown. I wonder if they drank the TnT earlier than the Malady, because when it is too cold its character doesn’t shine through as well. God knows, I am convinced that your placement in the sampling chronology and a bit of luck is a huge contributor to the scores - Go too early and your beer will be cold (maybe too cold), but the judges will be reluctant to give high scores because they don’t know what is coming next. Get shoved to the end, and the judges palates could be completely overloaded, and they’ll barely taste your beer.

My 3rd place for the Abbey Brown won me a free vial of White Labs and some Brewer’s Gold hops. No clue what we got for the Barleywine, but I’m not too worried about it.

I recently received an order from Libbey.com of their Poco Grande glasses which work remarkably well as tulip glasses for belgian beers. My dogfish glass bit the big one a few months back, and it has been paining me to drink my belgians out of wine glasses (I know, how snobbish). The Libbey glasses aren’t the perfect tulip shape, however they do not have crap printed on them and they were relatively inexpensive, so I won’t complain. If I wanted, I could even go out and get these ones printed or etched with a logo.

I am also entering a couple beers in Malt Madness with my buddy Brian. Two of them are my own (Travelers & Tourists and an Abbey Brown, both in the Dubbel category), along with a co-entry of our Saturday IPA and the Gnarleywine we brewed in October of last year (Which is fan-f’ing-tastic, by the way). I think Brian is also gonna enter some of his own beers - maybe the Hazelnut and another. I am interested in hearing some feedback on my belgians and our hop monster children… And hopefully I’ll be putting one of my kegs of it on tap here in the not-so-distant future.

No brewing this weekend for me - at least not beer. Instead I’ll be polluting my equipment with some dirty crustaceans - turns out a 14 gallon kettle with a false bottom is the perfect crab-steaming vessel too… Booyaa!!! We’re getting a half bushel of #1s to split between Donna, myself, one of my sisters and her husband, and my parents. While not brewing related, guarenteed we will be sucking down some suds to go with our crabs and I am using brewing gear to do the deed :-D.

…So this weekend I finally got around to doing something that I have been meaning to for some time - Building a test rig for the MPX5010GSX pressure sensors. You guys have already seen my temperature sensor test rigs in previous posts like Electromadness Continues, and I’ve had the pressure sensors for a while but have not actually done any testing with them yet. Instead I have been pondering how to proof the concept of pressure level sensing, and build accurate test circuits.

I built the mechanical portion, as shown in the picture. The 28 gallon (~100 L) kettle is included for a scale comparison. It consists of a plastic 1/2″ T, plenty of 1/2″ vinyl tubing, an old brass drain valve (long since replaced with stainless in on my kettles), and a wood support. This will let me test the pressure sensor with a very small amount of water, as opposed to filling up and draining 28 gallons at a time (not like that was ever even considered).

The circuit portion is going to require a little more time. First I need to find and purchase a 4 or 6 socket header that I can plug the sensor… I will run some wire back to a breadboard, and from there use my AD620 instrumentation amplifier IC to make it full-scale. I am thinking of taking it from the AD620 through a 12 bit SPI Analog to digital IC (MCP3202) and then to a 08M PICAXE chip. I haven’t worked out details, but I should have enough inputs and outputs on the 08M to bit-bang the SPI protocol and implement an interrupt / serial communication back to a master PICAXE chip when requested. If not, I’ve got a couple of the 14M chips that will definitely have enough power to do so - or I may even try playing around with the 28X1 and 40X1 parts that have native SPI support - haven’t really decided yet.

I also did some minor work on the VB.NET user interface - mostly getting the basic functionality for the “Designer” control to work. The biggest gap at this point dragging the pipe points around the screen, but I have a plan on how to do that. Cut/Copy/Paste is all working, the Zorder (bring forward/send back) is all working, as is shift-dragging and ctrl-dragging. Soon I’ll start work on the designer form (not just the control that displays and implements the changes). I don’t have any good / new screenshots to share, but I hope to complete a good quantity of work this week while on a business trip to Fayetteville. Once the workday is over and we’ve eaten dinner, I plan on locking myself in my room and working on the application rather than killing time, money, and brain cells in an overpriced and understocked pub. Seeing as Fayetteville is a military town, I do not have high hopes for the local craft brew scene.

Other things beer-related from this weekend:

• I racked 10 gallons of Witbier to secondaries, 5 gallons of which went onto about 5lb of cubed mangos (the “Mango Mama” witbier).
• I participated in the 2007 BUZZ-Off Competition and took 2nd place in the Belgian Dubbel category for Travellers & Tourists (TnT). My amarillo pale ale did well too (38.5), but did not place.
• I carelessly broke my favorite belgian glass (a Dogfish Head tulip glass, given to me by Sam Calagione at a book signing) and they are not made any more - DRAT!

The unfortunate demise of my tulip glass is most tragic. You were good to me - RIP.

This weekend I brewed the 10 gallons of belgian pale that I referenced in my last post - using the out-of-date Wyest 3864 Canadian Belgian strain that Joe and Marlana from HDYB had in their fridge. I propogated the heck out of it - stepped it up using almost a gallon (4 qts) of starter wort. I should have plenty of yeast for the next 20 gallon batch of TnT Belgian Red in a couple weeks. I am really hoping for good things from this starter batch too - I went a little wacky, as I tend to do from time to time. I used Magnum for the bittering hops (which is not wacky), but used Sorachi Ace for both flavor and aroma at 10 minutes and 3 minutes (1 oz per addition). This hop is Japanese, apparently from the Sapporo brewery, and is supposed to have a lemony character - and I thought to complement the hops, I would also add 0.5 oz of bitter orange peel (no big deal - 0.25oz per 5 gallons) AND over 1 1/2 oz of fresh chopped ginger root.

As it is fermenting, the ginger aroma is definitely wafting out the airlock. I just hope there is enough ginger character left in the finished beer that you can either smell it or taste it. We recently used more than that in a Teriyaki marinade, so I am assuming 1.5oz in 10 gallons won’t overpower the beer, but rather subtlely compliment the other “summery” aromas of lemon and orange peel. I thought about zesting some lemons and throwing that in the secondary, but that is probably too much.

The 2007 Buzz Off is this coming Saturday - I am curious to see how my 3 entries do. I am not expecting any ribbons, but since this is my first time entering into the belgian styles, I am interested to see what the feedback is.

…of the Worts XII!!! Yesterday I headed up to Keystone Homebrew Supply to make use of my $50 gift certificate for taking first in the Stout category. I walked out spending half that much again, but I got some good stuff. The gift certificate covered a 55lb sack of Pilsner malt ($42) to aid me in my lager and belgian brewing and a bottle of Belgian Candi Syrup ($8). The additional purchases were a second bottle of the Candi Syrup, a 6.6 lb bag of corn sugar, 3 lb of wheat malt, and a vial of WLP565 Saison yeast. I’m not sure it was really worth the 120-mile round-trip drive (which was probably another $14 in gas), but at least I redeemed the gift certificate.

Been doing a little work planning my next development steps for the sculpture interface. Every time I turn around I seem to think of something else I want to implement or a better way of doing something. I will post some pics maybe tomorrow. Right now I’m off to do a little coding and watch some LotR.