White Labs Specialty and Belgians Yeast charts

I received quite a response from my previous post providing a link to the Ale yeast charts I created.  I was asked to create similar charts for the other categories of the White Labs yeast strains.  I have just finished up charts for the "Specialty/Belgian" strains that I thought I would share.  You may see an extra file which includes the notes on each strain.  I thought this would be of great importance especially with the Belgian strains as specific ester production and flavors are an important factor in selecting yeast strains for Belgian styles.  I will try and get charts up here for the Lager yeast strains soon and please leave a comment if you would like similar charts for the Wyeast strains.

White Labs Specialty/Belgian Yeast charts

Please let me know if there are any errors and I will get them corrected.  I hope these are as useful to others as they are for me.

You can find the link to the Ale yeast Charts Here

White Labs Ale Yeast Charts

As a follow on to my previous post on Yeast selection, I have created some charts that show the yeast strain attributes and how they compare to each other.  The charts show White Labs Ale yeast strains mainly because that is what I use most.  I find that these are a nice way to compare yeast strains quickly and find the one with the attributes that I am looking for.  I Just wanted to share in the hope that these are useful for others.  I will also be creating similar charts for the other White Labs yeast strains, lager and ect.  Feel free to subscribe if you want to be notified when these are posted.  

Here is an example of my attenuation chart.



 You can download all of the charts here

Smoken Blond Ale Final Tasting

My Smoken Dirty Blond Ale is finally carbonated and ready for the final verdict.    After about two and a half weeks bottle conditioning I pulled one under the pretense of a carbonation test, the real reason being I just couldn't wait anymore.  The pour showed that it is mostly done carbonating, it should be fully carbonated in the next few days.  The color is still around 8 SRM although the picture on the makes it look a bit darker than it is in real life.

The Nose
This has a very traditional English ale smell.  I am not getting the vanilla aroma that I noted in the previous tasting.  There is a slight hint of the smoked malt which is pleasing but very faint.  Over all there is a very nice, lightly sweet, malt smell that mixes very nicely with the earthy hop aroma of the kent goldings.

The Taste
This is a very nicely balanced beer I am actually pretty amazed that it tastes almost nothing like it did two and a half weeks ago.  The distinct vanilla and bourbon flavors that were there when bottling are now gone.  These have been replaced with a nice balance of sweet malt and earthy hops.  The flavors that were very distinct at bottling have now blended and flow nicely from one to another.   If I had to compare it to something I would actually say it tastes like a lighter version of Newcastle.   

The Verdict
If you ask anyone they would say that I am my own worst critic especially when it comes to my beers.  Most beers I make to me are just "OK", while others say they really like them.  That being said, I really like this beer.   This one turned out well and may be my best beer to date.  It is light and easy to drink but still has a distinctive malt character that I find lacking from many lighter beers.   I will defiantly make this recipe again soon and I would encourage others to do so also.  I give this an easy 4 out of 5 stars.  The only bad thing is two cases will not last long at all.

You can find the recipe here
You can also find the previous tasting while bottling here

You Voted, I Brew

The poles are closed and all the votes have been tabulated.  The voting really came down to the wire.  It was a dog fight between the Saison and the Pumpkin ale but in the last few days of voting the Pumpkin ale pulled ahead and took home the checkered flag.

It was really fun watching and trying to formulate recipes for what ever was in the lead at the time.  I will defiantly let everyone vote on what I brew again in the future.  I hope others enjoyed it as well. I spent an hour or so formulating my recipe yesterday.  I wanted to do something a little different than your run of the mill Pumpkin ale, and with my somewhat unhealthy love affair with dark beers,  my Pumpkin Porter recipe was born.  Here is my first draft so there might be some minor changes down the road, stay tuned...

Pumpkin Porter 

Grain Bill
7.0lb Light Liquid extract
0.5lb Crystal Malt -60L
0.75lb Chocolate Malt
0.15lb Black Patent Malt
0.5lb Smoked Malt
60 oz Canned Pumpkin

Sabco Select Sankey 7.75 Fermenter Review

My new house has far more space to spread out and really get down to brewing.  After moving I decided that some of my gear could use an upgrade.  Near the top of the equipment upgrade list was a new primary fermenter.  I really wanted to get away from the classic Ale Pale.  I know it works and there is nothing wrong with it, but it just always felt cheap to me.  I wanted something more durable and preferably stainless.  Around the same time I really started to become interested in pressure fermenting.  The specifics of pressure fermenting is a topic for another post but if I ever wanted to give pressure fermenting a try I would need a fermenter that could hold pressure.

At first I really gravitated to conicals they are stainless and just so damn cool.  In particular I was very interested in a 7 gallon conical from  Stout Tanks and Kettles.  If anyone is interested in a conical I would recommend giving them a look.  Their lead times on some items can be long but prices are great and I only hear good things about quality.   The main problem I had with most conicals, in the size and price range I was comfortable with, is that they were not rated to hold pressure.

Cider (Apfelwein)

After a recent discussion at my local home brew club meeting I was interested in trying my hand at making a cider.  Researching on the Internet lead me to the now fairly famous recipe for Edwort's apfelwein which can be found here.  Edworts Apfelwein 

This thread on homebrewtalk.com is very long but full of great information on many peoples experiences and recipe variations.  I have not read the thread in its entirety but I did read many pages and gathered enough information to give it a try.  I did modify the original recipe slightly based on some of the information I read and this is what I came up with.

Aaron's Edwort  Cider

2 gallons Treetop 100% apple juice (No preservatives or additives)
1 gallon Treetop Three apple 100% cider (No preservatives or additives)
5 Oz's Dextrose (priming sugar)
1 pkg Lalvin 71B-1122

Selecting the Right Yeast

Until a few months ago selecting yeast for my beers was based on style, but after that somewhat arbitrary.  If I were making an Irish stout, for example, I would just pick up a Irish ale yeast and call it a day.  Recently I started venturing outside the normal style guides and there was no “go to” yeast for my beer as it did not really fit any particular style.  These adventures lead to a fair amount of research on different strains.  I also had to understand the differences in the yeasts and how this would effect the beer in the end.  After many hours on the internet I came to think of yeast drastically differently.   I must admit that before I viewed different yeast strains as fairly irrelevant and all (within reason) would make the beer I wanted.  Now I realize that yeasts can provide up to 500 individual flavors into your beer.  There is perhaps no bigger decision to make in you beer than the selection of the right yeast.  Here is some of what I learned that I hope will help others.