Since I am making a braggot with the style of Oktoberfest in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to briefly review some of the BJCP Guidelines for Oktoberfest.

First off, Oktoberfest is a sub-category of the European Amber Lager category. That’s right, Oktoberfest is a lager (which refers to the yeast that is used during fermentation). The aroma should have “a light to moderate toasted malt aroma. Clean lager aroma with no fruity esters or diacetyl. No hop aroma. Caramel aroma is inappropriate.” This indicates that hops should not be used in the end process for aromatic effects; rather, hops should be added in the beginning when mashing the malts.

The taste works in tandem with aroma, and the BJCP stipulates the taste should be “initial malty sweetness, but finish is moderately dry. Distinctive and complex maltiness often includes a toasted aspect. Hop bitterness is moderate, and noble hop flavor is low to none. Balance is toward malt, though the finish is not sweet. Noticeable caramel or roasted flavors are inappropriate. Clean lager character with no diacetyl or fruity esters.” This style of beer is heavy on the malty goodness, and light on the bold hops flavor. Also, notice that they mention “noble hop flavor,” and I’ll cover that a little more in a moment.

For the most part, I’m sticking to the Reinheitsgebot (German Purity Law). This law was originally put into place in 1516 to set the standards for brewing beer and sales of beer. Interestingly, yeast wasn’t actually mentioned in the original document because as we all know, Louis Pasteur did not discover that bacteria was the cause of fermentation and contamination until the 1800s. In the spirit of Reinheitsgebot, this braggot will contain simply water, malt, hops, and yeast.  Well, maybe I’ll bend the rule for loads of honey.

I found a cool little website called www.localharvest.org , which has put me in touch with a beekeeper directly for buckwheat honey. Some times I like to help out the little guy, plus getting the honey directly from the beekeeper tingles my hippy senses.

Recipe:

8.5 lbs of Buckwheat Honey

5 lbs of Vienna Malt

1 lb of Pilsner Malt

.25 oz of Tettanger whole leaf hops

White labs Oktoberfest yeast

A quick distinction between mead and beer (aside from the obvious), before one adds yeast to a batch of mead it is called a “must,” and before you pitch yeast to beer it is called a “wort” (pronounced wert [I have no idea why this is]). So, must becomes mead through the yeast processing the sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide, and wort becomes beer through the same process.

I briefly discussed why I was using buckwheat honey in the previous post. In all actuality, I had 5 lbs of buckwheat from a previous order that was lying around. I was thinking and plotting on some sort of braggot that would utilize the buckwheat. I have not seen many (if any) recipes that use buckwheat honey. I thought it would be a fun and interesting adventure, although, if this turns out crappy, I wasted quite a bit of money.

There are many different types of malts that can be added into an Oktoberfest beer, but some the best ones I have read are exclusively made with Vienna Malt or the main barley is Vienna malt. There is some debate and discussion on using exclusively Vienna, and if it actually achieves the authentic taste for Oktoberfest beers. Since I am making a braggot, I have decided to use Vienna with a touch of Pilsner malt to impress upon the taste buds a sense of Oktoberfest beer. Vienna and Munich malts have a tendency to create heaviness to the beers, so adding 15 to 20 percent of Pilsner malt to the total amount. If I was making a beer, I would use other varietal malts.

The hops in an Oktoberfest are of the noble variety. This includes hallertau, saaz, spalt, and tettnanger. Noble hops are low in bitterness and high in aroma.There is no good reason for me using whole leaf hops, I just wanted to use them . Most recipes for Oktoberfest utilize hallertau hops, but the company I normally purchase from were out, so tettnanger is taking its place. I’m also using a very small amount of hops, only .25 ounces. Food scales are great for beer brewing so as to measure out these exact weights, since suppliers provide by the ounce, usually 1 oz, 5 oz, and a piss load of hops. Interestingly hops are part of the cannabis family, and at St. James Gate in Ireland, workers would often take breaks due to hops soporific effect.

I feel everything up to this point have been well thought out decision based on research and practice, yet the one ingredient that caused me headaches was the yeast. The yeast was my greatest point of contention. I have never made a braggot, nor did I have a wealth of recipes to look through. I wanted something that would help produce the right notes, be able to handle the higher alcohol level, and help with the malty taste. I ruled out sweet mead yeast, as it has a tendency to produce fruit notes and tastes. I researched the Oktoberfest from white labs and believe that it would do the trick. It can handle medium to high alcohol levels, and all the exact notes I wanted were developed specifically for Oktoberfest beer, which was part of the meads character. It seems obvious, but since these is such an uncharted territory for me, the need to be sure and have some sound reasoning for my choices of ingredients and the amounts was necessary. The draw back is that the yeast strand is a lager, which means it works best in very cold temperatures- optimal temperatures is 58 degrees Fahrenheit. I have a plan on how to deal with and will discuss it in a later post.

Be sure to check for updates, as brew day is coming soon, and I will be chronicling the events leading up to and on the day of brewing my braggot.

Don’t forget I’m looking for a name for this Braggot. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please post a comment at the bottom.

---

Posted by admin on October 27th, 2009 :: Filed under Braggot, homebrewing

---

As I have stated before, I started homebrewing with beer. I strictly brewed beer for over a year. I enjoyed the process, the multitude of ingredients, combination of ingredients, and how it was cheaper to brew a huge batch of quality beer for less than picking it up in the grocery store. I had many batches turn south for one reason or another, but from reading and testing, less batches had to be thrown out. There really is nothing worst than dumping 5 gallons of beer because of your mistakes. I started with extract brewing and moved up to partial mash brewing (grain heavy). The fact that I was a homebrewer first makes more sense as the store continues.

About a year into homebrewing, Ben mentioned the ease of making mead. A fan of literature, especially of Norse Mythology, I knew of the existence of mead, but never saw it in stores. Admittedly, I did not seek it out with gusto, but that it was a common drink of yesteryear, I knew. Ben purchased about  4 to 5 lbs of local honey, I had some ale strand of yeast lying around (I can’t even remember the exact strand), and there were those buckets. I don’t think we boiled the honey at all, but I can’t recall all the steps, as I was not taking careful notes of my procedures and ingredients at the time.

So, we mixed the ingredients together in one our the homebrewing 6 gallon buckets and let it sit for 2 weeks. . . Ellipses to signify the first major mistake. I know you are wondering why this is the first mistake. I was using an ale strand of yeast that I did not create a starter with to have an entire civilization of yeast active before pitching, and I did not have any nutrients or energizers when pitching the yeast. Therefore, it would take the yeast longer to become active, and the yeast would not finish processing all of the sugars into alcohol after 2 weeks. I believe the only reason that any of the sugar was processed is that the yeast was White Labs and had enough little guys to get the process moving, and the relative low amount of honey to process did not hurt. These are just conjectures, and I may be wrong.

Two weeks after first pitching the yeast, we bottle the mead. Being homebrewers, we decided that a little fizzle in our meadizzle was appropriate. I went there and I’m staying there. The same amount of corn sugar that we used to carbonate the beer was used to carbonate the mead . . . Here is where all the bad things converged and became an explosive, messy concoction. All my homebrewing beers (a.k.a. bottles and bottles of beer) was stored in the pantry of my apartment.

After about a week or two ( the exact time eludes me), my roommate at the time went into the pantry to retrieve some morsel of food, and the second he closed the door there was a muffled “pop” followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass and something hitting the pantry door from the inside. Carefully opening the pantry, a mead bottle had shattered. We quickly closed it and another bottle shattered. Over the course of the next few months (could have been longer), our pantry had became a game Russian Roulette with mead bottles when something was desired from the pantry. It did enhance horror movies. Also, there was a sweet, pungent, sticky smell that emitted from the pantry.

More explanations:

Carbonating a fermented beverage is done by allowing the residual yeast to create carbon dioxide in an air  tight container. When filling bottles of homebrewed beer, a space is left to give the gas some room, otherwise it will create enough tension to pop the top of bottles and sometimes explode, although this is rare. How did I unwittingly create Mead Bombs?

1. As stated, I didn’t let the yeast finish fermenting.

2. Adding the same amount of corn sugar for carbonation of mead.  So there was already a lot of sugar left from the honey from my quick fermenting process, and adding a lot more gave each bottle a lot of sugar to consume. This created an over abundance of carbon dioxide, which created over pressurized bottles and that lead to explosivo.

That was a fun trip down memory lane.

---

Posted by admin on October 12th, 2009 :: Filed under homebrewing, meadmaking, yeast

---

In my previous post, I have mentioned that I have not brewed anything in about 3 years. However, of everything that I have brewed, I am the most proud of this mead, which I named Applenoon Delight. It is a Cyser mead. By the way, I was watching Arrested Development, where a particular episode inspired the name of this mead. Anyway, let’s start off with the ingredients, and my beginning processes.

Ingredients:

Red Delicious Apples

Golden Apples

Fuji Apples

I only had enough apples to make 1 1/2 gallons of juice.

4 gallons of fresh pressed apple juice (store bought, but not made from concentrate)

9 pounds of Orange Blossom Honey

WLP 775 English Cider Yeast

Yeast Nutrients

Yeast Energizer

Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)

About 2 days before the main event, I create a starter yeast. I follow Ken Schramm’s directions on this. Boil 6 cups of water with 1/4 teaspoon yeast energizer and yeast nutrient, and 1 tablespoon of DME for 5 minutes. Afterward, I add about 1/2 cup of honey. I always use the same style of honey so the yeast can acclimate better to the process. Quick chemistry lesson: yeast converts glucose (a sugar) into carbon dixoide and ethanol (alcohol). Honey, unlike beer does not have enough nutrients for yeast to florish as well, so nutrients are a big part of meadcrafting.br /br /The yeast nutrient that I use contains food grade urea and ammonium phosphate. The yeast energizer contains diammonium phosphate (DAP), yeast hulls (Biotin), magnesium sulphate, and vitamin B comlex. I will discuss a little more on the nutrients later when I talk about the fermentation.

Before I began my process, everything is cleaned and sanitized. My girlfriend told me that she wished I cleaned everything as well as I do my brewing equipment. I responded that if everything provided such a delectable drink I would clean better. I think she won that argument. I clean with 5 Star PBW powder, and finish with iodine to sanitize. I’m pretty anal about this because I create a no heat must. A new word, cheers. Must is the concoction of honey and water before pitching the yeast and fermentation starts. In beer brewing this is referred to as the wort (pronounced wert).The yeast essentially eats the must to create mead. Who knew you would learn so much in one sitting? I’m sure you are retaining every piece of morsel-knowledge that I am providing.

I did not weigh the amount of apples I picked up. I knew I would not have enough to create the whole batch, but wanted some fresh pressed apples. You can see the number of apples I cut up at the top because I do not have an apple presser; rather, I used a juicer, which failed in the ability to “juice” a large number of apples. I tend to stay away from concentrate juice not because you can’t use them, but it is a preference on my part. The fresher the better. One day, I hope to have an apple presser and create 5 gallons of all fresh apple juice.

I did create 5 1/2 gallons of juice before I added the honey. I have 60 lbs of Orange Blossom Honey, which you can see next to the carboy. I went all glass when I was a strictly brewing beer.

The main reason is that my buckets were ruined during one of the hurricanes of 2005. However, I wish that I had a bucket on this day because I made a “whoops.” First, I used 9 lbs of honey, and poured it in through a cleaned/sanitized funnel. I do not create a hot must, which is where you heat water and add the honey to ensure to mix it together because I believe you cook away some of the honey flavor and aroma. Others believe that helping to rid of foreign or bad bacteria supersedes full integrity of the honey. I have never had a contaminated mead, so I’m sticking with anal retentive cleaning and no-heat must. Also, you have to cool down the mead, which has the possibility of becoming contaminated. Did I mention that the creation of the must and the first few days of fermentation are the most vulnerable? Well, now you know. Why is it the most vulnerable? The yeast has not created the alcohol yet to fight off bad bacteria.

Anyway, the reason that I wish I had a bucket is because of the picture below. I forgot that the reason buckets are good for no-heat must is because I can use a cleaned/sanitized spoon to stir the water (or in this case apple juice) together with the honey. I tried as best I could to mix it but found it too difficult. You can clearly see the majority of the honey sitting at the bottom. Another mistake was that I forgot to take a reading on the OG before adding the yeast with my hydrometer. OG stands for original gravity before yeast is added to the must. The hydrometer tells me how much sugar is dissolved in the solution. Needless to say, but I have a need to say it, my reading wouldn’t have been as accurate because of that bottom feeding of honey. This seems like a good place to stop for now. So we have our must ready for the roaring colony of yeast to take that sugar and make alcohol out of it.

---

Posted by admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Cyser, Mead, homebrewing

---

Hello People,

This is more of journal/experiment into blogging about a topic that is near and dear to my alcohol-induced heart- homebrewing. Specifically, I have come to enjoy the simplicity of meadmaking. Do not misinterpret this statement, meadmaking can be a very complex, rich experience, but to make a traditional mead, all you need is a bucket, honey, water, and yeast, but this in of itself can be complex. The complexity is exploring the myraid of types and styles, and it is in the details of how to create the most delicious, enjoyable drink you can. This first post is to give you some background on my own experiences in homebrewing and some (very soon) upcoming topics.br /br /I received my first homebrewing kit in 2001. Over the years, I have made, contaimnated, enjoyed, sold, shared, and gifted many, many gallons of homebrewed beer. This is where I give credit to the man that showed the joy of homebrewing- Ben Doolittle. He introduced me to this concept of homebrewing. The idea that I could make gallons and gallons of tasty beer, in styles that I choose, and in some instances cheaper than store bought beer, was mind-blowing. I am not a beer (or any other type of alcohol) snob, but a drink with complexity, depth that just tastes really good is preferred over cheap drinks. I will not turn my nose up at a cold (insert American generic beer brand here), and have consumed mass quantities of it. Back to homebrewing, the process is one of the most relaxing and enjoyable processes. There is nothing like offereing a friend one of your homebrewed beverages, and not only enjoy YOUR creation, but becomes a spokesmen for it. The sharing aspect, knowing that I have produced something of quality that people enjoy is rewarding. The added benefit is making barrels and barrels of your brew to enjoy at home. I have pages and pages of notes on almost all of my brewing adventures, and will share it all here in the hope of helping some people.

This brings me to the point of this blog- MEAD!!! I took a 3 year hiatus from homebrewing because of graduate school and life in general. I have started my first batch about 4 days ago. I have pictures and notes chronicling the events. I will be periodically post pictures and bits of information on the process. In between the meadmaking process, I will try giving insights (don”t expect this too often), recommendations, information, stories, and answer any questions you have rumbling in that cranium. I am hoping to provide a, somewhat, useful blog for people interested in mead and meadmaking. Notice in that sentence, “people interested in mead.” If you are not interested in meadmaking, but are intrigued by mead as a tasty beverage, there will be information in here for you as well. Some upcoming topics are “What is Mead?,” “The Creation of Alcohol,” “Mead Tasting,” and “The Honey and the Bees” to name a few. If you have suggestions of topics you would like covered, please let me know.

Ground Rules and Expectations:

I am not a professional brewer, nor do I purport unwavering expertise. I am an enthusiast- that is all. I have not entered in any competitions, but plan in the future to attempt this challenge. Questions and comments are always welcomed. However, please make an effort to communicate clearly, do not whine for the sake of whining, and “flaming” without any sort of substance will be considered counter-productive and subsequently disregarded or removed. Also, if I don’t know an answer, I will search my books, contacts, and the internet for as accurate answer as I can provide.

Stay tuned for the next post: “What is Mead?”

---

Posted by admin on July 16th, 2009 :: Filed under Mead, homebrewing

---