I love imperial stouts; it’s pretty much what I drink. But I agree, they are not casual, all day at the BBQ beers. I have, um, usually one. Dragon’s Milk is a good example of the barrel aged variety, and is quite strong. For good flavor but a bit less oomph try imperials that are not barrel aged or whiskey aged. They are usually a bit less potent but still tasty. One of the best this past season has been Brooklyn’s chocolate imperial stout; it’s amazingly good and smooth.
Cleaning was definitely a snap. We put the brew bag in a garbage bag while we took our measurements and got the boil going, and then just turned it inside out and rinsed the remaining grain off.
For holding temperatures, we’re thinking about getting a roll of that insulating foil wrap and doing our brew/mash kettle.
My wife likes it, but she’s also a big whiskey fan, and brewery smells are very much like distillery smells. My brew partner’s wife has compared it to ‘a Pet Smart’ and ‘hamster cage’, so she’s a little less a fan. Happily, neither seems to mind that we’ve taken up this hobby. It’s an excuse for them to hang out.
I’m familiar with the toddy family, but not with this recipe exactly. It sounds wonderful. Next time we do a beer in the cold…
I should note we pour the hot toddy wort after the mash-in but before the boil, while it’s still without any hop additions. Hops just don’t taste good until later after fermentation. Way too strong. The run-off or wort is pretty sweet at that point, perfect for a toddy.
I think a wrap would hold temp a lot better, essentially you’re making a cooler. But the way you have it also works, just firing up the heat when needed, as long as you have a good thermometer on your brew container.
The problem with upgrading your brew kettle might be that the stove burner no longer gets it up to temp very well, too much water volume. It’s certainly the case on an electric stove, but maybe not on a gas stove. I’m envious of that stove! Can’t wait to see the final pics, man. I’m wondering what black patent will leave that final color looking like. Dark amber?
My brew parter has a pretty nice kitchen. I think we established that the two burners are worth about 20,000 BTU. Less than half of our propane burner, but also indoors. That said, we wouldn’t be heating very much more water—mash volumes of 7 to 8 gallons suffice for most of the BIAB recipes I have. No pressing need to, though.
As far as color, Brewtarget says ours is supposed to be 11 SRM, and based on this chart, that corresponds to a medium amber. Little unusual for an IPA, but we like to try new things.
My GF hates most stouts because according to her, “they all taste like coffee.” So she doesn’t like roasted malt flavors. I tried to explain to her how the malts are made and how there are curve balls like carafa and darker crystal malts that really aren’t as roasty in flavor. She doesn’t care. The darker the beer is, the more hesitant she will be to even taste it.
Then she will have something like a Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout and love it. It’s baffling. All I know is that if I put in too much of anything with a roasted flavor, she isn’t going to like it.
I would flipping love an IPA with a roasty flavor.
I want to try a black IPA sometime, but that’ll have to wait. (We’ve already mapped out the next brew day for certain—we’re going to try cider—and the one after that will probably be something summery.)
I resemble this remark. Had one at last week’s gaming session, and it ended up as my only beer of the night. Great beer, though, highly recommend everyone try it at least once.
@Fishbreath, @Jorn_Weines, @Skipper: I am in awe of your ability to homebrew. An ex-coworker and I had a few one night and he described his home brewing setup to me, and the utter complexity of it all was overwhelming. I look forward to the day when one of you is my Secret Santa and I get home-brewed ale!
Speaking of Secret Santa, I’ve been working my way through the wonderful gift of a gazillion beers that @ddtibbs sent me. Very slowly, since I’m a “one or two, maybe once or twice a week” kind of guy. Since the Naughty American Strong Ale, I’ve also tried:
Conductor Imperial Rye IPA: Fair warning, I’m a stout guy, so IPAs aren’t my thing. Having said that, this one was pretty good. A bit darker than what I’m used to in an IPA, and while there was certainly some hoppy bitterness, the flavor underneath was great. I love me some red ales, and Conductor felt like a red that was trending toward IPA.
North High Milk Stout: Did I mention I’m a stout guy? Loved this one. My only minor complaint is that that taste was a bit weak, but that’s the milk part coming through. If you like stouts but need something with a low ABV for whatever reason, this works nicely.
Four String Brewing Switch Blade IPA: Again, IPA not my thing, and this one was a pretty standard IPA with the really hoppy flavor. Having said that, the flavor was really nice under the bitterness, so if you’re an IPA person than this is a good option.
Camp Fire: This one is labeled “Session Ale: Crisp, Clean Everyday Beer” and I believe it delivers. Low alcohol, and the flavor is weak but I liked what there was of it. This is the sort of thing I’d bring along if I were, say, going out for a tubing day down the river. Or if I ever run the beer mile again (for reference, doing that with four Guinness cans is a terrible idea), this would be a good choice.
Land Grant Brewing Skill Session Scarlet Lager: This is a solid red that I very much enjoyed. Less hoppy than the Conductor Imperial mentioned above. Nice smooth taste with little aftertaste.
By the way, in case anyone’s interested, the glass featured in most of those pictures is from the Beer Flight Running Series that I did this summer here in the Grand Rapids area.
There are still six more beers to go in my Secret Santa gift! At this rate, I’ll be done about the time the snow all melts.
Hey, for what it’s worth, learning to brew took my ability to appreciate different craft brews to a higher level; Recognizing styles, malts, hops, etc, understanding offtastes a little more, and even finding what I like, just a little more than before. Most all of the brewers and many CEO’s of our favorite craft breweries? Former homebrewers. It’s as easy as making soup or stew, then it’s a game of patience for a few weeks where you do very little. And it feels so rewarding when you enjoy something you created.
There are two books that are worth a read, even if you don’t end up brewing. They are timeless, and describe the methods and what happens. One even has a lot of it’s earlier content posted online, free to read (though newer info in updated versions isn’t included.)
How to Brew by John Palmer. With an online site you can read.
The Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazian.
What’s crazy is that if you ever end up homebrewing and going to the national homebrewers convention, you meet these guys as well as tons of other industry people, most former homebrewers. Charlie was one of the leads that drove the effort to make homebrewing legal back in 1978.
Based on your mini-reviews, look for an IPA with notes on “great aroma and taste” but with a low IBU rating, which is where the bitterness is evaluated into a number. Some IPAs are referred to as bitter bombs (high IBU,) while some are referred to as a sweeter IPA (lower IBU.) It sure sound like you would enjoy the latter. It’s not unlike a sweet bourbon (wheater) or a dry bourbon (rye.)
That’s are some impressive and exhaustive descriptions. The Kindred Camp Fire is pretty tame compared to the big boozy IPAs and stouts, but I included it because sales of it support a camp for sick kids my son attends, Flying Horse Farms.
So clearly this is my opportunity to beg/plead for you homebrewing types to brew up a concoction with virtually no hops and very lightly toasted malt to avoid any of the usual sources of any kind of detectable bitterness. Give me Malta, but with alcohol ;-)
Sure you don’t rather want cider?
Hush you! You, with your LOGIC and your CORRECTNESS
I wonder a bit about the logistics of sending home-brewed beer in the mail. I assume it varies from country to country, but good idea!
Hefeweizen, witbeer or a gose are like the intros to craft that nearly everyone enjoys. If you want to pursue just a little more flavor with malts, a bock, weizenbock, dopplebock, or perhaps a non-big-beer lager as well. And if you really, really want to see what malts can do, head toward a brown ale, scotch ale, or hang on to your pants and try a Belgian strong dark ale.
Malts get bitter late in the toasting process. Color is not your enemy, it’s charring, similar to cooking. It gives that acrid taste that probably turned you off of a dark beer. Boozy beers also need balance or they get overly sweet. So just like balancing sweets in cooking, in beers they will add hops and/or bitter malts. Bitter is a taste that really takes getting used to, but becomes this wonderful friend once you embrace it. (I’m a biased IPA freak.) But why do people like super dark chocolate, coffee, cilantro, arugula, etc? It’s bitter. It’s a base taste that is a shocker, but grows on you really quickly.
Now, can I brew those? Eh … you end up brewing things you like after a while. I’ve made a great witbeer, so that would be one I could try to do. The problem is the volume of what you’re brewing. I’d probably need to step down to a small batch size. Give it a bit for the weather to warm up and I’ll see what I can do, Armando.
Back when I used to brew the wife and I loved that smell.
@Skipper I always feel a little bad barging into beer discussions cuz my attempts to like the stuff have failed so routinely that it’s almost pointless to keep trying. Nonetheless, I appreciate the lengthy and in-depth advice :)
It’s curious that you bring up some flavors that I do enjoy (e.g., cilantro), but by and large, I don’t enjoy bitter foods. Coffee and I are mortal foes. I don’t eat dark chocolate on its own or even really as a component of sweets. 2-4oz of it into a gallon of chili is about the level of “contamination” I can withstand in a flavor profile. With bitter veg, I either roast 'em toward caramelization (e.g., brussels sprouts) or douse 'em in sweet-and-tangy flavors, like green salads with sour-and-sugary vinaigrettes. I don’t really care for charred meats at all, so while I like my burgers and steaks a little more done than most Qt3ers (medium well is fine unless the meat in question is excellent enough to justify medium to me), I don’t generally go for actually grilled stuff, as the crust of blackened Maillard-leavings is really unpleasant tasting to me. I have many memories of laboriously scraping off the offending black char from over-toasted bread and Poptarts mom would serve me as a kid :)
I don’t think I’m a supertaster–there are ways in which I can stomach bitter foods, it just involves a lot of balancing, whereas my likely-supertaster gf is utterly unable to overcome the aversion–but I certainly just don’t like bitterness as a whole.
So even fairly minute bitter notes from extremely light hopping of certain varieties of beer that you beer-folk would regard as “painfully sweet” can still ruin the drink for me. Even a mild bitterness from over-roasting of malts kicks in that automatic anti-burned-food response, too.
I’ve had a handful of sours that aren’t undrinkably bitter, but they’re all so damned gung-ho on their sourness that I don’t much care for them, either. Lemonade’s about my sourness level, even orange juice isn’t something I enjoy, much less the grapefruit-esque face-twisters served by the likes of Wicked Weed.
Still, the quest continues ever onward!
No worries, man. Strangely, I’m a bit like that with sweet foods. Things with too much added sugar usually put me off or I can only take so much of them. Perhaps there is something to that and liking bitter beer more? I agree with you on sour beers though. They are an acquired taste for sure.
At any rate, where do you stand on something like Blue Moon? Or any current American lagers?
The best part about homebrewing is you can create anything you want. Don’t like overly hoppy or bitter beers? No problem.
If you stop barging in to the beer thread, we won’t get to keep playing the “suggest a beer that armando might like” game, and our lives would be diminished.
Seriously though, why not cider? If you’re talking sourbiers and stuff, what’s the difference?
Hard Ciders have had a moment in the past 5-10 years, and there are now huge range and variety of them, and many of them are actually very good.
There’s a lot of variance, with some having a more unpleasant (to me) malt liquor flavor, while others skew more towards a dry-ish white-wine flavor profile. But the good mass market ones are basically like sweet beers without any bitterness.
I’ve most of the ones I could get my hands on, my personal favorite of the mass-produced ones is probably Strongbow, which is pretty sweet, but not too alcohol-y, and tastes quite clean. They have a couple of varieties, which are mostly fine, but I’d stay away from their actual flavored ones, which I found unpleasantly wine-cooler-y.
Angry Orchard is also okay, but more because they have a huge range of options, including their “Easy Apple”, which is like, the bud light of cider. Which I mean in the nicest possible way, in that it has very mild flavor and so is ideal for drinking throughout the afternoon in the sun.