Kraken Brewing

For this brew I’m making the Bugalugs Dark Ale from Hoppy Days Brewing Supplies. This is a British Brown Ale with a strong backbone of toffee and chocolate with a solid bitterness.

The grain bill for this beer is built on a base of Voyager Veloria Schooner malt, with Munich malt adding depth and complexity. The colour and roasted character comes from Shepherds Delight, Dark Voodoo, and Carafa Special III malts, giving that classic toffee and chocolate profile without being overly roasty.

For this brew I’m trying out cryo hops for the first time in this Bracket Brewing “Insert Name” hazy pale ale. This recipe was adapted from a homebrewer who queried bracket brewing on their hazy pale ale recipe.

The grain bill for this beer is mostly pale malt, with a huge 30% of rolled oats and about 5% honey malt to give colour and a slightly sweeter/malty finish.

The hops for this beer are Motueka, Idaho#7 and Cryo Pop, previously known as trial blend TRI2304CR. Recent research suggests that high levels of monoterpene alcohols and polyfunctional thiols in a wort stream can create the conditions necessary for the yeast metabolism of hop-derived compounds, otherwise known as “biotransformation.” This hop blend has been developed to make use of briotransformation and to work as both a single hop or in conjunction with other tropical hop varietals.

Brewing beer at home can be extremely rewarding. There’s no greater satisfaction than reaching a level of proficiency when you can comfortably say “I would pay to drink this in a pub”. However, with certain styles of beer and on a homebrew scale and budget, reaching that level (consistently) can be difficult.

Oxidation is without a doubt one of the biggest banes of my existence (and a lot of other homebrewers out there). It can completely ruin a beer, and you’ll usually only know after brewing, fermenting and spending a huge amount of time and effort. When you reach that final stage and see that you’re beer is darkened in colour, lacks flavour and aroma, and tastes like wet cardboard, the only option is usually to dump it down the drain.

I think this is my 3rd time making this beer, and I’m making it again because I think it’s great hazy ale. In the past, I’ve had issues around oxidation for these hoppy and oaty beers, but now I’m at a comfortable place with controlling oxidation through use of preservatives and techniques like closed transfers. When I ordered this beer, I could only get a hold of golden oat malt, which I decided to use. Due to that, the beer ended up a bit darker than I had hoped, but the taste was actually pretty damn good.

Summer time means fruity sour. My homebrew shop is currently out of Wildbrew Philly sour, a strain of yeast that produces lactic acid as well as alcohol. This yeast has been my go-to for sours for the last couple of years, as it’s a lot less effort than kettle sours and produces similar results. However, I’m strapped for time given I want this beer done by Christmas, and Philly Sour isn’t really an option, so I’m going back to my kettle-sour roots.

With this beer, I wanted to return to the first sour I ever made, a strawberry sour. It was not long after covid had started, and I was spending a lot of time indoors as my workplace at the time (a bar) was frequently shut due to lockdowns. I remember spending hours and hours researching souring techniques and methods, and eventually made my first kettle sour. It was a beer I was extremely proud of, because all the effort of planning and research paid off.

It’s been a few years since I’ve done a stout, and winters coming up, so I thought I’d give it another crack. The last stout I made was a coffee chocolate stout, which used cold-brew coffee and cacao nibs soaked in congac. It was pretty good, but I wanted to do something different this time. I’ll be keeping a similar grain bill and hops (Fuggles), but I’ll be adding lactose to round out the bitterness, and I’ll also be adding cacao nibs and 2 vanilla beans. These should add the vanilla and chocolate notes i’m after.

After my last pacific/wheat ale, and success using sodium metabisulfite and ascorbic acid, I’ve decided to take another crack at a Hazy IPA. This beer will feature Nectaron, which I’m trying for the first time, as well as BRU-1 and El Dorado, which I’ve had good results with in the past. As with my other Hazies, I’m aiming for a 2:1 chloride to sulfate ratio, heavy whirlpool and dry hop additions, and I’m looking to reduce oxidation as much as possible. I’ll be closed transferring under pressure and using SMB and ascorbic acid at my terminal dry hop.

I learned a valuable life lesson yesterday - If you’re dealing with pressurised vessels or containers, make sure there is something in place to stop it rapidly depressurising.

Yesterday, I noticed that my pressure ferment of my Stone and Wood clone (link here) was not building in pressure, even though my spunding valve was set to a higher psi. I listened closely to the fermenter lid and heard a small hissing sound. Upon investigating, I narrowed down the leak to either the lid itself or the carbonation cap. I replaced the carbonation cap with another after venting the pressure, however, after re-applying some C02, the leak was still there. Here is where my mistake took place. I took off the safety cap that keeps the lid in place on the fermenter and attempted to see if there were any cracks or places the C02 could escape. As the pressure was low, I couldn’t hear any hissing. I added about 10psi of C02 to the fermenter and loosely held my hand on the lid to keep it in place. While bent over, looking directly at the lid, the lid blew off the fermenter and hit me in the eye before sending itself half way across the garage. Key lesson here - never mess with pressurised containers without the proper safety measures in place. If the lid hit about an inch lower, I could have lost my right eye. Instead, I’ve got a swollen eye socket, 2 cuts above and below my eye, and an embarrassing story.

Luckily, I fixed the leak. Never again though am I going to apply pressure and stare directly into the main exit port of a fermenter.

In an effort to refine the Stone & Wood clone from this post, I’ve updated the recipe based on the results and inspiration from other sources (see link in notes). For the new batch, I’m adding some flaked wheat to add some more haze, and i’m lowering the percentage of ale malt. I’m also switching to american ale malt, in order to get a lighter colour. Finally, I’m increasing the dry hop to 100g and maintaining IBUs at around 22. I’m also experimenting with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and sodium metabisulfite (SMB) during the dry hop, in an effort to reduce oxidation.