Graffiti Alley Bottled!

We are extremely excited about our latest batch of Graffiti Alley that we bottled today. It is a beautiful golden colour with a very satisfying bitter structure layered on top of a wonderful, delicate malty profile. In a word: Amazing! Our move from using amber malts to pilsen seems to have been in the right direction. However, the beer will still undergo some more changes for the next couple of weeks as it carbonates in the bottle. We can only sit back and wait with anticipation until we can crack open that first bottle and taste the final result.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Toronto tap water.
• 60 grams corn sugar.

Directions

1. Bring 1 cup of tap water to a boil and add 60 grams of corn sugar. Boil them together for 5 minutes.

2. Take a hydrometer reading of the final beer.

3. Fill the siphon with the sugar water and add any remaining into the bottling bucket. Siphon from the fermenter to the bottling bucket.
4. Fill the bottles and cap them. The bottles will need to be stores at room temperature for at least 2 weeks to properly carbonate.

Notes

• Final gravity: 1.008 (~5.8% ABV)
• Quantity made: 27 x 355ml (9.59 liters)
• We opened up a bottle of Muskoka Brewery Mad Tom IPA, one of our favourite beers, to do a side by side comparison. Since Mad Tom has been dried hopped, it has a much richer up front hop aroma. This is definitely something we'll attempt in a future batch. Surprisingly our beer lost most of its bitterness and had a light sweet taste when sampled after Muskoka's brew.

Do you mead it or do you want it?

We were patiently waiting for our first mead to age and to satiate our excitement about how it was blossoming in the bottle we decided to brew up another batch. Only this time we spiced things up! With cinnomen, cloves and nutmeg! We also diluted the honey with apple juice, so technically we brewed up a cyser instead of a mead.

Ingredients

• 3 liters of President's Choice unfiltered apple cider
• 1 Kilogram of honey (Local Bee from Puslinch Ontario)
• 1 Teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1/2 teaspoon pectin enzyme
• 1 packet yeast (Lalvin K1-V1116) 5 grams

Directions

1. Place the honey into a hot water bath so that it will be easier to pour.
2. Add about 2 liters of the apple cider to a pot and heat it up. Do not let it come to a boil.

3. Add 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient and 1/2 teaspoon pectin enzyme to the pot of hot apple cider.


4. Pour the 1 Kilogram of honey into the apple cider and mix everything thoroughly together.

5. Cool the must using a cold water bath.
6. Take a sample of the must and perform a hydrometer test.
7. Once the must has cooled to around 25 degrees Celsius add it to the primary fermenter. 

8. Pitch the yeast and top off the fermenter with the remaining apple cider.


9. Seal the fermneter with a stopper and airlock.

Notes

• Original gravity: 1.128
• We did not add any spices initially but plan to add them when we rack the mead into the secondary fermenter in about a month.
• The initial fermentation was very vigorous and we had to remove the stopper and airlock. About an hour after pitching the yeast it was bubbling over the top of the fermenter. We left it open for a couple of hours for things to settle down before placing the stopper and airlock back.

Polishing Off the Pale Ale

"It's a near masterpiece!" he exclaimed while sipping his third bottle of Graffiti Alley IPA. High praise from our friend who normally politely drinks his bottle, but then quickly moves onto something different. The beer I brought to my office were also doing down by the 2 bottles instead of the regular half or thirds. Our last recipe was a great stride in the right direction but onwards we must push forward.

Since our last batch was really good we decided to tweak things very slightly. We want to experiment with the type of dry malt extract (DME) and how they affect the final beer flavour. This next batch will be a repeat of the last one but using Pilsen light DME instead of the amber.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pounds Caramel 40L malt
• 4 pounds Briess Pilsen light dry malt extract (DME)
• 13 liters Toronto tap water
• 2.9 oz Cascade hop pellets
• 7 grams Cooper's ale yeast

Directions

1. In a large stock pot bring the 13 liters of water to 71 degrees Celsius.
2. While the water is coming up to temperate measure out 1/2 pound of the Caramel malt. Add it to a zip-lock back and crush the grain using a rolling pin. Place the crushed grain into a hop bag and set aside.



3. Measure out three quantities of Cascade hops: 1oz, 1oz and .9 oz. Ideally we would have liked 3 groups of 1oz each, but we only ended up with .9 oz for the last group. Place these hops into hop bags and set aside. We only have 3 hop bags in total, so we reuse the one with the crushed grains closer to when we add the final hop addition.


4. Add the hop bag with the crushed Caramel malt once the water has reached 71 degrees Celsius. Steep the malt for 30 minutes and watch the temperature so that it stays close to 71 degrees.


5. Remove the crushed Caramel malt and bring the stock pot to a boil. Keep the crushed grain because it can be reused in cooking.
6. Once the stock pot has reached a boil add one of 1oz hopped filled hop bags. This is the start of the boil.

7. Add the 4 pounds of DME 30 minutes into the boil. Mix thoroughly to remove any clumps.

8. Add the other 1oz hopped filled hop bag 45 minutes into the boil.

9. Add the final 0.9oz hopped filled hop bag 55 minutes into the boil.
10. Remove the stockpot from the heat after it has been boiling for 60 minutes (starting from step 6). Place the stockpot into a cold water bath to cool down quickly. While cooling mix the contents vigourously to oxygenate it.
11. Once the wort has reached 25 degrees Celsius pour it into the fermenter. Sprinkle the yeast on top and cap the fermenter with an airlock.

Notes

• Original gravity: 1.052
• After brewing we found out that one of our hop bags had a hole in it. This means there was a bunch of hop sediment floating around in our wort. We expect that most of it will fall to the bottom of the fermenter, but we may need to find some method to filter the beer before bottling in two weeks.

A bees-ness proposition

Last month we bottled our mead and we are hoping that this month we will start off another batch. Andrew, a co-worker of mine, suggested getting honey from two of his high-school friends, Ruben and Dave, that have started their own honey business. After inquiring a bit more about this honey (where does it come from? how much does it cost? what's it called? where can i buy it? ) he invited me out for lunch with one of the honey-makers for a planned hand-off.

The honey, called Local Bee, is from Puslinch, Ontario. Its an endeavour that the duo started just for personal satisfaction. They produce a few hundred bottles during spring and have recently added a nice clean label to the bottles which gives it a great look. The honey can be bought in stores in the West end of the city near Parkdale, all walking distance from his house.



Its not about the money Ruben said, its the sheer enjoyment of taking part in this process. A process that they managed from start to finish. All profits made from the honey are given to a food bank a the end of the year.

One person's profession is often another person's personal pastime. For Ruben and Dave its honey, but for us its home-brewing. We can't wait to try this honey out in our next batch of mead!