Spent Grain Buttermilk Biscuits

Posted on March 2, 2017March 2, 2017 by Wick

I brewed a Northern English Brown ale, and as I was cleaning out my mash tun, a light bulb light popped on in my head. I went inside, grabbed a few cookie sheets, and turned on the ovens to 200 degrees. That light bulb had my brain processing what I can do with all of this spent grain. I had about 1/3 of my spent grains drying in the oven. Every so often I would stir the grains around and let the hot steam escape from underneath the almost dried top layer.

As the wheels were still turning in my head, I knew I wanted to make biscuits for breakfast in the morning. Boom! I told my wife that is what I was going to do. I got that response that I knew she was worried. Even with the skeptical wifey, I moved onward and adapted my normal buttermilk biscuit recipe.

Spent Grain Buttermilk Biscuits

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup dried spent grain
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp very cold unsalted butter
Enough buttermilk to bring mixture to a dough

Procedure

Heat your oven to 425 degrees.

I used my food processor for everything up until I added the buttermilk this go around. Feel free to do this by hand and do not be afraid to get your hands all in this. There is a feel to biscuits and this will help you achieve the best texture.

If you haven’t milled your dried spent grain yet, do so now. I just milled in the food processor. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix well.

Cut the butter into 1/4″ cubes and then cut the butter into flour mixture. If using food processor, pulse approximately 15 times. You should have a flaky powder right now.

Flaky powder as I was putting the buttermilk in

I’m sure you noticed I didn’t put an amount of buttermilk you need. Some days I need 3/4 cup some days I need 1 1/8 cups. I don’t measure. Just use enough buttermilk to form a dough. The dough should be soft and not too sticky. If you feel the dough is too sticky feel free to knead in some more flour.

Drop the dough like it’s hot onto a floured surface

After the dough has come together, drop it on a floured surface. I like my biscuits to have layers. Gently use the heel of your hands to flatten the dough- I don’t even use our rolling pin any more. Fold the dough into thirds and flip it over and turn it 180 degrees. Repeat this 2-3 more times. This is purely optional, but it creates great layers!

Now for a hard decision. How big do you want your biscuits? I think the biscuit cutter I use is two inches which yielded 12 biscuits. Ok ok as you see in the pic below, it is 11 biscuits and a baby one, this one is for testing purposes only.

Hurry up and cook! I’m hungry!

Throw them into your nicely heated 425 degree oven for 12-15 minutes depends on your oven. If your oven heats unevenly like mine, halfway through, rotate the pan so they are evenly brown.

Here is when the skeptical wifey became unskeptical

Now it’s time to enjoy! The only thing wrong with my breakfast this morning was I didn’t cook enough bacon.

Breakfast time! Had to show off my coffee mug I got at Strange Brew

***Originally posted on Southern Fried Fermenters

Blichmann QuickCarb Review

Posted on February 12, 2017February 12, 2017 by Wick

Unboxing the QuickCarb

I attended my first HomebrewCon in 2016 in Baltimore. The number one thing is that I came away from at the conference was how awesome the expo was. I was like a kid in a candy store, no, I was a kid in a candy store. My money was literally burning a hole in my pocket, so I came away from this wondering what I wanted to spend my money on. One of the the most influential item that could be squeezed in my budget was the Blichmann QuickCarb. This was something that shot up to the top of my list on must haves in my home brewery. Why? Recently I have been brewing a lot for events and as most homebrewers will tell you, they are very huge procrastinators. Maybe I’m stereotyping all homebrewers, well that’s because I am. Because there is no way I procrastinate. </sarcasm>

Back onto the QuickCarb. This is something I have never seen before. My eyes widened as the Blichmann rep was explaining the product to me. The things I could do with this thing! Carbonate beers, transfer beer from one vessel to another, ok I don’t have anything else. I was pleased that the second option came up. Having this would only my feed of procrastination, I mean being a planner!

I have used it a handful of times and I wanted to share with you my pros and cons. This may end up being an every evolving list. Maybe this will show up on a Google search so if you are looking into purchasing this, I hope what I say will sway you.

I have enjoyed using this product. Looking back, is this something I would still purchase? I cannot answer that right now, but I will say that I do not regret buying this. I am glad it is in my inventory.

QuickCarb Pros:

Like the the name says, QuickCarb. Your beer will be carbonated in just under an hour.

Will not over-carbonate your beer. If you follow the procedures that are laid out, your beer will be almost perfectly carbonated.

Self priming pump. Yes, you heard me right here, SELF PRIMING PUMP! I have had so many issues with my brewing pump, this is a joy to my ears and my fingers got really excited typing self priming pump. Oh it makes things much easier. Do a quick search for self priming pumps, you’ll find that most self priming pumps are about the same price point as I say is a con.

You can carbonate a beer under an hour. Yes, this deserves two pros. Just saying.

QuickCarb Cons:

Price Point – $180 is a bit steep, but if you’re willing to pay for the convenience of carbonating your beer to a proper carbonation level, then jump onto the ship with me.

Storing – I haven’t really found the perfect way to store this thing just yet. Right now I let it air dry then put it back into the box that it came in, but the box is starting to fall apart now from getting wet. I need to find a case for it.

Bulky – All the lines coming from the keg to the pump from the CO2 tank to the pump, etc. It is just awkward.

Sour beers – Yes we all know you cannot contaminate your equipment with sour beers. I do brew a sour beer here and there, but I realize I would need to purchase another one to accommodate me wanting to quick carb a sour beer. Right now I just carbonate those like I did in 2015. Sigh.

Here is a very short video of the QuickCarb in action. This time I just had the QuickCarb laying on my kitchen counter.

Brings All The Boys to the Yard IPA / Saison

Posted on February 7, 2017February 7, 2017 by Wick

My homebrew club does a a intra-club competition that we call the Makeshift Mashout. We have everyone put ingredients into 3 hats: a brewing ingredient, a hop, and a yeast. I believe I entered oats, mosaic hops, and Vermont Ale yeast because I’m kind of on a New England IPA kick, yes, I’m brewing with the trends these days, excuse me there. The three ingredients that were selected were oats (WOOT!), CTZ hops, and saison yeast. I started on my journey of formulating a recipe. Where do I go to none other than The Mad Fermentationist Blog. I found a recipe of his using Columbus hops and oats. I used his Softer, Juicier, and Uglier APA recipe as the basis for this beer. I didn’t have any Nelson Sauvin hops and me being me, I didn’t want to buy a pound of them. I ordered 8 ounces of El Dorado hops. The descriptors of these hops were pear, watermelon, and stone fruit. This is exactly what I’m looking for in this IPA. I had some Amarillo stashed away in the freezer and ordered some CTZ hops with the El Dorados and now I’m about ready to fire up the kettle.

My grain bill was missing malts that would drop the mash pH in the effective range, this is why the initial grain bill called for acidulated malt. If you’re wondering no, I don’t have a reliable pH meter, I’m going all on gut instinct, which, well probably isn’t the best method. A reliable pH meter is on my wish list which will happen sooner than later. The acidulated malt I had in stock was overrun with weevils. It was disconcerting the amount of bugsthat had taken over the malt. I ditched them out in the yard and went onto something else. Since it was just for lowering mash pH, I added phosphoric acid to my mash water. At least this was a quick fix. Have I mentioned I need to go ahead and buy a reliable pH meter?

Harvester of Aqua

Also to note, I harvested my water from a spring that is 20 miles south of where I live. The water is very pure tasting and it has made some fantastic beers. I would love to get my hands on the analysis report. I do have a Total Dissolved Solids meter and it read 13 PPM. Pretty pure if you were to ask me. I built up a small water profile by using a 2:1 ration sulfites to chloride. Why the small numbers in these? Well I only had 6.6 grams of gypsum, so there you go. I wanted to use 2 grams of gypsum per gallon of water used, that didn’t happen as you see. No problem though, at the end I’ll still have beer.

Now onto my fermentation, this thing was super active which made me a happy brewer. The saison yeast was a few months past the prime, but I did a yeast starter and both yeasts were happily fermenting.

NE IPA and the “saison” fermenting away nicely. #homebrew

A video posted by wickdawg (@wickdawg) on Jan 31, 2017 at 5:58am PST

I can’t wait to write up some tasting notes on this bad boy. When I open the chest freezer to check on my babies in there, it smells glorious. I hope that transpires into what I am about to enjoy.

This beer has had a lot of life so far. There is a local artisan bakery in town. I sent him a text the morning of my brew day and told him this was a little different grain bill than usual and he was interested in what I had. He came by a few hours later to pick up my spent grains and he made some lovely loafs of bread. If you ever want to know what a brew day smells like, this bread delivered those aromas to his customers. It smelled of sweet grains and wort to boot. It was mighty tasty bread. I believe it might have been my favorite bread to come out of his bakery.

Whole Wheat Sourdough with spent IPA grains from @wickdawg Hope they taste as good as they look! A few extras on the shelf! First come first served. #craftbeer #wholegrain #spentgrain

A photo posted by Troy DeRego (@deregosbread) on Feb 3, 2017 at 9:26am PST

Recipe Details

Batch Size	Boil Time	IBU	SRM	Est. OG	Est. FG	ABV
11 gal	60 min	56.5 IBUs	3.9 SRM	1.061	1.012	6.4 %

Style Details

Name	Cat.	OG Range	FG Range	IBU	SRM	Carb	ABV
American IPA	21 A	1.056 - 1.07	1.008 - 1.014	40 - 70	6 - 14	2.4 - 2.9	5.5 - 7.5 %

Fermentables

Name	Amount	%
Pale Malt (2 Row) US	14 lbs	56
Oats, Flaked (Briess)	5 lbs	20
Wheat Malt, Bel	5 lbs	20
Carafoam (Weyermann)	1 lbs	4

Hops

Name	Amount	Time	Use	Form	Alpha %
Columbus (Tomahawk)	2 oz	60 min	Boil	Pellet	17.8
El Dorado	3 oz	0 min	Boil	Pellet	13.9
Amarillo	1 oz	0 min	Boil	Pellet	7.2
Columbus (Tomahawk)	1 oz	0 min	Boil	Pellet	17.8

Miscs

Name	Amount	Time	Use	Type
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate)	6.60 g	60 min	Mash	Water Agent
Calcium Chloride	3.30 g	60 min	Mash	Water Agent

Yeast

Name	Lab	Attenuation	Temperature
Leeuwenhoek Saison Blend (WLP564)	White Labs	78%	64°F - 90°F
London Ale III (1318)	Wyeast Labs	73%	64°F - 74°F

Mash

Step	Temperature	Time
Mash In	152°F	60 min

Notes

Heated 8 gallons of water in the BK to mash. Doughed in with 170 degree water. Initial mash temperature was ~142 degrees. Boiled ~1 gallon of water to add to mash to raise the mash temperature. Added to the mash, the mash was inconsistent as far as temperature, but was averaging around 152 degrees. Added 1/2 tsp of phosporic acid to mash water to help lower pH. I do not have a pH meter, just blindly did this.

Heating 8.5 gallons of water in the HLT with my immersion circulating heater covered with foil to keep heat in.

Anvil FIAK
—————
Wyeast 1318 London Ale III
12 hours after pitch - 1 ounce El Dorado Hops
1 ounce El Dorado - 14 Days
1 ounce Amarillo - 14 days
.5 ounce Columbus - 14 Days
1 ounce El Dorado - 7 Days
1 ounce Amarillo - 7 Days
.5 ounce Columbus - 7 Days

6 Gallon Glass Carboy
———————————
WLP564 Leeuwenhoek Saison Blend
1 ounce El Dorado - 14 Days
1 ounce Amarillo - 14 Days
1 ounce Columbus - 14 Days

Download

Download this recipe's BeerXML file

Tart Cherry Cyser

Posted on October 1, 2016October 1, 2016 by Wick

First off, I know what most of you are thinking. He really used store bought apple juice? Yes I did. Why? In Mississippi I cannot run down to my local apple orchard and get fresh juice. I have made some pretty good ciders with store bought juice. I used to use a certain kind of apple juice in my ciders, but now I cannot find it anymore which is a bummer. I went with this Wal-Mart brand because it wasn’t from concentrate. Will this make a difference in flavor? Who knows. I know when I pulled a sample before I pitched the yeast, the flavor was really good. It was wifey approved. Also I looked up how to use apple juice in Beer Smith. From the few things I read, was calculate how much sugar is in the juice and just add it in Beer Smith as table sugar. That is what I did. I also made some notes as you’ll see.

Beer Smith said this thing would attenuate down to .988, if US-05 has 77% attenuation as it is listed in there, I would imagine it would get to around 1.010-1.013. That would be my target anyways, I do want some sweetness around. This will not be an 8.6% ABV beverage.

Yield 2.5 gallons in the keg

2 gallons Apple Juice
2 qts Just Tart Cherry Juice
1.5 lbs honey
1 qt water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkg Safale US-05
2 tsp lactic acid (added at kegging)

Procedure: Weighed honey in an empty apple juice bottle then added apple juice to mix. Added yeast nutrient to apple juice bottle to shake up and mix. Pitched dry yeast directly onto the must.

O.G. 1.057

I made this for an event I was pouring at and of course I did not let it finish. Added lactic acid and force carbonated. It was a tad sweet, but people like sweet beverages and it was a hit. After the event, I left the keg outside for a few days to let it ferment down a touch more and it did indeed dry out some. Probably about to where I like it. Eventually this will be a staple on tap at the house.

Forks and Corks Porter

Posted on August 30, 2016February 21, 2017 by Wick

Going back to my Busty Porter recipe I brewed at the first of this year and my other robust porter recipes, the Busty Porter was just stuff I had sitting around at home because it was not my normal porter recipe. Well, this time I made sure I had everything. This is also going to be one of the quickest turn-around on a beer I’ve ever done. I brewed this beer exactly 2 weeks before the event. Racked to the keg after being in the fermenter for 11 days, thew it in the kegerator, and used the Blichman QuickCarb the next day to carb this puppy up. I pushed this beer through Strange Brew Coffeehouse House Blend beans to have a coffee porter at the event. It turned out pretty good for such a quick turnaround beer. Would I normally do this? No, not really, but I’ve had a lot going on lately at the house (ahem, bathroom reno). This is why I went back to the cooler mash tun instead of my direct fired mash tun. I have everything stored away right now. The direct fired isn’t very portable right now, which this is something I need to change.

But why did I brew 8 gallons? Well, before I started my boil, I pulled off some wort. A friend wanted to make pastrami and wanted to braise it in beer. I suggested braising it in sweet unhopped wort. I suggested this when braising the meat you wouldn’t make the wort more bitter while letting it break down the fats. I thought this was a really cool idea. The final product was really good and interesting. I think beer wort has some potential to do some really creative things in the kitchen.