Taking a Break

Unfortunately, I need to put the blog on hold. I am launching a venture that involves fermentation! Gourmet Butanol--my company--will use food waste to produce a biofuel known as butanol (the same molecule that gives you nasty hangovers).

New entries to the blog will come when I have more time to brew.

-Nick

Coming Out

That's right. I'm out of the closet. From now on all alcohol will either be fermented in the kitchen or in the basement. Don't worry though—the URL will remain the same.
I moved into a new apartment last week and christened my kitchen—in memory of the closet—with an easy-drinking pale ale. But before I describe the brew day, I'll hit some highlights from my road trip out east.

The brewery in the kitchen

After driving through the flat state of North Dakota and a quick stay in Minnesota, I was ready to devour some aged cheddar and drink some Wisconsin brew. I met up with my good friend Grant, who I've known since I was ten when we were both learning how to fly-fish. An hour and a half after arriving we were already in the local grocery store putting mixed packs together. We picked up some 12-year cheddar and a wealthy selection of beers endemic to WI.

In the land of cheese

We sipped on everything from New Glarus’s Flemish Brown to Sand Creek’s One Planet Ale, and by the end of the day, few beers remained untouched. Luckily we had a sober driver to take us into Madison to explore the scene. The night was fuzzy and without that aged cheddar I’m not sure I would have survived the next day. I normally drink Gatorade and pump vitamins to cure the hangover, but from now on I think I'll stick to potent cheese.

The selection

The hangover lifted, my car got tuned up, and I continued my journey east. The next beer stop was Manhattan, where my friends Joslyn, Paul, and Max were anxious to guide me through the veins of the city. We walked everywhere from Central Park all the way down south to SoHo. The tall sky-scrapers with flashing lights and gargantuan bill-boards never seemed real. I felt like I was in Las Vegas—where everything is too bizarre and wild to take seriously. I dove into the madness and dug it all. Beer? Plenty of it, but the brewery that stood out was Nogne∅ from Norway. A bartender in Portland, Maine once recommended this brewery to me, and I see why—smooth, interesting, and flavorful beers. Other than beer, dank food, good company, and surreal skyscrapers, the pickle shop needs to be mentioned. That’s right, a store that only makes and sells pickles. They have about fifteen tubs with different degrees of spiciness, tartness, and sweetness. The master pickler recommended a crunchy and spicy explosion that still has me drooling. Damn.

Far from Carbondale

In bottles

Paul and Max posing like tourists

Support your local pawn shop

Unfortunately my time ran out, and I had to leave the madness of the city behind. I got back to school, and as soon as I moved into my new house Matt McElwee and I put our brew pots to use.

Samuli stirring and Matt watching

Multiple tiers at different heights are crucial for sparging unless you have pumps that fight gravity. Luckily there's a set of stairs out back that was perfect for our fly-sparge.

Three-tiered fly-sparge

The brew day went smooth, and we had plenty of company that were equally excited to watch the wort boil. I never knew meeting neighbors would be so easy. Something about having three huge stainless steel pots and bulging bags of hops and barley attract people like fruit flies to kombucha. With plenty of new friends, we’ll have to keep the beer flowing.

Taking it back to the 80's Photo by: Jenny Lynch

The air lock is still bubbling away—a sign from the beer gods that this year will be a good one.

Brewing Up Some Funk

Chalese and I began our epic road trip to Maine on Thursday, but before we left I managed to squeeze in two brew days. Most beers only take a couple of months to ferment and mature to perfection, but since these two beers have an entire year to sit I decided to utilize different strains of bacteria and yeast that require more time than standard ale yeasts. The first batch contains two strains of yeast (saccharomyces and brettanomyces) and two strains of bacteria (lactobacillus and pediococcus)—a medley that should create a dynamic sour profile. The second batch only contains brettanomyces, which is rarely used exclusively.

My stainless steel Blichmann pots are in a storage unit in Ellsworth, Maine, so I had to improvise. Morgan Williams and I fashioned a lauter tun out of a water cooler, copper tubing, and the necessary fittings—directions found on homebrewtalk.com.

The supplies Photo by: Morgan Williams

Teflon tape is your friend Photo by: Morgan Williams

Drilling holes for the strainer Photo by: Morgan Williams

Fully assembled

Inspired by Russian River’s Consecration and New Belgium’s La Folie I formulated a recipe for a sour brown ale with plums added to the secondary fermenter. My mom, Chalese, and Morgan helped harvest plums from two trees that loom over the west patio of our house. The trees were in short supply this year, but we still managed to collect over a pound and a half of fruit—excluding the pits.

Putting it to the test Photo by: Morgan Williams

The lauter tun worked flawlessly. In Maine I rinse the sugars from the barley using a fly-sparge system that continually drips water over the grains while the sweet wort—sugar water—flows into the boil kettle at the same rate water is dripping over the barley; this is a three-tiered system that utilizes three pots—the hot liquor tank (holds the hot water), the lauter tun (separates the barley from the hot water), and the boil kettle (collects and condenses the sweet wort). My new homemade set up in Colorado functions best with a batch sparge that works by adding water in three large additions to the lauter tun and then allowing the water to slowly drain into the boil kettle. During a typical fly-sparge, I tend to extract 89% of the available sugars from the barley, and with the batch sparge I hit an efficiency of 84%.

The first runnings Photo by: Morgan Williams

As ripe as it gets

The plum trees on the west patio

The harvest Photo by: Chalese Carlson

I sanitized the skins with Everclear rather than using heat to pasteurize. When fruit is heated it often looses freshness and takes on the consistency of jam.

Slicing and dicing Photo by: Chalese Carlson

For the primary fermentation I pitched WhiteLabs Bastogne yeast, and then I racked—siphoned—the beer onto the sliced plums and added the funk—souring yeast/bacteria.

Plums in the fermenter

Plums, funk, and CO2

A few days later I brewed the Belgian pale ale that is being fermented solely by brettanomyces. I am hoping this beer will taste similar to the Trappist brewery Orval but without the spiciness from the Saaz hops. The mash and boil was non-eventful but the yeast starter was one of the most phenomenal spectacles of fermentation I have yet seen. Brettanomyces produces a pellicle colony—solid mass of yeast cells on the surface of the substrate. Its appearance makes you wonder how anyone would have first wanted to sip on the liquid beneath the mass without knowing the possible effects. While Brettanomyces is feared by brewers and winemakers alike, its presence is most welcome in this beer. Bring on the funk.

Brettanomyces in the starter

Pouring the starter into the carboy Photo by: Morgan Williams

The Night Brett Snuck in Through the Air Lock

Almost exactly one year ago Luke Gottlieb and I brewed a Belgian style ale that included one quart of local raw gamble oak honey. The beer was left to ferment in the secondary for the school year, and when I got home from Maine the first thing I did was run down stairs to check on my baby. It looked unchanged, but as I examined further I noticed that something unusual was floating on the surface. Near the edge of the carboy there was a scattered mess of hard bubbles. These bubbles are not a byproduct of normal fermentation--from Saccharomyces that is--but more likely a result of a wild yeast contamination. In this case I believe the culprit belongs to the the Brettanomyces genus. I am obsessively sanitary when brewing, so there is a very slight possibility that the Brettanomyces--Brett--made it into the beer during handling; what is more likely is that this wild funk snuck in through the air lock--the plastic contraption on the carboy that contains water to allow CO2 to escape but keeps air out.

When this beer was first fermenting, it was in a room that fluctuated in temperature. Each night the temperature would drop, and a pressure differential would be created between the inside of the carboy and the rest of the room. In the morning, the air lock would be empty and air would be allowed to flow into the carboy. It is most probable the intruder came in during this time.

The carboy at a distance

The funk on the side

I once read that no known pathogens have been found in infected beers, so I wasn't afraid to taste it--in fact, I was excited. Being a lover of sour beers I began to imagine a tart treat. What if Luke and I had created what beer aficionados salivate over? On the other hand, it could turn out to be a band-aid ale, which thanks to Matt McElwee, I have had the displeasure of trying. I withdrew a sample and did a one handed drum role as I sniffed and then poured the liquid over my tongue.

Looking a little better outside the carboy

The taste was........... lacking any resemblance to an infected beer. In fact I couldn't pick out any off-flavors other than a slight burn of alcohol and some esters that tasted like bananas. It almost tasted like a light after dinner liqueur, but the taste of band-aids and tartness was absent. The Brett might have attempted to establish itself but the high alcohol percentage probably restricted its growth.

Even though Luke and I were lucky our beer wasn't ruined, the problem could have been avoided by using a different style of air lock. The standard 3-piece air lock that I usually use does not account for any changes in pressure but the "bubbler" style does. The bubbler air lock allows water to pass into two chambers to offset any differences in pressure. I have since outfitted all of my carboys in Colorado with the bubbler style to keep out any more unwanted yeasties.

Below are the two styles with blue dye added to the water.

The 3-piece

The "bubbler"

Colorado Sunshine

I've been busy lately not with brewing or school but with work, frisbee golf, and fly-fishing. The latter two sports have one thing in common--they're both best accompanied with beer. A cold IPA is almost a requirement for scoring under par, and a few sips before each cast creates an odd attractive force around my fly that makes every trout in the stream swim after it. There is however some skill involved in gulping beers on the river or at the frolf course; the beer must be either hidden from the sun or drunk quickly before UV rays react with the hop material to turn your tasty IPA into liquid skunk--known as light-struck or "skunked" beer. If you are wondering what I mean by skunked beer, buy a bottle of light-beer in a green or clear bottle and set it in the sun for an hour before you drink it. I've read that the transformation can occur within 15-minutes under intense sun light. Heineken has a reputation for being skunked, which can be attributed to the green bottle its packaged in. Green and clear bottles will allow more sun light to penetrate the beer while brown bottles minimize light exposure.

The chemical explanation for skunked beer is that hop material such as isomerized humulones are broken apart when exposed to high energy light waves. Portions of the ruptured molecules can then react with a sulfur compound readily found in beer to form a molecule that is almost identical to that found in the aroma produced by skunks. Hops can however be treated with sodium borohydride to reduce them to a more light stable form that does not break down as easily--Miller treats their beer with this to keep it from skunking.

So next time your drinking beers while frolfing keep this information in mind. I've found that if my beer becomes skunked my accuracy deteriorates and my score card fills up with bogeys.

Fathers Day

For Father’s Day a crew of us—Luke and Larry Gottlieb, Ian Revo, and my dad and I—drove to Denver to see the Rockies take on the Brewers (a good opponent to mention on a beer blog). The game ended with an 8 to 7 win over the Brewers after the Rockies nearly blew it in the top of the ninth with the bases loaded and the Brewer’s star batter at the plate. We were all up on our feet, and the stressful ending duel had us craving something cold to ease our nerves. We left the stadium and went to the Falling Rock Tap House and with around 200 beers on the menu we knew we were in for a treat.

The first thing I do when I arrive at a beer bar is look for sour beers, and more specifically any brewed by Russian River—perhaps my favorite brewery. I am almost always out of luck because even if the manager is savvy enough to sell any of the Russian River beers, they are almost always out of stock. This time however I struck gold; not only did they have five Russian River brews, but they also had two of their sours I had yet to try—Supplication and Consecration. I had only seen these beers once before when I was strolling through a Whole Foods in San Francisco, but I was too hung-over and neglected to buy them—my only regret in life. This night however was my night of redemption, and I drank them both. Phenomenal. After having looked through a hundred or so bar menus and searched countless liquor stores, I finally experienced beer nirvana.

Supplication is fermented by two strains of bacteria—Lactobacillus and Pediococcus—and two strains of yeast—Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces. This blend of yeast and bacteria create a delightfully sour and dry beer. On top of the microbiotic medley, Supplication is also aged in Pinot Noir barrels for over a year with sour cherries added at some point during fermentation. Complex, light, and smooth.

Consecration is fermented by the same strains of bacteria and yeast as used in Supplication, but due to its higher alcohol percentage some of the bacteria do not survive the entirety of fermentation, which leaves a slightly sweeter profile. Currants are also added to this beer to add to the dynamic flavor. Although stronger than Supplication, it is equally as drinkable and delicious. These beers are among the best sours I have ever tried, and I am definitely considering blowing a day’s wages to buy a case to drink on special occasions.

Boiled Corn Beer

One lesson I learned while traveling in Latin America was to always be skeptical of the corn cooked at street stands. In Mexico, old ladies are often seen taking beautiful ears of corn and boiling them in water for up to an hour. Once the corn is removed from the pot its chewy, flavorless, and unappetizing. The flavors most likely dissipate into the water, and by the end of the night I imagine the water is a pretty potent extract. Now, picture this extract being used as the base liquid for brewing beer; this is exactly what dimethyl sulfide tastes like. Many of you may know that this is also the smell of the sea, however brewers associate it with cooked vegetables.

For those interested in the chemistry I’ll give a quick explanation for how this flavor can arise during brewing, but if you have no such interest, skip this paragraph. S-methylmethionine, which is a derivative of the common amino acid methionine, is present in malted barley, and when its heated in the presence of a hydroxide (OH-), the positive sulfur atom bonded to the two methyl groups of s-methylmethionine are replaced by the hydroxide, forming both dimethyl sulfide and homoserin. As long as there is s-methylmethionine present, and the wort is at a temperature of at least 140°F, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced. However, dimethyl sulfide is extremely volatile and easily evaporates. It is also readily oxidized to dimethyl sulfoxide, which does not have a significant flavor impact on the finished product. Because s-methylmethionine continues to produce dimethyl sulfide as long as it is present in the wort, it is important to have a rolling boil for over an hour (90-120 minutes is optimal) with the lid off so that the volatile compounds can be carried away with the steam. This is also another reason why chilling the wort quickly is important.


Non-chemists are safe to start reading again. As a part of my independent study—and Matt McElwee’s and Christian Wagner’s—we wanted to see if we could successfully control and change the brewing process in order to produce both desirable and undesirable flavors. One of the easier off-flavors to produce is dimethyl sulfide, so we decided to brew a batch targeting this flavor. In order to produce our cooked-corn beer, we only boiled the wort for 30 minutes, and we left the lid on to capture any dimethyl sulfide that could evaporate during the boil. Once we finished the boil, we didn’t chill the wort with our copper chiller but allowed the wort to cool over night. Basically, we did the opposite of what is recommended to reduce the production of dimethyl sulfide.

The Test Batch: Corn Beer

Upon bottling this beer we knew we had been successful. The aroma of gross cooked corn was overwhelming to the point that we thought we would have to donate it to the beer pong table at a party. It has been a few weeks now since we bottled it, and its actually tolerable—if not refreshing. It will be a good beer for the winter when we’re all craving some corn on the cob or dreaming of Mexico.

What's Brewing?

The end of the term is approaching and despite my increasing work load, I've sneaked in a few brew sessions over the past couple of weeks. I have also been tweaking my methods to improve the quality of the finished product by adjusting my tap water with different salts, and I have been experimenting with longer sparges (see the "Tripel" entry for more information) to maximize sugar extraction. Water is the main ingredient in beer and the mineral ions in solution have significant effects on enzyme function, yeast health, and the accentuation of malt and or hop bitterness. Think about how a bland meal can be transformed by simply adding salt; it works the same with beer. My tap water, which I had tested by a water chemistry lab, has very low levels of dissolved ions, so the addition of salts is crucial.

Some of the different salts used to adjust my tap water

The two most recent beers I've brewed include a porter, which had a small amount of peat smoked malt added to the mash, and a clone of Dogfish Head's Midas Touch. The porter was interesting to brew because I adjusted my water to match London's, which is known to be perfect for darker beers.

Milling the grains for the porter

About to boil Photo by: Christian Wagner

Hops enjoying a hot bath Photo by: Luke Madden

Even though alcoholic beverages may have been enjoyed for more than six-thousand years, the oldest recipe to have been recovered dates back 2,700 years. In Turkey, arqueologists recovered drinking vessels from King Midas's tomb. Scientists analyzed the residue in the vessels and determined that it contained grapes, honey, barley, and saffron. Dogfish Head then recreated the recipe, which they called the Midas Touch. Chalese and I love this beer especially after a long day of skiing.

Saffron in beer? I'm excited.

I love the process of brewing, but sanitizing and bottling can be boring when its done alone. I procrastinated bottling a couple of batches--a Belgian quadrupel and the tripel--and I finally bottled them last week with the help of some friends. The quadrupel is a cloned recipe for the Trappist brewery Westvleteren's 12. I haven't had the chance to try the commercial version because the monks have not condoned the sale of their beer outside of the brewery. Their beers don't have any labels, and the brew master at Westvleteren once said that if they ever designed a label, all it would say is "Don't export to the USA." The 12 is rated the top beer in the world by multiple beer rating websites, and I think it may end up being the best beer I've brewed to date. I brewed it with my friend Blake Davis in the fall and then let it sit at 34 degrees for 4 months before bottling. Next week will be the first tasting.

Sanitation is key if you don't like the taste of band-aids. Photo by: Luke Madden

Matt McElwee helping with the siphon Photo by: Christian Wagner

The production line

Corking the Belgians

A small fraction of the 11 gallons bottled

Will Drink Beer for Yeast

This is a slightly hypocritical entry to follow the last write up that emphasized the importance of supporting local agriculture. Unfortunately my ideals are not strong enough to give up drinking Belgian beers anytime soon.
No classes are held on Wednesdays, so Tuesdays always feel like Fridays. Therefore Tuesday was a perfect night to hold a beer tasting. A couple of my friends, who are also home brewers, are trying to harvest a variety of yeast strains, so we justified spending the extra buck on a few awesome Belgian-style beers. In the line up we had a sample from five of the seven Trappist breweries--brewed by Trappist monks--a ten year old sour beer, and a special edition Allagash from Portland, Maine. I wrote down our tasting notes to make sure I'd remember the subtleties of each one. And for the record, we shared all of these, and I walked home.


A Tripel brewed by the Belgian Trappist brewery Westmalle. This beer is often regarded as the standard for Tripels but personally, I prefer Karmeliet's version. The Westmalle Tripel is 9.5% alcohol by volume but goes down like a light beer.
Appearance: Nice golden color. Good head retention--this refers to the foam.
Aroma: Bubble gum/cantaloupe, dough, spicy phenols, and citrus.
Taste: Phenols up front, and a spicy hop finish presumably from the saaz hops. As it warmed up the alcohol became apparent.
Mouthfeel (viscosity/carbonation): Medium bodied.
Drinkability: Very easy to drink.


Brewed by Orval--another Belgian Trappist. This beer contains Brettanomyces which lends a dry barnyard sourness to the beer. Saccharomyces is the yeast involved in the fermentation of most beers; however it can only ferment 65-80% of the available sugars. Brettanomyces on the otherhand can ferment over 90% of the sugars, which dries out the beer.
Appearance: Hazy orange.
Aroma: Smells like brettanomyces and a fusion of fruity horses?
Taste: Crisp flavor that tastes a lot like the aroma. Has a slightly astringent aftertaste.
Mouthfeel: Thin and dry. Well-carbonated.
Drinkability: Easy to drink. A good beer to follow most sour beers.


Rochefort 8 is another Belgian Trappist. Thanks to my dad it was served in its righteous chalice. The "8" used to signify an original gravity of 1.080--as read on the hydrometer--but the number system has fallen through the cracks over the centuries. I once tried the Rochefort 8 against my own version of an 8, but I preferred the Rochefort.
Appearance: Dark brown with large yeast flakes in solution.
Aroma: Roasted grains, and candied sugar.
Taste: Plums, birch, raisins, and some phenols.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied.
Drinkability: Very smooth and easy drinking.


The 8's older brother. It is very similar to its sibling but a bit bolder in all regards. This was a new one for me.
Appearance: Dark ruby brown with a tan head.
Aroma: Raisins, caramel, and roasted grains.
Taste: Earthy tones, plums, dark sugars, and a slight alcohol finish (not too bad for 11.3%).
Mouthfeel: Still medium bodied.
Drinkability: I could drink this regularly.


Limited edition series of Oudbeitje Lambic. This beer is 10 years old, which is the oldest beer I've tried to date. Lambics are sour beers that originated in Belgian farmhouses. Open air fermenters were used, and the beer was left be fermented by wild yeasts. Lactobacillus bacteria are one of the main cultures involved in producing the sour notes. While lactobacillus can be harvested from the air, or purchased online, it is also found on most barley and can be cultured by allowing the moist barley to sit at room temperature for a few days. I am a sour beer addict.
Appearance: Orange with no head.
Aroma: Musty strawberries.
Taste: Strong lactobacillus and brettanomyces flavor followed by a musty and powerful sourness. This beer is very complex.
Mouthfeel: Dry and flat.
Drinkability: Not for most beer drinkers, but I could drink a six pack.


Yet another Belgian Trappist! The Premiere by Chimay is their mid strength beer. While the Grand Reserve is my favorite Chimay, this one is also very tasty.
Appearance: A beautiful red when held up to the light.
Aroma: Sweet, maple syrup, and bread.
Taste: Raisins, plums, bubble gum, and grapes.
Mouthfeel: Full bodied.
Drinkability: I don't know why I included drinkability as one of the criteria since all of these beers go down so easily. But yes, this beer is very easy to drink.


Allagash's Hugh Malone is the local Maine beer for the night, and actually the beer I was most impressed with. This was another first for me, but I knew I would like it since it is a Belgian IPA and I love both Belgian beers and IPA's. Hugh Malone refers to the molecule in hops known as humulone, but apparently Hugh Malone may also be a real person--we googled Hugh but weren't sure if our findings were legit: http://hughmalone.com/. Allagash is a great brewery, but the Buck Special Edition series are extraordinary--the Hugh Malone is part of this series.
Appearance: Light orange with a nice head.
Aroma: Sweet, hops.
Taste: Fruity hops, phenols, Belgian yeast. Michael Arnsteen always judges IPA's by their burps, and this one had phenomenal ones.
Mouthfeel: Light but not dry.
Drinkability: Perfectly well-rounded, and one that I look forward to drinking again.


The night finished with a Quadrupel from the Trappist brewery Koningshoeven. The Koningshoeven brewery is located in the Netherlands and it is the only Trappist brewery outside of Belgium. Its always good to end the night on a dark beer, and this one hit the spot.
Appearance: Dark ruby.
Aroma: Sweet plums and dark sugar.
Taste: Almonds, pitted fruits, and cherries.
Mouthfeel: Full bodied.
Drinkability: Still easy to drink after a night of good beer.