Siberian Tiger & Tigress - Baltic Porter

Born on Sun 9 March 2014:

With autumn and winter coming around the corner not to mention the Westgate Brewers Baltic Porter comp. in May I decided it was time to turn my hand to a style I have wanted to brew for a long time and one that would showcase Gladfield Malt in all its glory and pay respect to an endangered animal I much admire - the Siberian Tiger.  Having watched a film on the flight home with Mazzy on a crazy Korean who camped out for 5 years to film Siberian Tigers only to see all of them shot over the course of his camping by poachers I thought who better to be the figure head for this wonderful style of Porter originally brewed with a lager yeast in cold conditions with high abv for a journey from London to the Baltic States.

Mining the wonderful world of the Tinternet I stumbled across BrewToad.com and a wealth of good recipes some of which recommended an Irish Ale Wyeast so why not break with brewing convention.  I adapted, tweaked and put my own flavour on the grain bill and a moderate hop regime.  Ingredients below:

Gladfield Malt Bill (Kg)
1.50	Vienna	26%
1.50	Munich	26%
1.50	Ale	26%
0.40	Aurora	7%
0.40	Red Back	7%
0.20	Biscuit	3%
0.20	Brown	3%
0.16	Roast Barley	3%
5.86	Total
Hops:
Northern Brewer (NB) & Magnum
25g NB A/A 10.6% & 15g Magnum A/A 14.4% at start of boil
15g NB @Flame out
Wyeast: Irish Ale		1084
Adjuncts:	2 x Vanilla beans (split) in secondary
Ferment:	18C
Sources: Brewtoad, Homebrew Handbook, Key concept in water treatment, The complete Joy of Homebrewing, Beer & Brewer

Mash:

Decided to try a step mash not that Gladfield Malt (fully modified) required it but more because I have been extremely unhappy with my mash results in the untrusty Crown Urn brew in a bag set up:

Step 1: 30 mins @55 degrees Celsius

Step 2: 30 mins @66 degrees Celsius

Rest: 10 mins @66 C

Step 4: Mash off @70C for 15 mins

Racking: to create a Siberian Tigress

Sun 16th March racked off 16L into a secondary fermenter and 5L into an Oak Barrel which had been presoaked with Victorian Muscat and was primed with 200g of Dark Belgium Candy Sugar.  Upon tasting there was some nice roasted malt flavour and good body, hop tones and a mellow finish. My hope was this Tigress would be gentle but lethal just the same :-)

Bottling

Bulk primed 500ml of boiling water with 160g of dark brown sugar and bottled off the Siberian Tiger.  The Tigress was bottled a week later with just 12 bottles of this lethal she cat that will benefit from extended bottle conditioning.

Tastings

Been enjoying a few of these Tigers in May as the mercury drops and they are very morish :-)  Have not tempted the Tigress but plan to showcase her in all her glory with a heavy lamb shank, rich red meat dish or a saucy chocolate dessert to round out her malty smooth character and muscat on oak charms.  Just need to be careful as the Tigress will have a bite!

Hoppy Unhappy New Year Hefe

Rise and shine, its New Years Day 2014 and all was quiet in the deep dark wood of #WeFo hood.  What better day or time of the year to put down a Hoppy NY Hefe or so I thought reaching into the fridge at some ungodly hour to smack the Wyeast 5068 Weihenstephaner liquid yeast pack.  After all I had spent most of the preceding two weeks drinking exemplary examples of the style including Weihenstephaner , Erdinger, and Schöfferhofer thinking this has got to be one of the simplest styles to brew at home - surely I can not stuff it up!  Little did I know the unhappy mess I was about to get myself into on this fateful New Years day.The seeds of my demise on brew day had been sewn the night before, the week before having worked all through the festive season with the exception of Christmas and Boxing Day I thought nothing could be better than brewing on NY day with a long weekend ahead my better half would understand my thinking. Did I seek clarification and understanding before this undertaking - no I did not!  The brewing gods would have their revenge on this fateful brew day.

Heated the urn or 13L of water in it to 70 degrees Celsius.  Waited for the temperature to fall to 67C then added 2.5Kg each of Gladfield Pils & Wheat malts.  The temp plummeted to 60C and I panicked turning on the trusty Crown urn with the dodgy thermostat to crank it back up to my target mash temp of 64-66C.  Turned my back to get a cuppa or the girls aka 'malt' & 'hop' their breakfast only to return 10 mins later and find the temp up at 75C killing the enzymes needed in the malt for conversion - arrrghhh!!!!

Furiously ran around adding ice to cool bring down 1C every five mins over an hour to 64C.  My SG was 1.056 @64C and I was in trouble - not enough conversion as I sparged with 78C water adding another 14L into the boil for a pre-boil SG of 1.024 - oh dear a light weight weissbier here my friends.  By now its mid-day Mrs D is unhappy I am brewing without prior clearance and I am frantically tipping in 1.5Kg of Briess Dry Malt Extract to get the SG up to 1.04, but that is still not high enough - out with the dreaded adjunct 1Kg of Raw Sugar breaking all my brewing conventions and the Reinheitsgebot .  Will I ever be forgiven for such brewing sins on this unhappy NY day?

Might as well push onto the unhappy finish line.

60 mins boil with additions of 80g of Hersbrucker hops 3.4 Alpha Acids with 60g @60mins, 15g at 15 mins and 15g (5g Herbrucker and 10g of Perle 7.6% A/A) at 5 mins.  Immersion chill it down and pitch the Wyeast 5068 Weihenstephaner and beg forgiveness for my far too understanding wife and children.What monster in a plastic fermenter was I creating here?

Not content with the creation or creative destruction of german brewing heritage and style to date I dry hopped on 5 Jan with 30g Tettnang 3.9% A/A racked off on 12 Jan and turn the temp controller to 17C leaving until 26th Jan - Aus Day of all days to bottle bulk priming with 180g of sugar (no DME left!) a very thin, dry, hoppy and oh so unhappy NY Hefe :-(

Not my best work in the brauhaus but tomorrow is another brew day as they say...