You could say that this is the beer that started the blog. I had always made up my own recipes, and after a couple batches I had started to dial in my brewing process. That’s when I got cocky.
I wanted to push a little bit, make something complex. I put together a recipe for an American pale ale with rye, peppercorns, brown sugar, and oak. It was kind of a bastardized version of a couple of Sam Calagione’s recipes from Extreme Brewing. I may not have treated the rye properly, since I basically steeped it with some crystal malt…but the real problems came when I added the brown sugar.
I waited until fermentation got started, then I melted the brown sugar into some water and poured it all in. But then I started to think, “Well, that must have just went to the bottom. I better stir it up.” My beer immediately lost its mind. The krausen started to pump like a heartbeat and blow off, and all the sediment kicked back up and swirled around like the gulf stream. The beer bubbled loudly next to my bed for three nights and I had nightmares about exploding carboys.
At this point I was still holding out hope. Maybe it’s not a problem? It could be just a vigorous fermentation, right? Right? But even once things calmed down, the beer looked terrible. What I came to realize was that all of that agitated sediment had no way to drop back out of suspension. The Irish moss had already done its work, and the cold break after boiling had dropped out as much crud as it could. I had canceled all that out by stirring up my carboy.
Tags: brown sugar, oak, rye, sediment
I like the image of you sleeping next to your carboy. Your bachelors frig is nothing compared to having brewing beer as a sleeping companion.