Catpiss bitter

Romeo,  Backdoor Brewery mascot, passed away two weeks ago. He was a nice, red cat, and he really liked american and pacific hops. He spent half an hour purring around a big parcel of Vic Secret, just a week before we found a terrible limphoma attacked him.

I want to remember him with this recipe, a 4% abv bitter enerously hopped with Simcoe, to create a typical catpiss aroma. Obviously I added his beloved Vic Secret, hoping it will smoothen the simcoe and I'll ferment it with Kolsch yeast: it has to be piss, in the end.

Catpiss recipe, 20,0l (preboil 22,0)
efficiency  77%, 60 min. boilin
OG 1,038; IBU: 32,5; EBC: 11;
Maltis
  1700 gr Pale, 1,036;
  1360 gr Pilsen (2 Row), 1,039;
  140 gr CaraWien, 1,035;
Hops::
  5 gr Simcoe, 11,4 %a.a., 60 min;
  15 gr Vic Secret, 14,5 %a.a., 20 min;
  20 gr Vic Secret, 14,5 %a.a., 5 min;
  40 gr Simcoe, 11,4 %a.a., 0 min;
  20 gr Vic Secret, 14,5 %a.a., 0 min;

Spring is coming, and a session beer is ok, even if too extreme. Well, we will see if it's drinkable...

Black IPA

Last bottled beer is my Black IPA, 666: O 1066 and 66 IBU. Last year the beer was OK, my first Black IPA, and for the next version I just wanted to use some Chinook instead of Amarillo, to add more piney-resiny flavors, and move more hop in flavor and aroma, leaving a minimum amount in first wort hopping.

As usual, when I look at the ingredients, I have to change many things: no more Amarillo, so I used Simcoe. Then I fermented on a S-04 cake instead of US-05, so mas had to be lower, as well as the quantities of crystal: with a less attenuant yeast is better to give him more fermentable sugars, to keep te same FG as last batch and avoid the clogging sweet effect of an underattenuated beer. In the end, I changed bot grist and hopping.

Now I hope the 6 grams per liter in late boiling are enough for a good aroma, as I don’t like Dry Hopping in my beers. And I hope Simcoe smell of sweated armpit will lower down while maturing: is the second lot I use from that hop, and it gives the same bad smell as previous lot.

Wild hopped beer

Every homebrewer wonder how wild hop can be used, wich flavours will producce in the beer, and how drinkable can be a beer with wild hop.
I found wild hop flowers last september, biking around the countryside. Those flowers had no aroma, but a lot of oils and resins: my hands were sticky after collecting hop, and was a mess to get the bike handle in my hands after.

I forgot the hop in the freezer for months, then I run out of hallertauer while brewing a Bock: I decided to go on with the original recipe with fewer liter, and use 3 liters at the end of the sparge for a separate boiling, with the 150g of this wild hop (not dry, fresh freezed) and at the end I got two liters of wild hopped beer.
I called that beer Martesana, as the name of the artificial waterway that runs in the countryside where I collected the hop: sparge leftovers, wild hop and recicled Bavarian lager. Despite the ingredients, the beer turned out drinkable: no off-flavor, no garlic or onion smells like the wild hops I found in the past. Well, no hop aroma at all, and very low bitter, but OK for a kinda Bock: obviously not the best bock I ever drinked, not even the worst.

So, if you find wild hop and the flowers have no strange arome, they can be used to brew. Anyway, I used 150g for two liter, so you will need one-two kilogram of wild hop for a normal batch. I think it's not worth...

Martesana channel

India Pale Lager ?!?

Everybody loves american hops. Too much. There is an APA, IPA, blackipa, whiteipa invasion...everything can be IPAzed. Every microbrewery is putting tons of Cascade, Citra, Amarillo; mainly for Dry-hopping. Cool, you have a fresh, fruity, zesty beer: the problem is that my beer tastes like soda or Fanta, lousy body, malt not detectable. And with those beers I have the awkward sensation as when I was a child, drinking the Baby Orange Aspirin.

Personally, I deleted Dry-hopping from techincs I use: the fruity and aromatic effects just last one month, the hoppy aromas disappear; and on the other side the risks of infetions are too high. First wort hopping, is much better and reach comparable results, if combined with a giant dose (3-4 g/l) of hops at 20 minutes before the end of the boiling. And again 5 minutes before. And again at the end of boiling. To avoid the Baby-Aspirin effeect, I do a high temperature mash to increase the body, use 10-15% of Cara and Crystal malts and use a one-step decoction: that gives me a really malty and nutty taste, perfect to balance the high hoppines.

Thanks to those brewing adjustments, I get IPAs and APAs with a pleasant zesty taste, stable during months; so I decided to go a step further: low fermentation and lagering. The goal is to get a cleaner taste, to eliminate the bread-like taste given by ale yeasts and emphasize just the malt and the hops, like in a pils. Because if in a pils you can put on top the Saaz flavour, then Cascade and Amarillo will not disappear with lagering.
So, I put lots of hops at the end of the boiling, 40 IBU on 50 total in the last 20 minute (just for 10 IBU in First Wort hopping. Now, the India Pale Lager is lagering, after a primary fermentation with Saflager.

Italian version

Tabella BU/GU per stile, correzione densimetro, punti OG

In una pagina rassunto dei parametri BU/GU, per stile, correzione densimetro, attività enzimi, utilizzo luppolo:


qui in versione pdf: