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

BCJP certification...

...work in progress

Densimeter correction: Alcohol percentage

Online you find very poor informations about densimeter correction depending on alcohol content in beer, just tons of formulas about apparent vs. real attenuation with Plato and Brix scale, that are almost worthless.
If my saison FG is 997, I know it's very dry, but wich part is the alcohol, and how many residual sugars do I have in the beer?

Better answer would be: start using a rifractometer.
But I did this intead: I measured density at different dilution of cheap Vodka (37,75% Alc.), more specifically 18,87%, 9,43%, 4,72/, 2,36%, 1,18% alcohol. Then I plotted the table here, obtaining the following curve.

Here is the final table, with Alc.%, density, and the points to be added to densimeter

Qui la tabella, con la percentuale di alcool, la relativa densità in acqua, ed i punti che bisognerebbe correggere quando si legge la densità finale dal densimetro. 

Alc %	density	correction
1	998,155	1,84
2	997,11	2,89
3	996,065	3,93
4	995,02	4,98
5	993,975	6,02
6	992,93	7,07
7	991,885	8,12
8	990,84	9,16
9	989,795	10,20
10	988,75	11,25

So, my barley Wine OG 1094 that after 5 days was at a measured density of 1024, is not at 9% Alc., but if I correct according to the table it, is around 8%, and the apparent density of 1024 correspond to 1034: that means 90g/litro of residual sugars. So the fermentation is not finished and it will need some more days to get the real FG...

Bock?

Bock is a medieval style, dark and strong beers with powerful nature, in fact the name Bock means Billygoat. During Easter fast, german monks used to drink Bock as substitution for food. A good Bock needs to have a strong malty taste with caramel notes, full body and a red color. The only problem with that style is that, even if you like it, you cannot drink liters of it without getting drunk soon (unless you're a monk during Lent maybe...).
What is really good in homebrewing, is the possibility to play with malt, mashing temperatures and hops, to brew the beer that fully satisfy your tastes. In that case, who gives a shit if the beer is outside style parameters? For that reason, my last bock was made with Munich malt, 10% of Cara and Crystal to get caramel notes '1% of black malt, for a little hint of roasted taste. Mash was a decoction, and I used Hersbrucher hop up to 30 IBU. OG was 1060 (according to BJCP is too low, and the hop also is too much).

Here is the result: a great red beer, malty and full bodied with caramel notes. It's not too sweet: the bitter and hearty taste from Hersbrucker, and the black malt succeeded in balancing the malts, and thanks to the low OG and the high temperature mash (67°C), alcool is not detectable, and quite low (6%).

It's really a good point to change recipe parameters according to your taste!

Bock?

Le Bock hanno origine nel medioevo, erano birre forti e scure, che durante la quaresima venivano utilizzate dai monaci tedeschi al posto del cibo. Una buona Bock deve avere un gusto pieno e maltato, un buon corpo, note di caramello e un bel colore rosso. L'unico difetto di queste birre è che non possono essere bevute a secchiate senza sbronzarsi velocemente (a meno che non siate monaci in quaresima...).
Il bello  dell'homebrewing è crearsi la ricetta che soddisfa i propri gusti, giocare con le quantità di malto ed il mash per ottenere qualcosa che ci soddisfa. E magari fregarsene se non si rispetta del tutto lo stile. Per questo l'ultima bock che ho prodotto ha una base di monaco, il 10% di malti cara e crystal per esaltare le note di caramello, e l'1% di black, per dare un po' di gusto tostato. Ovviamente faccio un bel mash in decozione, e butto luppolo Hersbrucker in amaro per 30 IBU. OG di 1060 (un pò bassa per il BJCP, e un pò troppo luppolo, ma c'è un perchè).

Ecco il risultato: una bella birra rossa, corposa e maltata. Niente pericolo dolcione: l'amaro terroso del luppolo Hersbrucker, e la piccola aggiunta di malto tostato bilanciano le note dolci e caramellose, e visto che ho tenuto l'OG bassa ed il mash alto (do temperatura), l'alcol non è eccessivo.

A volte conviene aggiustarsi un pochino i parametri secondo i propri gusti!

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: