Brewerman

Deschutes Bachelor ESB Clone Recipe – 9/8/2015

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Clone Brew - Deschutes Bachelor ESB

Deschutes Bachelor ESB is a spectacular beer. Served almost exclusively in the brewery’s pubs and tasting room, this session Bitter is a local’s favorite (this local has logged more time with this beer than any other). I have tried several times to clone this beer but never hit the mark. I mostly attribute this to not enough time to get rid of each iteration’s beer, combined with a general tendency to get distracted on other things life throws my way. With smaller batch volumes, however, I can brew, bottle, drink, and make adjustments for each attempt producing the target profile I am after, so I have reset my sights on fine-tuning a version of this beer that I can add to my list of frequently brewed recipes.

Bachelor ESB is an american expression of a classic English Bitter, not far removed from its source of inspiration. This Bitter is medium bodied, 5% ABV, and is mildly bittered with american hops grown her in the pacific northwest. It is my ideal session ale.

What follows is the first round of brewing, plus take-aways. I will updating this post with a link to the post detailing the round of brewing once that is finished.

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English Bitter Update 1

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Just a quick update on the Bitter.  Due to the moderate attenuation of the London ESB yeast, we bottomed out out at around 1.025.  I transferred to glass, and put into the chill chest at 46 F for a bit of lagering.

Because I used loose pellets to dry hop, there are hop particulates suspended throughout.  The taste is clean, but green.  The purpose of the time spent in cold is to coagulate what I can to allow those solids to drop out.  This will improve the appearance, and the flavor will mature as well.  I’ll check in on it toward the end of the week and decide when it will be time to keg.

That clean taste … hats off to the wet t-shirt method.

English Bitter on the way!

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I finally have another beer in process.  Last weekend, I brewed up  an English Bitter.  This one is the first crack at narrowing in on the Deschutes Pub Bitter served here in Bend.  It’s so damned tasty, and will be great now that the temperatures are cracking the 90’s here in Central Oregon.  I’ll get around to uploading the recipe if I feel it’s worthy.

The beer is sitting in a water bath with a clean, wet T-Shirt wicking water up around the fermenter.  There’s a fan pointed at the fermenter from across the room to force quick evaporation.  All of that is to battle the mid-70’s temp in the house.  Should put it in the mid-to-high 60’s (optimal temp for the London ESB yeast I’m using).  Going to probably stir up the yeast tomorrow, so I’ll have to take a sample.

Stoked to have a full keg of Bitter on the way!

X Brew Tasting Notes – X IPA 1

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Fruits of the labor: X Brew XIPA1Beer: X IPA 1 – 36/50
Tasting Date: 1/4/2010

Appearance [max 5] : 3

Solid head that keeps its form, and slowly settles into a 1/4″ blanket  on the surface that slowly gets consumed through the beer.

Deep copper color.  Definitely darker than what I remember West    Coast IPA would have.  Going to need to do a side-by-side comparison (good thing I have another couple of bottles).

Aroma [max 10] : 8

The Centennial aroma on top of Cascade finishing on top of CTZ/Simcoe backbone is definitely a pleasing hop chord.  With this hop schedule it’s feint but pleasantly floral, then piny, and even a bit summer fruity?

Palate [max 5] : 4

Medium to full body, rich creamy texture, soft carbonation, clean finish

Flavor [max 10] : 7

Nice duration, with a uniform flavor curve that works from the back of the throat towards the front and sides of the tongue, then finishing in back of the mouth with a nice, bitter.  Absolutely love balance of sweet to bitter.

There’s a noticeable light tart finish.  Similar to light lacto in the Boulevard brewing Saison-Brett.  Not really what I want on the end of this beer.  Will need to investigate the underlying cause of that.  It’s definitely a subtle off flavor, so not too distracting from the otherwise very pleasant beer.

The caramels from the Carastan and Cara-pils on the two row are really tasty.  I feel the malt and backbone is just a hair too much.

Overall [max 20] : 14

This is a very solid IPA.  I’d like to turn up the aroma, reduce the mouthfeel (maybe OG just a touch too), and clean up the tart finish.  Once those items are addressed, I can turn my attention to manipulating the IPA’s crowning feature … the hop aroma and flavor.

X Brew – Brew Notes: XIPA1

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Airlock full of active fermentationThis was the first brew session with the new equipment, so I thought I would document some of the issues that came up.  Here are my brew notes.

11/23: First run with the 1 gallon immersion “mash tun”.
Added 1/4 tsp gypsum to 2 gallons of Bend, OR tap water
Mashed in, and think I hit target 152 degree mash temp deep in the mash, not sure about the top though … 147 with digi. therm.

When I pulled the mash out, the floating thermometer was around 146, so it would appear there’s a problem with holding temperatures.

Recirculated the wort over the mash, and the gravity was way low (around a 54% efficiency). Adjusted the recipe, and
Put mash in the kettle (kept it in a grain bag), and added rest of water. Still low gravity.
Added DME to hit target grav.

New kettle: boil-off rate significantly higher than expected. Added somewhere around 1.5 quarts extra water throughout the boil.

Didn’t take OG measurement (way too tired) to get out sample for hydrometer … yeah … that lame.

12/7: No visible activity. Then I swirled the bucket like I used to when I’d make a starter in a belgian bottle … percolation nation!!!

12/8: Nasty top of the bucket from lots of activity … awesome to see this thing cranking.

12/15: Added dry hops

12/22: Bottling day.  Added half a pack of dry yeast … way too much … and calculated amount of corn sugar to add to hit around 2.4 volumes of CO2. FG was measured at 9.1 brix … don’t think it was complete in retrospect. Taste: clean bitter, peach, slight grapefruit. Light caramel malt. Very very pleasant.

Takeaways … I didn’t follow any of my own advice on this brew day … so lessons learned:

  • Overheat your strike water so you hit your target infusion mash temperature.  Think that it was way too low.
  • Take a gravity reading
  • Know your equipment.  This initial brew is going a long way to try and do so, but I need to really measure my boil off rate.

Hopefully I’ll have a better run next time when I formulate the adjustments to the recipe.

Cheers.