We’ve got a ton of these tall, prolific, orange marigolds growing in our garden, they’re shading out the other plants, and they need some pruning.  But why waste the beautiful flowers?  They are edible, and apparently “some cultivars are strong and bitter” which sounds a lot like how you’d describe hops.  Let’s put them in beer!

Since this is an experiment, and our inspiration came to us two hours before we had to be somewhere else, we took some shortcuts.

The Recipe

Name: Marigold Imperial Pils
Batch size: 2.5 liters
Boil size: 3 liters
Expected OG: 1.065 (75% efficiency)
Expected FG: 1.014
Expected IBU: ??

  1 lb Briess Pilsen Light DME

  0.25 oz Kent Goldings 6.47%AA @ 30m
  0.5  oz Garland Orange marigold petals @ 30m
  1.0  oz Garland Orange marigold petals @ 20m
  1.0  oz Garland Orange marigold petals @ 10m
  1.0  oz Garland Orange marigold petals @  0m
          Steep hops & petals 1 hour after boil

  2/3 pack Safale S-05 dry yeast (66F for two weeks)

The Brew

First, about the liters…  this time we’re fermenting in old 3-liter wine jugs, so obviously we don’t want to end up with more than 2.75 or so liters of wort, or we’d have blowoff.  So we settled on 2.5.

Then, instead of tossing whole marigold heads into the boil, we pulled and used only the petals to avoid off-flavors from the stem and other flower parts.  We did an hour-long “marigold-stand” at the end of the brew to extract maximum marigold flavor and aroma from the star ingredient.

We abbreviated the boil to 30 minutes because we really wanted to see what the marigolds would contribute, not the hops.  But we did add a small amount of Kent Golding hops to provide initial bitterness to the beer.  We did not re-hydrate the yeast because we pitched 2/3 pack of yeast into 2.5 liters of wort, plenty to counteract any that might die, and hugely over-pitching for this small of a batch.

Not surprisingly due to the amount of yeast, fermentation was vigorous and the smell was quite floral.  Since we used DME, had a well-controlled temperature, and over-pitched yeast, the beer fermented out fully and ended at 1.014 for 7% ABV.

The Result

You definitely get floral smell and taste from this beer.  While it doesn’t quite taste like marigolds, it certainly smells and tastes like some kind of flower.  There’s a slight hint of bitterness too, but not as much orange color as we had expected.  Unfortunately, the beer is way too sweet due to the high amount of malt extract used for the small batch.  Next time we’d use two-thirds of a pound of Pilsen Light DME for an expected OG of 1.043, but keep the hopping and marigold rates the same, leading to a light, slightly-malty beer that would let the taste and aroma of the marigolds shine.

Now that it’s summer and the days get hot, we want a drinkable beer without a ton of alcohol but no lack of hoppiness.  That means a session IPA.  We’ve had some bad ones, and we’ve had some good ones, so what makes a good one?  Can we make a good one?

The generally accepted definition of a session IPA seems to be a hoppy pale ale that is 5% ABV or less.  Even 5% seems pretty high ABV to us, since we want to drink a lot of it and not fall off the bench.  The term “session” originally came from the UK where most of the “milds” that pub patrons drank were between 3% and 4% ABV.  To us 3% or 4% seems just about right; but a 5% “session IPA” is really just a hoppy American Pale Ale and no challenge whatsoever…

The Challenge

Since we enjoy difficult things, our goal was to create a 3.5% ABV beer with the hop character of an IPA and enough maltiness and body that nobody would confuse it with Bud Light.  It’s supposedly difficult to get the right balance of maltiness, body, and hoppiness with very low alcohol beers, since the low original gravity often means lower body and thinner taste.  That implies fewer hops since the lack of malt flavor won’t be able to balance the bitterness as well.  But since IPAs are known for the buckets of hops brewers throw in, how could we bridge the gap?

First, we can mash higher to favor the alpha amylase enzyme, producing a sweeter, less fermentable wort which will raise the finishing gravity and provide more body.  Second, we can add more specialty malts than usual to increase the malty flavor of the beer.  Third, we can add quick oats to increase the amount of beta glucans, which are not fermentable and add body to the wort.

For the hop side of things, while we’re shooting for an IPA, we still need to keep the hop rate lower than an IPA to ensure we don’t end up with hop tea.  We can use more hops than normal for a 1.040 beer since we’re increasing the body, but we’ve still got to be careful.  We’re aiming for about 70 IBU total, but only 25 of those IBU from the early bittering hops.  The rest will come from late aroma/flavor hops and a hopstand, which will contribute a much mellower bitterness.  Fourth, we’ll use an English yeast that accentuates the malt more than a clean US strain like S-05 would.

Finally, the weather is so nice right now, we’re going to brew this outside on our 3-gallon 120V electric Brew-In-A-Bag system, but we’re still going to make a 5-gallon batch.  This means we need to top up from 3 gallons to 5 after our boil, making some gravity calculations more complicated.

The Recipe

Name: Session IPA
Batch size: 5 gallons
Boil size: 3.8 gallons
Expected OG: 1.040 (75% efficiency)
Expected FG: 1.012
Expected IBU: 70 (25 early, 45 aroma/flavor/hopstand)
Mash: 90m @ 156°F

  3.3 lbs Muntons Maris Otter
  2.5 lbs Briess Vienna
 13.3 oz  Bob's Red Mill quick oats
  7.0 oz  Briess Crystal 10L
  7.0 oz  Muntons Crystal 60L

  0.6 oz Centennial 9.5%AA @ 60m
  1.0 oz Centennial 9.5%AA @ 10m
         Whirlfloc & yeast nutrient @ 10m
  2.0 oz Cascade    6.4%AA @ 5m
  2.0 oz Centennial 9.0%AA @ 5m
  1.4 oz Centennial 9.4%AA @ 0m (20m hopstand)
  2.0 oz Cascade    6.4%AA @ 0m (20m hopstand)
  1.0 oz Centennial 9.5%AA dry-hop 5 days

  1 pack Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley Ale

The Brew

We have an element protector screen on our small system, which ensures the bag containing up to 7lbs of grain does not rest on the element, which could cause scorching or put strain on the element’s gasket.  Unfortunately, this screen isn’t quite the right size for our kettle, and doesn’t have enough holes for good circulation.  This meant we spent a while playing with the pump’s output valve before finding the right flow rate that wouldn’t suck the bag down into the kettle through the gap between the protector screen and the kettle wall.  Once found we could finally leave the mash alone and not worry about getting grain into the recirculating wort.

This was also the first brew with a new 5500W Camco ULWD ripple element.  We had scorching on the previous LWD element in this system, especially with a recent Hefeweizen (though it didn’t affect the flavor).  While the old element was a 5500W/240V LWD, we ran it at 120V which quarters the wattage to 1375 and thus also quarters the watt density into ULWD territory.  But for whatever reason we still had scorching, so the element had to go.  It was quite difficult to bend the Camco ripple element to the right shape, while still ensuring it could be maneuvered into the kettle through the hole in the side.  But ultimately successful, and we had no scorching with the new, lower watt density element.

Everything went well and we ended up with between 2.5 and 3 gallons of 16°P wort, which we topped up with boiled, filtered water to 4.5 gallons for a final gravity of 1.040.  After pitching the yeast we tossed the keg into our fermentation chamber (a modified Vissani 52 bottle wine fridge) set to 67°F for a one-week primary fermentation.  We then had to move it out to make room for our partigyle IPA and Pale, which we’ll talk about next time!

We last brewed an extract beer on December 5th, 2012, an English Bitter with left-over malt syrup and some year-old Munton’s yeast.  Since then we’ve brewed 45 all-grain batches on both our large and small electric breweries, some using up to 52lbs of grain, a hopback, fresh hops, first-wort hopping, whirlpooling, continuous hop additions, a pH meter and refractometer, sacks of imported base malts, and (almost) all the other brewing bling money can buy.

Why not go simple again and just brew a straight-up extract beer? Using nothing but what a beginning brewer would use?  Of course!

The Recipe

Name: American Amber (Extract)
Batch size: 5 gallons
Expected OG: 1.052
Expected FG: 1.012
Expected IBU: 30

6.0 lbs Amber malt syrup (1/2 late addition)
1.0 lb  Briess Golden Light dry malt extract (late addition)
1.0 lb  Briess C10L (steeping)
0.5 lb  Thomas Fawcett Amber (steeping)

2.0 oz Cascade (leaf) 3.2% AA @ 60m
1.0 oz Cascade (leaf) 3.2% AA @ 10m
       Whirlfloc              @ 10m
1.0 oz Cascade (leaf) 3.2% AA @  5m

1 pack Safale S-05 dry yeast

This is closely based off Northern Brewer’s American Amber recipe with substitutions for stuff we had on hand.  Instead of using two 3.15lb jugs of Amber malt extract ($10 each) we bought one 6lb jug ($18) and used a bag of DME we already had.  For steeping grains we used some Crystal 10L we had on hand instead of the 20L from the NB recipe, and we added a bit of Thomas Fawcett amber malt because there’s a bunch lying around and we haven’t used it in a while.

Next, we used some Cascade leaf hops that we bought for $1/oz a few weeks back from a guy who was selling them out of a cooler.  He didn’t know the exact alpha acid but said it was “in the low 3s” so we guessed 3.2% and called it a day.

We stuck to using only tools that extract brewers would typically have on-hand, which means no pH meter, no refractometer, no counter-flow chiller, no brewing salts, no yeast nutrient, no oxygenation, and no fermentation temperature control.

The Brew

The first step in a normal extract brewing process is to heat as much water as your stove can handle to about 150°F for steeping grains.  If your stove can do a full boil (~6.5 gallons) then great!  We haven’t yet found one that can, so we chose to do a partial boil of about 3 gallons.  Once it’s at steeping temperature, put your milled grain into a grain bag and drop it in, letting it steep for about half an hour.

Then pull the grain bag out, toss it into a colander, and press to get as much worty liquid out of it as you can.  Add that back to the kettle and heat it all up to a boil.  Once it’s boiling, add half of the malt extract, and then rest near the end just to sanitize it.  This is done because as the extract boils it darkens, so adding the rest of the extract at the end keeps the beer within the desired color range.  Late extract addition is more important for lighter colored beers like pilsners, lagers, and pale ales, but since we’re just following the recipe we’ll do it too.

Whenever adding extract, always turn off the heat and add it slowly, stirring constantly to avoid scorching the extract.  Since liquid extract is heavier than water, it will sink down to the bottom where all the heat is, caramelize, and possibly burn, making awful beer.

Now that the wort is boiling, add your hops according to the schedule.  If you’re using pellet hops you’ll definitely want a hop sock, but since we were using leaf hops we just threw them in and fished them out later with a strainer.

Once the boil is done the hot wort must be chilled down to yeast pitching temperature below 80°F and lower if you can.  So grab your immersion chiller (if you have one) and hook it up to your laundry sink or garden hose and chill away.  If you stir with a sanitized spoon it’ll chill faster and you won’t waste so much water.  If you’re doing a partial boil, one trick is to chill down to 80°F and then top up to 5 gallons with cold water, which should bring the temperature down below 70°F.  Then pitch your yeast.

After pitching make sure that the beer has cooled further down to 65°F within 8 or 12 hours by sticking it in a cool place like a basement or closet, or putting the carboy into an actively cooled fermentation chamber if you have one.  Letting the temperature stay too high can produce off-flavors, and fermentation actually raises the temperature a few degrees.  Keep it below 70°F; 66°F is even better.  Of course, this all depends on your specific yeast too.

We didn’t bother measuring the original gravity, since malt extracts have a well-known gravity potential and we were lazy.  The Amber malt syrup has a potential of 1.036 Points-Per-Gallon (per pound) and the dry extract has a potential of 1.043 PPG.  This adds up to (6lbs x 36) + (1lb x 43) = 259 total gravity points.  Divide that by 5 gallons and we get an Original Gravity of 1.052.  The steeping grains don’t contribute enough gravity points to count.

The Fermentation

We cheated a bit and fermented in a keg, which most extract brewers probably don’t do.  Our keg was filled close to the top, and since we were only using what a beginning extract brewer would use, we opted to skip Fermcap S for fermentation foam control.  This meant that we got some great blow-off after 2 days as yeast and krausen filled the air lock.  But that’s a good sign.

With Pumpkin #2 our efficiency was good enough to produce 5.5 gallons of additional runnings at 4°P (1.020) when we drained the mash tun before cleaning it out.  We thought it would be a shame to waste all that wort, so we didn’t.  We brewed a bonus beer instead.

A bonus beer is great way to use up small amounts of specialty grains and hops you have lying around.  You can’t accurately reproduce the recipe, so it’s like a free batch of no-pressure, OG-be-damned beer that you were just going to dump down the drain anyway.  Plus, it can mash while you’re boiling and chilling the parent beer, so all it takes is another hour.  Why not?

The Recipe

Name: Bonus Pumpkin
Batch size: 5 gallons
Expected OG: ~1.040
Expected FG: 1.012
Expected IBU: ?
Mash: 60m @ 130°F + 15m @ 152°F

 5.5 gal 1.020 wort from Pumpkin #2
 2.5 lbs Briess 2-row
   8 oz  Briess Victory
   8 oz  Muntons C60L
   4 oz  UK C150L
   4 oz  Belgian Aromatic

 1.0 oz Northdown 7.9% AA @ 45m
 0.7 oz Northdown 7.9% AA @ 20m
 1.0 oz Northdown 7.9% AA @ 10m
 1.0 oz Northdown 7.9% AA @  5m

1 pack Safale S-04 yeast

The Brew

We scrounged up some Victory, C150, and 2-year old Briess 2-row from our malt library, milled it, and tossed it into large grain bag.  The bag was then placed into a bucket with the final runnings from Pumpkin #2.  Because all the enzymes from the original mash were denatured due to mashout and the final runnings were well below the target mash temp of 148°F, we added some amylase enzyme to help conversion along.  We also attempted to top up with boiling water to move closer to normal mash temps, but couldn’t get much higher than 135°F due to lack of space in the bucket.

To compensate we dumped the contents of the bucket into the boil kettle on top of the left-over hot break and trub from Pumpkin #2.  Then we added the grain bag, set the PID for 152°F, and recirculated for 15 minutes to attempt more complete conversion.  After squeezing out the grain bag as much as we could, we got about 6 gallons of 9°P (1.036) wort.

We then proceeded with a slightly abbreviated 45 minute boil since it was already late.  We kegged 4.75 gallons of 10.5°P (1.042) wort, sprinkled on some S-04 yeast, and cleaned up.  Fermentation proceeded normally at 65°F and two weeks later we had 4.5 gallons of 1.010 beer for an ABV of 4.2%.

The Evaluation

The beer is a nice amber color and quite clear.  It pours with a nice foamy head that soon settles back but leaves a nice ring of foam on the outside.  The smell is mostly spicy malt with no fruity or flowery notes.  Taste is initially malty which quickly fades to a slight sweetness with a hint of spice, but overall a drier beer.  And as you’d expect with a 1.010 beer, mouthfeel is thin but countered somewhat by a higher carbonation level.

We’re surprised with how well this one turned out, since we weren’t expecting much from a bunch of old malt and some second runnings.  But we got a pretty good beer with just a bit more work.  Bonus!