Spanish Cedar IIPA Results & Tasting

I ended up cubing up some of that block of spanish cedar into roughly oak cube sized pieces. I collected about 75 grams of the cubes which is approximately 2.5 oz of the wood. I wasn't really sure how to sanitize the wood, I poured boiling water over them and let them sit for a few minutes before dumping the water down the drain and putting the cubes into the primary. I think that next time I may use vodka to sanitize in order to preserve some of the more delicate flavors of the wood.

Azoth Vienna Lager Brewday

Vienna malt has been a very alien thing to me since I started brewing. The problem is that my local homebrew store sells Vienna (and Marris Otter) as specialty grains instead of base malts so you end up paying out the wazoo if you want to make a beer with them. For Marris Otter, I've been subbing in a small amount of victory or amber malt to get some toasty and malty flavors in my English beers, and it works well enough even if it just isn't the same.

In this case, I decided to just go for it and get the expensive Vienna malt. I've always thought the flavor description sounds great, and I love a beer with some toasty flavor. Couple that with the clean profile of a lager, and the opportunity to use my lagering fridge, and I'm driving home with a heavy bill and a grin on my face.

Tonka Bean Stout Tasting Notes

Brewing Notes Here

I bottled this beer just over two weeks ago. While I had done one other tonka bean beer, this one was without any other spice additions. It seems like each bottle gets better, and I'll have to check the flavor after a few more weeks of aging.

No Sparge, No Hops, No Boil Berliner Ryesse ( A very short brew day)

To ferment a beer using the bacteria naturally present on the grain that you'll use to make the beer is awesome. It's self-sufficient, au naturel, and nerdilicous for a microbio geek like myself. I've wanted to brew a berliner weisse for ages, but it's been put on the back burner over and over again while I've been doing any other beer. I decided to finally just do it, but true to my style I had to make it different by substituting the wheat in the recipe for malted rye.

I've done research over and over again, I've probably read Bear-flavored's entry on brewing berliner weisse a few dozen times before trying his method out for myself. Basically it's this: make a starter with no hops, add some whole malted grain, and top it off with some soda water to purge the oxygen and make a CO2 blanket. The reason being that some aerobic bacteria can make butyric acid and other nasty compounds that taste like feces, diapers, garbage or vomit. If all goes well, it should taste grainy, lemony and refreshing though.