Coco-Krausen: Brewing with Ovaltine

Crazy for Coco-Krausen?
As part of my Ovaltine experiment, I brewed a bigger 12 litre batch yesterday. I also boiled up some invert sugar to go with it. Here are the details of the Brewing a Beer with Ovaltine Experiment. The recipe became more complex as I fiddled with it. Maybe I should have kept is simple stupid, but I love the complexities.


I started with 1.2kg of Ovaltine in 10 litres of water. This has a specific gravity of about 1.050 in the kettle, if my calculations (guesses) are correct. This gravity is ok for hop utilization. I boiled it hard for 15 minutes and scooped the fat and protein that separated and floated in the foam. I take it that whey powder and milk solids were the grey blobs that were floating up on the side of the pot.


I added 14g of Nugget hop pellets at 15 minutes. I then let it roll hard for another 30 minutes before adding 14g of Cascades as finishing hops. With about five minutes left in the hour-long boil I added 500g of inverted, caramelized brown sugar which I made while watching the boil.

These are the added ingredients that I did not plan on until the last minute. I also added 2 teaspoons of instant coffee and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Apparently, cinnamon in an antioxident and hey, I like Ovaltine in my coffee, so it can't be all that bad. I finished the boil and chilled in a bucket of ice water. I added the thick wort the fermenter and added fresh water to 12 litres. I shock it like mad and picthed a package of Munton's Gold ale yeast that I had rehydrated earlier.

For being a fairly high-gravity brew (1.080?), it was roaring in a few hours! The zillions of happy yeasts were chowing on the chocolate wort making some kind of coco-krausen. See photo. It's been a day and a bit and the experiment seems to be going ok. The smell from the fermenter is of malt, chocolate, hops and fruit. I am guessing that the fruity aroma is coming from some kind of reaction with the cocoa? Or perhaps the inverted, caramelized brown sugar? Anyways, it sure smells good.

When the fermentation is complete, I will rack into a secondary with some gelatin in it. I hope to be able to clear the beer, but have not researched much in the way of finings yet. This is a comepletely different kettle of coco compared to real beer brewing.



Happy brewing!

Roasters and Rhizomes

Hi all,


Yesterday evening I roasted some malt in a can on the gas stove. We are fortunate enough to have a "dirty kitchen" outside at the back of the house. The smoke was terrific. At least it was dark and no one could see the clouds billowing. The malt has a strong coffee flavor. It took quite a while to roast as I kept squirting water in the can. I understand that the malt can ingnite at these kinds of temperature, so I kept the water coming and played it safe.


My friends at Bodensatz were truly impressed with my malting effort. In a country where malt is rarely seen it non-liquid forms, I think I did good.

Today I was entertaining the idea of growing hops here in the Philippines. I Googled a bunch of queries and came up with some wonderful news. I would appear that YES! we can grow hops here. My friends at Oz Craftbrewer have been growing hops in northern Australia at 19 degrees south of the equator for years. I read another article about a guy in India that is successfully growing two American varieties Cascade and Nugget. How on earth to get the rhizomes here in good shape for planting is another issue. More research is required but at least it can be done. I understand the that the hop flowers are smaller, but more frequent flowering cycles in the tropics. Sweet hey? If you are interested here is the link: http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3975.html#3975-1


Got to go to the city today. I may stop and buy some more barley on the way home.

Cheers!

Working The Web on Sunday

Yesterday, I did lots of linking and link echange requests with some success. I made this little graphic to stick on the blogs...





Unfortunately, when I upload with Blogger they make the preview suck, but the image itself is clear.
Yeast Podcast
I did some listening to podcasts yesterday too and dropped an email to James at Basic Brewing Radio and asked him to plug the Homebrewing in the Philippines group. The podcast I enjoyed the most was James' three part interview with Wyeast's David Logston from November 2005. It's very informative and is well worth the over two hours of time they spend talking about all things to do with yeast; aeration, flocculation, attenuation, stuck fermentations and much more.

There is also a great two part interview with Gerard Lemmens all about hops. I didn't know that China is the third largest grower of hops in the world. Maybe someday those fresh hops can come south to us. I also want to research the possiblilities of growing any variety of hops here in the Philippines. I don't know much about the rhizomes and their ideal environment. I know the climate and country around Washington and Oregon states in the US having been there many times as I was born within a mile of the Columbia River. Yakima and Mt. Hood are words I remember since I could walk.

Today is Monday and it's grocery day again. I want to stop at the grain dealer and see what they have for raw grains. I know they have palay (unpolished rice), but maybe, just maybe they have some wheat or barley. That would rock. I have some Dry Malt Extract (DME) coming from the US right now and if I can malt some grain I can make a full bodied ale. I also have a variety of hops so depending on what I can come up with for malt, I may be able to make a beer with a "real" style. :-)
I tasted the ginger ale yesterday and gee it kicks. It's very dry now and has a noticable twang from the calamansi.
Got to go now. Busy day. I'll keep you posted.

Getting Homebrew Supplies from the USA

It's a scorching Sunday afternoon and I am happy today as I placed my order at Homebrew Heaven in Everett, Washington USA. I have been friends with Ralph and his team at Homebrew Heaven there for over four years. I asked him if they ship to the Philippines. Ralph says says they ship quite a few orders to the Philippines. The sad part is they ship only USPS Air Parcel to the Philippines and it's expensive; but... at least I know it will get here. By expensive I mean about the same in US dollars as my order. Example, I ordered $50 worth of supplies and the air freight was $48.40. Oh my! Well, most of my order is heavy on hops and yeast as they are difficult to find here. I also got a few pieces of hardware like a bottle filler, fermentation thermometer and a tiny (4 pounds) of dark Dry Malt Extract or DME as it's called in the trade.

We've had a few brown-outs (black outs in the rest of the world) but I have a laptop and I can keep blogging. Maybe I should walk to the sari-sari and get a Pale Pilsen or two to fight the heat.
Oh I want to take lots of pictures when the stuff arrives. I expect it in about 10 business days.

Wish me luck, it's like Pasko di ba?


Cheers....