Update On Experiments

Hi all,

I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on the past experiments I have done.

Ovaltine Brew:
This was interesting. After about a month in the fermenter I bottled it with a teaspoon of sugar in each bottle. After another 2 weeks I tried it. Here are my notes:

Pour is thick, head and carbonation is very good and not unlike commercial dark ales. Smell is slightly malty, light hop aroma and some other undefined smell. It is clear and looks like coke or pepsi. Mouthfeel is kind of thick feeling. Taste is malt in the middle and then some strange (not overly bad) taste. Finish is strong on this flavor. I can't really describe it. I think it is from milk solids? Not cheesy or sour. Strangely there is no hint of cocoa or chocolate taste whatsoever.

I was expecting more of a malty chocolate taste with this brew, but it didn't work out. It's all gone now, so it must have been okay. I will do some research into what the milk and vegetable oil does when aged.

Mead (Pineapple Melomel)
My mead is still resting in bottles at my old neighbors house. I did taste some before bottling and it was wicked strong stuff. Like a vodka and pinepple drink with a shot of white wine. The hops settled out well. Unfortunately we moved and I could not justify taking the bottles of mead with me. My neighbor will put them to use around Christmas time.

My dark ale from extract was excellent! All gone, sorry. I will have to find some malt extract to go with my remaining hops.

Cheers!

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!

Wacky Ovaltine Beer Experiment

Malted Milk
Most of you will know what Ovaltine is. It's a malted milk drink powder that you mix with water or milk. In the UK Ovaltine is popular, in other parts of the world, Nestle's Milo is popular. After doing some research, reading packages, nutrition web sites, ingredients, etc., I've come up with an experiment to use Ovaltine as a base for beer. If you hadn't guessed it already, malt extract is a big part of these malted milk drink mixes. I will brew up a small batch and experiment with a recipe that I have formulated to make what is essentially 4 litres of some kind of strange chocolate ale.

Here's what I am thinking...

Boil up 500g of Ovaltine in 5 litres of water. I don't know if the yeast will have enough nutrients from Ovaltine alone, so I'll chuck in a teaspoon of dry bakers' yeast in the boil. Add a pinch of bittering hops, boil some more and add some finishing hops, cool, aerate and pitch an ale yeast on it. After a week, I'll rack it onto some gelatin and see how she clears. It will very likely taste like beer as Ovaltine's principal ingredients are sugar, malt extract and glucose.

Here are the ingredients from the label of the Philippines version of Ovaltine:


The ingredients that are bad for beer have little Xs near them, the ingredients that are not bad for beer have little check marks. Sounds pretty neat eh? I'll be take lots of notes and preparing a detailed blog entry to keep everyone aware of what's happening in the laboratory. LOL

Sleep now, it's been a long day.