Infinite Door Ale

Author David Foster Wallace died last fall. He would have been 47 years old this Feb. 21st, so to honor his life and inspirational work, I decided to gather a few friends together on the 21st and brew up an Imperial Stout titled the Infinite Door. Aqua took some nice photos; check them out here. We did some random readings from various DFW books. I worked out a dice rolling system that told you what book to read from and what page to begin on. As it ended up, most of the readings ended up falling on Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (which was recently adapted into a film, which I think first showed at this year's Sundance Festival).

This was the first time I have ever used a yeast "starter". I generally just pitch straight from the vial (which is how you buy it), but this time, knowing it was going to be a fairly heavy brew, I wanted to guarantee that I was pitching enough yeast to get the job done, so a good day and a half before brewing, I prepared a small wort and got the yeast excited and multiplying.

This was probably the messiest beer I've done as well. I tried to abide by the 2 quarts of water per 1 lb. of grain for my mini-mash, which was slightly idiotic as my mini-mash pot is only a little over 2 gallons capacity, so when I dumped the grains in, it was a bit of a problem, but I just let some of it overflow, cut the flame, put the lid on and put a towel on top to trap the heat.

The sparge was when it got truly messy. Here I am recirculating the first runnings.

Shot of boil...

My past few beers have been experiments with spice, to some degree, so this time, I decided to hold back, and added only a few spices, at extremely low volume. Small amounts of Nutmeg, All Spice, Cardamom, and one Star Anise pod.

Some reason I cant get this photo to stand up straight. Here the wort is cooling in the tub.

Pulled a sample before pitching the yeast, Original Gravity of 1.078. Not quite as heavy as I had anticipated, but good enough. My biggest beer yet.

On the 8th day of fermentation it was racked. Final Gravity of around 1.019. Attenuation of about 75.6%. Really good for the White Labs Edinburgh Ale yeast I used. 7.8% alcohol/vol.

As mentioned in my Oak Aging post, back on 12/09/08, I had put some toasted American Oak chips on some Knob Creek bourbon. Here are the chips before I drained them off the bourbon and added them to a baggy to soak in the secondary.

I ended up having some of the bourbon. It was interesting to taste. Extremely oaky, which in someways comes off as peppery. It tasted good.

Here was a sample of the Infinite Door a few days before bottling. The bourbon/oak was very subtle, but definitely there. I think this is going to be a good one.

Infinite Door Stout

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Malts/Sugars

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8 lbs. Pilsen Malt Extract Syrup (Most before boil/Rest at 15 min)

2 lbs. Two-Row*

.5 lb. Crystal 60L*

.5 lb. Crystal 90L*

.25 lb. Chocolate Malt*

.25 lb. Special B*

.25 lb. Roasted Barley*

.25 lb. Black Patent*

1 lb. Dark Candi Sugar (rocks)

Hops

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1 oz Styrian Aurora 7.6% (60 min)

2 oz Cascade 6.3/7.1% (60/30 mins respectively)

1 oz Fuggles 4.6% (30 min)

Yeast

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White Labs Edinburgh Scottish Ale (WLP028)

Other

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Whirlfloc tablet (15 min)

Servomyces yeast nutrient capsule (10 min)

1/8 tsp Nutmeg

1/8 tsp All Spice

1/8 tsp Cardamom

1 pod of Star Anise

Mini-mash (*) grains went into water around 160 degrees, so one step mash around 157 or so for an hour. Sparge water around 170. Mixed in most of the malt extract (though not all) before bringing to boil. 1/2 Candi Sugar at 30 min, and half at 10 min. Spices went in at flame out. Otherwise as scheduled above. 60 minute boil.

Brewed on Sat, Feb 21

Racked on Sun, Mar 1

Oaked on Sat, Mar 7

Bottled on Tue, Mar 17 (St. Patrick's Day)

Hive Door Ale (Batch 02) - Tasting

GOOD NEWS: The other evening I tasted this again - at 44 days in bottle - and the chlorophyll taste mentioned in the below review is almost gone. Not nearly as noticeable, and really, mainly only in the tail and aftertaste. I'm gonna sit'm down a bit longer and see if it doesnt disappear all together.


27 days in bottle

Appearance - 1.5 finger head, not much retention; golden ale, bronze highlights; murky with slight yeast

Smell - Grassy, hops, slight pepper, hints of honey as it warms

Taste/Mouthfeel - Nicely carbed malty intro into suddenly harsh chlorophyllesque bitterness, dispersing into hops, finally into nice sweet, peppery notes; but then after taste brings back the grassy taste - not terrible, but definitely off a bit.

Drinkability/Notes - OK batch except for the crazy chlorophyll bite; still enjoyable, but not as scrumptious as batch 01 - numerous factors I am thinking could be the cause of the off flavor. I dont think it has anything to do with not using quite as much honey as 01. Second factor would be that I used Turbinado Sugar versus Clear Belgian Candi Sugar. I dont think it's that either. I think it's the hops. "How To Brew" mentions that chlorophyll notes can come from storage issues, and also hops. I am thinking it could be that some of the hops I used were from the 01 batch (though stored in freezer) - but also, I used some different hops than the initial recipe, plus some Saaz plug I had in the freezer. That said, I also did something stupid out of my excitement, after coming home from a Christmas party one night, really wanting to take areading (knowing it almost time to rack), I tumbled the fermenter and though not much of the beer escaped, and nothing got in to contaminate, what did happen most likely, was that any hop residue that was pushed up by the fermentation probably got worked back into the brew, so when I racked it, some of the hop residue got in there as well. This is a POSSIBILITY. Outside of using different hops (b/c store didnt have all the same), this one also fermented at cooler temps (68ish) than the first run (74ish). I think this brew is more like a Saison, so it may work better at higher fermentation. Just a few thoughts. I look forward to trying it again, and matching that first run. Good thing I have good notes. Brew and learn.