Hive Door Ale (Batch 02)

Of the brews I have brewed so far, Hive Door has received the best reception. Therefore, I decided to brew up another batch. This will be my first time trying to replicate. Luckily, I took good notes the first go.

This time I didnt do the partial mash steeping (in a sock) style. I actually mashed the adjuncts. Also, I only used 12 oz honey, versus 16 oz (slight foul). Despite that, I gained a few points on my original gravity. This time: 1.070 (vs. 1.067).

I had to use slightly different hops as well, though comparable, and amounts the same. I did use a plug of Saaz this time, versus pellets.

Here is a video taken during the last 15 minutes of the boil!!!!



Same White Labs Trappist yeast was pitched. Has been fermenting now for 6 days, mainly around 66 degrees. First batch fermented a bit higher, in the 68/70 range, but it has been cold here... Has been steady bubbling, and that same banana split aroma was everywhere a day after fermentation began, so it's on the right track.

Brewed on Sat, Dec 13
Racked on Sun, Dec 21
Bottled on Thu, Jan 8

Dragon Door tasting

Dragon Door Ale - Dec 10 (26 days in bottle)

Appearance - Awesome hand-width head; great retention; nice amber, gold brew, basically see-through; a few slow moving particles, trace of gelatin

Smell - Huge hop aroma, Saaz and more Saaz

Taste/Mouthfeel - Smooth nose, thin malt, almost like a lager, or steam beer, into hoppy bang on buds anticipated by the aroma - an extra notch of bitterness hangs on, possibly from the overly-steeped tea - a little strange, but not terrible, just apparent; some slight spicy tang rounds it up, citrusy, ginger, grapefruity, almost lemony to a point...

Drinkability - With its 4.5% alc/vol, it is definitely the best contender for steady drinking that I have yet brewed... I put half of this batch into a Party Pig keg and it was nice drinking it from the keg. Came out super clear... That said, I already have a number of ideas that I think will make this a better brew. Also, flavor-wise it has improved with a bit of mellowing in the bottle, though the kegged portion didnt last too long.

Hive Door tasting

22 days in bottle; Nov 19 @ cellar temp

Appearance - Finger or so head, fairly quick dissipation into bubbly film; amber brew with golden highlights; not much lacing, if any; a bit murky

Aroma - Banana, honey, pepper, almost note of cola, slight vanilla

Taste-Mouthfeel - Smooth malty, wheaty intro into fairly high carbonation, nice hop spread lays out on the pallet with definite pepper notes, honeysuckle; dry spicy finish (coriander?)

Drinkability etc - This is a fairly complex brew, lots of flavors; I need to do another serious tasting on this one. Each time I've had this one, I have noticed different things that jump out, though this is the first time I have sat down to actually take notes on what I am tasting. Strong honey/banana/pepper aroma pulls you in - I think the Trappist yeast worked well with this brew; Maybe a bit too intense flavor to session (also with a well hidden 7.5% alc/vol); but an interesting brew; look forward to seeing how it ages; I think this one would be good cask-style

Below is a photo of another pour where the head was much more active (may have had to do with the fact that this one came from the fridge, whereas the one I took notes on was straight from the cellar).

Abe Lincoln's Apple Pie (follow-up)

So this is a bit of a follow-up to the below posting about spotting Abe Lincoln in a pie crust while about to make a pumpkin pie.

We decided not to use the crust right then (though we did make the pumpkin pie with another (you, know, they come in twos)). After receiving numerous responses, and emails (thanks Arrow!!), about the sighting, I learned that Abe Lincoln's favorite pie was an Apple Pie. Apparently, Honest Abe's favorite dinner was cheese and crackers.

Anyway, learning this info, H decided to send our Abe phantasm to culinary heaven by baking him into an Apple Pie. As you can see from the photo above, he was still there, waiting...

Not only did she bake him into the pie, but she used him for the top crust! You know he was loving it.


We put vanilla ice cream on our slices. Really tasty. Used a simple (yet yummy) recipe from River Road Recipes, a Southern classic.

Gingerbread Monk Ale

So Hannah and I decided to brew up a beer together. My idea was to do a seasonal brew that we could enjoy with friends (and ourselves) this Christmas season, so we went with a gingerbread beer idea from the awesome book, Radical Brewing. One thing I like about this book is that a lot of the brew ideas/recipes leave a lot of room for you to come up with your own parts... Like for this one, really, you were only told a specific mixture of spices to add at the end of the boil, those you would use for a gingerbread cookie: ginger, clove, cinnamon and allspice.

Though it said to compliment this with a lightly hopped brown ale, I decided to fill out the rest of the recipe with a more caramel malty version of the Trappe Door, hence the Monk part of the recipe. Here is the wort after mashing the grains and adding the malt extract, waiting for boil...

Boiling...

Only did one hop addition (since the spices are supposed to be a large part of the profile) at the begin of the boil (1 oz of Fuggles and 1/2 oz of Hallertauer). Also, channeling my inner monk, added 1/2 lb. of turbinado sugar.

Midway through the brew, it was looking nice. Added more of the sugar.

Gingerbread spices were added around 5 minutes and then after the boil, started cooling it down asap with Pete's wort chiller (thanks Pete!!!). We had it down to around 78 within about 15 minutes.

Warning: Before yeasting, always make sure that no babies have crawled into the fermenter.

Here you see Hannah pitching a vial of White Labs Trappist yeast before we shut the lid. Before yeasting, I took a sample for the hydrometer. Around 1.070 OG. Let it ferment around 9 days, now reading 1.014. This brings it to 7.2%. All exactly the same as the Trappe Door. About to rack it into the carboy now, weather outside cooling down...

Brewed on Sun, Nov 9
Racked on Tue, Nov 18
Bottled on Wed, Dec 10 (half batch went into Party Pig)

Abe Lincoln spotted in pie crust

This weekend, I was prepping a pumpkin pie, and when I looked down at the pre-made, frozen crust, I spotted Abe Lincoln. See the below photo. I dont know if this is some magic mojo moving up to the election this week, but it was quite amazing to say the least. After showing the photo to numerous folks that evening, we also realized there was a man whispering in Abe's ear.

I hope to follow up with another seasonal soup recipe soon, a pumpkin soup I have been trying to perfect this fall. A fusion of a Mexican soup with a Cajun one. Really good, more to come on that...

Trappe Door tasting

After about 20 days of aging, I finally sat down with a chalice of Trappe Door for a serious tasting...

Hannah drew the label for me, and I changed them up in color, etc, kindof like some psychedelic beer Easter eggs.


Nov 1 @ cellar temp

Appearance - Pinky finger head into malty film, brown reddish tints in the pour; dark brownish brew, reddish tints up to light; dark

Smell - Woody, chocolate notes; banana; vanilla; alcohol

Mouthfeel/Taste - Smooth & sweet malty nose, slight caramel & definite chocolate flavor into nice hop bitterness; low carbonation; slight fruit finish, almost grape-like; slight spice

Drinkability - This one hides the alcohol well, I am feeling its 7.2 % only halfway through - tasty Dubbel-style, almost leaning towards a stout, though not that thick; definitely easy to drink, though potent!

Hive Door (bottled)

Hive Door was finally bottled Oct. 28, and then lugged to the cellar the next day. Samples tasted out of this world, seriously. Really looking forward to having this one when it's carbonated etc. I primed it with a healthy amount (3/4 c.) of Washed Raw Sugar. Below are just the tall boys from the batch (notice the two champagne bottles in back - we plan to age one for a year).

Dragon Door Ale

My latest brew, is a Chinese-themed brew titled Dragon Door. What you are seeing below are the basic ingredients: Demerara sugar (1/2 lb), Clover Honey (1/2 lb), Malt Extract (6 lbs), Brown Rice (1 lb), Ginseng Oolong tea (will use around 10 tsp), and a bag of grains (Belgian Pils, Carapils & Crystal 10L). These were the basics used, along with some other things I added like 1/2 tsp soy sauce and 1/2 tsp ground ginger.


I cooked the brown rice in a rice cooker, and then, along with the adjunct grains, I mashed them at around 160 degrees for about 45 minutes, then sparged and lautered into my brew pot (I think I am using the correct terminology here, as this is the closest I have gotten to mashing grains myself).

Added the hops, using 3 oz of Saaz (2 oz at 60 minutes, 1/2 oz at 30, and last 1/2 oz at 15). I chose Saaz as a Tsingtao clone I spotted online used them as well (plus I already had some in my freezer!).


I totally forgot to buy ice that day before brewing (I usually use two bags in a tub of cold water to cool off the wort - old school style), so Pete brought over the wort chiller that he made himself. Check it... Cooled the wort down to about 67 degrees within around 20 minutes. Nice. The spots floating below are ginseng oolong tea leaves I added at flameout (only 1 tablespoon).

To hook the wort chiller up to my sink, we had to use some plumbing skills. An ancient roll of Babolat tennis racket tape (used to help from scuffing the end of your racket) came in handy.

So, keeping with Chinese tradition, I fermented (using White Labs German Kolsch yeast) for 8 days (8 is good). I then, the morning before racking, boiled 4 cups of water, then turning off the heat, dropped in 8 tsp of ginseng oolong tea and let it steep for about an hour and half. I then strained it into a Pyrex and funneled it into my carboy. I then racked the fermented beer onto the tea in the carboy. Hydrometer readings for this one gave me 1.050 Original Gravity and around 1.015 Final Gravity, meaning the finished brew should be around 4.5% alc/vol. Should be interesting how this one tastes. I plan to keep in secondary for 13 days (in Chinese numerology, 13 is a good number, versus in Western culture).


Brewed on Fri, Oct 24
Racked on Sat, Nov 1
Bottled on Fri, Nov 14 (note: half into a Party Pig/half into bottles)

Hive Door Ale (racked, finally)

From what I have read (main source being Palmer's "How to Brew"), as long as you dont leave your brew in primary for a month or more, it is safe to let it condition there, on top of the yeast cake, before you go to secondary (you dont want to go over a month b/c the yeast will begin to breakdown and cause off flavors). So anyway, with the Hive Door, I decided to leave it in primary for a good while, a little over three weeks, actually. Before racking it, I pulled some for a hydrometer reading as well as a tasting. The Final Gravity came to 1.010 (Original Gravity was 1.067), making it a nice 7.5% alcohol. Perhaps a bit low for the Tripel style (what my recipe was somewhat based upon), though many Tripels are actually reyeasted and pushed a bit further with more sugar etc.
So how did it taste? Wow. I cannot say enough about the fullness of the flavor. I didnt take notes as I just wanted to enjoy it, but I will say, with my first first brew that I went maybe a bit out there (from a beginner's standpoint) in regards to spices (black pepper, white pepper, coriander, vanilla), I really feel like I nailed it. The sweetness and the peppery spice of this brew go hand-in-hand (I am a fan of peppery red wines, so I appreciate how this balances the sweet). I plan to leave it in secondary for two weeks, and then bottle. Also, due to recent activities, we ended up with a few empty bottled of Dom Perignon. I was very pleased to find out that these Dom bottles are recapable as their lips fold and match the lip of a beer bottle. This is great news for aging a few!

Trap Door Ale (bottled)

So the Trap Door got a little love last weekend... After mellowing out in my closet in secondary for almost a month, it got primed (with Dark Muscovado sugar) and bottled on Sun, Oct 12 while watching the Niners lose.

Like the Hidden Door, once bottled, it was taken down the street to the muddy cellar. I plan to let it bottle condition for at least a month (though I do plan to sample one after two weeks to monitor). I put a few bottles in a hallway up some stairs from the cellar (guessing it is a bit warmer), to see if that makes much of a difference as far as bottle conditioning is concerned.

It yielded a little under two cases worth of beer.

Also, when bottling, a sample was pulled and tasted by myself, my wife Hannah, and my friend Mike, and all of us agreed that it is coming along nicely. Both Hannah and Mike said it tasted better than Chimay. We'll see about that! If anything, my Belgian stylings are going in the right direction, it seems.

Hive Door Ale

I had an extra vial of the Trappist yeast, b/c only knowing so much, I thought I may have to reyeast the Trap Door, but then when it went fine, knowing I wouldnt age it THAT long, I worked up another recipe on Brew Wizard. This one, in my own early style, was trying to do a Tripel, but what I now realize, is that many times, your recipe, or style, may change due to what the brewing shop actually has, as far as grains etc. You can follow the recipe, but you may be subbing a few things... That's the fun part...

I had some clear Belgian Candi Sugar left, so I had worked up a Tripel recipe, deciding to add in some clover honey (Tripels tend to offer up a lot of simple sugars for their high alcohol content). I had to pasteurize it first; poured it into the wort around 15 minutes left of the boil.

With 5 minutes left, along with some last minute Saaz pellets (used Hallertauer bittering and Kent Golding aroma), I tossed in some white & black pepper, some coriander, some vanilla.

Cooled and strained...

Cannot be totally sure why, but my Original Gravity (1.067) was significantly lower than the expected OG my recipe had worked up (1.081). Most likely due to a sub on the grains, as well as low extraction of my steeped grains ("How the Brew" states that CaraPils extracts low through steeping). But no worries; it's just going in its own direction...

After a day and night in the fermenter, it cooled down to 68. Yeast was fairly dormant, but once I shook it, wham, off to Pac Man Land. Airlock bubbling like crazy. Steady gurgling for almost 24 hours now. This is probably the most healthy fermentation I've seen. Due to equipment, and plans, I think I'm gonna leave this one it in primary for some time.

Brewed on Tue, Sept 16

Racked on Sun, Oct 12

Bottled on Tue, Oct 28

Trap Door Ale

Next up, the Trap Door:

Original Gravity was 1.070, going for a Trappist style Dubbel, or something in the vacinity, mixed and matched my recipe, came up with this... Fermented for about 9 days. Slow start, due to temp fluctuation, I think, plus I put a fan on it to bring it down a bit at first, may have shocked the yeast (I was trying to get it down to about 68), but then the weather picked up, and made it a bit warm, I shook it up a bit a few days later seeing the cake on the bottom, was so slow that slow pressure was able to push the CO2 out of the lid, only bubbling when I pressed the lid seal down. A few days later and I shook it good for a few times, 5 minutes later it starts bubbling periodically, then weather pushes it down to a green 68 for a few days and the White Labs Trappist yeast slowly does its thing. A few hours before I racked it, the hydrometer read 1.013.

Nothing like a yeast cake. I wish I would have had another batch of this same wort to throw on this; It felt like this stuff was just getting started...


Brewed on Sun, Sept 6
Racked on Mon, Sept 15
Primed & bottled on Sun, Oct 12

Malt/Sugars: 7 lbs LME (I think), 1 lb Vienna, 1 lb Munich, 1 lb Special B, 1/2 lb Chocolate Malt, 1 lb Candi Sugar

Hops: 1 oz Fuggles (60), 1 oz Saaz (13)

Spices: almost 1 tbl cinnamon, almost 1 tbl coriander

Yeast: vial of White Labs Trappist Ale WLP500

Hidden Door Ale

TFE is now a venue for my experiments in brewing (as well as the occasional cooking aside). I am hoping to offer something to a Search Engine somewhere. Maybe someone new to the hobby of brewing (like me) will come away with some useful info as I have from other blogs Ive seen. Itll also be a place to organize notes, recipes, general thoughts on the craft.

Hidden Door Ale.

I took a recipe for a stout to the local homebrewing store. To tell you the truth, I am not certain of what I came away with in regards to the grains. The dude at the brewing store used the paper I gave him, and threw them all into one bag. They didnt have either of the hop selections, or the yeast, so I got comparable.

I did a partial mash, this time steeping the grains in a grain sock to get what you see above. I actually only used half of the grains I was given (more on that later), which would probably bring me to a much lower Original Gravity (OG) than would be expected for a stout, I'd imagine. This brew was already going in its own direction.

Once the wort (the syrup malt extract and the liquids from the steep) began to boil, I added the first hop addition, some Cluster pellets. They smelled good. The aroma hops, dropped in towards the end, were Goldings. I used a touch more hops than the recipe called for, but since I'd already veered into questionable territory with the malts, I figured that was a good thing.

After a 60-minute boil, I filled a tub with ice water and brought the wort's temperature down as fast as I could, bringing it down a bit below 80 degrees.


I aerated it by pouring back and forth with 3-gallons of warm water I had waiting in the fermenter...

I pitched the rehydrated dry yeast I had prepared.

The 3-gallons of water I had waiting hadnt had time to cool below 90 (since I boiled it just beforehand), so the wort into ferment ended up pretty warm... Within hours the yeast was munchin away and blowin the lid off of the fermenter!!!!!!!!!!!

After a day it cooled out a bit, bubblin steady for a touch at a steady 70 or so. I let it condition a bit more after the early ferment, 5 more days, then racked it into a carboy.

Let it mellow out in the carboy for about 2 weeks...

After bottled they were transported to an old cellar later that night

Picture of first tasting after 1.5 weeks in cellar:

It's a bit citrusy, possibly because of the early fermentation, also the extra bitterness from the hops, which takes over pretty much after a thin malty nose. It's an interesting brew.

When bottle-aging in a cellar (if you arent planning to leave them at least a month - I only put them there for spacial reasons), it's best to let them sit another number of days at room temp, at least, before fridging and drinking. Though I think this one does get better as it warms, and you warm up to the taste. Beer that gets better by the day. I would call it a hoppy Brown Ale maybe, but I'm just not totally sure yet...

Brewed Sun, Aug 10
Racked Sat, Aug 16
Primed and bottled Wed, Aug 27

BIG THING LEARNED: The importance of conditions and its effect on the outcome of the brew. Things like water and room temperatures, things like that. The weather in general. It is interesting to see how things mostly outside of your control (unless you have a major brewing setup or brewery with temp controls) can effect a beer in different ways. My advice is that if you are brewing for the first time, and things veer away from the recipe, just run with it, dont consider it a "mess up", just consider yourself a natural.