Blood Orange Heff Tasting
Posted by brewmaster | Tasting | Posted on January 29th, 2010
Last night we kegged the blood orange heff we brewed a few weeks back, here are some photos from my first sampling of it. It came out about how I expected, very nice and smooth, a hint of coriander and the citrus zest from the oranges. Adding an extra orange in makes it quite delicious, this would make an excellent beer to sip on the patio in good company.
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- Great Presentation, very appealing to the eye and the pallet.
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- A little blood orange to compliment the beer.
Winter Ale of Jan 2010
Posted by brewmaster | Uncategorized | Posted on January 11th, 2010
We made a winter ale before the break, and it came out alright. The goal was to get something similar to Granville Island’s which has this great vanilla finish that is preceded by some strong chocolate/caramel notes. However we added way too much nutmeg and by the time it was done it had only mellowed slightly and the vanilla never really punched through.
This re-do of the batch reduced the nutmeg to 4g, increased the cinnamon to 15g, and reduced the cloves slightly to 3g. Also we opted not to use vanilla beans, as they are crazy expensive, so for now we added half a bottle ~30 ml of pure extract to the boil. Depending on tastes we may add additional extract to the secondary.
The Yeast
For the yeast we re-used the same stuff from the previous batch, though we washed it first. If people are interested in this, I may post a blog about the process. The yeast was Wyeast – 1056 American Ale, I chose this because it’s effectively a brown ale with some other stuff in it.
The Malt
The grain bill is pretty diverse, with 8kg of Gambrinus 2-row for the base malt, 1 kg of Wheat, 1kg of Rye, 1 kg of Belgian Special B, and .2 kg of Chocolate Malt. The rye should add a nice spicy note, and hopefully the Special B and Chocolate come though also. We also added some rice hulls to prevent a stuck mash.
The Hops
Going with the style of a modified brown, we used a single addition of bittering hops, 4oz of Golding which are a nice mild hop, known to add a certain sweetness to the beer.
I’ve included the instructions here -> WinterAle.pdf
.joe
And of course some obligator photos:
Blood Orange Hefeweizen
Posted by brewmaster | Brews | Posted on January 8th, 2010
So it’s the new year, and there are people to see, things to do, and beer to brew. The first brew I have decided to post to the blog is our attempt at a Blood Orange Heff. I came across a recipe in one of the beer books I’ve got (extreme brews, which is actually an extract brewing book but handy none the less) and figured it might be fun to give a shot. We’ve been brewing all sorts of wintery dark and hefty stuff of late, we did a great stout and are still working on a decent winter ale (basically we’ve been making anything with high gravity and strong taste). So there was some pressure from the women of Robot House Brew (Meg & Sonia) to do something a bit more friendly to the… lighter pallet.
Malt
Being a wheat beer and all, the main ingredients are Wheat(5 kg), and Gambrinus pale 2-row(5 kg). I tossed in a bit of Dark Crystal (.5 kg) to try and add a bit of darkness to it, and to enhance the overall ‘blood’ feel.
Spices and Other Stuff
We also added a tea of sorts made from the meat of 10 blood oranges and the zest off of 5 of their rinds. In addition to the oranges there is around 8-10 grams of crushed coriander seeds.
Yeast
For yeast we used a Wyeast 3068, mostly based on the recommendation of the guy and Dan’s home brew supplies (I think it was Dan himself!).
More on the taste in a month and change when it’s ready to be sampled, i’ve included a PDF of the process and some nice photos of everything going on.
.joe
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- More yeast for some reason
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- Oranges to be added to the beer, pre zest and all.
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- Yeasties
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- Malted Wheat
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- 2-row pale, and a dash of Dark Crystal
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- Coriander Seeds
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- A mad man with a malt mill!
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- Grist ready to be mashed!
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- Crushed Corriander
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- Blood Oranges
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- Approaching Strike Temp
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- The Zest from 4 of the oranges.
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- Blood Orange Tea
New Website
Posted by brewmaster | Uncategorized | Posted on November 26th, 2009
Alright, so I’ve put this little blog / website thing up here to track the various goings on at Robot House Brewery.
What is Robot House Brewery?
Valid question, since you’ve likely never seen our fine product anywhere. In fact you cannot find it anyway, it’s not for sale! \
Robot House Brewery was started by Joe, Chuckles, and Woodman the Good Man, of Robot House. It started out with simple kit home brew, that enabled us to drink more for less (University and all). It has now expanded to include Cam Scott, and Paul Lambert, and has grown significantly in complexity.
All our brews are made from the grain, using whole hops, and natural ingredients (No Preservatives).
All silliness aside, in coming months I will be posting photos of the brew process, some how to’s for building bits and pieces for your own home brew. And of course recipes, we will be posting brew day info, process notes, and of course the all important tasting notes.
So please stay tuned!
.joe