A couple days ago, while trolling the interwebs for historic Berliner Weisse recipes, I came across a post claiming that Mumme was the predecessor of both Weisses and Leipziger Goses. Mumme eh? Now, I feel as though I’m a fairly knowledgeable bloke when it comes to beer styles, but Mumme was new to me. Look’s like it’s time to board da learnin’ train.

First off, let’s all say it together, ”moom-uh”. Alright, pronunciation lesson done, gold stars all around. Now what exactly is Mumme? If you consult the less-than-accurate “German Beer Institute“, Mumme is described as a well-hopped, light-brown, medieval ale, 2/3 barley and 1/3 wheat; synonymous with Broyhan and Keutbiers. But a quick fact-check from Ron Pattinson discredits the GBI, revealing that Mumme, Broyhan and Keutbiers are three distinct and vastly different styles, with Mumme being a treacle-like dark beer with a massive starting gravity and very low attenuation. Think 3-6% ABV with a final gravity over 1.200. No, not 1.020, 1.200; we’re talking moderately alcoholic malt syrup here.

So, where can one obtain this oddest of ducks? Well, unfortunately, traditional Mumme is no longer produced. Modern Mumme is a hopped, non-alcoholic malt drink; similar to Malta and often used for cooking, or cutting Pils (pilsners not pills – Say No to Drugs Editor). Mumme Brauerei (Nettelbeck), does make a Mumme Bier, but, from the information my limited highschool German allowed me to glean from their website, it sounds like a sweet Altbier.

Homebrew is always an option, but making a Mumme is going pose a few unique challenges. Producing 5 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.200 would require about 40 lbs of Pilsner malt and many hours of boiling. The next trick would be trying to find a yeast that will stop at 20% attenuation. And with more residual sugars than any Barleywine starts out with, this would be a keg-only brew. That is, assuming you could push the thick goop through your draft system.

BYO took a swing at the style a few years back, but erroneously stated that the starting gravity should be in the 1.040-1.048 range. The Distant Mirror also has a recipe for a Medieval English Mumm Ale, but it is more of a Keut (Gruit). If I were to attempt a Mumme, I would probably brew a straightforward Altbier, keg or bottle, then blend it with some Mumme drink or dark malt extract at the time of consumption. Of course, a shot of Jager in a pint of Mrs. Butterworth’s would be a quick and dirty test to see if a Mumme is something you should pursue.

In any case, with Beervana’s love for historic brews, like Goses and Oyster Stouts, it should only be a matter of time before we get an Upright Farmhouse Mumme, a Cascade Sour Mumme and a Hopworks CDM. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Breakside already has one in the queue.

Cheers!
Kevin

Since Jeff decided to revisit the topic of brown malt again yesterday, and was nice enough to toss up a link to my site, I figured I’d post the recipe for a Black Strap Stout I brewed a couple weeks back; a 19th century-esque export stout with a generous portion of brown malt.

Black Strap Stout

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons

8 lb Great Western Pale Malt (68%)
2 lb Crisp Brown Malt (17%)
12 oz Baird Black Malt (6.5%)
2 oz Crisp Roasted Barley (1%)
2 oz Baird Crystal 135-165L (1%)
12 oz Unsulfured Black Strap Molasses (6.5%)

1 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ 90
0.5 oz Willamette (4.8 AA%) @ 30

Danstar Nottingham Yeast

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.060
Estimated FG: 1.015
Estimated ABV: 5.8%
Estimated IBU: 50
Estimated SRM: 50+

Mash @ 154º(F) for 1 hour.
Boil for 90 minutes.
Ferment @ 66º(F).

As I mentioned in the comments to Jeff’s original post, and he further explained in his post yesterday, modern brown malt is a far cry from the stuff used to make the 100% brown malt porters of the 1700s. However, modern brown malt is in the same ball park as the brown malt being used toward the end of the 1800s, when stouts and porters were both made from a mix of pale, brown and black malts.

The grain bill for my Black Strap Stout was heavily influenced by Ron Pattinson and Kris England’s recipe for 1877 Whitbread Extra Stout. I kept their ratios of pale, brown and black malts intact, but did make a few adjustments. I lowered the gravity a bit, sliced the 100+ IBUs in half and of course, added the black strap molasses. The result is part 19th century stout, part homage to the dearly departed BridgePort Black Strap Stout.

On brewday, things went swimmingly. I completely overshot my estimated starting gravity, hitting 1.066, around 80% efficiency. Since nothing in my process changed, I’m guessing I finally brewed with enough dark malts to drive the PH of my city water down into the low 5′s sweet spot. I also got a chance to try out my new HTL, so no more need to beg/borrow/steal a pot from my brew-buddy Jesse each time I make beer.

This beer still has a week or so to go, but based on early samples, it is a world apart from the typical modern stout. The high percentage of brown malt has given the beer a deep, bready, burn-toast flavor. The black malt and molasses add notes of coffee and anise. A portion of this beer will be bottled next week and set aside to hand out at Christmas. The rest will be moved to another fermenter and aged on either chilies or star anise, depending on how the beer is tasting next week.

Cheers!
Kevin

Somehow, amid the indulgences of Eugene Beer Week, I managed to squeeze a homebrew session into the first week of May. After several months working with the Timothy Taylor (Wyeast 1469) yeast, followed by a quick stint with a German Wheat (Wyeast 3333) strain, I decided to return to brewing Belgians. More specifically, I revisited the first beer I ever brewed, a Belgian-style IPA.

Now, being my first brew, my Belgian IPA had several fatal flaws. First, it contained an obscene amount of carapils, crystal and biscuit malts, about 10% of each. And not fully understanding how hop additions affect beer flavor and aroma, I didn’t include a flameout or dry-hop charge. Equally ignorant on the topic of yeast, I let the beer sail into low 80º’s for the better part of its active fermentation. Welcome to bubblegum city. Still, when I cracked open the first bottle, a plastic 20oz Pepsi bottle mind you, I thought I’d created magic. Oh how quickly we evolve.

A little older and hopefully a little wiser, this time around, I wanted something much cleaner, much drier and much hoppier. While the first Belgian IPA was an attempt at Stone Cali-Belgique, Urthel Hop-It, Auchouffe Houblon and fresh De Ranke XX Bitter were all inspiration for this brew. 

Belgian Bitter

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons

4 lb 11 oz Great Western 2-Row (44%)
4 lb 11 oz Weyermann Pilsner (44%)
1 lb 4 oz Flaked Maize (12%)

0.68 oz (19 gm) Columbus (14.5 AA%) @ 60
1.0 oz Styrian Golding (3.8 AA%) @ 15
1.0 oz Czech Saaz (5.5 AA%) @ Flame Out (steeped 30 minutes)

Wyeast 3522 – Belgian Ardennes

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.056
Estimated FG: 1.014
Estimated ABV: 5.4%
Estimated IBU: 48
Estimated SRM: 3

Mash @ 149º(F) for 1 hour.
Boil for 100 minutes, start adding hops after 40.
Ferment @ 66º(F).

A pretty simple grain bill, mashed low to create a very fermentable wort. A long boil was used to retain a touch of sweetness and give a dash of color to the extremely pale ale. For yeast, I had thought about pulling the Duvel culture from my original Belgian IPA back out of the bank, but decided instead to give the Achouffe (Wyeast 3522) strain a try. From my experience with Achouffe beers, this yeast provides a nice spiciness, along with some faint fruit notes.

To keep the fruitiness in check, I fermented near the bottom of the strain’s temperature range, at 66º(F). The yeast took off quickly, but stalled around 1.030. and fell out of suspension. I ended up having to raise to temperature a few degrees and rouse the fermenter a time or two to get the beer to finish out. At 18 days in the tank, the gravity is now down to 1.012. Using my slightly higher than estimated starting gravity of 1.058, this puts the beer at 5.9% ABV and the yeast attenuation at 80%.

I am still trying to decide whether or not to dry-hop this beer. From the samples I’ve pulled, the Saaz flavor is coming through nicely, but I’d like a little more of it in the aroma. On the other hand, the low fermentation temperature resulted in a soft Belgian yeast character and I’d hate to mask it completely with another shot of hops. I suppose I still have some time to make a decision. I am out of free kegs at the moment and the beer fridge is completely full of bottles. This one will be sitting in a fermenter until something clears up. Yeah, I know, tough situation to be in.

Cheers!
Kevin

I have been swamped at work lately and, as a result, the ol’ blog has been feeling a might neglected. You’ll have to trust me that this is the lesser of two evils though. If I can keep everything on track through next week, I may be able to avoid the plague of support calls that are already threatening to interfere with my enjoyment of Eugene Beer Week. And though most of my waking hours have been spent slashing through decade-old C Basic code, I have been able to sneak in a couple brew sessions.

I’ve been on a rye kick for a while now, so when the local market ran it for $.70/lb, I picked up a sizeable amount of the spicy grain. Not surprisingly, it has since worked its way into both of my recent brews. The first is a big NW IPA, judiciously hopped with Chinook and Columbus.

Rye IPA aka Eye-P-A of the Storm

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons

4.25 lb Great Western 2-Row (34%)
4.25 lb Weyermann Pilsner (34%)
1.5 lb Great Western Organic Munich 10L (12%)
1.5 lb Flaked Rye (12%)
1.0 lb Chinese Candi Sugar (8%)

0.75 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ 60
0.75 oz Columbus (14.5 AA%) @ 30
1.0 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ 15
1.0 oz Columbus (14.5 AA%) @ Flame Out (steeped 30 minutes)
1.25 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ Dry-hopped, 7 days in secondary
1.25 oz Columbus (14.5 AA%) @ Dry-hopped, 7 days in secondary

Wyeast 1469 – West Yorkshire Yeast

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.066
Estimated FG: 1.017
Estimated ABV: 6.3%
Estimated IBU: 83
Estimated SRM: 7

Mash @ 156º(F) for 1 hour.

The Rye IPA was the fifth beer I fermented with the same culture of Wyeast 1469 (Timothy Taylor); Oatmeal Stout -> English Bitter -> English Brown -> Heather Ale -> Rye IPA. I had planned on dumping the yeast after my Heather Ale finished, but it looked so damn healthy in the bottom of the fermenter that I couldn’t help but feed one more time. Initially, this was going to be a British IPA, chock-full of Fuggles goodness. But after looking over my brew logs I realized that a straightforward American IPA had yet to grace my kettle. I went rummaging through the freezer for some big, pungent NW hops and emerged with several ounces of Chinook and Columbus.

For this beer, I made a couple adjustments to my usual brewing process. I have been having a problem with my beers all finishing very dry. This wasn’t much of an issue with my Belgian’s, but it has left my English brews feeling a little thin. In an attempt to remedy this, mash temperature has been slowly creeping up with each consecutive brew. My Heather Ale, for example, which was mashed at 155º(F) and contained around 16% caramel malts, still felt a little too light in body.

My next thought was to change my mash out procedure. During most brews, my small mash tun is nearly full. To mash out, I fill the tun to the brim with boiling water. This is usually far less that the amount required to push the temperature above 170º(F) and stop the enzymatic activity. Since I don’t start heating the wort until the sparge is complete, the collected runnings sit in the 160-164º(F) range, where activity could potentially continue. For this brew, I mashed very thick, ~.8qt/lb. This afforded me enough room in the tun to bring the mash out temperature to 172º(F) with a larger infusion of boiling water.

This seems to have down the trick. At kegging (after a 3 week primary and 1 week secondary), the gravity had stabilized at 1.016. The beer feels nicely round and has retained a subtle malty sweetness. By avoiding caramel malts entirely, the hops shine through; bright, clean and spicy. The only downside to the brew is that even at 12% of the grainbill, the rye is almost completely hidden behind the hops. So much so that I probably would not have detected it had I not knew it was there. If I were to re-brew, I would sub out the sugar for additional rye, bringing it up to 20%.

The name Eye-P-A of the Storm was coined by Jesse and is a reference to the brewday. When we started heating the strike water, the sun was out, the sky was clear and I was feeling guilty about not mowing the lawn. By the time we were mashing in, the sky was black, the rain was coming down sideways and we were forced to construct a windbreak from spare lumber and bricks to keep the propane burner from going out. Almost as if the gods knew I had something else I was supposed to be doing.

My second rye-cipe (ahh, wordplay) was a dark, hoppy rye ale featuring the new Falconer’s Flight hop blend.

Dark Hoppy Rye Ale

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons

6.0 lb Weyermann Pilsner (60%)
2.0 lb Great Western Organic Munich 10L (20%)
1.5 lb Flaked Rye (15%)
0.5 lb Crisp Pale Chocolate (5%)

0.5 oz Falconer’s Flight (10.5 AA%) @ 60
0.5 oz Falconer’s Flight (10.5 AA%) @ 15

Wyeast 3333 – German Wheat Yeast

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.051
Estimated FG: 1.013
Estimated ABV: 4.9%
Estimated IBU: 33
Estimated SRM: 14

Mash @ 149º(F) for 45 minutes.

Decoction using ~1/3 of mash volume, boil for 10 minutes.

Return Decoction to main mash to reach 172º(F) mash out.

Ferment @ 62º(F)

Originally, I had intended to use Weyermann Chocolate Rye, which the Maltster has listed at 180-300L on its website. When I arrived at the LHBS, the grain was marked at 400-500L. I felt this would be too roasty for the beer I had imagined, so I went instead with Crisp Pale Chocolate, the roasted malt with the color closest to my original recipe.

The Falconer’s Flight hop blend was also an on-the-spot substitution. Since enjoying a couple pints of Union Dew, from a firkin Ted brought down from the mountain, I’ve been set on brewing something with lemony Sorachi Ace hops. Unfortunately, none were to be had come brewday, so I reached into the depths of my memory bank and pulled out a little factoid about Falconer’s Flight. The blend contains Sorachi Ace, along with Simcoe, Citra and a slew of other recently fashionable hops. Being the closest thing at my disposal, I picked up a few ounces and continued on my deviated path.

The odd chose of yeast is yet another example of a last minute change. The beer was going to be about 40% flaked rye, with a starting gravity north of 1.070. Something like an Imperial Roggen-wit for those of you inclined to classify everything. Wyeast 3333 seemed like a great choice for such a recipe, with its restrained banana flavor and high flocculation. Too bad I forgot to pick up rice hulls, forcing me to abandon a large percentage of the flaked rye.

Despite the recipe setbacks, the brewday went great. In fact, it was the first time I’ve brewed rain-free this year. And following my “if it ain’t broke, use a bigger hammer” philosophy, I abandoned all that I learned brewing the Rye IPA, I opted for a decoction mash. Unlike a traditional decoction schedule, I used the process only to take the mash from saccrification rest to mash out. One-third of the mash was pulled after 45 minutes and quickly brought to a boil. After ten minutes, the boiling mash was returned to the tun, bringing the main mash up to 172º(F).

The decoction worked perfectly and I ended up with a full 5 gallons of 1.056 wort in the fermenter, a few points higher than anticipated. The German Wheat Yeast tore through the wort in about 4 days, taking the beer down to 1.018. This is a few points higher than expected, probably the result of too much caramelization during the decoction or too long sitting at 172º(F) while I cleaned the kettle and heated sparge water. I fermented at 62º(F), an attempt to coax out the clove flavor while keeping the banana esters in check.

The beer has been in the tank for about two week, but I haven’t quite decided what to do with it. From early samples, I’m not happy with the hops. The bitterness is quite bracing and and the hop flavor is muddled. I have a feeling I should have moved the 15 minute addition to flameout. I still have an ounce or two of the blend, so dry-hopping is an option, but I’m still vacillating over whether or not the beer can handle it. Anyone out there with experience using the blend care to chime in?

In any case, the beer will definitely be drinkable, and I’m sure the harshness will subside given time. I am planning to take another run at the recipe as initially intended. Basically, the chocolate malt will be switched to .25 lb of Chocolate Rye, the flaked rye increased to 5.75 lbs. and the hops switched for Sorachi Ace.

Cheers and remember entries for the Sasquatch Homebrew Contest are due this Saturday!
Kevin

A great Craigslist find today has created a new project for this weekend. Now I just need to figure out how to make some room in the conditioning fridge.

50 Beer and Coding points to anyone who can name all 9 at least partially visible 6-pack holders (hint: 2 are the same). And while I’m being generous, 100,000 bonus points to anyone who can correct surmise the 3 completely obfuscated ones.

Cheers!
Kevin