Collaboration beers are all the rage these days. But I’d be willing to bet not many breweries have so generously offered to brew a beer with about 400 of their closest homebrewing friends.
Surly Brewing was the site this past weekend for the American Homebrewers Association membership rally, and what a turnout! It was pretty cool seeing a few hundred fellow homebrewers standing in line with their empty carboys, buckets and corny kegs waiting to get their 5 gallon share of the imperial brown ale wort brewmaster Todd Haug whipped up for everyone to take home and ferment on their own. Northern Brewer also provided free yeast packets to anyone who wanted it, so I picked up some Safale S-33, what I’ve read is supposed to deliver some nice English ale characteristics (although some say it’s good for Belgian styles, so we’ll see what happens).
Here’s the breakdown on the recipe Todd used:
82% Canada Malting Pale Ale Malt
10.8% Fawcett Brown Malt
3.6% Dark Candi Syrup
1.8% Fawcett Crystal 85L
1.8% Fawcett Dark Crystal 120L
Bittering –Columbus
Whirlpool/aroma -Willamette
OG 1.085
IBU 64
After sampling a couple glasses of Surly’s new Wet Hop IPA, I got my carboy home without tipping it over in the passenger seat of my car, transferred to a larger plastic bucket with more headroom, and pitched the yeast. Within hours it was bubbling away nicely. Sunday morning when I woke up, the air lock was completely clogged with krausen spewing everywhere…since I don’t have a blow-off tube at the moment, and to prevent another explosive outcome like my imperial stout earlier this year, I pulled the top off and just let it ferment in the open. I’ve had luck with this before, so I’m crossing my fingers no serious bacteria get in there and screw up the whole production.
Word on the street is that people are going to try and save a bottle or two and bring it to the AHA National Conference next June in Minneapolis. The base wort lends itself well to variation, so should be fun to see how other folks decided to ferment and condition.
Big thanks to Omar, Todd and everyone at Surly for the time and effort they put into hosting the event.
October 12, 2009 at 8:00 am
I’m from Milwaukee and the weekends lined up where I was visiting family in MN and was able to head up to Surly to get some free wort. I didn’t want my wort sitting around for 2 days waiting for yeast, so I pitched a dry packet at Surly. Not the best idea. I didn’t have a blow off tube for my 5 gallon carboy, and by the next morning I had a clogged airlock erupting with foam. I ended up using saran wrap and a rubber band to fashion a crude blow-off tube which actually worked quite well. It rode in the back of the car with this set up still spewing foam all the way back to Milwaukee last night. I am losing about a half gallon of beer to this blow off with such a small amount of head space, but it is what it is.
October 12, 2009 at 8:02 am
Wow that is awesome. Surly is amazing.
October 12, 2009 at 8:26 am
Man, I wish I would have known about this!!!
October 12, 2009 at 10:22 am
Bill – sounds like we had similar experiences…that was the reason I transferred the wort from the carboy to a larger fermentor, but it still wasn’t enough head space! Since I’m just open fermenting now, I’m hopeful the high ABV on the beer will help fend off any potential bacteria. That’s the thing with homebrewing…I try not to get too stressed, just roll with the punches and see what happens. If nothing else it’s a fun little experiment.
October 12, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Yes, this is a fun experiment! And if a bug happens to get in our beers, we’ll just have to call it a brown sour and drink it anyway!
October 12, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Yea, wow. Surely Surly rules.
First they gave us all the Wet-Cynic-Bender-Furious-Hell-Fest we wanted to drink and then sent us on our way with five gallons of wort. Let me say it again, Wow.
Omar – and the rest of you Surly folks – thank you. This was a truly amazing day – you made alotta home brewers very happy.
I waited to pitch till I was back in Des Moines (a day) and Pfwoff! that krausen kicked my blow-off tube outta the carboy. I woke up this morning to a beautiful mess!
This is gonna be good…
October 13, 2009 at 4:25 am
[...] of spice blends including Ras al Hanout, a blogger dings Loring Pasta Bar for gritty mussels, Surly brews it up with about 400 pals from the American Homebrewers Association, the Olive Grove olive oil and vinegar shop is open in [...]
October 13, 2009 at 2:58 pm
That is so damn cool. This is a concept Nate and I will revisit when we have our brewery. I love the pic of that yeast popping over the open primary fermenter. Nice!
October 15, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Really wish I would’ve know about this. And holy kreusen!
October 16, 2009 at 10:03 am
It follows my moto … If it’s free – it’s for me. Cool post!
October 24, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I too brought home the free wort from Surly. I started off with an airlock, but soon switched to a blow off tube. I had a good fermentation for 3-4 days, then it slowed, so I put the airlock back on. On day 7 it had slowed to one air bubble every 15-20 seconds. I decided to transfer to a secondary fermentor. I took a gravity reading at that time, and it read about 1.044. The fermentation has slowed to one bubble every 30-40 seconds. After another week, it the gravity reading is still at about 1.042. I am a bit of a novice, but with all that sugar still in there, what could be the issue? I pitched a Wyeast American Ale W1056. I am thinking that I should pitch more yeast???? Any thoughts??
October 24, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Did you use a yeast starter, or pitch right from the smack pack? Wondering if you had enough of a yeast population to begin with. You could try gently rocking your primary to rouse the yeast a bit, that may help move things along a little. The Wyeast 1056 strain isn’t supposed to be highly floculent, which leads me to believe it just pooped out with the relatively high original gravity.
Also, what temp are you fermenting? Were there any dramatic temperature fluctuations downward? Yeast can floculate early if they’re shocked by cool temps…I had a primary that was getting too warm (mid 70s) so I put the carboy in a bath of water that was about 60 degrees to try and level out the temp. The yeast went to sleep on me, and it never really recovered.
November 17, 2009 at 8:22 pm
yep, yep, yep. i was there for the rally, great time. I had the exact same thing happened with my primary fermentation. It took off in hours, made a huge mess ( didnt have blow off in), and then stopped within 4 days or so. Just transfered to secondary fermenter. I reaaly liked the small sample i had. cant wait to try it around christmas. Omar and the guys at Surly Brewery are awesome people!
November 17, 2009 at 8:26 pm
you shouldnt have to re-pitch tony. If your wort was anything lke mine( and it is) it fermented very vigorously for 4 days. My air lock looked like an oxygen line was running through it. quality of fermentation is more important than duration.