Well here I am, sitting in my chair, watching Jersey Shore (I need my trash reality TV, we'll get to that) and blogging about brewing beer, instead of being outside actually homebrewing a beer. The reason I'm not outside is because I feel like sick-ish, I've been coughing up some crud for the past 24+ hours and I need to get some rest. So this entry is a prelude to my homebrewing session that I'll be doing tomorrow.

I'm a pretty regular listener to the podcasts from The Brewing Network (BN) and one of their shows called The Jamil Show: Can You Brew It attempts to brew clone recipes of popular commercial beers, with great success. One of the beers that I have heard the BN brewcasters rant and rave about for years is the Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA. This beer has won numerous awards including gold at the Great American Beer Festival in 2008 and 2009 (They also won Mid-Size Brewing Company and Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer in 2011). Winning a medal at GABF is tough, getting one in the IPA catagory is difficult due to the high number of entries (176 entries in 2011), securing a gold medal is amazing and winning gold back to back years is almost impossible. In fact, here's what the crew at Firestone Walker has to say about their award winning IPA:

"An instant classic, Union Jack is the recipient of numerous awards including back to back wins at the Great American Beer Festival. Union Jack is abound with hop aroma and character. In fact this well balanced, west coast IPA is dry hopped 3 separate times, each lot giving it more and more of the grapefruit citrus hop aroma and flavor it is known for. Overall it utilizes over 4 pounds of pacific northwest hops per barrel."

Below is a summary of the recipe, I had to substitute Carastan for Caramalt just like the brewcasters had to do in their version of the recipe.

Recipe Specifics

Batch Size (Gal): 6.00

Wort Size (Gal): 6.00

Total Grain (Lbs): 16.78

Anticipated OG: 1.071 Plato: 17.19

Anticipated SRM: 6.9

Anticipated IBU: 82.2

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %

Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

13.75 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)

1.98 lbs. Munich Malt

0.83 lbs. CaraPilsner

0.22 lbs. Carastan Malt

Hops

0.88 oz. Warrior Pellet 17.00 AA% 61.2 IBUs 90 min.

0.63 oz. Cascade Pellet 7.00 AA% 8.4 IBUs 30 min.

0.63 oz. Centennial Pellet 10.50 AA% 12.6 IBUs 30 min.

1.83 oz. Cascade Pellet 7.00 AA% 0.0 IBUs 0 min.

1.83 oz. Centennial Pellet 10.50 AA% 0.0 IBUs 0 min.

1.55 oz. Cascade Pellet 7.00 AA% 0.0 IBUs 1st Dry Hop

1.55 oz. Centennial Pellet 10.50 AA% 0.0 IBUs 1st Dry Hop

1.06 oz. Cascade Pellet 7.00 AA% 0.0 IBUs 2nd Dry Hop

1.06 oz. Centennial Pellet 10.50 AA% 0.0 IBUs 2nd Dry Hop

0.49 oz. Amarillo Gold Pellet 10.00 AA% 0.0 IBUs 2nd Dry Hop

0.49 oz. Simcoe Pellet 12.40 AA% 0.0 IBUs 2nd Dry Hop

Yeast

White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Mash Schedule

Intermediate Rest Temp : 145 Time: 60 min.

Saccharification Rest Temp : 155 Time: 15 min.

Mash-out Rest Temp : 168 Time: 15 min.

Sparge Temp : 170 Time: 45 min.

Notes

Pitch at 63F and let free rise to 66F

It's been far too long since I've written anything on the greatness that is theferm and now is the time to correct my actions.

As one would expect coming from me, this is an article on beer, specifically making beer at home, or homebrewing if you will. My most recent jaunt in homebrewing came this past weekend as I was wanting to relive our last trip to wine country, a Russian River Sanctification clone. The recipe was taken from Brew Your Own's (BYO) 250 Clone Recipe magazine, with a little of my own modifications which some might call "accidents." But what would homebrewing be without a mishap or two along the way?

After looking through the BYO clone magazine I looked up The Mad Fermentationist's website, and to my dismay he has not blogged about (or none that I could find) a Sanctification clone. He has brewed a Pizza Port Company's Mo' Betta Bretta, which may find it's way into my homebrewery soon enough, and a Russian River Temptation clone though. I myself have 10 gallons of Temptation clone slowly souring at the moment, half of which is on six pounds of cherries. Now Michael Tonsmeire, who is The Mad Fermentationist, is one who has done many sour fermentations as well as other experiments, for a good read get lost in his website.

After a quick Google search I found that there are very few blogs or forum posts similar to the quality of the Mr. Tonsmeire's blog so I thought I would try to attempt my version of a Sanctification clone blog post.

Unlike most beers that are fermented with "traditional" brewers yeast, Sanctification is brewed with wild yeast called brettanomyces. Brettanomyces creates a sourness and tartness that is not present (at least not in perceptable levels) in beer when brewed with brewer's yeast.

An excerpt from Russian River's website states the following on this beer:

"Technically, this is neither an ale nor a lager. The base recipe is for a Golden Ale, but we do the primary fermentation with 100% brettanomyces. The brett gives it some sour notes but not as much as if it had been aged with lacto and pedio. It’s rather refreshing on a warm day!" Lacto and Pedio are references to other kinds of wild yeasts.

I brewed the beer on Sunday (2/19) and it looks like it's fermenting along well right now. I'll let it sit for at least 4 weeks and then I'll either keg it or bottle it with cork and cage like a Belgian beer you'd find in a store. We'll see how it turns out, below is a rundown on ingredients and process to make this beer.

Recipe Specifics

Batch Size (Gal): 6.00

Total Grain (Lbs): 13.25

Anticipated OG: 1.056 Plato: 13.71

Anticipated SRM: 3.9

Anticipated IBU: 33.5

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %

Wort Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Grains

11.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)

1.32 lbs. Sauer(acid) Malt

0.93 lbs. Vienna Malt

Hops

1.20 oz. Sterling Pellet 7.00% AA 33.5 60 min.

0.60 oz. Sterling Pellet 7.00% AA 0.0 0 min.

Yeast

Brett Brux (White Labs WLP650) - 3L Starter

Brett Lambicus (White Labs WLP653) - 1L Starter

Lacto Delbrueckiii (White Labs WLP677) - 100mL Starter

Ferment at 72F but let the temperature rise as high as 80F for 3-4 weeks.

3/3/2012 - Tasting today was good, not as tart as I thought it would be, very "brett"-y though. Should turn out interesting at the very least, might be the most approachable all brett beer I've ever tasted.