Sunday, October 23, 2011

Merry Krampus

The name of the holiday beer came down to Merry Krampus and Blitzen.  I think the Blitzen reference is obvious.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Krampus, this from Wikipedia:

"According to legend, Krampus accompanies St. Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children."

He has the same face on the back of his head, since he sees all the bad children.  Meg had this doll from a white elephant party once upon a time.  Now that we have a mascot for our beer, the choice for a name became obvious.

The brew was a bit different than past beers.  For one, having a 7.5 gallon kettle presents a new possibility.  For the first time, I brewed a full 5 gallon batch instead of 2.5 gallons with 2.5 gallons of water at the end.  This is a great thing!  Except for the reality of brewing this much.  After steeping the grains, it took a full hour to bring everything to a boil.  An hour!  The kettle is big enough that I had it over two burners on the stove, but it still took forever.

The second change was using Beligian candi syrup in the wort.  That stuff tastes amazing, I'm not gonna lie.  It brought everything to a deep, dark color and I'm excited for the flavor possibilities.  I also covered some raisins in port wine a few days prior and then caramelized it on brew day.  The raisins were added to the wort towards the end of the boil for flavor.

Another first: taking yeast from Rochefort 10 and cultivating that instead of store-bought yeast.  I have to admit, I was nervous about fermentation even though the starter appeared to be working.  On brew day, I started a smack-pack of Wyeast just in case the Rochefort didn't work.  After two days, the gravity had fallen from 1.110 to 1.090 with the Rochefort yeast, but I pitched the Wyeast anyway.  I had already started it, it was ready, and I'm still worried about how the Rochefort yeast will act in the high alcohol environment.

Caramelized Raisins
Right now, the wort is fermenting in the refrigerator at 67 degrees.  Various Belgian recipes call for the fermentation to start at 64 degrees and slowly raising it up to 74-80 degrees.  I'm shooting for 74 degrees at day 10 and then another two weeks at 32 degrees.

The final plan is to add more yeast with the priming sugar upon bottling along with a nice note explaining that this beer will taste really good in another few months.  If you can wait.  The Krampus will be watching you.

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