Great Canadian Homebrew Competition - My Results

This past Saturday I attended the Great Canadian Homebrew Conference, hosted by The Rhino. The day was filled with the GCHC medal ceremony, great guest speakers, many pints of beer and a hour or so of homebrew tastings from the attendees. The guest speaker topics included an in depth discussion about the mashing process as well as a presentation about hop farms, breweries and barrel aging on the west-coast with Zack Weinberg of Toronto Brewing, and finally a synopsis of what went into writing Ian Coutts' book "The Perfect Keg". The whole event was very interesting, but also a very humbling experience. As far as the homebrew competition, I went home empty handed, while some of the competitors had multiple medals around their necks. When talking to other competitors, I really got a feeling of the amount of experience and knowledge in the room. Having only brewed all-grain for 6 months now, this experience has really motivated me to continue learning and brewing.

Even though my three entries did not place, I received some good feedback from the many BJCP judges. Since it's difficult to read the scanned scoresheets, I'm just going to provide one for format reference. I'll spend the rest of the blog summarizing the feedback and what I took away from it.

Huron County Saison: Scores 33/32/24 out of 50
This was the beer I was most confident entering and for the most part the judges agreed with my thoughts. It was described as very light in malt aroma, no sourness and slight phenolic character, though one judge noted boiled egg and cooked whitefish. The appearance was scored strongly by all judges, straw yellow, clear with good head retention. The flavour scoring was mixed, mentioning light malt/bread, medium to sharp bitterness, light spiciness with one judge mentioning lemon-like fruit esters. The mouthfeel was primarily described as medium carbonation, low/no creaminess, light body with a dry finish.

What I took away from this feedback is that I should consider fermenting at a higher temperature to get more fruity esters, phenolic/spicy character and tartness. I could perhaps use another grain in my grain bill to provide a more malty background or aim for a higher final gravity, but I personally prefer Saisons to be refreshing and dry, so I was pretty happy with the final gravity.

Curmudgeon IPA: Scores 20/22/24 out of 50
When I entered this beer, I already knew there were flaws. I knew that the original gravity was higher than I wanted, causing the ABV to be too high and thus out of style. As a result, the coordinators moved my entry into the Double IPA category. I also knew that with the higher ABV my hop bitterness and aroma were too subtle.

I got killed on aroma, scoring less than 50% by all three judges. One judged mentioned that a oxidized (papery) aroma dominated the malt character. The other two described green apple, little grassy and low esters, but being very low on hop bitterness/aroma. Similar to the Saison, I scored nearly perfect across the board on appearance, with the judges describing a golden/copper colour, with great clarity and a foamy white head with good retention. As for flavour, they all agreed I fell short on hop flavour and bitterness and that it finished much too sweet. For the mouthfeel, they felt it had a medium finish and medium to light carbonation. Overall they agreed it was much too soft in hop bitterness. Aside from adding more hops, they feel I could increase the bitterness and reduce off flavours by lowering my fermenting temperature.

Breakfast of Champions - Oatmeal Coffee Stout: Scores 29/32 out of 50
Both judges seemed to enjoy the aroma, emphasizing the strong coffee notes and roasted malts, but one judge did mention slight acidity. Appearance scored well, as being very dark/black with a tan head. The flavour was very roast forward, missing some balance and having a bit of a harsh aftertaste. Mouthfeel was light-medium body, no carbonation, thin, missing the creaminess of a typical Oatmeal Stout. Overall they felt the beer could use a thicker body and to be a little less harsh on the roasted malts.

One recommendation was to increase the mash temperature, which I would agree with and will definitely try with my next stout. This would reduce the fermentability of the wort, increase the final gravity and hopefully provide a more full bodied beer. They didn't provide a recommendation to reduce the acidity, which I felt was an issue prior to entering the beer. I'm pretty sure it was caused by the whole coffee beans added in the secondary. Next time I will try the recipe without adding any coffee beans or coffee at all and see what difference it makes.

In summary, I'm happy with how the competition went. It was a bit of a humbling experience, but I got some good feedback, met some great home brewers and picked up some brewing/fermenting techniques.

Thanks for reading!

Black Cherry Saison

I decided to colour outside of the BJCP guidelines with one of the recipes I recently designed. I wanted to create a beer that would be confusing to the drinker. The style I was targeting was one I've made recently, a Saison, but I wanted to confuse the eye and ramp the SRM level up towards 40. I also went with an American breed of hop for bittering, which is also uncommon for the style. On this brew day I was joined by a friend who is currently in the middle of her PHD in Biochemistry. Like me, she also has a love for yeast and was interested in learning about the brewing process.

When designing the recipe, the first thing I wanted to do was throw off the eye with a pitch dark colour. What I didn't want to do was impart too much of the roasty, bitterness that comes from many dark malts. After some researched, it looked like my best bet was Midnight Wheat Malt, as it was labelled as the smoothest source of black colour from any malt. While I was milling the grain Sunday morning I tasted a couple grains, I still got some roasty flavour, but I don't think there is a way to completely avoid that. I used Bohemian Pilsner Malt as the base malt for the grain bill, which is the same one I used for the Huron County Saison.

I decided to stick with the same mash schedule as the Huron County Saison as I was looking for a similar dry finish. We mashed in at 153F for 90 minutes and mashed out at a temperature of 147F. By mashing in that temperature range we are looking to activate the beta amylase enzyme group, in turn producing more maltose, which is the main sugar fermented in the wort. Once the mash was complete, we filtered the wort into the brew pot, sparged with 168F water and gathered a total of 6 gallons pre-boil. As you can see in the third picture below, we ended up with basically a pitch-black colour by using 1 pound of the Midnight Wheat Malt.

At the start of the 90 minute boil, we added 1 ounce of Glacier hops for bittering. My hope was this American breed of hop would add a bit of citrus, fruity, woody, herb notes, while not being overly bitter since the Alpha Acid (5.0%) is much lower than typical American Pale Ale hops. With 10 minutes left in the boil, we added 0.5 ounce of Sorachi Ace hops, a Japanese breed with a high AA (11.9%) and a more regular choice for the Saison style. Adding it later in the boil, I was hoping some of the lemon characteristics would shine through.

Once the boil was complete, we cooled the wort and filter it through a strainer into the plastic fermenting bucket. I gave April the honour of pitching our billions of yeasty friends into the wort to get to work. 

Over the next week and a half I'll need to pick up a can of the Oregon Cherry Puree as I'll be racking the wort into the secondary a week from Sunday, on top of the cherry puree as well as another 0.5 ounce of Sorachi Ace hops. I'm hoping to get some big cherry flavour and tartness as well as a bit more lemon notes by dry hopping.

Thanks for reading!