Today is the first anniversary of soyeahdood.com as a site, and like the holiday season in which this anniversary takes place, this seems like a good time for reflection.
Personally, this whole year has been a year of transitions:
- I took on some challenging freelance work and learned a lot of lessons doing it
- I survived a merger at my job
- Only to look for, and get a new job that was a substantial promotion and a LOT more responsibility
But as you might expect in the first year of a site, it’s also been a year of transitions in the life of So Yeah Dood:
- I moved the series from The Loss Column to its own site
- I took on the challenge of improving my beer knowledge with the BJCP course
- I started a homebrew club
- I improved my own brewing capabilities significantly
- I covered, and participated in the inaugural Baltimore Beer Week
- I made at least a score of new friends, and all of them through the site and the class
One can only hope that next year will surpass this one in terms of challenge and reward.
So what’s next?
In the new year, I plan to unveil a new design for the site with increased interactivity, more interviews with brewers, vintners, etc, more event posts, and the occasional contest for all you loyal readers — few as you may be.
Here’s the first contest:
As thanks for your readership, it starts today.
Details:
This contest is a recipe formulation contest. To enter, submit a beer recipe in the comments of this post. The recipe can be either extract, partial-mash, or all-grain — all will be judged by the same criteria. A good partial mash recipe would definitely outdo a so-so all-grain. There is no style requirement, but please be as detailed as you can be. Include what yeast you would use, talk about the water profile you would use, talk about when and how you would add hops, etc.
You can use BrewPal, Promash, BeerSmith, etc. to produce you recipe, but submit it via email in plain text or Word format.
I will be judging submissions based on the following criteria weighted in order from the top down:
- Creativity — I’m looking for interesting, but not necessarily weird.
- Technical merit — Be detailed enough to explain your process, whatever it might be. Think about what works, and why it works.
- Personal taste — Everyone has an opinion, and you can’t be objective about everything. Besides — this is still to some degree about subjective enjoyment. That said, this is the lower on the totem pole than the above two items.
Final submissions are due no later than 11 p.m. on January 12, 2010.
The winner gets the following:
- A commemorative pint glass printed with So Yeah Dood year one’s logo.
- Your beer will be brewed by So Yeah Dood and we’ll make sure you get to taste some whether that’s a bottle smuggled your way, or from a keg if you live local.
- If you live local to Baltimore, I’d be happy to have you join me in the brewing.
Get crackin’! I can’t wait to see what you guys submit.
And I’ll post all the recipes for readers to view once the contest ends.
Tags: Anniversary, Beer Recipe Contest, What's to come in the new year
Here is a recipe for a historical British Mild. This is a relatively high ABV and IBU beer, not what is considered a mild today. I have made this beer many times and it always is delicious, malty with a nice amount of bittering. Not what you ‘d think a mild would be. It will not fit BJCP guidelines, but I really don’t care, most of my beers don’t.
Durden Park Mild
Taste Rating (50 possible points): 35.0
Brew Type: All Grain Date: 3/24/2009
Style: Mild Brewer: Bill King
Batch Size: 6.00 gal Assistant Brewer:
Boil Volume: 7.14 gal Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Brewing Steps
Check Time Step
3/24/2009 Clean and prepare equipment.
– Measure ingredients, crush grains.
– Prepare 8.83 gal water for brewing
–
Prepare Ingredients for Mash
Amount Item Type
10 lbs 9.0 ozPale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain
10.2 oz Barley, Torrefied (1.7 SRM) Grain
6.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt – 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain
3.4 oz Black Barley (Briess) (500.0 SRM) Grain
2.5 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain
– WARNING: Preheat Mash Tun – No equipment adjustments made!
2 min Mash Ingredients
Mash In: Add 14.99 qt of water at 165.9 F
45 min – Hold mash at 154.0 F for 45 min
– Sparge with 5.08 gal of 168.0 F water.
– Add water to achieve boil volume of 7.14 gal
– Estimated Pre-boil Gravity is: 1.047 SG with all grains/extracts added
Boil for 60
min
Boil Ingredients
Boil Amount Item Type
60 min 3.58 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min) Hops
– Cool wort to fermentation temperature
– Add water (as needed) to achieve volume of 6.00 gal
– Siphon wort to primary fermenter and aerate wort.
3/24/2009 Measure Original Gravity: ________ (Estimate: 1.053 SG)
3/24/2009 Measure Batch Volume: ________ (Estimate: 6.00 gal)
4 days Ferment in primary for 4 days at 68.0 F
3/28/2009 Transfer to Secondary Fermenter
7 days Ferment in secondary for 7 days at 68.0 F
4/4/2009 Measure Final Gravity: ________ (Estimate: 1.014 SG)
– Bottle beer at 60.0 F with 4.5 oz of corn sugar.
4.0 Weeks Age for 4.0 Weeks at 52.0 F
5/2/2009 Sample and enjoy!
Congrats on the birthday! I’ve enjoyed reading your site over this past year, even though as I told you in person – a lot of it is Greek to me! It’s an amazing site that any beer lover / brewer needs to check out. Best of luck with the next steps.
Thanks Brad! I’m glad to count you amongst that score of new friends.
That’s awesome! Great recipe, and VERY detailed.
Thanks for the submission. All of you out there with less experience — don’t let this discourage you. Take a shot at it!
Hey there people! Let’s see those recipes!
[...] a recipe formulation contest on. Winner gets a So Yeah Dood pint glass, and I’ll brew the winning recipe — and you can [...]
Here is a recipe that I call Kitchen Sink. I started making it more than a decade ago when I’d use my leftover ingredients at the end of brewing season. It has developed into a staple beer in my brewhouse.
Recipe is for 5 gallons. It is based on the malts yielding about 24 points per pound per gallon (PPG), which is what I typically get from American and specialty grains. Some people get better extraction, but better to err on the side of too little volume than too much because you can always dilute if necessary, but if you fall short of target OG, you’re out of luck.
Ingredients:
3.9 gallons of carbon-filtered mash water (keep the chlorine away!)
No brewing salts needed for this one (gypsum enhances bitterness, which we don’t need, and the dark malt will help acidify the wort).
6 gallons of carbon-filtered sparge water.
12 pounds of pale malt (can be American or European)
2 pounds of 80-lovibond crystal malt
1 pound of special B malt
11 alpha acid units of bittering hop pellets (e.g., you might use 24g of 13% Galena. Hop species is not very important for bittering this beer.)
1 ounce of whole Cascade – flavoring
1 ounce of whole Mt. Hood – aroma
(Whole hops are important in order to prevent screen clogging. As long as the weight of whole hops exceeds that of pellets, the screen won’t clog.)
0.5 ounce lemon extract
0.5 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon coriander powder
12 ounces unsulphured molasses
4 ounces I.D. Carlson oak chips
1 tablespoon licorice root powder
Chico yeast (Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001)
Brettanomyces bruxellensis (Wyeast 3112 or dregs from a bottle of Orval, cultured to a 1-pint starter)
Procedure:
Single infusion mash all grains at 154 degrees F for at least one hour.
No mashout necessary. I believe that the benefits of a mashout are outweighed by the extra time and energy they consume.
Heat sparge water to 170 degrees F.
Lauter to make 7 gallons.
Once wort starts to boil, add bittering hops and boil for 60 minutes.
Add Cascade 15 minutes before end of boil.
Add molasses, coriander, lemon extract and salt 10 minutes before end of boil.
Add Mt. Hood 2 minutes before end of boil.
Chill.
Pitch Chico yeast.
OG should be 1.078. If higher, add distilled or reverse osmosis water to increase wort volume until gravity drops to 1.078.
After primary fermentation (about a week), boil 1 quart of water, turn off heat, and steep oak chips and licorice powder in a coarse nylon bag in the hot water for at least 45 minutes (you can let it sit overnight if desired).
Add oak/licorice “tea” to the secondary.
Add Brettanomyces bruxellensis starter to the secondary.
Let ferment for 4-6 weeks (Brett takes its time).
FG varies but is typically between 1.012 and 1.022.
Bottle (do not keg because Brett works most of its magic in the bottle).
Over the next 6-8 months, the Brett character will develop and make a nice marriage with all the other flavors.
Awesome! Thanks, Ben!