Cave of the WInds pt 2 cont.

Pressed the latest batch yesterday with the help of a new friend. This was probably the best quickest pressing I’ve done in a long while. It also spurred an interest in exploring different ways to brew and press more efficiently. I may try a brew-in-bag approach for the next batch, just to see how that works. I have to believe it has been tried before somewhere by someone and that there is a reason you don’t do it that way currently.

I’ll let this batch sit with the cherry blossoms for another day or two and let the sediment settle, then straight into the bottle.

I’m excited to taste it in a week or so. It kept a good peach/floral nose and has some good acidity to it.

Black is Beautiful pt 8

Well it was a good idea that needs a lot of work. There is a lot of flavor going on and it is an interesting failure. I’ll be interested in seeing how it matures with aging.

Was hoping to get these out by #sakeday but the labels weren’t done. So here they are ready to go. 1. Old Mose single pasteurized and filtered 2. DB not pasteurized and lightly filtered 3.SCFD single pasteurized and heavy squid ink test batch.

Black is Beautiful pt 7

So the squid ink isn’t working like I thought. I’m really wondering how much carbon is in squid ink, as it seems to have clarified the liquid and bonded to the solids coloring them.

As is it has a light brine with a pineapple/guava/green apple. As it warms up though, it gets saltier and more floral.

Black is Beautiful pt 6

#science is hard! So the color isn’t anywhere near dark enough after pressing so looks like squid ink might have to come off the bench for the last few minutes in the game. I also prepped some #aspen staves with a little toasting to get some flavor and color. I’m testing a small bit of the #sake with the squid ink to see what happens before I commit to the whole thing as well. Success or failure, this was a fun experiment. #sakeadventure #homebrew 🍶🦑🍶✊🏿

Not quite the black I am looking for

Wood before

Wood after

Sake kasu with a lovely lavender color

Sake with squid ink test

Black is Beautiful pt5

So I got curious about the flavor of the #sake after the surprising smell and did a little taste test with the crew. 2-1 in favor of the current flavor. The two picked up some strawberry and “summer” wine flavors. The one thought it was on the sour side, like the wine had started to vinegar. A mixed bag, but interesting. So I pulled the red rice yeast, gin barrel chips, and ginger out as a precaution. No need to push those flavors to an undesirable place. I also started testing the #squidink as a backup to see what this particular ink tastes like. A little certainly goes a long way 🦑 #homebrew

The tasters

Red rice yeast, gin barrel chips, and a piece of ginger

The squid ink. 1 tsp in 3 cups of water

Black is Beautiful pt4

Added a few color elements to the brew - some red rice yeast, gin barrel chips, and a piece of ginger. It doesn’t show so well in the pic, but it is a nice rose pink hue. It also has an incredible summer white/rosé nose. It is progressing nicely and might be just about ready for pressing.

Black is Beautiful pt3

Well all the rice additions are in and this light lavender #sake is on its way. Gonna wait a few more days before adding any other color change elements. It is letting off a lovely champagne and berries nose which is a nice surprise.

Black is Beautiful pt 2

So I left the pea flower tea to steep overnight and the lovely pea fragrance dissipated and the flavor disappeared as well, leaving me with a dark blue, generic tea flavored liquid. As a bonus when pea flower tea comes in contact with an acid it turns a vibrant purple. I feel like this is a good start to the process.

Black is Beautiful

The labeling for the Black Is Beautiful Stout project

Earlier this year Weathered Souls initiated an idea, Black is Beautiful, to get breweries across the US to make stouts to support restorative justice projects. This made me think that other liquor could do this as well.

A few years back when I first thought of the idea for Old Mose, I wanted it to be black in color and I just couldn’t get it to go much past a blood red (which also works). So I’m trying out a new plan to get it there. So my Black Is Beautiful idea is the black sake. It will be a combo of a few things I’ve experienced and worked with over the last few years. The goals are: something that tastes good and only uses natural coloring.

For this batch I’ll be making a pretty standard ginjo sake using a sandan shikomi method to try and get some good flavor from the sake before adding in all the extra ingredients…which will be: pea flower tea to get a nice blue base, red rice yeast to bring in some earthiness and a good red color, some gin barrel wood chips for color and some botanicals, and if needed to take it that extra mile some squid ink powder. I’m hoping that the powdered version has less brine and more umami to it.

With all that said, this could go very, very wrong. There are quite a few really powerful earthy flavors in the mix that could overpower a lot of things very easily. So I think secret to making it work will be the timed addition of those extra components. Too much of anything will really kill it.

So this should be fun 😀

The pea flower tea at work

The extras waiting in the wings

Fun with science

One of my favorite things about fermentation is all the crazy things that happen when you change something or when you let things happen on their own.

The most recent batch was a wild ride of learning about yeast and how it functions in brewing. The yeast was riding a great sweet wave for a long time, then after pressing it took a sharp turn to the dry side.

Not what was expected, but an opportunity to try something out. I bought a nitro growler for my wife to make cold brew at home and I wanted to try nitro sake. So I took the batch, that wasn’t quite right, and pumped it full of nitrogen. It started off with a great pear nose and flavor on the front end and a mild grapefruit finish…and a lot dryer that’s I’d like it to be. After pumping the nitrogen in and letting it sit for a day it mellowed out the grapefruit and really pumped up the pear. It smoothed out the mouthfeel and gave it some effervescence.

It was a fun experiment. Something I’ll definitely play with again.

Cave of The Winds…almost

So I brought back a bottle of Kaze no Mori from my most recent trip to Japan and it had some live yeast that survived the trip so I had someone propagate it and gave it a go in a recent batch. It started off really good full of pear and cherry blossom bouquets and was very active. I mean really ready to go from day one. Which was great until it got away from me and quickly turned from a sweet sake to a dry sake. The pear stayed but it developed a grapefruit flavor that I wasn’t expecting.

it isn’t that it turned out bad, but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I’m curious to give it another go soon though. Sometime science isn’t as precise as you want it to be even when you’re careful and follow the rules 😂😂😂

Daimon Brewery Day 1

Today was full exhausting, but good. Me and my fellow brewers split into teams and tackled the first day well. Though I spent most of my day doing what brewers do most, cleaning, it was great to see all the parts of a brewery in action.

The other brewers are great to chat with and I’m defiantly learning some new info and perspectives on brewing. The only lady in the group, Patty from Brazil, is fascinating. She’s truly trying to make a Brazilian sake. She’s cultivating her own rice and working to bring out great flavors with only a 90% mill. I’m very excited to see what she brings to the market.

I’m also excited for what Troy is doing with Sawtelle Sake in LA. He’s got some great ideas and from what it sounds like, some great sake coming.

Daimon-San and the other brewers were nice enough to try the Cloud Antlers and give me some feedback. Overall everyone liked it and were excited to try it. Daimon-San found it a bit acidic and I wonder if that was in part to its traveling with me. It did seem like it still had some Nama qualities to it. Like I’ve said before, I will be exited to try that recipie again.

This experience has made me think a lot about the beginning and the basics again. I will have to try a simple sake for the next batch and get back to some small ideas with large flavor.

also got to go to my first onsen ever. Wasn’t mind blowing, but very nice after today.

GABF and new friends

The Great American Beer Festival, or GABF, is always a crazy weekend here in Denver. Brewers and beer enthusiasts from all over the world pack downtown Denver and it’s breweies with thousands of people.

We were fortunate to meet Luis Enrique De La Reguera from Cerveza Cru Cru when he was in town about a month ago. He came by the brewery to learn about our sake and taste the beers at Grandma's. Luckily there was a new person working the bar that day and Matt was out thrift store shopping, so Marc got to show him around and chat with him. He was in town working with Epic Brewing on a new collaboration beer, a gose using crickets to add an earthy flavor and color to the beer. We're pretty excited to try it.

Well we also got to talking about sake and he mentioned that he knew the folks at Nami Sake, the only sake brewery in Mexico City...and I think the only one in Mexico. Of course we were very excited to learn more about it. Oh man were we excited to walk into the brewery this week and see this bottle just sitting on our desk. 

Nami Junmai

Man it is good! If you can find it anywhere in the states or get lucky enough to have someone bring you back some, DO IT!!! You will not be disappointed. It is light, clean, and dry. It is a very refreshing drink. I am going to have to spend some time doing research on it to pull some of the more subtle flavor notes, but it is good.

So after a long process of internet searching, we finally got a hold of Luis (thank you Instagram) and got to meet up with him and his crew of brewery palls from Mexico and thank him properly for his great gift. We bounced around from Spangalang to OMF to Ratio and ended the night at Bierstadt Lagerhaus chatting about beer, sake, how to get Mexican beer better representation at GABF...all through his pretty good English and my really bad Spanish. 

I can say that I've never been more excited to visit Mexico than I am now and I look forward to finding ways of getting their brews up north.

The only pic I got all night of the Mexican brewers. That's what you get for having too much fun.

Sake Tasting at The Denver Bicycle Cafe June 30th

Bike Cafe Event Graphic2

We are very excited to be doing our next sake tasting with our friends at The Denver Bicycle Cafe! We love this place and the community it brings together.

Join us Thursday June 30 from 8-10pm at their new Beer Hall ( 1300 E 17th Avenue Denver, CO) where we will be tasting our Queen City, LSQ, and El Colorado sakes.

Hope to see you there!

The Queen is Coming Soon

Today we spent a lovely day in the mountains harvesting snow to make our latest batch of the LSQ. We were joined by our good friends Lenny, Lexi, Sean, and Kay. The weather was great and the snow was plenty. After finding a great spot we collected a 24 gallon bucket of snow, then we're treated to the best bbq at Chicken Hill BBQ. This is always one of our favorite part of the brewing season and we're looking forward to what kind of water this snow makes. Its always a gamble, but it makes some damn good sake.

Press test #1

We pressed the first batch of The Queen City of the Plains on Saturday. The press prototype still has a few kinks that we need to work out, but it works! The Queen is now sitting in secondary fermentation and should be ready for drinking by December 20th.

We have also gotten a huge dumping of snow and will be harvesting snow for the Leadville Snow Queen really soon.

Leadville Snow Queen - Barrel Aging Experiement

So this experiment went interestingly. We had some leftover Leadville Snow Queen that wouldn't clarify so we decided to let it sit for a few months...then we decided to try and "barrel" age it as an experiment. It was a hit with some and a flop with others. The medium French oak stave that we placed in it brought out some of the earthy flavors, added a bit of caramelness, and some hints of the oak. Those that enjoy whiskeys and scotches really enjoyed it. They loved that it held many of the characteristics of a short aged whiskey, but removed all of the burn. It is an interesting experiment that I would love to try again at an earlier stage of resting the sake. I may try this with a small portion of each batch going forward. I realize that aging sake is a rare occurrence, but I think the flavors would appeal to quite a few people. Let me know how you feel about it.

- Marc

The Quest Continues

 

I've always been interested in drop shots, especially the sake bomb. I always figured there had to be a better way to do it. I realized now that we share space with a brewery, I should try to work on this project again. The first attempt was the above photo. I paired Grandma's Blonde Ale with our El Colorado red sake...and it was darn tasty. The lightness of the blonde combined with the cider and fruit notes married very well together making the best sake bomb I'd ever tried. I'm excited to keep trying out different flavor combos and seeing what we can make.

-Marc