Scoresheet Saturday: Biloxi Brewing Black Gold Coffee Stout

I do my best to support local wherever I may be. Living in Mississippi I do my best to support the current 13 craft brewers in the state. Biloxi Brewing was founded by four homebrewers down on the coast. Cheers to these guys for taking the plunge and starting up the brewery.

Judge: Jeremy Wickham
BJCP ID: F0651
Rank: Certified
Beer Name: Black Gold Coffee Stout
Category: 30A – Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beer
Special Ingredients: Foreign Extra Stout aged on whole bean coffee
Bottle Inspection: Good
Comments: None

Aroma: 8/12

Moderately-high roasted grain, moderate dark chocolate, low vanilla and coffee notes, low caramel sweetness. img_8399.jpgVery low alcohol presence. No diacetyl.

Appearance: 3/3

Jet black with ruby highlights in the sunlight. Poured a tan, creamy head that has tight bubbles along the edge of the glass that is retaining very well. Opaque, hard to determine the clarity.

Flavor: 12/20

Highly roasted malts dominate the flavor. Moderate dark chocolate. Low green pepper notes, no hop bitterness. Very low coffee flavor present. Low caramel sweetness. A small hint of metal in the finish. Roasted grains are lingering in the finish and turns to a harsh bitterness til the very end. Finishes fairly dry. Alcohol flavors are low.

Mouthfeel: 4/5

Medium bodied, moderately low carbonation, high astringency (from the high use of roasted malts), slight alcohol warming, medium creaminess.

Overall Impression:
6/10

If this were entered into just the Foreign Extra Stout category (16D) this would score a bit better. The coffee flavor seems to have dissipated and is difficult to pick up behind all of the roasted malts. The roasted harshness in the finish is a bit off putting and leaves the mouth feeling the roasty bitterness. There are some small things I would do to help this beer, first the metal flavors could come from your water profile, sparging with water hotter tha 170 degrees or from simply over sparging by extracting roasted tannins. So very close to being an excellent Foreign Extra.

TOTAL: 33/50

Comments: I’ve had this beer before and I don’t recall the dominating roasted flavor that I’m getting today. Is this because I am evaluating this beer and not just simply having a beer. Probably so, that tends to happen when you are judging beers unfortunately. I do try to not “judge” beers when I’m with others simply because that can take away from the fun of enjoying beers. I know had this beer 4-6 weeks ago and the coffee flavor was totally there. Maybe because this sat in my kegerator for a few weeks before today. Who knows? Go drink one and tell me what you think.

Cheers!

Spent Grain Buttermilk Biscuits

I brewed a Northern English Brown ale, and as I was cleaning out my mash tun, a light bulb light popped on in my head. I went inside, grabbed a few cookie sheets, and turned on the ovens to 200 degrees. That light bulb had my brain processing what I can do with these spent grains. I had about 1/3 of my spent grains drying in the oven. Every so often I would stir the grains around and let the hot steam escape from underneath the almost dried top layer.

As the wheels were still turning in my head, I knew I wanted to make biscuits for breakfast in the morning. Boom! I told my wife that is what I was going to do. I got that response that I knew she was worried. Even with the skeptical wifey, I moved onward and adapted my normal buttermilk biscuit recipe.
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Diacetyl: What the ale is wrong?

2015-10-28 20.23.17The scientific definition of diacetyl is a vicinal diketone with the molecular formula C4H6O2. In simpleton terms, it is a movie theater butter or butterscotch flavor. Yes, I have heard that movie theaters actually are using diacetyl when they ask you if you want your popcorn buttered. Is this fact? I’m not saying no, but I wouldn’t doubt it. But diacetyl is a common problem in homebrew. I have even had a lot of commercial examples that have loads diacetyl. But this is is not a flaw in some English style beers.

So how does diacetyl get in our beer? Diacetyl is produced during fermentation. It starts to show up in the low krauesen phase. Huh? Low krauesen? This is the phase of fermentation when the yeast has finished growing and you’ll start seeing a foam wreath develop in the middle of the surface. The yeast has not completely adapted to the environment and ready to start metabolizing those sugars you worked so hard to create. Ok, maybe I need to go in depth on the yeast development cycle one day. It is quite interesting what all those yeasts do during fermentation. Back to diacetyl. It can start showing up in the low krauesen phase and the yeast will start cleaning up by products that were developed during late krausen phase.

Ok, so now we know when diacetyl can show up in our beer. Now why am I tasting it in my beer Well, it can be a lot of things.

  • If you have a long lag phase (from when you pitch to when you get to the growth phase of fermentation) which can be caused from poor yeast health or insufficient aeration.
    Some bacteria strains can cause diacetyl production. Here is where I use that sanitation word. Any homebrewer has heard sanitation probably 3.7 million times. Seriously. Sanitation, so that’s 3,700,001 times.
  • Premature racking out of primary. See earlier? You might not be able to see when your beer in late krauesen. So make sure your beer is done fermenting by checking your final gravity for a couple days straight to make sure your gravity is not dropping.
    Under pitching. Huh? So you’ve never made a yeast starter? You’ll improve your beer ten fold by making yeast starters. Take the plunge, get a stir plate and you can make sure you’ll have enough yeast to pitch.
  • Too much oxygen. Wait one minute. I bet you remember me mentioning earlier about insufficient aeration? Well of course I did, there can also be too much. Yeast absorb all the oxygen it can during the growth phase. Well if there is too much oxygen there will still be oxygen lingering when the fermentation is over. Most homebrewers don’t filter their beer. If there is still oxygen left over, the yeast will still be feeding off of it and still trying to go through fermentation phases. Also minimize oxygen exposure after fermentation started, e.g. while racking to the keg or bottling bucket.
  • Increase your fermentation temperature. That is use a diacetyl rest. A diacetyl rest is a common practice for lager beers. When you warm up the yeast it becomes a bit more active and it will help clean up the yeast. You can also use a diacetyl rest for ales, but most of the time you are fermenting at the correct temperature for the diacetyl to be cleaned up.
    Use a less flocculant yeast strain. Flocculation is the state of yeast of being clumped together and falling out of solution. If the yeast is still in suspension it will be a little more efficient when cleaning up diacetyl.

Diacetyl will most of the time be a flaw in lagers, but not in every ale style. It is acceptable in a Czech Pale Lager, English and Scottish style beers and also a dry stout.

I’m sure we have all had this problem show up in our beers. This is one of the major issues that I fight with, especially since I started doing lagers.

Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew.

References:
How to Brew by John Palmer
Beer Judge Education Course

Originally posted on I Make Wort.