Gonzo Home Brewing

I wasn’t planning on writing this article, but something happened Tuesday that I found compelled to write this while the memory was fresh.

A few weeks ago, I drove out to Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, MD to pick up a Stove Topper. What’s a Stove Topper you ask? A Stove Topper is a homebrew kit offered by Flying Dog Brewery to clone one of their beers. Each month a different selection drops at the brewery and a few select stores.

The monthly selection usually matches up pretty well with the brewing calendar for appropriate styles. For example, their August selection will be The Fear Imperial Pumpkin Ale which should be ready around October if you brew it immediately. Perfect for fall.

The selection for May was Single Hop Imperial IPA with Citra. Flying Dog’s Single Hop Series has been one of my favorites for a while. Sure I like some varieties of hops more than others, but I haven’t had one from this series that I didn’t like. Since this month’s selection was the Citra varietal, I was really excited. As Citra has become very popular, and can be hard to come by.

During Frederick Beer week I ran into Ben Savage, Flying Dog’s VP of Marketing, and he told me that some homebrewers had been purchasing the Single Hop Citra kit just for the hops inside. I thought this was silly, since there are easier ways to get Citra. In fact, the day I purchased my Stove Topper kit I also stopped by Flying Barrel in Frederick for some home brew supplies, and noticed that they had Citra in stock.

I think it is extremely cool that a brewery is reaching out to the homebrew community with brewery sponsored clone recipes. Now, this kit isn’t perfect, and I will touch on that later. For now, let’s walk through what you get.

All kits will be different, but here’s what was in mine. 2 (large) malt bags, with Pale, Rye, Carapils, and Biscuit Malt. 5 portioned bags of hops. A packet of yeast nutrient and kettle finings. Some gypsum if you need to make water ion adjustments. 2 vials of yeast and 50 Flying Dog bottle caps. And of course instructions.

One thing you will notice in what was in the box, or what was NOT in the box. No Dry Malt Extract or Liquid Malt Extract. While DME and LME are prominent in the bulk of home brew kits made, it is not a part of this. Flying Dog calls the Stove Topper series “A Home Brew Clone Kit for Advanced Home Brewers”

One of the obstacles that home brewers face that professional brewers do not, is finding the time to brew. For the professionals, it’s their job, and many breweries are 24 hour a day operations. My home brewery is not a 24 hour operation. Mostly because I do not operate for 24 hours, and my day tends to get pretty carved up between work and my family. I am mentioning this because finding the time to brew this particular batch was becoming difficult. Every weekend had something that needed to be done. Whether it was a social event, cutting the grass, or watching my kids while my wife is working, there was always something in the way. I was starting to lose hope for finding a 6 hour block of time.

Then while talking with a co-worker he mentioned that he likes to brew at night after work. Why didn’t I think of that? So I found a Tuesday that I could brew. I had to skip my homebrew club meeting to do it, but I figured what is more in the spirit of homebrew than actual brewing? Nothing.

Five o’clock is here. Time to stop working, and start brewing! Those of you that brew, especially all-grain brewers, know that brewing is work. Actual physical labor too, which is a change for us Millennial Information Workers.

Here’s where I’ll mention some of the flaws of this kit. They are mainly in the instructions. The instructions are detailed, but a selective in what details are provided. For instance, there is no breakdown of the ingredients. I have no idea how much Rye Malt I added or Carapils or even Pale Malt which was the bulk of it. I understand that Flying Dog is trying to protect their product, but this made things a little more difficult for me. Only because I, like many brewers, basically take the instructions from a kit like this, and throw them in the trash. I am being figurative of course, there is still some very important information contained in those pages. But I like to add all of the ingredients into my brewing software, which is customized for my equipment profile and brewing style.

I’ll provide a couple examples: “Increase mash temp to 160° F and rest for 5 minutes” That’s great if you are someone that uses a Mash Tun with a heat source. But many of us use a more passive approach with cooler and other similar apparatus. When using software I am able to calculate how much water, and what temperature to add to achieve a suitable temperature to “mash out.” For those unfamiliar, mashing out is raising the temperature of the mash to stop the conversion of sugars. This prevents unwanted off flavors. Next I was told to head 2.5 to 3 gallons of sparge water. Which for my equipment is not enough. This was to collect 6.25 to 6.75 gallons of water in the boil kettle. Once again, this is too low for my purposes. I calculated I would need 8.27 gallons of water in my boil kettle to have 5.5 gallons remaining post-boil.

So despite my petty complaints about the instructions, I was able to getting 8.27 gallons of wort into my boil kettle to begin the final 90 minute boil. This is where I really enjoyed the simplicity of this kit. All of my hop additions were in clearly marked bags ready to be dropped in the kettle when the time was right. As the boil went on, I started to become very concerned that my calculations of 8.27 gallons was way too much. Oops. I started making contingency plans for a longer boil or just resigning myself to the fact I screwed up. And then my 90 minute boil was up, and the moment of truth was here. 1) What would my post boil volume be and 2) What would my SG (starting gravity) be?

It took the water a minute or two to settle down to where I could get an accurate volume reading. And behold! The post boil volume was exactly 5.5 gallons! I was very happy. The next step was to get the wort cooled, and get a gravity reading. Woohoo! The target SG for this kit was 1.082 and to my wonderment and surprise I was slightly more efficient and had a reading of 1.084. Wow. I really couldn’t be happier. That isn’t really true, I had blood running down my thumb and all over the ground. For some reason Blichmann Engineering makes the treads on their plate chillers razor sharp. This is not my first cut on that piece of equipment, and likely not the last.

So at that moment, I was ecstatic. Time to pitch the yeast, clean up, and go to bed. I had made a yeast starter the night before with the Flying Dog Chico Ale yeast they had supplied. Unlike store bought yeast, it was not brown, it was a bright green. As it was harvested for Flying Dog’s fermenters. I pitched the yeast, and aerated the wort well, and went to bed.

Upon awaking, I wanted to go check on my baby. I have become accustomed to seeing beer fermenting wildly after just a few hours since I have begun making yeast starters and a stir plate. This was not the case. I had an inch thick film of yeast cake on top, but not the 6-8 inches that I am used to. I haven’t made a decision on what to do yet, but I really need to figure it out, or I may have wasted 6 hours in my garage this past Tuesday.

Overall, I would say that this is a great product, and a great brewing experience. Many brewers will reach out to the home brew community by holding home brew competitions. Some, like DuClaw will even brew the winner’s beer. Some might work with a retailer to sell a clone kit. But this is the first time I have heard of a brewery making their own kits, from their stock of malt, hops, and house yeast. Truly Awesome!

Where to find:
Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD
The Flying Barrel, Frederick, MD
Gilly’s Craft Beer & Fine Wine, Rockville, MD
Nepenthe Homebrew, Baltimore, MD