White
House Releases Honey Ale &
Honey Porter Recipe
After
weeks of refusing requests by brewers nationwide, the White House released its
recipes for their Honey Ale and Honey Porter.
A petition was created and signed by over 12,000 Homebrewers and Craft
Beer enthusiasts nationwide through the We The People. While not the first president to advocate
interest in homebrewing or distillation, Obama is the first to brew in the
White House. Even paying for the
equipment and batches out of his own pocket.
If you have been
contemplating getting into homebrewing, now is a great time to give it a try. Cost and difficulty have been taken out of
the equation have dramatically decreased, while quality of equipment and
ingredients have improved. The White
House chefs are using equipment available through websites such as
Northernbrewer.com or MidwestSupplies.com, which will run you about $100. These recipes were created in collaboration
with local DC brew masters using malt extract, specialty grains/adjuncts, hops,
and rehydrated dry yeast (I prefer liquid, but that’s a story or another day). Malt extract is a “Commercially prepared
syrupy mixture of sugars and proteins that along with added yeast will produce
alcohol and give a lot of taste to the finished beer.” -Via Ray Daniels, Brew Chem 101. I did some basic calculations for the recipe
and came up with a few results (may not be 100% accurate) and drew some basic conclusions
from there.
WHITE
HOUSE HONEY ALE
SRM: 6-11 OG:
1.063
WHITE HOUSE HONEY
PORTER
SRM: 27 OG:
1.070
Positives of Processes/Recipes:
- Steeping Grains at 155°F should yield a thicker wort, forming long chain proteins essential in a traditional porter recipe. Rinsing grains with 165°F water will insure leftover fermentable sugars are rinsed from the specialty grains and not left behind.
- In the Honey Ale recipe the honey is added during the last 5 minutes to dry out the beer. Easy drinking and great for summer.
- Based on the video, the White House has something that few Homebrewers have in the Chicagoland area, a temperature controlled room for fermentation. (Unless you have a temperature controlled/ converted chest freezer) Most batches will yield optimum results if you can ferment at a constant temperature. For most ale yeast strains, 60°F-72°F should be optimum.
- Cooling such a small volume of wort can be done in relatively quickly. Thus, reducing any Dimethyl Sulfide, an off flavor that will affect your beer.
Negatives of
Processes/ Recipes
- Topping off Fermenter With Water When Transferring to Secondary. Water can contain microbes that might infect your wort. (Acidity from dropping pH levels and the amount of alcohol present at this point would likely keep your wort safe.) Keeping in mind that water has a Specific Gravity of 1.00 and the gravity of your wort is probably around 1.024 it will slightly dilute the finished product. When brewing a 5-gallon batch you should lose about a ¼ gallon to trub/hop loss. Account for that when pitching your yeast, collect 5.25 gallons of wort.
- If you have the capacity boiling the entire wort will give you a better-finished beer. Although adding water to extract beers can be beneficial because of the amount of oxygen present that yeast rely on to metabolize and ferment. This will not be an option if you transition to all grain brewing.
- Always aerate you wort. If you’ve noticed your fermentation is slow to reach the growth phase, aerate vigorously.
- Ensuring a viable yeast cell count by making a proper yeast starter. Volume of starters needed for these beers with a Stir Plate (Assuming 89% Viability):
Honey Porter: 1.43 Liters or 2.6 Wyeast Smack Packs
- With the Specific Gravity of the boil being as high as 1.102 for the Porter and 1.162 for the Honey Ale, because of the amount of liquid being boiled, hop utilization is dramatically decreased. The first hop edition for the Honey Ale occurs @ 45, hop utilization drops from 19% to 7.7%!
After watching
the YouTube video, you notice several things about the chefs that make the
brew. One chef refers to “letting the
beer distill”. While the other,
transfers the wort to the secondary “Fermentator”. The recipes are sure to confuse any new
brewer. Traditional hop additions occur
at 60, 45, 30, 15, or 0 (aroma). 60 minutes indicating the beginning of the
boil. However, the porter recipe lists the addition aroma hops at 60 minutes (flameout). They also misspelled a few ingredients, etc.
The purpose of
this isn’t to bash these White House Chefs.
The more awareness that is spread for Homebrewers and Craft Breweries
across the country the better. I praise
the President for bringing this in for this generation and the hopefully many
more. This recipe and the video should
encourage people everywhere to buy a brewing and recipe kit and brew a tasty,
fermented beverage at home. Brewing on a small scale can be very easy and can
be done on a small budget. Do your
homework and have fun with it. Brewing
is meant to be enjoyable. Cheers!
