Nick Nolte

Rock Sugar: Breakfast of Champions, or just more sugar?

Here we go again... N is the 14th letter of the alphabet, and this is my 14th attempt to clone Whitchwood's Hobgoblin Ale. N stands for Nick Nolte, and N also stands for Non-Contradiction.

Some of you who spend far to much time on the internet (or about half as much as I do) might be wondering why I chose the above image of Nick Nolte over a certain other image of him, which is well known, and much circulated. Well personally I don't see why Nick Nolte deserves to be the butt of any jokes. It's not as if he has tried to spin the issue, nor has he made excuses. To my way of thinking, if a person is up-front and honest about there own issues, and don't try to take it out on other people, then they deserve respect on that count.

In other words, they are non-contradictory in there conduct. They don't say one thing, and then do another. More specifically, they don't preach against, or attack a thing, and then secretly wallow in said thing behind closed doors. Now, I'm not a cheerleader for consistency, as it can be a bit difficult to keep it all straight at times. It's particularly difficult when your in the midst of changing your mind about something. For example, a person can be in the closet, or out of the closet? How dose one handle either position? Well, the responsible, non-contradictory, non-asshole approach is to deal with your own issues, and not try to project them onto other people.

Now Nick Nolte has (or has had) a drinking problem. That's no secret, and he hasn't tried to keep it a secret. If he had tried to conceal this issue, that would be his business, and why shouldn't it be? No one else is hurt.

What he did NOT do was get fucked up on laudanum every day, join the woman's suffrage movement to preach against an intoxicating drug, and thereby plunge his nation into a decade of bloody gang warfare, because some power hungry politicians were like minded, or easily seduced into betraying there constituents.

In short, If one has to express an opinion, I appreciate it when said person respects themselves, and everyone else enough to be honest. If they don't want to express anything to the world, it's better that they keep there own secrets discreetly, without demonizing other people as a cover.

For this reason, Nick Nolte gets two thumbs up from BarleyLegal... Not that he needs it. If you googled your way here on a Nick Nolte query, I can't apologies, I simply suggest you consider becoming a Hombrewer. We need more.

Otherwise, lets get to the point. Rock Sugar. What is it good for? Well occasionally it's used in English ales. A professional brewer that I once worked with, who is astronomically more experienced then I, once tried to duplicate Hobgoblin, and he was fairly sure he could taste sugar in the exemplifying beer. By "sugar" he meant brown sugar in practical terms.

In my early extract gropings I fiddled with brown sugar, but I couldn't tell you what the results were conclusively. I mean... so many fuck-ups to choose from.

More recently, Colin, who is also a fan of Hobgoblin has suggested that I try actual rock sugar. It wasn't until he dropped a small bag of the stuff into my hands that I committed to trying it out. It was light amber colored stuff, available in china town. I can understand why he was willing to part with it. He takes his coffee black.

This particular rock sugar is about as potent as brown sugar, but has a lighter flavor and color. It's basically the carastan of sugars. More than carapils, and yet less than crystal. How could I refuse?... and yet, how much to use?

I used it all.

THE GRAIN BILL

10 Pounds 2-row
8 Ounces crystal
2 Ounces black patent
2 Ounces roasted barley
1 Pound wheat

THE MASH PROFILE

This time I assumed that my temperature loss was 10° Celsius rather than 9° Celsius, so I struck with 12 Litres @ 77° Celsius for 67° Celsius, then planed on a rest of 90 Minutes.

THE RESULTS

I couldn't stop myself from going with 78° Celsius out of paranoia, and what I got was a legitimate single infusion. It actually worked! 68° Celsius - 70° Celsius. I decided to let it go for 60 Minutes and then start the sparge. That worked as well, for the most part. The hot liquor was at 93° Celsius to begin with, and the result was a grain bed temperature of 75° Celsius or more... That wasn't so good, and I was worried about astringency at that point.

1.5 Ounces goldings boil
1.5 Ounces goldings finish
1 Ounce goldings dry

Before the brew I had measured the bag of rock sugar at work. It turned out to be 8.3 Ounces, I couldn't tell you what effect it might of had on the gravity.

I originally pitched wyeast 1028, but it was very slow to pick up. It was an old pack, and I was worried that it had become inviable, so I pitched wyeast 1335 that I had collected from the primary of IPA#1.

OG: 1.051

TG: 1.010

Over all, there was nothing remarkable about this beer, except that it didn't turn out to be astringent after all. I'm not sure the rock sugar accomplished anything except to contribute monosaccharides. If I try this again, I'm inclined to go with brown sugar. More flavorful cane sludge... Hopefully.