Author:

mac

Maine Coast Kolsch (for Anna Rose)

Posted by mac – 2011-05-28

mac batch #13.

Hauled all the brewing gear to Maine for a memorial day weekend brew. First outdoor brew with a turkey fryer, plus had hot and cold hose bibs right nearby. Great brewing setup, sounds of crashing waves make for better brewing I think. Enjoyed the help from friends, chiefly Kate X.
Left the brew log at home so I’ll have to live blog this one.

6.5 lb German pilsner
1.0 lb light wheat
0.5 lb Dextrine

Initial strike in 10 qts water at 168F for a target mash temp of 152.
Was 153F 30 min into mash. Mashed for a total of 60 minutes.

Sparge with 18 qts at ~174F, collected about 6.25 gal that measured 1.036 at 140F which I think corrects to about 1.048 [2011-05-31 edit] According to C.Lyons (1992), its closer to 1.052, but he’s using values for the density of water, I question whether that’s fully valid for a sugar-water solution.  Going by those numbers, I ended up with 324 points. [/edit]

2.5 oz x 2.6% AA spalt at 60 min
0.5 oz x 2.6% AA spalt at 10 min

Post chill we ended up with about 4.9 gal that measured 1.044 at 71F. [Edit 2011-05-31] This corrects to 1.045 using every table or formula I’ve found.  That means that post-chill I had 222 points.  To recap, pre-boil: 324, post-boil: 222.    Theoretically, these numbers should match, because during the boil, the only thing that leaves the pot is pure water in the form of steam, leaving all the sugars (points) behind.  So basically, my numbers after the sparge are total crap.  Either the corrections are no good, or I can’t get a reliable reading for some reason, or (perhaps most likely) my technique of using “the thief” to sample straight from the runoff bucket after the sparge is sucking up only the more dense wort near the bottom of the bucket.  Next time, I will stir thoroughly, and report back. [/edit]

Pitched Wyeast Kolsch.  Left in the basement shower stall because I’d hate for a wild ferment to make a mess out of that house, and because I bet the temp will be good there.

Smoky Stout

Posted by mac – 2011-01-30

Batch #12: Brew day 2011-01-29

Targets:

  • OG: 1.060
  • FG: 1.016
  • SRM: 39
  • IBU: 58

Ingredients:

  • 7.5 lb 2-Row Pale
  • 1 lb Roast Barley (525L)
  • 1 lb Crystal 90
  • 0.5 lb Flaked Barley
  • 0.25 lb Cherry Smoked Malt (Briess)
  • 2 lb Briess Pilsen Light DME (actually only used 1 lb)
  • 11.6 AAU Brewer’s Gold pellets @60 min
  • 6 AAU Perle pellets @60 min
  • 1 tsp Irish Moss @10 min
  • Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

Single infusion mash, target temp 154*F.  10.25 lb of grain in 16 qt water at a strike temp of 165*F, initial temp readings at mash in around 155-156*F.  60 min mash, temp at end was ~148*F, pH ~5.

Sparge with 16 qt at 167*F. Collected ~6.5 gal, measured a corrected 1.044, for 286 pts. This was more than I was expecting, based on my calculated efficiency from my last batch (67%).  I did some math and estimated that if I boiled off a gallon and added only 1 lb of the extract instead of the planned 2, I would hit my target volume and target gravity right on.

In the end, I only boiled off maybe a half gallon in the 1 hour boil, and I added only the 1 lb of extract.  After chilling, I measured only 1.051 instead of the planned 1.060.  Maybe I can’t trust my high-temp gravity readings of my runoff.

Primary is going to be in a 5 gal glass carboy, and I don’t have a blowoff setup, so I may have a mess on my hands here.

[2011-06-02] Tasting Notes

From the tap at ~40F and 11psi. Color is deep brown to black.  Nice brown head fades rather quickly.  Roasty aroma with the barest hint of smoke, no real hop aroma to speak of.  Almost smells a little like soy sauce.  Initial flavor is strongly marked by the tang of the carbonation.  Mouthfeel is balanced, tending more towards dry than big and malty.  Finishes with a bit of the bitter burnt bite of the roast barley, and just a hint of smoke.  Overall pretty good, I think I would like it better if it had been naturally carbonated bottles or if it was served on nitrogen.  The tang of the carbonation is a bit much for the style I think.

Bock

Posted by mac – 2011-01-29

Batch #11: Brew Day 2011-01-23

  • 9 lb Munich Malt
  • 1 lb Crystal 90
  • 1/3 lb Chocolate Malt
  • 2 lb Briess Pilsen Light DME
  • 2.1 oz (3%) Hallertau pellets @60 min
  • .6 oz Hallertau pellets @20 min
  • .6 oz Halleratu pellets @1o min
  • Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager

Targets:

  • OG: 1.066
  • FG: 1.016
  • SRM: 23
  • IBU: 23
  • ABV: 6.7%

Single infusion mash (no more fancy crap) of 10.3 lb grist in 16 qt water for a ratio of 1.55 qt/lb.  Calculated strike water temp at 167*F for a target mash temp of 155*F.  I think i came close to my target, the mash temp was pretty stratified, so it was hard to trust the temp readings.

Sparge with 16 qt at 168*F, collected 6 gal at a corrected 1.042, for 252 total gravity points.  I had done my recipe assuming 75% efficiency, which would have given me 275 pts. My actual efficiency was more like 67%.

Adding 2 lb of extract brings in another 88 pts, so to get my target OG of 1.066, I should have 5.15 gal at the end of the boil.

Got distracted and left the hop bag in for probably another 30 min after flameout.  Used the new stainless steel racking cane to siphon the hot wort through the counterflow chiller, but had serious problems maintaining the siphon.  Chilling ended up being a disaster, with all kinds of potential contamination sources, and aeration of hot wort.  If ever I was going to make a beer with homebrew funk, this would be that beer.  In all the chaos, I didn’t even take an OG reading.  Put the fermenter out by the back storage closet where its pretty cool.

I’ve officially sworn off the counterflow chiller.  Way more trouble than it’s worth.  I’m just going to go to the hardware store to get a 50 ft length of 3/8″ copper to make a bigger immersion chiller.  Its more sanitary, and it keeps me more sane.

[2011-05-31] Tasting notes:

Kept on the gas at about 11psi and 43F, moderate tan head that fades within a couple minutes. Brown in color. Aroma of caramel/toffee and a hint of coffee. Little to no hop aroma. The tang of the carbonation plays against a malty sweetness, and it finishes with a kick of coffee flavor. The feel is neither cleanly dry nor chewy sweet. This beer has more character than I think I expected. The lady of the house seems to prefer it to the smoky stout (the other current draft offering).

Now that I’ve bought the counterpressure bottle-filling rig, I need to bottle a few of these to pass around for judgement.

American (Red) Amber

Posted by mac – 2011-01-29

Batch #10: Brew day 2010-09-27

New counterflow chiller (thanks Fred)! New faucet-mounted Brita filter (best brewing investment yet)!

  • 7.5 lb American 2-Row Pale Malt
  • 2 lb Crystal 60
  • 1 oz (5%AA) Cascade pellets @60 min
  • .75 oz (5%AA) Cascade @10min
  • .75 oz (4.8%AA) Willamette pellets @10min
  • Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale

Targets:

  • OG: 1.051
  • FG: 1.016
  • SRM 14
  • IBU 29

Single infusion mash of 9.5 lb grist in 12 qts water = 1.26 qts/lb.  Strike temp 167*F to hit target mash temp of 154*F.  Measured temp of mash after strike, read 158*F, so I added 1 qt from the tap, the temp now measured 144*F. No good.  To the spreadsheet!  If i draw off 2 qts and bring it to a boil, then add it back, i should get to 154*F.  I did, added it back at about 25 min into the mash, and the temp I read was 160*F.  Screw this. When the mash was all over, the temp read between 151 and 153, depending on where I stick the thermometer.

Sparge with 4 gal at 168*F.  Collected ~6 gal at a corrected 1.036.  My target is 1.051, so I’d have to boil down to 4.5 gal.  Not likely.

Boil, Chill.  Collected 4.7 gal out of the chiller at a corrected 1.039.  OK. It’s going to be a session beer.

Rack to secondary on Oct 10.  SG 1.010

Keg on Oct 24. FG 1.008.

Ended up being a nice mild beer. Tasted more like a brown ale than an amber or a red.  Keg went fast, thats got to be a good sign.

American Rye and Wheat Beer

Posted by mac – 2010-07-25

Batch #9 needs a snappy name, but my beer marketing department is on the West Coast at a conference, so for now this one is retaining its boring development name.  If TGL were here, it’d have a greek myth name at least.

Threw this recipe together myself, with nothing more than the BJCP style guidelines for “American Wheat or Rye Beer” (I told you I needed a more imaginative name).

Stats:

  • OG: 1.047
  • FG: 1.012
  • IBU: 18
  • ABV: 4.7
  • SRM: 5* (Yellow to Gold)

Greedys

  • 5.5 lbs US 2-Row Pale Malt
  • 2 lbs Rye Malt
  • 1.5 lbs Wheat Malt
  • 1 lb Crystal 20
  • 1 lb Rice Hulls (damn slow sparges!!)
  • 0.5 oz x 8.7% AA Amarillo Pellets @60 min
  • 0.2 oz x 7.5% AA Cascade Pellets @ 15 min
  • Wyeast 1010 American Wheat

After two not-so-great brew sessions with the stupid Blue Moon clone, I felt like I needed another shot at a beer with some wheat in it.  That said, I’m still a little gun shy around non-barley grains, so i kept this one well below 50% wheat and rye.  I wanted to try the three stage mash again (beta glucanase rest to break down the gum, protease to break down some proteins, and saccharification to make some sugar), but because of the difficulty i had last time trying to accomplish all that with hot water infusions into my 5 gal cooler, I decided to try stovetop mashing in my brewpot, then transferring to the cooler for the sparge.

Mash Schedule

  • Beta Glucanase rest: 20 min at 110*F
  • Protease rest: 20 min at 122*F
  • Saccharification: 3o min at 154*F

I went with 15 quarts of water, which is about all I figured i could safely expect to fit into my 5 gal cooler.  I heated it to 115*F and added the grist.  that brought me damn close to the target 110*F, and I was suprised to find that it only made up about 5 gal of wort (I was expecting closer to 5.5 gal).

Wary of slow sparges from thick mashes, I decided to add a quart of boiling water as part of my heating to the second rest.  that got me about half way, and I fired up the stove for the rest, stirring periodically.  It took about 5 minutes to come up to 122*F by my probe thermometer, then I killed the stove.

Every few minutes i’d stir and take a temp reading or six.  even at ~1.5 qts/lb, there were hot and cool spots in the mash, and apparently the heating process had left some hot pockets down low that I didn’t know about, because 10 min into the rest, the measured temp was now ~8-10*F too hot, right at the upper limit of the protease range.

After the 20 minutes were up, i fired up the stove again on the way to 154*F.  I stopped the stove when I got a reading of 150, wary of overshooting.  Turns out i should have stopped much sooner, because a few minutes later I was getting readings in the 165-170 range.  Yikes! Thats the temp where the enzymes I need start dying off (or whatever it is that enzymes do when they stop working).  In goes two trays of ice cubes.  They melt.  temps still in the 160-167 range.  Oh well.

Wait.  This thermometer isn’t working right.  My fantastic “Super Fast Thermopen” isn’t working right…at all.  I switch to the cheap probe on the kitchen timer, and it turns out that the mash is actually around 135*F.  WTF. Back on the stove.  My planned 30 minutes for this rest have come and gone, but i give it another 20 more on the stove, stirring and heating.  When the readings get to 145-155*F, I called it quits and poured it all into the cooler to lauter.  We’re winging it now.  It JUST fit.

This sparge FLEW.  Turns out rye isn’t nearly as unruly as wheat and oats (or so it seems).  Sparged with 17qts water at ~168*F.  Collected so much wort that i needed to dump some.

Boil was thankfully uneventful.  Chilling takes forever.  I need to upgrade from my 25ft immersion cooler. Maybe i’ll make a new one out of 50ft, or maybe i’ll get a fancy counterflow guy.  This is just a lot of waiting, and a lot of wasted water.  I’ve already mopped the floors, watered the plants, and refilled the toilet tank with chiller outflow, now the rest is going down the drain.

90 minutes of chilling, poured off the trub, yielding about 4.8 gal at a corrected OG of 1.046. Pitched Wyeast 1010 American Wheat at about 80*F.

UPDATE 2010-07-24

Came back from a day at the beach, opened the apartment door and smelled beer. The ferment went wild and blew out through the airlock, making a nice pool of near beer on the floor.  First time that’s happened, extra surprising given the couple extra inches of headspace this time from the slightly smaller batch.

Blue Moon Clone Revisited

Posted by mac – 2010-07-23

I’ll call this batch 8.1.  Brew Day was 2010-07-07

After the disastrous outcome of the previous attempt at brewing this Blue Moon clone recipe, I went back to John Palmer’s How To Brew to see if I could figure out where I’d gone wrong.

One of the things that I picked up was that the protein rest (that I’d recollected was so important for mashes with a high percentage of wheat and unmalted grain in the bill) actually doesn’t do much to avoid stuck sparges, as I’d thought.  Either I read it wrong the first time or I’d made it up in my head.  Turns out there’s a Beta Glucanase rest that is supposed to prevent gumminess.  I decided for the second attempt that I’d include this Beta Glucanase rest.  Also, I added 1 lb of rice hulls for some drainage.

My Beta Glucanase rest was to be 110*F for 20 min, Protease rest 122*F for 20 min, and finally the main event at 154*F for 30 min.

I came out a little hot for the Beta Glucanase at 118, hit my temp for the Protease rest pretty well, and did pretty well on the saccharification rest.

The thing is, I had to do all of this in a 5 gal rubbermaid drink cooler, which doesn’t leave much room for water when you’ve got 11 lbs of grain.  Also, since i’m doing infusion mashing, and wanted three different temperatures, my first rest was super stiff at 8 qts water to 11 lbs grain (so that i could add water to hit my second and third rests).

After all that work, the sparge was still slow as hell (90 minutes to collect 4.5 gal).  I started brewing after work (always a dumb idea), and I didn’t pitch the yeast until 2:30 AM.  I was a tired, grumpy dude, but I wasn’t about to give up on a second shot at this.

The first taste on the way into the primary fermenter had a sharply bitter finish, maybe from the bitter orange peel.  I hoped it would mellow out.

When i racked to secondary on 7-19, the bitterness may have eased a bit.  It also seemed a bit estery, probably due to the warm temps we’ve been having. My fermentation temp had been 78-80 *F, pretty damn high.

Blue Moon Mash Disaster

Posted by mac – 2010-06-23

mac batch #8 (but don’t wait around for the tasting results)

I blew it tonight.

Followed the recipe and mash schedule for Austin Homebrew’s Blue Moon clone, reprinted on homebrewtalk.com

The mash was a mess.  First off, the AH mash schedule yields a super loose mash by the time you’re done (1.7 quarts/lb), which makes establishing clear runnings a real pain in the ass, cause the grain bed doesn’t settle out.

Secondly, despite hitting my protein rest temp dead on, and double checking the second infusion calculations to go from the protein rest to the saccrification rest, I ended up 10*F too hot for my saccrification.  Instead of my target of 158*F, i ended up closer to 170*F.   Total mystery as to why.

Lastly, when the runnings finally cleared out a bit (though still plenty cloudy from all the wheat and such), the sparge slowed to a trickle.  At this point, it was late at night, and the thought of waiting around 2 hours for the sparge to finish, just to wait another 2 for the boil and chill, sounded like madness.  I dumped the grains.  Screw it.

My dear girlfriend really wants a blue moon clone, however, so i’m gonna have to try this one again.  Next time:

  • get the mash temps right
  • use rice hulls to try to keep the sparge moving
  • maybe use less water for the protein rest, so that the final mash won’t be so loose
  • don’t fuck it up

Kolsch for Anna Rose

Posted by mac – 2010-04-11

When a certain girl I know was 3 or 4, she decided her given name wasn’t doing it for her anymore, and instead introduced herself to anyone who asked as Anna Rose.

Neither Anna Rose nor her grown-up alter ego particularly like helping me with the brewing, but they’ve proven to be good at making up names.

Brew Day: 2010-04-11

  • 6.5 lb German Pilsner Malt
  • 1 lb Wheat (unclear whether this was malted or not)
  • 0.5 lb Dextrine (CaraPils)

Single infusion mash in 10 qts water at a target of 152*F for 90 min.

Sparge with 18-20 qts at 167*F

Collected a total of ~5.9 gal which measured 1.031 at 130*F, corrected to approximately 1.043 for a total of 254 pts.

Boil 60 min

  • 6.5 AAU Spalt hop pellets (2.5 oz * 2.6% AA) at 60 min
  • 1/2 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
  • 1 AAU Spalt hop pellets (0.5 oz * 2.6% AA) at 10 min

Chill to ~65*F, post-boil yield of ~4.8 gal at 1.051 (245 total points, or 30.6 pts/lb)

Poured off the trub into the primary, I ended up with ~4.4 gal.  To hit my target OG, I calculated that I’d need to add water to top up to ~5 gal.  After topping up, my temp in the primary was 71* (in the butter zone), but my OG ended up being 1.042 (three points low).  Not sure where I went wrong, but it won’t make a whole lot of difference in the end.

Pitched Wyeast 2565 Kolsch

Fat Tire Ale Clone

Posted by mac – 2010-04-11

mac batch #5.  First all grain!

Brew day: 2010-03-28

Recipe straight from Scott Russell’s North American Clone Brews

Targets:

OG: 1.058, FG: 1.012, ABV: 5.9%, 28 IBU

  • 8 lb Belgian 2-row (3.5-4*L)
  • 1 lb Belgian Special B (130-220*L)
  • 8 oz Crystal 120*L
  • 8 oz Munich I (5-7*L)
  • 1 1/2 tsp gypsum

Single infusion mash, heat 3.5 gal mash water to 164*F, mash in. Hit target temp of 152*F.  Dressed my 5 gal rubbermaid cooler in a Carhartt jacket, it held temp within a degree for 70 minutes.  Target mash time was 90 min, but I didn’t have my sparge water ready at that point, so mash ended up going more like 120 minutes.

Recirculated 2-3 quarts, drew off ~1 gal, then recirculated another quart or two, then started the sparge with 166-168*F water, two cups at a time, using a total of ~3 3/4 gallons of sparge water.

At this point, I measured 1.043 @ 132*F, which corrects to roughly 1.055.  I had 6 gal of wort, so thats 330 total points.  To hit my target of 1.058, I should end up with roughly 5.7 gal post-boil.

  • 5 AAU Brewer’s Gold  @ 60 min (0.5 oz x 9.8%)
  • 4 AAU Saaz @ 15 min (1.4 oz x 2.8%)
  • 1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 min

chilled down, ended up with 5.6 gal at 1.056.  Two points low, I’m happy.

Pitched Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey Ale at ~72*F.

Black Box Stout

Posted by mac – 2010-02-28

mac batch #4

Based on a “Black 47 Stout” recipe from North American Clone Brews.  Black 47 is brewed by The Old Nutfield Brewing Company of Derry, NH, but as I’ve never had any of their beers, I don’t quite know what to expect out of this brew, hence “Black Box”.

[2010-02-28] Boil Day

  • 3 lb UK 2-row pale malt (1.8 L)
  • 1 lb roasted barley (525 L)
  • 8 oz black patent malt (500 L)
  • 8 oz crystal 120 L
  • 1 1/2 tsp gypsum
  • 6 AAU Northern Brewer (0.8 oz of 8.1% AA) for 60 min
  • 1/2 tsp Irish moss for 15 min
  • 3 lb LD Carlson Briess Sparkling Amber dry malt extract for 15 min
  • 4 AAU Fuggles (0.8 oz of 4.8% AA) for 5 min

steep all above grains (two giant muslin sacks worth) in 155*F water for 45 min (started with 5 3/4 gal), then bring to boil

Ended up with 1.018 @ 78*F, which corrects to 1.021; using hopville’s beer calculus, I worked out that I got about 56% efficiency from my “super steep” method.

The recipe I was following has OG at 1.047, so I needed to work out how much dry malt extract I’d need to add.  Fortuitously, the 3 lb that I calculated I needed was exactly how much I had on hand.

As I was bringing the wort to a boil, I added ~1.5 tsp of gypsum.  I’d never used the stuff before, maybe I should have added it before the steep, since I’ve read that its supposed to alter the pH, which has an effect on the mash.

Add Northern Brewer, boil 45 min

Off heat, add dry malt extract and Irish moss, return to boil for 10 min

Add Fuggles, boil 5 minutes

Chill to ~70 deg with immersion chiller (took 30-45 min)

Pitched Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale using the “immediate” method, rather than the “let swell for at least 3 hrs” method.  It was probably around 10PM when the yeast met the wort.

Gravity was 1.049 @ 68*F, which corrects to 1.050; a little high.  I have about 4.8 gals in the ale pail, so that’s 240 gravity units.  If I want 1.047, I need to add water to get to 5.1 gal, so I put about 6 cups of water on to boil and cool (dig a hole; now fill it in).  When it got to ~70*F,  I popped the lid on the ale pail and poured in the water.  I didn’t bother to take a hydrometer reading (cleaned and put away), but the math doesn’t lie, dude.  OG should be 1.047 for my now 5.1 gal of wort.