Broke a carboy yesterday.  I was just finished cleaning it out and it dropped into the bathtub and smashed into a billion pieces.  It totally sucked.  I still transfered two batched and brewed an IPA, but the day was an overall downer.

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.

It’s 1-20-11 and I’ve finally planned my first brew of the season (I don’t brew in the summer so I consider the fall/winter to be my brewing season) for this upcoming weekend.  I usually start around November, but this year has been super busy and I haven’t had time.  Also, I went a little crazy last season and ended up brewing 15 batches of beer.  I still have a few full kegs hanging around, so I am going to scale back a bit this season.  I’ve posted recipes up before, but brewing is certainly not only about recipes.  Here are a few other practices that I’ve work out.  They may not be the best way of doing things, but they are the best way I’ve found.

• Grain:  I’ve pretty much completely stopped buying recipe kits.  I still do a lot of clones and use pre-existing recipes, but I buy the ingredients in bulk and break off what I need for each recipe.  For my base grains I buy 55 lb sacks from my local homebrew shop, The Homebrew Emporium, in Cambridge .  i just picked a sack of US 2-row for $60 last night.  I know I could get it cheaper online, but I don’t have a grain mill so I still need to use one in a store.  Besides that the guys at the Emporium absolutely rock.  They are a great resource for any brewing questions I have, are always really helpful and very nice.  They absolutely deserve to stay in business.  I buy my specialty grains from them as well.  I don’t need to mill the entire sack at once.  As I need base grain for each recipe I bring what I need from home to the store to mill.  Since I bought the sack from them they are totally cool with me doing this.
• Hops: Hops I do buy online.  The two main sites I use are www.freshops.com and www.hopsdirect.com.  Freshops sell only whole leaf hops and are a bit more expensive, but you can get whatever quanity you want.  I am in love with hopsdirect.  The prices are insanely low.  A pound of Cascade hops is current going for $9.65.  The only issue is the smallest size you can get is a pound.  Typically I buy pellets (a pound of whole leaf hops takes up way too much space) and freeze them in airtight bags.
• Yeast: Typically I buy yeast from my local homebrew shop, but I typically reuse a package of yeast 3 or 4 times to get maximum value.
• Water: I use tap water that I run thru a Brita Filter.  I used to buy bottled water, but with all-grain brewing the amount of water required is too much to go bottled.
• Problems with bulk ingredients:  Buying bulk ingredients can save you a good chunk of money, but there are issues.  The biggest issue is maintaining freshness.  By airlocking my hops and freezing them I can greatly increase their usable life.  It is not uncommon for me to use hops from the previous season.  I don’t carry grain over from season to season, but you can keep your grain fresh by storing it in a cool, dark place.  Also, cracked grain should be used within 2 weeks, but can last out to about a month.  Another issue with buying in bulk is you may very well be tying yourself into a certain type of beer for a while.  With something like US 2-row grain it’s not a big deal because you can make a ton of different types of beers with it, but a 55 lb sack of Belgian Pilsner is not nearly as versatile.  I bought a 1 lb bag of Columbus hops last season.  At 14% alpha acid it is a slow grind getting thru the whole bag.

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.