Hot, Quick and Thick

This is the other beer that I will brew with the 2112 cali lager yeast. I was originally going to hop with cluster and pride of ringwood to make an XXXX style lager, but changed my mind when the steam beer rolled onto the scene, and because I have no PoR at the moment but plenty of other hops I need to use. Either way the intention is to make a plain easy-drinking beer to sit in between all those IPAs, saisons and steams. And also to get an idea of what Cluster is like as a late hop.

Swillager

OG 1.052
32 IBU
15 EBC

mash temp 65°C
ferment temp 16°C

85% JW or Wey pils
10% flaked rice
5% JW caramalt

Hallertauer Magnum bittering
15g Cluster @ 15
15g Cluster @ flameout

2112 Cali lager yeast

If I put this one on after the Paddle Steamer has finished fermenting then I may drop the ferment temperature by a couple degrees. I can’t leave it too long, though, as I will be using the same yeast culture split between the two.

Next beer on the drawing board is a Caliornia Common. I’ve bought and smacked the 2112 Cali lager wyeast, it’s ready to go into a starter but I can’t be bothered tonight. I’m going to make a very big starter and use the yeast for a second beer a little later on in the week. I also managed to pick up some US Northern Brewer from Grumpy’s, which pleases me.

Paddle Steamer

OG 1.050
42 IBU
4.6% ABV
32 EBC

mash temp 65°C
ferment temp 16°C

JW pale 60%
Weyermann Munich 25%
Weyermann Caramunich II 5%
JW wheat malt 9%
Weyermann Carafa Special II 1%

German Northern Brewer bittering
1g/L US Northern Brewer @ 15
1g/L US Northern Brewer @ flameout

Wyeast 2112 California Lager

I am sitting here with a nearly empty glass of my IPA. Unlike Southern Brewer, it is ready to drink. This is a beer four days in bottle, nearly 7% ABV and over 50 IBU. And just to reiterate, four days in the bottle, and it is ready to drink. I am standing here beside myself. I think WLP007 is on my regulars list now.

Half a week in the bottle, Southern Brewer pours crystal clear. Only half carbonated, at this stage has a burnt toasty caramel flavour.

I know this will disappear once the beer is fully conditioned. In past I have done a lot of brews with the Coopers ale yeast recultured from bottles, and it would always take a very long time to condition, throwing up caramel flavours for up to a month in-bottle. That extended conditioning time was the reason I stopped using that yeast.

This one was brewed with US-56, I have not used it before though I have used 1056 once. I am expecting it will condition quicker than the Coopers ones did. However, another factor I am considering is that it is the gelatin that is somehow causing this slowed conditioning time, as it’s been the same brand of food (as opposed to specific for brewing) gelatin used in at least some of the batches involved. I don’t remember the last time I used finings though, and I don’t remember the last time i had a caramelly young beer either.

It’s also worth emphasising that none of the other caramel-tasting beers I have brewed have had this burnt character to them.

And while we’re on this beer, the Northern Brewer flavour has also vanished at least temporarily. I suspect it’ll become evident again once the beer is actually ready.

I’ll sample the IPA in a minute for curiosity’s sake.

As I said in my last post, of the two beers I bottled on the weekend, one included gelatin finings and one did not. Here is a direct comparison of a bottle from each batch:

On the left is Southern Brewer, on the right is To India with Love. As you can see, Souther Brewer has come up far, far clearer. It also used a less flocculent yeast and was bottled straight from secondary rather than racked to a bottling bucket.

I always put at least one beer from each batch into a clear bottle for precisely this reason; so i can see what is going on.

Since it wasn’t a dedicated scientific comparison I don’t know if it was the gelatin that did this, but I would be foolish to rule it out as the most likely cause. Either way it is some deeply impressive clarifying that will probably extend my conditioning time, if anything.

I was a lazy fool who didn’t soak the primary fermenter from the Saison to dekrausen it, so I had no clean bottling bucket to rack to. Since I’d given it a week CCing in primary before racking to secondary, I decided it was clear enough to bottle from secondary. Threw in a measure of gelatin along with the priming sugar in an effort to clear it up a little more in compensation.

A disappointing yield of 14L, a couple litres lost to racking and a couple more to evaporation. Used a sediment reducer in the bottling vessel to strain out the fuggles plug, and it worked. Could smell the hop flavour oozing out of this one as I bottled.

It feels good to have beer in bottles again.

Mine’s not as good as it was. I bottled it August last year.

How does a 9.8% ABV stout go from sublime to past it in half a year?

It’s not tasting oxidised, it’s just thin and aniseedy. Thin for a RIS, that is.

I just racked my Southern Brewer to secondary, it has been sitting at 3°C along with the IPA for a week now. It’s not quite clear but most of the yeast has dropped out, and the minty flavour isn’t quite so strong.

The IPA has picked up a goodly portion of fuggles flavour, I think it is ready to bottle anytime. And it has finally stopped fermenting. This beer make my lips numb. Quite a punch after the Southern Brewer sample

The APA stalled at 1.013, I’ve since pitched a sachet of SAF S-04 and it seems to be moving again but it’s too soon to tell.

The Saison appears to have finished fermenting, it’s at 1.010 which is ample attenuation for the style and smack-dab on the bottom end of the BJCP guidelines. Cloudy as all hell, I’ll give it a bit of cold conditioning and maybe some gelatin finings.

All of them are now tasting great, if I do say so myself. Realistically i could have had Southern Brewer racked and bottled by now, but it will keep. The APA is the one I am worried about, as a low gravity beer it will have a shorter lifespan, and I wanted to push it through to bottle much sooner since it would benefit the most from drinking young. The IPA is also ready to come out, but an extra week or two won’t hurt it. The only difficulty now is finding time to bottle.

After racking that IPA I drew off a few samples, one of those was for another SG reading. It had dropped to 1.009. I noticed over the course of yesterday that I regularly had to bleed off pressure from the cube even with the samples I was removing. Today I took another reading, and it has dropped to 1.007. That’s 1.007 down from 1.060, or over 85% apparent attenuation. Whichever way you slice it, I’m impressed.

Repeat tasting says that if it’s an infection, it’s not a bad tasting one at all. I’d better make extra sure though.

As they say, limiting headspace is important for avoiding oxidation in secondary.

That’s a plug of fuggles floating in the neck of a 17L cube filled with IPA. I have since drawn off a few samples to get the level down a little.