Hot, Quick and Thick

Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephaner Weizen

It’s an activator pack, which is really a waste of money for the extra cost when I’m going to be making a starter, but Grumpy’s didn’t have a normal-sized pack. I haven’t written down the recipe for this beer yet, but it will be fairly simple; 50:50 wheat:pils malt and bittered with hersbrucker plugs to 14 IBU, unless it takes too many plugs. There might also be a slight flavour hop addition in there too.

Also on the drawing board with the same yeast is a berry wheat. And a Dunkelweizen. And a Roggenbier.

It’s worth preceding this post with the statement that think American IPA is a misnomer and it particularly irks me when a big citrusy American beer is called an IPA sans the preceding A.

That being said, I just couldn’t resist formulating this recipe:

Red Indian Pale Ale

21L
OG 1.061
ABV 6%
55 IBU
23 EBC

mash temp 66°C
ferment temp 21°C

50% JW Trad Ale
42.5% Weyermann Munich I
7.5% Weyermann CaraRed

Simcoe 12% AA 10g @ 60
Simcoe 12% AA 20g @ 30
Simcoe 12% AA 20g @ 15
Simcoe 12% AA 20g @ flameout
Amarillo 8.4% AA 10g @ flameout
Fuggles (plug) 15g @ flameout

Whitelabs WLP008 East Coast Ale

If the Fuggles looks odd, think of it as Willamette. I want it in there because I get a little bored with citrus and fruit salad APAs. I also had great difficulty deciding on the quantity of CaraRed to use in this recipe, since I have never used it before.

I was going to brew this next, but looking at the recent beers I have done (Genuine Hop Delivery System, IPA, Alt, Steam) I think I will do a low IBU beer next. Most likely a wheat with a recultured Schneider Weisse yeast..

Brewed the steam beer today, or this evening. Aside from a little too much jiggling around trying to get the mash temp right, things went fairly well. It looks like efficiency has improved again, up to 73%. Have 20.5 litres of wort in the fermenter at 12.5°Bx. Will double check by SG when the wort is cooled.

No boilovers today and the burner was very well behaved. I moved the baffle closer and put some tiles in front of it as a heat shield which seemed to make the flame a lot more consistent, I didn’t have to dick around with turning rings on and off or adjusting gas flow, it was just fourth ring off once boiling and gas reg dropped down as low as possible.

I was meaning to try whirlpooling again but completely forgot. Left 2 litres in the kettle again, and while the wort is not as clear as the würt wort was, it’s not looking too bad:

Tastes nice too, yankee northern brewer really does taste different to german.

Alt – SG 1.021. Around ten days or so into ferment, I think. Tastes mighty fine, big malt character and a lot of spalt. Am going to move it out of the fridge tomorrow to make room for the steam beer.

Würt lager – SG 1.035. Definitely not ready to sample, stupid lagers.

Saison – Just over a week in the bottle, it’s not fully carbonated yet, no head and quite hazy (yes, I’m impatient), but is tasting very nice. Difficult to describe the flavour, but there seems to be a nice balance of flowery aroma, spiciness, candied flavour and tart finish. It could possibly stand to be a little less bitter but I don’t think it’s too far over the top.

IPA – Needs time, esters are too strong and beer is still a little bit young. Am conciously trying to save it, Southern Brewer will be drunk first as sacrifice.

Southern Brewer – Bland and thin. Untill I looked up the recipe again I was wondering if I’d used pils malt or something. As it is it tastes like I mashed at 64. Should be just fine to knock back though, and the mintiness of the northern brewer really shines through.

Mild APA – mmm, hops. Too bitter for the gravity, or too light for the bitterness. A little thin but that’s not surprising. Also too young, again not surprising. Very cloudy.

Paddlesteamer Cali Common will be brewed tomorrow.

Only just pitching the yeast now, the cube has been sitting in the fridge the last couple days all nicely sealed up with the sides sucked in like a jam jar lid.

However, now that the starter is in there is around half a litre of headspace in the cube. I’m fermenting right at the bottom of 2112′s range so I think I can get away with it, especially since it’s a lager yeast.

The fridge will only hold one standard-sized fermenter (plus a couple cubes and jerries of various sizes) and the alt is still in there and only partially fermented, so I am considering just moving the alt out to finish up so I can move the würt lager to a normal fermenter. Will help get a bit more aeration happening too.

I brewed the wuerttemberger lager today, with the help of an associate from university. The brewday went quite well, and I’ve documented some of it in pictures. Click to embiggen.

Mash is underway and sparge water is in there waiting to do its thang. 5 litres of first runnings only, at around 18°Bx.

Bill the brewery assistant stirs in the sparge water.

Sparge temp, with a little difference between my two thermometers. Need to check to see which one’s the right one; I normally brew to the red one.

Sparge was around 23 litres, at around 6°Bx.

Bill the brewery assistant stops to have a gander at hot, quick and thick.

Baffle is in place for the boil, it doesn’t stop all breeze but it’s better than nothing. Maybe.

Hops weighed out and ready to go. That puny pile of pellets is my bittering addition of Hallertauer Magnum. The fresh bowl of Wuerttemberger is only 11g worth.

Bill the brewery assistant scrapes some Magnum back down into the wort.

My cube, a little overfilled with napisan solution. This solution has soaked four fermenters so far and is still going strong.

The leftover trub in the kettle, around two litres worth. Wish I’d gotten some shots of racking to the cube, the wort ran crystal clear aside from the odd flower flitting through the tube. And a lot more than the odd flower by the end of the racking.

End result was ~19L of 12.5°Bx wort in the cube, for an efficiency of around 68%. I’m happy with that.

And a shot of the wort. I am also very happy with the clarity and the colour.

It’s a little bit more bitter than I’d like, next time I brew this beer I will drop it back by 5 IBU or so. Either that or up the gravity a little, that would work too. I think I didn’t need to fart around with so many different hops. It’s like adding spices; you don’t need to because the yeast speaks for itself. Next time I think i will just add some Hallertau or similar. I’d like to get ahold of some Strisselspalt for it, I think that would be great. Or my Precoce de Bourgogne if the damned thing ever grows.

The yeast has produced some wonderful flavours, while this one is at the bottom end of the style I can see how this beer works well as a higher gravity yet still refreshing style. Would knock you for a six too. Better brew one.

American Mild Ale, aka:

Twelve PET longnecks of the stuff from a starting batch volume of 20 litres. That’s less than half the batch bottled.
Losses include a couple litres to racking (normal), several litres to pre-bottling evaluation (somewhat more than normal) and two bottles lost during the bottling process. One was half full when I noticed a nasty mould smear in the bottle, so I turfed it. The other the $%&#ing valve fell off the bottler into the bottle, so i had to sacrifice the bottle to get it out. Drank that bottle though.

Either way, bottling less than nine litres of a 20 litre batch is abysmal even by my standards.

I had a brew sneak in on the brew schedule on Wednesday when I stopped in at Grumpy’s for a beer and picked up 27L of 6-7°Bx wort direct from their mash tun. Thanks to a generous evaporation rate on my kettle, two hours after firing up I had around 14L of wort at around 13°Bx. It’s an altbier grist and has been very generously hopped with spalt, US-56 is just starting to form a head on the fermenter now.

I am also changing the swillager brew, it will no longer have cluster in it. The cluster I am saving for another brew, in its place I have a bag of fresh wuerttemberger flowers that I am going to add at flameout. Will brew it on Sunday, ahead of the steam. I am looking forward to this one immensely.

Just had an IPA, it’s tasting good but will be a lot better if I can manage to leave it for long enough. Southern Brewer is maturing slowly but steadily, in another couple weeks it will be ready. I am still inclined to blame the gelatin for retarding bottle conditioning.