Hot, Quick and Thick

Bottled the RIPA tonight in a very late night bottling session. First off I racked the Corona to my new jerry so I could have a regular fermenter free for bottling. In good news, not only did the jerry come with a tap (screwed into the underside of the lid) when the label said tap not included, but it also held 25 litres of beer when the label said 22. And a good thing too, because that didn’t occur to me till after I racked.

My favourite bit is how it has WATER written across the side of the jerry.

I racked the corona specifically so I would have a fermenter free. I prefer to bottle in these because the whirlpool action of the cylindrical vessel mixes the priming sugars evenly. Also, I wanted to use a normal fermenter for the RIPA so I could fit a sediment reducer to the inside to catch the leaf hops and prevent them getting into the bottler. However, I forgot about that until after I’d sanitised the fermenter for bottling, and could not be stuffed going to find one.

It turned out it did not matter, as no hops made it from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. Not even all the beer made it, the hops had plugged the snap tap so badly that the beer stopped flowing altogether after 15 litres. That left me a few litres left in the fermenter, and more annoyingly priming sugar dissolved in the beer in the bottling bucket enough for 17L when I had 15L in there only. To solve that I dragged out the corona and racked a litre of that on top of the bottling beer, to give 16L at a priming rate of roughly 6.8g/L.

Once I’d given up on the remants of the RIPA, I blew the hops out of the tap and poured myself a pint of the remainder. Fortunately no brewery assistants were around to photograph me with my lips wrapped around the tap.

Bottling, my new valve decided that it was going to be a retard and fall off half a dozen times. It is not nice reclaiming the tip of a bottling valve from a bucket of beer dregs and spraying it and hands both before reattaching, all in 4°C weather. Eventually I gave up and filled my bottles by turning the tap and using the plastic length of the valve only. And after that, my printer ran out of black ink, refusing to print any labels at all. Upon switching to full colour it printed 24 of 24 labels before giving up again and freezing completely. Happy days.

My Red Indian Pale Ale and Smoked Schwarzbier have both been in fermenters for over three weeks, the schwarz was racked to secondary around two weeks ago (now 1.050 – 1.013) and the RIPA is still in primary (1.054 – 1.012). I think this is a fairly good indication of why I can have three fermenters full at all times and still struggle to keep myself in beer, because it is a rather long brew cycle.

I am going to fine the RIPA with gelatin tonight when the temperature drops, and bottle it on Saturday. Overall it will be around five weeks from brewing to drinking. The schwarzbier will be around seven weeks, factoring in a lagering period of a couple weeks. My Corona is two weeks into fermenting (plus one week of the wort sitting in the cube), and has nearly attenuated fully (1.044 – 1.008), so has just come out of the fridge for diacetyl rest and to help the attenuation. This one will be at least 6-7 weeks before drinking also. Plus I have a batch of classic american pilsner that needs another week to condition, and the remnants of old würt and paddlesteamer as well as a couple bottles if IPA.

If I say an average of 23L per batch for these three batches, and an average of 6 weeks turnaround, then assuming continuous production that is around 11.5 litres per week, say 11 with evaporation losses. That’s just over 29 stubbies a week, and should be ample to keep me supplied. However, this doesn’t account for other people drinking my beer, nor occasions when I am not operating at full capacity. I am thinking a couple of 25L jerries for fermenting and cold conditioning are justifiable at this point.

I’ll be brewing three beers in the next few months with this yeast, berry wheat, american rye and american wheat.

Berry wheat will be brewed next weekend:

Berry Wheat

OG 1.042
13 IBU
26L

Joe White Wheat malt 50%
Weyermann Pilsner malt 40%
Carapils 5%
Acidulated malt 5%

Simcoe 12% AA 10g @ 60
Amarillo 10g @ flameout

300g frozen raspberries in secondary
500g frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants) in secondary.

1010 American Wheat
ferment temp 18°C

My Red Indian pale ale had approached the point where it is eminently samplable. I dumped half a litre of the beer on the floor trying to take an SG sample before I could force the tap to close. Going back again afterwards to check the tap, I fiddled with it and lost another half a litre on the floor that I had just cleaned. Third time lucky, I approached it with a stein, the tap broke off and I had to drink a litre

I emptied that, fished the tap handle from the bottom and reattached it. Try to pour a beer and… it floods again. I captured this one before closing though, luckily. Thinking about why my lovely snap tap is now causing me trouble, I think I can say that whole hops jam snap taps. Consider this a warning and, Google, please repeat this: whole hops jam snap taps. Ta.

I have had a mild flurry of recipe writing the last couple days, now I have eight recipes sitting in the brew queue. I am debating what order to brew them in, there will be some yeast recyling involved which is one factor I need to consider, as well as what sort of stocks I can keep on hand. I am not looking at any sort of timeline at this moment, I think it just depends on how quickly I empty my fermenters. I am thinking the current order will be as such, including yeasts:

Berry Wheat (1010)
Bloody Helles (2308)
Robust Porter – Mash Paddle (1026)
American Rye – Cluster in the Rye (1010)
Mild ale (Coopers ale)
Barleywine – Blunt Force Trauma (Coopers ale)
German Pilsner – Onk Valley Pils (2278)
American Wheat – Sam Wheat II (1010)

This is most definitely subject to change, as I will want to recycle the 1026 yeast a few times and I have also been meaning to work out a dunkelweizen or even a roggenbier recipe at some point and there are always other beers that crop up.

I was going to wait a few more days before doing this, as the Schwarzbier is still fermenting. However, after cleaning the fermenter from the CAP yesterday I decided I wanted to get the Corona fermenting sooner rather than later. The krauesen in the CAP fermenter was ridiculously easy to clean off (I wonder if that’s a normal trait of 2112) so the fermenter was ready to go within minutes rather than having the usual overnight napisan soak.

Because the schwarz still have a few points to drop, I tried to include a little more yeast when racking so it’s less likely to stick. The 2308 yeast cake was very firm, so I tipped the dregs of the schwarz off the top, threw in a 740mL PET bottle of filtered water and reclaimed that slurry out of the tap. It was sufficiently light in colour to not need settling and rinsing with more water to lighten it.

I dropped the corona wort into the schwarz fermenter and added a few litres of spring water plus some filtered water to dilute it to 27L at 1.043. The wort is still nice and light (though maybe a trifle darker than Corona) and the Glacier is shining through very well. I left the corona fermenter sitting outside overnight to cool a bit more, but slept in today so it warmed up agaoun to around 13-14°C. It is now in the ferment fridge with the fridge set to 7-8°C, hopefully the yeast was not too active just yet. The schwarz is sitting out in the carport, it is sufficiently fermented to cope with a raise in temp to 13-15, I think.

The RIPA has three more gravity points to lose. I chucked a cascade plug in it last night just for the hell of it.

In other good news, I unearthed a bottle of my wheat beer. I will be saving it specifically to reculture the 3068 from it.

Bottled my classic american pilsner tonight. A low attenuator, 1.040 to 1.014, partly because I used 2112 Cali lager yeast and partly (or moreso) because it was wort from the dregs of Grumpy’s mash tun from their Tomcat classic american pils. This is the third beer that has underattenuated from the very last runnings of their tun, so I am inclined to believe that the very final runnings from a large mash do indeed include less fermentable carbohydrates. Excellent for a light beer, but tricky if you’re doing anything else. It does taste very nice though, and should make an excellent mid-strength beer.

I have set aside a few stubbies of this one for comps, as well as a few of my steam beer. I am going to do that for each beer that fits competition guidelines over the next couple months, and attempt to have a good crack at SABSOSA and ANAWBS. I also look forward to help judging at ANAWBS this year. Though not any category my own beer is in, of course.

aka the barleywine I am going to brew sometime in the next month or so. I settled on the American style because it’ll help me use up more of my hops, as well as adding in a few of my fresher ones to help pep up the flavour a little. It’s worth pointing out that I’d never do a hop regime this complex normally, and that it’s subject to change without notice.

Blunt Force Trauma

OG 1.100
~100 IBU
~30 EBC
20-23L

Joe White Trad Ale 15kg

Pacific Gem 14.4%, 20g @ 60
Simcoe 13.3%, 20g @ 60
Pride of Ringwood 9%, 20g @ 60
Cluster 7.2%, 15g @ 30
Fuggles 3.8%, 7g @ 30
Goldings, 5.6%, 20g @ 15
Pacific Gem 14.4%, 20g @ 15
Simcoe 12%, 20g @ 15
Amarillo 8.5%, 20g @ 15
Chinook flowers, ~20g @ flameout

Coopers pale ale yeast, slurry.

66°C mash
20°C ferment

I have no idea if the Coopers yeast will even go that high, but I’m willing to find out. Volume and gravity on this beer are both a little vague because I am going to use the first runnings only. I am going to add some chocolate malt and crystal to the sparge and collect the second runnings for a mild ale. The barleywine wort will be racked hot to a cube and set aside while the mild ale ferments, and then part of the yeast cake from the mild will be pitched into the barleywine. I am also going to aerate again around ten hours after pitching in the barleywine, to help make sure the yeast is ok. And I’ll add some nutrient too. I have only done one high ABV beer before, that was a partial mash Imperial stout that started at around 1.092. It worked out well, but the ferment could have gone smoother. I used 1318 London Ale III for that one.

The other tricky bit will be 15kg of grain in my 55L mash tun. I think I can just manage it for the mash, but the batch sparging will probably be done in multiple steps since I am not set up to fly. I’ll also have to watch for grainbed compaction. I have had the mash bed compact on me a few times recently due to running off too fast, but I am hoping that even with 15kg a slow, careful runoff will help me get through it without drama. Then again, this entire brew is forging into new territory for me so it should be an interesting affair.

I have been sample both this weekend, Paddlesteamer has a head on it that is so luxuriously thick that it seems like cheating for a beeer less two weeks in bottle, and the beer itself is lusciously balanced. The malt punches me in the throat and says hello, have another. Old Würt displays a stronger presence of the 2112 yeast than Paddlesteamer due to the significantly lesser malt and hop profile. Also very nice though, but at the moment Paddlesteamer is the clear winner.