Archive for June, 2006

Brewed – Cluster in the Rye

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

Brewed the American rye today, all went reasonably smoothly. Hit either 70% efficiency or just under. Made another last minute decision on the rye and upped the malted rye to 600g, so a total of 6.6kg with around 19% rye.

I took a bit of extra care on recording volumes this batch. 19L mash in, 1 litre boiling water at mash out, 25L batch sparge. 13L first runnings at 16 brix , 25L second runnings at 6 brix. 38L in kettle at 9.5 brix.

Lost a bit of wort in the kettle because my pickup tube flipped up a half inch when i had to tighten the locknut on the outside of the kettle. Not sure how much is in the jerry but there’s probably 25L at 1.048, maybe a little more.

Some photos of the day,

All the kettle fittings soaking in some hot water. lazy man’s way of cleaning them:

The grains in the mash tun; malted rye in the brown corner, flaked rye in the, er, brown:

Doughing in left me with an impressive doughball, a quarter of it left here:

The first runnings came off successfully but the second stuck halfway through. I don’t find a stuck sparge to be too big an issue, cutting the grainbed always gets it going again:

It was wildlife day today at the hot quick and thick brewery, one bee fell in the mash. Well, after I closed the lid on it:

… and later on another fell into the kettle, and mr mouse made another appearance around the wheelie bins.

Lastly, the tail on my kettle lets in air when the hose is even slightly stretched, so today I implemented an ad hoc fix for that. Will either get some reusable plastic hose clamps or get a new hose tail.

The rye flavour in the wort was subtle but nice. I suspect both it and the mouthfeel will be a lot more prominent once the ferment is over. The only sort of indication of the near-mythical viscous nature of a rye malt brewday was the final hop addition; the Cluster pellets broke up but refused to sink into the wort, instead they sat there like a big green puddle.

This weekend I will bottle the Corona & the Schwarz and rack the american wheat onto berries. Next brew I will need to decide between porter and helles.

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American Rye

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006

Cluster in the Rye

OG 1.048
24 IBU

39.7% JW Trad Ale
39.7% Weyermann Pils
11% flaked rye
4.8% CaraRed
4.8% TF malted rye

Hallertau Northern Brewer bittering
0.7g/L Cluster flameout

1010 American Wheat

I bought the grain on Sunday but have been putting off brewing it. Last night I picked up a couple kilos of rye malt from wee stu and have decided to bump up the rye in the brew as a last minute alteration, hence the odd percentages.

And yes, I chose Cluster just so i could make a bad pun of the title. Brewday will be in a couple days.

Also need to bottle both my lagers, and this weekend will rack the American wheat onto those frozen mixed berries.

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RIPA and other miscellany

Monday, June 5th, 2006

Made the pleasant discovery that my red indian pale ale is quite quaffable after only a week in the bottle. I was struggling to work out whether I should classify this as an american pale ale, an american amber ale, or an american ipa, especially after notonly not hitting my target gravity but also having to dilute the beer slightly with my faux corona at bottling.

It seems that even with diluting with an unlagered lager the beer is coming up well, and is still very strong. I suspect it’s a little more malt heavy than a normal AIPA but the hop presence is too assertive for an american amber. Mildly disappointed with the carared too in the colour stakes, I was not expecting anything vivid, but what I have is not anything I couldn’t get with other blends of grains. However the flavour is very pleasant for a beer with 7.5% crystal, and I expect the malt profile will only improve over the next two months. What I do not know is how the decline of the hop profile will correlate with this. At the moment it tastes like the impromptu Cascade dry hopping was an excellent idea, it’s providing good flavour to the underlyning chinook pine and also helps balance the generous malt bill.

I am thinking by the time the competition period rolls around the bitterness will be more emphasised though the hop flavour may be lacking a little. Or, the beer may be all gone.

The smoked schwarzbier is suffering from severe evaporation issues, although the smokiness is not really present. Next brew along these lines I will drop the rauch and see if the brew has a different flavour. Corona was in need of more lagering at last sampling, will retest it tonight and see if it’s ready to bottle. The Schwarz definitely is, when I can find the time. Also on the to do list is brewing the American Rye. Last week’s brew is nearly fully attenuated and tasting fairly nice. I am not sure if 1010 has a nice ester profile or if it really emphasises the late hopping I use with it. I guess I will find out in both the rye and when I brew an alt with it.

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