Archive for August, 2006

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Sampling updates

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

As much as I would like to brew a hefeweizen right now, I have 3 beers in primary, 2 in secondary and 4 in bottle, which is probably sufficient for the moment.

I have tweaked the lemonade, added 2x250mL bottles of lemon juice plus an additional 20mL of lemon essence. It is definitely lemony, but a little lacking in zing. I spent a good afternoon dickering over an additional 100-250mL of additional juice. Deciding where to go with this is tricky, as I don’t have what I wanted yet I love what I have. I am thinking that with the addition of carbonation it will be very nice, so I will leave it as is and bottle soon. As it is I knocked off a few glasses from the secondary on the first sunny afternoon we’ve had this season.

Cluster in the Rye and Brow Nail are both hitting their stride. The rye has that wonderful texture to it, but I struggle to differentiate it from a normal beer of similar colour and gravity. There’s a difference there, but it’s not definable. There’s certainly a mild tartness to it too, but it is enhancing rather than detracting from the beer. I am thinking I will brew a rye beer again with my 1026 culture and aim it at ordinary bitter strength, I am hoping that will work well.

The brown ale is worlds apart on body being a lot drier, but it also manages to be sweeter as well as having a crisp chocolate quality that I originally thought was too prominent but has balanced out now. Goldings and Pacific Gem seem to work very well together in this beer. I think my fellow brewers are right in calling this an american brown ale, the difficulty is encompassing the notion of one without c-hops.

Also sampled my berry wheat again, this gets a surly footnote only as the blasted thing still refuses to carbonate properly.

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Brewed APA, bottled that lager thing, other lemonade stuff

Saturday, August 26th, 2006

Brewed an american pale ale today with the intention of having it as a quick turnaround beer and ideally ready in time to enter into ANAWBS. I have never brewed with the intent of creating an APA, have attempted an American IPA before, made one or two summer ales that would fall under the APA category, and made one American wheat that was mighty nice, but this is the first time I have set out with the intention of making an APA.

I don’t think it’s a terribly difficult style, but just from tasting the wort I reckon I’ve nailed it:

OG 1.042
25 IBU
10 EBC
28L

54% 2.7kg Weyermann Vienna
46% 2.3kg Weyermann Pilsner

40g Glacier 5.2% AA @ 60
15g Amarillo 8.4% AA @ 5
15g Cascade (plug) 6% AA @ 5

US-56 2nd gen culture

67°C mash
18°C ferment

The odd proportion of Pils:Vienna is only because that was how much Vienna I had handy. I was intending it to be hop-driven with a soft malt backing, yet light and very easy drinking.

The brew day itself went as smooth as could be hoped for. Without rushing in any way, and without interrupting my television viewing too much, it was just over a 4-hour brew day. In other good news my efficiency jumped up to low-mid 70′s. I stirred the crap out of the batch sparge and left it for ten minutes before giving it a good recirc, I ran off both it and the first runnings very slowly, and I tipped the mash tun right up and shook it to get as much as I could out of the deadspace. I think it all paid off.

Bottled what was supposed to be a helles then a pils then a dort then a pils again late last night. Decided it was simplest to call it a german pils, though perhaps the sensible thing would have been to call it beer and just drink it. It is looking like it has a little haze issue, but was tasting nice prior to bottling. Ended up coming down from 1.046 to 1.009.

My lemonade has come down to 1.006, I racked it this evening but have left the yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter. Will use a cupful of that to kickstart the APA ferment, tomorrow evening if I have time or tomorrow morning if it’s cool enough, but most likely Sunday.

Juiced a shopping bag’s worth of lemons for the lemonade, but they were frost damaged so I only got 200mL of juice from them. Added that when racking, but it’s not enough so I will probably buy a squeezie bottle of juice to add on top of that. Also added 10mL of lemon essence, will decide if I need more after I have the acidity where I want it. I made up a trial glass with around 2-3% juice and a drop of essence, and that was quite tasty so I am looking forward to the final result.

Have also set aside around 600mL of the APA wort to make a 3068 starter.

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Cluster in the Rye carbonation

Friday, August 25th, 2006

I have had three of my SABSOSA entries sitting in Bill’s hotbox for a week in a bid to have them properly carbonated and ready by the entry cutoff date tomorrow. I included an extra bottle of each in there for sampling so I could make any required last-minute veto decisions.

The rye had been struggling with carbonation, but the bottle I tried from the hot box was just carbonated, not enough for a good head but enough to turn it from an unacceptable entry to an adequate one. I was musing over this and decided it was an indication that 1010 did not like lower bottle conditioning temperatures, as all of my bottles have been in the mid teens over the last month, and my raspberry wheat with 1010 also is struggling with carbonation.

I was going to post about that, then I sat down and cracked another non-hotbox bottle when I returned home. It’s not only fully carbonated, but has a good head too.

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Readings, ferments and planned brews

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006

Aussie ale – 26L @ 1.045
Bock ~ 23L @ 1.067

The last three brews I have done have given me efficiencies in the low 60′s. This annoys me, I like my efficiency to be 70%. I am toying with the idea of attempting a fly sparge on a future brew, even with my less than suitable manifold.

Both worts also appear darker than I was expecting, though only marginally – not to a Steve Koelsch level. Nonetheless it annoys me, though I am sure it is just the
Caramunich I used in both.

The lemonade base has fermented from 1.042 to 1.007, surprising considering the 10% carapils. And I hate to say it, but for what is essentially at the moment an unhopped (aside from a flavour addition) american wheat beer, it tastes really good. It has given me the impulse to brew a beer in a similar vein very soon, though I can’t decide if I am going to do a traditional hefe or something with no style to speak of. Perhaps a hefe, I would like to pump one through for ANAWBS.

Other than that, I think I am going to grind out a couple beers with 1026, from the Aussie ale’s yeast cake. Perhaps two very different beers, one traditional and one not; I think it’s time I did another brew with no intention of meeting any style guidelines.

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Double Brew Evening

Saturday, August 19th, 2006

My friday afternoon turned into a double brew day, aussie ale and bock. 4:30 start, midnight finish. No real hiccups in the brew day, though I had forgotten about the importance of HLT timing on a double day when you have only one burner.

Aussie ale worked out smoothly, though efficiency was down by a percentage point or two, and the colour appears to be darker than I was expecting. It’s almost in the realm of an ESB or an american amber, which surprises me; I did not think 5% caramunich II would colour it that deeply. Perhaps the gravity is higher than my reading (wishful thinking), I will recheck tomorrow.

Bock is a style I have been lusting to brew ever since trying Gulpener, so earlier this week I altered a recipe I had made earlier to produce this:

Rock Out with your Bock Out

OG 1.067
27 IBU
40 EBC
26 litres

60% Weyermann Munich II
30% Weyermann Pils
6% Weyermann Melanoidin
3% Weyermann Caramunich II
1% Weyerman Carafa Special II

45g Hersbrucker (plugs) 2.5% FWH
15g Hallertau Magnum 13% FWH

833 Whitelabs Bock

65°C mash
10°C fermentation

I was going to aim for 25 IBU originally, but I had 15g Magnum left in total so decided to chuck the lot in. Of course, in retrospect I could have used one less Hersbrucker plug. Mash was around 90 min thanks to waiting for the aussie ale boil to complete. Will be interesting to see how this one comes out, with a long dry mash in one corner, slightly higher hopping in another, and a big malt bill in the another.

Bock will also probably be underpitched, I have drawn off around 1.7L of wort for the starter since I don’t feel like finding a bigger vessel than a flagon. I’ll give it a warmer pitching and bring the temp down to compensate.

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Brow Nail bottled

Wednesday, August 16th, 2006

OG 1.042 FG 1.010 ~ 4.2% ABV, 20 litres worth. I think it’s a fitting name for the sister beer to Blunt Force Trauma. This brings my stocks back up to four batches; Brow Nail, Cluster in the Rye, Mash Paddle Porter and Berry Wheat. Plus, Are For Cracking and Blunt Force Trauma will both be bottled in the next couple weeks.

SABSOSA entries close in less than ten days, I think I will put it in anyway. The Coopers yeast will definitely still be throwing up diacetyl at that point, but I am hoping it will be sufficienctly reduced by then to suit the guidelines and will compensate slightly for what I feel is a lack of crystal malt flavour.

I will also be entering my steam beer, robust porter and american rye (into the specialty category I suspect). The steam beer was excellent last time I had it, but that was at least a couple months ago so I am putting my trust in cold storage. The porter I think will fit guidelines well within another week or two in bottle, but I am sure it will be up against some strong competition thanks to the mash paddle. American rye, I have absolutely no idea about, though I am worried it will not condition in time; the 1010 pack I used has appeared to be a little sluggish in the last couple beers.

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Lemonade brewed, RIS drunk, hops planted, barleywine racked, Aussie ale planned, etc.

Tuesday, August 15th, 2006

I brewed my lemonade on Friday night, did not end up using Powell’s wheat as I was not at home to pick up the malt before swinging by grumpy’s. Low efficiency (62%) due to a poor crush, but an otherwise smooth brew day. Once it was finished, Bill the brewery assistant and I knocked off my last and final magnum of Russian Imperial stout, just after its 1-year anniversary. And, it was good. However, it has made me form the resolution to never bottle that big a beer in that big a bottle ever again, as I was feeling a little seedy the next day, and during consumption Bill developed an impressive case of the shakes.

Also planted my hop rhizomes yesterday, Chinook and Willamette. Chinook was a cutting from its mother back in Monash, and very big and healthy-looking. Willamette was a puny inch-long stub purchased from a Tassie grower through Grumpy’s. For the first season I am expecting both to grow well, but a small to moderate crop from the Chinook.

I never thought my barleywine primary fermentation would be over in less than two weeks, but I racked it to secondary today. It has stabililsed at 1.021, down from 1.100, and has been the smoothest fermentation I could possibly hope for. It does have a strongish banana aroma currently but I am expecting that to subside with time. Even now it is difficult to notice with the strength of flavour present. It is starting to clarify well too, though it’ll need at least a week to drop clear. I am expecting to bottle it in around two weeks. Only issue I have is there is only 13L of it.

Tomorrow I have an Aussie ale planned out for brewing:

OG 1.044
25 IBU
19 EBC

85% JW Trad Ale
10% Powell’s Wheat malt
5% Caramunich II

Northern Brewer bittering
0.5g/L Pride of Ringwood @ flameout

1026 British cask ale

65°C mash
19°C ferment

Should be a very quick turnaround beer, I have used 1026 before and it is a fast worker. Also nice and malty.

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barleywine and porter updates

Thursday, August 10th, 2006

The barleywine has shed another two points over the course of the day, which means it has broached ten percent. I can’t believe the speed of this fermentation and the lack of trouble I have had with it so far. The wort is by far the murkiest I have ever seen; there is a lot of yeast up there in suspension. I hope I do not lose too many litres to the yeast cake. I am already resigned to losing a couple to sampling.

Cracked open a porter after 6 days in the bottle. It is primed, but Coopers yeast is holding true to my prior experience and throwing up huge quantities of diacetyl. It always does this to me in bottles, though I have not used it for many months. It fades after 2-4 weeks though. Behind the wurther’s original, I think there lurks a very nice porter.

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Cluster in the Rye bottled, Barleywine fermenting

Wednesday, August 9th, 2006

Bottled my American Rye yesterday, OG 1.048 FG 1.010. Looking forward to drinking this one very much.

My barleywine has been fermenting since fri/sat. Yesterday (tues) it had gone from 1.100 to 1.040, today it is at 1.028. I pitched more yeast in it yesterday; I had a second bottle of slurry saved from the brown ale, I added a few squirts from the fermenter to this slurry over the course of half an hour to give the yeast a little chance to come to terms with the alcohol, shook the bottle up a little and then pitched this second slurry.I don’t know if it was necessary, but the ferment is certainly still going strong right up on the difficult end; it is almost 10% ABV and still going. It is nice to establish that the coopers bottle yeast will indeed go that high.

Tasting mighty fine, too. There’s plenty of alcohol in there, combined with the sweet maltiness and the estery profile of the yeast my absurdly large hop schedule does not seem too much at all.

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Are for cracking

Monday, August 7th, 2006

I have been having a lot of trouble deciding what sort of beer my Bloody Helles was supposed to be. It was intended to be a Helles, then I decided to call it a German Pils, then decided to split the difference and brand it a Dortmunder. And then, I think I forgot about it with barleywines and brown ales and bottling porters and so forth.

Anyway, I sampled it again tonight, it has almost cleared, and it is tasting like it is is nearly ready for bottling. So, I have stashed the fermenter in the fridge and dialled the fridge down to zero, I will bottle it in another week or two. Since I haven’t bothered to rack, the name shall be…

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