Archive for January, 2007

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Och Aye 80 bottled, 3GA and PPE racked, brewery moved

Monday, January 29th, 2007

Bottled the Scottish yesterday, just under 20 litres, OG 1.056 FG 1.006. Primed with 4.5g/L sugar. Beer is quite clear and a lovely colour. Will try to hold off for a week before consuming the first but only expect to make it as far as Friday night.

PPE is finishing off in the jerry, the 200g mulberries did not have any time to affect the colour of flavour before racking so I added 300g to the jerry this evening. An hour or so later it’s pink, I’ll recheck tomorrow and may add another 100-200g if need be. 3GA is quite hazy and yeasty, ideally I would throw it into my 100 can cooler bag for a CC, but that would require effort so realistically I will probably leave it at room temp and hope it clears. It worked for 1728 in OA80 after all.

Grain is crushed and ready for the Biere de Garde and the light. Will probably aim to brew the weekend after next, after the 3G ale is bottled.

Also moved most of my gear up to Monash where I will be brewing on the veranda of the old picker’s hut. Fermentation fridge still to come.

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Mulberries are in

Saturday, January 27th, 2007

I threw 200g of mulberries in the tripel today. I settled on 200 because they are quite dark and very strongly flavoured, if it’s not enough then I will just add more. Ferment has been quite vigorour, there was enough yeast oozing over onto the top of the fermenter lid to start another batch. Flavour is currently banana, strawberry, pear and warming alcohol, gravity is 1.023 from 1.080 so the ABV is sitting on roughly 7.5-8%. Definitely need to brew another sans fruit soon. Even though it is not finished fermenting, I will need to rack it to a jerry tomorrow so I can transport it back to Monash. This will probably leave a bit of the mulberry behind before it’s fully extracted, with a little forethought I should have racked onto the berries instead.

3G ale is finished or almost finished fermenting, SG 1.007 down from 1.044, ~4.9% ABV. Ferment has been fortunately restrained and it hasn’t overflowed its paltry 2 litre headspace. Tastes delicious, very zesty and fresh.

Scottish is not quite clear but I’m going to bottle it anyway. Would have today if I wasn’t too hung over.

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PPE & 3GA underway, OA80 racked, next brew day planned

Monday, January 22nd, 2007

Ended up with 23L of 1.080 tripel and approximately 18 of 1.044 3G ale. Racked the scottish to a jerry and saved a cup or so of 1728 slurry for the 3G ale. The tripel’s 3787 starter was up and firing too, approximately 2-3 litres worth. Everything pitched at 20°C and placed in the fridge set to ferment at 22°C. Will check on it next weekend when I hope to bottle the Scottish, rack the 3G to secondary and rack the tripel to secondary on top of 400g of mulberries. I know one week in primary is quite short for a tripel, but I need to rack it for transportation from the site of the old brewery to the new.

First brew in the new location will be another partigyle, biere de garde and a light lager, both beers I have been meaning to brew for a while now. Sparging the tripel, I found I overcollected in volume before hitting the gravity I wanted for the 3G ale, leaving the 3G slightly under-gravity before I threw around a little wort. All things being equal, that should work out well for this beer as I will be aiming for roughly 1.065-1.070 on the BdG and 1.030-1.035 for the light. Since 12kg of grain bought me 23L of 1.080 and 18 of 1.040, I’m thinking 10kg will be sufficient. I also stopped the 3G sparge at 4°Bx, I think I may take this one a little further. Also going to cheat and use either 1007 or S-33 for the light, as I probably won’t have a ferment fridge for it and will have to rely on cruder methods of temperature control.
Current plan for the recipe sans volumes,

Biere de Garde + Biere de Light

8kg Weyermann Vienna
1.8kg Weyermann Pils
200g Weyermann Caraaroma

65°C mash

BdG first runnings, OG 1.070, 25 IBU
Hallertau Magnum bittering
0.5g/L Hallertau LWH
0.5g/L Goldings LWH

Wyeast 3725, 24°C ferment

BdL second runnings, OG 1.030, 20 IBU

200g carapils in sparge

Hallertau Magnum bittering
1g/L Hallertau LWH

Wyeast 1007 @ 16°C or S-33 @ 20-22

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PPE and G3A brewed, OA80 tasted and measured

Saturday, January 20th, 2007

First off, I reacquainted myself with my scottish afer brewing it two or so weeks ago and monitoring its fermentation via telephone. It has dropped from 1.056 to a mind-boggling 1.006 that made me recheck twice and peer at the beer surface for visible signs of infection. That equates to roughly 6.5% ABV, certainly a wee bit heavier than a regular 80.

The mouthfeel impression is still full bodied, but there is definitely some alcohol present. Fortunately not hot, harsh or smelly. Sampling it earlier in the day I thought the 1% medium peated malt had provided too much peaty stinkness, but right now I can barely notice it. Colour is on the lighter side of almost exactly what I wanted and clarification has progressed to mild haze only. One week in secondary at the same temp as PPE and G3A and it will hopefully be in a position to bottle. I have good hopes for this one even if it is a little strong and also providing it doesn’t pick up the same infection as the koelsch.

Partigyling the Purple People Eater and 3G Ale took just over 6 hours, with two burners I would have knocked at least an hour off the time. Either way, not bad for two batches of beer in one session. The only issue I encountered during the process was a fair case of failing to reach target volumes. I ceased the tripel when it hit 30 litres at 17°Bx, then stopped the 3GA runoff at 4°Bx to give 24L at 7°Bx. I threw in a couple litres of now-boiling but not-hopped tripel wort to bring the 3GA to 8°Bx and drop the tripel to 26L. Figures are a little hazy here due to slight inattention, but ultimately I am hoping to end up with approximately 26L of PPE at 1.080 and 19L of 3GA at 1.040 not counting kettle losses.

And for my records,

hop regime for the tripel,

15g magnum (13.3% AA) @ 60
10g goldings and 10g glacier @ LWH

and for the 3G ale,

15g Galena 12.9% at 30, 18 IBU
30g Goldings 5.2% @ 15, 10 IBU
30g Glacier 5.2% @ LWH, 3 IBU

I’d also lost trust with my labelling system for the carared and threw it out, so subbed 100g of baird’s medium crystal (that I almost forgot to add to the sparge).

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Koelsch the Infected

Wednesday, January 17th, 2007

The infected koelsch has carbonated sufficiently to allow a proper tasting and the verdict is definitely not good. The beer itself is fantastic, possibly lacking the sublter dryness, winey and sulphurous qualities that would denote my ideal koelsch but it is a very well balanced light quaffable ale. Aside from, of course, the heady layer of funk draped across it :( .

I will have a couple goes at drinking it very cold before I give up and turf it. Also, I have noted that flavorwise it is identical to the infection I picked up roughly this time or earlier last year. This definitely leads me to suspect a resident infection, but such an issue is not insurmountable.

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Purple People Eater brew day next Saturday

Saturday, January 13th, 2007

Planning out the recipes and some details for the day. I will hopefully try to pick up the yeast (3787) via post early next week and build a small (5-600mL) starter that will go into 2-3 litres of wort on brew day before pitching on Sunday afternoon. The small beer will be easier since I will just use the 1728 yeast from the 80/~ ferment. Odd choice for a hoppy beer but we’ll see.

PURPLE PEOPLE EATER

OG 1.080
20 IBU
22L

11.4kg Weyermann Pils
600g Weyermann Vienna
400g sucrose (added at start of boil)
500g mulberries (added at end of primary)

First runnings only

Glacier bittering
8g Glacier LWH
8g Spalt LWH
8g Goldings LWH

3787 Trappist High Gravity

65°C mash
20-22°C ferment

3G ALE

OG 1.045
25 IBU
20L

11.4kg Pils
600g Vienna
200g Carared (added after first runnings)

65°C mash
Second runnings collected only

Galena bittering, 30 minute addition
30g Goldings @ 15
30g Glacier LWH

1728 Scottish Ale

20-22°C ferment

I’ll stir and re-lauter for the small beer to help the carared extraction. Will fly sparge as I have been doing for the last few brews. The tripel I will run off into the kettle as normal but I will fill the esky right to the brim with the sparge
water to get the HLT empty; if I run it in carefully then the hot liquor will sit on top and give a nice even sparge. The HLT will then serve as collection vessel for a nice slow sparge on the small beer — if need be I will run the first few litres into my 19L pot. I won’t boil in the HLT though, I’ll transfer to the kettle immediately after running off the tripel to the hot wort cube.

Also need to pick up a sack of pils malt that morning, that will make brewing a lot easier.

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Investigation, consumption and infection

Friday, January 12th, 2007

My conclusion on the summer blonde is inadequate mixing of the priming sugar, as I am experiencing considerable variation between bottles. I’m still baffled over what happened though, as I racked and primed as I always do. Tastes ok bit still young, I just won’t be giving any bottles away.

I’ve had one bottle of the IPA, it is carbonated, still hazy and tasting stellar. Toffee malt is big but some nice light floral and herbaceous hopping is standing right up to it. I fancy there’s some alcohol in it, but overall this beer really needs a few weeks to find its stride. The TTL yeast has injected some lovely complexity, pending maturation I will be following this recipe up next time I brew an IPA
Pils is improving daily, has come up as an good but not standout euro lager, still full-bodied and is suffering from some chill haze.
Koelsch is infected with an oily white film plus solid white bits identical to the american wheat infection I had in Dec 05. It is not readily detectable in the flavour but the beer is also not fully carbonated yet. Icing on the cake, the koelsch is also exhibiting chill haze. I am considering labelling all my fermenters and secondary vessels so I can log where each beer goes to assist in ethnic cleansing following these unfortunate outbreaks.

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Simcoe Blonde revisited

Monday, January 8th, 2007

I chilled half a dozen of these right down with the intention of cracking and resealing them to lighten the fizz. Five bottles in and I haven’t found a single overcarbonated one; 4 have been flattish and one perfect. The diacetyl is almost absent too.

I’m a bit baffled over what’s going on here after the two fizzy ones the otherday. I’ll have to investigate further.

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Onk Valley and Simcoe Summer Sampling

Sunday, January 7th, 2007

Sampled two of the blonde on Friday night and sampling one of the pils right now. Pils is carbonated but blonde is overcarbonated. I am not sure what went wrong there. I don’t think I added too much priming sugar but I did rack abnormally early so I am wondering if the ferment had not quite finished, the first racking stalled it and the priming with simple sugar restarted it. I have 6 bottles chilling in a very cold fridge, I will attempt to crack and reseal one sometime soon.
On the tasting front, true to coopers ale yeast form the diacetyl was very strong. Beyond that there was some nice simcoe flavour but the bubbles and the butterscotch detracted too far for a good assessment.

The pils is quite tasty, I fancied I detected a skerrick of diacetyl at the start of the glass and the herbal flavour of the hallertau and spalt is quite moderate. It’s too full-bodied for a german pilsner and I do not recall the FG. Another couple weeks will dry things out a little more and I am definitely looking forward to attacking this one.

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Koelsch and IPA bottled

Friday, January 5th, 2007

Both bottled this afternoon before hopping in the car (with a bootful of beer) and barrelling up to Monash. Sometime in the last couple of days the koelsch cleared up stunningly, here’s hoping it was flocculation and not chill haze. Either way I still fined with gelatin.

Just like the apa, the ipa was still cloudy but had a stellar hop flavour. Not sure if it’s going to be as bitter as I wanted though.

I used the car journey to start planning out the next brew day. It will be the Purple People Eater and the corresponding small beer. Some minor changes to the recipe will include upping the OG to 1.080 and an inclusion of 5% vienna in the grain bill. The small beer will ferment on some of the yeast cake from the 80/~ and will be of moderate bitterness yet strong hop flavour. Hops will again be dependent on what
ever old ones still need using up.

I based volume calculations on the assumption that 6kg of grain would give me 25L of 1.050 wort in the fermenter — roughly equivalent to the Och Aye 80/~. Splitting it, doubling the grain bill and changing volumes, I’ll be hoping for 20L of 1.080 tripel and 20L of 1.045 small beer as a minimum. I am no longer going to split the tripel into a normal and a fruit concoction, it will all be fruit this time and I will simply plan another triple soon.

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