Last Friday Luke and I brewed a West Coast Pale Ale, which is pretty much defined by being more amber colored than a typical pale ale. So into the mash tun went a bunch of pale malt and some caramel 80. This is a darker caramel malt than I typically use in a pale ale, but that's the effect you're going for with this style. Pretty simple malt bill.
I wanted this beer to feature a new hop variety (well, new to this brewery), Columbus. This is a high alpha acid West Coast hop. The description from Hopunion:
Originally bred for its alpha value, it has also
become popular for its oil profile. Great for dry
hopping.
This last sentence would prove to be a beer saver. It turns out that when my last hop order was shipped they neglected to include the bag of Columbus. I didn't realize this until brewday because they were listed on my email order confirmation and I assumed they were in the box. They of course were not, so it was time to adapt.
I had wanted to use the Columbus in a couple of addition for bittering and aroma, but substituted Cascade as a first wort hop and Cluster for some additional bittering. Amarillo and more Cascade went in for flavor and aroma. This is all fine but I had really wanted this beer to be something different, not more of the same.
So the solution will be to dry hop the heck out of it with Columbus, which are supposed to, finally, be on their way.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
2112
Yes I'm a Rush nerd, but that has nothing to do with the title of this post. That honor goes to the yeast of the month - Wyeast 2112. I'm sipping right now on a pint of St. Croix Crossing Steam Beer and admiring the smooth malty roundness you get with this yeast. That's not to say that it leaves a lot of sweetness. The finish is fairly dry, and leaves plenty of room for the palate cleansing hop bitterness of this beer.
Seeing that this yeast is amazing, we decided to use it in another beer. Last Monday, Memorial Day, we brewed an Amber Lager with Pale Malt, Bonlander (a 10L 2-Row Munich malt from Briess), and Caramel 60. It was hopped with 4 additions of Mt Hood and only Mt Hood. The brew day went off without a hitch and the beer had a starting gravity of 1.053, which was right where I wanted it. We'll be fermenting it cooler than we did the Steam beer to try to get a more traditional lager character out of it. I'll let you know how that works out.
Seeing that this yeast is amazing, we decided to use it in another beer. Last Monday, Memorial Day, we brewed an Amber Lager with Pale Malt, Bonlander (a 10L 2-Row Munich malt from Briess), and Caramel 60. It was hopped with 4 additions of Mt Hood and only Mt Hood. The brew day went off without a hitch and the beer had a starting gravity of 1.053, which was right where I wanted it. We'll be fermenting it cooler than we did the Steam beer to try to get a more traditional lager character out of it. I'll let you know how that works out.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Mother of All Recaps
The Black Belgian Wheat turned out awesome. The color is a deep brown/ black with a dark tan head. The aroma is fruity, spicy, and slightly phenolic from the yeast. The flavor is deceptive in that you expect it to be roasty, but it's not. What you get spicy wheat beer flavor and when it warms up a little you get a lot of dark, dried fruit flavors and some licorice. The finish was nice and dry with a hint of bitterness.
It's already gone, so if you didn't get any, too bad for you. No, not really. It was so well received that we are going to brew a big batch of it in a few weeks, so you'll get your chance to try it.
Right now we're working on dressing up some of our regular beers just to make something fun and interesting for summer. We're going to be putting on the Chipotle Chocolate Porter, Blackberry Chocolate Porter, and when this batch of Golden ale is done, we'll have Raspberry Golden.
During our tasting event we brewed wheat based pale ale with wheat (obviously), pale, Ashburne, and caramel 20. Hopped and dry hopped with nothing but Amarillo, and fermented warm with Wyeast 2112 Steam yeast. Its name is Aromarillo, and it will be awesome. Look for it next week.
It's already gone, so if you didn't get any, too bad for you. No, not really. It was so well received that we are going to brew a big batch of it in a few weeks, so you'll get your chance to try it.
Right now we're working on dressing up some of our regular beers just to make something fun and interesting for summer. We're going to be putting on the Chipotle Chocolate Porter, Blackberry Chocolate Porter, and when this batch of Golden ale is done, we'll have Raspberry Golden.
During our tasting event we brewed wheat based pale ale with wheat (obviously), pale, Ashburne, and caramel 20. Hopped and dry hopped with nothing but Amarillo, and fermented warm with Wyeast 2112 Steam yeast. Its name is Aromarillo, and it will be awesome. Look for it next week.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Black Belgian Wheat
So Craft Beer Week is coming up and I wanted to do something fun for it, so I present to you - Black Belgian Wheat. I know you're thinking "WTF is that, I never heard of that style." That would be because I made it up. I'm sure someone else has made something similar, but I never saw it or drank it so I'm calling it my own.
BBW is a small 10 gallon batch brewed with American Red Wheat, American Pale Malt, German Munich Malt, Belgian Debittered Black Malt, and Belgian Special B. Hops are exclusively Mt. Hood in two additions.
It's being fermented with Wyeast 3942. From their website - " Isolated from a small Belgian brewery, this strain produces beers with moderate esters and minimal phenolics. Apple, bubblegum and plum-like aromas blend nicely with malt and hops. This strain will finish dry with a hint of tartness."
Sound good to me.
I wanted to brew something off the wall with a lot of interesting things going on. It will be dark yet light in body. Belgian yeast character plus a prominent hop aroma. Dried fruit from the Special B with plum like aromas from the yeast. Awesome.
We'll be tapping it in the brewery sometime duringCrap Craft Beer Week, most likely Wednesday evening. This will be the first of, I hope many, 'In The Brewery' events, where we feature special brews, give tours, talk beer, and have a great time.
I'll tweet the exact date and time, so follow me @rickthebrewer on Twitter.
BBW is a small 10 gallon batch brewed with American Red Wheat, American Pale Malt, German Munich Malt, Belgian Debittered Black Malt, and Belgian Special B. Hops are exclusively Mt. Hood in two additions.
It's being fermented with Wyeast 3942. From their website - " Isolated from a small Belgian brewery, this strain produces beers with moderate esters and minimal phenolics. Apple, bubblegum and plum-like aromas blend nicely with malt and hops. This strain will finish dry with a hint of tartness."
Sound good to me.
I wanted to brew something off the wall with a lot of interesting things going on. It will be dark yet light in body. Belgian yeast character plus a prominent hop aroma. Dried fruit from the Special B with plum like aromas from the yeast. Awesome.
We'll be tapping it in the brewery sometime during
I'll tweet the exact date and time, so follow me @rickthebrewer on Twitter.
Bonus Tasting Notes
Fresh out of the bright beer tank.
Hop Tornado IPA - Deep orange color. Slightly hazy. Huge aroma. A whirlwind of fruity esters, floral, citrus, alcohol, toffee and malt. Flavor is just more of the same with some alcohol warmth and a nice hop scraping on the finish. The body is pretty light for a beer with an OG of 1.063, hence all the alcohol. Not that I'm complaining.
Hop Tornado IPA - Deep orange color. Slightly hazy. Huge aroma. A whirlwind of fruity esters, floral, citrus, alcohol, toffee and malt. Flavor is just more of the same with some alcohol warmth and a nice hop scraping on the finish. The body is pretty light for a beer with an OG of 1.063, hence all the alcohol. Not that I'm complaining.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
3 Beers Tasted
Some quick tasting notes on the next three beers on tap.
Oatmeal Stout - Opaque black. Dark head. Roasty/ charred/ slightly acrid aroma. Clean flavor with malt and a not too intense dark roast coffee flavor. Finishes clean with restrained bitterness and no acrid aftertaste.
Chocolate Porter - Reddish black with a tan head. Aroma chocolate and dark caramel. Bittersweet chocolate flavor with caramel toffee malt background. Slight hop earthiness. Tart roasty character on the finish.
Big Muskie Pale Ale (Plan B) - Deep golden color with orange highlights. Light tan head. Complex malt/hop aroma with notes of guava and passion fruit. Fruity, herbal flavor with malt backbone. Assertive hop bittering on the finish without being overpowering.
Tomorrow I'll be brewing a 10 gallon batch of my newest creation for Craft Beer Week - Black Belgian Wheat.
Check out my twitter @rickthebrewer for live updates.
Oatmeal Stout - Opaque black. Dark head. Roasty/ charred/ slightly acrid aroma. Clean flavor with malt and a not too intense dark roast coffee flavor. Finishes clean with restrained bitterness and no acrid aftertaste.
Chocolate Porter - Reddish black with a tan head. Aroma chocolate and dark caramel. Bittersweet chocolate flavor with caramel toffee malt background. Slight hop earthiness. Tart roasty character on the finish.
Big Muskie Pale Ale (Plan B) - Deep golden color with orange highlights. Light tan head. Complex malt/hop aroma with notes of guava and passion fruit. Fruity, herbal flavor with malt backbone. Assertive hop bittering on the finish without being overpowering.
Tomorrow I'll be brewing a 10 gallon batch of my newest creation for Craft Beer Week - Black Belgian Wheat.
Check out my twitter @rickthebrewer for live updates.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Steam Recap
On Tuesday (April 19th) we brewed St. Croix Steam Beer. This beer is modeled on, and an homage to, Anchor Steam out of San Francisco, CA. It seems a lot of people aren't familiar with Steam Beer, so a little background. Steam is a style that originated in California in the mid 1800's. It was unique in that it used the new lager yeast strains that had become popular, but at warmer temperatures.
Why 'steam'? No one knows for sure. From Wikipedia:
"Explanations of the word "steam" are all speculative. The carbon dioxide pressure produced by the process was very high, and one possibility is that it was necessary to let off "steam" before attempting to dispense the beer. According to Anchor Brewing, the name "steam" came from the fact that the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name. It is also possible that the name derives from "Dampfbier" (literally "steam beer"), a traditional German ale that was also fermented at unusually high temperatures and that may have been known to 19th-century American brewers, many of whom were of German descent."
Steam Beer is important in American brewing because it is considered the first microbrewed beer. The style was revitalized in the late 1960's when Fritz Maytag bought the aged and ailing Anchor Brewing Co. At a time when breweries were turning to lighter and more corn-based beverages, Anchor revamped their recipe to make an all malt beer with an assertive hop character. Early microbrewers in California looked to Anchor and its Steam beer for information and inspiration. In fact it could be argued that Anchor created the American microbrewery movement.
St. Croix Steam was brewed with Pale malt and four kinds of Caramel malt (20, 40, 80, and 120) for a complex, layered malt flavor. It's hopped with Cluster, Mt. Hood, Glacier and Willamette for an herbal, earthy hop character. The brew day went off without a hitch, and our starting gravity was even better than I expected.
We brought in a new yeast for this beer- Wyeast 2112 - which is a lager strain based on the Anchor yeast. It's fermenting at around 60 F, as is traditional.
Next post I'll go over tasting notes on the beers so far.
Why 'steam'? No one knows for sure. From Wikipedia:
"Explanations of the word "steam" are all speculative. The carbon dioxide pressure produced by the process was very high, and one possibility is that it was necessary to let off "steam" before attempting to dispense the beer. According to Anchor Brewing, the name "steam" came from the fact that the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name. It is also possible that the name derives from "Dampfbier" (literally "steam beer"), a traditional German ale that was also fermented at unusually high temperatures and that may have been known to 19th-century American brewers, many of whom were of German descent."
Steam Beer is important in American brewing because it is considered the first microbrewed beer. The style was revitalized in the late 1960's when Fritz Maytag bought the aged and ailing Anchor Brewing Co. At a time when breweries were turning to lighter and more corn-based beverages, Anchor revamped their recipe to make an all malt beer with an assertive hop character. Early microbrewers in California looked to Anchor and its Steam beer for information and inspiration. In fact it could be argued that Anchor created the American microbrewery movement.
St. Croix Steam was brewed with Pale malt and four kinds of Caramel malt (20, 40, 80, and 120) for a complex, layered malt flavor. It's hopped with Cluster, Mt. Hood, Glacier and Willamette for an herbal, earthy hop character. The brew day went off without a hitch, and our starting gravity was even better than I expected.
We brought in a new yeast for this beer- Wyeast 2112 - which is a lager strain based on the Anchor yeast. It's fermenting at around 60 F, as is traditional.
Next post I'll go over tasting notes on the beers so far.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Double Recap
First the Chocolate Porter brewed last Sunday. The grain bill consisted of pale malt. Briess Special Roast,Caramel 80 and 120, and chocolate malt. I've been adding some CaSO4 to all the beers here just to make sure the yeast get enough calcium, so that want into the mash tun as well. The mash went really well with the temperature, ph and yield all spot on.
Hops were Cluster for bittering, Willamette for flavor, and a late 'hop' addition of cocoa powder for chocolatey goodness. I can't wait to try some.
Yesterday we took another crack at the Hop Tornado IPA and it went really well. I upped the grain bill with more pale malt and pulled back on the caramel malts to really focus the flavor on the hops. I did add a little special roast to provide a little malt backbone without adding sweetness.
The hop schedule featured six different additions of Glacier, Cluster, Cascade and Centennial at different times and in different combinations. As if that's not enough we'll be dry hopping with Cascade and Centennial in the secondary.
The ph of the mash was a little high at 5.6, but I was happy with the original gravity of 1.063. This puts us solidly in IPA range and with a few tweaks the next batch should be a little higher. I think our runoff problems are behind us.
Next week - Steam Beer
Hops were Cluster for bittering, Willamette for flavor, and a late 'hop' addition of cocoa powder for chocolatey goodness. I can't wait to try some.
Yesterday we took another crack at the Hop Tornado IPA and it went really well. I upped the grain bill with more pale malt and pulled back on the caramel malts to really focus the flavor on the hops. I did add a little special roast to provide a little malt backbone without adding sweetness.
The hop schedule featured six different additions of Glacier, Cluster, Cascade and Centennial at different times and in different combinations. As if that's not enough we'll be dry hopping with Cascade and Centennial in the secondary.
The ph of the mash was a little high at 5.6, but I was happy with the original gravity of 1.063. This puts us solidly in IPA range and with a few tweaks the next batch should be a little higher. I think our runoff problems are behind us.
Next week - Steam Beer
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Plan B
So this post was supposed to be a recap of the IPA brew session. No IPA, welcome to Plan B.
The brew day started off well enough. We mashed in with a bunch of pale malt, some Ashburne, and some caramel 40 and 80. Mash temp was 152F, and ph 5.50. All just fine. I noticed when we started running off to the kettle that the level of the grain seemed a lot lower than last weeks oatmeal stout, even though they were both 425 pounds of grain. What this should have indicated to me was that the grain bed was seriously compacted. We had had such good run offs and efficiency on the last few batches that I didn't think it would be an issue.
When we were done sparging and the kettle was full, I opened up the mash tun and took a look at the grain bed. The grain was severely eroded all around the perimeter, which indicated the the sparge water had run around the edges and not through the center of the grain bed. I got a big spoon and dug down into the center of the bed and tried some of the grain. Lots of sugary goodness. Which at this point is a bad thing because it's supposed to be in solution in the boiling kettle.
We got the refractometer out and checked the amount of sugar in the wort. The reading translated to a specific gravity of about 1.050, which is about 8 points lower than I wanted. This definitely put us out of IPA range which typically has a starting gravity of 1.060 or better. So I decided to go with Plan B.
I cut back on the initial bittering hop addition and completely revamped the flavor and aroma hop schedule. I put in Cluster for bittering, Willamette for flavor, and Cascade and Centennial for aroma.
The OG wound up being 1.054 which puts us solidly in American Pale Ale range and the hop schedule is perfect for that. In fact this beer will wind up being very similar to a pale ale I used to brew called Derailed Ale.
So I guess I'm still learning the quirks of this system, and I have too really pay attention to the subtle signs of the process. I could have salvaged the IPA early in the sparge by taking the paddle and cutting through the grain bed to force the sparge water to flow more evenly through it. But I didn't. Something to remember for next time.
Plan B is bubbling away nicely in the fermenter this morning, and every thing looks good. So don't worry, the beer will still be awesome.
The brew day started off well enough. We mashed in with a bunch of pale malt, some Ashburne, and some caramel 40 and 80. Mash temp was 152F, and ph 5.50. All just fine. I noticed when we started running off to the kettle that the level of the grain seemed a lot lower than last weeks oatmeal stout, even though they were both 425 pounds of grain. What this should have indicated to me was that the grain bed was seriously compacted. We had had such good run offs and efficiency on the last few batches that I didn't think it would be an issue.
When we were done sparging and the kettle was full, I opened up the mash tun and took a look at the grain bed. The grain was severely eroded all around the perimeter, which indicated the the sparge water had run around the edges and not through the center of the grain bed. I got a big spoon and dug down into the center of the bed and tried some of the grain. Lots of sugary goodness. Which at this point is a bad thing because it's supposed to be in solution in the boiling kettle.
We got the refractometer out and checked the amount of sugar in the wort. The reading translated to a specific gravity of about 1.050, which is about 8 points lower than I wanted. This definitely put us out of IPA range which typically has a starting gravity of 1.060 or better. So I decided to go with Plan B.
I cut back on the initial bittering hop addition and completely revamped the flavor and aroma hop schedule. I put in Cluster for bittering, Willamette for flavor, and Cascade and Centennial for aroma.
The OG wound up being 1.054 which puts us solidly in American Pale Ale range and the hop schedule is perfect for that. In fact this beer will wind up being very similar to a pale ale I used to brew called Derailed Ale.
So I guess I'm still learning the quirks of this system, and I have too really pay attention to the subtle signs of the process. I could have salvaged the IPA early in the sparge by taking the paddle and cutting through the grain bed to force the sparge water to flow more evenly through it. But I didn't. Something to remember for next time.
Plan B is bubbling away nicely in the fermenter this morning, and every thing looks good. So don't worry, the beer will still be awesome.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Oatmeal Stout Recap
I think I'm starting to get the hang of this system. There were several times during yesterday's brew that I thought what am I forgetting because it seemed too easy. But that's a good thing.
The grain bill consisted of Pale malt, rolled oats ,roast barley, and caramel 120. There was a single hop addition of Cluster to provide a hop backdrop to beer dominated by roasty, malty, flavors.The color turned out great, a deep opaque black.
The whole process went great except for the fact that we might have sparged too quickly. The OG was 1.055 which I thought might be a little higher, but then again, you don't get a lot of extract out of oats and roast barley. I'll keep an eye on that next time we brew the Oatmeal Stout.
Next weeks brew - IPA
The grain bill consisted of Pale malt, rolled oats ,roast barley, and caramel 120. There was a single hop addition of Cluster to provide a hop backdrop to beer dominated by roasty, malty, flavors.The color turned out great, a deep opaque black.
The whole process went great except for the fact that we might have sparged too quickly. The OG was 1.055 which I thought might be a little higher, but then again, you don't get a lot of extract out of oats and roast barley. I'll keep an eye on that next time we brew the Oatmeal Stout.
Next weeks brew - IPA
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tasting Notes
Okay, so I'm back from vacation (which was awesome) and today we brewed the Oatmeal Stout. I'll have a recap of that brew session tomorrow. The big news is that we have three of our beers on tap. Thanks to Luke for getting them ready and in the serving tanks.
First up - Vagabond Irish Red. I was worried that this beer would be too dark because of the roast barley I put in it, but I think the color is good. It's definitely a multilayered beer flavorwise. There is malty, caramel, roasty, toffee in the nose. It's pretty soft on the palette, with no cloying sweetness, or aggressive bitterness. The finish is clean with no lingering after taste or off flavors. Overall I'm very happy with this beer, but in the interest of perfection, I'll probably roll back on the roast barley to make that aspect more subtle.
Sunny Golden Wheat - The color is a nice deep yellow and the head is nice and lacey, thanks to the wheat. Subtle Mt Hood and Cascade hops come through in the aroma along with a slight sulphuryness, which actually works well in this beer. The flavor has a light maltyness and a crisp wheat character that is nicely balanced by the Glacier hops. I'm really happy with how this beer came out and the only tweak I'd like to make is to deepen the color a little bit.
Calibration Ale is a beer that is what it is. That being said, I really like it. The Vienna malt I put in it, in combination with the caramel malt, gives it a really unique malt flavor for a pale ale. Even though it wound up stronger than I predicted, it's still a nicely balanced beer with great hop flavor thanks to the Amarillo's.
So those are my thoughts on the first three beers. There will, of course, be more beer to come and if you've had any of these, please leave a comment and give me your feedback.
First up - Vagabond Irish Red. I was worried that this beer would be too dark because of the roast barley I put in it, but I think the color is good. It's definitely a multilayered beer flavorwise. There is malty, caramel, roasty, toffee in the nose. It's pretty soft on the palette, with no cloying sweetness, or aggressive bitterness. The finish is clean with no lingering after taste or off flavors. Overall I'm very happy with this beer, but in the interest of perfection, I'll probably roll back on the roast barley to make that aspect more subtle.
Sunny Golden Wheat - The color is a nice deep yellow and the head is nice and lacey, thanks to the wheat. Subtle Mt Hood and Cascade hops come through in the aroma along with a slight sulphuryness, which actually works well in this beer. The flavor has a light maltyness and a crisp wheat character that is nicely balanced by the Glacier hops. I'm really happy with how this beer came out and the only tweak I'd like to make is to deepen the color a little bit.
Calibration Ale is a beer that is what it is. That being said, I really like it. The Vienna malt I put in it, in combination with the caramel malt, gives it a really unique malt flavor for a pale ale. Even though it wound up stronger than I predicted, it's still a nicely balanced beer with great hop flavor thanks to the Amarillo's.
So those are my thoughts on the first three beers. There will, of course, be more beer to come and if you've had any of these, please leave a comment and give me your feedback.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Irish Red Recap
With St. Patrick's Day fast approaching, Irish Red was a logical choice for brew number two. The grain bill consisted of Pale, Ashburne, Caramel 80, Special Roast, and a little bit of Roast Barley to deepen the color and to help combat the high alkalinity of the water here. The ph of the mash was 5.3, so it definitely helped pull the ph down, but I think it might have darkened the beer a bit too much. I'll wait until it's finished and I can asses it in a pint glass to decide if I need to reduce the amount of Roast.
Overall the brew seemed to go more smoothly than the first one. We had no problems with recirculating the mash and the sparge water flowed through almost too quickly during our one hour sparge. The starting gravity wound up being 1.046, which is a couple points lower than I was hoping for. Next time I'll keep a closer watch on the flow and sparge a little slower.
The batch came to a boil pretty quickly after the kettle was full and I remembered to turn off the bottom steam jacket, so no boilover. The one addition of Glacier hops went in with 60 minutes to go in the boil.
While the batch was whirlpooling, we cropped some yeast off the Calibration Ale. There was very little thick slurry, more like very yeasty beer. We pitched what we had, but I was concerned it wouldn't be enough. When I came in this morning it was bubbling, but very little. I pulled off some more yeast and pushed it into the fermenter with CO2. We'll see how it does, although I probably won't be repitching yeast out of this batch.
Overall the brew seemed to go more smoothly than the first one. We had no problems with recirculating the mash and the sparge water flowed through almost too quickly during our one hour sparge. The starting gravity wound up being 1.046, which is a couple points lower than I was hoping for. Next time I'll keep a closer watch on the flow and sparge a little slower.
The batch came to a boil pretty quickly after the kettle was full and I remembered to turn off the bottom steam jacket, so no boilover. The one addition of Glacier hops went in with 60 minutes to go in the boil.
While the batch was whirlpooling, we cropped some yeast off the Calibration Ale. There was very little thick slurry, more like very yeasty beer. We pitched what we had, but I was concerned it wouldn't be enough. When I came in this morning it was bubbling, but very little. I pulled off some more yeast and pushed it into the fermenter with CO2. We'll see how it does, although I probably won't be repitching yeast out of this batch.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
CA Update
I'm sitting here sipping on a Bell's Hopslam (and loving it) and contemplating what's up with the Calibration Ale. We're 9 days into fermentation and it's not done yet. Today's specific gravity is 1.017, which is good, but I thought we would get here sooner.
So, what happened? Last Thursday, four days into fermentation, I noticed the temperature getting a little warm (71.5F). Well that's what glycol is for. I set the controller so it would pull the fermenting beer down to 65F, which it did. When it got down to 65F the controller did what it is supposed to do, which is stop the flow of chilled glycol. The problem was that the jacket around the fermenter was full of 27F glycol, and that proceeded to pull down the fermenting beer another 3F. That brought us down to 62F.
Now 62F is not a bad temperature to ferment a beer. The problem with it was that it dropped the temperature around 10F in about 10 minutes. That rate of temperature change will shock the yeast and seriously retard fermentation. When I noticed the abrupt drop in temperature, I shut down the refrigeration and hoped for the best. It took several days, but vigorous fermentation resumed and the beer is now attenuating nicely. That learning experience added about 4 days to primary fermentation, and perhaps years off my life.
The sample I took today smelled great. The Amarillo was not overpowering, but present just the same. I was worried that the beer would be under hopped since the gravity was higher than expected, but the bitterness was at a nice level. Which means that hop utilization is better than expected, and that's a good thing to know before you brew an Irish Red Ale (tomorrow's brew) which is known for restrained bitterness.
So, what happened? Last Thursday, four days into fermentation, I noticed the temperature getting a little warm (71.5F). Well that's what glycol is for. I set the controller so it would pull the fermenting beer down to 65F, which it did. When it got down to 65F the controller did what it is supposed to do, which is stop the flow of chilled glycol. The problem was that the jacket around the fermenter was full of 27F glycol, and that proceeded to pull down the fermenting beer another 3F. That brought us down to 62F.
Now 62F is not a bad temperature to ferment a beer. The problem with it was that it dropped the temperature around 10F in about 10 minutes. That rate of temperature change will shock the yeast and seriously retard fermentation. When I noticed the abrupt drop in temperature, I shut down the refrigeration and hoped for the best. It took several days, but vigorous fermentation resumed and the beer is now attenuating nicely. That learning experience added about 4 days to primary fermentation, and perhaps years off my life.
The sample I took today smelled great. The Amarillo was not overpowering, but present just the same. I was worried that the beer would be under hopped since the gravity was higher than expected, but the bitterness was at a nice level. Which means that hop utilization is better than expected, and that's a good thing to know before you brew an Irish Red Ale (tomorrow's brew) which is known for restrained bitterness.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Inagural Brew
Calibration Ale is bubbling away in the fermenter this morning and I'm tired. It was a long day yesterday and I still have an acid rinse to run today. I started the brewday about 8:30 am by firing up the boiler to heat the water. I was apprehensive because we've been having trouble with getting the boiler to run consistently, but it ran fine all day.
Calibration Ale is an amber ale made with Pale malt, some Vienna malt and Caramel 80. It's hopped with Cluster, Mt Hood and Amarillo at the end. We mashed in around 10 am and the initial temperature was a little low at 147, so we added 20 more gallons of hot water and got it up to 150. We had some problems with the recirculation because the pump was creating too much suction under the grain bed and the false bottom sections got buckled a bit. It's all about getting to know your system. The sparge took over an hour but that's good because it led to some pretty good efficiency.
We got up to boil at 1:35 pm and all in all the boil went well except for the minor boilover. I figured out that once we are up to a rolling boil I can turn off the bottom steam jacket and still maintain a good rolling boil without danger of boiling over. The Amarillo got added after the steam was turned off so we didn't boil away that great aroma. After about 15 minutes of whirlpooling it was off to the fermenter.
I put together this contraption that attaches to the heat exchanger that has a thermometer, sight glass and a valve that allows us to inject yeast and oxygen directly into the wort stream.
This enables us to chill, pitch yeast, oxygenate and transfer to the fermenter all in one shot. It all worked perfectly except for the fact that we ran out of oxygen one third of the way through the transfer. We decided to add some last minute yeast nutrient to make up for the lack of O2. It seemed to work because it's bubbling away this morning.
I was expecting a starting gravity of 1.044 and was very surprised to see the hydrometer floating at about the 50 mark. There was a lot of trub in the sample so I let it settle for about an hour and checked it again. 1.053. Almost 10 points better than I predicted so I'm obviously pretty happy with the efficiency of this system, even if it was a complete pain to put it all together.
The whole point of brewing this beer was to get a sense of how this system works (hence the Calibration) and still create a good beer and not be concerned about style. Not that I ever am. I'll have to wait until it's done fermenting to get a sense of hop utilization and aroma characteristics and that will be the subject of my next post.
Calibration Ale is an amber ale made with Pale malt, some Vienna malt and Caramel 80. It's hopped with Cluster, Mt Hood and Amarillo at the end. We mashed in around 10 am and the initial temperature was a little low at 147, so we added 20 more gallons of hot water and got it up to 150. We had some problems with the recirculation because the pump was creating too much suction under the grain bed and the false bottom sections got buckled a bit. It's all about getting to know your system. The sparge took over an hour but that's good because it led to some pretty good efficiency.
We got up to boil at 1:35 pm and all in all the boil went well except for the minor boilover. I figured out that once we are up to a rolling boil I can turn off the bottom steam jacket and still maintain a good rolling boil without danger of boiling over. The Amarillo got added after the steam was turned off so we didn't boil away that great aroma. After about 15 minutes of whirlpooling it was off to the fermenter.
I put together this contraption that attaches to the heat exchanger that has a thermometer, sight glass and a valve that allows us to inject yeast and oxygen directly into the wort stream.
This enables us to chill, pitch yeast, oxygenate and transfer to the fermenter all in one shot. It all worked perfectly except for the fact that we ran out of oxygen one third of the way through the transfer. We decided to add some last minute yeast nutrient to make up for the lack of O2. It seemed to work because it's bubbling away this morning.
I was expecting a starting gravity of 1.044 and was very surprised to see the hydrometer floating at about the 50 mark. There was a lot of trub in the sample so I let it settle for about an hour and checked it again. 1.053. Almost 10 points better than I predicted so I'm obviously pretty happy with the efficiency of this system, even if it was a complete pain to put it all together.
The whole point of brewing this beer was to get a sense of how this system works (hence the Calibration) and still create a good beer and not be concerned about style. Not that I ever am. I'll have to wait until it's done fermenting to get a sense of hop utilization and aroma characteristics and that will be the subject of my next post.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
New Job
I am now no longer just a consultant, but the official Brewmaster at Brady's Brewhouse in New Richmond WI. Which is Nice.
I'll be tweeting about beer throughout the brew day, with in depth technical info for those of you who are interested.
This space will be primarily for more in depth rants and observations about the beer world.
That's all for now. Off to work.
I'll be tweeting about beer throughout the brew day, with in depth technical info for those of you who are interested.
This space will be primarily for more in depth rants and observations about the beer world.
That's all for now. Off to work.
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