Samuel

This is my sweet all grain brewing setup. I’ve been working on getting it together for about a year, and it’s almost to where I like it.

The top tier is a brewheat, which holds hot sparge water. It actually plugs in to a 220 volt outlet, so I can heat the sparge water in it (although I have generally elected instead to heat the water separately and dump it in). I inherited this from my Father in Law, who used it when he was brewing back in the 80s.

The second tier is the mash/lauter tun. The final step in making this work is a small circle of perforated stainless steel that my friend Tom gave me. Another friend, Ben, helped me cut it to size.

The bottom tier is a 7.5 gallon stainless steel kettle that my Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday this year sitting atop a propane burner from my Mother in Law and Mr. O.

This system, in other words, owes a debt of gratitude to many friends and family members who made it possible.

The Belgian Ale was all consumed at the winter solstice. It was very, very, good.

It landed at 1.013 or so, which is right around where I wanted it. Tasty sample, no distinct off flavors. Lots of good notes too, but I’ll wait until it’s cold and fizzy to comment further.

Here’s the recipe for the beer that’s currently fermenting in my balmy guest room. I’m keeping it hot in there to encourage all the wonderful spicy, fruity flavors that the Belgian yeast I’m using is likely to produce.

After about two days of vigorous fermentation, and another two days of increasingly slow bubbles, the yeast stopped. It seemed quick, but I checked the specific gravity. It was 1.033; the yeast had stalled. On researching, I identified two potential problems. One; the temperature on my carboy thermometer fell to 21°C from the balmy 25°C at which fermentation had started. Two; the beer has a fair amount of sugar and honey as adjuncts, which don’t have the right mineral nutrients for yeast the way grains and malt extracts do.

The actions taken; I wrapped the carboy in a blanket and turned the heater up. The temp is now back in the 24°C range. I also pitched in some yeast nutrients. The bubbling has started again. I’m not sure if it was the temperature or the nutrients that fixed the problem, so I’m keeping the heat up. Better for esters anyway.

Lately I’ve been enjoying the New Belgian 2° ale. Tasty strong winter brew to warm your cockles. I also just got a sixer of Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve. I think it needs some pretty particular food pairing, as the spruce flavor is a little much.

I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like to be in keeping up with homebrew recipes, posting all the details of my brews. Life gets in the way of blogging sometimes. My dad and I are going to brew up a batch of bitter trying to reproduce ‘glen’s best bitter’ which you used to be able to get at the Wild Duck before they closed up shop. Following is a (preliminary) guess at what might be in such a brew. Who knows how close we’ll come, as it’s mostly a stab in the dark. They stopped producing this, my dad’s favorite beer, before I was of legal drinking age, much less interested in reproducing beers. I haven’t ever tasted the original and Dad knows basically nothing about the elements of beer. So, between us here’s a guess. If you have any additional information about this beer, or suggestions, I would greatly appreciate them.

2 Lbs American 6 Row Pale
1.5 Lbs English Mild malt
1 Lb American Caramel, 40 L
.5 Lbs Munich
.1 lb flaked barley for head retention

3.5 lbs dry light extract

1 oz centennial 10% boiled 60 minutes
.5 oz willamette 5% boiled 15 minutes
.5 oz willamette or sterling, 4-5%, boiled 1 minute

White Labs British Ale yeast (WLP005)

We’ll go for this one sometime in July. We were going to brew it today, but he’s not feeling well.

Today, I tried my hand at all grain brewing for the first time. I screwed up good and proper, which is exactly what I was supposed to do. Here’s what happened.

I set out to make a chamomile honey wheat beer. In the end, the recipe I went with is not entirely unlike the one I posted a month ago, but it isn’t entirely like it either. Into my mashing/lautering tun I put;

4.75# Pale Wheat Malt
5# Two Row Pale Malt

Cracked and ready to go. To this, I added around 3 gallons of hot water. The temp of the water I added was around 160 degrees F. The mash ended up being 140 degrees F. This seemed too cool, so I shut it up for about half an hour while I researched how much more hot water to add to make the final temp closer to 160. Ooh. Here’s the problem; I misremembered the appropriate temp for mashing grains. It’s 145 – 155, not 165 – 175. Here’s a helpful chart that I will use next time.

So, what happened when I mashed at 160 degrees for an hour is; mostly nothing. I ended up with a much lower gravity wort than I had anticipated, because the enzyme that does the most, best work (beta amylase) I killed after half an hour of mashing. Instead of my target 1.050 Original Gravity I hit 1.029. Blech. But, not to worry. I was going to add 1.5# of honey at the end of the boil, which would bump the gravity up by about a point overall (to 1.04, give or take). I had some extra honey around, so I doubled it and added three pounds.

The place where I hope this beer really stands out is the chamomile included in place of hops. I used about two ounces of chamomile and a half ounce of saaz hops boiled for 60 minutes, and another two ounces of chamomile and half ounce of saaz boiled for ten minutes give or take. When I transfer to the secondary, I’m going to do a little taste test and maybe add some more chamomile for aroma at that time depending on how much the flavor comes through.

Rather than a weitzen yeast, which has a lot of character of its own that I didn’t want, I’m using the Wyeast American Ale, which is pretty good and neutral especially if I keep the fermentation temp cool, which I’m doing.

As always, updates to follow.

Lately I’m drinking the India Amber Ale. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, despite some small mishaps. It’s got a unique flavor for sure, but not a bad one. I’m not much of one for flavor reviews like they do on the beer sites; it seems haughty. I like drinking my beer. It tastes good. Come over and I’ll offer you one, and you can see for your own self.

And here is a diagram of the all grain brewing system that I’ve put together. I still haven’t taken it for its trial run yet, sometime mid March is my expectation. In other brewing news, I found a local nursery where I can buy brewing varieties of Hops near the end of March or early April. Very exciting. Click the picture for a PDF of the system with text and stuff. Or just look at the tiny picture there.

My wife’s side of the family likes strange Germen terms. It is in their honor that I will attempt to brew a Bavarian Dunkelweizen. Here is a proposed recipe (generated using Beer Tools).

Eine Kleiner Mine Dunkelweizen
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General
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Category: German Wheat and Rye Beer
Subcategory: Dunkelweizen
Recipe Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5 gal.
Volume Boiled: 6 gal.
Mash Efficiency: 72 %
Total Grain/Extract: 10.84 lbs.
Total Hops: 1.0 oz.
Calories (12 fl. oz.): 211.9
Cost to Brew: $23.76 (USD)
Cost per Bottle (12 fl. oz.): $0.45 (USD)

Ingredients
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4.14 lbs. American 6-row Pale
5.09 lbs. Belgian Wheat Malt
0.68 lbs. Munich Malt
.68 lbs. German Vienna
.25 lbs. Belgian Chocolate Malt
0.5 oz. Hallertau Tradition (Whole, 6.00 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
.5 oz. Hallertau Mittelfruh (Whole, 4.50 %AA) boiled 15 minutes.
Yeast: WYeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat

Vital Statistics
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Original Gravity: 1.054
Terminal Gravity: 1.012
Color: 16.74 SRM
Bitterness: 14.2 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.4 %

First off, in my Beer Terms post several months ago, I made a technical error. I described ‘mashing’ and ‘malting’ as being the same thing. This is not the case. Malting is something that professionals do pretty much exclusively. I haven’t run across any information about people doing this themselves. Malting is when they just begin to sprout the grain, then pop it into a kiln really quickly. I’m not clear on the technical specifics of why this process works, but my understanding is that it generates the enzymes that will later be used to convert the starch to sugar, then freezes the process by kilning so that the brewer can start it again later.

Mashing, on the other hand, is what the All Grain home brewer does. In a mash, one submerses malted grains in hot water (155 degrees or so, depending on what you’re doing. Again, not clear on the specifics yet) for a period of time, allowing the enzymes to work their magic and create the sugars that will be converted to alcohol in the fermentation.

Today, with part of my tax return, I went to the Home Depot and began the work of piecing together the equipment for All Grain brewing in preparation for my next experiment, a Heffeweitzen flavored with chamomile and honey. A good spring afternoon nap time beer. Here’s what I got;

*A five gallon Igloo cooler. I did this today because the HD has these on clearance for $8.00. It’s small enough that it will be limiting in the long run, but the next size up was 10 gallons for $40. I think not.

*A 1/2 inch ball valve to replace the plastic thing on the cooler. The plastic thing is fine for water, but will not serve my purposes.

* The hardware needed to create a bulkhead fitting. I’m not going to go into this, and I’m not 100% pleased with it. It’s water tight. For now.

What I still need to complete this project is

* A false bottom. I’m working on several ideas for the best way to achieve this. I’m thinking about possibly using a sort of a tube made of screen, buying or otherwise getting a circle of perf plate to fit, or maybe even using a laundry bag type apparatus to hold the grain above the bottom of the tub.

Also, I bought 20′ of 1/2 inch copper tubing and several feet of vinyl tube, some hose clamps, and a deal that hooks to a garden hose on one end and the vinyl tube on the other. This will be a wort chiller, with which I will run cold water into my wort and get hot water out, thus chilling the wort. Awesome.

Finally, I invented a simple spreadsheet for developing a recipe. You tell it the target Original Specific Gravity, the proportions of the different grains you’re using (50% wheat, 40% pale 2 row, etc…) and the points/pound/gallon rating of each (I’ll explain later maybe, or just look it up) and the expected attenuation from the yeast you’re using and it’ll tell you how much of each ingredient you need in pounds for a 5.5 gallon batch (you can scale up or down easily), what the expected FG is, and the expected ABV. I ran a quick recipe plan for the Chamomile Honey Wheat beer, and here’s what I came up with;

For a 5.5 Gallon Batch I’ll use

5.8 lbs of Malted Wheat
4.6 lbs of Pale 2 Row malt
1 lb of Honey

With the Bavarian Wheat yeast I plan to use, I’m expecting 75% attenuation (high estimate, I think).
My target OG is 1.05 (I assumed a low efficiency for my brewing setup, since it’s the first time I’m using it and better too much gravity than too little I always say)
My expected final Sp. Gr is 1.013
My expected ABV is 5.06

I’m thrilled, as this is the first recipe I designed with no help from brewing software (except the formulas in my own spreadsheet). I’m beginning to understand some of the calculating that goes into recipe design, which is great.

For hops, I’m using 1/2 oz of Saaz or something similar for bittering and another 1/2 oz for flavor. I’m also using 4 oz of Chamomile, 2 oz boiled for 60 minutes and 2 oz added at the end of the boil and infused into the wort with the lid on to preserve the essential oils. I’ll check the flavor after primary fermentation, and if I still want more Chamomile character I’ll add more in the secondary like dry hops.

As always, reviews to follow.

I done screwed up! Don’t use my IAA recipe without some major modifications. I used crystal malt exclusively in the grain bill for the mini-mash because I like the way it tastes. Problem; crystal malt doesn’t have any enzymes and therefore can’t convert itself into sugar. It needs to be paired with something like a 2 row or similar normal malt in order to convert.

I learned this as I racked the IAA from the primary to the secondary today and took a hydrometer reading when I did it. Not one to waste perfectly good (albeit room temperature and flat) beer, I drank the sample. It had a strange, starchy flavor. Wondering what this was, I did some reading. Turns out, I screwed the pooch. It’s not undrinkable bad or anything, but it’s a pretty strange flavor.

Of course, we’ll have to see what the secondary and bottle conditioning bring about. I’m still hopeful, if abashed.

The problem with starting a new hobby, learning as I go, and sharing my mistakes here in this public forum, is that it can be embarrassing. I’m pretty much flying by the seat of my pants at this point (which is my favorite way to learn things) and hopefully every mistake is a learning experience.

The gravity reading I took today was 1.012. That means that the yeast did its job really fully despite my screwing up, and the beer is about 5.45% ABV. Very little fermentation will take place from this point forward.

Next up; something with chamomile infused in the wort. I’m thinking a chamomile honey hefe-weitzen, but I might try to clone the Rogue chamomellow if I can get my hands on a pint at the local Rogue alehouse. I haven’t had it for a while and want to taste it with more of a mind toward cloning. It’s a lager, if I remember right (could be wrong here), and I haven’t done one of those before. Next brew day isn’t until mid March, so we’ll have to wait and see what turns up.