Kolsch Rebrew

This is a rebrew of the Kolsch I brewed several weeks back and ended up pouring down the drain. I documented the reasons in my last post, but my reasons for dumping essentially boiled down to stressed yeast and a sluggish fermentation (at a best guess). Hence my first step this time around was to put half of a WLP029 vial in a 1L starter on my stir plate. This finished last Sunday and has been in the keezer since. I drew off a 2.5L starter at the end of the brew day and pitched the yeast from the 1L stirred starter into this.

The main batch was no chilled so this big starter got a day to bump up cell counts before I pitched it. I was then pitching at a rate of around 14million cells/ml, which really is overpitching, but I'm taking no chances this time round. Fermentation temp is 16C.

The recipe remains unchanged. It's a very slightly modified version of Jamil's 'JZ Fruh' Kolsch from 'Brewing Classic Styles'. Getting hold of the White labs Kolsch yeast was not that straightforward as I mentioned before, but for me it's by far the best yeast for a Kolsch, and gives me the flavour profile I expect and enjoy. It should be mentioned that it's Kolsch yeast that makes Kolsch unique, trying this recipe with any other yeast would yield dramatically different results.

Instead of the local malts I used the last time round, I used Bestmalz for this brew. Actually I think it's the first time I've ever used German Malt. I noticed that there was a huge amount of hot break, I'm guessing from the extra protein in this malt.

Here's the recipe:

Recipe Specifics

----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.5

Total Grain (kg):         4.90

Anticipated OG:          1.050

Anticipated SRM:           2.8

Anticipated IBU:          26.4

Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %

Wort Boil Time:             90    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   29.03    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.036    SG          9.12  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name

-------------------------------------------------

 95.4     4.67 kg.  BestMalz Pilsener

  4.6     0.23 kg.   BestMalz Vienna Malt             

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

---------------------------------------------------------------

 45.00 g.     Mt. Hood                          Pellet   3.90  26.4  90 min.

Yeast

-----

White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

Water Treatment:

2 tsp CaCl2

2ml Lactic Acid 88%

A minor tragedy

The kolsch I recently brewed (see here), has been cold conditioning for a week, though I should really have just thrown it down the drain.

I have made this before, and I used White Labs WLP029 yeast which gave me a beautiful delicate kolsch. Unfortunately White Labs yeast is not available in Melbourne and so I had to order it from a New South Wales home brew shop. This had put me off brewing the kolsch again, but I recently found six bottles of last years version hidden away in my house. I decided to culture up the dregs from these bottles, and did so without undue difficulty. The first 200ml starter seemed to behave normally, as did the 500ml and 2L starters I then pitched to. The fun stopped when the main batch was innoculated. A very long lag time and a very slow fermentation got me worried. From my notes I could see that the fermentation was way behind schedule after a week, and so I took the dramatic step of making another starter and re-pitching to the main batch.

This helped things along a lot, but I think it may have been too little too late. From the first hydrometer samples I could detect phenolics, clove especially. This should always set alarm bells ringing, and it did, but I was hopeful that these volatiles might dissipate with time. When it came time to cold condition I could still taste and smell the phenolics, and a week in it's as bad as ever.

We know that some yeasts produce these compounds in a normal fermentation, particularly wheat beer yeasts, and wild yeast. I hadn't thought that WLP029 would produce them, and had put this problem down to a wild yeast infection. Now I'm not so sure. Firstly, the beer is completely clear, its appearance is actually picture perfect, exactly what I expected. Secondly it finished at exactly the same gravity as my first batch. Thirdly, there are several reports from home brew forums of this problem with this yeast. See here and here

Here's my theory:

The yeast I procured from the old bottles had very low viability. I tried to culture this up in a 200ml starter, and it did fire up, but it's possible that having started with such a small amount even a doubling of the cell count resulted in very little yeast. This problem then followed me through the other two starters, and I ended up underpitching this batch quite severely, a low fermentation temperature exacerbating the problem. The yeast, susceptible to these issues, in far from optimal conditions, was extremely stressed and secreted these unpleasant phenolics during replication/fermentation in the initial stages. After a sluggish start I pitched another starter and got things moving a bit, but the damage had been done.

The lesson:

Watch your pitching amounts, especially where you are using old yeast in cool conditions.

The plan:

I'll rebrew as soon as possible. I've already ordered a vial of WLP029 from another NSW homebrew shop, along with a vial of WLP006 Bedford Ale which constantly gets great reviews over at perfectpint.blogspot.com. I'll be making a big stirred starter and looking for a quick clean ferment.

The result:

About $18 of ingredients and 3-4 hours of my brewing time, plus minutes here and there to look after it, have been lost. I say lost and not wasted because once again I've learned more from this bad brew than I would from ten good ones. As long as I can explain problems I'm not overly worried about them.

Next Step:

A rebrew, I will have my Kolsch come hell or high water!

Bass

Irish people know Bass as a weak, tasteless red kegged/canned beer. This was certainly my experience of it. Our infamous taoiseach Bertie was a big fan, but was alone in his Bass preference from what I could see. When I first got interested in beer, around the time of that trip to Newcastle Upon Tyne (see the Landlord entry for more on that), I began to realise that Bass meant different things to the English than to us. The Bass available in Ireland was usually in a can and brewed in Belfast. When I ended up in a cosy roadside inn outside of Newcastle the day after my first cask ale (Landlord), it was Bass that mine host had put on the handpump.

 The difference was quite remarkable. This Bass had depth of flavour, many interweaving aromas and esters, with a dry finish. I'm still grateful to whatever hand was guiding me around my first 'Real Ales', as both the Landlord and the Bass were unforgettable brews, and my memory of the taste of each is as keen now as then.

I haven't before tried to brew it, and really this brew is more of a Bass inspired beer than a clone. I'm using Wyeast 1028, which is called 'London Ale', but is allegedly the Worthington White Shield yeast. This was pointed out to me by Will over at perfectpint.blogspot.com. I was going to try to get my hands on White Labs 'Burton Ale', but it may be the case that this is not from Burton at all, but rather Henley on Thames, and is in fact the same as WY1275, which I have had a patchy relationship with. Anyhow, if 1028 really is the white shield yeast, it should work really well for this beer.

For hops I'll be using Northern Brewer. I think they should give this beer a really unique hop presence, woody and earthy, and should be reminiscent of the Northdown/Challenger hops which I believe are the actual Bass hops. The third defining aspect of this beer will be the water profile. I'll be bumping up the sulphates quite a bit. The profile will be loosely based on Randy Mosher's Ideal Pale Ale profile, with the sulphates dialled back slightly from that. I'm aiming for about 110ppm of Ca, 280 SO4, and around 50 Cl.

Maltwise, I'm going for a 95% Maris Otter, 5% Medium Crystal bill. I'll add a little roasted barley for colour, as I want this to be a darkish orange heading for red. Why do I want this? I dunno, just do. This will be the second beer put on my new handpump, after the Beamish, so it's got about 3-4 weeks to mature if we go easy on the Beamish.

We won't go easy on the Beamish though.

The recipe is a mix of the Wheeler "Brew your own real ale at home" recipe, a "Brew your own" magazine recipe, and some adjustments by me based on experience.

Recipe:

3.91Kg     Simpsons Maris Otter
0.21Kg     Simpsons Crystal Medium
0.05Kg     Simpsons Roasted Barley

15g    Northern Brewer   9%AA     @60mins
30g    Northern Brewer   9%AA     @Flameout

yeast nutrient and koppafloc @ 10mins

No-Chill

Target OG 1.043

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I brewed this last night, having set the timer on my pot to have my water up to strike temp when I got home from work. Everything went quite smoothly until it was time to transfer to my cube - part of the no-chill process. I was using my oldest cube, and while sealing it up I felt a distinct warm sensation on my left foot. The cube had cracked about half way up one of the sides and wort was squirting out onto my shoe.

I've been brewing a lot lately and all of my other cubes were full. I made a snap decision to keg the Beamish I brewed last week and use its cube for the Bass. This made sense as the Beamish had finished fermenting within three days and is to be served as a 'real ale' on my handpump. I was aiming to turn the Beamish around quickly, though not as quickly as it ended up.

Having cleaned and sanitised the Beamish cube, I transferred the Bass clone from the leaking cube with the loss of about a litre or so of wort, not too bad and I should still be able to fill a keg with a little left over.

Fermentation for this one is:

0.5 packet of WY1028 London Ale into 500ml of wort
When finished transfer into 1.5L of wort
When at high krausen transfer to main batch.

I lost quite a bit of efficiency here, and my Ph was a bit low (5.3 at room temp). I suspect a relationship between those two things. I may need to adjust Ph up a bit when using so much sulphate in future. I still hit all of my numbers by judicious use of my refractometer.

Ah, Beamish!

I've got a significant birthday coming up soon, and it's tax back time in Australia, so I've gotten myself an early birthday present.

It's a beauty, an Angram CO, 1/2 pint jacketed beer engine. Something needs to be done about the Scrumpy jack clip, but otherwise it's in perfect working order and ready for action.

The first beer I'll be dispensing through this is a Beamish clone. I've brewed this before but there are some subtle changes this time round. First off I'm using Maris Otter as the base malt. I don't think Beamish is brewed using anything as fancy, so mine will be a sort of upmarket version. Also this time I'm using 'Pacman' yeast (Wyeast 1764). I wanted to use this last time but couldn't get my hands on it, so I'm looking forward to trying it out. The fermentation plan for this is: half pack of Pacman yeast in a 500ml starter (just to wake it up), followed by a 1.5L starter, then pitch to the main batch. I'll ferment at 17C, which is what a lot of homebrewers on homebrewtalk.com use for Pacman. I'm hoping to turn this around pretty quick, but that will depend on how it's tasting. Here's the recipe:

3.5kg Simpsons Ale - Maris Otter
0.25kg Simpsons Roast Barley
0.13kg Simpsons Chocolate
0.35kg Joe White/Maltcraft Malted Wheat


47g East Kent Goldings at 50mins

No chilled (poured into a water container and sealed, allowed to cool slowly)

In addition to my usual water treatment, I added a level teaspoon of baking soda to up the carbonate content a little (remember I'm on very soft water here). I did notice a certain harshness to the last batch of this I did, so I think this may help to soften it a bit.

I read a recent post on aussiehomebrewer.com where somebody reported better attenuation when using yeast nutrient. This would seem to be due to increased yeast health. I picked some up at the home brew shop and used it on this batch. The dose is a half teaspoon dissolved in hot water 10 minutes from the end of the boil. Apparently the Pacman is quite the attenuator, so I have to be careful not to over attenuate this one. I'll be keeping an eye on the mash temp (66C).

I found this beauty on youtube, "sound man Brendan!"

Next up is mounting the hand pump, should be fun!