Some tasting

Kolsch II

I tasted this just after a Flensburger Pilsner, so it's interesting to pull out some of the contrasting tastes between a very clean pilsner and a relatively clean tasting kolsch.

Pours with a generous creamy white head, which dissipates and leaves no lacing. Pale coloured, though not quite as pale as the pilsner. Good level of carbonation for the style. Some very slight green apple (possibly acetaldehyde but slightly different I think). Other noticable 'white wine' type flavours. Little to no hop aroma on this one. Bitterness is clean and at an appropriate level for the style. Dry finish.

A good beer, reasonably well brewed. I am very sensitive to acetaldehyde and I think I can possibly detect it here, but only a very tiny amount. I've gotten this with both Kolsch yeasts I've used (WLP029 and WY2568), but with other yeasts any acetaldehyde tends to disappear with time.

I would like to see a better head and lacing on this and some of my other beers. I wonder if no-chilling influences this. I think I've noticed a correlation here, but I need to keep track of things a little better to know for sure.

Kolsch II

Brunswick Pride

This beer is almost simultaneously a triumph and a disaster. With eyes closed it is a really fine example of a drinkable, sessionable english bitter ale. However with eyes open it's a mess. It has a serious haze problem, which cold conditioning has had no effect on.

If you can recall the brewing notes on this one, the grain had been sitting in my garage crushed for 9 months before I got around to using it. A taste test seemed to confirm it was in reasonable condition, but I think it's extremely likely that it's the cause of this haze. I have found a few examples on homebrew forums where brewers found the same haze problem with very old grain. I don't know how to explain this scientifically, but empirically there does appear to be a strong connection.

This is a shame, as usually any beers I ferment with WY1968 are extremely bright. Also I place a lot of importance on having my beer reasonably bright, and this haze is annoying me. Still, it's a really nice beer to drink, so not a total mess.

Got down to an FG of 1.012 on this, so I think the O2 injection at yeast pitching time is having the desired effect. Also this beer was ready to drink (tastewise) a little quicker than I would have expected. I think I'm sold on O2 for aeration.

Dead Guy Clone

This beer had me very confused for a while. Kegged after 3 weeks, I tasted it quite regularly over the following three weeks. It began with some harsh phenolic type notes, little to no hop character, poured with no head, and displayed a slight haze. This changed slowly at first and then rapidly to a beer with beautiful toasty, buiscuity notes and a spicy hop character. The rapid change seemed to coincide with the haze disappearing, so I think perhaps some of the particulate in suspension was causing the phenolic type tastes.

Dead Guy Clone

Dead Guy Clone

Unfortunately, the balance of this beer was off by a little, missing perhaps 10 IBUs of bitterness. Also it would have benefited from a little more late hop character. I can't blame the recipe for this, as the hops I used were lacking in AA% and my attempts to make up for this on the day with some high AA% hops I had stored were unsuccessful. This was probably due to the age of the high AA% hops.

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

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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

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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

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White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

Water Treatment:

2 tsp CaCl2

2ml Lactic Acid 88%