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.

Brunswick Pride

I've had a bag of grain ready for brewing for several months, and a smack pack of yeast in the fridge for over a year. Yesterday I decided to put both to work to see if good quality beer can result in such old ingredients.

First off, I had a mix of 95% Simpsons Maris Otter, 5% Simpsons Dark Crystal which was supposed to go into a Fullers ESB type beer. The yeast is a WYeast 1026PC cask ale, manufactured June 2013!

Chewing on the grains I discovered that they still had plenty of crunch with no discernible musty notes. The yeast I smacked and waited about 8 hours until I could see that the pack was beginning to swell. At this point I decided to bank this yeast in glycol stocks. I made a quick post on aussiehomebrewer.com about this.

I was still not too sure about the actual viability of the yeast, so the wort was no-chilled to ensure that it can wait until I either propogate or buy some healthy yeast.

Given the yeast issues, I dumped about 800g of my grains to come up with the following grain bill:

4.67Kg Simpsons Maris Otter
0.25Kg Simpsons Dark Crystal

then very loosely based on a Can You Brew It Fuller's London Pride recipe, the hop bill is as follows:

12g Northdown @60mins
22g East Kent Goldings @60mins

18g Northdown @ 0mins
25g East Kent Goldings @ 0mins

I took 250ml, 700ml and 2L wort samples for stepped starters, and no chilled the rest. The mash was recirculated at 65.5 for 50mins, mash out at 78 for 10. I got pretty good efficiency here - OG of 1.051 for 75%, a little more than I expected.

My yeast adventures began with pitching the 100ml remaining in the 18 month old WYeast pack into 250ml of wort. I watched this for two days but there was no discernible activity. Despite this there was a slight drop in gravity so I decided to pitch this to the 700ml wort flask. After another day or so I had lots of activity in this flask, but this failed to pass the sniff inspection (never mind the taste inspection). It had serious medicinal/phenolic aromas. Either the yeast has mutated severely, or most likely I've got some Brett or something in there. I will try to streak out a few colonies from the frozen stocks to see what I come up with, but this won't be done in time to ferment this batch.

The solution is a fresh smack pack of WY1968 london esb ale yeast. This will be pitched to my 2L starter tonight, followed by pitching to the main batch tomorrow. Fermentation will be at 18C rising to 20 towards the end.

Had I known for sure that the WY1026 was a no-go, I would have mashed a little lower to achieve better attenuation. However, I have just gotten myself a little pure oxygen aeration kit, so 60secs of Oxygen may help to boost yeast health and numbers and achieve a dryer finish. Updates on this fermentation will follow.

Fullers ESB, and another element failure

I'm a regular listener to the brewing network's "Can you brew it" show with Jamil Zainasheff. I have a lot of time for Jamil, mostly because of his book "Brewing Classic Styles". Everything I've brewed from that book has been a complete success, and I've learned a hell of a lot just working through the recipes. "Can you brew it" provided the recipe for the Black Sheep Riggwelter I brewed quite a while back. This wasn't a complete success, mainly due to under-attenuating yeast which left me with a sickly sweet 1.018 FG. Still I could see that the recipe had the potential to be really good.

My next "Can you brew it" recipe is Fuller's ESB. There were actually a series of shows on Fuller's beers, and one conclusion the guys came to was that you need to do a parti-gyle brew, and stick to a somewhat anarchic fermentation schedule in order to accurately nail this beer.  I'm not going to go quite that far, although the "Brew in a bag" system is essentially a no-sparge technique, meaning that my wort will be similar to the first runnings from a parti-gyle. I have adjusted the numbers from the show a little, as I wanted a slightly lower OG - though increased efficiency means I ended up two points higher than I was aiming anyway. I have subbed some of the hops too, magnum for target for the bittering addition I don't think will hurt much. Subbing extra EKGs for challenger for the final hop addition will undoubtedly change the character of the beer, though I think the dry hopping will probably dominate over any potential changes from this.

I brewed this yesterday, and about 5 minutes after mashing out I had more element woes. No harm done but I how have a plug in RCD which is completely shot. I won't go into detail about this, but it meant I had to rip the insulation from my pot and carry it inside to my cook top. Luckily for me the big burner on our cook top is well able to get a rolling boil going with 26ish litres of wort, so the beer should turn out ok. 

Here's the recipe:

Recipe Specifics

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

Total Grain (kg):         5.70

Anticipated OG:          1.056    Plato:             13.77

Anticipated EBC:          29.5

Anticipated IBU:          37.1

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

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Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   26.47    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.047    SG          11.79  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential EBC

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 95.0     5.41 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)       UK             1.038      8

  5.0     0.29 kg.  Crystal 120L                  UK             1.033    317

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

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

 20.00 g.     Magnum                Pellet  11.00  31.2  60 min.

 15.00 g.     Wye Northdown         Pellet   9.60   3.0  3 min.

 25.00 g.     East Kent Goldings    Pellet   4.3    2.8  3 min.

 21.00 g.     East Kent Goldings    Pellet   4.3    0.0  Dry Hop

Yeast

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WY1968 London ESB

Chilled to 20 degrees and pitched with a generous quantity of washed yeast from the Rebel rising brew (WY1968 London ESB). As mentioned before this ended up at 1.058 OG, meaning efficiency was really more like 73%. As I have been doing for other high OG beers, I did a mash out for 15mins at 75C. Mash temp was 64C to get the desired attenuation from the WY1968 yeast.

It's now in the fermenting fridge at 18C. I'll step this up to 20 over the next day or two and send it back down to 18 later on in the fermentation, somewhat mimicking the Fullers fermentation schedule.

Yesterday was meant to be a double brew day, with a Beamish clone being the second brew. The element blowing meant that this didn't happen so if I can get it fixed soon I'll be brewing up some Beamish later this week.

Rebel Rising Tasting

Rebel Rising Red

Update: 31-Aug
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This is almost gone, only a pint or two remaining. Over the past two weeks those strong dark flavours have started to mellow, and are now allowing a little of the spicy hop aroma through. It's finished up a wonderful brew, and as usual I'll be very sad to see the end of the keg. The changes I suggested will probably still be implemented next time round, just to compare and contrast, but this was by no means a 'miss'. In fact it's one of the beers I'm proudest of, having come up with the recipe myself.



Original Post
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So we're nearly four weeks in with this beer, and once again I haven't been able to leave it alone. I kegged this about 10 days ago and have been tasting every day since. I always find it fascinating to taste the dramatic flavour changes in my beer as it transitions through the conditioning phase. This one was severely lacking in mouthfeel and maltiness at first, but now has bucketloads of both. It's almost fun to start worrying about what looks like a bad beer, only for it to turn the corner to malty heaven.

My aim with this recipe was to have a go at creating a beer of my own, loosely based on the irish red ale style. I chose some of my favourite malts and hops, my favourite yeast, and put them together with some invert sugar to see what I could come up with. I gave the grist in weight in a previous post, but here it is in percentages:

Simpsons Maris Otter      83.1%
Simpsons Dark Crystal      7.1%
Simpsons Roast Barley      1.7%
Invert No. 2                        8.1%

I wish I had looked at this a bit more carefully before I started! Really I shouldn't have gone past 5% dark crystal. It's a malt I really love but it's flavours are quite intense (rum, raisin etc.), and it takes away from the sessionability of the beer. The invert no.2 is also adding flavours like this, and so some of the malt flavours become overpowering by pint number three.

Pints number one and two, however, are inspiring. This drinks really well, with a full mouthfeel and some interesting yeast derived flavours. The WY1968 has done a fantastic job here, and I will certainly stick with it for future versions. In the end it's the heavy dose of dark crystal which stops your session, which is a shame as making a really sessionable beer was one of the key aspirations for this brew. I'm relatively happy though, for a first go it's really good, and promising.

I think the following would make a good version 2:

Simpsons Maris Otter       84.7%
Simpsons Dark Crystal        3.5%
Simpsons Light Crystal        2.4%
Simpsons Roast Barley        1.2%
Invert No. 2                          8.2%

I have dialed back the roast barley a little. This is a colour consideration. Currently the colour is a deep ruby red, beautiful in it's own way but perhaps a tad darker than I was aiming for. Cutting back a little on the roast barley and dark crystal will cut about 10 EBCs and should result in a nice bright red.

On the hop front, I'm happy with the bitterness level, but I think I could aim a little higher with the aroma level (currently almost non-existent). I may consider trying cube hopping again with this one. Again I'm probably heading out of style, but who cares?

I'll be having another double brew day next Sunday, which will be a "Can you brew it" Fuller's ESB, and a Beamish. I've got a nice washed WY1968 yeastcake from this red ale for the ESB, and a recently procured packet of Pacman yeast for the Beamish.

Brakspear Special Tasting

Final Update 10.08.12:

I finished this keg last night. Things I have learned:

1. I need to give my beers more time, 2 weeks from yeast pitch is not realistic for 4.5%abv beers. This beer got much better towards the end (finished keg after 30days from yeast pitch)
2. I need more than 113g of specialty malts when using highly attenuating yeast like WY1275, this beer ended up very dry with little 'maltiness'
3. Following from 2 above; underattenuation, something that's cursed my brewing since day one, is actually a lot easier to deal with than overattenuation, and underattenuated beer tastes a lot better than overattenuated. 
3. Attempts at fancy ways of capturing late hop character in no-chill beers have been largely unsuccessful. Better to stick to the obvious - a slightly increased dose of hops at flameout, whirlpool, then leave them behind in the kettle.
4. Invert no. 1 is highly fermentable, if you use it don't depend on it to impart much flavour.
5. Don't neglect gypsum. I had convinced myself it was having little impact on my beers, and didn't use it here. The result was quite a harsh hop character. Gypsum seems to help soften the hop bitterness.

So there you go. I learned a hell of a lot on this beer. It is far from the best beer I've ever made (in fact it may have been the worst), but it was well worth any effort and will make me a much better brewer I am sure.

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Update 6.08.10:

I'm writing this another week on, so the beer is almost 4 weeks since yeast pitching old. The unpleasant yeast character I mentioned last week has completely disappeared, though there is still the faintest hint of acetaldehyde. This beer has really improved, and I think it will continue to improve if I can stop drinking it. One thing I would consider changing is the bittering level, it is quite unbalanced in my opinion, and I would drop the IBUs by at least 5 or maybe up to 10. I may be tempted to give the WY1275 another chance if something suitable comes up.

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 Original post:

I've had this on tap for nearly a week, but a slight acetaldehyde issue prevented me from giving it a proper test until now.

It pours quite clear, with a straw gold colour. The first thing you notice here is the hop character, both the overall bitterness and the pleasant styrian goldings aroma. It is quite bitter at 42IBUs, much more so than any English style bitter I've made before.

Unfortunately this beer has what I call the 's-04 tang'. This is a kind of faint peppery yoghurt aftertaste which a lot of people notice when using Safale S-04 dry ale yeast. I had this issue with the session bitter I brewed a while back with this same yeast (WY1275 Thames Valley), so along with S-04, WY1098 and WY1099, I'll be adding WY1275 to the list of yeasts I will no longer use. I have read that certain fermentation regimes can increase or decrease this yeast characteristic, but I'm not prepared to look into it any further, as I can't see any characteristics that this yeast brings that is worth striving for. Here's a mention of it at perfectpint. Will seems to think it might be from underpitching or too warm a fermentation, but I don't think either of those were an issue for me this time around.

Aside from the 'S-04 tang', there is a distinct mineral character which interplays with the bitterness. As with the session bitter I find that this works quite well with food, but less well when drunk on it's own.

Overall this is a drinkable beer, but far from memorable.

Next up is my rebel red, currently at 1.016 and dropping. Fermenter samples are quite promising, though I think I may be well off the mark in terms of cloning rebel red. That wasn't really what I was aiming for this time, so it doesn't really matter. The reason for this is of course the yeast - WY1968. I'm quickly finding that the English yeasts I have used over the past year all seem to dominate the flavour profile of the beers they ferment.

I'm tempted to think that it is likely that two beers made from completely different worts, but fermented with the same English yeast, would in some ways have more in common than two beers from the same wort fermented with different English yeasts. Perhaps an experiment is due!

Rebel Rising

My first real exposure to craft beer was way back in 2001 when I first visited the Franciscan Well brewery in Cork. Microbreweries were very new to Ireland at that time, and a completely new experience for me. Having grown up in a pub (My grandmother was a publican), I was used to the usual suspects in the beer lineup; Guinness, Murphys, Smithwicks, Heineken, Budweiser, Bulmer's Cider, and maybe Beamish, Harp and one or two more in the bigger establishments.

The whole idea of a smaller craft brewery was intriguing. It helped that the Franciscan Well produces pleasant easy drinking beers - a light fruity Kolsch, an interpretation of the Irish Red Ale, and a stout (plus a few others). I suppose you could call these "gateway" beers - they help open up the palate to possibility, without overwhelming with unfamiliar flavours and aromas. Quickly I developed a keen thirst for Rebel Red, their "Irish red ale". The whole Irish red ale thing is a bit of a mystery to me, I have no idea where it comes from. Smithwicks, the only widely available Irish beer even approaching the "Irish Red Ale" idea, would not qualify as one under the BJCP guidelines. Anyhow doubts about the origins of the style never stopped me enjoying Rebel Red, and I'm out to recreate it, well sort of anyway.

Rebel Red clocks in at about 4.3%, and from memory I think that they use fuggles and goldings hops. Hop aroma is fairly muted, but it is there. It is subject to some variation in sweetness, ranging from very dry to moderately sweet. I'm really guessing here, but I would estimate an O.G. of around 1.045ish, finishing at 1.012ish. IBUs around 25 or so. I would guess that they use a neutral ale yeast of some sort as there is no obvious yeast character, and also the founder is an American microbrewer.

I'm going to change this up a little, I'm interested in making a version of Rebel Red to suit my tastes, which involves a little bit of yeast character. I'll use WY1968, the Fuller's strain, and I will again use a little invert sugar to help get down to my desired finishing gravity - 1.012. I have had trouble with this yeast not attenuating as much as I would like, and I'm hoping the invert will help. Rebel red also has a slight caramel character, possibly diaceytl, though maybe something else. Invert no.2 should help to develop this character.

Anyhow, here's my recipe.

3.6kg Simpsons Maris Otter
310grams Simpsons Dark Crystal
   75grams Simpsons Roasted Barley
300grams Invert no 2 (well 300g raw sugar inverted)

50/50 mix of Williamette and E.K. Goldings to 25IBU at 60mins
10g Williamette, 10g E.K. Goldings at 15mins

Wyeast 1968, pitched at 18C

I'll be brewing tonight after work - my first weekday brew! I will no chill this one, so hop additions are at 45mins and at flameout.

Hot Break - You can see the ruby red colour