A Big Day

I decided to do two brews today, something I have done in the past but not lately. As a good Melbourne citizen I hate to waste water, and so once I decided to do a beer that requires chilling (a hoppy american pale ale), it made sense to use the hot waste water from the chiller to start another mash.

Both brews are from the book "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer. This is a great recipe book and I have really enjoyed the beers I have brewed from it. These beers tend to be real crowd pleasers too, which can be both a good and a bad thing, I love to have people taste my beer but I hate seeing it disappear in a night or two.

Anyhow, the first beer is the American Pale Ale from "Brewing Classic Styles". This is a big beer, with an OG of 1.056, and should end up at about 5.7% abv. It's hoppy too, with 60 grams of hops in the last 10 minutes. There's no crystal malt in this one, with Munich and Victory providing a biscuity background. I also changed my water treatment a bit, based on a suggested bitter ale profile from perfectpint . 1tsp Gypsum, 1tsp Calcium Chloride, and a half tsp Epsom salts. Here's the recipe I used (slightly modified from the original):

Recipe Specifics

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

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

Total Grain (kg):         5.98

Anticipated OG:          1.057    Plato:             14.11

Anticipated SRM:           6.8

Anticipated IBU:          40.6

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

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

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   26.47    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.049    SG          12.08  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin       --------------------------------------------------------------

 84.8     5.07 kg. Joe White Pale Ale Malt (2-row)        

  3.8     0.23 kg.  Joe White Wheat Malt                   

  5.7     0.34 kg.  Breiss Victory Malt                           

  5.7     0.34 kg.  Joe White Munich Malt I                

Hops

   Amount     Name                   Form    Alpha  IBU  BoilTime

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

 20.00 g.     Magnum                 Pellet  12.10  34.1  60 min.

 14.18 g.     Cascade                Pellet   5.75   2.3  10 min.

 14.18 g.     Centennial             Pellet  10.50   4.2  10 min.

 14.18 g.     Cascade                Pellet   5.75   0.0  0 min.

 14.18 g.     Centennial             Pellet  10.50   0.0  0 min.

Yeast

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WYeast 1272 American Ale II

I hit all the numbers on this one, which I was really happy about because it can be difficult to get consistent efficiency with bigger beers with the brew in a bag system. To aid me in this I did a mash out at 75, which I wouldn't usually do. I tested the PH with my now properly calibrated ph tester, and the mash ph was 5.4.

My pH tester, used in anger for the first time

I chilled after a 10 minute whirlpool and pitched a starter of WY1272. I've got the fermenting fridge set to 18.


The second beer of the day was the Kolsch from "Brewing Classic Styles". I brewed this last year and really liked it. At that time I had managed to get my hands on some White Labs WLP029 Kolsch yeast, which I really  like. White Labs yeast is hard to get here in Melbourne, with Wyeast being dominant. When cleaning out some old bottles last week I found six bottles of last years Kolsch, which to be honest didn't taste great, but had a good layer of yeast in the bottom. I got this fired up in a weak starter and I've been stepping it up.



Here's the Kolsch recipe:

Recipe Specifics

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

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     19.00

Total Grain (kg):         4.90

Anticipated OG:          1.047    Plato:             11.67

Anticipated SRM:           2.8

Anticipated IBU:          23.8

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

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.  Joe White Pilsener

  4.6     0.23 kg.   Joe White Vienna Malt                  

Hops

   Amount     Name                  Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

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

 43.00 g.     Mt. Hood              Pellet   3.90  23.8  60 min.

Yeast

-----

White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

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

Brakspear Bitter

In choosing my latest recipe I had two criteria, that it came from my new book "Brew your own Real Ale" by Graham Wheeler, and that it would have a quick turn around. I'm all out of beer at the moment, and those kegs won't fill themselves. I chose to try the Brakspear Bitter recipe from BYORA because I had a good quantity of washed WY1275 Slurry from a previous brew. Also I've been keen to try using some invert sugar in my recipes, based on the experiences of mine host at perfectpint.blogspot.com. Invert is a traditional ingredient in British Ales, and it would appear that it has the dual benefit of adding flavour and decreasing the turn around time for the beer.

The BYORA book lists white sugar as an ingredient where the actual brewery uses invert, in the belief (stated in the introduction) that it adds no flavour to the beer. Several influential brewing bloggers dispute this, and claim that it does indeed add flavour and other characteristics to beer that white sugar can't provide. See http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com.au for lots of information on this.

To make my invert, I took 400ml of tap water to the boil, removed from the heat and slowly mixed in 350g of raw sugar. I also added a heaped tablespoon of glucose to help prevent crystals. To this I added a quarter teaspoon of citric acid and then put the mixture back on the heat. Once it was boiling I waited 20 minutes and then removed it from the heat and allowed it to cool. I ended up with something quite reminiscent of Lyle's Golden syrup, but less viscous.  It certainly has more flavour than a simple white sugar syrup, with some tannic notes.

This is the invert ready to use

I kept things pretty simple equipment wise for this brew, and I've gone back to no-chill just for convenience. As my yeast slurry was getting sort of old, I decided to take around 2.5L of wort into a conical flask to serve as a starter. I also added the finishing hops to this starter since it was going to cool a lot quicker than the bulk of the wort. Hopefully this will preserve most of the finishing hop aroma.

The malt bill is pretty simple, Maris Otter with a little Dark Crystal (all Simpsons malt). I added the invert with the irish moss addition approximately 15 minutes from the end of the boil. My equipment stood up to the job really well, and I think I have a pretty reliable boiler now. I'm toying with the idea of turning my big keg into a double batch BIAB rig using a gas burner. This would mean I could do a single batch on the electric rig and a double batch on the gas, 3 kegs from one brew day - nice! We'll see how that idea develops.

Mash in Progress

My starter was a little slow to take off, about 30 hours, so I'm really glad I decided to use a starter. That has now been pitched to the main batch and things have kicked off with a rocky head appearing after about 12 hours.

Here's the recipe:

3.86kg Simpsons Maris Otter
0.13kg Simpsons Dark Crystal
0.35kg white sugar - I substituted invert as per instructions above

54g Target (I subbed 45g Challenger) at 60mins
11g Styrian Goldings at flameout

"Dry hop with a few cones of Goldings" is the final instruction, whatever that means.

Quick update

Well it's been a tough month or two. Since my element blew on the last brew I have been investigating a replacement. Not trusting the build quality of the units I have been using, I have researched some other elements, but I can't seem to find what I want. In the end I decided to rebuild the element which blew. I've done some testing and I'm confident that I now have a safe and reliable element for brewing far into the future. Next brew will be a simple english pale ale, using some invert sugar for the first time. This should happen later in the week.

My first competition

Locally there was a "British Ales" competition on yesterday. I decided a few weeks back to take the Landlord clone I recently brewed off tap, and preserved the last 2 litres in order to enter it. At the last minute I also decided to enter the Riggwelter clone - more of that anon.

The landlord clone was not as well received as I might have hoped. It came 6th in the category, and the scores were not terrible, but I was disappointed with the comments it received. I entered it as a "best bitter", correct i think considering the commercial beer I was cloning has twice won that category at the GBBF. Of the three judges, one felt it was over balanced towards malt, one towards hops, and one thought it was well balanced. Two out of three judges felt it was too light in colour for the style. All judges picked up an astringent/sour finish on the beer. I think this is just due to the age of the beer in the keg (11 weeks), though the judges suggested stressed yeast and oversparging as possible causes. I would certainly rule out oversparging, but it is possible that the yeast may have been acting up a bit, as it was a repitch of WY1469 which caused me some issues with the next beer it was pitched into. I can detect the flavour they are describing, and I'm pretty sure it has only developed in the last few weeks, so I'm putting it down to age.

 I feel it was worth entering, as it will certainly help me to improve this beer next time around. Being marked down in most of the categories (appearance, flavour etc) I can live with, but in the "Overall Impression" category, I expected to do better than 6.5, 6 and 7. In saying that the judges scored it within a 2 point window of each other, so I'll just have to take my medcine.

I made a serious error with my other entry. After considering at length which style to enter it as, I decided upon "Northern English Brown". Unfortunately a brain fart during the online entry process caused me to select "ESB". A sample comment for this one: "A well brewed beer with no obvious flaws, but completely out of style". Again there was a divergence of opinion on some aspects of this beer, with one judge describing it as thin and watery, while the others called it full bodied and creamy. I would certainly agree with the latter. Some offline feedback is that it would have done well as a northern brown, lesson learned I suppose.

Anyway, that's competitions done with for a while.

A New Direction

Lager beer is something I've always had a difficult relationship with. My first ever beer was a Bavarian Helles, drank in a small tavern in a small Bavarian town. I was on a school tour, and once us Irish boys discovered that you could buy beer at 16, there was a nightly escape attempt to discover it's mysteries. That first beer made quite an impression. I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not, but I was certainly interested in finding out more.

Back home the selection was basically down to two. Heineken or Budweiser. Though I later grew to love the Heineken that certain pubs in Ireland seem to be able to conjour up, most of it was in poor condition, almost undrinkable. Budweiser I could never stomach (quite literally!). Pretty soon after my beery beginnings I had switched to stout. Murphy's in particular was smooth and easy drinking with plenty of flavour. Later I discovered the dark roastiness of Beamish.

One trip to Oktoberfest back in 2005 made me reconsider my lager objections. There's a satisfying mouthfeel to the Marzen beer they serve there that is hard to forget. Certainly when you drink Oktoberfest/Marzen beer, and even Bavarian Helles, you can see why the Germans call beer 'liquid bread'. It's chewy and biscuity, and malt forward in a way I hadn't encountered in any beer up to that time.

Of course the difficulty in sourcing top quality german beer on tap, and the virtual absence of any examples of the style in Australian craft brewing, has meant that I have neglected this wonderful part of the beer world - until now!

Yesterday I purchased a Hanna Ph-meter, and I'm planning on making my first ever Lager, a Bavarian Helles, within a month or so. My main guides through this process will be the "Brewing Classic Styles - Bavarian Helles" book, as well as the excellent resources at The Braukeiser wiki. I also own a copy of Greg Noonan's "New Brewing Lager Beer", but unfortunately it's back in Ireland, so I'll have to do without it for now.

Horst Dornbusch's Bavarian Helles book

I am fully aware of the challenges of brewing lager beer, and this is one of the main reasons I want to try it. Though I am constantly tinkering with the hot side of the brewery, the cold side has remained pretty consistent for a good 9 months or so. It's time to put my processes to the test and see just how well I can manage a fermentation schedule.

I'm starting with a Helles so that I can manage to supply the quantity of yeast it will need. The plan is to then harvest this yeast to do something bigger, perhaps a Maibock, which would then be ready for Springtime here down under. I can't wait!