This will be my first official Elf King Ale. I'm sick so I'm not in the mood to drink. So to pass the time I'll write the brew blog as it the day goes on.
It is New Year's Eve. Ellie is in the garage with me. She is doing the laundry. It's nice to have her here even if she doesn't help or even talk to me. She got this do-dad that turn anything into a speaker so she turned one of my old foam coolers into a speaker and it playing some music. It's nice.
Gonna try a pre-chiller today too. Let's see how that goes. Also used a stir plate for my yeast starter. It took some work but I got it work. It needs some tweaking though.
Ingredients are as follows:
9lbs 2row
1lb Crystal 15L
0.75oz Magnum 14.1% AA - 60minutes
1 oz Amarillo 9.3%AA - 5 minutes
1 oz Amarillo 9.3%AA - 1minute
WLP001 - Mar-24-12 - Lot# 1001CIIKONA1
Servomyces and Whirlfloc at 10min
5.2 during mash
Mash at 151-152
Missed my mash temp. It will be 149. I'm shooting for a OG of 1.048ish.
Sparging now. A little worried. Sparge looks light in color. I'm not getting the super awesome grain aromas I'm used to. I tasted the wort and it wasn't as sweet as I expected. I do have a throat lozenge in so maybe that matters. The grain was in the fridge for over a week. Maybe that matters. Maybe I should just wait until I measure the gravity before I freak out.
I want the sparge temp to be 170. I keep putting 170 in the mash tun but it maintains 150. This maybe the reason I've not been extracting the sugars I think I should. In the future what I need to do is have a thermometer in the mash tun during the sparge and watch the temp closely.
Wort looks thin and light. I doesn't taste sweet. I measured the pre-boil gravity. It came out 1.020. That doesn't seem like a lot. The wort was hot. It was on the burner already. Now I'm freaking out.
A thought on mashing. I should get a temperature dialed in to exactly what I want and THEN add the grain. That way I can remove the water if needed and heat it up or cool it down. I think I did that last time. Why didn't I this time. It's time to create a procedure. Just spend the day and make it. Then refer to it on brew day and make improvements the second I feel the need to. Not sometime later.
Ok. Waiting for the wort to cool now. The pre-chiller seems to be working. I can feel the copper coming from the ice bucket and it is nice and cold. The boil was uneventful. All went well. I've got that down pat.
One thing that did happen was that I turned the hose on too hard and the water from the hose found its into my wort. So if it tastes like total shit or gets some bacteria in it that likely the source.
All done. OG = 1.041. Very light. We should call this Elf King Ale Light.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Ale Industries Rye'd Piper Kegged
Kegged the rye beer. Did not go smoothly. I used the pump type racking cane and couldn't get the racking cane to maintain a seal so I would fiddle with it to try and keep the seal. This would cause a rough siphon. Then I tried to just use a vinyl tube and fill it with StarSan solution and try to get a siphon going that way.
I got the beer out but it was a mess. Way more yeast made it into the keg than normal. Way more splashing and oxygenation than normal. Not happy.
After that I pressurized the keg to 20 and shook the crap out of it for 15 minutes to get the CO2 into solution. Then I moved it to the chest fridge. After a few hours I gave it a go. I drew out a lot of yeast so I tossed that glass. I tried again and got an ok glass. It was carbonated. Still needed a little bit more but I tasted ok.
I should be ready for New Years Eve party. Let's just see.
I got the beer out but it was a mess. Way more yeast made it into the keg than normal. Way more splashing and oxygenation than normal. Not happy.
After that I pressurized the keg to 20 and shook the crap out of it for 15 minutes to get the CO2 into solution. Then I moved it to the chest fridge. After a few hours I gave it a go. I drew out a lot of yeast so I tossed that glass. I tried again and got an ok glass. It was carbonated. Still needed a little bit more but I tasted ok.
I should be ready for New Years Eve party. Let's just see.
Best Christmas gift evar!!!
I got the best Christmas gift ever. Ellie got a local artist to make me up some bottle labels and banners. The labels say "Elf King Ale" with a cute little elf with a mug in his hand. She made the labels in white and gold. People seem torn about which is better. She got me two banners. One says "Elf King Ale" and has the elf on either side of the text. I stuck it to my chest fridge. These look great. Thanks wife.
Mead Bottled
The mead has been bottled. I got five bottles from it. One bottle was promised to Brian Wolfe and was delivered today. The other four were placed with the other wine. Hopefully I'll forget about them and discover them many months from now. Otherwise I might get too eager and drink it.
One trick I attempted since I planned to keep it in the bottle for awhile was to blow CO2 from an empty keg into the head space to try and clear out the O2 from air.
One trick I attempted since I planned to keep it in the bottle for awhile was to blow CO2 from an empty keg into the head space to try and clear out the O2 from air.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Ale Industries Rye'd Piper
Last weekend Kevin and I brewed a Rye beer. It looks like it will be quite hoppy. I got the kit from MoreBeer.
Recipe:
11 lbs 2-row
1.5 lbs Crystal 75
1 lb Rye
4oz Carafa II
0.5oz Magnum 60min
0.5oz Northern Brewer 15min
0.5oz Northern Brewer 10min
1oz Williamette 2min
1oz Williamette Flameout
1oz Cascade Dry Hop
Wirlfloc 10min.
Servomyces 10min.
1 tablespoon 5.2 during mash.
WLP002 English Ale - Lot number 1002TLs7157321
Mash at 152F for 60min. Fly Sparge 168F for 45min.
Oxygenate for 1min before pitch.
I made sure to make a starter this time. I used two pints of water and one cup of DME. I made it happen the night before the brew. I'm not sure if this is too much since the John Palmer book claims pint water and 1/2 cup DME. I think maybe I should have done it step up style. I'll look more into this.
The fermentation really took off. It looked great. It had a great krausen for three days and then settled right back in. It is now fermenting in the bathroom in the bathtub.
I really need to start logging the AA units on the hops. A lot of beers come out too bitter for my liking. I need to figure out what amount of IBUs I like.
Also, I didn't give the beer an ice bath this time. I thought since it is December that just the tap water we be enough. I was wrong. We couldn't get that wort down to 70F. So, the yeast was pitched a little warm. Maybe 78F. We'll see if that matters. I think I'm going to use a pre-chiller in the future.
I wasn't as efficient in my sparge this time either. The estimated OG is 1.058-62. We got 1.055. I could tell that though before we ever measured it. The grains tasted a little sweet still after the sparge. What I need to do it sparge until I hit a gravity of 1.012 no matter how much wort I have and then boil down to 6.5 gallons or whatever. I think I will do this next time. Also, the sparge was faster this time. Not sure if that anything to do with it. Last time it was about 90mins. This time it was 45 mins.
We also improved our equipment from last time and bought a hot liqueur kettle. This meant that I could heat up mash and sparge water in one kettle and collect the wort in the boil kettle.
Also I improved my process by siphoning the wort from the boil kettle to the fermenter instead of a rough pour. I did a rough pour in the past to get O2 in the wort. But since we now have an oxygen stone that is not needed. The result it that we were able to siphon in the clean wort and leave the gunk behind.
I also cleaned the crap out of all the brew equipment the night before the brew. And by clean I mean really clean. It took all day. I even wanted to clean stuff that doesn't get used that often. I think I will do this once a year. Around Christmas time.
I think I will dry hop this brew in the keg. This will allow me to purge the air from the head space to keep the beer from oxygenating.
I'm also looking into my house water. I want to use it instead of buying water. Its going to require me to get educated about water and what mineral beer requires and why and how to adjust.
Recipe:
11 lbs 2-row
1.5 lbs Crystal 75
1 lb Rye
4oz Carafa II
0.5oz Magnum 60min
0.5oz Northern Brewer 15min
0.5oz Northern Brewer 10min
1oz Williamette 2min
1oz Williamette Flameout
1oz Cascade Dry Hop
Wirlfloc 10min.
Servomyces 10min.
1 tablespoon 5.2 during mash.
WLP002 English Ale - Lot number 1002TLs7157321
Mash at 152F for 60min. Fly Sparge 168F for 45min.
Oxygenate for 1min before pitch.
I made sure to make a starter this time. I used two pints of water and one cup of DME. I made it happen the night before the brew. I'm not sure if this is too much since the John Palmer book claims pint water and 1/2 cup DME. I think maybe I should have done it step up style. I'll look more into this.
The fermentation really took off. It looked great. It had a great krausen for three days and then settled right back in. It is now fermenting in the bathroom in the bathtub.
I really need to start logging the AA units on the hops. A lot of beers come out too bitter for my liking. I need to figure out what amount of IBUs I like.
Also, I didn't give the beer an ice bath this time. I thought since it is December that just the tap water we be enough. I was wrong. We couldn't get that wort down to 70F. So, the yeast was pitched a little warm. Maybe 78F. We'll see if that matters. I think I'm going to use a pre-chiller in the future.
I wasn't as efficient in my sparge this time either. The estimated OG is 1.058-62. We got 1.055. I could tell that though before we ever measured it. The grains tasted a little sweet still after the sparge. What I need to do it sparge until I hit a gravity of 1.012 no matter how much wort I have and then boil down to 6.5 gallons or whatever. I think I will do this next time. Also, the sparge was faster this time. Not sure if that anything to do with it. Last time it was about 90mins. This time it was 45 mins.
We also improved our equipment from last time and bought a hot liqueur kettle. This meant that I could heat up mash and sparge water in one kettle and collect the wort in the boil kettle.
Also I improved my process by siphoning the wort from the boil kettle to the fermenter instead of a rough pour. I did a rough pour in the past to get O2 in the wort. But since we now have an oxygen stone that is not needed. The result it that we were able to siphon in the clean wort and leave the gunk behind.
I also cleaned the crap out of all the brew equipment the night before the brew. And by clean I mean really clean. It took all day. I even wanted to clean stuff that doesn't get used that often. I think I will do this once a year. Around Christmas time.
I think I will dry hop this brew in the keg. This will allow me to purge the air from the head space to keep the beer from oxygenating.
I'm also looking into my house water. I want to use it instead of buying water. Its going to require me to get educated about water and what mineral beer requires and why and how to adjust.
Counter Flow Bottling
Now that I have kegged my beer I run into the issue of how to transport the beer to another location. I feel the best way is to bottle the beer. But herein lies the problem. How to get the beer from the tap to the bottle. If you just try to pour the beer into a bottle you get about 1/3 beer and 2/3 foam. This is due to a sharp pressure difference. One way to solve this issue is a counter pressure filler.
Now they make really fancy counter flow filler that you can buy. MoreBeer sells one for $70. I thought perhaps I could rig something up cheaper. So, the plan was to buy a stopper that fit over a bottle, drill a hole through it to fit a racking cane through it and attach the racking cane to the tap. You can then fill the bottles by burping the pressure from the bottle. I found an example of all this on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2-OMyb8fc
Sometimes I drag Ellie into this hobby of mine and I thought this would be a good excuse to hang together so I pulled her into this. We go together to Home Depot to get a stopper. She was smart enough to ask for help and we found what we needed. This is why I bring her along. After that I went home to drill a hole in the stopper and she got busy doing work stuff.
I didn't have the right sized drill so I try to improvise. The last thing I try is to attach a barrel sander to the Dremmel and ram it through. This in effect burns the rubber. The size may have been right but when I push the racking cane through all I get a black, gross rubber smeared all over the racking cane. So, I pull it off and have to scrub the racking cane really well to get the rubber off. It now looks more whitish on that spot of the cane and I'm sure all those little scratches that I made in the plastic when trying to get the rubber off will now harbor bacteria like a champ so I need to replace it someday.
Anyhow now it is obvious that I need a new plan and I grab Ellie invite her to come with me to work where there is machine shop and we can use a nice drill press and a variety of drill bits. So, we get there and everything goes as planned. We drill the stopper. It fits great. As we are leaving though she spots the eye wash station and out of curiosity opens it up to look in. Well, these stations are a one time use only type of thing. As soon as someone opens it some plastic tabs break off and activate the saline bags which now pour out like a water fountain. She frantically tries to stop the flow but with no luck. She ends up feeling real bad about the whole thing. I've got to keep my eye on her in the future. Anyhow, I went to work the next day and told the office manager about it. She found it a funny story. Back to the counter flow though.
So we get home and rig this thing up and it works great. I even used it to fill six bottles of Elf King Ale for poker night and took them over to the boys. They seemed to enjoy the beer.
Now they make really fancy counter flow filler that you can buy. MoreBeer sells one for $70. I thought perhaps I could rig something up cheaper. So, the plan was to buy a stopper that fit over a bottle, drill a hole through it to fit a racking cane through it and attach the racking cane to the tap. You can then fill the bottles by burping the pressure from the bottle. I found an example of all this on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2-OMyb8fc
Sometimes I drag Ellie into this hobby of mine and I thought this would be a good excuse to hang together so I pulled her into this. We go together to Home Depot to get a stopper. She was smart enough to ask for help and we found what we needed. This is why I bring her along. After that I went home to drill a hole in the stopper and she got busy doing work stuff.
I didn't have the right sized drill so I try to improvise. The last thing I try is to attach a barrel sander to the Dremmel and ram it through. This in effect burns the rubber. The size may have been right but when I push the racking cane through all I get a black, gross rubber smeared all over the racking cane. So, I pull it off and have to scrub the racking cane really well to get the rubber off. It now looks more whitish on that spot of the cane and I'm sure all those little scratches that I made in the plastic when trying to get the rubber off will now harbor bacteria like a champ so I need to replace it someday.
Anyhow now it is obvious that I need a new plan and I grab Ellie invite her to come with me to work where there is machine shop and we can use a nice drill press and a variety of drill bits. So, we get there and everything goes as planned. We drill the stopper. It fits great. As we are leaving though she spots the eye wash station and out of curiosity opens it up to look in. Well, these stations are a one time use only type of thing. As soon as someone opens it some plastic tabs break off and activate the saline bags which now pour out like a water fountain. She frantically tries to stop the flow but with no luck. She ends up feeling real bad about the whole thing. I've got to keep my eye on her in the future. Anyhow, I went to work the next day and told the office manager about it. She found it a funny story. Back to the counter flow though.
So we get home and rig this thing up and it works great. I even used it to fill six bottles of Elf King Ale for poker night and took them over to the boys. They seemed to enjoy the beer.
Elf King Ale
I think I'm going to make the American Ale my house beer. I kegged it and have been drinking it with friends and family for a few weeks now.
It has a slightly fruity smell to it that I think is from the Cal Ale yeast being fermented at 70+. I find it pleasing. I think I'm going to ferment that yeast just a little warm in the future. The also has a pleasant hop aroma. Not too much.
The only thing I don't like is that I feel it is too bitter. I'm going to dial down the bittering hops just a little. I want a neutral sweet/bitter taste. I'd also like a little bit more flavoring and aroma hops. But not much. Enough that beer people will detect and enjoy but not so much that non-beer people will find it offensive. I want a beer guy and his non-beer wife to show up at the house and both enjoy the beer.
Ellie and I have named the house beer Elf King Ale. Avery means "The King of the Elves". I like how it sounds. And I really like this beer. I think I will bottle one and send it off to be criticized so that I can improve it.
It has a slightly fruity smell to it that I think is from the Cal Ale yeast being fermented at 70+. I find it pleasing. I think I'm going to ferment that yeast just a little warm in the future. The also has a pleasant hop aroma. Not too much.
The only thing I don't like is that I feel it is too bitter. I'm going to dial down the bittering hops just a little. I want a neutral sweet/bitter taste. I'd also like a little bit more flavoring and aroma hops. But not much. Enough that beer people will detect and enjoy but not so much that non-beer people will find it offensive. I want a beer guy and his non-beer wife to show up at the house and both enjoy the beer.
Ellie and I have named the house beer Elf King Ale. Avery means "The King of the Elves". I like how it sounds. And I really like this beer. I think I will bottle one and send it off to be criticized so that I can improve it.
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