Haven't made a stout since my second brew ever. I think it was a Mr. Beer brew. Our fav local brewery is the one on Kernville. They serve a milk oatmeal imperial stout. I always thought it would be awesome with some vanilla. I'd rather pass on the imperial since I'm too lazy to deal with the amount of fuss needed for the yeast. Plus, I like to drink more than one.
I got the oatmeal stout recipe from Jamil and then just added the lactose. Here is breakdown:
9.5lbs English 2-row
1lb flaked oats
0.75lbs Chocolate malt
0.75lbs Victory malt
0.5lbs Crystal 75L (they didn't have 80)
0.5lbs Roasted barley
1lb Lactose
2oz East Kent Goldings 5.6%AA
WLP002 x2 Lot number - TECOBITEP761-62
Whirlfloc
Servomyces
5.2
I drove to MoreBeer in Riverside the day before Thanksgiving to get the grains. Got the Jamil and John Palmer recipe book while there. Also got a little upgrade for the mash tun (stainless ball valve). The crush from the mill in the shop appeared to crush the grain too fine. Way more powder than I am used to. I'm concerned about a stuck mash. We will see.
12:57 - Heating up the strike water now. I replaced my stainless braid in the mash tun. The other one was over a year old and was looking really beat up. Also bought new vinyl tubing. Got these at Home Depot and I really wanted to build a manifold of CVC (high temp PVC) for the mash tun but they didn't have any. So I bought the new stainless braid. Ellie is gone to her sisters. I'm alone for now. Maybe the Pooley's will stop buy. Maybe my dad. I'll call Kevin too.
1:44 - Hewh laudy. What an adventure. When the grain and water got all in the tun the temp was too low. So I thought I could warm it up by connection a wort chiller to the sink and put it in the tun and turn it as hot as I could. Well it seems the water is heated to 150F in the hot water tank. Not boiling. So I was not winning. So I kind of did a decoction. I pulled off 1.5 gallons of thick mash and put it in the boil pot and warmed it up to about 190F. Stirred like hell to keep it from burning on the bottom and added it back to the mash. That warmed it up to 156 and I added just a little cool water from the spring water in the fridge and got it down to 153F. I called it good. I felt good about this. In the past I would have freaked out and achieved nothing. In this case I really didn't sweat it that much. I just came up with a good idea, it didn't work, moved onto another idea and it did.
Kevin will be here in thirty. Better get some food. I plan to eat it fast. Ellie would hate it. Ohh, the Pooley's just pulled up.
2:57 - Thermometer problem. You could see the mercury just hanging out on top of the glass. This means that the 153F mash was really 158F. Ouch! What will happen. I don't know. Remains a mystery. Drinking beer with the homies though so that's good.
Also didn't eat in a way the Ellie would disapprove of. I invited the Pooleys in and we ate leftovers on plates and took our time.
Next day now. I focused on drinking for the rest of the brew. Everything went as expected. I added the lactose at flameout. I split 3 vanilla beans down the middle and put them in the fermenter and siphoned the wort from on top. Had a little trouble with the oxygen stone. The O2 kept leaking from it. I may need a hose for next time. OG was 1.068.
The noteworthy thing for the night really was that the Budweiser Project 12 beers are all good. And that Pooley drank himself sick.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Big Brew Theory
So last week I got the urge to brew again. I wanted some redemption for Spike Ale. So I wanted to brew it again. But it was too late in the week to order from MoreBeer. So, I start looking around for homebrew shops near me. I noticed there was one in Bakersfield so I thought we should check it out. I called the brew shop on a Thursday and asked how late they would be open the next day. He said they would be open late due to a meeting of the homebrew club and that I should hang out. I called the next day to confirm because I had this feeling that I would get there and find nothingness.
So, after work on a Friday Ellie and I make our way there. We got a little lost but got here around 7 and I asked Ellie to hang for just a few minutes which she did. The shop was nice. There was about 15 people. A few of them struck up conversation with us right away. When it seemed that the club was not a bunch of a-holes I sent Ellie free. She wanted to go to Costco.
It turns out that night election night. They elected new officers by ballot and while they were tallied it was time for beer feedback. The main meeting was out in the back area of the store and it was slightly cool but wonderful night. I put my name on a list for feedback and was called up first. I did my best to explain the beer and my issues with it. I then passed it around the beer to ten or so people. While annoucements were being made a middle aged engineer type man began to chat with me. He seemed like my kind of guy. He offered up a suggestion to keep the fermentation at 64F for a day and bring it up a degree a day until 68F and this would yield a cleaner beer. I may try this.
After ten minutes or so, the president stood up and asked the crowd for feedback. At that point I began to address the crowd my issues and I noticed the only one really replying was the president. He seemed knowledgeable enough and said everything I figured he would except that a starter should go three days. I heard from the Wyeast scientist that it should be 24 hours. Now I've heard conflicting views on this before. It's not the first time. In fact I've heard conflicting things about yeast from the White Labs and Wyeast people from very successful homebrewers so this is nothing new. What matters to me is what works. So I am willing to try a three day starter just to see.
After that they passed out some other homebrew including a club barley wine that was amazing. At this point the meeting begins to unceremoniously devolve. I then went to get the grain and yeast. After everything was paid up I chatted with Seamus the owner until Ellie arrived.
We then went to dinner and Ellie talked about how we should open a homebrew shop. I didn't think there was enough people in Ridgecrest to support one as Bakersfield has only one. She said we could ship and that sort of resonated with me. Later I got to thinking maybe the best place is in Antelope Valley. There are no brew shops in Lancaster/Palmdale and there are about 300,000 people.
Later when I got home I looked into their website at bigbrewtheory.org and noticed some video clips they posted on the site. There was a nice one about yeast starters. Also, I read up a little on the officer bios. I noticed the president talk about building his own water and that started to make things click. I had heard a lot of people in the club ask me about water. Jamil talks about not caring so much about water and that if the water is drinkable, just move of with life. Doc always builds the water. He wins a lot of competitions. I will say all of their homebrew that was passed out was good. Maybe it's something I should get into.
So, after work on a Friday Ellie and I make our way there. We got a little lost but got here around 7 and I asked Ellie to hang for just a few minutes which she did. The shop was nice. There was about 15 people. A few of them struck up conversation with us right away. When it seemed that the club was not a bunch of a-holes I sent Ellie free. She wanted to go to Costco.
It turns out that night election night. They elected new officers by ballot and while they were tallied it was time for beer feedback. The main meeting was out in the back area of the store and it was slightly cool but wonderful night. I put my name on a list for feedback and was called up first. I did my best to explain the beer and my issues with it. I then passed it around the beer to ten or so people. While annoucements were being made a middle aged engineer type man began to chat with me. He seemed like my kind of guy. He offered up a suggestion to keep the fermentation at 64F for a day and bring it up a degree a day until 68F and this would yield a cleaner beer. I may try this.
After ten minutes or so, the president stood up and asked the crowd for feedback. At that point I began to address the crowd my issues and I noticed the only one really replying was the president. He seemed knowledgeable enough and said everything I figured he would except that a starter should go three days. I heard from the Wyeast scientist that it should be 24 hours. Now I've heard conflicting views on this before. It's not the first time. In fact I've heard conflicting things about yeast from the White Labs and Wyeast people from very successful homebrewers so this is nothing new. What matters to me is what works. So I am willing to try a three day starter just to see.
After that they passed out some other homebrew including a club barley wine that was amazing. At this point the meeting begins to unceremoniously devolve. I then went to get the grain and yeast. After everything was paid up I chatted with Seamus the owner until Ellie arrived.
We then went to dinner and Ellie talked about how we should open a homebrew shop. I didn't think there was enough people in Ridgecrest to support one as Bakersfield has only one. She said we could ship and that sort of resonated with me. Later I got to thinking maybe the best place is in Antelope Valley. There are no brew shops in Lancaster/Palmdale and there are about 300,000 people.
Later when I got home I looked into their website at bigbrewtheory.org and noticed some video clips they posted on the site. There was a nice one about yeast starters. Also, I read up a little on the officer bios. I noticed the president talk about building his own water and that started to make things click. I had heard a lot of people in the club ask me about water. Jamil talks about not caring so much about water and that if the water is drinkable, just move of with life. Doc always builds the water. He wins a lot of competitions. I will say all of their homebrew that was passed out was good. Maybe it's something I should get into.
Spike Ale Tasting Notes
Spike Ale was meant to be a blonde ale. I tried it after three weeks and after one beer I felt a little pressure in the head. A couple of days later I have two and have a little bit of a hangover. The beer was very fruity. I think this is due to yeast easters. I am unhappy with it. I feel a blonde should be clean and not overly fruity. Further I have deemed this to be a hangover beer.
I think the reason for this is that the yeast was sickly. I had the yeast shipped during a hot week in September. The ice pack was fully melted and even warm. I did make a pint starter. The yeast behaved a little weird. Normally with WLP001 I get a nice krausen, a good ferment for a few days, and in about a week the yeast has flocculated out. In this case the yeast hung out on top of the beer for two weeks. It was thick and creamy the entire time. Not normal.
Kevin and Ellie tried it and thought it was ok. Then we went to Ireland. When we got back I had the beer again and thought maybe it had improved. At this point, the Pooleys and Ty came over and drank some. Ty said it wasn't so bad. The Pooleys seemed to like it. They took a gallon home. I also made sure they drank three each and report back with hangover news. No hangover. I then took it to the homebrew club in Bakersfield. Everyone there seemed to be ok with it too. I guess no one has issues with this but me.
This week I bottled what was left from the keg. I got 8 bombers. One went to Rachel's bfs parents. So there are seven in the fridge in the office now.
I think the reason for this is that the yeast was sickly. I had the yeast shipped during a hot week in September. The ice pack was fully melted and even warm. I did make a pint starter. The yeast behaved a little weird. Normally with WLP001 I get a nice krausen, a good ferment for a few days, and in about a week the yeast has flocculated out. In this case the yeast hung out on top of the beer for two weeks. It was thick and creamy the entire time. Not normal.
Kevin and Ellie tried it and thought it was ok. Then we went to Ireland. When we got back I had the beer again and thought maybe it had improved. At this point, the Pooleys and Ty came over and drank some. Ty said it wasn't so bad. The Pooleys seemed to like it. They took a gallon home. I also made sure they drank three each and report back with hangover news. No hangover. I then took it to the homebrew club in Bakersfield. Everyone there seemed to be ok with it too. I guess no one has issues with this but me.
This week I bottled what was left from the keg. I got 8 bombers. One went to Rachel's bfs parents. So there are seven in the fridge in the office now.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Spike Ale II
I wanted to give the Spike Ale another go. Here are the ingredients:
Here are the ingredients:
10lbs 2row
1lbs Munich
0.5lbs Wheat
0.4oz Northern Brewer 10.5%AA @60min
1oz Citra 13%AA @5min
1oz Citra 15%AA @1min
WLP001x2 - Feb 03 2013 - Lot #TCCDIN-10
Whirlfloc
5.2 stabilizer
Servomyces
Albertsons spring water.
2:12 - Ellie is here with me. We are heating us the mash water. The oxy stone has been boiled to sterilized. Mash tun ready. I intend to mash at 152. Medium body. I tried a full body last time and everyone said it was too sweet because of it. So we will back off a little. Also, we will use the two vials of yeast instead of one vile and a starter. It is windy today so I will need to be extra diligent with the sanitization.
2:42 - Mashing in. Temp = 153F. Got the 5.2 in. A teaspoon this time. I think a table spoon just too much. Ellie has left. Maybe cause I am listening to the brew cast instead of talking to her. All is well. I have an hour so I think I will setup the gate for the dog and clean the keg.
3:50 - Got the keg cleaned. Also cleaned the chest freezer. While I was at it, I figured to clean the laptop. It was getting pretty bad. I cleaned the mouse pad and then that thing stopped working. This is why there has not been much update in the last hour.
We are sparging now. Normally I add two gallons of boiling water first, drain, add 3 gallons 170F, hold for 10 min, drain. This time I thought I'd try to add 1.5 gallons 170F, drain, add 3 gallons of boiling to raise the grain bed to 170F, wait 10 min, and drain. We'll see how it goes. So far all is going well.
BTW, restarted the laptop and all is well. Had to get a mouse just to shut the thing down.
4:05 - Well that worked. I'm doing that from now on. I added 3.5 gallons of boiling and the temp got to 172F. I had to add back cold water and stir like hell and got it down to 169F. We'll see how it effects the gravity.
4:16 - Went to pee. Ran into the wife. She confirmed she left due to podcast listening. Lesson learned. If we want her to hang. No podcast. I dumped the remaining sparge water and now I wonder what if I need a little more. I guess I can get some filtered water from the tap and heat it up. We'll see what happens. Beginning to drink beer now. Fezziwig from Sam Adams.
4:33 - Sparge done. I think I got all I needed from the mash tun. I did get a little better efficiency. Last time was 1.040 after sparge. This time 1.043. Shouldn't make too much difference in the hops or anything.
5:08 - All going well. Hot break came and went. Added the hops. Cleaned the mash tun. Saved some for Ellie. Saved some for Rachel for her boyfriend's family. They got chickens. She said she would get off of work at 5:30 and then come on by so good timing. On my second beer now. Ellie poured herself one. She poured it poorly and got foam everywhere. It's like the girl never went to college. Come on!
5:30 - Just opened the third beer. Getting hungry. 1.5 hours ago Ellie asked about food. I said maybe in an hour. I was hoping she would feed me 30min ago. She seemed in a good mood. Maybe that beer and Lifetime movies are making her loose track of time. Well I tried a little experiment and I think we are onto something good here. I got two pumps. One will move the wort around the chiller the get the best heat exchange. I also have to chillers. So I can use one as a pre-chiller and put it into an ice cold bucket and use the other pump to move around the bucket water for best temp exchange. I just tried hooked up the pump and some tubing to the bucket and it works great. I may need help to hold the tubing so I may need to get Ellie. Of course if I draft her into service she won't aquire food. I think I've got problems. First world problems.
8:46 - In bed now after eating pizza with wife and watching big bang. The chilling system worked real well. Chilled to 70F in 40mins. 20mins faster than normal. I think in the future I will not use salt to make the pre-chilled water colder since I don't like the salt all over the equipment. I took pics of the setup and will post tomorrow. The beer came in with an OG of 1.056 which was higher than the 1.051 of last time. This means it will likely be sweet when done. But I did add two vials of yeast so it better not be fruity. I finished cleaning at around 8pm. All in all I would say this was one of the smoothest brew days ever.
Here are the ingredients:
10lbs 2row
1lbs Munich
0.5lbs Wheat
0.4oz Northern Brewer 10.5%AA @60min
1oz Citra 13%AA @5min
1oz Citra 15%AA @1min
WLP001x2 - Feb 03 2013 - Lot #TCCDIN-10
Whirlfloc
5.2 stabilizer
Servomyces
Albertsons spring water.
2:12 - Ellie is here with me. We are heating us the mash water. The oxy stone has been boiled to sterilized. Mash tun ready. I intend to mash at 152. Medium body. I tried a full body last time and everyone said it was too sweet because of it. So we will back off a little. Also, we will use the two vials of yeast instead of one vile and a starter. It is windy today so I will need to be extra diligent with the sanitization.
2:42 - Mashing in. Temp = 153F. Got the 5.2 in. A teaspoon this time. I think a table spoon just too much. Ellie has left. Maybe cause I am listening to the brew cast instead of talking to her. All is well. I have an hour so I think I will setup the gate for the dog and clean the keg.
3:50 - Got the keg cleaned. Also cleaned the chest freezer. While I was at it, I figured to clean the laptop. It was getting pretty bad. I cleaned the mouse pad and then that thing stopped working. This is why there has not been much update in the last hour.
We are sparging now. Normally I add two gallons of boiling water first, drain, add 3 gallons 170F, hold for 10 min, drain. This time I thought I'd try to add 1.5 gallons 170F, drain, add 3 gallons of boiling to raise the grain bed to 170F, wait 10 min, and drain. We'll see how it goes. So far all is going well.
BTW, restarted the laptop and all is well. Had to get a mouse just to shut the thing down.
4:05 - Well that worked. I'm doing that from now on. I added 3.5 gallons of boiling and the temp got to 172F. I had to add back cold water and stir like hell and got it down to 169F. We'll see how it effects the gravity.
4:16 - Went to pee. Ran into the wife. She confirmed she left due to podcast listening. Lesson learned. If we want her to hang. No podcast. I dumped the remaining sparge water and now I wonder what if I need a little more. I guess I can get some filtered water from the tap and heat it up. We'll see what happens. Beginning to drink beer now. Fezziwig from Sam Adams.
4:33 - Sparge done. I think I got all I needed from the mash tun. I did get a little better efficiency. Last time was 1.040 after sparge. This time 1.043. Shouldn't make too much difference in the hops or anything.
5:08 - All going well. Hot break came and went. Added the hops. Cleaned the mash tun. Saved some for Ellie. Saved some for Rachel for her boyfriend's family. They got chickens. She said she would get off of work at 5:30 and then come on by so good timing. On my second beer now. Ellie poured herself one. She poured it poorly and got foam everywhere. It's like the girl never went to college. Come on!
5:30 - Just opened the third beer. Getting hungry. 1.5 hours ago Ellie asked about food. I said maybe in an hour. I was hoping she would feed me 30min ago. She seemed in a good mood. Maybe that beer and Lifetime movies are making her loose track of time. Well I tried a little experiment and I think we are onto something good here. I got two pumps. One will move the wort around the chiller the get the best heat exchange. I also have to chillers. So I can use one as a pre-chiller and put it into an ice cold bucket and use the other pump to move around the bucket water for best temp exchange. I just tried hooked up the pump and some tubing to the bucket and it works great. I may need help to hold the tubing so I may need to get Ellie. Of course if I draft her into service she won't aquire food. I think I've got problems. First world problems.
8:46 - In bed now after eating pizza with wife and watching big bang. The chilling system worked real well. Chilled to 70F in 40mins. 20mins faster than normal. I think in the future I will not use salt to make the pre-chilled water colder since I don't like the salt all over the equipment. I took pics of the setup and will post tomorrow. The beer came in with an OG of 1.056 which was higher than the 1.051 of last time. This means it will likely be sweet when done. But I did add two vials of yeast so it better not be fruity. I finished cleaning at around 8pm. All in all I would say this was one of the smoothest brew days ever.
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