Furlough Beer

Clare says we should make a furlough beer. We are DoD employees and we are being furloughed. Ok Clare here we go. I thought I'd try a little rye. Also I think I'd like to try some dry english yeast. We are going to be sure to cool the wort down today to 65F.

Here's a breakdown of the recipe. I'd like to lower the gravity a little too, so less malt.

8 lbs 2-row
0.5 lbs Crystal 15L
0.2 lbs Rye

0.4oz Northern Brewer 10% AA @60min
0.5oz Amarillo 8.4% AA @10min
0.5oz Amarillo 8.4% AA @1min

Lallemand Nottingham 11.5g x2 - Dated 01/2015 - Lot# 1081064V

Servomyces
Whilfloc

5 gallons Ridgecrest filtered water
5 gallons distilled
4 grams gypsum
4 grams calcium chloride
1 gram epsom salt



8:44pm - So I've been at this for a few hours now and all is going ok. Currently I am mashing and should start the sparge in 15 min or so. Two things are different at this point then normal. One is that I used the grain mill cabinet that Ellie's dad made for me. It worked wonderfully. I set the mill on top, a bucket on the bottom, attached the drill, and milled away. I'm defiantly going to need to give him my thanks. Also, I boiled up some tap water for re-hydrating my yeast and it is simmering in a covered pot in the kitchen as I type. Other than that the day has been the same.

Had some problems with hitting my mash temperature today. I did myself a favor and made sure that I got the temp real close before I put the grains in. I'll never make that mistake again. Also, when I did get the grain in, the temp was a little high which is correctable. If it's too low then we normally are screwed. It's nice that I seem to be getting a process down such that even when things don't go perfect the whole brew day is not lost.

12:55am - Whew! All done. I did not cool the wort to 65F as planned. I cooled it to 68F. I just couldn't get it colder than that. I need to change my cooling method. Maybe I'll try an aquarium pump in a bucket of cold water. I don't know. But I bet this beer is as estery as any other batch. Nothing was different like I wanted. I guess we will see. Something I noticed about these blonde beers is that they are drinkable very early and the esters really kick in as the beer cleans up. So, if I really want to drink this batch I guess I could do it early.

I was thinking another way to skit this issue was to just set the fridge at a higher temp, which I have done. It is now at 67F. English yeast doesn't do well any higher in temp than that. In fact the chest freezer was much cooler than 67 more like 60F when I put the beer in. In no time at all the temp had crashed from 70Fish to 66F. So, 3 degrees in just a few minutes. I needed to warm up the freezer so I plugged in a fan and put it in the freezer with the hopes of it pushing the cold air out and pulling warmer garage air in. This worked great and I was able to warm up the fridge to 68F in about 30secs. That's when I noticed the temp strip change back to 68F. There is no way to liquid could cool that fast. This leads me to feel like the temp strip is not as accurate as I have thought. I rely in this temp strip to tell me what is going on in the beer. Maybe I need one of those thermowells.

Anyhow, the day is done. We will see what we get. I don't want to say this day was a bust but I wan unable to achieve the 65F I was looking for when cooling the wort. I think if this batch comes out too estery again I need to re-evaluate how I cool the beer and amend the process and try again. It's late. I'm going to bed.