Somehow I got Ellie to agree to brew this beer. It's another kit from MoreBeer. Here's the ingredients:
8lb 2-row
2lb Munich
1lb Vienna
1lb Crystal 40L
4oz Chocolate
0.5oz Magnum 12.3% @60min
0.5oz Saaz 2.9% @20min
1.0oz Mt. Hood 5.5% @0min
WLP036x2 with 1 liter starter. Lot number 1004255. Date Apr-23-14
Whirlfloc and Servomyces.
Now for water. Ellie and I wanted to use 50% Ridgecrest water and 50% distilled and then some salts. But I ran out of Chalk. This really upset me and I think Ellie could see it. She told me to not worry about, do the best we can and roll with what we got. In the end we put 2g of Gypsum and 2g of CaCl. This gave us some calcium and balance out the Cl and SO4. We came up short on residual alkalinity and ended up with too much sodium. Ridgecrest water has too much sodium which is why we cut it with distilled. So we'll see.
Got the mash tun assembled no problem. We noticed a slightly foul smell
in the ball valve. It appeared to be in some trapped water in the ball
valve somewhere. Every smelled great right up until we opened to valve
and some water came out and we smelled it.
Other things that went wrong were that I forgot the water filter for the tap. So, I had to go get that. Ellie mashed in a little too high and we added to much water. The mash seemed to settle at 151F. The pH was a little high at 5.5ish. Not too bad.
We are now eating while the grain mashes. She made some food and it was good. I cleaned up a little while she was cooking. I'm already really tired and I think we got a few hours to go still. She has to get up really early to hang with a buddy on a road trip. I'm rambling now. Back to beer.
Ok, it is now midnight and we are all done. Clare hung out for a bit. Ellie did a lot of the work. I lifted heavy stuff. But she brewed the beer. Even if the witnesses find that statement debatable we got the spend the evening together and I am happy about that. There was nothing really mentioning. The OG is 1.050. This is a little lower than I thought we would get. The beer tastes bitter. I think if we lager it properly then that will diminish. Nonetheless I'm tired and want to go to bed.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
First Kolsch
First Kolsch. Similar to the house blonde. I thought I wanted to try something different with EKA. So I figured we'd try a different yeast. Why not a Kolsch yeast?
Things have already been interesting, Last night I made a starter. When I woke up this morning to check on it, the stir plate had stopped, there was a thick layer of yeast on the bottom and it was HOT! I put it in the garage because I thought it would be cooler there then in the house. I don't know how that's going to really effect the beer but we are going to give it a go anyway.
Also, when I went to type this up on the computer my battery is TU. Need to replace it. Typing this on Ellie's old laptop.
Lastly, when I went to pull the ingredients from the fridge I forgot I bought an once of Amarillo. So I guess this won't be the most traditional Kolsch. I'll add it in the last minute.
Anyhow, here the ingredients:
8lbs 2 row.
0.5lbs crystal 10L.
1oz Willamette 5.2AA @60min
1oz Amarillo 8.4AA @1min
WLP029 x2 02/14/14 Lot# 1002198
10 gallons distilled
2 gram gypsum
5 gram calcium chloride
2 gram epsom salt
whirlfloc
servomyces
10:25am - Typing some stuff now. Got water all made. Ready to start the brew day.
11:10 - Mashed in at 150F. Well smooth. pH about 5.2. So far boring.
12:06 - Sparging. First screw up of the day. I mounted my ball valve on the mash tun backwards. I was able to rotate the valve so the lever is pointing down and can be opened a little bit. This caused the mash tun to leak so it's getting fun.
2:32 - Boil non eventful. I got the chiller in there and all hooked up. I did shorten up the re-circulation portion in an effort to keep it from stalling. It only stalled once, so that's good. Once I killed the boil and started the chilling water there was a problem. There was a kink in the line. It built up a ton of pressure and when it straightened itself out it shot boiling water at tremendous pressure into the basin which splashed up into my face. The left side of my cheek just under my eye is burned and it is a little painful, I think it will be ok. But it could have been much worse. I could have hurt some poor person like Ellie or Kevin who would have been in there. Lesson learned.
3:37 - Done. Chilled the beer too much. It is now 60F which is too cold for this beer. It should warm up ok. But note to self that we need to monitor the temp when chilling more closely. The OG is 1.047. It tastes good. My face feels better. Eager to eat, watch football, drink beer, and hang with my family.
Things have already been interesting, Last night I made a starter. When I woke up this morning to check on it, the stir plate had stopped, there was a thick layer of yeast on the bottom and it was HOT! I put it in the garage because I thought it would be cooler there then in the house. I don't know how that's going to really effect the beer but we are going to give it a go anyway.
Also, when I went to type this up on the computer my battery is TU. Need to replace it. Typing this on Ellie's old laptop.
Lastly, when I went to pull the ingredients from the fridge I forgot I bought an once of Amarillo. So I guess this won't be the most traditional Kolsch. I'll add it in the last minute.
Anyhow, here the ingredients:
8lbs 2 row.
0.5lbs crystal 10L.
1oz Willamette 5.2AA @60min
1oz Amarillo 8.4AA @1min
WLP029 x2 02/14/14 Lot# 1002198
10 gallons distilled
2 gram gypsum
5 gram calcium chloride
2 gram epsom salt
whirlfloc
servomyces
10:25am - Typing some stuff now. Got water all made. Ready to start the brew day.
11:10 - Mashed in at 150F. Well smooth. pH about 5.2. So far boring.
12:06 - Sparging. First screw up of the day. I mounted my ball valve on the mash tun backwards. I was able to rotate the valve so the lever is pointing down and can be opened a little bit. This caused the mash tun to leak so it's getting fun.
2:32 - Boil non eventful. I got the chiller in there and all hooked up. I did shorten up the re-circulation portion in an effort to keep it from stalling. It only stalled once, so that's good. Once I killed the boil and started the chilling water there was a problem. There was a kink in the line. It built up a ton of pressure and when it straightened itself out it shot boiling water at tremendous pressure into the basin which splashed up into my face. The left side of my cheek just under my eye is burned and it is a little painful, I think it will be ok. But it could have been much worse. I could have hurt some poor person like Ellie or Kevin who would have been in there. Lesson learned.
3:37 - Done. Chilled the beer too much. It is now 60F which is too cold for this beer. It should warm up ok. But note to self that we need to monitor the temp when chilling more closely. The OG is 1.047. It tastes good. My face feels better. Eager to eat, watch football, drink beer, and hang with my family.
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