Holiday Ale

Time to make a Christmas beer.

10lbs 2row

8oz C120

8oz Caravienne

4oz Honey Malt

2oz Black Roasted

2oz Special B

1oz Northern Brewer @60min

1oz Willamette @1min

WLP005 w/ starter - MFG: Oct 27, 2016 - Lot# 1030830

Whirlfloc

Servomyces

Added these towards the end of the boil:

1tsp ginger

1tsp allspice

2tsp cinnamon

I'm going with my Scottish 70/80 water profile. 1/2 Ridgecrest water. 1/2 Distilled. 12g chalk. 3g gypsum. 1g calcium chloride. 4g epsom salt. http://shanebrewblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/scottish-80-part2.html

2:48pm - I am lazily typing this up in the bedroom. Going to get some decent clothes on and get to the store and get water and ice.

4:25 - Heating up the mash water now. All seems well.

5:17 - Freed up the fermentation chamber. About to heat up the spare water.

7:01 - Pre-boil gravity was 1.045. That should get us around 1.055 going into the fermenter which is about where the more beer documentation said it should be. All is going well. About 45 mins into the boil now.

8:55 - All done. Really boring brew session. Nothing happened. I guess that's good. I don't know. For funsies I decided to check the pH once I had a sample and it measured on the strip at below 5.0. It looked similar to what the last blonde ended up looking like at the end. I'm thinking those strips are crap. The wort tasted good. Came in at 1.055. I only have one plastic fermenter so this brew went into a glass fermenter I had. That was a workout. Stay fit kids!

Christmas Meader

While I was brewing the Christmas beer I went ahead and made cider/mead mix with some holiday spices. The must tasted delicious.

I added to a 1 gallon fermenter:
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
1/4 tsp of allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 of a container of honey that was old and crystallized
filled the rest with apple juice
1 packet of sweet mead yeast wlp720 - mfg sept 24, 2016 - lot 1029685

So I warmed up the honey with the sparge water. I added the spices first, then the honey, then the apple juice, then the yeast. I shook it up real good to aerate as much as I good. Below are the pics of the honey and apple juice. OG was 1.088!

EKA w/ Acid Corrections Update 1

I've got really high hopes that this pH correction stuff will end my apple ester woes. After a week, I've pulled the fermenter from the chamber and moved it to the bathroom to finish up (I needed the chamber for another beer). I added a silicon cap and while I was doing that I got a sample. The gravity is now 1.008. It tastes yeasty. Lots of diacetyl in there but it's still young. I expect it to clean up. So far no apple ester but I never taste it until the yeast clears up. So we will see. It doesn't taste amazing and that makes me sad. But it's too early to give up on it. Should have done side by side split batch, one with acid correction and one without.

EKA with acid corrections

It's November. Looking at the brew blog it appears I haven't brewed since July. I had a high grade tear of my dispel biceps tendon that I "acquired" in the gym. As such, I was unable to do anything with my arm for a few months. All healed up now.

Snikers lager was good. I was about to bottle it and enter in some competition. Then the keg blew. Such is life. This summer while at the Mammoth Blues and Beer fest I ran into the boys at White Labs and asked if they had any feedback about my apple ester. They said they get that when the pH gets too high. So I have since went out and bought some lactic acid. The goal here is to drop the pH in the mash to 5.2ish. I also bought some new pH strips. Those things get old after a while I think. I've done some calculations and I can expect about 0.07 lowering of pH per gram of lactic acid for the mash. I intend to mash in, check the pH, and then make corrections. I'll even check the wort after runoff.

8.5 lbs 2 row
1 lb C10
2oz German Hallertau 2.5%
WLP001 w/ starter (starter was made in the morning) - MFG: 10-11-2016 - Lot# - 1030256
Arrowhead spring water
Whirlfloc
Servomyces

Also got a new O2 stone. I think the last one broke.

4:01pm - I've already ground the grain. I'm now boiling the O2 stone and calibrating the thermometer.

4:40pm - We're mashed in. Mash temp 152. Needed to add a little cold water but not much. Pretty good for just eyeballing it. I checked the pH. It's about 5.2. I quite often check the pH right when I dough in and it always seems about 5.2. So, I guess I will keep checking to see when/if it changes.

6:36 - We are well into he boil now. Things are going well. The starting gravity was a little low. 1.033. I think it's because of the mill. I fiddled with it a bit. No matter. We will soldier on. After the mash was done I added about two gallons of spare water and checked the gravity again. You can see it's become a little more basic.

Then I check again after the first run off and the addition of the next spare water.

You can see if looks like it may be 6 or more. Then once more when it was all blended together back in the kettle.

Now I'm frustrated. Because we are shooting for 5.2 and by golly it looks like it is already 5.2. That can't be right. It's what we've always done. Well not this time. We came here to acidify this thing and now we will. Maybe I will invest in a better quality pH reader next batch. But for now we are going to add some lactic acid. I added 2g worth which should be about 2mL. Here what I measured after that.

It looks to me like the pH definatly dropped. I may add another later. Because why not.

8:10 - I added another gram. I mean, what are we doing here. Let's do this thing right. Beer is in the fermentation chamber. Cleaning up now.

9:00 - All done. I need to be sure to rinse the re-circulation portion of the chiller. Don't want things growing in there. Other than that it went smooth. Can't wait to see how it comes out. If this makes a difference then I will for sure purchase a fancy pH meter.

Snickers' Brown Lager

Snickers the dog passed away a couple of weeks ago. She was a good brew dog. She liked to sit in the garage with me while I brewed even though most of the time it was too hot. That was ok. We were together and that's what mattered. I have fond memories of her sneaking into the spent grain and eating away as quick as she could before I caught her. The grain would be too hot though so she would shake her head when it burned her mouth a little. So from my point of view I see the head of the dog in the garbage bag with grain flying out in all directions. Ellie suggested we brew a beer in her honor. A brown beer. For our beloved brown dog.

I'm shooting for a Boston Lager clone. Here's the particulars:

9 lbs 2row
1 lb C60
1.5oz Tettnang 3.9%AA @ 60min
1oz Hallertau 2.5% @10min
1.5oz Tettnang 3.9%AA @ 1min
0.5oz Hallertau 2.5% Dry hop

WLP830x2 with 2L starter - MFG 5/11/2016 - Lot# 1025699

Whirlfloc
Servomyces

Jul 2 5:38pm - I figured I'd get a head start on brewing this evening with the intent of brewing tomorrow morning. So I'm doing a lot of stuff now like making a starter, get the water ready, sanitizing the O2 stone, etc. Adversity has already stricken. One of the yeast packages was frozen. Somehow it got positioned just right in the fridge since the package right next to it didn't freeze. Weird. But we must soldier on. So I read that I can expect a 10% percent loss of cells on the one package. No big deal. We are making a starter anyway.

6:01pm - Gear upgrade. Bought a stir plate. It seemed to work good. Hit a new wrinkle. It appears that I did not make a 2L starter. Right now it's about 1300mL. So I'm making more wort.

6:30pm - Here's the water profile we are going to use:

Jul 3 4:04am - I'm up and at 'em. It's still hot.

4:21 - I lost a screw and nut to the crusher. I still got the job done but I need to repair that for next time.

4:33 - Wanted 152F mash temp. Nailed it!

6:08 - I just noticed the sun is up. We are boiling now. I've run off the perfect amount. The pre-boil gravity is 1.038 which is about where I'd like to be. So far this morning has been going great.

7:36 - Things really started to fall apart here at the end. It started with me wanting to replace all the plumbers tape on the wort chiller. I got behind on time. I picked my head up and the gas is not on. Empty. For how long had it been not running I don't know. My headphones were in. So step 1 was to get the next propane tank attached. Once I did that I needed to add my 10min hops but in my frantic pace I added the 1/2oz of Tettnang instead of the 1oz of Hallertau. I added the Hallertau anyway in addition. Then I needed to get the wort chiller in there but nothing was connected to it. I did that and put in it to the wort without a rinse. I added the last 1oz of Tettnang with a minute to go. Once done I started with the wort chiller only to see there was a leak on the pump connection. So I halted everything to fix that. I almost lost the plastic do-dad that makes a seal for the O2 stone. It took me 2-3 minutes to find it. It's small! Then I grabbed the fermenter and give it a smell and I detect a hint of yeast. Not real bad just enough to give me pause. It smelled like brewers yeast not something funky and gross. I rinsed it out and bathed it in sanitizer. Now it doesn't smell at all. I'm going to go with it but I'm not happy. Now I 'm cooling the wort and I'm worried I didn't get enough ice. I got enough for an ale which we cool to 70F before pitching but not enough for lager which should get done to 50F.

9:31 - All done. I ended up going to Sage Mart for another 20lb bag of ice. That was a good decision. It was quick and I used the whole bag. I don't think I could have stretched out the remaining ice in the house. The O2 stone has something going on. I may need to purchase a new one. It looks like the O2 is coming out from a seam on the stone instead of the little holes like it should. I need to add that to the list of things we need for the next brew. Beyond that, things seemed to get back together after the mid-morning disaster.

On a side note I like this get up early to beat the heat. I may do this again. For now I'm wore out and need a shower. I hope the beer turns out good. I'd like a good beer to sip on while I think of Snickers. May she RIP.

First ESB

First off, the amber form last batch came out real good. If I can find the motivation to do so, I think I may enter it in a competition.

I don't know why I haven't made an ESB yet. I can't even remember why I chose to make it this time. Regardless, I got the recipe off of the internet and is as follows:

8lb Maris Otter
1lb C10
1lb C60
1lb Flaked barley
0.5lb Brown Malt

1oz Kent Golding 5.7AA @60
1oz Kent Golding 5.7AA @30
1oz Kent Golding 5.7AA @0

WLP005 Jan-19-2016 1019675 (with starter)
WLP005 Dec-27-2015 1018042 (with starter)

Crystal Gyser water
Whrilfloc
Servomyces

2:08 - Strike water being heated. Mash tun together. We are doing this. I'm feeling a little sickly. So that sucks. So far the only thing that has gone wrong is that the mill lost a bolt. I think I've lost it into the crushed grain. I'll look for it when I pour the grain into the mash tun.

2:55 - Mash temp fail! Once I got the strike water in the mash temp was 148F. I wanted 156F. It's always better to overshoot since I can just add cool water. So I heated up the mash decoction style. I pulled out the thick part of the mash and boiled it. Then I added it back. In this case I overshot it and the temp was 160F. Which, as previously stated, it not tragic since I just add some cool water and get to 156F. I think I may have scorched a little bit of the grain. Which may suck or may just add more character to the beer. I don't know. We'll see.

6:13 - All done. Things went pretty smooth. The OG is 1.054. It tastes good. I'm tried and hungry.