Scottish 70/80

A Scottish 70 is a malty beer with low alcohol. We still get good body by setting the mash temp really high. I grabbed the ingredients from The Bearded Brewer almost three weeks ago and I can't remember the exact grain bill. For reference I've included the recipe for a Scottish 70 from the Jamil/Palmer recipe book. The hops and yeast is correct.

6.5 lbs British Pale Malt. I think I got Maris Otter.
0.5 lbs Munich.
1.0 lbs Crystal 40L
0.5 lbs Honey Malt
0.25 lbs Crystal 120L
3.0oz Pale Chocolate 200L (this is one I may have had a hard to finding and substituted)

UK Kent Goldings 0.75oz 5.8%AA

WLP002 x2 Date: 01-09-14 Lot: 1001913

Whirlfloc
Servomyces

50% RC water
50% Distilled

These brewing salts:

We are shooting for a mash of 158F.

3:38 pm- Wanted to start around 1pm. Started around 2pm. Just got the strike water to temp. The mash tun is creaky today. First time I've heard it do that.

4:03pm - Ellie here. Just mashed in. Hit 158F.

5:28pm - Runoff done. All is well. Gravity = 1.034. Should get 1.044ish. I will add all the hops. Hanging with Ellie has been fun. She made Kevin bring burgers.

8:42pm - Done the for day. Kevin brought burgers, tacos, and beer. The OG is 1.040. I thought that might be a little low for the amount of hops I added but the wort didn't taste bitter. Also, I attached the O2 stone to a racking cane with plumbers tape to better control it. It seemed to work well but there was a small leak in the tubing from the tank to the filter that I could hear. I'll need to fix that.

When it came to cooling I was able to cool the wort to 70F in 30mins. I needed to push more cool water through the big coils. I think that is why it was so slow last time. There is a lot of surface area. It makes no sense to push a small amount of water through it. There just wouldn't be enough contact. So, for a big coil, more is better.

Other than that it was a ho hum brew day. I had the gate for the dogs. They ate the barley but it was hot so the would get burned. But they wanted to eat it so bad. It was funny.

EKA V

Got some new toys!!! I brewed yesterday and had a hell of a busy day so I didn't blog during the making of the beer and I'll do my best to remember what went wrong and what went well.

Ingredients:
8 lbs 2-row
0.5 lbs Crystal 15L

1oz Williamette 4.9%AA (changed this as per Jamil recipe book)

WLP001 x2 (I'm too lazy to make a starter)

Servomyces
Whilfloc

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

Crush, mash, sparge, and boil all went off without a hitch. Then we get to cooling. I bought a larger wort chiller from MoreBeer and while I was at it I got the Jamil style with the whirlpool feedback. Here's a pic of the setup:

 

What you are seeing here is water goes from the sink to the red bucket which has a pre-chiller. The ground water here is really warm. The bucket is filled with ice water which I continually stir to get optimum heat transfer. This water goes to the new chiller in the kettle and goes out of said chiller into the sink. The wort goes from the ball valve in the lower front of the kettle to the pump on the ground which then pumps the hot wort to a re-circulation connection on the chiller. This steers the wort right onto the chiller coils and causes the wort to whirlpool which maximizes heat transfer. The effect of this is that the wort is cooled from boiling to 70F in about 40mins instead of an hour.

The only issue I had here was that I hooked up and ran the re-circulation system about 5 minutes before flameout to sterilize the system and the pump was pissed. I couldn't understand why. It made all sorts of noise as if it was not primed. Once flameout occurred and I began cooling the wort, then it calmed down and started working great. I had taken it apart earlier in the brew day to clean it and I thought maybe I reassembled it incorrectly. I'll double check when I use it again.

Anyhow, once cooled, the wort was immediately moved to the fermenter. In hindsight I should have waited a little for the break material to settle. The whirlpool causes all that break material to just mix up in the wort. I ran out of ice in the pre-chiller and the wort was now actually warming up from 70F and I felt to need to get it transferred immediately. So the beer won't be pretty.

Ok then time to oxygenate. I put a lot of time into replacing tubing and stuff from the old O2 system I have. I've never taken the stone off and cleaned the tubing in the year or so that I've had it and figured it was time. New tubing and new air filter. It was a pain in the butt to get the stone pulled from the black tubing that MoreBeer had jammed the stone into. I actually had to get the box cutters out and cut it free. Why would they fit so tight? Well I found out. First issue, the plastic tubing is all bent to hell and I couldn't control the stone well enough to get it into the wort to oxygenate it. It would make it maybe half way down and sometimes not even that far. I was getting real frustrated trying to push it down father and farther and getting nowhere. I wasn't sure I was even oxygenating the wort at all. Then it happened. I heard a scary pop sound and the oxygen tank started making all sorts of scary noises. I stopped everything and when I pulled it out of the wort I noticed there was no O2 stone on the end of the tubing. The pressure had blown it right off the tube. This is why MoreBeer put the thing on so damn tight. Well now my O2 stone in lost in the fermenter. I'll have to get it back when I empty the beer out of it. Also, I'll need to think of a way to control the stone better once it is in the wort. This could be as simple as tie it to a steel rod of some kind and then move the rod around.

Then we get to the part I'm most proud of. I've spent the last month not making beer but engineering a way to make better beer. I really feel my ester issue is due to temp swings. So I built a super fancy temperature controller. 

So what are we looking at here? The top of the box contains three LEDs. A red for power on and two greens to indicate which solid state relay is on. You will see a nice square hole cut out of the lid and that is where a nice display modules lives that is currently being programmed. Mounted on the far side of the box is a Raspberry Pi. It has a USB WiFi device which you can see to the right. It provides a web interface that I can use to monitor the temperatures and change settings. The web page looks like this:

The green line is the beer and blue is the chest freezer temp. I wrote this code using some java script, PHP, and little CSS. C code that I wrote will then read the settings and both temperatures and make a decision about whether or not it should turn the freezer on. This code reads the temps via SPI bus that is connected to an analog to digital converter. It turns the freezer on or off using a solid state relay. I went all out on the solid state relay. Freezer compressors can draw a lot a current and I didn't want to worry too much about heat and over current issues. There is another smaller solid state relay for turning on a heating element of some kind in the future. Most of the system is powered by an AC to DC converter which is wired up to the wall power and outputs 5V. This 5V powers the Raspberry Pi and most of the supplementary components. However, it is a little too noisy for the analog to digital converter so I wired up a 9V battery to that portion of the circuit. My math says I should get 50+ days of continuous use on that 9V so it should be good enough for long lager fermentations. Below is a pic of the schematic for the electronics:

The first temp probe just sits in the chest freezer. The second is put down a thermowell. The ones at MoreBeer are too skinny and I had to get a couple from a place in LA called Brewer's Hardware. They fit perfect. I jam them into the carboy hood and it makes me smile. Here a pic of the chest freezer with a carboy full of water that I used during testing:

 

This works great and I couldn't be more pleased. The screen grab of the web interface is the one for this actual beer and you can see how well controlled the temperature is. If it comes out estery, it will not be because of temperature. I really have a pro style control of the beer temps now and I can't wait to see the fruits that come to bear from this temp control box. 

The last small issue I have here is how to mount the box itself. I tried magnets yesterday. I attached them to the box with a hot glue gun. They just are not strong enough. I need to figure that out for next time. For now though I duct taped it down to the top of the chest freezer lid.

There are improvements still to be made on the box. Right now it does not do warming temp control so come winter I'll need to write more code and the display needs to be programmed and installed. But right now it is functional and usable and I intend to use the crap out of it this fall.

I bought all the supplies needed for a Scottish 70 from the Bearded Brewer. It is a malty low alcohol beer. The trick is to get lots of body in the beer with few grains. It will require a very hot mash temp. So stay tuned for that.

More Ester Thoughts

My brain has been working a million miles an hour at this ester problem. A couple of things to note.

1. The furlough beer was underpitched. Nottingham website says about 55 billion in a packet. For 5 gallons of 1.045 beer I want something like 250 billion. So about 4.5 packets. I pitched 2 packets. I wonder if I had pitched 4 would the beer be great.

2. The realization from #1 leads to a problem. The last split batch I added one vial of WLP001 to 2.5 gallons of wort and two vials of WLP001 to a different 2.5 gallons of wort. I was adding just about as much yeast as you can into the second and it was still horribly estery. What was the difference between furlough beer and the split batch.
- The ingredients? Split batch had munich. Furlough had crystal and rye.
- The temp swings in the chest fridge? The split batches were smaller in volume and would be affected more by the temp swings. The really small (3 quart) infected test batches should then exhibit very estery taste when done.
- Yeast? Split batch had WLP001 and Furlough had Nottingham.

All things to test. Gotta go fly now.

Ester Report 1

What I want in life is to make a beer like Widmer's Citra Blonde. A clean blonde beer. Unfortunately, I suck. All I have been making is ester beer. They really come through when you have a light beer. To re-cap I've tried different air locks, different temperatures, more yeast, and now clean gear. In all cases one was more/less estery than another but still they were all estery. I made furlough beer and used two packs of dry english yeast. At first I thought it was a bust after I sampled it 4 days in. But now after 10 days I would say it is drinkable. Maybe my least estery blonde yet. Could it simply be the english yeast? All the others were the Chico strain. Three days into the fermentation of clean gear beer I can say they both taste the same. I'll try again next weekend. But something tells me that they will continue to taste the same. So where do this leave us? Temperature! I really need to get going on my sexy temp controller.

Infection?

I went to sample the furlough beer. It tasted ok, but noticed a little ester in there. Is it just green beer taste that will clear up in a few days? Maybe. But I think not. I think it will get steadily worse over the coming weeks.

All my beers for a while now are too estery/cidery. What's happening? Why? One key thing I noticed is that it gets worse the older it gets. This led me to do some thinking and I'm now guessing that the issue is an infection. Some type of acetobacter I'm guessing. They work slowly which is why as the days/weeks go by the beer get worse. I wonder if I were to add oxygen to the beer after a few weeks, would it turn into vinegar? There are a couple of ways we can test this.

1. I plan to make a small batch of beer in the kitchen on Saturday. Nothing fancy. Just some DME, water, and a little hops. Once the wort is cooled I will put it two separate 1 liter water bottles. One of these water bottles will not have any of my gear touch it. From the pot to the bottle. Shake it up to add some O2 the old fashion way, add yeast, and done. I'll use ballons with little holes poked in them as air locks. Then, add wort to another 1 liter bottle but use the funnel, O2 stone, and thief (to check gravity). Basically, all the plasticy things I normally use (except the racking cane). Then I put these in the chest freezer for a couple of weeks and sample.

2. The furlough beer will be given O2 after another week and we can see if starts to become vinegar. Of course if the furlough beer is amazing I'll drink it and not experiment with it. I check it again in a week.

My guess is the O2 stone is the culprit. I jam it in the fermenter every time and I have never completely taken it apart to clean it. All it ever gets is a rinse after use and a boil before use. The boil is only the top 3 inches as well. I'm looking to sanitize just the O2 stone itself. I've never put effort into the tubing.

If this test shows that there is an infection the plastic stuff that touches the beer after it has been cooled must be replaced.

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. 

Split Batch Results

So after three weeks I sampled the split batch and two things were noted. First, the beer with more yeast was less estery. Second, both beers were still horribly estery. So, I've learned what things I can do to get less esters but I still have an ester problem in my brewery. What am I doing to cause this problem? It will be a fun adventure to figure it out. Who knows. Maybe I will never figure it out and my career as an amateur brewer is over. But I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet!

Possible issues:
1. I think I need to keep the wort cool before I pitch. I usually get impatient and cool the wort only to 72ish, pitch the yeast, and then cool to 65ish in the chest freezer. Maybe this drop in temp pisses off the yeast. So next brew I think I will cool the wort more before I pitch.

2. The chest freezer is currently set at +-3F. I always thought this was sufficient since the beer is a large thermal mass and would not fluctuate all that much. Also, this will keep the compressor from cycling on and off like a boss. Perhaps this is causing the beer temp to fluctuate too much. Once I get the temp controller working I will be able to gather data about this issue.

3. Equipment issues. Maybe the stuff that measures the temperatures is broke. Maybe the O2 stone is broke. Maybe some other equipment is to blame. I'm going to try #1 and #2 before I start thinking about this.

Wish me luck.