Buster's Brown Clone

I roped the brew club into making a clone of Bravery's Buster's Brown. Brian Avery sent over a skeleton of the ingredients and let us fill in the details. This is my attempt at said ingredients:

12 lbs 2 row
8oz C40
6oz cara-pils
8oz white wheat malt
4oz chocolate malt

2oz Magnum
2oz Northern Brewer
2oz Cascade

2 packets of US-05

I'll add the Northern Brewer with 10mins to go and Cascade at flame out.

For a water profile I'm going to add the following to distilled (which I got from ezwatercalculator.com):
Mash:
4g CaSO4
2g CaCl2
1g MgSO4

Sparge:
4g CaSO4
2g CaCl2
1g MgSO4

This should yield the following:
77ppm Ca
5ppm Mg
0ppm Na
51ppm Cl
134ppm SO4

With a pH of 5.6

1.5mL of Lactic Acid should get us down to a pH of 5.5

We mashed in a little high. Around 158. I got it down to 154-156. The pH measured 5.4. So, I will not add any acid.

OG will be 1.064. A little high. The wort tasted bitter. I went with 1.5oz of magnum and 1.5oz of Northern Brewer. Glad I did that. All in all it was a very ho hum boring brew day. Here's to hoping the beer comes out tasty.

Club SMASH beer

 Th club thought it would be fun to do a SMASH beer. I don't remember what grain or hops we landed on but I know I've got 15# of the grain. I think I will try to make beer fast.

I didn't calibrate the thermometers. I've crushed the grain just now and am heating up the strike water. I bought Crystal Geyser water. 

9:57 - All mashed in. I'm going to wait an hour. I'll clean the keg and when I'm done, I will sparge. Mash temp is about 150F. I went a little high and added some cool water. About 1/4 of a gallon bu that was too much so I added some hot strike water. It initially looked a little thick and now looks like what I'm used to seeing. I probably added about 5 gallons. I also added a little acid to the mash. How much? I don't know. Did it need it? I don't know.

10:36 - It was a 30min mash. I'm sparging now. Just ran off the first as fast as I could. Then poured 3 gallons of cold water in, stirred 

12:15 - All done. I'm guessing it rook 2.5 hours. Maybe 3. The OG will be 1.056. It tasted ok going into the fermenter. Other than that it was a boring day. Will all the short cuts spoil the beer. We will see how it comes out.

Some other things I did, I added the hops, whirlfloc, and yeast nutrient to the kettle just before I ran off the sparge. I used the immersion chiller. I thought it would clean up quicker.

A Hefe

So I entered the AHA competition. Seemed like the thing to do to set an example in the homebrew club. I'm not sure where I got this recipe. I may have made it up. I may have grabbed it from somewhere. I don't know. I'm pretty sure part of it is just old un-used yeast. So way to go me for using fresh ingredients. Gotta put your best foot forward.

5lbs Maris Otter
5lbs Pale Wheat
1lb Dark Munich

1oz Hallertau Mittelfruh 4% AA

2x SafAle WB-06

Distilled water with the following salts in the mash:
3g gypsum
1g salt
4g CaCl

Some quick math tells me that I need two packets of yeast. Thankfully I got 2. What I need to do it take 10 times the weight of wort during cooling to re-hydrate. That would be 220ml. So, hopefully I don't forget. 

It's 1pm as I type this and I still have to get to the store and calibrate thermometers and all that. So it could be a while before I'm actually boiling things.

3:13pm - We are now heating the strike water. I've measured out the salts. I've calibrated the thermometers and the pH meter. Grain has been milled. So far everything is going smooth.

3:38 - I've mashed in. Mash temp is 150 which is exactly what I was after. So that's awesome. The pH came in at 5.1 which is a little low but not tragic. I'll assemble the brew kettle next. So far everything is going very smooth.

4:20 - Heating up the sparge water now. I've assembled the boil kettle, cleaned the fermentation chamber, and made some cider. I entered that into the NHC as well. I didn't put much effort into that. I put in a some all spice, nutmeg, and cloves in a 1 gallon fermenter, apple cider, and yeast. I did add a little yeast nutrient.  How much of each spice? You know, just a little sprinkle. What yeast? WLP 775. I will say the expiration date was two days ago.I give this an extreme low chance of turning out good. This is where my life is.

5:20 - We are well into the boil now. The first gravity reading I got was 1.040. Things are going well. Bugsy has been in and out of here all afternoon. 

7:04 - Done. OG will be 1.052. It tasted really good. I went with the old fashioned copper coil for heat exchange today. I stirred like hell and I think it cooled faster than the plate chiller. I'm going to move to this method from now on. This was one of the most easy, pleasant brew days I've ever had. Not sure why. Days like this make me want to brew more.

Dunkles Club Brew

 The guys thought it would be fun to brew a dunkle. Ok. We got the bearded brewer to ship me the ingredients and I kitted it up for the boys. The recipe is from an old BYO article.

10lbs Weyermann Dark Munich Malt
4oz Melanoidin malt
4oz Carafa II

2oz Tettnanger Hops 3.4% AA

Saflager W-34/70. This is a dry yeast. Bearded brewer recommended switching to dry. Let's try it out. I don't think we need to hit it with O2. Dry yeast doesn't need it.

2:30 - I had to build up the new propane burner. I'm really dragging today. Like most days now. Kids keep me from sleeping well. I'm about to measure out the salts for today. I'm going with:

8g - CaCO3 (Chalk)
4g - CaCl
2g - Epsom

3:45 - I don't know why everything is so slow today. I've calibrated my thermometers. Put together the mash tun and the boil kettle. I'm heating up strike water now. I'm going to try for 152F for the mash today. The new burner smells bad.

4:53 - Heating up sparge water. We hit our first snag of the day when it appears that the batteries of the pH meter are dead and it takes coin cell batteries. Second thing came up and that was when I went to clean the keg, there was no PBW. I remembered then that I was out. And I just ordered stuff from MoreBeer. I guess that's how life is. I'm now using OxyClean for the keg. We will see how well it works.

6:02 - Well into the boil now. I've cleaned the mash tun. Made a mess. Got the rig a little wet with wort. So it should be sticky later when I try to move it. I added about a pound of DME to the wort to get the gravity to where I think it will be 1.050. I was really struggling with this for some reason. I would take a sample, add wort and then the gravity number was smaller which is impossible. Eventually I used the pipette to grab wort and sample it. When I was though I got a sample of 1.040 which should be right. I usually pick up 0.010 in the boil. I don't know why suddenly I'm missing my gravities by sooo much. I brew so seldom now I can't find the time to figure it out. It's just what it is at this point. I've now moved beer ingredients to the fridge in the back yard. I'm hoping this will allow the serving fridge to air out.

8:15 - All done. O.G will be over 1.050. I was worried at first since the hydrometer measured in at 1.040 but then I realized I took it straight from the kettle which was still hot. So I probably added a little too much DME but it tasted a little bit bitter when I sampled it so maybe it will all balance out. I ran out of ice. Luckily there was enough in the freezer. I got the plate chiller to cool the wort down to 62ish. That works since I can slowly walk the beer down to 55 over the next day or so. Bugsy came in to "help" me clean. I asked him to stay in the garage or he would have to leave. That was bouncing off the walls hard and couldn't "control his body" as his former teachers used to say. Eventually he left the garage one too many times and dad kicked him out. Not so sad since he was hungry anyway.

Anyway that ends the day. I need PBW. Maybe I'll add in something to clear up the cider I'm thinking of making. I picked some up at the store while I was getting water and ice. I'm thinking of returning Gavin's bottle with some.

AHA Big Brew

Well, I've installed myself as the president of a brew club in town. Not because I want to be president of something but because I want a brew club and I know what I want it to look like. So I started one and am doing me best to mold it into that image. My hope is that in a year or so, the club will be taken over by someone more eager and I will get to enjoy culture I established until I die. Anyhow I digress...One thing I wanted for the club was to have an internal homebrew competition and I planned to do it in the fall during a yearly festival. Covid struck and as such we can no longer meet at Flight Line Tap Room (our new home). One thing I thought might bring us together would be to brew together but separately. The AHA Big Brew was May 2nd and the thinking was that we were going to get together to brew until the pandemic arrived. So I thought we could combine these two events and brew the AHA recipe as a club and use that as our internal homebrew competition. We thought we could reach out to our local homebrew shop 100 miles away and throw him some business. The recipe was strange and the ingredients hard to get to Dylan did best to substitute and put together a big ass order and had it shipped to me. I kitted these up and had the guys come over the Friday before and we all sort of brewed together but separate that weekend. Except I have kids. And I need time when they are away to brew. So I picked this Friday since I thought that FedEx would deliver my MoreBeer order which contained a new burner since the old was leaking on Thursday, which they did not. So brew bother Jacob hooked me up with a burner. That's a lot of catching up of my brewing world right there. Ok, here's the recipe:

 50.0     6.00 lbs. Maris Otter                   Great Britain  1.038      4
 41.7     5.00 lbs. Pilsener                      Germany        1.038      2
  8.3     1.00 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt                      1.033      2

  1.00 oz.    Chinook                           Pellet  13.00  49.7  60 min.
  0.50 oz.    El Dorado                         Pellet  15.00  14.2  15 min.
  1.00 oz.    Samba                             Pellet  11.60   0.0  0 min.
  0.50 oz.    El Dorado                         Pellet  15.00   0.0  0 min.
  1.00 oz.    Cashmere                          Pellet   9.60   0.0  Dry Hop
  1.00 oz.    El Dorado                         Pellet  15.00   0.0  Dry Hop
  1.00 oz.    Samba                             Pellet  11.60   0.0  Dry Hop

Lallemand Voss Kveik

We will be using distilled water with the following additions to the mash:
10g gypsum
1g epsom salt
1g NaCl
2g Calcium Chloride

We will try to measure the pH but I don't think any of the pH meters will be accurate right now. I have plans to add 1g of lactic to the mash to drop the pH to 5.4. I was going to measure and see then decide if I add it. It may just be a bust and I will have to add anyway.

Junny wants to have the spent grain for baking so I need to remember not to throw things away.

1:45 - It's late. I'm going to be still brewing by the time the kids get back and I feel bad about it. I'm going to have to find a way to make it up to the women. Anyhow, I've boiled the O2 stone, calibrated the thermometers, calibrated the refractometer, measured out my salts, assembled the mash tun, moved around the garage a bit, measured out the acid, calibrated the pH meter (it seems to be working great), and I'm sure other things. I need to heat up my strike water and grind the grain.

2:27 - I've just mashed in. I wanted a lower mash temp since I thought the Cara-Pils would be enough to give the brew body. Lowering the mash temp would also yield more ethanol. So that's nice. Initially the mash was too hot so I added some cool water. And I added too much and ended up about 147. Not tragic though. Next I measured the pH and got 5.0. That's a little low. I wanted 5.4 so this was off by quite a bit. I'm not sure if the brew calculator is off, if I used it wrong, or if I measured wrong. In any case, I am NOT adding additional acid. I did sprinkle a little 5.2 stabilizer in there hoping it would bring it up but that was a fail. I did nothing. So I guess we have what we have, don't we.

3:24 - Draining the last of the wort now. It doesn't taste as sweet as I was hoping. Pre-boil gravity is 1.040 and it should be 1.050. So this beer is a big big miss.

4:24 - Something that I did that maaaay disqualify me from the contest is that I held back on the early hop additions. Since I didn't hit my gravity I didn't have the malt backbone for so much hops. So added about 3/4. Almost done with the boil now.

5:23 - Ok I've cooled the wort and pitched the yeast. This yeast likes to be warm I guess so I'm putting it in my closet. Something I didn't pay attention to was that the yeast wants to be hydrated first before pitching. I noticed the direction on the packet as I was about to cut it open. So I go into the dishwasher and get the glass measuring cup and pour 100ml of water into it. The cup was warm from just having got out of the dishwasher and the water was warm because it was sitting in the garage. The packet indicated 30C so I think I got the temp covered. I forgot to sanitize the cup but it shouldn't be too bad it just came out of the dishwasher. The big screw up was the water. It was the water I was drinking. So all my mouth germs are now in the beer. Soooo, this beer is going to be awful. I guess I had a fun day though. I'm going to clean up now and I think I will clean the kegs while I am at it.

5:45 - O.G will be 1.050. Way off. I wanted 1.060 which I usually get. Was it because I mashed too cool. I don't know. I tasted the sample of wort that I took for the gravity measurement and it was awful. Tasted like burnt rubber.

MoreBeer Dunkleweizen

I'd hoped to squeeze in one more brewing day before the family gets back. I got a Dunkleweizen kit from MoreBeer so let's do this.

Ingredients:
6lbs White Wheat
4lbs 2-row
8oz Caramunich
4oz Pale Chocolate
4oz Carafa Special II

1oz Perle at 60min

GigaYeast Gold Pitch: GY022: British Ale #1 October 10, 2019

We will use the same water as we did on our last dunkle. These salts are added to 10 gallons of distilled:
2g Chalk (CaCO3)
2g Gypsum (CaSO4)
4g Calcium Chloride (CaCl2)
2g Epsom Salt (MgSO4)
1g Salt (NaCl)

Wyeast beer nutrient and Whirlfloc

11:00 - I've just configured my new temp controller, the ITC-308-WiFi. It has most of the functionality of the brewpi and was $40. So, it seemed like a win. Anyhow, it's configured and seems to be working. I'm going to get some food and supplies for the day.

12:24 - I've measured out the salts and boiled the O2 stone. I've calibrated the thermometers. So far all is well. I'm moving to the garage to start setting up there.

1:02 - We have doughed in. The mash temp was initially quite high at 158F but I just added some cool water and it quickly came down to 152F. I had a little leak in the ball valve but just tightened it down real quick and then no problems. The pH measured 5.1 and I couldn't be happier with that. The wind is blowing a little bit and its chilly in here.

1:50 - Running off now. I started mash out at 50mins instead of the usual 60. The sprage water was up to temperature and so I said let's go and didn't bother to look a the stop watch. Another screw up was that I thought I was so clever getting ahead of everything. I got a pitcher full of starsan going for the fermenter parts. I filled the other pitcher with starsan for the therminator. Soooo, I have no pitcher to transfer sparge water or to vorlof. So I grabbed a bowl from the kitchen for those things. Adapt and improvise I guess. One other thing, I think I may be detecting propane gas. Not sure if its in my mind. If not, not sure if it's because the tank itself is leaking or my gear is leaking. Either way, the garage is open so I should live.

2:09 - Run off complete. Pre-boil gravity is 1.040 which is what I would expect from 10lbs of grain.

3:15 - I've got about 15mins to go in the boil and I'm way more ahead then last brew. Things are going ok. The current propane tank kicked so I hooked up the next one and I think I can still detect propane that narrows it down to my equipment. It might be time to get a new burner. If this one is leaking propane then it needs to go. I've got kids to think about. They don't need to be inhaling propane.

3:51 - I was a little too awesome on the cooling. The beer is now 55F and I was shooting for 70ish. Sooo, I might has overdone that. It might be worth investing in an inline thermometer so I know what the temp of the wort is coming out as in real time. Another screw up was the I spilled a bunch of the Giga yeast. So I lost about 1/5 or 1/4 of the yeast on the floor. Life goes on I guess. Cleaning up now.

4:24 - The OG will be 1.048 which is about what I would expect. Note for next time I brew, I need ph4 solution, a new hose, and a new propane burner. I've still got some cleaning up to do but will be done in about 15 mins so this will be the last entry for the brew day.

Cali Mountain Pale Ale

It's been over a year since I've brewed beer. The family is out of town for the week so I took this time to build a nice collar for the keezer. I'll post more about that in a couple of days. For now, I've got a couple of beers that need to get brewed so here we go. First up is a pale ale ingredient kit from More Beer.

11lbs 2-row
12oz Crystal 60L

0.5oz Magnum @60
1oz Perle @30
2oz Cascade @1
1oz Cascase @0

!0 gallons of distilled with the following salts:
4g gypsum
6g calcium chloride
1g epsom
2g nacl

Wyeast beer nutrient. Whirlfloc.

Newyeast. Voss Kveik from Omega Yeast. OYL-061. Date = 26 Sept 2019. LC1C28

1:24pm - I was considering a double brew today. We'll just see how it goes. I'm already getting a really late start on this one. I'm boiling the O2 stone now and measuring out the salts.

1:56pm - Done measuring salts and boiling. Note to self, the scale is in a container. You have to take it out for it to work. I've also calibrated the new pH meter. I'm hungry. Gonna get some food.

3:43 - Doughed in. I had some problems with the ball valve. It was leaking. I needed to tighten it down real good. First time I've had to do that. I overshot the mash temp a little initially. I wanted 152 and got it up to 156. Then I added some cool water and got it down to 152ish. The new pH meter indicates that the mash is 4.9. That's a lot lower than the 5.3 that brewers friend tells me I should be getting. It's possible I measure everything out wrong. It also possible the probe has issues. I have no idea how long the probe sat unused. For fun I measured the distilled water which should be around 5.8 and it was. I re-measured the calibration solution to get 3.9, so it was reading a little low (it should read 4 with the calibration solution). If it is that low, then there's nothing I'm going to so about it. I could add some brewing salts but I think I'll just hang out and see how things turn out.

5:11 - I am boiling now. Pre-boil gravity is 1.040 which seems really low for 11lbs of grain. But I didn't pay very much attention during the sparge because three Mormon boys stopped by and chatted with me for an hour. I told them about how to make beer. They were nice. They tried to get me to come to church for Christmas. I politely declined.

7:57 - I'm cold. I'll update in a bit. But I'm done OG will be 1.048.

8:39 - Took a shower and am eating some chicken now. I'm feeling a little better. Ok. After the Mormons left I scrambled to get the therminator configured. I got real busy cleaning the lines and when I was done with that the brewing was done. It was then that I realized that I hadn't sanitized the therminator itself and so I set to doing that. It's been a year since I brewed and needed time to remember how to connect up the darn thing. So bad time management on my end. Once I got down to actually cooling the wort I ran into an issue in that the pump kept getting filled with air and then would refuse to pump. I have no idea why. But I would constantly need to stop and reconfigure the damn pump to get it to pump. And it's stressful because if the pump stops pumping and I don't notice, then hot wort goes into the fermenter. In the end I over did it since the wort got cooled to 64F. Way lower that what I needed. That's ok. Better than too hot.

The brew day took longer than usual today because it was difficult to get moving since it was so cold in the garage. A winter storm is coming. It's supposed to snow tomorrow morning and will be the first snow in a decade or so here in Ridgecrest. It will also be Thanksgiving so it should be real memorable. Since I made the keezer collar the polyurethane has been off gassing as it cures and leave vapors in the garage that are irritating my lungs so made sure as many doors in the garage were open today and that's what made it so cold. Couple that with the usual splashing of water on me during clean and man I was glad to get the day over. I couldn't imagine performing another brew today.

I must be really rusty. It seemed to take me so long to figure out what to do and how. I missed my mash temp, mash pH, gravity, and mismanaged time. I'm going to try and let it slide of off my back about how badly it seemed to go. Let's just wait and sample the beer. Maybe it will be great. It now lives in Ellie's closet in the large glass fermenter. I hope it doesn't explode yeast/beer all over her clothes. She doesn't deserve that. She left for the week with the kids. It was the nicest thing she could do for me. She's suffering right now with her family in Tracy. She reads these so...love you babe. Thanks!