Beer finished at 1.008. This gives an ABV of 4.3%.
Beer is too thin. No body. Makes it feel odd in my mouth. Like if you took half a pale ale and added water to the other half and drank it. It tastes like beer flavored water.
It is not too bitter.
The late addition hops are very good. At this point Amarillo is better than Cascade. Next batch we will try a new one.
I just ordered some more supplies. We will switch the recipe to 10lbs of 2-row and 1 lb Crystal 40 instead of 9lb 2row and 1 lb Crystal 15L. This should give me the gravity I want and improve the body even if I screw the mash temp.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Day before 5 gallons of Mead
It is the day before 5 gallons of mead. Kevin will be coming over tomorrow night. I am trying to get the starter ready. I found a mead OG calculator and determined that we will likely start with an OG at around 1.1. I look at Jamil's website and he says I will need a 1 liter starter with 2 vials. I have two vials. I need to make a starter.
Having referenced the same mead OG calculator it tells me that for 1L of water, 6oz of honey will give an OG of 1.045. I measured out 6oz the best I found and with my new badass refractometer I found the starter gravity to be 1.050. This is not tragic. The internets say we will need a OG around 1.050 for a mead starter. So we win.
I will warm up the solution, which is now a "must", to 160ish and hold it there for 15mins to kill germs. Then cool it to 70F. Then we get to the issue of nutrients.
Last time I added some Go-Ferm. I guess this is just for dry yeast so this go around I wont bother. The internet also claims I will need Fermaid-K which I have. But I also need DAP. Now this is conflicting because the Fermaid-K says it already has DAP in it and any more is not needed. Who to believe. Well I haven't got DAP so I guess it doesn't really matter. We'll add the Fermaid-K. I think here's what I will do. Kevin and I will add 5 grams on brew day. Then Kevin will add O2 for a couple of days. On the third day he will add 5 more grams.
The yeast I am using is White Labs Sweet Mead Wine Yeast. They've been in the fridge awhile at MoreBeer since one of them has a best before date of 1-14-12 and the other 2-12-12. So, one of them shouldn't be used. Oh well. The lot numbers are: 1720TCL7247351 and 1720TLP3416061.
Kevin bought the honey from Bennett's Honey Farm in Fillmore, CA. He bought two buckets which is way more that we need. That comes to 24lbs. I think we will use about 15 lbs of it. That leaves a bit left for experimentation.
Having referenced the same mead OG calculator it tells me that for 1L of water, 6oz of honey will give an OG of 1.045. I measured out 6oz the best I found and with my new badass refractometer I found the starter gravity to be 1.050. This is not tragic. The internets say we will need a OG around 1.050 for a mead starter. So we win.
I will warm up the solution, which is now a "must", to 160ish and hold it there for 15mins to kill germs. Then cool it to 70F. Then we get to the issue of nutrients.
Last time I added some Go-Ferm. I guess this is just for dry yeast so this go around I wont bother. The internet also claims I will need Fermaid-K which I have. But I also need DAP. Now this is conflicting because the Fermaid-K says it already has DAP in it and any more is not needed. Who to believe. Well I haven't got DAP so I guess it doesn't really matter. We'll add the Fermaid-K. I think here's what I will do. Kevin and I will add 5 grams on brew day. Then Kevin will add O2 for a couple of days. On the third day he will add 5 more grams.
The yeast I am using is White Labs Sweet Mead Wine Yeast. They've been in the fridge awhile at MoreBeer since one of them has a best before date of 1-14-12 and the other 2-12-12. So, one of them shouldn't be used. Oh well. The lot numbers are: 1720TCL7247351 and 1720TLP3416061.
Kevin bought the honey from Bennett's Honey Farm in Fillmore, CA. He bought two buckets which is way more that we need. That comes to 24lbs. I think we will use about 15 lbs of it. That leaves a bit left for experimentation.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Janet's Brown Ale
Decided to brew a Brown Ale for Ellie today. The brew seemed fitting as it was a favorite of a well known homebrewer Mike "Tasty" Mcdole's wife, Janet. She helped give him feedback on the brew which he then went on the win awards for. Sadly, she died of lymphoma or leukemia and he named the beer after her. Every time this kit is purchased a dollar is sent to cancer charity. Since Ellie loves brown ale and has lymphoma this beer somehow seems fitting. It further seems fitting that I am brewing this beer and typing this blog on a morning without her since she is at her sister's house recovering from chemo. I'm sure she'll make it here sometime today but I miss her hanging with me in the garage while I brew. Ok enough with the sad stuff. Here's the important data.
12lbs 2-row
1lb White Wheat
1lb 4oz Crystal 40L
8oz Chocolate Malt
2oz Northern Brewer 8.6% AA - 60 min
1oz Northern Brewer 8.6% AA - 15 min
1.5oz Cascade 6.4% AA - 10 min
1.5oz Cascade 6.4% AA - 1 min
2oz Centennial 10.3% AA - Dry hop 7days
Servomyces 10min
Whirfloc 10 min
1tbsp 5.2 during mash
Mash at 154F
WLP001 - Date = 4/08/12 - Lot# 1001CIEKON2-3
I have remembered to measured the mash temp before putting the grains in. It was 171 by the time I put the grains in. Beer Smith says 171 to reach a mash temp of 154. When I put the grains in I got closer to 158. No problem. Over shooting is way easier to deal with. I always put cold water in the fridge just for this. Not even 1/4 of a gallon of cold water later and I'm at 152. Well, shit. I guess the Crystal 40 will supply the body and maltiness but I was hoping for 154.
Actually, I left the thermometer in the mash tun while I fetching up the 5.2 and it now reads 154. So all seems well.
Got a new tool. A refractometer. This bad boy allows me to check the gravity of the wort at any temp. It's not useful once fermentation begins but very useful when I sparge. The first running come in at 1.085+. We will sparge at least until 1.012ish I hope. After that we start to extract tannins and other gross things.
Having problems getting the sparge up to temp. I'm now pouring boiling water in and the temp just won't rise. Also, the sparge is going too fast. I hope I get the sugars out that I want.
Hell now I'm worried that the boiling water maybe extracting the tannins and will cause the beer to taste poorly. Well I'm familiar with that test from this fall so I'll know it in a few weeks. This little experiment will tell us whether the OVERALL sparge temp in the mash tun needs to be 168F or if the sparge WATER should be 168F. I have a feeling that I was seeing poor mash efficiency due to the overall sparge temp being too low. So we'll see what we get.
Gravity is now 1.034. OVERALL mash tun temp still under 160F.
Done sparging. OVERALL mash tun temp got up to 166F. 168F is the magic number so hopefully we did good. I sparged until I filled the boil pot. At that point the sparge was running at 1.018. So we didn't get all the sugar we wanted out. Pre-boil gravity is 1.055 but I got a lot of liquid so I might boil for a few extra minutes before I add the hops to condense it down and that number should hop up.
At this point the beer doesn't smell very much like the wort I am used to smelling. I'm expecting a sweet, malty smell. Instead it smells like burnt coffee. Now I did add chocolate malt which does impart that flavor but this seems too strong. It doesn't taste very sweet either. Now I'm worried I've dorked up Ellie's beer. I guess we'll know in two weeks.
This keeps getting worse and worse. I am not on my game today. So I take a gravity reading and it measures out at like 1.040. How the hell does that happen? I'm really perplexed now. So I think maybe the thinner stuff hangs on top and the thicker on the bottom. So I figure to stir it up real good and try again. Once I do that it like hell was unleashed from the bottom. So boil goes crazy and begins throwing wort over the kettle onto the ground. And it smelled like burnt coffee. Bad. I take another reading and same thing. WTF is going on??
Then I make another error when I add the bittering hops. I always add less then what is recommended because my beers seem to come out too bitter. I accidentally add the whole thing and then try to get a spoon to get some of it back.
Then I tried to clean up the mess. This beer is fucked and I'm getting a bad attitude about it.
On top of that the wort has attracted bees. A shit load of bees in my garage. I can't close the garage because of the gas fumes.
Ok. I just cleaned the mash tun and I've calmed down a little. In retrospect I suppose everyone has a bad brew day from time to time. I did little research on the interwebs and I find that some person of unknown reliability think the temp of the grain bed it what matters. I asked reddit. We'll see. I should try to have a better attitude and try to learn as much as I can about what went wrong today and improve so that it doesn't happen in the future. Let's focus on the good. I did hit my mash temp today. First time ever.
Reddit says batch sparge. Maybe I should switch to that. I made a great Bitter with that. I think they are on to something there. It's easier and I won't have this mess I'm dealing with now.
You know this is why we need a homebrew club. So I can help fools with the things I'm good at and they can help me when I'm the fool. Dylan wanted me to lead it up. Simply because I know a bunch of them. There's Ty and his boys. Then there's Tom Kunkle. And then there's Will. Each of those people know a couple/few people.
Refractometer says gravity will be 1.055. I will verify with my hydrometer when the wort cools down. I was supposed to be 1.065 so I am way off. Maybe this isn't my fault. Maybe the guy who crushes grain at MoreBeer does a shitty job. Maybe the grain comes to me and is not crushed on accident and I never notice it. Maybe once the grain is milled it should be used right away and I don't use it for a week or so. Maybe I should embrace my lack of efficiency and just own it. It's not like it's hard to overcome. I just by 11lbs of grain instead of 10. That ain't hard. Another thing, back in November when I made Elf King Ale for the first time I did hit my gravity. As I recall, the sparge took 90 minutes to complete. I'm now thinking that temp matter a whole lot less and the amount of time matters a whole lot more.
Ok. Hydrometer says 1.061 gravity. This makes me feel a little better. After looking again at the refractometer it says 1.057. The documentation that came with it says it is accurate +-0.002. So they are close. I think I will still use the hydrometer. I will use the refractometer during the sparge to get an idea of how much more I should be sparging. If I had sparged until I reached 1.012 then I bet I would have reached my 1.065. Again, I'm betting it's a time issue. I bet if you sparge for 1 hour and get 5 gallons or 10 gallons, you have pulled the same amount of sugar off. Just with my liquid. Sparge slower.
Also, I tasted a sample and it didn't taste as burnt coffee as I thought it would. It didn't taste as sweet as I thought it would either. It tasted a little bitter. I still think we are going to get a crap beer but we'll see.
One last thing. The pre-chiller thing is not working out too well. It takes too long to cool. I'm still going to use the pre-chiller but I think I will move the boil pot the basin and fill it with ice like before.
End of day.
12lbs 2-row
1lb White Wheat
1lb 4oz Crystal 40L
8oz Chocolate Malt
2oz Northern Brewer 8.6% AA - 60 min
1oz Northern Brewer 8.6% AA - 15 min
1.5oz Cascade 6.4% AA - 10 min
1.5oz Cascade 6.4% AA - 1 min
2oz Centennial 10.3% AA - Dry hop 7days
Servomyces 10min
Whirfloc 10 min
1tbsp 5.2 during mash
Mash at 154F
WLP001 - Date = 4/08/12 - Lot# 1001CIEKON2-3
I have remembered to measured the mash temp before putting the grains in. It was 171 by the time I put the grains in. Beer Smith says 171 to reach a mash temp of 154. When I put the grains in I got closer to 158. No problem. Over shooting is way easier to deal with. I always put cold water in the fridge just for this. Not even 1/4 of a gallon of cold water later and I'm at 152. Well, shit. I guess the Crystal 40 will supply the body and maltiness but I was hoping for 154.
Actually, I left the thermometer in the mash tun while I fetching up the 5.2 and it now reads 154. So all seems well.
Got a new tool. A refractometer. This bad boy allows me to check the gravity of the wort at any temp. It's not useful once fermentation begins but very useful when I sparge. The first running come in at 1.085+. We will sparge at least until 1.012ish I hope. After that we start to extract tannins and other gross things.
Having problems getting the sparge up to temp. I'm now pouring boiling water in and the temp just won't rise. Also, the sparge is going too fast. I hope I get the sugars out that I want.
Hell now I'm worried that the boiling water maybe extracting the tannins and will cause the beer to taste poorly. Well I'm familiar with that test from this fall so I'll know it in a few weeks. This little experiment will tell us whether the OVERALL sparge temp in the mash tun needs to be 168F or if the sparge WATER should be 168F. I have a feeling that I was seeing poor mash efficiency due to the overall sparge temp being too low. So we'll see what we get.
Gravity is now 1.034. OVERALL mash tun temp still under 160F.
Done sparging. OVERALL mash tun temp got up to 166F. 168F is the magic number so hopefully we did good. I sparged until I filled the boil pot. At that point the sparge was running at 1.018. So we didn't get all the sugar we wanted out. Pre-boil gravity is 1.055 but I got a lot of liquid so I might boil for a few extra minutes before I add the hops to condense it down and that number should hop up.
At this point the beer doesn't smell very much like the wort I am used to smelling. I'm expecting a sweet, malty smell. Instead it smells like burnt coffee. Now I did add chocolate malt which does impart that flavor but this seems too strong. It doesn't taste very sweet either. Now I'm worried I've dorked up Ellie's beer. I guess we'll know in two weeks.
This keeps getting worse and worse. I am not on my game today. So I take a gravity reading and it measures out at like 1.040. How the hell does that happen? I'm really perplexed now. So I think maybe the thinner stuff hangs on top and the thicker on the bottom. So I figure to stir it up real good and try again. Once I do that it like hell was unleashed from the bottom. So boil goes crazy and begins throwing wort over the kettle onto the ground. And it smelled like burnt coffee. Bad. I take another reading and same thing. WTF is going on??
Then I make another error when I add the bittering hops. I always add less then what is recommended because my beers seem to come out too bitter. I accidentally add the whole thing and then try to get a spoon to get some of it back.
Then I tried to clean up the mess. This beer is fucked and I'm getting a bad attitude about it.
On top of that the wort has attracted bees. A shit load of bees in my garage. I can't close the garage because of the gas fumes.
Ok. I just cleaned the mash tun and I've calmed down a little. In retrospect I suppose everyone has a bad brew day from time to time. I did little research on the interwebs and I find that some person of unknown reliability think the temp of the grain bed it what matters. I asked reddit. We'll see. I should try to have a better attitude and try to learn as much as I can about what went wrong today and improve so that it doesn't happen in the future. Let's focus on the good. I did hit my mash temp today. First time ever.
Reddit says batch sparge. Maybe I should switch to that. I made a great Bitter with that. I think they are on to something there. It's easier and I won't have this mess I'm dealing with now.
You know this is why we need a homebrew club. So I can help fools with the things I'm good at and they can help me when I'm the fool. Dylan wanted me to lead it up. Simply because I know a bunch of them. There's Ty and his boys. Then there's Tom Kunkle. And then there's Will. Each of those people know a couple/few people.
Refractometer says gravity will be 1.055. I will verify with my hydrometer when the wort cools down. I was supposed to be 1.065 so I am way off. Maybe this isn't my fault. Maybe the guy who crushes grain at MoreBeer does a shitty job. Maybe the grain comes to me and is not crushed on accident and I never notice it. Maybe once the grain is milled it should be used right away and I don't use it for a week or so. Maybe I should embrace my lack of efficiency and just own it. It's not like it's hard to overcome. I just by 11lbs of grain instead of 10. That ain't hard. Another thing, back in November when I made Elf King Ale for the first time I did hit my gravity. As I recall, the sparge took 90 minutes to complete. I'm now thinking that temp matter a whole lot less and the amount of time matters a whole lot more.
Ok. Hydrometer says 1.061 gravity. This makes me feel a little better. After looking again at the refractometer it says 1.057. The documentation that came with it says it is accurate +-0.002. So they are close. I think I will still use the hydrometer. I will use the refractometer during the sparge to get an idea of how much more I should be sparging. If I had sparged until I reached 1.012 then I bet I would have reached my 1.065. Again, I'm betting it's a time issue. I bet if you sparge for 1 hour and get 5 gallons or 10 gallons, you have pulled the same amount of sugar off. Just with my liquid. Sparge slower.
Also, I tasted a sample and it didn't taste as burnt coffee as I thought it would. It didn't taste as sweet as I thought it would either. It tasted a little bitter. I still think we are going to get a crap beer but we'll see.
One last thing. The pre-chiller thing is not working out too well. It takes too long to cool. I'm still going to use the pre-chiller but I think I will move the boil pot the basin and fill it with ice like before.
End of day.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Elf King Ale I
This will be my first official Elf King Ale. I'm sick so I'm not in the mood to drink. So to pass the time I'll write the brew blog as it the day goes on.
It is New Year's Eve. Ellie is in the garage with me. She is doing the laundry. It's nice to have her here even if she doesn't help or even talk to me. She got this do-dad that turn anything into a speaker so she turned one of my old foam coolers into a speaker and it playing some music. It's nice.
Gonna try a pre-chiller today too. Let's see how that goes. Also used a stir plate for my yeast starter. It took some work but I got it work. It needs some tweaking though.
Ingredients are as follows:
9lbs 2row
1lb Crystal 15L
0.75oz Magnum 14.1% AA - 60minutes
1 oz Amarillo 9.3%AA - 5 minutes
1 oz Amarillo 9.3%AA - 1minute
WLP001 - Mar-24-12 - Lot# 1001CIIKONA1
Servomyces and Whirlfloc at 10min
5.2 during mash
Mash at 151-152
Missed my mash temp. It will be 149. I'm shooting for a OG of 1.048ish.
Sparging now. A little worried. Sparge looks light in color. I'm not getting the super awesome grain aromas I'm used to. I tasted the wort and it wasn't as sweet as I expected. I do have a throat lozenge in so maybe that matters. The grain was in the fridge for over a week. Maybe that matters. Maybe I should just wait until I measure the gravity before I freak out.
I want the sparge temp to be 170. I keep putting 170 in the mash tun but it maintains 150. This maybe the reason I've not been extracting the sugars I think I should. In the future what I need to do is have a thermometer in the mash tun during the sparge and watch the temp closely.
Wort looks thin and light. I doesn't taste sweet. I measured the pre-boil gravity. It came out 1.020. That doesn't seem like a lot. The wort was hot. It was on the burner already. Now I'm freaking out.
A thought on mashing. I should get a temperature dialed in to exactly what I want and THEN add the grain. That way I can remove the water if needed and heat it up or cool it down. I think I did that last time. Why didn't I this time. It's time to create a procedure. Just spend the day and make it. Then refer to it on brew day and make improvements the second I feel the need to. Not sometime later.
Ok. Waiting for the wort to cool now. The pre-chiller seems to be working. I can feel the copper coming from the ice bucket and it is nice and cold. The boil was uneventful. All went well. I've got that down pat.
One thing that did happen was that I turned the hose on too hard and the water from the hose found its into my wort. So if it tastes like total shit or gets some bacteria in it that likely the source.
All done. OG = 1.041. Very light. We should call this Elf King Ale Light.
It is New Year's Eve. Ellie is in the garage with me. She is doing the laundry. It's nice to have her here even if she doesn't help or even talk to me. She got this do-dad that turn anything into a speaker so she turned one of my old foam coolers into a speaker and it playing some music. It's nice.
Gonna try a pre-chiller today too. Let's see how that goes. Also used a stir plate for my yeast starter. It took some work but I got it work. It needs some tweaking though.
Ingredients are as follows:
9lbs 2row
1lb Crystal 15L
0.75oz Magnum 14.1% AA - 60minutes
1 oz Amarillo 9.3%AA - 5 minutes
1 oz Amarillo 9.3%AA - 1minute
WLP001 - Mar-24-12 - Lot# 1001CIIKONA1
Servomyces and Whirlfloc at 10min
5.2 during mash
Mash at 151-152
Missed my mash temp. It will be 149. I'm shooting for a OG of 1.048ish.
Sparging now. A little worried. Sparge looks light in color. I'm not getting the super awesome grain aromas I'm used to. I tasted the wort and it wasn't as sweet as I expected. I do have a throat lozenge in so maybe that matters. The grain was in the fridge for over a week. Maybe that matters. Maybe I should just wait until I measure the gravity before I freak out.
I want the sparge temp to be 170. I keep putting 170 in the mash tun but it maintains 150. This maybe the reason I've not been extracting the sugars I think I should. In the future what I need to do is have a thermometer in the mash tun during the sparge and watch the temp closely.
Wort looks thin and light. I doesn't taste sweet. I measured the pre-boil gravity. It came out 1.020. That doesn't seem like a lot. The wort was hot. It was on the burner already. Now I'm freaking out.
A thought on mashing. I should get a temperature dialed in to exactly what I want and THEN add the grain. That way I can remove the water if needed and heat it up or cool it down. I think I did that last time. Why didn't I this time. It's time to create a procedure. Just spend the day and make it. Then refer to it on brew day and make improvements the second I feel the need to. Not sometime later.
Ok. Waiting for the wort to cool now. The pre-chiller seems to be working. I can feel the copper coming from the ice bucket and it is nice and cold. The boil was uneventful. All went well. I've got that down pat.
One thing that did happen was that I turned the hose on too hard and the water from the hose found its into my wort. So if it tastes like total shit or gets some bacteria in it that likely the source.
All done. OG = 1.041. Very light. We should call this Elf King Ale Light.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Ale Industries Rye'd Piper Kegged
Kegged the rye beer. Did not go smoothly. I used the pump type racking cane and couldn't get the racking cane to maintain a seal so I would fiddle with it to try and keep the seal. This would cause a rough siphon. Then I tried to just use a vinyl tube and fill it with StarSan solution and try to get a siphon going that way.
I got the beer out but it was a mess. Way more yeast made it into the keg than normal. Way more splashing and oxygenation than normal. Not happy.
After that I pressurized the keg to 20 and shook the crap out of it for 15 minutes to get the CO2 into solution. Then I moved it to the chest fridge. After a few hours I gave it a go. I drew out a lot of yeast so I tossed that glass. I tried again and got an ok glass. It was carbonated. Still needed a little bit more but I tasted ok.
I should be ready for New Years Eve party. Let's just see.
I got the beer out but it was a mess. Way more yeast made it into the keg than normal. Way more splashing and oxygenation than normal. Not happy.
After that I pressurized the keg to 20 and shook the crap out of it for 15 minutes to get the CO2 into solution. Then I moved it to the chest fridge. After a few hours I gave it a go. I drew out a lot of yeast so I tossed that glass. I tried again and got an ok glass. It was carbonated. Still needed a little bit more but I tasted ok.
I should be ready for New Years Eve party. Let's just see.
Best Christmas gift evar!!!
I got the best Christmas gift ever. Ellie got a local artist to make me up some bottle labels and banners. The labels say "Elf King Ale" with a cute little elf with a mug in his hand. She made the labels in white and gold. People seem torn about which is better. She got me two banners. One says "Elf King Ale" and has the elf on either side of the text. I stuck it to my chest fridge. These look great. Thanks wife.
Mead Bottled
The mead has been bottled. I got five bottles from it. One bottle was promised to Brian Wolfe and was delivered today. The other four were placed with the other wine. Hopefully I'll forget about them and discover them many months from now. Otherwise I might get too eager and drink it.
One trick I attempted since I planned to keep it in the bottle for awhile was to blow CO2 from an empty keg into the head space to try and clear out the O2 from air.
One trick I attempted since I planned to keep it in the bottle for awhile was to blow CO2 from an empty keg into the head space to try and clear out the O2 from air.
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