EKA IV

Today I plan to do a split batch and have one fermenter with the silicon cap and the other with an air lock. I have a theory that the silicon cap is putting CO2 pressure on the beer and it is stressing the yeast. We will make EKA with a little less base grain.

9 lbs 2-row
1 lb Munich
0.5 lb Wheat

0.4oz Magnum 10.6 AA






WLP001 x2 - Jun-27-13, Lot PTI44-13

Servomyces
Whilfloc

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

1:06pm - Well into the brew day now. We are mashing now. Everything has gone smoothly. I've invited Kevin. He may get here later. It's a warm day for this time of year. It's nice. I've set up the gate so that snickers can hang with me. She seems to be happy.

Mashing at 150F. I hit a little high. Just added some room temp water. No problem.

Kevin came over. He brought Bud Black. That new Amber from the kit. It was good.

Ok. To sum up. Made a couple of mistakes. First I forgot to prepare the dry yeast for the beer. So as the beer was cooling I scrambled to get water boiled up with the mason jar. I did that and then got in it in the freezer to cool a little. Then I figured it would be better to throw it in the pre-chiller. This will be a good idea in the future. But, then I forgot to nicely warm up the dry yeast. So I fetch it from the fridge and put it under my arm pit to warm it up. This can't be good but I figure let's roll with it. After I get the water to 100F and put the yeast in I remember that I bought WLP001 from the bearded brewer.

So now I've got cold yeast in the fridge, and rehydrated yeast that I don't know what to do with. So I get the WLP001 from the fridge (two vials, one for each fermemter) and try to warm them up. In the meantime I am cooling wort with Kevin. I get the bright idea to use the dry yeast for mead. So I get Ellie to warm up the honey and put it in one of the one gallon fermenters. She didn't mix it so I had ot do that for her. After that she pitched the yeast and I told her to put in an orange and some raisins which she did. We'll see how mead that hasn't had any heat treatment at all turns out. I did sanitize the fermenter and the funnel.

So now the day is done. Aside from the yeast screw up, all went well. The two fermenters are chilling in the bathtub. It is a little warm for this time of year so it might be a challenge to keep it cool. The mead is there too. I think I may open the bathroom window at night and close it during the day.

EKA III Update

Getting real close on the EKA to what I want. The last batch ended at 1.007 which was one of the lowest it has been. I like it a little dry. The new usage of dry yeast I think is going to be a permanent stay. I will say that I think the ferment ended up with less esters but they are still there. At this point they are mild and almost pleasant but it irks me that it shouldn't be there at all.

During a trip to Big Bear with the wife we listened to The Brewing Network and on some random day back on 2009 a caller called into the show and shared how his beer suffered from strange ferments when he used the silicon stopper. I have been using the silicon stopper for months now. Simply because I'm too lazy to be bothered with filling the air lock every couple of days or whatever. Anyhow I guess the pressure builds up in the head space and angers the yeast. I can confirm that a fair bit of pressure does build up. I think it is time for another split batch with nothing different other than a stopper vs. airlock. My hope is the reason for the esters is that I've been stressing the yeast under too much pressure.

Redish Beer

So I saw some email traffic about the homebrewing locals getting together again. Red beer was the one we will muster up with. So I tried to make one. It turned out a little more brown/amber then red. Here's the breakdown:

12lbs 2row
8oz munich
8oz rye
1lb flaked wheat
1lb Crystal 75L
2oz Black roasted barley

.75oz Northern Brewer @60mins
1oz Columbus @1min
2oz Columbus dry hop

WLP028 Edinburgh x2 - Apr-12-13 - Lot CCB755-762

whirlfloc
servomyces

French Oak chips which will be added after primary fermentation for 7-10 days. I'll add it the last week in the fermenter before I transfer to the keg.

Water breakdown:

 

Let me start by saying I was trying to make a beer I saw on MoreBeer that looked interesting. They called it Fire in the Hole.I would have bought the Fire in the Hole kit but they were unavailable. So I thought I'd just by the ingredients myself separately and I quickly learned why the kit was unavailable. The recipe called for Carafa II which they were out of. This is key since it adds the color to the beer without the acrid/roasty/coffee type flavors. I think this is because they remove the husks. Since I couldn't find it I substituted in the black roasted barley. Also, they didn't have any Magnum hops that the recipe call for in bittering. I've still got some Northern Brewer in the freezer so this wasn't a problem.

Dad was coming over to brew with me. Before he got there I measured out the hops and the brewing salts and got the water ready. Got the O2 stone boiled. Got the mash tun together.

In some sort of bizzaro type brew day from the last time, we had a hell of a tough brew day initially, then things got smooth and boring. It started with me adding the brewing salts to the brew water. It then looked very cloudy and the chalk settled on the bottom. Afterwards I do some google fu and learned that you don't add chalk to the brew water, you add it to the mash because it needs the low pH to actually dissolve. So there was that screw up.

Then I thought it would be cool to show dad the grain mill. I get the grains in the hopper and the drill hooked up and start milling and something happened that never happened before. As soon as I started the drill, the mill flew off the bucket and emptied the hopper full of grains onto the garage floor. Half of this ended up under the dryer. So dad lifted the dryer and I did my best to gather up all the grain from the garage floor. So now the grain is a nice mix of rye, barley, and lint/dirt/bugs/whatever from the garage floor. This might sound gross but it's really not a big deal since the mash will filter almost all of that out and even if something does get through it will be boiled for an hour so life goes on. But still what a pain in the ass.

I've lost that cool key used to tighten and loosen drill bits from the drill. So I tighten it but turning on the drill and letting it torque down onto the mill and tighten up. We ran all the grain through the mill and then focused on the strike water. I'll get back to that screw up. So now it comes to getting the drill off of the mill and I can't seem to do it with a pair of pilers and my strong as an ox dad grabs the neck that tightens/loosens the bit and turns the drill on. I'm sure it will break his wrist but instead it just burns up the AC motor on the drill and we end up with a lovely electrical burned smell in the garage for a few minutes.

So we get the strike water into the mash tun and I swear we hit the 168F we wanted. So I go to take the mill off of the bucket and I look at the grain. What do I see? Not a single grain has been crushed. That's right kiddies, if you run the mill in reverse the grains will get shifted to the sides of the rollers and pass through the mill completely uncrushed. So now I've to get the smelly drill back out and get it attached to the mill but I can't since when dad ran the thing in reverse the open the drill bit he jammed it. So, I have to get him to do the same thing he did to burn up the drill the first time only this time in reverse. After we get through that, I mill the grain in the correct direction and all is well. It now made sense to me why the mill jumped off the bucket the first time. When it spin in the wrong direction the force torques the mill off the bucket. When done right, it would torque down onto the bucket and spillage. So we do a better job getting the drill off the mill when done. All we needed was a little practice I guess.

Ok so now we get the grain in the mash tun and the temp is 148F. Too low. And why should it go right? Nothing has yet anyway. So we pull out some grain and boil it up and add it back into the mash to raise the temp. I got about +2F. Then I pulled out about three times as much grain as I did the first go around and boiled it and added it back. At that point I was at 156F and we left it.

So at this point things start to go smoother. It's like we exercised all of the bad brewing demons in that first hour or so. We heated up the sparge water and did a batch sparge. We got about 7 gallons and the pre-boil gravity was 1.048. We boiled for an hour and during the last minute I added the columbus hops. This is my first time with these hops and as soon as I opened it smelled it I was floored. I've been used a lot of citrusy type hops lately (cascade, amarillo, citra). I found this hop to be pungent, dank, and earthy. Very interesting odor.

Then we set our minds to cooling the wort and it took about 45 mins to cool. I had dad stirring the wort while I stirred the prechiller. That led us to about 2:30ish and mom was hungry and took him away. I left the wort for a few minutes for the cold break to settle. Then I racked it over and hit it with O2 for a minute and pitched the yeast. It now sits in the chest freezer. The OG is 1.062.

All that was left at that point was to cleanup. Next time I brew I will brew with the brown dog. She sneaked out of the house and into the garage for a minute to hang with mom, dad, and me. It was nice to see her there. At least this time our brewing adventures did not necessitate a major cleanup of the garage like last time. 

Elf King Ale III

Just ran out of the Zythos IPA. Time to make more beer. If you really want to be a good brewer, brew the same beer 5 times I've heard. This will be the fourth of this blonde ale. Well I guess 6th if you count the two Spike Ales. Anyhow, of note this time around I will not have a flavour/aroma hop addition and I'm using dry yeast. Also this is the first blonde ale I will use water I have built. Here's the breakdown:

10 lbs 2-row
1 lb Munich
0.5 lb Wheat

0.5oz Northern Brewer 10.6 AA

Safale US-05 11.5g - Dated 06/13 - Lot# 72202 179 1535

Servomyces
Whilfloc

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

10:15 - I've already measured out the hops and brewing salts. I've also boiled water for the yeast to re-hydrate in. That water is now cooling in a mason jar that I boiled with the water. I used tap water. I am now boiling the O2 stone in distilled water. It's the best way to sanitize since it is hard for the sanitization solution to get into the pores. Once I get done boiling I usually just put it right into sanitization solution and leave it until I'm ready to use it.

11:20 - Moving along well. The strike water is now heating up. I've tasted the water and it is good. Here's a screen grab of what the water chem came to.

 

Mash tun is ready to go. Grains have been crushed. Ellie was here to see the mill and I think she thought is was cool. I seem to have lost my drill key. Got to go to Home Depot and get a replacement. Also, I need to got on with cleaning some stuff. It seems in my drunken stupor last brew session I didn't clean the gear as good as I should have.

11:55 - Just doughed in. Wanted to hit 150F. Looks like I did. Also looks like the pH came in around 5.2 on its own so no 5.2 will be used. Got the brew kettle soaking along with some hoses. I think I'll leave it for another 30mins or so.

12:50 - Heating up the sparge water. Went inside for bit to hang with Ellie. That was nice. Then I came out and cleaned some stuff. In a minute I'll begin the sparge. So far all is well.

1:39 - Sparge done. Now heating up the wort. On a whim I decided to do more of a continuous sparge today. I heated up the sparge water to 190F and then put 1+ gallons in and stirred up the mash. Then I did the vorlouf and started the first runnings. I don't know why but 10mins or so later I slowly put more water in the mash tun. And then I was like, screw it, let's do this. I got a very good extraction of sugar. The gravity of the last of the runnings was 1.015, the lowest I've ever had. The pre-boil gravity was 1.040. I should hit 1.050 no problem. Also, I tasted the grain and it was the least sweet it's ever been. Go team Avery!

2:06 - The 60min count down has begun. All is going well. Just added the hops.

4:03 - Man the wheels fell off quick. I got the pump circulating the wort and the hose flung out and started pumping hot wort all over the garage. So, it's going to take a long time to clean the garage. Then things just got worse. I tried to use dry yeast. So I warmed the water in the majon jar by putting it in the stove until it was 100F. Then I added the yeast. I left it for a while then went to swirl it around and it spilled everywhere. Since I spilled a crap ton of beer on the floor there was not enough in the fermenter. And then I smashed my finger when putting the propane tank back and it hurt like hell. Then after I moved the fermenter to the bathroom to ferment I realize I forgot to put the yeast in. Now I remember I forgot to take a gravity reading. I'm in a bad mood. I've got to get to cleaning now.

5:16 - Ok. Measured OG was 1.052. Done cleaning. In addition to the usual cleaning process I hosed and mopped the floor. I hope I got all the sticky. Time will tell. Also, my shoes got real sticky. I hosed them off too. I hope the beer is ok. From all the crap of me touching the brew as it was cooling I hope I won't get an infection. If we do I guess it would be kind of fun. We can have a new party game to see who can drink the awful beer the fastest or something like that.

Avery out!

Zythos Tasting Notes

Kegged the Zythos on Tuesday. The idea was that on Thursday the poker boys would be over and I could use them as taste testers. On Wednesday Ellie and I tried it and it was good. A little too bitter but it had a malty profile and a great mouthfeel. I think I have nailed the water issue for IPAs.

This beer was fermented cold. I put it in the spare bathroom and left the window open. It fermented at around 62F and after a couple of weeks the OG was 1.020. I thought I could get it a little lower so I swirled the yeast back into suspension and moved the fermenter inside the house to warm up a little. After another four/five days is dropped to 1.015. It was dry hopped for 5 days. I think it could do with a little more dry hopping. Ellie suggested halving the beer into one of the kegs and adding some more hops. That's a good idea!

So, the poker boys drank the beer and it got them drunk. I can't think of anytime in poker history where we got that drunk that fast. It was bad enough that we had a hard time playing poker. The consensus was that the beer was good. I agree. It is.

Kegged Cider Still Ferments

So my hope was that the kegged cider would no longer ferment in the cold temp of the chest freezer. I set the temp to 42F (pretty cold for ales). And for the first week the cider was a little sweet. The second week it hit a sweet spot and tasted great. I thought this was due to aging. But as it turns out, the yeast continued to ferment the added apple juice. Very slowly. Now it has almost completely dried out and has a tart character to it.

The lesson here is that cold yeast will still ferment just very slowly. All of them will not floc out due to coldness, nor will all of them go dormant.

Zythos IPA

I got an email from Tom Kunkle saying that there will be an informal gathering of home brewers in the valley. It was decided to brew an IPA and the get together will be Feb 1st I think. Or March 1st. I can't remember. I'm hoping this will the beginning of a Ridgecrest home brew club of some sort where we get together a few times a year and try each others' beer and give feedback.

I went with the Zythos IPA kit from More Beer. Zythos is a new IPA style hop from New Zealand. Eager to try it. Here is the breakdown:

13lbs 2row
1lb Munich
8oz Crystal 40L
8oz Carapils

1oz Zythos 10%AA @ 60mins, 20mins, and 5mins
2oz Zythos 10%AA @ 1min and dry hop

Whirlfloc @ 10min
Servomyces @ 10 min

5 Gallons Ridgecrest filtered water
5 Gallons Distilled
16 grams Gypsum

Drop hop after 7 days for 10 days.

WLP004 x2 Irish Ale CHPPIGCCE810-13 (no starter)

Lots of changes in the Avery brewery. Let's start with this:

Ellie's sister Lizz (who BTW always messes with me when she calls herself Laura) has moved back to the US. She brought very few things and needed some furniture which Ellie and I donated. So the chairs and the table that I annexed for the use in the Brewery have left me. That didn't make me too sad. But it was cool when Ellie showed up after Christmas with four chairs and new table from Costco. Nice!


Secondly, I got a grain mill. Check it out:

I just now fired it up and it crushed grain like a boss. I think it did too good of a job as the grain looks more like powder then grain but we will go with it today and adjust the rollers next time. Here is pic of the grain milled by More Beer in the bag in the bucket with my crush. I hope you can see the difference.

Next bit of change is that I am no longer buying spring water from the store. I will now be making my own water from this point forward. I have found a nice website to help me out. They can be found at http://www.brewersfriend.com/water-chemistry/. Since I have access to the Ridgecrest water report online I was able to ask the website to give an IPA friendly water profile and then I changed around parameters until they matched up. I will need about 50% distilled water, 50% Ridgecrest water, and 16g of Gypsum . What make water IPA friendly. I guess it has a lot to do with the Sulfite to Chloride ratio. Below is a pic of the website with all the info added.

12:26 - I have crushed the grain and am now boiling the O2 stone.

12:37 - I'm now filling one of my fermenters with 5 gallons of filtered water. Also, since I'm going to be boiling water, I figured I would calibrate my steel thermometer.

12:59 - Cars moved out. Boiled kettle has PBW in it. Will run it through the pump as soon as I have water built up.

1:41 - All is well. The water is heating up. Some quick math found that I needed 16g of gypsum for 10 gallons of 50/50 distilled/RC water. This would mean 1.6g per gallon. So I put 6 gallons in the pot and measured out .35oz which I hope is near 9g. Boiling pot is ready. Mash tun is assembled and ready. Need to get the mash tun to 166F for the dough in. I'll shoot a little high since correcting lower is way easier.

2:06 - Ellie has brought me a sandwich. I love her. I hit my mash temp. 153F. The pH measures out at 5.2ish on its own so I will not add any stabilizer. Had a leak in the mash tun when I first put the water in. That was annoying since I was sure I checked it. No matter. I got the wrench and tightened it down. Seems fine now.

2:42 - Cleaned the mill. Swept the floor. Ate my sandwich. Cracked my first beer. Ellie came back from Tracy with Black Star Double Hopped Golden Lager. It's ok. I've also fired up some Brewing Network on the headphones. The weather is nice. Life is good.

3:49 - Mash and sparge done. I put 0.5 gallons in the batch sparge first and ran it off. During this time I heated up the sparge water to boiling. I was supposed to add 4.5 gallons more but after 3 gallons the mash tun was now 170F so I ran that off and cooled the sparge water. Then I added two more gallons at 170F and ran that off. The preboil OG is 1.055.

4:39 - Hot break done. Well into the boil. Cleaned the mash tun. All is going well. I think I'm going to come in under gravity which I'm ok with. I don't want an OG 1.075 beer. So, I held back a little of the bittering hops.

5:01 - Feeling lazy today. I don't think I'm going to fire up the pumps. I'm gonna let the thing cool to 100F all on it own. Then use the ice bucket and pump the coils manually. I've also setup the boil kettle by the basin so I can have the output water run into it. I was concerned that I would light myself on fire but it hasn't happened yet. Also, I went in to give Ellie kisses and she was napping with the dog.

6:33 - All went well. Having the setup by the basin I think this is a good thing. The don't use pump method seems to work pretty good. Got a nice cold break and gave the sample to Ellie. She seems really excited about the wort. I've been working on her palette and today she nailed it. She said it was good and hits up in the back. Awesome. After I heard her feedback I instantly knew she was right. I took a sip anyway to confirm. It was smooth in the front and had a bitter finish. I look forward to seeing how this translates to the final brew.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I gave her the water I built and she gave good feedback too. She mentioned that it tasted like well water. That's not the word she used but when I said well water she said yep. Tells me a couple of things. First, if I ever start a brewery in this valley I've got to drill a well. Second, the Ellie feedback experiment is coming along well. I need someone who thinks Tapatio and lime tastes good, which is not me, to tell me what kind of beer is good beer. Up until now Tuey has been this. He says --fill in the blank-- and I go, oh yeah, I never would have gotten that. I need someone who I have access to on demand to give such feedback.

Cleaning up now. Drank all those lagers. Now onto a belgian from the "The Bruery". I getting drunk. Sometimes when this happens I get in a non-compliant mood with the wife. No longer do I pick my battles. All things are worth fighting about. I hope we just make the love and watch bad TV. We'll see.