It's been over seven months since our last brew day, but we're finally back to brewing! We took our day off on Memorial Day and brewed what is mostly a repeat of last year's Die Bier, Die Oktoberfest. The only recipe difference from last year is the yeast. Annapolis Home Brew once again didn't have Wyeast Munich Lager (the preferred yeast from the recipe book), but when I called Maryland Home Brew they recommended White Labs Southern German Lager so that's what I went with. It'll be fun comparing it to last year's with the only recipe difference being the yeast.
With such a long hiatus we were showing a little bit of rust with a couple minor mistakes during the brew day. First, I accidentally put the recipe into BeerSmith as a 60 minute boil instead of the 90 that the recipe in the book called for. The boil time gets used to calculate boil-off, which in turn affects the amount of water to start with. Because of the mistake, we ended up using less water than we otherwise should have. Hopefully the only result is a slightly higher alcohol beer. The original gravity of 1.066 came in slightly above the recipe's 1.061, which would support that possibility.
The second mistake was with the mash temperature. Instead of heating the water hotter than the desired mash temperature (to a point called the strike temperature), I accidentally stopped heating the water when it reached mash temperature. This meant that after we put the grains in, the temperature dropped lower than the desired mash temperature. We just turned the heat back on and got the mash up to temperature. The only nerve wracking part was trying to avoid burning the bottom of the brew bag in the pot while the heat was on, but it appears to have made it out unscathed.
Using the wrong mash temperature, even just for a little while during the start of the mash, has the potential to mess up how much of the sugars in the mash get converted into sugars that the yeast can process. A reduction in consumable sugar would result in less attenuation in the beer, which would mean lower ABV despite the 1.066 starting gravity. Only time will tell to see what kind of final gravity we reach.
Speaking of time, the current plan is to go eight weeks from brew day to bottling. We fermented at about 55 degrees for just over two weeks, then gradually reduced the temperature to the low 40s where it will lager for the next four weeks or so. Unlike past lagers we've done, we're going to try skipping racking to a secondary for this beer and let it sit in the primary for the whole two months until bottling. There's a tipping point between letting the settled yeast continue to clean up the flavors in the beer after fermentation vs. the dead yeast and other trub starting to import their own off flavors. Two months might be pushing it, but hopefully we're still on the good side of that equation and end up with a great tasting Oktoberfest.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Carolina Reaper IPA Racking
It's been a while since we blogged a beer racking - normally they're pretty mundane - but this was no ordinary beer racking! Last night we took our Carolina Reaper chili extract and combined it into three different carboys with our IPA beer to form our first chili beer!
Last week we created two different chili extracts - one with the seeds and ribs of the pepper intact and one with them removed. The one with the seeds in particular smells amazing now. So much smoke and heat. The easy part of the day was racking the beer to three different carboys, but then we had to figure out how much chili extract to put in each.
We took a cup and a half of the beer and put it into three different 4oz cups, then used a pipette to gradually put more and more drops of extract in to get the taste we were going for. The seedless chili extract imparted a lot of pepper flavor into the beer without a ton of heat. We decided something in the range of 6 or 7 drops was good in 4oz of beer. The hotter chili extract gave a lot more heat to the beer, so we thought around 5 drops was good in 4oz. For the third batch, we decided to do both, with about 6 drops of the seedless extract and 9 or so of the hot extract. We're hoping it gives a nice combination of heat and pepper flavor. When converted up to full batch scale, we went with 2tsp of seedless in the one gallon, 2tsp of hot extract in the other, then 2tsp of seedless and 1Tbsp of hot in the third gallon.
As far as the fermentation progress, this beer had a huge krausen, and some yeast sludge was still on the top of the beer even at the time of racking. The refractometer confirmed that the fermentation went well. We got a measurement of 9.0 brix equating to 1.013 specific gravity. Given the original gravity of 1.072, that gives us a 7.8% ABV beer.
We're planning to bottle this weekend, so then in maybe a month we should be tasting our first Imperial Chili IPA!
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Carolina Reaper IPA Brew Day
On Sunday we brewed an IPA that we're planning as a base for some delicious chili heat. A friend at work has been growing Carolina Reapers (the hottest pepper in the world!) for another friend who loves spicy food. I enjoy spicy beer anyway, such as the Ballast Point Habanero Sculpin, and so brewing a chili beer has been on my radar since we started brewing again.
I found some good info and a recipe at http://www.homebrewing.com/articles/chile-beer.php, so all the brewing was pretty straightforward. One of the particularly fun parts of the brew day this time was live-tweeting everything from our desert penguin twitter account. Since this beer is a bit tied in with my buddies at work due to the chili peppers, it was fun including more people in the brew day.
The other particularly interesting and fun part of this brew day was creating the chili extract from the Carolina Reaper. We cut the pepper in half and are making two different extracts - one with all the seeds and ribbing intact for full heat, and one with the ribbing and seeds removed to try to get a bit more flavor. The peppers will soak in vodka for the next week extracting the flavor and heat, and I'm really curious to see what that vodka is like in a week when it's time to add it to the beer.
Our plan is to rack the beer into three 1-gallon carboys in order to try three different levels of heat - one with the seedless extract, one with the seedy extract at a normal heat level, and one that is borderline melt-your-mouth for the true hot-heads. That said, I'm a bit worried about our ability to get the spice and heat level just right in the final beers. If we manage to get one batch out of the three that's squarely between "way too mild" and "undrinkably spicy," then I'll consider it a success.
I found some good info and a recipe at http://www.homebrewing.com/articles/chile-beer.php, so all the brewing was pretty straightforward. One of the particularly fun parts of the brew day this time was live-tweeting everything from our desert penguin twitter account. Since this beer is a bit tied in with my buddies at work due to the chili peppers, it was fun including more people in the brew day.
The other particularly interesting and fun part of this brew day was creating the chili extract from the Carolina Reaper. We cut the pepper in half and are making two different extracts - one with all the seeds and ribbing intact for full heat, and one with the ribbing and seeds removed to try to get a bit more flavor. The peppers will soak in vodka for the next week extracting the flavor and heat, and I'm really curious to see what that vodka is like in a week when it's time to add it to the beer.
Our plan is to rack the beer into three 1-gallon carboys in order to try three different levels of heat - one with the seedless extract, one with the seedy extract at a normal heat level, and one that is borderline melt-your-mouth for the true hot-heads. That said, I'm a bit worried about our ability to get the spice and heat level just right in the final beers. If we manage to get one batch out of the three that's squarely between "way too mild" and "undrinkably spicy," then I'll consider it a success.
---> [ Carolina Reaper IPA Racking ]
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Die Bier, Die Tasting
This weekend we opened the first bottles of our oktoberfest and we're happy to say that our first lager is a success! This time for the tasting we did a blind taste test comparing our beer to Ayinger Oktoberfest-Marzen. It was amazing how similar they were. They were virtually the same color. The head in particular was almost identical - starting out pretty tall with very dense bubbles and eventually dissipating to just a little bit of lacing on top. Even the mouthfeel was pretty similar.
They did have noticeably (though not drastically) different flavors. The Ayinger has a little bit of an almost fruitiness to it, which I had previously thought was just a characteristic of its maltiness. The Ayinger was also a touch more bitter than our home brew.
Two of the three of us doing the tasting did prefer the Ayinger and also correctly identified which one was the home brew. Still, the fact that it wasn't blindingly (excuse the pun) obvious from the first sip, and that one of us even preferred the home brew over the Ayinger, I consider a huge success.
I could still detect a hint of acetaldehyde which may just mean the beer needs another month or two of conditioning time. I'm not sure if there's anything we're doing wrong in our process that keeps giving us this flavor, or if we just need to be brewing with enough lead time that the beer can condition for longer in the bottle before we start drinking it.
And as for the name, it's German for "The Beer, The" and is a reference to Sideshow Bob in the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare." But you already knew that. ;-)
[ Oktoberfest Bottling ] <---
They did have noticeably (though not drastically) different flavors. The Ayinger has a little bit of an almost fruitiness to it, which I had previously thought was just a characteristic of its maltiness. The Ayinger was also a touch more bitter than our home brew.
Two of the three of us doing the tasting did prefer the Ayinger and also correctly identified which one was the home brew. Still, the fact that it wasn't blindingly (excuse the pun) obvious from the first sip, and that one of us even preferred the home brew over the Ayinger, I consider a huge success.
I could still detect a hint of acetaldehyde which may just mean the beer needs another month or two of conditioning time. I'm not sure if there's anything we're doing wrong in our process that keeps giving us this flavor, or if we just need to be brewing with enough lead time that the beer can condition for longer in the bottle before we start drinking it.
And as for the name, it's German for "The Beer, The" and is a reference to Sideshow Bob in the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare." But you already knew that. ;-)
[ Oktoberfest Bottling ] <---
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Doppelbock Brew Day
Today we brewed our second lager - a doppelbock we're hoping to have ready in time for Christmas. Amy found the recipe in a recent issue of Zymurgy and she's been wanting to brew a doppelbock since all the way back in our Flying Barrel brew-on-premises days.
As with the oktoberfest, Annapolis Home Brew didn't have our primary choice for yeast. Instead of rolling with an alternative, this time we went to Maryland Home Brew to pick up a vial of White Labs WLP833 German Bock Lager yeast. As it turns out - I actually should have bought two. Lager ideal pitch rates are a lot higher than ales, and with this being a big lager (target starting gravity of 1.096), we would have needed a 2.5L starter to get the 443B cells we wanted. With only a 2L Erlenmeyer flask and one vial of yeast, we had to boost the starter gravity to 1.046 to have the calculations point to the right number of yeast from the starter. The small starter also led to me accidentally letting the starter boil over, despite using fermcap. We're definitely planning to get a 5L Erlenmeyer flask for next time.
For whatever reason, the starter didn't attenuate as much as it should have. It only reached a final gravity of 1.025 when I would have expected it to reach something more like 1.013. Unfortunately, we don't know whether this was a problem with the yeast or something we did with the starter. It could have been something as simple as not giving it enough time or not having the stir plate set up correctly. Since we were brewing on a Sunday morning too, we couldn't just go to the home brew store and pick up a fresh vial of the same strain of yeast. We decided to just roll with the yeast from the starter, but we're going to be closely monitoring the primary fermentation to make sure the yeast is doing okay.
During the brew day, we encountered a few minor issues but nothing serious. The volume of water after the mash was only about 4.8G instead of 5, indicating there was more grain absorption than BeerSmith had calculated. We also ended up only at 1.086 original gravity instead - not sure if there was an issue with the efficiency of the mash or if it was just down to differences in the ingredients compared to BeerSmith's numbers.
Despite those issues though, we're still excited to have finally brewed a doppelbock. Eight hours after brew day and happily we already have good krausen and the airlock is bubbling. Plus with our first lager seeming to turn out well so far, we're very optimistic for another delicious beer!
As with the oktoberfest, Annapolis Home Brew didn't have our primary choice for yeast. Instead of rolling with an alternative, this time we went to Maryland Home Brew to pick up a vial of White Labs WLP833 German Bock Lager yeast. As it turns out - I actually should have bought two. Lager ideal pitch rates are a lot higher than ales, and with this being a big lager (target starting gravity of 1.096), we would have needed a 2.5L starter to get the 443B cells we wanted. With only a 2L Erlenmeyer flask and one vial of yeast, we had to boost the starter gravity to 1.046 to have the calculations point to the right number of yeast from the starter. The small starter also led to me accidentally letting the starter boil over, despite using fermcap. We're definitely planning to get a 5L Erlenmeyer flask for next time.
For whatever reason, the starter didn't attenuate as much as it should have. It only reached a final gravity of 1.025 when I would have expected it to reach something more like 1.013. Unfortunately, we don't know whether this was a problem with the yeast or something we did with the starter. It could have been something as simple as not giving it enough time or not having the stir plate set up correctly. Since we were brewing on a Sunday morning too, we couldn't just go to the home brew store and pick up a fresh vial of the same strain of yeast. We decided to just roll with the yeast from the starter, but we're going to be closely monitoring the primary fermentation to make sure the yeast is doing okay.
During the brew day, we encountered a few minor issues but nothing serious. The volume of water after the mash was only about 4.8G instead of 5, indicating there was more grain absorption than BeerSmith had calculated. We also ended up only at 1.086 original gravity instead - not sure if there was an issue with the efficiency of the mash or if it was just down to differences in the ingredients compared to BeerSmith's numbers.
Despite those issues though, we're still excited to have finally brewed a doppelbock. Eight hours after brew day and happily we already have good krausen and the airlock is bubbling. Plus with our first lager seeming to turn out well so far, we're very optimistic for another delicious beer!
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Oktoberfest Bottling
Thursday night we bottled our Ayinger Oktoberfest clone and, although obviously not carbonated yet, so far it's tasting great!
It's been nearly eight weeks since we racked it to the secondary and it feels like forever since we've done any kind of brewing. The biggest pain with bottling this time was that we had to re-wash all of our brewing equipment because the basement where it was being stored has been undergoing some major construction.
After looking over our previous few brews we decided to go with 150g of DME for the carbonation. That's higher than the 100-120g we used for the Belgian quad, black IPA, and breakfast stout, but less than the 168g we used for the saison. Hopefully we struck a good balance and got the right level of carbonation for the style.
The DME we used is also pretty old, so hopefully we don't run into any problems with the yeast fully processing it. The other possible problem I'm worried about is a general lack of yeast for carbonation since it's been ten weeks since we brewed. Everything I've read seems to indicate that there should still be enough yeast still in suspension in the beer that it shouldn't be a problem though.
It'll be in the bottle for just over four weeks when Oktoberfest starts. I'm anxious to crack open that first bottle in four weeks to see how well it carbonated and how the final product tastes.
It's been nearly eight weeks since we racked it to the secondary and it feels like forever since we've done any kind of brewing. The biggest pain with bottling this time was that we had to re-wash all of our brewing equipment because the basement where it was being stored has been undergoing some major construction.
After looking over our previous few brews we decided to go with 150g of DME for the carbonation. That's higher than the 100-120g we used for the Belgian quad, black IPA, and breakfast stout, but less than the 168g we used for the saison. Hopefully we struck a good balance and got the right level of carbonation for the style.
The DME we used is also pretty old, so hopefully we don't run into any problems with the yeast fully processing it. The other possible problem I'm worried about is a general lack of yeast for carbonation since it's been ten weeks since we brewed. Everything I've read seems to indicate that there should still be enough yeast still in suspension in the beer that it shouldn't be a problem though.
It'll be in the bottle for just over four weeks when Oktoberfest starts. I'm anxious to crack open that first bottle in four weeks to see how well it carbonated and how the final product tastes.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Oktoberfest Brew Day
Almost a month ago now, on June 12th, we brewed our first lager! We used an Ayinger Oktoberfest-Marzen recipe from the Clone Brews book. The home brew store didn't have the preferred yeast (Wyeast Munich Lager if I remember right) so instead we used the recipe's "second choice" of Wyeast Oktoberfest. Who knows what the flavor difference will be, but maybe it'll be interesting having a little bit of a departure from the exact book recipe.
As far as the brew day goes it was basically the same as any ale we've done. Since I did all the tweaking with BeerSmith settings it did seem like the temperatures and measurements went better this time - particularly the strike temp / mash temp that we had problems with last time. The worst part of the brew day was that we started it at 8pm, so we didn't actually get completely finished until 2 in the morning.
One challenge that's new with the lager is that this is our first time actually using the chest freezer to keep the beer cold. Previously we've been using a space heater to keep it at about 69 or 70, but for the lager yeast we wanted fermentation to happen in the low 50s. Even with the temperature differential (the difference between the turn-on point and the turn-off point) of the temperature controller set to only 1 degree, the freezer would kick on, stay one for a bit, and then even after it shut off the temperature would continue to drop several degrees past the shut-off point. I put a small fan in the freezer to help air circulation and that seems to have helped a little bit. Plus, as Amy pointed out, even if the air temperature is fluctuating as much as five degrees when the freezer kicks on, that doesn't mean the actual 3 gallons of beer in there is changing temperature that much.
We waited two weeks to rack the beer, which all went smoothly. The beer seemed to taste good, although it clearly needed more time to develop. It also reached the target final gravity so that was a great sign that fermentation went well and we were ready to start lagering.
After racking we dropped the set point on the temperature controller one degree each day until the beer was down in the low 40s. Now our beer is officially lagering! The plan is to let it sit for five weeks, bottle, and then let it bottle condition for another five. If all goes well, we'll be tasting on September 19th - the official start of Oktoberfest in Germany!
---> [ Oktoberfest Bottling ]
As far as the brew day goes it was basically the same as any ale we've done. Since I did all the tweaking with BeerSmith settings it did seem like the temperatures and measurements went better this time - particularly the strike temp / mash temp that we had problems with last time. The worst part of the brew day was that we started it at 8pm, so we didn't actually get completely finished until 2 in the morning.
One challenge that's new with the lager is that this is our first time actually using the chest freezer to keep the beer cold. Previously we've been using a space heater to keep it at about 69 or 70, but for the lager yeast we wanted fermentation to happen in the low 50s. Even with the temperature differential (the difference between the turn-on point and the turn-off point) of the temperature controller set to only 1 degree, the freezer would kick on, stay one for a bit, and then even after it shut off the temperature would continue to drop several degrees past the shut-off point. I put a small fan in the freezer to help air circulation and that seems to have helped a little bit. Plus, as Amy pointed out, even if the air temperature is fluctuating as much as five degrees when the freezer kicks on, that doesn't mean the actual 3 gallons of beer in there is changing temperature that much.
We waited two weeks to rack the beer, which all went smoothly. The beer seemed to taste good, although it clearly needed more time to develop. It also reached the target final gravity so that was a great sign that fermentation went well and we were ready to start lagering.
After racking we dropped the set point on the temperature controller one degree each day until the beer was down in the low 40s. Now our beer is officially lagering! The plan is to let it sit for five weeks, bottle, and then let it bottle condition for another five. If all goes well, we'll be tasting on September 19th - the official start of Oktoberfest in Germany!
---> [ Oktoberfest Bottling ]
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