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Friday, November 10, 2006
Three Days, Two Beers
On Tuesday, I brewed my porter. I usually brew this beer twice a year, so I've had the experience of brewing this recipe - more or less - over 20 times. Still, I usually fiddle with something every time I brew it, and this time it was mash temperature.
I have always gone with a one-hour single-infusion mash, but in recent years the temperature has been creeping up. When I first started, I would mash at around 150 °F (66 °C), but that has crept up to around 156 °F (69 °C) in recent years. On Tuesday, I went with a "short high" mash of 30 minutes at 162 °F (72 °C). It took me a little longer to recirculate than usual, but other than that, almost everything went as it always does. I collected enough wort for a 90-minute boil, boiled the wort, cooled it and ran it off to my fermenter.
One little surprise was my OG. I had bought the ingredients for this batch before I got my new mill. My efficiency has been a little better with the new mill and, with my porter, I got the best I've ever had yet - about 8% above my old average. I worry much more about beer quality than extraction efficiency, but I did get a kick out of getting a little more from my grains. I pitched the wort with a 2-qt. (~ 2 L) starter of Wyeast 1968 and it's bubbling away happily at 72 °F (22 °C) in an Igloo Ice Cube "swamp cooler."
I've been an all-grain brewer for 6 or 7 years now, and I brew most of my beers all-grain. Still, I have a couple I do with extract. One I've brewed for a couple years now is my Cranberry Zinger, which I make in preparation for Thanksgiving. This year, I went with a very simple formulation.
Thursday night, I heated 2.0 gallons (7.6 L) of distilled water to 180 °F (82 °C) and stirred in a can of hopped wheat malt extract syrup. I let the mixture steep (at around 170 °F/77 °C) for 15 minutes, then added 2.0 lbs. (0.91 kg) of honey and cooled the wort in my sink. When it was cool, I siphoned it to a carboy, added water, aerated and pitched two packets of dried yeast (US-56). The total amount of "hands-on" brewing time was minimal; I was actually mostly doing other things at the same time. I only went into the kitchen to do the next brewing step when I heard my timer go off.
When the honey-wheat base is done fermenting, I will make about 4.0 lbs. (1.8 kg) of cranberry relish - from cranberries, Granny Smith apples and whole oranges - and rack the beer on top of that. It should be ready for turkey day.
I'm not sure if I'm going to brew this weekend. I have a starter of White Labs WLP005 yeast made for my dry stout. (This is the strain White Labs used to call "Dry English Ale" and I think it works great in dry stouts. A nice option for those interested in trying something other than the Irish strains for a dry stout.) Then again, I've got three beers in primary and may wait until I've got those kegged before I brew again. (I can always revive the starter with a shot of fresh wort.)
Posted by Chris Colby @ 4:05 PM Link This
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Tuesday, November 07, 2006
40 oz. of Freedom
A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Dixie Cup (the long-running homebrew competition held by the Foam Rangers, a homebrew club in Houston). Ashton Lewis - BYO's technical editor and Mr. Wizard columnist - was one of the speakers at their "milli-conference." He spoke on how stainless steel was manufactured and issues that would effect homebrewers, especially how to clean and otherwise take care of stainless vessels.
Ralph Olson of Hopunion was also there and spoke about trends in hop growing around the world. He also had photos of the hop warehouse that burned recently. His office, and four of his hop warehouses, was right next door. Bill Covaleski, one of the founders and brewers from Victory, also spoke. The speakers were great, and I really admire guys who can get up in front of a bunch of homebrewers that have been drinking barleywine since 8:30 in the morning.
I judged one flight of beers for the competition - dry stouts. There were some very nice dry stouts in the mix, but also a couple beers that I thought were clearly too big for the style. Inspired by a great homebrew conference, I got off my duff and brewed last week. You could call the beer I made an American Octoberfest, I guess, although I gave it a little more downscale moniker - Vienna malt liquor. It's basically a roughly SG 1.060 beer made with 20% flaked maize and the remainder of the grain bill split between 3.5 lbs. (1.6 kg) Pilsner and 5.25 lbs. (2.4 kg) Vienna malt. The bitterness target was only 13 IBUs, from Cluster hops, and lager yeast (Wyeast's 2007) for fermentation.
The brewday went well, I mashed in at a thickness of about 3:1 (1.5 qts./lb.) at 131 °F (55 °C) in my kettle. I immediately began ramping the temperature to 140 °F (60 °C). After 15 minutes, I ramped up to 153 °F (67 °C). After 20 minutes at this temperature, an iodine test showed that the starches were converted, so I went to mash out, transferred my mash to my lauter tun and wort collection.
At the beginning of the 90-minute boil, I added a pinch of calcium (calcium chloride). This is something I do with most of my lagers to help the wort drop to an appropriately low pH during the boil. One hop addition with an hour to go and 1 tsp. of Irish moss with 15 minutes were the only other kettle additions. I wasn't quite sure what my gravity would be, as this was only the second full all-grain beer I had brewed using my new grain mill. I guessed I would fall between OG 1.055 and 1.060 and the actual OG was 1.057.
This is also only the second time I've used my new conical fermenter. One thing I learned from my first use (a Vienna lager) was that I will need to dump the yeast a couple times during conditioning, to get it away from the beer. My American Octoberfest/Vienna malt liquor is bubbling away nicely at 50 °F (10 °C). I'm curious to see how it turns out.
Today, election day, I am going to brew my "house ale," a robust porter (OG 1.064; 51 IBUs) The starter is ready, I cleaned a bunch of carboys last night, so...it's time to brew!
Posted by Chris Colby @ 1:05 PM Link This
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