Michael Jackson
So after the Saturday fiasco I had with my Barley Wine (I will update on this at the end of the post) I was in need of a good brew day. Plus, I didn't want to waste a good yeast. So I went ahead and planned a rare week night all-grain session. Since I had London ESB as my yeast I decided to go ahead and brew an Old Ale. Here is the recipe that I used:
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.82 gal
OG: 1.071 SG
FG: ~1.017
Color: 14.8 SRM
IBU: 63.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 59.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
13.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 74.3 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 11.4 %
1.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 8.6 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.7 %
1.00 oz Centennial [8.00%] (60 min) Hops 33.3 IBU
0.50 oz Target [11.00%] (60 min) Hops 18.3 IBU
0.25 oz Pearle [8.00%] (30 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (15 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
0.25 oz Saaz [4.00%] (15 min) Hops 1.7 IBU
Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 17.50 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Step Add 6.56 gal of water at 168.4 F158.0 F 60 min
Decoc to get up to temp Decoct 1.47 gal of mash and boil168.0 F 20 min
Batch Sparge: 2 gal 168f 10 min
Batch Sparge: 1 gal 168f 10 min
This brew day went off without a hitch. I was home by about 4:10 when I started my water on heat. I decided not to treat the water this time. I thought about treating the mash directly, but decided I was going to do some more research on the Ph thing.
I struck 6 1/2 gallons for the mash at 168f, my grain bed wound up only being 150f so I drew off some of the mash and did a small decoct to heat up the grain bed. That took about 10-15 min to get up to temp. I added the decoct grains back to the tun and was at a nice 156f.
I let it go like this for a little over 45min before I drew off some more of the grains for a second decoct. I boiled the decoct for about 5 min and re-introduced it to the mash tun for the mash out temp of 168f (hold for 10 min). It worked like a charm!
I used almost 2 gallons for the decoct at a pretty thick consistency. I am willing to bet there are people out there who will tell you how thick or thin your decoct should be, but for me, I like it like oatmeal; think, but enough liquid so you can stir it around. I think the key is to have enough liquid so your grains don't scorch or burn, but dry enough so that it's not like you are boiling your mash.
Anyway, I did 2 batch sparges on the advice of my blog friends Ted and Brian (if you don't already read Ted's blog I recommend it, he really knows what he is doing) which went really well. Actually the mash out wait of 10 min was about the perfect time to heat up my first batch of water for the sparge so that's a good argument for mashing out. My first runnings were about 1.070 and my runnings after the first batch sparge were 1.052.
My pre-boil gravity was 1.052 and about 6 3/4 gallons, dead on with what Beer Smith told me I should be at! I have to say, at this point having hit all of my targets in temp, time and gravity I was very pleased. I had the wort up to a boil by 8pm and pitched a cooled wort to my London ESB by about 9:20.
Before I went to bed, I checked and it was already bubbling aggressively!
UPDATE: On the Barley Wine, I racked this over into my 2 gallon storage containers. I got an FG of about 1.010. I drank the sample I took to see what I thought and I have to say, it tasted REALLY strong. It had a definite alcohol burn. Now this leaves me with an even greater mystery; why the strange readings if all other signs are pointing to a high OG?
Who knows. As long as I keep having the occasional brew night like I had last night, I am going to be brewing for a long time. It's like a great drive out of the tee box. It keeps you playing!
Cheers!
So since the last post was titled "Box" it's only appropriate to title this one "Tap". Hopefully someday I will have a "Tab Box" post, but that's in the future.
So I cracked open the tower that I wrote about here that I got off of eBay (for $14!) and I have to say, the news is good.
After a struggle I got it all dismantled and it looks as though all the parts are there. Plus it looks like all the parts are in working order. Pictured here is the tower with the taps taken out of it. It was a really messy jot to get it all cleaned out, but now that it's clean, it does not look too bad.
Overall I am quite pleased still. I was a little concerned that I would get it open and not like what I saw; however, on the contrary, I was quite pleased. A little TLC and this thing will be in tip-top shape. It looks as though I am going to need to purchase some insulation for the tower (to wrap around the hoses), some daft lines, a few ball lock valves, brass polish, some paint, and I should have everything I need.
After a long time of thinking about doing this, I decided to get things started. Let me begin by explaining that I got this inspiration (and a lot of the logistics) from Ben's Homebrew and a project that he has had working with a dorm fridge. I loved the idea and happened to have a dorm fridge that I have been using for my current setup. So it seemed like a natural fit.
So, to the best of my recollection, this is how it all went:
I had the corner table (built out of old counter top donated from my in-laws) and I wanted to make something out of that instead of building something from scratch. Now because I just threw the corner table together out of wood pieces I had lying around, it's not exactly a piece of wood working perfection, but it works. Anyway, because everything on the table was a little odd, the box that I was going to build would have to be a little odd.
So I have been working on a few things with my homebrew setup. A while back I had a post about the next big thing. This project was going to be based on somehting I saw on Ben's Homebrew and emailed Ben about. Well this past weekend I got quite a ways a long on that project.
I am going to put in a detailed outline of what it is that I made, but just moments ago I won this three tap beauty on eBay. She is old and pretty beat, but for $14 I feel like I made out like a bandit! This will be the crowning peice on my homebrew setup. I am pretty geeked up right now.
Anyway, more to come on this project, I just thought that I would share this little development.
Cheers!
This past weekend I had a few of the guys from my fraternity over. They came in Friday night and one of the guys who is now a 5 star chef and masters grad from the CIA, cooked up steak and lobster on the grill and we washed it down with the Poo Dollar IPA. (My chef friend was all sorts of impressed with the beer so that was a small victory)
As much as this was a fun get together, it was also an emotional one. We went to Rochester to say our good byes to a close friend. Chung (pictured here to the right of me) was a good friend and we are all going to miss him. The IPA was named Poo Dollar after a game that Chung made up. It consisted of taking a dollar bill and picking up a piece of dog poo with it. After that you leave the dollar on the sidewalk (poo side down of course) and let the hilarity begin. Anyway, he used to have a sinister little giggle when he would talk about Poo Dollar.
Named appropriately, Poo Dollar IPA has Chung's evil little fingers all over it. It's what we would call back in college a "creeper." One of the guys that was over was really throwing them back and kept telling me I was lying about the ABV and that it was not that strong. In fact he went so far as to pound a full glass before he wonked out for the night. Well the next morning the joke was on him. That Poo Dollar creeped up and nailed a spike through his head in his sleep. He looked (and probably felt) like shit. It was great.
Anyway, a quick review of the Poo Dollar; It has a very pinny smell right out of the tap. The head is hit or miss because I was screwing around with the PSI on my keg more than anything, but when you get a good pour, the head retention it strong with a tint of copper. The color of the beer is on the darker side of an IPA, I would say it has the color of an DIPA. The flavor profile if not what I expected. There is a flowery, pinny almost off flavor that is coming out of the hops. I am not sure how to nail it down, but it is not the kind of tastes you would expect from an IPA. Nonetheless, it's very good on the malt side of things, though most of the malt character is really drowned out by the hops.
Drinkability is dangerously delicious. These guys slide right down and weighing in at just under 8%, they really do creep up on you, like picking up a dollar bill only to find poo on the other side.
Now since last weekend put a real dent in my brew supply, I had to push up the brewing of my next batch. Instead of doing an all-grain, because I am working on some tight time schedule stuff, I am going to brew an extract batch. This is my second shot at a flavor beer and it's a vanilla cream ale. I looked into buying vanilla beans, but they are so damn expensive I couldn't bring myself too it, so I bought some pricey extract. Here is the recipe:
5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) 83.3 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) 8.3 %
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 4.2 %
0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 4.2 %
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.80%] (60 min) 9.6 IBU
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (30 min) 9.3 IBU
1 Pkgs California Lager (Wyeast Labs #2112)
1 fl oz Bourbon Vanilla Bean Extract
OG-1.043
I am brewing this tomorrow night so we will see.
Cheers!
Look inside the Decoc Pot
7:30am wake up, start heating 10 gallons of water for 2qt per lb of grain mix
I decided that I was going to go out and get myself up to speed with a sparge setup that made sense. I wanted to use a cooler that held between 4 and 5 gallons of water, I wanted a sparge arm that had a nice spray and I wanted something that was in expensive.
So after some thinking, I remembered that I had an odd shaped cooler in the shed that my little brother used to use for motor cross races. I planned on drilling a hole and putting a tap in it, but I found that the drain plug pulled completely out and with a few gaskets it sealed up tighter than a dolphins butt hole.
For anyone like me who uses the plastic buckets, you love to hear and smell the hoppy burps coming out when your brew is fermenting. Well I have always wanted to sit and watch it all unfold, but don't have the time or patience, so Stonch has made it easy for me and everyone else to enjoy without quitting your job.
This video is awesome on so many levels, great addition to the blog Stonch!
This afternoon I brewed my Oktoberfest and took some pictures of the process. The first shot is while I am heating up the sparge water and waiting for the mashtun to get done doing what it does. I Batch Sparged on this batch because I was feeling lazy. I mashed at 158f, mashed out at 160f and sparged at 170f for about 15-20min. I mashed for 60 min and mashed out for 10. This was off on some of my marks, but close enough!
The second shot here is from the boiling. I made all of my hop additions on the right time and used my grain screen for the hopps. However, there was a little bit of an issue with it this time because it seemed to hold water. This made me a little concerned because if water was not getting in, hops may not have been getting out.
My pre-boil OG was 1.042 qnd my final OG was 1.050. This is way low for my target, but I am not blaiming Beer Smith (yet) because I gave myself a 70% brewhouse effeciency (why I do not know) which would explain coming that short on my gravity reading.
I maintained a heavy boil for 90min and yeilded just shy of 5 gallons. I boiled off only .08 G though. I am not sure what that means.
This is my brewing assistant for the day Meatball. As you can see he is doing what all good homebrew helpers do, check out the neighbors.
After a long brew day, there is only one thing left to do...
Cheers!
So one of the many blogs that I watch, Stonch had this awesome time laps video of his fermentation process:
If you look on the left hand side of the page, you can watch the final
video of last week's fermentation. That's six days of yeast orgy condensed into
three minutes of fascinating viewing.
I have to say, I was a skeptic about this whole "paying for something", but I have to admit, I am into the first day of my 21 day free trial of Beer Smith and I have to say, they had me at hello.
In the post about my brew day I noted that my OG was much higher than planned and I was not sure why. I had assumed that my tweaking of my brewing techniques had increased my efficiency 10 fold! But alas that was not the case.
It turns out my wort was on "Gravity Enhancing Substances" namely an extra 1/2 lb of Belgium candi sugar I mistakenly dumped into the brew pot.
After reading Ted's Home Brew Journal where he had had a similar freak occurrence and telling him my theory of the earths magnetic polar shifts and how it is now effecting my gravity readings (because there is no way I could f%&* up my recipe on brew day!), I revisited my recipe. In doing some math on a fancy pants brew calculator (that I am a HUGE fan of BTW) I noticed that my recipe called for 1/2 lb of candi sugar as opposed to the full pound that I added, eureka! Just the breakthrough I had been waiting for! We can all breath easy and go back to calling Al Gore the lying bastard that he is ;-)
Anyway, all kidding aside, simple answer. I think that coupled with my 1/2 assed gravity readings gave me my variation. I am not crying in my beer though, god knows there are worse things than beer that's a little stronger than you intended.
I need to get back to brewing with some patience. My brewing, like my golf game, needs to take as long as it needs to. Regardless of interruption. It's time for me to get back to allocating the time needed to make this happen.
Cheers!
* For the record, I am wearing a golf glove because I took those pics on the way out to practice my short game in my back yard.
**Yes, I am anal and wear my glove when practicing in the yard, but not my shoes, I am not that anal.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the mid-west who have been effected by the tornado's. I lost my house to fire and I know how it feels to have to pick up the pieces, things will get better with time.
With that said, we were fortunate this weekend in the North East to have an albeit breezy, but sunny day in Upstate New York. Sunday I took advantage of the weather and brewed the crowd favorite Mulligan Wit.
Here some some items of note from the brew day:
