Few Things in the Last Couple Days

I managed to bottle on Wednesday (IPA in Muenchen II), and I brewed yesterday (IPA in Muenchen III). Yes, it has been a couple of busy days.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my hydrometer is broken. I feel completely naked without it. The hydrometer somehow gives me a sense of the science going on behind the brew... and without it, it just feels like art (subjective). Being the technical person that I am, I am saving samples of the wort that I am not able to test for when I finally get a new hydrometer. Being that there are no LHBSs around here, I will need to wait a while. Bummer.

Some New Blogs Added

...to the left side of the page. Three added that are brewers blogs. Interesting to read into the mind of a professional brewer.

First Tasting of IPA in Munchen I

Well, I cracked open a bottle of my first batch sparged all grain brew... and I would have to say it is lecker (German for tasty). I never anticipated that my first all grain would taste so good, or get brewed so easily and smoothly. This recipe is basically an IPA with EKG and Centennial hops.

I have to say that I was a little worried about using the EKGs because I have not used them in the past. But, all seemed to turn out fine.

The beer is clean, and there are zero off flavors. The bitterness is super smooth (it has no bite). The hop aroma is super noticeable when inhaled, but not overwhelming when the glass is sitting a foot and a half away from you.

The beer is cloudy, but came out the correct color. The head is long lasting, and not overly large.

The final gravity of the beer ended up being 1.008. This is a little on the dry side, but to be honest, it is not a big deal. The only downfall of this dryness is that I drink the beer faster than I really should be. Dangerous it is, due to the alcohol percentage of 7%+.

The alcohol can not be tasted, this is a sign of a good fermentation. The basement held in the low 60s, and the yeast is US-56. Both properties allowed the presence of alcohol flavor to be minimal.

I can say that this recipe is a winner. One of the downsides is that the clarity of the beer is poor. This is most likely attributed to me forgetting to put whirlfloc in it, and not boiling as hard as I could have been.

All in all, things went super well. I would like to thank "The Brewing Network", and Denny's batch sparging webpage, and all of the great beer forums out there for allowing this process to be so easy, fun, and producing of great flavored brew.

Ok, I did not win an award. But, I feel like I could not have done so well without the above mentioned resources.

Distinguishing between Weissbiers

I noticed that I am having a little trouble distinguishing between Weissbiers here in Munich. I can definitely say that I do not enjoy Erdinger Weissbier. Otherwise, the rest taste super similar... except for some differences in aroma, and whether they have gone bad or not, it is hard to distinguish between them.

Now, I can of course distinctly taste the difference between styles of Weissbier (i.e Dunkel, Weizenbock, Regular). My favorite being the Dunkles Weissbier. I guess as time goes on, my palette will advance a bit. For now, I can enjoy the majority of them without thinking about it too much.

To be honest, after 5-10 sips, who is analyzing any beer anymore?

Bottle Conditioning Yeast

I have heard before that some breweries place a different yeast strain in their bottles to bottle condition their beers than what was in their primary fermentation. A topic recently came up on Brewboard asking about what kind of lager yeast to bottle condition a hefeweizen with.

It strikes me odd that a German hefeweizen would get bottle conditioned with a lager yeast for two reasons.

1. A lager yeast will not mask/hide what the primary strain of the original fermentation yeast was.
2. Don't lager yeasts need cool temperatures to ferment (i.e. do they work at warmer ambient temperatures)?

It is possible that the hefeweizens are kept in cool storage to bottle condition, but it all seems kind of pointless to me. The Weihenstephan 68 strain is perfectly capable of bottle conditioning on its own... and if a German brewer uses some different strain (I think Erdinger does), then I might be able to understand.

The one possible explaination that I can think of is to not get as much yeast trub on the bottom of the bottle. But, with hefes, you usually consume this yeast anyhow...

TBN Conical Christmas Giveaway

Tonight (17.12.06 @ 5pm PST) they are giving away two conicals on TBN. It is too late to register for it (I believe), but it will probably be a fun show to listen to.

I usually listen to the podcast, since I am not able to listen to the entire live show.

Fermenter Chirps Away Happily

The fermenter is chirping away happily from my brewday on Monday. I do not know exactly when it starting fermenting, but it was well within 12 hours of pitching the yeast.

The rate of chirp was about 2 seconds/chirp (irregular viewings, since it is in the basement) on the second day. Now, it is going about 10 seconds/chirp. This is not too bad, I still have to wait a week or so until bottling.

Cheapest Mashtun, ever

Here is my mashtun, a work of genius.



Ok, this could be the most low budget mashtun ever constructed. All of the materials cost about $15 or so... And, I pulled off about 75% efficiency batch sparging with it.

The materials...
1. 25 quart cooler
2. SS braid
3. 4 zip ties
4. hose

...and get this, the SS braid is not even being held down to the bottom of the cooler. I make sure it sits on the bottom while I put my grain into the water. Before I collect my runnings, I confirm it is sitting on the bottom by pressing it down with my mash stirrer.

Who ever said all-grain brewing had to be expensive. The cooler does not even have a hole in it. Can someone please pimp my mashtun? Actually, there is no need. :)

Late Hop Additions

Ok, yesterday I made an all Simcoe APA (may turn out to be IPA when I do a real check on the gravity). All hop additions were done at 10 minutes, we will see how it works.

Otherwise things went fairly smooth like. I do not have a chiller, so I placed the wort outside in the 5C environment. It seemed to cool to pitching temperature within a few hours.

I added US-56, because I think my mash temps were a little high, so I pitched the most active yeast I had. I am having a hard time controlling the mash temps, because I have not been able to dial my tun mass/heat properties super well. I believe my mash temps were around 154F. It should be ok...

Dumb things to do

Do not put a hydrometer in hot water. I was not thinking, and I was dumb. Now I am out 10 dollars or so. :(

Have you broken a hydrometer this way? The sad thing was, I was not even drinking at the time. LOL

No Brewing This Week :(

I will not be able to brew this week. It got really warm today, and
conditions are not right for cooling my wort. LOL.

I have decided that the batch I will brew on Monday will have a
super-late wort hopping, so all of my hops will go in at the 10 minute
mark. We will see how this works. Nobody says that there are problems
with this method. I use BTP, so it can calculate my hop dosage to attain
the required IBUs.

A lesson that I learned from yesterday's bottling session is that small
batches are really small batches. I had originally brewed (or so I
thought) for 12 L of beer. At the end of the bottling session, I only
got 8 liters out of it (16 bottles). The yeast cake at the bottom was
thick, and the dry hops did not help either (especially since I did not
put them in a bag).

So next week I will push the limits of the system, and try to get 18L or
so brewed, so I have a reasonable quantity of beer to drink. I guess I
need to use a 7 gallon boil kettle, instead of using my 2.5 gallon with
a texas two-step.

What Should I Brew?

Ok, I have to brew either today or tomorrow. Reason being, I am bottling today, and this will free up a fermenter. Being in Munich at the moment, I have limited myself to brewing beer styles that originate outside of Germany. (This is due to the fact that German beer is obviously so cheap and plentiful here).

I am really at the mercy of the weather, for I have no means of fermentation temperature control. So either I can

1. Ferment in the apartment at 18 - 19C
2. Ferment in the basement at 15.5 - 18C

On the last batch, I started in the basement, and then moved it into the apartment.

It is sunny today, so I must restrict my brewing to near nightfall, so I can cool the wort outside (colder) and the sun will not be out (hop skunking).

The question is, what should I brew? Given my ingredients (Cent, Simcoe, EKG, Magnum hops) (Pilsner, Caramunich II, CaraPils grains) (US-56 or S-04). I think I will make a variation of the last one, with lower alcohol, mashed at a higher temp, Simcoe instead of EKG, and "maybe" S-04.

What ya think? BTW, this will be EXTREMELY late hopped, with all of the hops going in at 10 minutes. I will still get my IBUs, there is just a larger quantity in there to attain it under such a short period of time.

IPA in Muenchen 2

10-A American Pale Ale

Size: 15.67 L

Efficiency: 73.5%

Attenuation: 76.0%

Calories: 186.14 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.056 (1.045 - 1.060)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.010 - 1.015)

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Color: 11.2 (5.0 - 14.0)

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Alcohol: 5.58% (4.5% - 6.0%)

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Bitterness: 44.81 (30.0 - 45.0)

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Ingredients:

7.89 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger

0.52 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine

0.66 lbs Caramunich® TYPE II

1.65 oz Simcoe (12.3%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min

0.47 oz Centennial (9.6%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min

1.41 oz Centennial (9.6%) - added dry to primary fermenter

1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min

1.0 ea Fermentis US-56 Safale US-56

Schedule:

00:03:00 Mash In - Liquor: 9.44 L; Strike: 167.0 °F

01:03:00 Rest - Rest: 60.0 min

01:04:00 Infusion - Water: 3.13 L; Temperature: 212 °F

01:04:00 Sparging - Sparge: 0.0 L sparge @ 168.0 °F, 9.0 L collected, 0.0 min; Sparge #2: 9.0 L sparge @ 168.0 °F, 9.0 L collected, 0.0 min; Total Runoff: 18.0 L

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.15

A Few Days Before Bottling

... i need to check the FG, to see if it has fermented completely. I have used US-56 (a California Dry Ale Yeast), due to its great attenuation properties. In the past, I have had trouble fermenting out higher gravity beers. They would usually end up in the high 20s or so, which is a bit too wet.

To make a long story short, in hindsight, I had a little trouble with the mash. In the beginning of the mash, it seemed my temperature was a little too low (149F). So, I stirred and stirred, and finally the temperature probe said 152F. Ok, this is perfect.

I have a feeling there might have been some temperature gradients there that I was not aware of. The reason I say this is because my final gravity is at 1.008. This is a bit low for this OG of a beer (1.064). Well, I have had my before bottle tasting, and yes, it is a little dry.

This is ok, the young beer tastes really good, and I am happy with it. I will dry hop for a couple days, to get some hop aroma into it (the hops taste nice... and I will talk about this later).

For such a high alcohol beer (7.3%), I do not taste the alcohol. This is in part most likely due to the cold fermenting conditions I put it under. In the beginning, and for the majority of this beers fermenting life, it was sitting below 62F. This allowed the nasty types of alcohol from being excreted by the yeast.

First All Grain Brew, As Well

Yes, I use to brew extract beers... but, I have found that all-grain brewing is cheaper, and definitely a bit more fun. Time-wise, it takes a little longer to brew all-grain than it does extract, but it is not difficult at all.

There are three primary types of all-grain brewing.
1. Fly Sparge
2. Batch Sparge
3. No Sparge

I have chosen to do batch sparging primarily because it is very easy, the sugar extraction efficiency is very good, and I do not have to worry about oversparging and extracting nasty stuff from the grains. For superb information on batch sparging, check out this site.

I hit around 75% efficiency, which is way more than i thought i would end up with for some reason, so my first beer ended up with a OG of 1.064. I was shooting for a 1.054 (I think I assumed 62% efficiency in the beginning). Now instead on an APA, it is an IPA... LOL

Recipe: IPA in München

Ok, this is my first brew made in Munich. It is probably a bit sacrilegious to brew an IPA in Germany... but, my justification is that I can not buy any here.

Note: this is not a full 5 gallon batch, so if you want to use it, you must scale it up.

IPA in Muenchen

14-B American IPA

Size: 11.83 L

Efficiency: 73.51%

Attenuation: 87.5%

Calories: 209.35 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.064 (1.056 - 1.075)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.008 (1.010 - 1.018)

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Color: 8.5 (6.0 - 15.0)

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Alcohol: 7.36% (5.5% - 7.5%)

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Bitterness: 45.45 (40.0 - 60.0)

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Ingredients:

2.34 oz Centennial (9.6%) - added dry to primary fermenter

0.35 oz Centennial (9.6%) - added during boil, boiled 20.0 min

7.06 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger

0.47 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine

0.26 lbs Caramunich® TYPE II

2.12 oz East Kent Goldings (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min

0.8 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min

1.0 ea Fermentis US-56 Safale US-56

Schedule:

00:03:00 Mash In - Liquor: 8.1 L; Strike: 166.9 °F

01:03:00 Rest - Rest: 60.0 min

01:04:00 Infusion - Water: 1.84 L; Temperature: 215.8 °F

01:04:00 Sparge - FirstRunnings: 0.0 L sparge @ 168.0 °F, 7.0 L collected, 0.0 min; Second: 7.0 L sparge @ 168.0 °F, 7.0 L collected, 0.0 min; Total Runoff: 14.0 L

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.15

Recipe: Not As Roasty Weizenbock

After my first Weizenbock, I had decided that I wanted one that was not quite as roasty. So, I got rid of the Black Patent Malt. At the end of the day, I could not tell the difference. I think the Bavarian Wheat Yeast was throwing too much banana flavor because I fermented too warm. I tried to keep the fermentation at 68F, but this is still too warm. Possibly 65F or cooler will be adequate for this Weissbier.

Notice the batch size here is smaller (~2.5 gallons), so this needs to be scaled up for normal batches of 5 and 10 gallons.

Not As Roasty Weizenbock

15-C Weizenbock

Size: 9.46 L

Efficiency: 0.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 219.96 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.066 (1.064 - 1.085)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (1.015 - 1.022)

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Color: 21.3 (12.0 - 25.0)

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Alcohol: 6.5% (6.5% - 8.5%)

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Bitterness: 32.76 (15.0 - 30.0)

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Ingredients:

1.25 oz Hallertauer (3.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min

3.0 lbs Wheat Dry Extract

0.75 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract

0.5 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L

0.25 lbs Chocolate Malt

1.0 ea White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale

Schedule:

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.15

A Recipe from MoreBeer

Here is a great one... and I think it has won a few awards (not by me). This is a specialty beer, it has great body and flavor. I believe the recipe below is missing oats, but it has been a while, and I do not remember :(

B3 Fire in the Hole

23-A Specialty Beer

Size: 18.93 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 256.31 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.077 (1.030 - 1.110)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.019 (1.006 - 1.024)

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Color: 19.3 (5.0 - 50.0)

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Alcohol: 7.58% (2.5% - 12.0%)

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Bitterness: 30.71 (5.0 - 70.0)

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Ingredients:

1.0 oz Magnum (6.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min

2.0 oz Centennial (10.0%) - added during boil, boiled 2.0 min

2.0 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) (14.4%) - added dry to primary fermenter

7.0 lbs Pale Liquid Extract

2.0 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US

1.0 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L

1.0 lbs Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann)

0.5 lbs Munich Malt

0.5 lbs Rye Malt

0.18 lbs Carafa I

1.0 oz Oak Chips - added dry to secondary fermenter

1.0 ea White Labs WLP002 English Ale

Schedule:

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.15

My Second Beer ever (and a favorite)

Ok, here is my second beer, and I think this is based on one from Joy Of Homebrewing. Anyhow, here it is!

Weizenbock

15-C Weizenbock

Size: 18.93 L

Efficiency: 0.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 219.96 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.066 (1.064 - 1.085)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (1.015 - 1.022)

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Color: 23.0 (12.0 - 25.0)

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Alcohol: 6.5% (6.5% - 8.5%)

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Bitterness: 23.87 (15.0 - 30.0)

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Ingredients:

0.75 oz Northern Brewer (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min

6.0 lbs Wheat Dry Extract

1.5 lbs Amber Dry Extract

1.0 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L

0.25 lbs Black (Patent) Malt

0.25 lbs Chocolate Malt

1.0 ea WYeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen

Schedule:

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.15

The Brewing Network

Listening to "The Brewing Network" is super helpful in attaining brewing information, as well as brewing trivia, and of course brewing Quatsch. If you do not know what Quatsch means, translate it in Google or something, from German to English.

The Sunday show is cast live, via their website (just click on the appropriate bandwidth speed you have), and you can hear informative things from their guests (for example, Vinnie Cilurzo, Dan Gordon, among others). There are great brewing tips, and debates such as cold pitching vs. warm pitching.

On every other Monday or so, "The Jamil Show" is cast. This is a style show, where for one hour, they go over a specific style. The show is hosted by Jamil Zainasheff, who is a multiple award winning homebrewer. It is best advised to take his advice!

There is also the other show, Lunch Meet, which I personally do not listen to, but, defines Quatsch. It is on Fridays during lunch, for those of you who enjoy killing your brain cells.

I personally listen to the Sunday Show (the main one), and the Jamil show. I have learned greatly from these, and I am sure you will as well.

My First Beer (from a while ago)

Here is my very first beer. Amazingly enough, it was not a kit, but a handcrafted masterpiece. Ok, just kidding about the masterpiece part, but it was pretty good. Super simple, and it tastes phenominal (no pun intended!).

WeissBier

17-A Bavarian Weizen (Weissbier)

Size: 18.93 L

Efficiency: 0.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 175.23 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.053 (1.040 - 1.056)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.010 - 1.014)

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Color: 9.6 (2.0 - 9.0)

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Alcohol: 5.18% (4.3% - 5.6%)

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Bitterness: 17.97 (10.0 - 20.0)

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Ingredients:

1.0 oz Hallertauer (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min

6.0 lbs Wheat Dry Extract

1.0 ea WYeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen

Schedule:

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.15

Start Brewing People!

This blog is about homebrewing beer... as it relates to me, possibly. Anyhow, I got into this hobby a little after the year 2005 started. That being said, I am a relative newbie. So far I have about 10 brews under my belt, mostly German styles... but, a couple of American.

If you want to get started homebrewing, and I suggest you do because it is so easy and and entertaining, if not a little labor intensive... The beer you make will be better than the largest of beermakers. In addition, you CAN not die from making bad beer. In fact, it would be hard to get sick from bad beer, because you would probably just not end up drinking it due to some off flavors.

... here are some books to get you started, listed in order of favor.

1. How To Brew (latest ed 3rd), by John Palmer (www.howtobrew.com)
2. Designing Great Beers, by Ray Daniels
3. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian

I will start posting my recipes, and I hope to get opinions and such