Simcoe Tasting

Ok, so my IPA in Muenchen II (an All-Simcoe beer) recipe had been bottled, and is now ready for tasting. Let me first say how excited I am about this beer. This beer is basically a hop delivery system. First, it consisted of a late hop addition, exclusively. Second, I did not dry hop it because I did not want to impart extra aroma due the experiment with this late hop only (10 minutes, all hops went into the boil).

I needed to check how much aroma went into the brew without staining of a dry hop addition.

So, the tasting, look and feel of the beer. LOL

1. The head is thick, and long lasting. So far so good.
2. The color is spot on according to the recipe I posted earlier. Nice
3. The aroma... piney and fruity, I can not say much more about it, except that it is obvious.
4. Bitterness, normal for a pale ale, not necessarily IPA numbers, according to taste of course.
5. Flavor... yes, this beer is a hop delivery system. The first impression I had when I drank it was ORANGE. Nice. No need to add fruit extracts when you can pull similar flavors from the hops.
6. Mouthfeel. Great, it is not as dry as my last beer. I am not sure what the FG gravity is at the moment since I do not have a hydrometer. But, I would guess 1.012 - 1.015 or so.
7. It must be the Munich water. I can not complain, the water is the best tasting tap I have ever had, and this goes into the beer somehow.

Collecting Wort

Ok, here is a picture of the wort collection from one of my brewdays. As you can see, the worlds cheapest mashtun is being used in a high tech siphon gravity feed system. It is my belief that the fermenter I am using is made for winemaking, but it was the only thing I could really use here. And, it works fine. Previously I had used glass carboys, but I have none at the moment.

The collection of the wort is slow. Tube diameter plays an important role in this, and I have to make do with what I have.

All in all it seems to work out fine. I was going to go through the trouble of drilling a hole in the cooler, and have the runnings feed out of the bottom. But, siphoning works just as well. I do not have to worry about sanitation (starting the siphon) since it is a pre-boil process step.

This type of all-grain system could not get any simpler!

Chill Haze

It seems I have my first case of chill haze, and the symptoms are obvious. My beer seemed to have dropped clear in the third week of it being bottled, and I was thrilled. Unfortunately, once it cools in the refridgerator, things get murky.

The sad part is that I had Whirlfloc on hand for all of my recent brews, but I had forgotten to put it in for the last two out of three batches. So, we will see if the All-Simcoe IPA (no whirlfloc) retains a chill haze quality or not. My last batch I did remember to put it in, I guess I will know in a month or so.

From what has been read, it seems that gelatin, whirlfloc, and irish moss can sometimes solve the problem. But, cold filtering will usually always solve the problem. Since I do not have the means, I will find another way.

The cause of the problem can be everything from what the barley farmer did, to protein content, to tannins, to the maltsters...etc.

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...