Global Climate Change Kolsch

Brewed in honor of the 68°F sunny day we had in St. Louis, Missouri on February 23, 2012, this is the simplest Kolsch recipe I've ever made. A very helpful person at St. Louis Wine and Beer Making found the recipe in a book and sold me all the ingredients pre-measured. No weighing grains this time. I haven't made a Kolsch sans flavor/aroma hops before. Likewise this is my first Kolsch not to feature at least a pound of wheat malt. I suspect this is because the wheat malt is to aid in head retention -- a role obviated by the character of Pilsner malt.

Now for the problem. (There always has to be one. Doesn't there?)

I usually violenty shake the fermenter at 1 to 1.5 gallon intervals during transfer. The properties of the Pilsner malt (which I had never used before) caused the carboy to fill with foam and overflow. Oops. Any ideas on how to aerate wort when Pilsner was the base grain?

Anyway, the aeration seems to have worked. There is a 3-inch kraeusen on the beer less than 12 hours after pitching. Other factors that may have contributed: the production date on the packet of Wyeast 2565 was a mere 48 hours prior to brew day, making this the freshest (ergo healthiest and most populous, theoretically) yeast I've ever pitched. Also my digital thermometer went on the fritz during chilling, which means I only have a rough guess as to the temperature of the wort when the yeast was pitched. It's not impossible that the wort was so warm that the yeast went instantly into overdrive. We will find out at racking time by tasting if the hydrometer sample has molto bananas or other fruity esters.

Beer Recipator: Global Climate Change Kolsch

Clean Out the Fridge IPA

As the name implies, this IPA recipe was formulated using only the grains, hops, and yeast I had on hand. The brewing bug grabbed me at around 11a.m., and there was no time to make a run to my LHBS for ingredients. Hence she's not exactly a traditonal IPA hop-wise. The hop schedule was inspired quite loosely by recipes for Surly Furious clones I've seen around the web.

Beer Recipator: Clean Out the Fridge IPA

Krekow Kommon

Basically, we're making Northern Brewer's California Common.

Here's the Beer Recipator recipe: Krekow Kommon.

Every brew day is an adventure. For the first time since I started brewing all-grain today I overshot my mash temp by at least 4F. Target mash temp: 152F. Actual temp: 156F. My solution: I added what I guess was less than 1/2 gallon of cold water directly from the hose into the mash. Once I stirred it up and sealed the lid of my mash tun, the thermometer fell to 151 and held there for the next 57 minutes until I began the vorlauf process. I wonder what the net effect of those 3 hot minutes at the beginning of the mash will be. I think I'll go ask them over at homebrewtalk.com.

***Update***
Little did I know when I typed the words "Every brew day is an adventure" what kind of adventure, or nightmare really, was still in store for this Brew Day. I can't bring myself to describe the horror right now, so the gory details will have to wait for a future post -- with pics and video.

Fullerish A.K.A. Fulleresque Redux

I liked the Fulleresque so much, I wanted more, ASAP. Luckily, I had left overs of most of the ingredients. I was completely out of flaked maize, so that will be a major difference. Also Fullerish is going to be a bigger brew what with 12lbs. of base grain rather than 9.

Beer Recipator: Fullerish A.K.A. Fulleresque Redux


***Update***
At first this tasted too sweet. Not as good as Fulleresque. That was a couple of weeks ago. Now it's pretty darn good -- only a slight hint of that original sweetness. I have saved a couple of bottles of Fulleresque, and a growler of Fullerish in the fridge for a head-to-head taste test this weekend. (Feb 25, 2012)

And the winner is . . .

Fulleresque ESB

Notes to self for future brews with grain bills in the 10-11 lbs. range:

• 3.5 gallons of strike water @ 175 F will hit 168 F upon being transferred to mash tun.
• 10.5 lbs of room temperature grain will bring the mash to 152 F exactly.
• After an hour the mash had lost 4 degrees reaching 148 F. (While this is acceptable, in the future we will preheat the mash tun with even hotter liquor (perhaps 185) and let the temperature settle a while before doughing in.)
• This will yield approximately 2 gallons of wort @ 1.067-1.070 specific gravity.
• After vorlauf and draining off the first runnings, 4.5 gallons of sparge water @ 185 F will bring 10.5 lbs of saturated grain to 166-168 F.
• This will yield 4.5 gallons of 1.027-1.030 SG wort. Mixed with the first runnings, this will give 6.5 gallons of 1.040-1.044 SG wort.

Perfect!
Beer Recipator: Fulleresque ESB

Update: On 1/7/2012 while preparing my FullerISH (not -ESQUE) ESB , I needed a grain absorption constant so as to know how much sparge water would be needed a 6.5 gallon boil. Luckily I was able to use the above figures like so: 10.5 lbs of grain absorbs 1.5 gallons of water. 1.5/10.5 = .143 which is my grain absorption contant in gallons per pound of grain. Since the Fullerish has a 13 lbs. grain bill, this means that the grains will absorb .143 * 13 = 1.86 gallons of water. Since I used 4 gallons of 165 degree water in the Fullerish mash, this should yield 4 - 1.8 = 2.2 gallons of runoff. I'm going outside right now to heat up 4.3 gallons of sparge water. Since 4.3 + 2.2 = 6.5 gallons! Ain't 'rithmatic nifty?

Eau de Cologne

Beer Recipator: Eau de Cologne

Had my first brew day of the Fall 2011 season on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011.

Bright spot of the day: after all that boiling I eventually hit my target O.G. of 1.049 on the nose. Huzzah!

I'll add tasting notes and other comments to this post once I transfer to secondary. Since you can't comment directly on the Recipator page, please do so below.

***Update***

It has been a while so I can't remember specifically how this one tasted, other than to say I was pleased with it and it disappeared quickly. To this recipe's credit, renowned St. Louis area thespian Richard Lewis gave it high praise and asked for another.

Christine's Merry Mead

Type: Basic Mead

Recipe:

On 1/23/2011

1. Mixed 1/2 a bear of honey and 1 liter of H2O.
2. Pasteurized the honey-water mixure (starter must) on the stove by holding it at 160 degrees for 15 minutes.
3. Re-hydrated a 5 gram packet of Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast in 100 degree water for about 15 minutes. Yeast was active and foaming.
4. Pitched yeast into the starter must on a stir plate. S.G. = 1.047. Must temperature at pitching = 90 degrees.

On 1/25/2011

After 48 hours the yeast had eaten all the way through the sugars in the starter SG = 1.000.

1. Mixed 12 pounds of Missouri wildflower honey with about 3.2 gallons of cold Kirkwood kitchen faucet water in a 7-gallon aluminum stock pot on the stove.
2. Raised the temperature of the must to 160 degrees and held it for 30 minutes.
3. Transferred the must into a 6 gallon carboy 1 or 2 gallons at a time, shaking the carboy to aerate the must and then pouring some more.
4. Once the temperature of the must reached 75 degrees, pitched the starter into the carboy along with 1 1/4 teaspoons of Fermaid-K. Original Gravity= 1.100.

On 1/29/2011

Took a gravity reading. S.G. = 1.080. Recipe calls for an addition of Fermaid-K once 30% of the sugar is consumed. Must temperature 65 degrees.

On 1/30/2011

Added 1 1/4 teaspoons of Fermaid-K and shook the carboy. We will not take another gravity reading until airlock activity has stopped.

Notes:

We had planned to dechlorinate the water with Campden tablets but we hadn't made it back to our LHSS in time, and we wanted to pitch the starter must while the yeast was still active.

We tasted the gravity samples from both the fermented starter must and the 1/29 gravity reading.

The starter must tasted like a tangy acidic honey chardonnay. I'm sure the sourness came from the last two days of constant aeration on the stir plate.

The 1/29 sample tasted like honey water with some fruity white wine flavors starting to come through already. I'm very excited about how this will taste when fermentation is complete. We'll make decisions about back-sweetening and still vs. champagne-style at bottling time.

***Update***

At Christmas time 2011 this was delicious. IMO not unlike a semisweet white with honey and floral notes. A couple of months previous, when it reached a sweetness profile I liked, I used campden tabs to arrest fermentation. At the time of this writing (February 2012) there is still a bottle of this mead in a refrigerator somewhere in Minneapolis. If I get to taste that one or hear reports on its flavor, an update will appear below.