had a hell of a time with this one.
ingredients:
muntons pale, 10 lbs.
muntons crystal, 1 lb.
british amber/brown, 1 lb.
muntons chocolate, 9 oz.
fuggles uk, 1 oz plug, 60 min.
.5 oz, 15 min.
.5 oz, 5 minutes
90 minute boil
pre-boil volume: 7.5 gal.
pr3-boil gravity: 1.044
OG: 1.066
FG: 1.018
mash schedule:
.5 hours @ 104
.5 hours @ 140
.5 hours @ 158
degrees Fahrenheit, mind you
on paper it looks simple enough, but from my perspective the scenario played out quite differently. there were a number of pesky hangups with this batch, namely a stuck mash and running out of propane mid boil. which i know now, every four brewing sessions, i need to fill up on propane. brewing beer is not cheap.
every spring it is windy as shit here in vegas. and every spring everyone is like, "fucking wind, man!" due to the fact that i dont have a wind shield for my propane burner, the wind really messes with me. it takes forever to boil anything. to make matters worse, on this morning, i picked up the propane tank and thought geez, that feels a little light. foolishly, i had not given the tank the ol' pick-up-and-see-how heavy it is-test prior. so instead of just going to get more propane right then and there i decided that i had enough and proceeded with the work at hand. do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
about thirty minutes into the boil, i lost my BTU's. i lugged seven gallons of boiling wort up the steps and into the kitchen. i placed the wort on the stove. my pot is about 1" to tall to fit on my stove. oh yes, i know that now. so i decided to use the front two burners with the kettle hanging off rather precariously. the pot stayed on just fine. but the burners were too widely placed. they were on the outer quarter of the kettle. i turned the back burners on just for the hell of it. the range fan went on automatically. i didnt even know it did that! the boil wasnt coming back. i have a two gallon pot. i filled that up with wort and put it on the burner behind the kettle. i have a one gallon pot. i did the same with that and put it on the other burner behind the pot. i was using the shit out of some natural gas. it was just a waste, a tease.
FINALLY, chessie came home from work. this was about three in the afternoon. i went and got propane. i returned home. i fired up the burner once again. an hour later i was pretty much done.
all this left me rather drained. oh yeah, and i forgot to mention the stuck mash from hell i had. the batch before, i had a stuck mash too, the blonde ale. i had figured it was because the tubing that connected my ball valve to the false bottom was the regular, squishy, clear, vinyl, type. woah, hows that for a string of modifiers? anyway, i had changed the old tubing out before this brown porter batch with the high temp, stiff, cloth braided vinyl type. i thought this stiffer tubing would not get crushed by the weight of the grains when i began to lauter. but begining to lauter again this time, i ran into the same problem. i was able to get a couple quarts, i thought things were going fine and then BAM! stuck mash. it was horrible. i blew into the line, i sucked the line. i jiggled the mash tun, pounded against the sides. if you woulda seen me working that tun you would have been embarassed for me. you'd a thought i was tyrone biggums working the shaft for a ten baggy of crack cocaine!
mental images aside, what i realized is that the problem wasnt so much the tubing(although that could have been part of it) as it was my water to grist ratio. i have been used to keeping my lbs. grain/qts water at a 1/1 ratio. This is fine for single step mashes. The mash at this ratio, in a single infusion is great for lautering. But, when doing a stepped mash, the ratio of water to grain is greatly increased. This increased ratio makes for a much thinner mash. Instead of the grain expanding and getting thick as with a single infusion mash, during a stepped mash, the evolving mash becomes more and more dilute. i have realized that when performing a stepped mash, the amount of water that will be added into the process has to be taken into account. a 1/1 ration is just too much water to start out with. this ratio allows the grain bed to compress with the additions of boiling water to reach the desired temperatures of the steps, instead of staying suspended as with a single infusion. does this make sense? so, the solution is to decrease the ratio of water to grain during the initial infusion, based on the number of steps that will be performed during the mash. that way, the mash will not become too dilute and cause the grain bed to compress upon itself during lautering, thus causing a stuck mash. problem solved.
so other than the stuck mash, running out of propane, and the wind, the brew sesh went fine. i forgot to tell you that the yeast i used was a...no idea. sorry. i must get better at taking notes!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
reefer madness blonde ale
i call this beer reefer madness not because of the weed that isn't in it, but because it was brewed on 4/20. for some reason i hadn't written the date down in my notes as to the brewing date and i started to become confused. but then i remembered. oh yeaaaaaaah...it was four twenty man.
if you were to witness the absentmindedness of my trip to the brew store for this last brew session you would surely think i was stoned. i had two items on my list of things to get while i was at the store. irish moss, and bottle caps. armed with my 80 classic styles book and the BJCP style guidelines, i was winging the rest. guess what i forgot? grains, check. hops, check. yeast, harvested from my aipa, check. yeah, the two things i had written down...the two things i forgot. i think i have some sort of disease.
LUCKILY, thanks to my new friend Jon Christiansen, head brewer at joseph james brewing, i was able to procure a bunch of caps. i really didnt want to have to drive across town for one item. but if jon hadnt come through, i would have had to. i only have one carboy. as such, i bottle one day and brew the next, to keep my equipment at its max capacity. i guess i could start brewing and then bottle while i am waiting for my water...either way, not having those caps was fucking me up. thanks jon! having a brewery ten minutes away from the pad comes in handy.
so with this blonde ale i have changed some things. first, i moved up from a five to a ten gallon igloo for my mash tun. i bought two of them when i saw them at the local grocery for cheap. i figured someone would want one eventually. or not, whatever. with this increase in volume of my mash tun i am afforded some options i did not have before in my brewing process. let me elaborate...
the first thing i can do is make "bigger" beers. since i have more volume, that increases the amount of grain i can mash, thus making it possible for me to extract worts with a higher gravity. this increases the amount of styles i will be able to brew. double ipa's come to mind, as do imperial stouts. increasing the volume of my mash tun also allows me more control of the mash. instead of mashing for an hour at one temp of say 155, i can do "stepped" mashs. this involves an initial 1/2 hour mash at a low temp. then, with the increased volume, i can add more water at boiling temp to raise the temperature of the mash and rest again for another half hour at a medium temp. finally, i can repeat this again for the final rest at the highest temp. doing these rests messes with the chemistry of the mash in a way that i don't fully understand, but supposedly is more efficient at extracting the sugars from the grain and breaking up proteins necesarry for making higher quality beer.
a five gallon mash tun simply does not have enough volume to allow for these types of rests. a ten gallon does. it all has to do with thermodynamics and how much energy it takes to raise a given volume of water a certain amount of degrees. john palmer in How to Brew, goes through these steps and provides the formulas necesarry to calculate how much water and at what temperature is necessary to make these steps. i would not be able to figure out this stuff on my own. good thing i love math.
so now with my stepped up equipment, i decided to put this to work on my blonde ale.
ingredients:
ummm...somehow i dont have any information regarding my blond ale, recipe wise. that is what i get for waiting over a month to write about it i guess.
anyway, it wasnt even that great. i have about a 12 pack and six bombers left of the batch and i havent been very impressed. i keep getting a real bitter taste, that i dont think is coming from the hops. i think its from the grain. not sure what i did wrong. i guess i could just let it sit for a while and see how it does.
hmmm...what else. i know the mormons stopped by a few times. they live next door so i see them all the time. they always seem interested in what im doing even though i know they don't drink. come to think of it, people are always interested when they see me brewing. one lady was like, "what are you doing, frying a turkey?" and i was like, "no, making beer." then she stood there watching while i gave her a little run down of what i was doing. when people ask what im doing its very satisfying to be able to reply, "making beer." im proud that i brew beer and like all brewers out there, i love talking about beer. its even better when the person your talking to about it doesn't know anything about beer because they get this look of bewildered awe that you have so much to say about it. i guess its the kind of look i must get when someone is talking to me who knows proportionally more about beer than i do than i do versus the schmo that doesn't know anything. does that make sense? and i mean "schmo" endearingly by the way.
thats it for this one.
CHEERS!
if you were to witness the absentmindedness of my trip to the brew store for this last brew session you would surely think i was stoned. i had two items on my list of things to get while i was at the store. irish moss, and bottle caps. armed with my 80 classic styles book and the BJCP style guidelines, i was winging the rest. guess what i forgot? grains, check. hops, check. yeast, harvested from my aipa, check. yeah, the two things i had written down...the two things i forgot. i think i have some sort of disease.
LUCKILY, thanks to my new friend Jon Christiansen, head brewer at joseph james brewing, i was able to procure a bunch of caps. i really didnt want to have to drive across town for one item. but if jon hadnt come through, i would have had to. i only have one carboy. as such, i bottle one day and brew the next, to keep my equipment at its max capacity. i guess i could start brewing and then bottle while i am waiting for my water...either way, not having those caps was fucking me up. thanks jon! having a brewery ten minutes away from the pad comes in handy.
so with this blonde ale i have changed some things. first, i moved up from a five to a ten gallon igloo for my mash tun. i bought two of them when i saw them at the local grocery for cheap. i figured someone would want one eventually. or not, whatever. with this increase in volume of my mash tun i am afforded some options i did not have before in my brewing process. let me elaborate...
the first thing i can do is make "bigger" beers. since i have more volume, that increases the amount of grain i can mash, thus making it possible for me to extract worts with a higher gravity. this increases the amount of styles i will be able to brew. double ipa's come to mind, as do imperial stouts. increasing the volume of my mash tun also allows me more control of the mash. instead of mashing for an hour at one temp of say 155, i can do "stepped" mashs. this involves an initial 1/2 hour mash at a low temp. then, with the increased volume, i can add more water at boiling temp to raise the temperature of the mash and rest again for another half hour at a medium temp. finally, i can repeat this again for the final rest at the highest temp. doing these rests messes with the chemistry of the mash in a way that i don't fully understand, but supposedly is more efficient at extracting the sugars from the grain and breaking up proteins necesarry for making higher quality beer.
a five gallon mash tun simply does not have enough volume to allow for these types of rests. a ten gallon does. it all has to do with thermodynamics and how much energy it takes to raise a given volume of water a certain amount of degrees. john palmer in How to Brew, goes through these steps and provides the formulas necesarry to calculate how much water and at what temperature is necessary to make these steps. i would not be able to figure out this stuff on my own. good thing i love math.
so now with my stepped up equipment, i decided to put this to work on my blonde ale.
ingredients:
ummm...somehow i dont have any information regarding my blond ale, recipe wise. that is what i get for waiting over a month to write about it i guess.
anyway, it wasnt even that great. i have about a 12 pack and six bombers left of the batch and i havent been very impressed. i keep getting a real bitter taste, that i dont think is coming from the hops. i think its from the grain. not sure what i did wrong. i guess i could just let it sit for a while and see how it does.
hmmm...what else. i know the mormons stopped by a few times. they live next door so i see them all the time. they always seem interested in what im doing even though i know they don't drink. come to think of it, people are always interested when they see me brewing. one lady was like, "what are you doing, frying a turkey?" and i was like, "no, making beer." then she stood there watching while i gave her a little run down of what i was doing. when people ask what im doing its very satisfying to be able to reply, "making beer." im proud that i brew beer and like all brewers out there, i love talking about beer. its even better when the person your talking to about it doesn't know anything about beer because they get this look of bewildered awe that you have so much to say about it. i guess its the kind of look i must get when someone is talking to me who knows proportionally more about beer than i do than i do versus the schmo that doesn't know anything. does that make sense? and i mean "schmo" endearingly by the way.
thats it for this one.
CHEERS!
commercial brewery hangout, homebrew contest
through my friend JR, i met the head brewer of joseph James brewing in henderson, nv. JR and i were invited to swing by the brewery and hang out while jon christiansen, head brewer, brewed. we got to sample some fresh beer from the bright tanks and talk about the ins and outs of brewing, both commercially and at home. it was a good day. and to think all this time, right under my nose, there was a brewery. i go to school across the street from the place and never even realized it was there. it was pretty cool to hang out with Jon and really see the brewing process from start to finish. really, its just home brewing on steroids.
i entered my first homebrew contest sponsored by the local club here in vegas, april 10th. there were over a hundred entries. i entered four beers. in order from oldest to newest they were:
the pale ale got massacred. 18/50, presence of DMS (dimethyl sulfide) being noted by both judges. they really didn't like the way it smelled and one judge thought it necessary to note: nothing about this beer stands out and it will be easily forgotten. ouch. thanks for the non-constructive criticism. non distinctive at best, too ordinary at worst? christ almighty, thats a humdinger!
my american ipa did better with a score of 25.5/50. no flaws, but over all too balanced. the judges were definitely looking for a more robust hop presence. i would agree. the beer drank quite nicely, was smooth and very agreeable. it just lacked that punch of the typical american IPA, both in flavor and aroma.
the american amber ale did the best out of all my entries. it scored a 34.5/50. that's "very good!" a vanilla aroma which i never detected was noted by both judges. however i hadn't drank one in a month or two as i had run out. the good ones always seem to go the quickest. i was happy to note that both judges were not able to find any flaws in the beer. i believe that this american amber did the best because our water is most well suited to the style.
my first sojourn into the world of beer competition was very eye opening. even as a i prepared my beers for entry i realized that even though i had an idea of what style they were "supposed" to be, i really had no idea if they would perform as such. just entering one contest alone has really broadened my perspective and approach to brewing. you could get a PhD in this stuff.
i have since printed a copy of the BJCP style guidelines and have been using them to better inform my recipe preparation. brewing beer is definitely a lifelong hobby that i view mastering as being closely akin to reaching enlightenment. its all about the journey. there will never be a shortage of things to learn or marvels to contemplate.
i entered my first homebrew contest sponsored by the local club here in vegas, april 10th. there were over a hundred entries. i entered four beers. in order from oldest to newest they were:
- american amber ale, category 10B, brewed 12/19, bottled 1/11
- american india pale ale, category 14B, brewed 1/10, bottled 1/30
- american pale ale, category 10A, brewed 2/7, bottled 2/27
- american wheat ale, category 6D, brewed 3/1, bottled 3/22
the pale ale got massacred. 18/50, presence of DMS (dimethyl sulfide) being noted by both judges. they really didn't like the way it smelled and one judge thought it necessary to note: nothing about this beer stands out and it will be easily forgotten. ouch. thanks for the non-constructive criticism. non distinctive at best, too ordinary at worst? christ almighty, thats a humdinger!
my american ipa did better with a score of 25.5/50. no flaws, but over all too balanced. the judges were definitely looking for a more robust hop presence. i would agree. the beer drank quite nicely, was smooth and very agreeable. it just lacked that punch of the typical american IPA, both in flavor and aroma.
the american amber ale did the best out of all my entries. it scored a 34.5/50. that's "very good!" a vanilla aroma which i never detected was noted by both judges. however i hadn't drank one in a month or two as i had run out. the good ones always seem to go the quickest. i was happy to note that both judges were not able to find any flaws in the beer. i believe that this american amber did the best because our water is most well suited to the style.
my first sojourn into the world of beer competition was very eye opening. even as a i prepared my beers for entry i realized that even though i had an idea of what style they were "supposed" to be, i really had no idea if they would perform as such. just entering one contest alone has really broadened my perspective and approach to brewing. you could get a PhD in this stuff.
i have since printed a copy of the BJCP style guidelines and have been using them to better inform my recipe preparation. brewing beer is definitely a lifelong hobby that i view mastering as being closely akin to reaching enlightenment. its all about the journey. there will never be a shortage of things to learn or marvels to contemplate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)