Yes indeed. The Centennial hop rhizomes have sent bines into the air. We here at Flog This Dead, should be able to use it in a fresh hop version of Bell’s Two Hearted ale clone [PDF link to recipe]. Carbonated Trix–breakfast of champions. Yum!
Ain’t photosynthesis and auxin wondrous?
Last time on BrewZasters), we lost all of our Lagunitas Brewing’s Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale clone from our three Tap-a-Draft bottles.
Tap-a-Drafts are a compromise between bottles and kegs. It’s nice filling only three bottles…The handle has an issue. If you do not confirm that the handle is secure and the locking tab is in place, it leaks… About 15 minutes later the beer had found its way into vegetable crisper (onions, celery, and lettuce were marinating in beer), behind and under the crisper, and onto the kitchen floor…we lost one-third of our product, or about $10 retail. Damn. [Update: Lightning struck twice and a second TAD leaked. The TAD needs to be checked constantly.]
My version of Laurel IPA. Slightly cloudy with a SRM color around 6.
Well, gluttons for punishment that we are, today we packaged our third batch of Laurel India Pale Ale. The initial tastings of the flat beer hint at this being another dynamite batch. This time we filled just one Tap-A-Draft so that we can sample the Laurel sooner but we didn’t expose all our batch to the TAD [I checked that it was still holding product after writing this sentence.] We bottled the remainder in 12-ounce bottles.
We will keep constant vigilance on this batch. It is a sin to spill beer.
Fermentables Ingredient Amount % MCU When Pale 2-row Ale Malt 13lb 15oz 94.7 % 7.6 In Mash/Steeped Carapils Malt 7.20 oz 3.1 % 0.1 In Mash/Steeped Caramel 40L 5.40 oz 2.3 % 2.5 In Mash/SteepedHop Schedule Hop %Alpha Amt Timing Magnum 11.0 % 0.77 oz First Wort Hopped Cascade 5.9 % 1.85 oz 60 Min From End Centennial 9.5 % 0.75 oz 30 Min From End Simcoe 12.5 % 0.30 oz 10 Min From End Columbus(Tomahawk) 15.5 % 0.30 oz 10 Min From End Centennial 9.5 % 0.45 oz At turn off Cascade 5.9 % 0.20 oz At turn off Cascade 5.9 % 2.12 oz Dry-Hopped Centennial 9.5 % 1.15 oz Dry-Hopped Citra 11.1 % 1.00 oz Dry-Hopped Yeast White Labs WLP001-California Ale
mashed at 151F using 9 gallons of water
Output:
7.5 gallons wort pre-boil grav 1.044 @ 113F (Corrected pre-boil of 1.053)
Original gravity: 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.013
ABV: 6.9%
Aftermash. Spent grain being spaded out of mash tun. (Image via Wikipedia)
This week on Brew Disasters we’re brewing a totally new and untried recipe (at least by us at Batch-22). We’ve got the recipe for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone from the Beverage People (I immediately changed the hops, so don’t blame them; blame me for the recipe) that we want to enter in Beer-vana. With entries due in only four weeks, we’re under the gun. [Queue theme song]
The recipe:
| Two-Row Malt | 9lb 0oz |
| Caramel 40L Malt | 8.00 oz |
| Carapils (Dextrin) Malt | 8.00 oz |
| Ahtanum | 1.00 oz | 60 Min From End |
| Ahtanum | 1.00 oz | 30 Min From End |
| Cascade | 1.00 oz | 10 Min From End |
| Cascade | 1.00 oz | 1 Min From End |
Original specific gravity ~ 1.048-1.052
I also am subbing a Wyeast 2007-Pilsen Lager for the White Labs WLP001-California Ale since the basement temps are around 52F, darned near ideal for lagers.
I’m still working to find a good house pale ale recipe. Or, perhaps, I have had good pale ale recipes and have had poor execution. These are my brewing notes from yesterday.
For this all-grain recipe, I chose to batch sparge, so the maximum amount of sugars could be extracted from the 10 pound grain bill. The goal was to have about 8 gallons of wort with a specific gravity of 1.036-1.042 before beginning the boil. After the boil the goal was pale ale wort with an original gravity of 1.048-1.052.
And, I wanted to mash and sparge with equal amounts of water.
The grain will soak up a percentage of the water and hold onto it. So, I started there.
The formula for water loss due to grain absorption is 0.13gal H2O/lb x grain bill (1.3 gal/lb x 10 lb = 1.3 gallons. If I wanted 8 gallons I needed to start with 9.3 gallons of hot liquor (liquor in brewing terminology is water plus any needed amendments e.g., gypsum).
Next, I decided on how much water to grain I wanted in the mash. I picked 1.5 qt H2O per pound of grain. 10.00 lb x 1.5 qt/lb = 15.00 qt = 3.75 gallons H2O
I heated a tad over 5 gallons (3.75gal + 1.3gal = a tad of 5 gal) to 163F for the mash water. I heat 5+ gallons to 163F (10F above the mash temperature desired), and then “doughed-in” the milled grain (your local homebrew store can help you mill the grain so that it’s not too fine).
After I doughed in making a grain soup, the temperature was 136F and not 153F. A drop of 27F, and not 10F. So much for rules of thumb. Since I use a keggle with a hand-made false bottom for mashing, I lit the burner under the keggle and set the burner to a low flame (to minimize caramelizing the wort. NOTE: don’t try this if you use an ice chest to mash) and began recirculating wort to equalize the temperature within. Once the mash reached 153F, it sat for an hour to allow the enzymes present on the malted barley to break down the grain’s starches into simpler sugars that beer yeast can digest. After the hour, recirculated wort (Vorlaufed in beer-geek speak) until it ran without bits of grain in it. I heated the mash up to 168F. Once in the 168F ballpark, I drain into boil pot and measure output (I also put a wire mesh between the bucket and the spigot to catch wayward bits of grain). I measured 3.33 gallons of output (the false bottom area still held about 3 gallons too).
I heated 2.75 gallons to 170F and added that to the grains and stirred it well so the liquor (aka hot water) would need to make new channels in the grain bed. Then it set for 10 minutes. I recirculated, drained, and measured. The two outputs added up to 8 gallons. The pre-boil gravity was a corrected 1.038. (Note: you can’t read hydrometer numbers without correcting for the temperature of the liquid. Hydrometers are calibrated to read 1.000SG in 59F water).
Once the output had been measured (8.0 gallons), it went into the boil kettle.
The wort boiled for 75 minutes. 30 minutes before flame out the wort chiller is placed into the boiling wort to sterilize it. The specific gravity at the end of the boil was 1.050. The yeast was pitched after the wort had cooled to 62F.
The Better Bottle Carboy is now in the basement and the thermal strip reads 52F. After 12 hours there is no sign yet of bubbles from the blow-off tube.
Tune in later to see if fermentation has started.
Batch-22 