Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cal Common 3V Conical 1

March 20, 2019 hommel Leave a comment

Another beer in NHC 2019 run of beers. Overall NHC thoughts covered in Schwarzbier discussion. This is the only beer I dry hopped out of all my NHC beers so I did get to take advantage of dry hopping with positive CO2 pressure as well as dropping the cone before and after dry hopping.

I should mention this recipe is based on recipe from local NHC gold medal winner Keith Eisel and adjusted for my system.

Recipe Info
Recipe: cal common 3v conical 1
Style: California Common 19B BJCP 2015
Date: 07-23-2017

Recipe	Guideline Min	Guideline Max
OG	1.052	1.048	1.054
FG	1.012	1.011	1.014
Color	12.0	10.0	14.0
ABV	5.3	4.5	5.5
IBU	46.0	30.0	45.0

Brewery Info
Efficiency: 74 %
Attenuation: 78 %

Mash Info
Weight: 17.35 Lbs
Thickness: 1.25 Qt per Lb
Deadspace: 2.0 G
Strikewater: 7.42 G
Volume: 8.81 G
Temp: 152.0 F

Boil Info
Kettle Gravity: 1.045
Predicted Mash Run-off: 5.86 G
Target Starting Boil Volume: 10.5 G
Boil Duration: 60 min
Evaporation Rate: 1.5 G per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 9.0 G

Fermentables

Weight	% by Weight	Name	Yield	SRM
13.500 Lb	78.0 %	2-row Pale Malt (Briess)	80.5	3.0
1.250 Lb	7.0 %	Caramel 40L (Briess)	75.0	40.0
1.250 Lb	7.0 %	Caramel 60L (Briess)	76.0	60.0
0.675 Lb	4.0 %	Victory Malt (Briess)	75.0	28.0
0.675 Lb	4.0 %	Carapils (Briess)	74.0	1.3

Hops

Weight	Name	AAU	Time	Use	IBUs
1.4 Oz	Northern Brewer (US)	8.7	60 mins	Boil	27.0
1.5 Oz	Northern Brewer (US)	8.7	10 mins	Boil	10.0
1.5 Oz	Northern Brewer (US)	8.7	20 mins	Aroma	9.0
1.0 Oz	Northern Brewer (US)	8.7	4.0 days	Dry Hop	0.0

Yeast

Amount	Name
1.000 unit	San Francisco Lager White Labs WLP810

Misc

Amount	Name	Time	Use
1.000 tablet	Whirlfloc Tablet	15 mins	Boil
1.000 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10 mins	Boil

Water
Predicted Mash Ph: 5.42

Ca	Mg	Na	Cl	So	Bicarbonate
Water	7	3	21	30	24	30
Mash	72	3	21	78	116	30
Sparge	67	3	21	69	115	30
Final	113	5	34	119	186	48
Target	75	0	0	0	0	0

Mash Water
Total Water Treated: 30.284 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 8.000 G

Mash Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 5.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 3.0 g

Sparge Water
Leftover Mash Water Used: Yes
Total Water Treated: 6.500 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 6.500 G

Sparge Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 4.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 2.0 g

Notes

Mash 152f 60 mins
168f 10 mins

2 weeks at 62f
Lager 3 weeks

1/20/19 1.4L starter w/ 140g DME WLP810 1 pouch
1/22/19 normal 3 vessel brewday. pitched full starter @ 1:30pm
1/23/19 8am steady bubbling
1/26/19 slow steady bubbling
1/28/19 ~ 13 sec
2/5/19 dry hopped
2/8/19 dropped to 35F
2/10/19 dropped cone
2/12/19 racked to keg for lagering
FG 1.014 . tastes good.
2/23/19 added gelatin. 30 psi overnight then 11psi @ 35F to force carb.

Uncategorized

Helles 3V Conical 1

March 19, 2019 hommel Leave a comment

Back to brewing for NHC!
I’ve brewed this beer before but I was reading some article (i really wish I could find the link!) on German Helles and Pils and someone shared some recipes direct from German breweries and they are using a good chunk of Munich (Braun) malt which the explanation was b/c they have moved away from decoction they felt Munich malt gave the closest color and flavor match. I had always used melanoidin malt for this effect but that was just b/c Jamil said so. Seems like German breweries may be a better source so I thought I’d give it a try. Now having tried the beer side by side with real German Helles it seems the article was right. I’ve always thought straight Pils malt Helles lacked some malt character I was picking up in Weistephaner and other German Helles and Pils I can get locally. 10% Munich seemed to get me right in same profile.
Similar plan to last year except I’m now fermenting in conicals which other than changing my volumes a bit and how I aerate hasn’t really changed things a whole lot from a brew day perspective. It’s now easier to takes sample for forced Diacetyl tests and gravity checks but they are also a lot more work on and in between brew days. The big advantage has been the ability to CO2 pressurize the headspace to add hops with positive pressure and to cold crash and then dump the cone till it runs clean enough to rack to keg. But for clean lagers I really haven’t found any real advantage to conicals since I was racking to keg before cold crashing previously. I guess it is a bit more complicated than that so I I’ll have to document my cold side practices in a stand alone article.
Last year, I brewed a Helles and then collected enough yeast from that to pitch my two lagers for NHC. My plan was to do the same this year. Things did not go as planned. One thing I have learned from conicals is they make it easier to harvest yeast since you are just dropping the cone but you have a much higher loss of yeast in the process. I’m only using 7G conicals so I’m sure it is much different as you go to larger sizes. For me, once I run off the nasty trub I only get about 350mL of clean yeast before I start running off clear beer. If I collect yeast from a carboy I was getting enough for (2) 500mL pitches (i would fill up sterilized mason jars). that said that was a mix of trub and yeast as well as about half beer. So the total yeast may be close but you lose a lot in the trub dump and then when you go to clean out the conical you will see there is a ton of yeast caught in all the nooks and crannies of the conical including trapped behind the bottom valve that didn’t come out before beer sneaks by. So with a carboy setup I was able to pull enough for two beers but the conical I can only collect enough for one. So I bailed on that plan and just grew up big pitches for the NHC beers and just enjoyed this Helles and dumped the yeast.
Recipe Info
Recipe: helles 3v conical 1
Style: Munich Helles 4A BJCP 2015
Date: 11-19-2017

	Recipe	Guideline Min	Guideline Max
OG	1.048	1.044	1.048
FG	1.011	1.006	1.012
Color	4.2	3.0	5.0
ABV	4.9	4.7	5.4
IBU	21.0	16.0	22.0

Brewery Info
Efficiency: 72 %
Attenuation: 78 %
Mash Info
Weight: 18.5 Lbs
Thickness: 1.25 Qt per Lb
Deadspace: 2.0 G
Strikewater: 7.78 G
Volume: 9.26 G
Temp: 152.0 F
Boil Info
Kettle Gravity: 1.039
Predicted Mash Run-off: 6.12 G
Target Starting Boil Volume: 12.25 G
Boil Duration: 90 min
Evaporation Rate: 1.5 G per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 10.0 G
Fermentables

Weight	% by Weight	Name	Yield	SRM
17.000 Lb	92.0 %	Pilsen (best malz)	78.3	1.5
1.500 Lb	8.0 %	Munich Dark (BestMälz)	76.1	12.7

Hops

Weight	Name	AAU	Time	Use	IBUs
0.65 Oz	Magnum	13.2	90 mins	Boil	19.0
0.35 Oz	Hallertau Mittelfrüh	4.1	15 mins	Boil	1.0
0.35 Oz	Hallertau Mittelfrüh	4.1	10 mins	Aroma	1.0

Yeast

Amount	Name
2.000 units	German Lager White Labs WLP830

Misc

Amount	Name	Time	Use
1.000 tablet	Whirlfloc Tablet	15 mins	Boil
0.500 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10 mins	Boil

Water
Predicted Mash Ph: 5.44

	Ca	Mg	Na	Cl	So	Bicarbonate
Water	7	3	21	30	24	30
Mash	65	3	21	78	98	30
Sparge	75	3	21	87	111	30
Final	103	4	31	121	153	44
Target	75	0	0	0	0	0

Mash Water
Total Water Treated: 30.284 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 8.000 G
Mash Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 4.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 3.0 g
Lactic Acid: 6.0 ml @ 88.000 %
Sparge Water
Leftover Mash Water Used: Yes
Total Water Treated: 6.750 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 6.750 G
Sparge Water Adjustments
Gypsum: 4.0 g
Calcium Chloride: 3.0 g
Notes
Mash 152f 60 mins
169 10 mins
Pitch at 48f
Raise to 50f over 24 hrs
Hold 2 weeks
Raise to 60 over 48 hrs
Hold through 3 weeks
Lager 1 month
Carb to 2.5-2.6 vols
12/4/18 made 2L starter w/ 2 pouches of WLP830 and 200g DME and a dash of yeast nutrient.
12/6/18 normal 3 vessel brewday. process is pretty well nailed down. conical too full with current amounts and need to cut down 0.5 – 1 gallons. pitched at 3pm at 48F. @11pm turned up to 49F
12/7/18 7am no bubbling
11am very limited bubbling. ~1 min. turned up to 50F.
8pm – slow steady bubbling
12/8-12/18 steady slow bubbling
12/14/18 ~10 sec
12/15/18 ~17 sec
12/16/18 ~35 sec
12/17/18 ~30 sec
12/18/18 ~ 38 sec
12/20/18 no bubbling. raised to 60F
12/27/18 cold crashed and 2psi co2 to 38F
12/31/18 dropped yeast. 350mL of very thick slurry but tossed it.
FG 1.012. tastes appropriately boring. clean. no off flavors. a little haze.

Best Bitter 3V 2, Uncategorized

Best Bitter 3V 2

October 3, 2017 hommel Leave a comment

Another beer for the second half of the Southeastern Homebrewers Association competitions and again trying to improve my NHC beers. I kept this recipe the same but I am messing with the process to make sure it finish out with a low enough gravity and also cleans up all the diacetyl which was an issue the last time I brewed this beer. The fixes I’m going to try is dropping the mash temp from 154 to 152F and as fermentation starts to slow I’m going to swirl up the carboy to get the yeast back in suspension. The issue with WLP002 is that it flocculates out like a rock (really big nasty cottage cheese) and so day 4 or 5 it has all sunk to the bottom and the beer finishes a bit sweet and since the yeast has all dropped out it doesn’t clean up the SMM/Diacetyl properly. My other issue with this beer is I think it is a bit too caramelly so if this version is still too caramelly even with properly drying out and no diacetyl I’ll try cutting the crystal malt from 8 to 5% and maybe using midnight wheat to adjust the color if thats out of range.

Recipe Info

Recipe: best bitter 3v 2
Style: Best Bitter 11B BJCP 2015
Date: 07-23-2017

	Recipe	Guideline Min	Guideline Max
OG	1.048	1.040	1.048
FG	1.010	1.008	1.012
Color	8.6	8.0	16.0
ABV	4.9	3.8	4.6
IBU	39.0	25.0	40.0

Brewery Info

Efficiency: 71 %
Attenuation: 78 %

Mash Info

Weight: 12.5 Lbs
Thickness: 1.25 Qt per Lb
Deadspace: 2.0 G
Strikewater: 5.91 G
Volume: 6.91 G
Temp: 152.0 F

Boil Info

Kettle Gravity: 1.039
Predicted Mash Run-off: 4.78 G
Target Starting Boil Volume: 8.5 G
Boil Duration: 60 min
Evaporation Rate: 1.5 G per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 7.0 G

Fermentables

Weight	% by Weight	Name	Yield	SRM
11.000 Lb	88.0 %	Maris Otter (Crisp)	82.0	3.0
1.000 Lb	8.0 %	Crystal, Medium (Simpsons)	76.0	55.0
0.500 Lb	4.0 %	Torrified Wheat	79.0	1.7

Hops

Weight	Name	AAU	Time	Use	IBUs
0.75 Oz	Northern Brewer (DE)	4.9	60 mins	Boil	11.0
1.0 Oz	Challenger	6.7	15 mins	Boil	10.0
1.0 Oz	Willamette	5.1	15 mins	Boil	8.0
1.0 Oz	Challenger	6.7	20 mins	Aroma	6.0
1.0 Oz	Willamette	5.1	20 mins	Aroma	5.0

Yeast

Amount	Name
1.000 unit	English Ale White Labs WLP002

Misc

Amount	Name	Time	Use
1.000 tablet	Whirlfloc Tablet	15 mins	Boil
0.500 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10 mins	Boil

Water

Predicted Mash Ph: 5.48

	Ca	Mg	Na	Cl	So	Bicarbonate
Water	7	3	21	30	24	30
Mash	99	3	21	30	245	30
Sparge	96	3	21	30	238	30
Final	161	5	34	49	397	49
Target	75	0	0	0	200	0

Mash Water

Total Water Treated: 6.000 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 6.000 G

Mash Water Adjustments

Gypsum: 9.0 g

Sparge Water

Leftover Mash Water Used: Yes
Total Water Treated: 5.500 G
Percent RO / Distlled: 0 %
Water Used: 5.500 G

Sparge Water Adjustments

Gypsum: 8.0 g

Notes

Mash 152f 60 mins
168f 10 mins

cool to 200F and put in whirlpool hops and let sit for 20 mins

Ferment 68f for 2 weeks

8/20/17 0.5L starter 50g DME WLP002
8/22/17 1/2″ kreusen and steady bubbling
8/25/17 kreusen dropped and slow steady bubbling already dropping clear so heavily swirled up the carboy to get yeast back up into suspension
8/27/17 ~4 sec between bubbles
8/29/17 no bubbling
9/6/17 racked beer to keg FG 1.014
tastes really good. not getting diacetyl this time but still a bit high on caramel. very good but i would like to tune that back. promising. moved to lagering fridge.
9/24/17 added gelatin since still a little haze.
9/26/17 moved to keezer and put in 30 psi over night. then moved down to serving pressure.

British Golden Ale EBIAB 1_2, Uncategorized

British Golden Ale EBIAB 1_2

April 29, 2016 hommel Leave a comment

Fortunately I was one of the earlier judging centers for NHC so this allowed me to rebrew my two beers. I also kept 4 bottles of all my entries so I could compare with my rebrews and decide which ones to send. This is particularly important this year b/c I fried the element on my old system (see last hefeweizen brew) so I made these beers on my brand new eBIAB system from Colorado Brewing. Not only is the kettle/bag setup new but I also moved to a therminator plate chiller which means i have to use a hop spider so I don’t clog it. Not a fan of moving to the new system for these beers but it’s a lot of work to replace the element on the old system and time is in short supply. I used the same recipe as last time except I added dry hops to try and up the aroma a bit.

BrewDesign

Recipe Info

Beer Name: british golden ale ebiab 1
Style: British Golden Ale

Style

Original Gravity: 1.049
Final Gravity: 1.011
Color: 4
Alcohol: 5 %
Bitterness: 39 IBUs

Brewery

Efficiency: 75
Attenuation: 77

Mash

Mash Fermentable Weight: 10.5 Pounds
Mash Thickness: 2.3 Quarts per Pound
Grain Temp: 72 F
Strike Water Qty: 8.04 Gallons
Mash Volume: 8.88 Gallons
Strike Water Temp: 160 F
Mash Temp: 152 F

Boil

Kettle Gravity (start of boil): 1.041
Predicted Mash Run-off Volume: 7.0925
Target Starting Boil Volume: 7.25
Boil Duration: 60 Minutes
Evaporation Rate: 1.25 Gallons per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 6

Fermentables

WEIGHT (LBS)	% BY WEIGHT	NAME	YIELD	SRM
5	47.6	Crisp Maris Otter	82.0	3.0
5	47.6	Rahr Pale Malt; American (Rahr)	81.3	1.8
.5	4.8	Briess Carapils	74.0	1.3

Hops

WEIGHT (OZS)	NAME	AAU	TIME (MINS)	USE	IBUS / ADDITION
.25	Magnum Pellets	15.2	60	Boil	13.1
1	Cascade Pellets	6.2	10	Boil	7.7
1	Willamette Pellets	5.1	10	Boil	6.4
1	Cascade Pellets	6.2	20	Whirlpool	6.5
1	Willamette Pellets	5.1	20	Whirlpool	5.3

1	Cascade Pellets	6.2	3 days	Dry Hop	0
1	Willamette Pellets	5.1	3 days	Dry Hop	0

Yeast and Friends

AMOUNT (MILLITERS)	NAME
1 pouch	White Labs WLP002 London Ale

Misc

AMOUNT	NAME	TIME
1	Whirlfloc Tablet	15
1 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10

Notes

Liquid Yeast Pitch – Stirplate StarterFirst Starter
131 billion cells
Quantity of Yeast: 1 vials / pouches (100B cells per)
Quantity of DME: 29 grams
Starter Size: 0.3 litersSalt and Acid adjustments:Mash Salts:
Gypsum: 8.0 gramMash Acid:
Lactic Acid: 3.0 ml @ 88 %Sparge/Boil Salts:Predicted Mash pH of: 5.44
Mash Ions (ppm):
Ca: 68.5 Mg: 3.0 Na: 21.0 Cl: 11.0 So: 171.3
Boil Ions (ppm):
Ca: 68.5 Mg: 3.0 Na: 21.0 Cl: 11.0 So: 171.3
Mash 150F for 60 min
168F for 10 min
Ferment 68F for 2 weeks

4/2/16 made 0.5L starter w/ 50g DME and 1 pouch WL002
normal brew day but w/ new colorado brewing systems BIAB setup and therminator
4/4/16 pitched @ noon. fermenting by bedtime.
4/6/16 kreusen dropped and bubbling slowly
4/7/16 done bubbling
4/11/16 dropped pretty clear
4/14/16 dry hopped with 1 oz willamette and 1 oz cascade in primary
4/18/16 racked to lagering keg. hops a pain but transfer was fine. pulled a sample to taste but full of dry hops. seemed clean and good but hard to tell as I pick hops out of my teeth.
4/29/16 added gelatin (1/2 tsp + 1/4 cup filtered water microwaved to 180F)

Temperature 1, Uncategorized

Hefeweizen Temperature 1

October 27, 2015 hommel 2 Comments

The first Hefeweizen experiment was a really great learning experience and it seemed to be well received so why not do another? After doing pitch rate variations, it seems the natural next step is temperature. So, I ran the experiment the same way as the first – make a 3+ gallon batch of hefeweizen wort and split it across three different one gallon jugs – but this time I placed the three fermenters in three different but identical chest freezers with identical temperature controllers but set at 3 different temperatures (62F, 66F and 70F) to see if all other things are equal what is the impact of fermentation temperature. Here is the recipe that I used (same as last time but Munton’s Wheat DME and Hallertau hops rather than Briess Wheat DME and Spalt hops).

BrewDesign

Recipe Info

Beer Name: hefeweizen test ebiab 2
Style: Weizen/Weissbier
Author: dennis pike
Date: 7/27/15

Style

Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.013
Color: 7
Alcohol: 4.9 %
Bitterness: 10.3 IBUs

Brewery

Efficiency: 100
Attenuation: 75

Mash

Mash Fermentable Weight: 4.15 Pounds
Strike Water Qty: 4.08 Gallons
Mash Volume: 4.41 Gallons

Boil

Kettle Gravity (start of boil): 1.042
Starting Boil Volume: 4.125
Boil Duration: 30 Minutes
Evaporation Rate: 1.25 Gallons per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 3.5

Fermentables

Weight (Lbs)	% by Weight	Name	Yield	SRM
4.15	100.0	Muntons Wheat DME	91.3	8.0

Hops

Weight (ozs)	Name	AAU	Time (mins)	Use	IBUs / Addition
.85	German Hallertau Pellets	2.7	30	Boil	10.3

Yeast and Friends

Amount (Milliters)	Name
1 vial	White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale

Misc

Amount	Name	Time
.5	Whirlfloc Tablet	15
.5 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10

Notes

hefeweizen test 2 is to see effect of fermentation temperature. 0.5L starter with 50g of DME and 1 vial of WLP300.
WLP300 was lot 1015489 with good test results on 3.23.2015. 4 months old? not sure if test date correlates to ship date.
this starter should contain ~ 150 billion cells
pitch rate is 50% of standard rate or .375 million cells / mL / degree Plato
so 1.050 is 12.5 Plato and 1 Gallon is 3785 mL so that is 375,000 x 3785 x 12.5 ~= 17,700,000,000 = 17.7 billion cells
so to get 17.7 billion cells I would need ~ 59 mL (rounded to 60) of the starter into each 1 gallon fermenter
I am doing 3 x 1 gallon test beers all from the same wort (1.050 wheat dme with 10 IBUs)
pitch rate is 0.5
beer 1 temp is 62F
beer 2 temp is 66F
beer 3 temp is 70F
will take remainder and test cell count to see how close i was
Bottle Carbonation
Temperature at Bottling: 72 F
Volumes of CO2: 3
Amount of Beer: 1 Gallons
Amount of tableSugar to add: 33.1 grams or 1.2 ounces
[End of Recipe]
Some items of note from the experiment:
1> I don’t have a good way to do thermowells in the 1 gallon jugs so I taped temp controllers (Johnson A419s) probes to the side of the jug and then covered the probes with foam insulation. So, it is likely that the internal temperature of the beer was higher than the set point during the peak of fermentation.
2> the wort was cooled to 70F and then the 3 jugs were filled and placed in their fridges. Once all three were stable at their fermentation temps, I pitched (~4 hours later). So, the 62F beer was pitched at 62F, the 66F was pitched at 66F and the 70F beer was pitched at 70F.
3> I mispoke on BBR – I didn’t use pure oxygen for these, they were just shaken vigorously for 30 seconds.
4> all three had fermentation activity within 24 hours but the 70F had a huge kreusen at 20 hours and the 62 and 66F beers didn’t get that active for 36 hours.
5> they were all left in their ferments for 21 days, they all finished at 1.013 (also mispoke on BBR) and they were all bottled at the same time with the same amount of bottling sugar (32g of table sugar per gallon) targeting 3.0 volumes.

My wife and I did a tasting and took our notes, I sent of bottles to James @ Basic Brewering Radio and I took bottles to my homebrew club where 16 member filled out a questionnaire that asked for overall score, hefeweizen qualities score, general impressions and flaws. the main thing with the scores was to keep them relative so the score is important but most important is that the beers are scored in the correct order so I know which was most and least favorite for each club member.
I consolidated all the questionnaires and you can see the results here:

And the totals on preferred beer is (1 = 62F, 2 = 66F, 3 = 70F):

Beer 1	9	56.25%
Beer 2	5	31.25%
Beer 3	2	12.50%

In general, I found it very difficult to tell the 62F and 66F beers apart but the 70F stood out to me because it did have some minor, what I would call “chemically”, off flavors. You can see in the overall impression comments that, counter to what I would have thought, the 62F had the most pronounced banana esters, 66F was more balanced and 70F was all over the map. 62F and 66F got no real flaws mentioned other than being out of balance (too much banana) but 70F had all kinds of flaws listed. I will say that, to me, I also got these flaws but they were background. Noticeable but you had to kind of search for them. None of these were “bad” beers but 70F was the only one where I was picking up “flaws”.
My take aways from the first two experiments:
1> pitching rate has a pronounced effect. it seems that around half the standard pitch rate is a good place to start (0.375 million cells/ mL / degree plato). If you want more esters go with a bit lower pitch rate, less esters go with a higher pitch rate. 0.375 pitch rate works out to about a vial/smack pack in 5.5 Gallons of wort but it is important to note I grew up a starter and then pitched the amount I wanted from the starter.
2> temperature also has an impact but it would seem that lower give you more banana and higher gives you more of other esters (apple, wine, floral) that detract from the banana and as you go even higher likely is generating hot alcohols and unpleasant acetate esters. from my sampling it seems in the low 60s (62-66) is a good starting point > lower (i know….weird!) for more pronounced banana and higher for more balance.
other parameters to consider (possible future experiments!)

ferulic acid rest : at 111F (44C) , wheat and barley malt will generate ferulic acid which hefeweizen yeast will then convert to the clove phenol (4VG) during fermentation.
oxygenation: the theory goes that less oxygen with generate more esters and more oxygen will generate less.
bottle conditioning vs forced carbonation: bottle conditioning is supposed to generate higher esters and phenols.

A great presentation from the MBAA on the science of Hefeweizens is here:
http://www.mbaa.com/districts/MidSouth/Events/Documents/2010-03-13Wheat_Beer_Yeast__Fermentation2.pdf

Pitching Rate 1, Uncategorized

Hefeweizen Pitch Rate 1

June 1, 2015 hommel 9 Comments

Basic Brewing Radio Interview:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr08-20-15hefeexp.mp3
I bought a microscope and hemocytometer and had a microbiology buddy of mine come by and show me how to use them (Thanks Adam!). So, what to do with this new found knowledge? A pitching rate experiment of course! I’ve read over and over again that underpitching will boost esters/phenols and overpitching has the opposite effect. Take that and combine it with my wife’s love of Hefeweizens and testing this theory with German Wheat Spicy Bananafantasticness is a no brainer.
The basic test is this. Brew 3+ gallons of 1.050 Wheat DME based wort, split that across 3 different 1 gallon fermenters and pitch those from the same yeast starter but with different amounts of starter to vary the pitch rate. So, same beer, same yeast just varying amounts of yeast. Here is the recipe with notes:

BrewDesign

Recipe Info

Beer Name: hefeweizen test ebiab 1
Style: Weizen/Weissbier
Date: 4/28/15

Style

Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.013
Color: 7
Alcohol: 4.9 %
Bitterness: 10 IBUs

Brewery

Efficiency: 100
Attenuation: 75

Boil

Kettle Gravity (start of boil): 1.042
Starting Boil Volume: 4.125
Boil Duration: 30 Minutes
Evaporation Rate: 1.25 Gallons per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 3.5

Fermentables

Weight (Lbs)	% by Weight	Name	Yield	SRM
4.15	100.0	Briess DME Bavarian Wheat	91.3	8.0

Hops

Weight (ozs)	Name	AAU	Time (mins)	Use	IBUs / Addition
.7	Spalt Pellets	3.2	30	Boil	10.0

Yeast and Friends

Amount (Milliters)	Name
1 vial	White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale

Misc

Amount	Name	Time
.5	Whirlfloc Tablet	15
.5 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10

Notes

hefeweizen test 1 is to see effect of pitch rate. 1.5L starter with 150g of DME and 1 vial of WLP300 lot#1014572 w/ best by date of 7/19/15.
starter made on 4/28/15 so viability should be high (assuming ~80%)
this starter should generate 290 billion cells in 1.5L
I am doing 3 x 1 gallon test beers all from the same wort (1.050 wheat dme with 10 IBUs of spalt)
cooled to ~63F and fermented at 65F
beer 1 pitch rate of .375 (half of standard ale rate) which is 17.5 billion cells in 1 gallon which for above starter would be 90 mL
beer 2 pitch rate of .75 (standard ale rate) which is 35 billion cells in 1 gallon which for the above starter would be 180 mL
beer 3 pitch rate of 1.5 (double the standard ale rate) which is 70 billion cells in 1 gallon which for the above starter would be 360 mL
will take remainder and test cell count to see how close i was
Bottle Carbonation
Temperature at Bottling: 72 F
Volumes of CO2: 3
Amount of Beer: 1 Gallons
Amount of tableSugar to add: 33.1 grams or 1.2 ounces

4/28/15 Made 1.5L starter w/ 150grams of light pilsner dme and 1 vial of WLP300
4/29/15 starter had significant blow off so likely lost a good amount of yeast
4/30/15 Brewday
pretty standard extract brewday. no issues.
1.048 SG
5.89 pH
5/1/15
beer 1> no kreusen
2> a little kreusen
3> full blown kreusen and chugging along

5/3/15 all still have big kreusens but bubbling is beginning to slow.
5/4/15 fermentation appears to be done and yeast is beginning to drop
did cell count of leftover starter.
53,43,41,49,48 = 46.8 avg
46.8 x 25 (total cells in field)
x 10 (I did a 10:1 dilution)
x 10,000 (hemocytometers field size)
= 117 million cells / ml
in 1.5L starter this is 175.5 billion cells which is 60% of what I expected. this is easily explained by significant blow off starter.
so, actually pitch rates are:
1> 10.5 billion cells (30% of 0.75 million cells/ml/degree Plato)
2> 21 billion cells (60%)
3> 42 billion cells (120%)
5/14/15 bottled. each was just under a gallon in the bottling bucket so to get 3.0 volumes I did 32 grams of sugar in 1/2 cup of filtered water which I brought to a boil, cooled and added to the bottling bucket and stirred in very thoroughly. produced 6 bottles of each beer.

6/2/15 took beers to homebrew club meeting and had 13 tasters. pretty good agreement that 30% pitch rate had the most banana character and the overpitch 120% was more muted and 60% was in between with more balance of banana and clove. almost no agreement on which was preferred. i tested earlier with my wife and we both preferred the 60%. no real flaws detected so all turned out well.

Cal Common eBIAB 1, Uncategorized

Cal Common eBIAB 1

March 28, 2015 hommel Leave a comment

Second brew on the new eBIAB single vessel system and I made a few tweaks including mashing a lot thinner and using a sparge arm to make the recirculation a bit more gentle both of which seemed to really help my efficiency (this batch was 74%) and wort clarity.
I wanted to do another slightly hoppier beer for my wife and I had never brewed a Cal Common so seemed like a good one to try. I looked at Jamil’s recipe in BCS as well as the one old NHC winner I could find and a few Anchor Steam clone recipes. Nothing really peaked my interest so I decided to keep it simple. I just did 90% pale/MO style base and 10% mid-caramel/crystal. My local homebrew shop carries Thomas Fawcett Golden Promise which I’ve always wanted to try and this beer seemed like a good one based on the BJCP style description. I’m not a huge fan of american caramel malts so I figured I’d branch out and try a british crystal that I haven’t tried before. I did some digging around on the web and people seem to LOVE Simpson’s Crystal so I ordered some Medium Crystal from them. Jamil’s Northern Brewer hop schedule looked pretty hoptastique so I used that as a rule of thumb. Here is the recipe:

BrewDesign

Recipe Info

Beer Name: cal common 1
Style: California Common Beer
Author: hommel homebrew
Date: 3-13-15

Style

Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
Color: 10.6
Alcohol: 5.3 %
Bitterness: 44.1 IBUs

Brewery

Efficiency: 70
Attenuation: 77

Mash

Mash Fermentable Weight: 11.125 Pounds
Mash Thickness: 1.5 Quarts per Pound
Grain Temp: 72 F
Strike Water Qty: 6.17 Gallons
Mash Volume: 7.06 Gallons
Strike Water Temp: 159.7 F
Mash Temp: 150 F

Boil

Kettle Gravity (start of boil): 1.043
Starting Boil Volume: 6.75
Boil Duration: 60 Minutes
Evaporation Rate: 1.25 Gallons per Hour
Final Boil Volume: 5.5

Fermentables

Weight (Lbs)	% by Weight	Name	Yield	SRM
10	89.9	thomas fawcett golden promise	80.5	2.7
1	9.0	simpsons medium crystal	76.0	67.0
.125	1.1	Weyermann Acidulated Malt	78.7	2.3

Hops

Weight (ozs)	Name	AAU	Time (mins)	IBUs / Addition
1.33	Northern Brewer Pellets (UK)	6.0	60	29.5
1.33	Northern Brewer Pellets (UK)	6.0	15	14.6
1.33	Northern Brewer Pellets (UK)	6.0	0	0.0

Yeast and Friends

Amount (Milliters)	Name
1 pouch	California Lager – WY2112

Misc

Amount	Name	Time
1	Whirlfloc Tablet	15
1 tsp	Yeast Nutrient (Wyeast)	10

Notes

mash salts:
4.1g Gypsum
2.0 calcium chloride
boil salts:
none
should give mash pH of 5.4
pitch @ 60 and ramp to 62 over 1 day then hold till done (~14 days). rack to keg lager for 2 weeks. rack to clean keg and force carb to ~2.5 volumes.
BrewDay notes:
I’ve been re-reading “Brewing Engineering” by Steven Deeds. It’s a fun book since it is him documenting his home experiments. Some are very basic and a bit silly but some are very interesting. In particular, he doesn’t buy the MrMalty’s yeast viabilty calculations and so he tests them with his own yeast and finds that the MrMalty numbers assume too high a die off rate. And I’ve seen this a bunch of times in my brewing where MrMalty will say a yeast is only 30% viable based on age and calls for an enormous multi-stage starter and when I do that I end up with what looks like way too much yeast. I have recently purchased a microscope and the other tools needed to do cell counts so I plan to test this out on my own as well. So, my yeast for this beer was 4 months old which meant I would have needed 7 vials or some enormous starter. But this yeast has been kept nice and cold the whole time so I just don’t buy it. Maybe 50% viable but I’m doubting 7%. So instead I used Wyeast’s standard recommendation for a hybrid strain and did a 2L starter (actually 1.4L since this was a smaller batch) and I did end up with a nice pitch of yeast after that ran for 48 hours and when I pitched it the fermentation was going strong by the next morning.
And the more I think about it the more that viability measure bothers me. You could have 2 week old yeast that shipped in 100F weather and it have poor viability or have 3 month old that was stored cold and have good viability. If you can’t do a cell count, why even bother with the MrMalty calculator. In all reality, you have NO idea what your viability is. So it seems the right path is either do cell counts and pitch the right amount of yeast or just use Wyeast’s starter recommendations.

1 liter starter = about 150 billion cells
2 liter starter = about 200 billion cells
1 liter starter, then pitched into 4 liter starter = 400 billion cells

Or maybe I’ve been thinking about this too much 🙂
3/23/15 made 1.4L starter
3/25/15 pretty standard brew day. did a step mash of 152 for 60 mins and 168 for 10 mins.
started at 6:45 am and had pitched and had beer in fermentation chamber by 11:30 am. Under 5 hours. Not bad. Another 2 hours for cleanup but that was 80% the cleaner recirculating and me not doing anything.
pitched at 11:30 @ 60F and set controller to raise to 62F over 24 hours and hold it there till its done.
3/26/15 @9am. Nice 1″ kreusen and steady strong bubbling
3/27/15 still kreusened with nice bubbling although maybe slowed a hair?
3/28/15 kreusen dropped. bubbling slowed to ~2sec apart
3/29/15 ~10 secs
3/30/15 ~15 sec
4/2/15 no activity – dropped fairly clear
4/9/15 racked to keg ~3.5 gallons
FG – 1.015 pH 4.28
very nice beer but a hint of sulfur. very low but will lager for 2 months to get rid of it. also a bit green
4/23/15 forced carbed and put on draft. big foam issue which seems to be from the liquid out post on all my lotto kegs. moved to a new keg and problem went away but knocked out all the carb need to recarbonate. very hazy.
4/28/15 still not quite carb’d but getting better. still hazy but starting to clear. a tasty beer. need to try side by side with anchor steam.
my beer vs anchor steam:
aroma: mine>clean with restrained caramel and generic malty notes. noticeable herbal/woody hops. anchorsteam> more caramelly (oxidized?), less hops
flavor: mine> nice caramel character. hop bitterness and flavor are spot on. anchorsteam> more caramel flavor. bitterness is similar but less hop flavor.
appearance: similar color. my clarity stinks 🙁
mouthfeel: very similar
overall impression: other than clarity I prefer my cal common to anchor all the way around. anchor sample has way more caramel and less hop aroma and flavor. this doesn’t match up with the anchor i had on draft in bay area but it’s what I’ve got. seems the anchor steam here is old and oxidized. sad.
5/5/15 finally dropping clear after ~2 weeks. ok clarity but not great. next time would definitely try gelatin or biofine to see how much faster / better it clears.