First great brew-mergency of 2012

It was almost a year ago that I tried my hand at my first high gravity ale: a Foreign Extra Stout from Jamil's book. I switched things up a bit for my system by using two packets of Wyeast 1028 London Ale, away from my typical dry yeast. I can't remember what the OG was, but I woke up the following morning and found my bottling bucket (you'll laugh about this in a minute), with a clogged airlock, a seriously domed lid, and a hint of impending explosion. It was three hours before the brew store opened and I didn't own a blowoff hose. To pass the time I went in every fifteen minutes to clear out the airlock, 'fart' the fermenter, soak up the excess foam, clean what I could and get it back together again. Right before the shop opened I drove to the store to get some distilled water for the blowoff tub, and to see if the fermenter would survive my absence. I made it to the brew store, got the hose, got some lip from Ricardo, and solved my problem. The stout turned out pretty good.

[NOTE: When you're fermenting, more air is going out than coming in, so it's not common that this exposure would have an adverse effect on the final product.]

Almost a year later and I hadn't had any serious beer-mergencies. Yesterday I go to brew up a Berliner Weiße (The "You're Bein Mean to Me", for my lovely wife), and everything goes well until the propane runs out with 5 minutes left in the single decoction stage. This wasn't too terrible, it was already boiling, there was around 2 gallons of volume, I ran upstairs and finished it on the stove. And since I wasn't boiling the wort (see my next post), I was pretty much done save for the 3 gallons of sparge water. 170°F is not too difficult to reach.

I lautered directly into my bottling bucket. You know, the same one that handled the near-explosion from the Stout with style. The liquor coming out of the tun was 150°F, and it sat in there, and then the sparge runnings on top of that, until there was 5.5 gallons collected. I think what happened was that the heat of the wort caused the rubber washer around the spigot to become malleable, and created give between the plastic wall of the tub and the hard plastic of the shank. But there was pressure behind it, 5.5 gallons of hot, sugary liquid. I cooled the wort, transferred it vigorously into my 10 gallon brew kettle and back to oxygenate, and noticed nothing amiss as I sealed it and stuck in the airlock.

A few hours later I went down to check on it, and noticed a thin ring of liquid around the base on the floor. I decided that maybe the spigot wasn't as tight as I'd thought, went to twist it expecting a struggle, and was horrified when it turned easily. And then the liquid started streaming out.

I ran upstairs with my second glass carboy, no time to sanitize, rinsed it out and then back downstairs. No time to sanitize the rubber hose. I picked up the bottling bucket and set it on a higher surface. I tried to hook up the hose and the pressure on the spigot caused it to widen the gap and liquid was now pouring out on the ground. Still I managed the hose, got the other end in the carboy and opened up the spigot. It took me a second to realize that I could pull the spigot against the wall of the bucket, recreating the seal, and then twist and the friction would allow it to tighten. This worked, and there was a seal again, but now I had maybe a quarter gallon on the ground and a full gallon in the carboy.

What the hell, I thought. I'm not trusting this damn bucket ever again.

So I finished draining into the carboy. I say finish, except I was running out of room and I needed to collect the yeast that had settled on the bottom of the bucket. So I siphoned off half a gallon into an empty milk jug, drained the yeast into the carboy, then poured as much as I felt comfortable back in.

Berliner Weiße, fermenting, possibly weird crap in the krausen, actually probably just break material

I went from an experiment in natural lactobacillus cultures to a complete SNAFU. I have no idea what to expect. I was so pumped on adrenaline and nihilism that I decided "screw it, I'll leave the rest of this in the milk jug with no airlock to see what the hell happens." I checked this morning and things looked normal. A thin head of krausen in the carboy, not much in the milk jug. When I got home, things looked a bit different. My experiment turned into another unexpected experiment that I'll never be able to recreate, and I'm kinda excited to see how it all turns out.

Berliner Weiße, left to ferment open and wild, probably going to be disgusting in a few weeks

Free from the tyranny of bottles

Well not really.

But sure. I got a dual keg setup from Midwest Supply (this one, to be exact), and I've just kegged up my first batch - the Double Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Of course, you're all invited to come over and enjoy it with me.

(The 'Double' is from the half pound of Theo's Chocolates roasted cocoa nibs I added to the fermenter. More on that maybe later.)

The kegs came in better than expected shape, based on the reviews from the store's site. I went to Central Welding Supply in Lynnwood and got the 5# CO2 canister replaced with a full one for < $14. I was amused that I finally had to buy something that had a hazmat charge associated with it.

I'm still using B-Brite for my sanitization. I'm probably going to replace it with a no-rinse solution, like Star-San. But for right now this will do. I checked for leaks in my dual regulator and keg, rinsed it after pressurization with the B-Brite, and then filled it up. It's currently sitting in my garage at just under 30 psi waiting for the stout to absorb enough CO2 for it to be fun. I tasted the stout that I pulled for the hydrometer reading for FG, and it was a nice roasted dark chocolate flavor to it. Will probably overrule some of the oatmeal flavor, but I'll still get that nice mouthfeel.

Hopefully by midweek everything will be ready to consume. I'll still keep bottles around for beers that will benefit from bottle conditioning, such as sours and old ales (which I will be making once a year, a Berliner weisse and an English Old Ale for the wife and youngest daughter, respectively). But the upside is I'm switching to 100% 22oz Bombers for those brews. Maybe the title should be changed to 'Free from the tyranny of 12oz bottles' instead.

I'll be dropping The Shorty into the second keg in a few weeks - maybe 5-6 more, since it needs to lager longer.

Brewing the Shorty

So yesterday was interesting. And long.

The mash schedule

I started working on equations and a mash schedule around 11am, brewing by 1:30pm, and finished cleaning up around 8:30pm. It was an experience, complete with screwups and recoveries and the highest OG I've ever seen.

I was trying to calculate the quantities of thick mash to remove from the mash tun in order to rise from my protein rest of 122°F to 150°F. I screwed something up in there because my first decoction only managed to raise it to 140°F. I reduced what was supposed to be a 50 minute rest to 25 minutes, pulled a quantity of thick mash and did my second decoction, and that brought it up to 150°F. I think I should have followed what Brewing TV suggested to skip the Beta rest and move right on to Alpha, but hitting both of the saccrification rest levels seems to have given me a better conversion rate.

All that aside, my target OG was 1.083 based on what BrewPal calculated from my grain bill. This was a modification of the Zek's Porter recipe from Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles. That being said when I used my hydrometer after the boil and calculated the delta based on wort temp, I was more than a little shocked to see 1.093 as my OG.

There were four things I switched up for this brew, which doubles my typical 'two variables have to change' habit:

• Double decoction mash rather than a single infusion with fly sparge
• First wort hopping rather than a straight 60 minute addition
• Specialty grains added to the lauter tun rather than mashed with the rest of the grain
• Lager yeast used rather than ale yeast

I wrote up a mash schedule and tried to stick to it, but you already know how well that worked. Not only did this drastically extend my brew time, but it was exhausting. Pulling hot thick mash out of the cooler and into the brew pot, stirring it constantly as it heats, stirring it constantly as it boils, transferring it back into the mash tun... I was actually really happy when I was able to sparge and start the boil.

The initial decoction, heading for conversion @ 150°F

The first wort hopping (FWH) involves dropping the hops into the brew kettle as soon as you start heating it up to the boil. I had to do a longer boil (I boiled 75 minutes) to reduce the water in the pot down to the 5.5-6 gallons needed for the fermenter. This would only add a few more IBUs to the final product. 1.4oz of Tettnang at an unusually high 7.9% AA as FWH, then .6oz of the same at 15 minutes. With the higher potential ABV, I think the expected 38 IBUs should balance nicely there.

The specialty grains tip came from the desire to not extract tannins and make the porter too astringent, and it was a recommendation from the Cellar Homebrew folks. I was already using debittered dark roasted malt, but really all I wanted was the roasted flavor and color. Clearly I didn't need any more points for the OG.

My biggest concern was the Lager yeast. I sprinkled 34.5 grams of Saflager S-23 over the wort in the primary once I got it down to 65°F. There is a lot of contention over how to ferment using lager strains. Some people say pitch below fermenting temp and let it rise, some say pitch at room temp (67°F) and let it go for a few days to 'kickstart' the process, some say pitch right at fermenting temp. I decided to pitch around 65°F and leave it in a cool place to slowly drop down to where it needed to be, 53°F. I got up this morning and checked and the airlock was already bubbling steadily. The room I had it in was a little two warm, the fermenter read 62°F so I pulled it out into the garage where it's considerably cooler and it's now down to 54°F. If it keeps dropping I'll put it back into the other room.

I don't know why I have a normal airlock on there. I'm going to install the blowoff later today.

During lauter, and you can see the protein sludge

I thought for giggles I'd post a timeline of the mash schedule I ended up using. It was a wonderful learning experience and I got to see the wort at different times look and smell differently. The bit I put in the hydrometer was very very VERY sweet, and I could still taste the hops. I don't know if I could recommend it to anyone unless they have the same desire to experience it, and I won't be doing it again any time soon. But seeing that layer of protein sludge on top of the grain bed, and seeing that OG reading? Definitely worth it.

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Double De-What-tion?

Today I'm brewing up a Baltic Porter. Doesn't matter that it's high gravity, or that I'm using lager yeast for the first time (even though it won't go through a lagering period) - I'm still going to add another variable to make the outcome uncertain:

I'm going to do a double decoction mash.

The guy at the brew store was pretty adamant against my doing it. Actually, he was adamant against my need to do it. I had to tell him at least three times that I knew I didn't have to do it, but that I WANTED to do it. It's a more involved process, and it's an historical process, which will give me a better understanding of how the mash process works. I WANT to do it. It should be fun. It should also take about twice as long.

I did a bunch of reading (mostly from John Palmer's How to Brew), and watched a few videos, getting the most information out of this guy:

So now I'm working on a bunch of equations in order to get my schedule figured out. I'll post my mash schedule here after I've had a chance to taste the final product and let you know if it was worth it. What am I hoping to get out of this aside from the knowledge and experience?

• I should increase extract efficiency beyond the standard homebrew 70%,
• It should add a bunch of Maillard reaction flavors and colors, and
• Overall we should see a more intense flavor and mouthfeel.

The grains I'm using aren't undermodified, so hypothetically speaking none of the above will actually happen, but I guess we'll see. I have a target OG of 1.083, and my system's been running a few points under that on high gravity mashes, so we'll see how it turns out.

Handlebar Bitter - Premium Bitter

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Kilgore IPA - American IPA

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[Side Note: Sorry for the format, but I'm trying to do this for free, and one thing that I've noticed about Google's software is that none of it works with anything else created by Google. So here's a screenshot of a Google spreadsheet that I had to upload and dump into Blogger.]

On Brewing IPAs in Seattle

Last Spring I brewed the 'Hoppiness is an IPA' out of Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles book. I did a full boil on my new outdoor propane burner, in a 7.5 gallon stainless steel kettle. I didn't have access to Horizon for the 60 minute addition, so I replaced it with Magnum. I used pellet hops at the time, which should have higher utilization than whole hops.

[Side Note: I had a bad, fire extinguishing boil-over when I added the 60 minute Magnum addition. I have no idea how much I lost of the hops at that time, but I added another .5 oz as soon as I got the water going again, and called it good. This was my third brew ever! Hopefully that doesn't affect the rest of what I'm about to cover.]

The hop flavor from that recipe was fantastic. Floral and citrusy. People who didn't like IPAs or heavily hopped beers said they actually liked it. And that was part of the problem. I was making an American IPA and it wasn't that bitter. Where all my IBUs at? I figured it might have something to do with the boil over, or to the quality of hops I bought, and just enjoyed the tasty beer.

Fast forward to a few months ago, I'm talking with Ricardo at Cellar Homebrew. He laments that IPAs made around the area just don't have that strong hop bitterness and bite that you get from commercial examples. So we talked about water quality. But let me back up a bit.

Since switching to all grain brewing I became obsessed with water profiling. When you brew with extract, the water that is needed to get the right flavor for the type of beer you are going to make is used to create that extract. Malt extract, after all, is just dehydrated wort. The water you brew it with is chemically altered by the leftover nutrients in that extract from the water used to create it. I brewed a Berliner Weisse which I decided needed to have a lower pH since it was a very light colored beer, but didn't know anything about Seattle's water quality.

2011 Seattle Area Water Supply Analysis [PDF]

Tolt and Cedar have very similar water profiles. Plugging various values into our handy mash pH nomograph, we get this:

We're actually in good shape for pale ales. Really good shape! I had to add some CaCl (calcium chloride) in order to lower the pH for the Berliner Weisse, but not by much.

Back to the brew store. Talking to Ricardo, he's convinced that it's an issue of water profiling. While we're in good shape for pale ales, he knows a guy who is obsessed with getting the hop bitterness up higher not by increasing quantities or using higher Alpha Acid strains, but instead by adjusting the water. Your IBUs are still there, its just that the water is not giving them a good foundation to really sparkle. I took this away and thought about it, and realized he might be on to something.

Where is the birthplace of the IPA? England is the home, but the water used to make the early IPAs was from Burton-on-Trent, which has a rather odd water profile. It has incredibly high calcium and sulfate (SO4) levels, but really what it comes down to is that the sulfate levels are super high and the sodium is super low (820ppm vs 54ppm). By contrast, Seattle area water has them almost even, at 1.6ppm to 2ppm, respectively.

All of this is coming from John Palmer's great How to Brew book, and he asserts that this is what gives the Burton IPAs clean, big hop bitterness. So what does the Burton-on-Trent water look like on the same nomograph?

How crazy is that? The residual alkalinity ends up being just a little bit lower, but it's potentially so much better for allowing those hops to really shine. Of course in order to manipulate Seattle's tap water to have the same profile, for a 23L (roughly 6 gallon) batch of Strike water I'd be looking at adding 13.9 gm of CaSO4 (gypsum), 11.1 gm of CaCO3 (chalk), and 5.4 gm of MgSO4 (epsom salt).

The gypsum and epsom salt raise the calcium and magnesium levels without touching the sodium. More importantly they add a ton of sulfates. Also we're now sitting at 432ppm vs 2ppm for sulfate and sodium - much better! We get the rest of our calcium increase and raise our alkalinity through the chalk, which brings our pH back to where we started. It's a weird balancing act, and I might even want to add some sodium to make that ratio a little closer to Burton's levels. So is it worth it?

I'm planning on brewing up Kilgore IPA today, which I already know will have a huge hop flavor from my selected hops (Summit for bittering, Centennial, Chinook and Amarillo for flavor, and then dry hopping with Centennial). My problem is that each time I take on something new, I tend to change at least two things, so I am never quite sure which new thing is actually making the difference in the final result. If something isn't broken, don't fix it, which I guess can apply to processes as well, so I'm tempted to go for it.

[Side Note 2: Yes, they make Burton water salts, which add crazy amounts of Ca, Mg, CO3 and SO4 to your brew. I might take the easy way out and just grab a bag of this from Cellar, but I'd worry about how this is a generic solution to a complex problem. Seattle might be in the best position to benefit since we have largely clean, simple water. We'll see what happens!]