OK, so yesterday I was messing around and I'm trying a batch of 1 gallon apple juice and 1 packet of bread making "highly active" yeast.

Well, 4 hours in (when I got back home) it was rocking and rolling.
Today, it's even faster!!! Here's a video of the neck of the gallon jug. Just look at how many bubbles there are!



Also, today I did some maintenance on most of my batches. I added gelatin to my 3 batches in secondary (apfelwein, cider and cream ale). I had also gotten some oak cubes to try to get my cider to age quickly and smooth out. Well, it never even occurred to me that sanitation might be an issue (bonehead, right?), so I just tossed the cubes in. I'm wondering now whether I might have an infection. Here are a couple of pictures.





What I can't figure out is this:
1. This layer of stuff at the top popped up VERY quickly (like in less than an hour)
2. It has the appearance of re-hydrated yeast
3. Airlock activity has resumed. This batch had only gotten down to about 1.010, but it should be down to about 1.000. So, is this simply an inadvertent re-activation of the yeast? Did the addition of the gelatin do this? Too many variables.

So far, the smell from the airlock isn't off or weird.

OK, so I've got the IPA in the keg now, chilling in the fridge as we speak.

The Bitter turned out well. It's not as clear as I'd like, but it's very, VERY drinkable.

The Apfelwein is currently in secondary. So is the cider. The cider only got down to 1.011, so I re-pitched some yeast on it this morning to try to get it down to about 1.000.

Here's the video!



As you can see, it just about blew the airlock out! I'm not thinking this was actual fermentation, so it appears that a ton of CO2 was still in solution, which may have been giving me a falsely high gravity reading. Anyway, my plan is to leave this alone for about a week and take another reading.

Cheers!

Arrrrgh!!!

I could have sworn that I did a post last week. I can't believe I forgot to hit the "Publish Post" button! Arrrrgh!

Anyway, since the kit IPA I brewed at the end of last month, here's what I've been doing:

1. Kegged the English Bitter last night. Used 5 oz. corn sugar and am naturally carbing the keg. Have labeled it not to be opened before 8/31 (3 weeks)
2. Apfelwein (8/6) - 3 gallons cost $18
3. Apple Cider (8/10) - 5 gallons cost $22

#2 was a 3 gallon batch made with 3 gallons of Mott's "Natural" Apple Cider and 2 lbs. of Dixie Crystal regular table sugar. The yeast used was a Lalvin Champagne yeast (EC-1118). There was no boil. There were no hops. OG was 1.081. Expected FG is somewhere between 0.995 and 1.000. This would give an ABV of 10-11%.

#3 was a 5 gallon batch made with 5 gallons of Kroger brand apple juice (from concentrate with only water, apple juice concentrate and vitamin C added). The yeast used was Danstar Nottingham. There was no boil. There were no hops. OG was 1.048. Expected FG is somewhere around 1.000 to 1.002. This would give an ABV of about 6% or so.

I hope #3 (Apple Cider) will take about a week to 10 days in primary, followed by a 2 week secondary, followed by kegging with sugar to naturally carb in about a month.

#2 (Apfelwein) will take substantially longer. Because the apple juice/cider I used was "natural" (read: cloudy), it will probably take a long time for all of the sediment to settle out. Also, because the OG was so high, it will take a while for this to completely ferment. Further, with such a high ABV, this product will be raw for a long time. I expect something like a 1 month primary, a 1 month secondary and 2 or more months in the bottle (yup, gonna bottle this batch) before they lose their "green-ness."

Anyway, both batches were extremely easy and substantially shorter to "brew," even though I've been told that without a boil, you're "making" cider, not "brewing" it. all told, the longest part of either batch was cleaning (OxyClean Free) and sanitizing (StarSan). The actual assembly of the ingredients only lasted long enough to pour in 3 or 5 gallons of juice (straight from their store-bought containers) and toss the yeast on top. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy.

Batch Update

I hadn't posted since 7/7, and I just posted about my batch from last night, but I've also done 2 more batches in the meantime:
1. English Bitter
2. 1 gallon of Mead

I racked both last night.

The mead had a slight rubbery smell (like the stopper I was using), but to my knowledge it had not had any contact with the stopper in any way. Hopefully that's just a raw characteristic that will age out of it. The small taste I took was good except for that flavor.

The English bitter was dark, much darker than I remembered, but it smelled good and was very, very clear during racking to secondary. Since I have 2 kegs full of beer right now, I'm planning to leave this beer in secondary until a keg comes empty and then use sugar to naturally carb the beer in the keg. Therefore, this beer will probably not be on tap until the end of August or the beginning of September. Maybe this time I'll get a draft beer that's not so crappy :). (My first two kegged batches were much lower quality than I've experienced in bottles. I think it has to do with fine-tuning my keg pressures and letting the beer age properly. Why force carb if you still have to let the beer sit?)

I have a kit for a simple American Cream Ale that I might do next, but I also tasted some of the Belgian Dubbel/Tripel/Wedding Ale I made at a bachelor party last weekend (the groom got an early taste!), and it was AWESOME!!!! I'm thinking about doing another batch of that and buying a new keg when it's ready in order to let it age for a long time. So, I'm not sure what's going to come next.

American IPA (from kit)

If anyone has actually been reading this blog, I'm sorry for the lapse in postings. I've done a few batches since my last post, and have progressed to kegging my batches. Results are mixed so far.

Here's the latest batch I just put into primary:

American IPA
*******************************
Target Ranges:
*******************************
OG: 1.056-1.075
FG: 1.010-1.018
COLOR: 6.0-15.0 SRM
IBU: 40.0-70.0
ABV: 5.5-7.5%

*******************************
Measured Values:
*******************************
OG: 1.056 (1.054 @ 77.4F)
Color seems to match color panel displayed in Beer Smith.
No idea how to measure IBU, but Beer Smith calculates 42.7. This might be a little low for what I want, but we'll see.
*******************************
Ingredient list:
*******************************
6.6 lb. Munton's un-hopped Pale Liquid Malt Extract (2 cans)
1.0 lb. 60L Crystal Malt
0.5 lb. Victory Malt
1.0 lb. Karo Syrup (to make sure to bump up the OG)
2.00 oz. Cascade (7.90%) @ 60 minutes of boil
1.00 oz. Cascade (7.30%) added slowly from 20 to 8 minutes left in boil
1 package SafAle US-05 dry ale yeast

*******************************
Procedures:
*******************************
Used a Bayou Classic SP-10 propane burner for all heating tasks.
Used a modified 5 gallon Home Depot water cooler with false bottom. Put1.5 lbs. of grain into cooler and added 2 gallons of water at about 160F for 40 minutes.
Drained "mash" straight into brew pot.
Added both cans of liquid extract and bottle of Karo (corn) syrup.
Began boil.
Had little foaming action (most of it was at hop addition).
At 40 minutes of boil, I began slowly adding the 1 oz. of flavoring hops, continuing to do so until the pellets ran out at about 8 minutes remaining.
At 15 minutes remaining, I placed my heat exchanger in the boil to sanitize.
When I cranked the water on to cool the wort, my heat exchanger was spraying water. Luckily, I had placed the lid over the pot, so I don't think any hose water got in, but I had to go to plan "B", which was an ice bath in the kitchen sink. I try to be very careful with sanitation, but my wife accidentally spilled about 1 or 2 oz. of tap water into the wort as it was chilling. I hope it doesn't introduce a bacterial infection to the beer. It took a LOOOOONG time to cool the wort down to 110, but luckily I had 3.5 gallons of chilled spring water to bring the temp down further.
After putting the concentrated wort in the bucket, adding water to 5 gallons and taking a gravity reading, I simply covered the top of the wort with the yeast, not stirring it in.
I rigged a blow-off solution into a 1 gallon plastic water jug, and there was fairly significant activity this morning.
The goal for this beer was a nice, strong, hoppy, yet quaffable summer beer.

Blackberry Hefeweizen Update

OK, so I've taken a little time off from drinking the Blackberry Hefeweizen. It's been about a week since I last popped one and the time seems to have helped out a lot. As I was hoping, the blackberry flavoring (2 oz. of concentrated flavoring added when I racked to secondary) has mellowed out a little bit and gone towards the back of the flavor profile. This has allowed more of the overall hefe flavor to come out, and it's now getting toward a nice marriage of flavors. It's still a little heavy on the blackberry flavoring, which seems to be a little musty when it's so strong, but it's getting better. I now have higher hopes for the other 3 gallons I bottled last week. Now, I guess I just need to give it about a month before I start drinking those.

On another note, I realized I had a small stash of batch #6 left. These were the roasty/smoky dunkelweizens I did a few months ago. The flavor is still a little off for my taste, but it's turned into a fairly solid beer. Carbonation is nice. Lacing is good. I wish it had been a standard dunkel, not roasty, but it's still good enough to keep me from buying beer instead of drinking it.

Batch updates

I've bottled 13 gallons of beer in the last week alone!
5 gallons of Imperial IPA
5 gallons of Belgian Grand Cru/Tripel
3 gallons of Blackberry Hefeweizen

I used Munton's "drops" as my bottling sugar for the Hefeweizen and am interested to see how it will turn out. After 3 days in the bottle, I checked one and noticed that all of the "drops" (they come as small pills or tablets of sugar) had broken apart, but a good bit of sludge at the bottom indicates that they still need to fully dissolve into the beer.

I'm a little disappointed with the 2 gallons of Blackberry Hefeweizen I've bottled so far. The blackberry taste seems to overwhelm the hefeweizen taste, but not in a good way. I hope with more time in the bottle that this beer will mellow out and the flavors will marry well.

I was very happy with the tasting of both the Imperial IPA and the Belgian at bottling. I have high hopes for both. I went ahead and tasted one of the Imperials last night (only 5 days after bottling) and it was well short of full carbonation, although it did have some bubbles to speak of. In any case, the flavor was right on for what I want, so I believe when it's ready it will be great! For the belgian, I laid out some money and bottled them in true belgian style with the proper bottles and corks and wire caps. A good number of these will be given away to my friend for his wedding. I'm also planning to age quite a few and give him more on his first anniversary. I also laid out some money for labels from MyOwnLabels.com, and I've very pleased with the results. I got both body and neck labels for this batch, and it makes the bottles look quite good indeed. I'll post the pictures later.

I have also purchased similar labels for other batches (Pale Ale, Irish Stout, Hefeweizen, among others) and will continue to do so. When applied to a clean and dry bottle, these labels stick very well and really make the beer bottle look classy. The only down side is that they're somewhat expensive, adding about $0.40 per bottle. I know this doesn't sound like much, but for some batches, that's as much as the cost for the beer inside! That said, I'll probably look for an alternate solution that will allow me to print the labels at home. For a special batch, though, the professional quality of these labels is sure to please!

American Pale Ale (Batch #???)

If anyone has actually been reading this blog, I'm sorry for the lapse in postings. I've done a few batches since my last post, and have progressed to full grain, full 5 gallon boil batches. It makes the process a LOT longer, but also simpler in certain ways, and it also has the advantage of making the batches cheaper. Going all grain costs significantly less than using DME or LME.

Here's the latest batch I just put into primary:

American Pale Ale
*******************************
Target Ranges:
*******************************
OG: 1.045-1.060
FG: 1.010-1.015
COLOR: 5.0-14.0 SRM
IBU: 30.0-45.0
ABV: 4.5-6.0%

*******************************
Measured Values:
*******************************
OG: 1.051 (1.049 @ 75.5F)
Color seems to match color panel displayed in Beer Smith.
No idea how to measure IBU, but Beer Smith calculates 30.9. I was going for a slightly less hoppy beer this time, on the lower end of the range, and I seem to have hit it.

*******************************
Ingredient list:
*******************************
10.00 lb Pale Male (2-Row American Briess)
0.50 lb Munich Malt
0.50 lb 20L Crystal Malt
0.25 lb Carapils/Dextrine
1.00 oz. Cascade (6.00%) @ 60 minutes of boil
slightly more than 0.50 oz. Cascade (6.00%) @ 20 minutes of boil
slightly less than 0.50 oz. Cascade (6.00%) @ 5 minutes of boil
1 package SafAle US-05 dry ale yeast

*******************************
Procedures:
*******************************
Used a Bayou Classic SP-10 propane burner for all heating tasks.
Used a modified 5 gallon Home Depot water cooler with false bottom. Put all 11.25 lbs. of grain into cooler and added just under 3.5 gallons of water at about 160-165F for 60 minutes. (Sometimes it's hard to measure the exact temperature of the water, as it's different from spot to spot. I went on the lower end of the suggested temperature range to avoid overheating the mash.)
Drained mash, putting about the first 2 or 3 quarts back on top to aid with filtering.
Added 2.5 gallons of water at about 190F for batch sparging for a period of 10 minutes.
Drained sparge, putting about 3 quarts back through again.
Began boil.
Had a large foaming action, requiring the addition of almost 2 gallons of cool water to prevent boil over. When foaming action had subsided, I added 1 oz. of Cascade and began the boil clock.
At 40 minutes of boil, I added in just over 0.50 oz. Cascade and placed my heat exchanger (copper tubing hooked to garden hoses) in the boil to sanitize. At 55 minutes of boil, I added the rest of the second ounce of Cascade (just under 0.50 oz.).
The last all grain batch I did had a few small flies in the primary when I racked to secondary, so I placed the lid on top of the kettle when I was cooling the wort to attempt to prevent as many flies from coming in. It took almost 45 minutes to get the wort temperature down below 80 degrees. I then transferred the cooled wort to my primary and pitched my yeast.
I hope to have this beer drinkable by the 24th of July, as I'm going on a bachelor party weekend and want to take some along. A taste of the wort sample was good, but with a surprising bitterness. I hope the fermentation process smooths that out.
The goal for this beer was a light, refreshing, quaffable summertime ale.

So, I've got two things to talk about this morning.

1. I did an Amber Rye Ale last night and it came out pretty well. The OG was a little low (1.041) because I think my mashing/sparging needs work. I'm modifying a 2 gallon water jug with a hole in the bottom. The built-in spigot wasn't very good, and coupled with my high percentage rye mash, it got stuck, so I think I lost a few points there. Also, I didn't boil down enough (had about 1.1 or 1.2 gallons wort at the end) which would also lose a few points of OG. Anyway, the point of the picture is to show that necessity is the mother of invention. I have been buying 1 gallon glass bottles to do my 1 gallon fermenting. The problem last night was that as soon as I pushed the stopper into the mouth of my new glass bottle, the mouth broke! Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like glass in my beer. So, I had to improvise. I had this on hand and it seems to be working just fine. And it's cheaper, too!




Now, the second thing I wanted to post. Here's a video of my Imperial IPA a day after brewing. Can anyone tell me what the crap is going on in there?

Status update on Batch #8 (Dunkelweizen)

Well, I've been drinking my #8 as time has gone on, and it appears that it is peaking just about now. In fact, the carbonation is getting a little bit too high for the style (bubbles clinging to the sides of the glass in large groupings), but all in all, the aroma, flavor, mouthfeel and overall impression are back where I like a Dunkel to be. I'm still not sure what happened with my #5 batch (also a Dunkel), but although the aroma is still a little funky, the taste has mellowed and I can drink the beer happily. Actually, it seems to exactly match Michelob's Dunkel Weisse, which is a good product, but doesn't quite capture the essence of the Dunkel I seek.

Cool pics of All-Grain

So, this batch got started really, really fast! I'm not sure whether it's because I pitched enough yeast for a 5 gallon batch (into a 0.75 gallon batch) or because I pitched at a higher temperature (about 80 degrees), but the picture below is only 2 hours after pitching! I've never done a batch where the primary fermentation occurred in a glass bottle, so I've never actually seen the first part of fermentation. I do think it's weird, though, to see the thick sediment layers at both the top and bottom.


This picture is the next morning, about 12 hours after pitching. Bubble activity in the blow off tube has sped up a fair bit (1 bubble every couple of seconds), but the weirdest thing to me is that all of the sediment at the bottom is gone! Where'd it go? Was it processed by the yeast? Did it float to the top? How weird!!! (No, I didn't mess up and switch these pictures.)


On another note, the Imperial IPA I did (5 gallon batch) 2 nights ago is rocking along! It has to be the fastest bubble activity I've ever seen in a blow off or airlock. I'm seeing probably 2 big bubbles PER SECOND! Of course, since the OG for that batch was 1.092, it has a long, LONG way to go before it's done. Man, brewing is fun and interesting!

First Try in an All-Grain

OK, so it's been awhile. Since the last post (Irish Stout), I've brewed #11 (American Pale Ale - bottled), #12 (Blackberry Hefeweizen - in secondary) and #13 (Imperial IPA - in primary).

I was in the car and had little to do (not driving), so I looked up all-grain brewing techniques on my iPhone (love it!). I found a web page describing how to brew 1 gallon batches at home on the stove with basically nothing more than I already had. The only thing I needed to buy were the ingredients (duh!) and a 1 gallon bottle for primary/secondary.

So, here's my journey through the wonders of all-grain brewing. I found a simple, straightforward 10 gallon batch recipe for an American IPA and all I had to do was move the decimal place.

My ingredients were:
2.1 lbs. American Two-Row Pale Malt
.3 lbs. Rye Malt
.1 lbs. 40L Crystal Malt
.33 oz. Cascade hops (6.3% for 60 minutes)
.33 oz. Cascade hops (6.3% for 15 minutes)
.33 oz. Cascade hops (6.3% for 5 minutes)
1 sachet SafAle US-05 Dry Yeast

I didn't quite follow the recipe exactly, but we'll get to that later.
Here's a shot of the entirety of my ingredients:


I steeped (maybe "mashed") my grain at 150 degrees for 90 minutes. I was supposed to do it for 60, but I like big, strong, flavorful beers at the moment, so I wanted to wring out whatever these grains had to offer. Here's a shot of the grain almost as soon as I added it to my brew pot.


Here are the 3 hop additions. This was simply a 1 oz. bag of Cascade to start with. I separated them as evenly as possible (one for you, one for you, one for you...)


After I mashed the grain for an hour and a half, I strained it through a grain bag to get all of the stuff out that I could. Then, I added the wort back into the brew pot and started the boil. Here's a shot of the pot as it's starting its boil. Not much foaming action here.


These are all of the accessories I needed to use. Note the absence of any sort of racking or siphoning devices. I used the 1 cup measuring cup to get my sample for gravity readings and used the funnel to pour straight from my brew pot into the fermenting bottle. I'll probably skip the racking equipment when I transfer from primary to secondary, too. I think I'll simply carefully pour the beer through a grain bag into a sanitized pot, clean the fermenting bottle and pour the beer back into it through the funnel. Small batches are easy!!!


Here's the wort as it's cooling. If you look closely, you can see some weird looking stuff under the surface. Not important to brewing (I don't think), but a cool picture nonetheless.


Here's the batch in its final setup, ready to ferment in primary.


So, I kind of messed this batch up a little. I was supposed to add 2.25 gallons of water to my mash, but when I added 2, it looked like so much that I didn't add the next quart. Then, I was only supposed to boil for 60 minutes. By the time I started my boil, I was afraid I'd end up with 1.5 gallons or more, so I started planning for a 90 minute boil. Well, about 50 minutes in to it, I was shocked at how much water had boiled off, so I did a 75 minute boil (yes, 75 minutes of .33 oz Cascade for bittering) and I added my flavor hops at 20 minutes. I still ended up with well under a gallon of wort at the end, as you can see in the picture above. From my measurements, I actually brewed an Imperial IPA (again) rather than a standard American IPA. Oh, well, not a bad miss in my opinion.

*****Targets*****
Batch Size: 1.0 gal
OG: 1.066
SRM: 6.6
IBU: 67.9

*****Actual*****
Batch Size: ~0.75 gal
OG: 1.088
SRM: 8.6
IBU: 70.3 (not a ton of difference)

*****Hoped-for final numbers*****
FG: 1.017
ABV: 9.3%

It was a fun first foray into all-grain brewing! I might try another batch, say, Thursday or so. Well, I'm off to smoke a no-name brand cigar to see whether I've become too spoiled by my Padrons!