It's been a while. Upgraded to a 60qt kettle and bought a proper heat source. Test driving the new setup with a recent favorite style to brew.
Batch #103
TBD fruit tart, shooting for 7 gallons total
7 lbs Maris Otter
7 lbs White Wheat Malt
1 lb Acid Malt
0.375 lb Am Crystal 40L
- Day One -
About 1/2 cup grain reserved for lactic acid rest.
Soft water. Built from RO with a little chalk, epsom, and table salt. + gypsum (just shy 3/4 tsp each).
Save a fistful of crushed grain. Mash in targeted at 125F in about 3 gallons water, rest 15 min. Add boiling water to bring to 155F. Rest one hour. Result was 130F and 150F, in about 4.5 gallons total. Did not correct saccharification temp because I had already recombined my sparge water and the hot liquor tank temp was low.
Lazy, so batch sparged to collect just over 10 gallons. Saved grain added back to wort.
1.2 L starter pulled from sweet wort pitched with Gigayeast Saison II (four months old?! always check the label, especially at an unfamiliar shop...yes I know it's winter) and some ancient Brett Brux that I found in the fridge.
I like the flexibility to have extra water in the kettle going into the mash. I like that my new burner works instead of just coating everything in soot. Running 7-10gal beers is going to take a couple of attempts before I have a smooth operation going.
- Day Two -
Boil 45 min.
1.5oz Mosaic (11.2%aa) at 10min with whirlfloc.
I don't have a great solution for cooling the new kettle yet. Ambient chill overnight.
- Day Three -
Split into two 4 gallon volumes for fermentation. Pitched the yeast. Fermenting at 68ºF ambient. About 75% grain-to-fermenter volume efficiency (rough estimate)...not bad.
- Day Fifteen -
Added 1oz Oak cubes and 2oz dried hibiscus to one of the fermenters.
- Day Thirty-one -
Transferred the beer off of the hibiscus. A few pellicles and a fair amount of other evidence of substantial souring. A few possibilities - unwashed hibiscus and oak, insufficient sanitizing of the bucket, or the glass weight I used to hold the hibiscus bag down carried some sauerkraut bugs with it. Whatever the case... it smells amazing.
- Day What? -
Bottled the regular stuff on 3/3. Bottled the hibiscus on 3/17. Stuff on top was still showing there, reforming after racking in minutes... probably from brettanomyces. SG was still 1.008
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.008
ABV: about 5.8%
IBU: 5-10
Showing posts with label propane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propane. Show all posts
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Monday, July 6, 2009
...and we're back.
Update 9/1 -- 2nd Place ribbon in Belgian/French Ales at 5th Annual MoreBeer Forum Comp. Rest of results here: http://morebeer.com/themes/morewinepro//forumresults.htm
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Update 7/19 -- Added 500mL active starter of WLP001 and 1lb table sugar as thick syrup to help dry out the beer.
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How novel, a few consecutive hours of free time in one day. I started this batch around 6pm, finishing up just before 11, although I batch sparged to help speed things up a bit. This was the first run on my propane burner that I picked up from a Worts of Wisdom member who recently packed up and moved out of state (thanks, Jim!) and I've learned I need to pull more wort from my mash thanks to a higher evaporation rate outside - I lost 2 gallons in 90 minutes versus the roughly 1 gal/hr rate in the kitchen. Stupid wind. Saison! Saison, saison, saison,....dry, crisp, effervescent summer farmhouse ale. It's hot out, so it's the right time. But there's a trick...fermentation needs to start at normal temperatures (~68F) and then slowly come up to 80F or higher. The latter is a piece of cake in July here, but the former requires some cooling. I'll talk about that in the next post. On to the recipe. Pretty close to JZ's Raison d'Saison ("Brewing Classic Styles"...or the Jamil Show, which I recommend giving a listen), but with a smaller volume, so slightly higher gravity. I'm also going to skip the sugar if my yeast brings the gravity down far enough.
Batch #39
Saison d'Jason
--10lbs Ger. Pilsner
--0.75lb Ger. Pale Wheat Malt
--0.75lb Belg. Aromatic Malt
--1lb Cane Sugar (after primary winds down)
--1.5oz Liberty 4.5%AA (60min)
--0.5oz Liberty 4.5%AA (15min)
--1/4tsp supermoss (15min)
--1/4tsp gypsum (mash water addition)
--pinch of grains of paradise, whole - not cracked (5min)
--WLP565 Saison Ale Yeast, 1L starter.
OG: 1.059 (1.068eff)
FG: 1.012
ABV: ~7.3%
IBU: 20ish
Mash in with 16qts at 147F, hold for 90 minutes. That's what I intended. Instead, it was in at 149, fell to 142, came back up to 145, fell to 142...annoying. Oh well, close enough for my first outdoor mash at home, at night. I hit ~76%, so I'm happy. Collect 7 gallons wort, boil 90 minutes. I had more boil off than expected and ended just shy of 5 gallons. I felt like it, so I threw in some grains of paradise...the yeast will probably give more pepper flavor than a few uncracked peppercorns, though. IBUs ended on the low end...another AAU on each addition would probably help. Ferment starting ~68F, bring up to 80s after a couple days (to avoid fusels during early alcohol production)
--
Update 7/19 -- Added 500mL active starter of WLP001 and 1lb table sugar as thick syrup to help dry out the beer.
--
How novel, a few consecutive hours of free time in one day. I started this batch around 6pm, finishing up just before 11, although I batch sparged to help speed things up a bit. This was the first run on my propane burner that I picked up from a Worts of Wisdom member who recently packed up and moved out of state (thanks, Jim!) and I've learned I need to pull more wort from my mash thanks to a higher evaporation rate outside - I lost 2 gallons in 90 minutes versus the roughly 1 gal/hr rate in the kitchen. Stupid wind. Saison! Saison, saison, saison,....dry, crisp, effervescent summer farmhouse ale. It's hot out, so it's the right time. But there's a trick...fermentation needs to start at normal temperatures (~68F) and then slowly come up to 80F or higher. The latter is a piece of cake in July here, but the former requires some cooling. I'll talk about that in the next post. On to the recipe. Pretty close to JZ's Raison d'Saison ("Brewing Classic Styles"...or the Jamil Show, which I recommend giving a listen), but with a smaller volume, so slightly higher gravity. I'm also going to skip the sugar if my yeast brings the gravity down far enough.
Batch #39
Saison d'Jason
--10lbs Ger. Pilsner
--0.75lb Ger. Pale Wheat Malt
--0.75lb Belg. Aromatic Malt
--1lb Cane Sugar (after primary winds down)
--1.5oz Liberty 4.5%AA (60min)
--0.5oz Liberty 4.5%AA (15min)
--1/4tsp supermoss (15min)
--1/4tsp gypsum (mash water addition)
--pinch of grains of paradise, whole - not cracked (5min)
--WLP565 Saison Ale Yeast, 1L starter.
OG: 1.059 (1.068eff)
FG: 1.012
ABV: ~7.3%
IBU: 20ish
Mash in with 16qts at 147F, hold for 90 minutes. That's what I intended. Instead, it was in at 149, fell to 142, came back up to 145, fell to 142...annoying. Oh well, close enough for my first outdoor mash at home, at night. I hit ~76%, so I'm happy. Collect 7 gallons wort, boil 90 minutes. I had more boil off than expected and ended just shy of 5 gallons. I felt like it, so I threw in some grains of paradise...the yeast will probably give more pepper flavor than a few uncracked peppercorns, though. IBUs ended on the low end...another AAU on each addition would probably help. Ferment starting ~68F, bring up to 80s after a couple days (to avoid fusels during early alcohol production)
Monday, April 6, 2009
Cookin' with gas
Update - Yeah, it's tasty,...wheat, toast, banana, but I swear it's got acetaldehyde, too. That's what I get for rushing it to the keg.
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I brewed outside for the first time. Borrowed a propane tank and burner and set to work with a few more brewers. Good times. Having a tree was a mixed bag - ample shade, ample crap falling into EVERYTHING. I was a little worried that this batch wouldn't turn out quite right, but the grains had enough enzyme to do the conversion. My efficiency dragged a little bit, probably because I was using someone else's water and didn't - excuse me, it just foamed through the airlock...okay, problem solved for the moment - add any salts. Still, reasonable efficiency around 70%. I actually ended up using two burners and two kettles, which makes step mashing by multiple infusions a lot easier.
Batch #36
Dunkelweizen
--5lbs Ger. Light Munich
--5lb Ger. Dark Wheat Malt
--0.25lb Pale Chocolate
--1.25oz Liberty 4.5%AA (60min)
--1/4tsp supermoss (15min)
--WLP300 English Ale Yeast, 2L starter from ~1/2 vial saved from a Hefe starter.
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.014
ABV: 4.6%
IBU: ~20 or so
Mash in with 10qts to around 125-130 (lots going on, didn't take notes) for 20min. Add hot water to raise temp to 152 (or thereabouts, again...no notes on what actually happened) for 40min. Added rice hulls. Mash out to 168F (more water) for 15min. I undermeasured my water and ended up only pulling 6.5 gallons of wort, so only did a 60min boil. Ended with around 5.25gal of wort. Brought it home, pitched my yeast, and it is going like mad. After 6 hours, I had about an inch of kraeusen, it's out the top now.
--
I brewed outside for the first time. Borrowed a propane tank and burner and set to work with a few more brewers. Good times. Having a tree was a mixed bag - ample shade, ample crap falling into EVERYTHING. I was a little worried that this batch wouldn't turn out quite right, but the grains had enough enzyme to do the conversion. My efficiency dragged a little bit, probably because I was using someone else's water and didn't - excuse me, it just foamed through the airlock...okay, problem solved for the moment - add any salts. Still, reasonable efficiency around 70%. I actually ended up using two burners and two kettles, which makes step mashing by multiple infusions a lot easier.
Batch #36
Dunkelweizen
--5lbs Ger. Light Munich
--5lb Ger. Dark Wheat Malt
--0.25lb Pale Chocolate
--1.25oz Liberty 4.5%AA (60min)
--1/4tsp supermoss (15min)
--WLP300 English Ale Yeast, 2L starter from ~1/2 vial saved from a Hefe starter.
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.014
ABV: 4.6%
IBU: ~20 or so
Mash in with 10qts to around 125-130 (lots going on, didn't take notes) for 20min. Add hot water to raise temp to 152 (or thereabouts, again...no notes on what actually happened) for 40min. Added rice hulls. Mash out to 168F (more water) for 15min. I undermeasured my water and ended up only pulling 6.5 gallons of wort, so only did a 60min boil. Ended with around 5.25gal of wort. Brought it home, pitched my yeast, and it is going like mad. After 6 hours, I had about an inch of kraeusen, it's out the top now.
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