On Saturday I brewed my first hefeweizen and 25th batch overall. I had to use my older, smaller mash tun as the new one is temporarily out of commission after Pyatiletka.
The Recipe:
4 lb 2-row pale malt
4 lb wheat malt
3 AAU (28g @ 3% AA) Hallertauer @ 60
3 AAU (28g @ 3% AA) Hallertauer @ 20
3 AAU (28g @ 3% AA) Hallertauer @ 5
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen
Mashed at 152° for an hour using about 10.5 quarts of water. Sparged with 170-180° water.
O.G.: 1.044
Est. IBU: 21.9
Brewing was extremely uneventful -- just the way I like it. As the name suggests, we were experiencing a heat wave hereabouts when I brewed on Saturday, although we discovered later it was to be the tail-end of the heat. Still, I pitched pretty high (73°, probably higher than I should have) and the temperature in the fermenter quickly ramped up to the low-mid 80s once fermentation began in earnest.
The blow-off airlock fluid had a distinctly banana-ey aroma to it, so I have high hopes for this one. I think I'll just let it run a week each in primary and secondary and then keg it quickly. I want to be able to enjoy it in the heat.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Pyatiletka Stout
Yesterday morning I brewed up my first Russian Imperial Stout, dubbed Pyatiletka Stout. It turned out to be a very eventful brewday, which is rarely a good thing. I'll consider it a day of hard-won wisdom.
The Recipe:
16 lb 2-row pale malt
2 lb flaked barley
2 lb chocolate malt
12 oz black patent malt
8 oz black barley
16 AAU (34g @ 13% AA) Nugget @ 60
Wyeast 1028 - London Ale (w/starter)
Mashed at 156° for an hour using about 23.5 quarts of water. Sparged with 170° water.
O.G.: 1.086
Est. IBU: 52.7
Things were going swimmingly right up until the sparge/wort collection phase. My intent was to implement the same caramelization of the first runnings which I first did for #22, which helps me collect more wort overall and contributes to obtaining a high mash efficiency for big beers. And then things went terribly wrong: my new mash tun has a plastic valve to which a hose can be attached to eliminate splashing when collecting the wort. However, the hole in the tun is plugged by a stopper into which the valve is pushed; so, when I went to attach the hose, I pushed the stopper into the MLT and unleashed an unimpeded flow of wort onto myself, the floor, the kettle; basically everywhere. After much jockeying and creating more of a mess, I got the MLT perched precariously on top of my sanitation/bottling bucket so that collection could resume (luckily, the mash was rather tight so the liquid began flowing much more slowly). Unfortunately, this pretty much destroyed my caramelization plan and left a fair bit of the sweetest first runnings on the floor. Both of these resulted in my getting an abysmal 62% efficiency; I compensated for this a little bit by collecting an extra quart of wort (27 as opposed to the normal 26) and boiling it a bit longer at the beginning to drive off water.
The next mishap was after I finished collecting the wort. I always take a sample right after wort collection which I then chill to 60° and take a gravity reading to estimate my brewhouse efficiency. So, I grabbed my hydrometer, held it up to make sure the tiny weights inside were even (so the hydrometer will float plumb), and proceeded to then drop the hydrometer on the floor and break it in half. At this point, the beer is bubbling and I've just added the bittering hops and started the 60 minute timer. So I throw on some shoes without socks and bolt out the door to drive up to my LHBS and buy a new hydrometer. It was hairy there for a bit, but I got back in time to put in the wort chiller at 15 in order to sanitize. I ended up buying 2 hydrometers so that I could have one in reserve; the new ones are nice, but a bit too tall for my sampling vessel, so measuring below about 1.006 or so results in the hydrometer just resting on the bottom. Uff da.
But that's not all! The rest of the boil, the chilling and the addition to the fermenting carboy all went well. I pitched a little over a pint of yeast starter (which, incidentally, I didn't really give enough time to mature so I thought there might be too little active yeast for the 1.086 OG) and put it in a corner to go. This would have been around noon, and by 10 PM there was still very little yeast activity. Fast forward to this morning, when I walk out into the kitchen to discover a stream of beer stretching 3 or 4 feet out into the kitchen dining area leading back to my blow-off receptacle, which is entirely full of beer and foam and is still burbling quite enthusiastically. So, I have a big mess but a highly successful initial fermentation! Yay!
So, Pyatiletka broke two pieces of equipment and caused two moderately large messes in my kitchen. I've learned a lot of lessons and next time I will plan* a little bit better.
* Do you like my hackneyed bilingual puns?
The Recipe:
16 lb 2-row pale malt
2 lb flaked barley
2 lb chocolate malt
12 oz black patent malt
8 oz black barley
16 AAU (34g @ 13% AA) Nugget @ 60
Wyeast 1028 - London Ale (w/starter)
Mashed at 156° for an hour using about 23.5 quarts of water. Sparged with 170° water.
O.G.: 1.086
Est. IBU: 52.7
Things were going swimmingly right up until the sparge/wort collection phase. My intent was to implement the same caramelization of the first runnings which I first did for #22, which helps me collect more wort overall and contributes to obtaining a high mash efficiency for big beers. And then things went terribly wrong: my new mash tun has a plastic valve to which a hose can be attached to eliminate splashing when collecting the wort. However, the hole in the tun is plugged by a stopper into which the valve is pushed; so, when I went to attach the hose, I pushed the stopper into the MLT and unleashed an unimpeded flow of wort onto myself, the floor, the kettle; basically everywhere. After much jockeying and creating more of a mess, I got the MLT perched precariously on top of my sanitation/bottling bucket so that collection could resume (luckily, the mash was rather tight so the liquid began flowing much more slowly). Unfortunately, this pretty much destroyed my caramelization plan and left a fair bit of the sweetest first runnings on the floor. Both of these resulted in my getting an abysmal 62% efficiency; I compensated for this a little bit by collecting an extra quart of wort (27 as opposed to the normal 26) and boiling it a bit longer at the beginning to drive off water.
The next mishap was after I finished collecting the wort. I always take a sample right after wort collection which I then chill to 60° and take a gravity reading to estimate my brewhouse efficiency. So, I grabbed my hydrometer, held it up to make sure the tiny weights inside were even (so the hydrometer will float plumb), and proceeded to then drop the hydrometer on the floor and break it in half. At this point, the beer is bubbling and I've just added the bittering hops and started the 60 minute timer. So I throw on some shoes without socks and bolt out the door to drive up to my LHBS and buy a new hydrometer. It was hairy there for a bit, but I got back in time to put in the wort chiller at 15 in order to sanitize. I ended up buying 2 hydrometers so that I could have one in reserve; the new ones are nice, but a bit too tall for my sampling vessel, so measuring below about 1.006 or so results in the hydrometer just resting on the bottom. Uff da.
But that's not all! The rest of the boil, the chilling and the addition to the fermenting carboy all went well. I pitched a little over a pint of yeast starter (which, incidentally, I didn't really give enough time to mature so I thought there might be too little active yeast for the 1.086 OG) and put it in a corner to go. This would have been around noon, and by 10 PM there was still very little yeast activity. Fast forward to this morning, when I walk out into the kitchen to discover a stream of beer stretching 3 or 4 feet out into the kitchen dining area leading back to my blow-off receptacle, which is entirely full of beer and foam and is still burbling quite enthusiastically. So, I have a big mess but a highly successful initial fermentation! Yay!
So, Pyatiletka broke two pieces of equipment and caused two moderately large messes in my kitchen. I've learned a lot of lessons and next time I will plan* a little bit better.
* Do you like my hackneyed bilingual puns?
Friday, July 2, 2010
Exciting Times Ahead!
Today, I picked up 4.5 lbs of sweet, fresh (i.e., in season; i.e., cheap) Bing cherries which I intend to use in brewing a fruited version of Brevity Wit. I'm not sure exactly how many cherries I'll use, but I have a feeling I'm just going to throw them all in. I've put them straight into the freezer; ideally, the freezing process will break some of the cell walls so that the juices will be released when I add them to the secondary. Also, this means I don't need to make Brevity Wit #3 right away; I can take my time. I'm thinking of calling it Cherry Brevity. My originality is palpable.
Tomorrow I'll be brewing up my first Russian Imperial Stout in the morning and having a barbecue in the afternoon wherein I'll serve Backbreaker Wee Heavy for the first time. I'm sort of considering sampling it tonight to see if it is ready, but it's not chilled or anything. If it's not ready, I still have 6 other kegs of homebrew ready for service.
Tomorrow I'll be brewing up my first Russian Imperial Stout in the morning and having a barbecue in the afternoon wherein I'll serve Backbreaker Wee Heavy for the first time. I'm sort of considering sampling it tonight to see if it is ready, but it's not chilled or anything. If it's not ready, I still have 6 other kegs of homebrew ready for service.
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