Jamil's California Common

Here is the California Common that I brewed yesterday:

Steamed Ant
Brew Type: All Grain
Style: California Common
Brewer: Joshua
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Volume: 7.35 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %


Ingredients
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Munich Malt (8.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
0.13 lb Chocolate Malt - Light (200.0 SRM)
1.14 oz Northern Brewer [7.30 %] (60 min) Hops 25.3 IBU
0.94 oz Northern Brewer [7.30 %] (15 min) Hops 10.4 IBU
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [7.30 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs San Francisco Lager (White Labs #WLP810) Yeast-Lager

Beer Profile
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.053 SG (1.048-1.054 SG)
Measured Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.017 SG (1.011-1.014 SG)
Estimated Color: 11.1 SRM (10.0-14.0 SRM)
Bitterness: 35.7 IBU (30.0-45.0 IBU)
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 4.77 % (4.50-5.50 %)
Mash Profile Name: Batch Sparge
Mash Tun Weight: 9.00 lb
Mash Grain Weight: 12.63 lb
Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Sparge Water: 5.42 gal
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE
Mash Temp: 154°F

Damn you Beersmith!

Brewed a California Common yesterday, as per usual I just followed the mash steps from Beersmith. This has always worked out well for me after some initial setup to get my equipment volumes and boil-off right.

Well, it seems I found a quirk in Beersmith. I was doing so many 90 many boils that I set my equipment to 90 minute boils (and forgot I had done so). Well, as it turns out, if your equipment is set to 90 minutes, the recipe will give you the water quantity for 90 minutes even if the recipe is set to 60. So I overshot my volume, by a lot. Oops.

On the plus side, I had tightened down my crush for this batch and still got 1.052 when I was expecting 1.053 for a smaller volume. So things should still turn out OK.

I love that beer is so forgiving

So a few posts ago, I mentioned how I had screwed up my Irish Stout recipe. I ended up brewing the beer short a half pound of Flaked Barley. The great thing about beer is that if you throw malted grain, water, hops and yeast together you are pretty much always going to get beer. The ingredients want to become beer.

Well, I kegged my stout last week and let it carbonate for 6 or 7 days. And now, it's pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. It's not perfect, it could use some more body but it has a nice smooth flavor. I think I did a good job of balancing the hops against the roast barley, so it doesn't have a harsh flavor to it.

It's major failing, really, is intentional. It is a one note beer. It has a roasted flavor, that's it. No complex flavor profile here, it's just nice and roasty. No hop aroma, no malty flavor, no fruity esters. The idea behind this beer was to get a nice basic stout that I can then start playing with. I will probably brew this multiple times in the future, adding different grains, hops, yeast and seeing what the result is.

It's lagering time!

After months of brewing ales, it's time to tackle lagers. For those unsure of the difference, Ales and lagers are differentiated by the yeast used. Ale yeast is a top fermenting yeast that works at room temperature (60-70°). Ales tend to have more esters that cause for fruit and spicy tastes. Lager yeasts are bottom fermenting and are usually fermented at lower temperatures (40-50°). They are then stored (lagered) for long periods at cold temperatures. Lagers have cleaner flavor profiles and highlight the malt and hops more than the yeast.

I'm trying a lager because I want to have beer around that is more newbie friendly. So I'm doing an American Pilsner, loosely based on Sierra Nevada's Summerfest. This is not really clone, more just in the same style. It uses the same malts and hops, so should be in the ballpark.

Here is the recipe I will be using:
Slice of Summer
Classic American Pilsner

Type:All Grain
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%

Ingredients
10.80 lb Pale Malt (Domestic 2 Row)
0.60 lb Munich Malt
0.60 oz Saaz [4.00%] (60 min)
0.60 oz Pearle [8.00%] (60 min)
1.20 oz Saaz[4.00%] (15 min)
1.20 oz Saaz[4.00%] (1 min)
1 Whirlfloc Tablet
1 Package German Lager Yeast

I'll be brewing this in about 2 weeks, should be just about the right time for my batch of Irish Red to begin cold conditioning. Since I store all my fermenting beer in the same chest freezer, there are some logistical issues with brewing both ales and lagers at the same time, but I'm sure I can work those out.

Shades of Red

This past sunday, I tried my hand at an Irish Red Ale. This is the first of many potential "Wedding Beers" that I will be brewing. Basically, I will be brewing beer for my wedding next year and am spending the time until then brewing various recipes and evaluating the results. So in a nutshell, I have to brew a lot of beer and then drink a lot of beer. How horrible!

Shades of Red
Brew Type: All Grain
Date: 8/19/2007
Style: Irish Red Ale
Brewer: Joshua
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Volume: 8.06 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %

Ingredients
10.23 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
0.58 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
0.58 lb Carared (Weyermann) (24.0 SRM)
0.15 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
1.50 oz Fuggles [4.00 %] (90 min)
0.60 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.00 %] (30 min)
0.60 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.00 %] (15 min)
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
1 Pkgs Irish Ale (White Labs #WLP004)

Beer Profile
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.050 SG (1.044-1.060 SG)
Measured Original Gravity: 1.050 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.014 SG (1.010-1.014 SG)
Estimated Color: 11.9 SRM (9.0-18.0 SRM)
Bitterness: 26.0 IBU (17.0-28.0 IBU)
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 4.77 % (4.00-6.00 %)

Mash Profile
Name: Batch Sparge
Mash Tun Weight: 9.00 lb
Mash Grain Weight: 11.54 lb
Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Sparge Water: 6.5 gal
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE

Original Recipe created by Fred Dujour.

Hopefully this beer turns out to be a malty, easy drinking beer. I'm hoping for something that is palatable to people who aren't used to drinking much beer outside of Bud/Miller/Coors (BMC). For people who already eschew the macro-breweries I will hopefully have more bold styles on display.

On to the brew notes! This is my 5th All Grain beer and things are finally working pretty smoothly. I heated 14.5 qts of water to 166° and put that in my Coleman extreme cooler. I doughed in and gave it all a good stir, I was aiming for 152° and hit it pretty close. After stirring a lot to eliminate hotspots, I was reading between 151.8° and 152.5°. Close enough for me. I did a longer mash at 75 minutes (mostly because I got distracted and forgot), then collected my first runnings. I sparged with 6.5 gallons of 168° and got to my pre-boil volume of 8.10 gallons (or there abouts, I don't measure that exact).

This is where I first started to feel good about the brew, I was looking for a pre-boil gravity of 1.038 and sure enough, I was right on target.

I boiled for 90 minutes then started cooling. I cooled as low as I could with my water (~75°), then aerated and put it into the chest freezer overnight. This morning it was quite cool at 52°, I pitched my yeast and will let it warm up to 62° or so. I'm aiming low because I don't want many esters in this beer. I want the malt flavor to be dominant.

I deviated a bit from the original recipe. The original recipe called for a decoction mash, I'm far too lazy for that. I switched that up to a simple infusion mash.

Hopefully, it still turns out well.

I'm an idiot

So a few weeks ago I brewed an Irish Stout from a recipe that I put together. I posted it on this blog actually. Well, that recipe was wrong. I got the Roasted Barley and the Flaked Barley mixed up. And then I went and ordered my ingredients for the wrong recipe. The real recipe calls for 2.5 pounds of Flaked Barley and 1.3 pounds of Roasted Barley. What did I order? 3 pounds of Roasted Barley and 2 pounds of Flaked Barley.

Worse yet, I didn't notice until I went to brew it. So we ended up with half a pound less Flaked Barley than I intended. It's not the end of the world, it will still be beer, but it will have less body than I wanted.

Someday I'll brew the recipe correctly.

Not so Amber Ale...

A few months back I brewed the all grain version of Northern Brewer's Amber Ale. The beer I ended up with was nothing like an Amber ale. It's pale yellow with a slight malty taste and little to no hop aroma. Disappointing at best. I originally thought I had just screwed up in the brewing process, but let's take a closer look at the recipe:

• 9# Rahr 2-Row Pale
• 1# Caravienne
• 1 oz Northern Brewer (60 minutes)
• 1 oz Hallertauer (1 min)
• Wyeast 1056

Mashed at 153° for 60 minutes, skipped the mash out step, I let it ferment for 3 weeks, then kegged and pressurized at 12 psi.

I'm not sure what they were thinking but there is no way that 9 pounds of 2-row and a 1 pound of caravienne were going to make an amber colored beer. Beersmith estimates a color of 6.2 SRM, a golden yellow. I have to agree that Beersmith is right on with that. The beer I have is almost straw colored, it looks almost like a pilsner at first glance.

Basically what I have is a very lightly hopped Pale Ale. It's not bad, it's certainly very drinkable, but it's also very boring. I won't be making that again.

Kegerator Fun!

Today I finally had the time to finish my kegerator. I didn't have a ton of room, so I went with a Sanyo 4912 mini fridge, which has room for 2 five gallon cornelius kegs and 1 five pound CO2 tank. I was very surprised at just how easy it was to convert this refrigerator to a kegerator. I purchased 4 kegs from morebeer as well as the miscellaneous tubing and connections that I needed. I purchased the draft tower and two tap handles from Northern Brewer.

I didn't take pictures of the process, but it went pretty simply. I took the plastic top off the fridge and turned it upside down. I used a dremel to remove the plastic fins underneath in an 8" x 8" square. I cut a piece of 1/2" plywood to fit in this space and placed it inside. I placed the cover back on the fridge and then carefully drilled a hole with a 2 3/4" hole saw, being careful to avoid the coolant line that was 7" from the back of the fridge. Once I had a hole all the way through to the inside I marked four holes for the screws to the draft tower. I carefully drilled these holes through the plastic top and the plywood support. I hammered tee nuts into the holes. I then applied a thick bead of silicon caulk to the plywood and affixed it permanently to the plastic top and screwed the tower in.

After that it was just a matter of putting the plastic top back on (and putting some foil tape on the hole I drilled to keep the insulation in). Now I have my very own kegerator. On the left is a pretty decent pale ale; on the right a beer that is pretty crappy for the amber ale it is supposed to be, but as a beer not bad at all.