2 hour brew, revisited, again

Another Sunday, another try at getting the 2 hour brew even better.

You must have a five gallon kettle and a wort chiller. You have to get your fermenter sanitized the night before, then all I needed to do was rack the sanitizer into a bucket to sanitize the strainer, measuring cup, stopper and airlock. The kitchen needs to be "brew-ready" when you walk in the next morning. So okay, done.

Now the brew.

Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil in the brew kettle. Bring another 2 gallons to a boil in a smaller pot. When the large kettle is boiling, turn off the heat and mix in the extract. Stir well with the paddle and top off with the now boiling water from the other kettle. Now that the smaller kettle is empty, heat up enough water to cover grains to 165F. Start steeping the grains and go for 30 minutes. I'll remove the grain bag, heat it up to a boil and pour that "tea" into the kettle. Boil for only 50 minutes. That shouldn't change anything dramatically. Chill and pitch.

So far:

8:55 Walk into kitchen. Get water going, mix extract in, bring to boil.

9:35 Boil starts. Timer set for 50 minutes. Siphon sanitizer, get some hot water into malt bucket to get it all out, set aside.

10:00 Get grains in bag into strainer; more hops added

10:12 Wort chiller goes in; grain tea brought to boil, added to kettle

10:31 Boil done, chilling begins.

11:05 Chilled, pitched and the kitchen is clean

Not bad...................

2 hour brew: one more time, what I've learned

Sunday morning. I am trying to brew before I go to the store. It'll be tight. I started at 9:30 a.m. It's a pilsner with the Wyeast Staro-Prague yeast. This is a new one for me. All light dry malt and US Saaz pellets. Some carafoam, light wheat & a bit of flaked barley.
Some thoughts on this 2 hour deadline:
1. I will need to cut back on boil time to 50 minutes. Depending on how much I boil, it takes more time to come up to a boil. So today I'm starting with just a bit less than 4 gallons. It took about 30 minutes to get to full boil.
2. Mixing in dry malt: Tried something a bit different. Poured dry malt into pot then I used the sprayer attachment to add water. Used hot tap water. This worked really well. It dissolved pretty fast, nothing stuck to the bottom. The paddle is the right tool for a flat bottom pot.
3. The oatmeal stout grains were a pain in the ass. Oats got really big. Hard to rinse well. I don't think I got all the color from the dark grains, so I might have to rename this as an English Brown ale. Don't think I'll do use oats in a post boil steep again.

Getting a little behind here............

This is about one of my newer favorite beers. When we go on vacation we drink vast amounts of Heineken. Not because I'm such a fan, but it's the cheapest good beer, in a can, that we can find. It's a wonderful beer on a very hot day, when it's very cold. It's good in the morning with pb & j, it's good sitting on a floatie at lunch time, and really, until it's time to fire up the gin & tonics, good anytime. So I asked myself, how would I change it to make it better.....well, more hops and alcohol would be a start. So, My Big Heine was born.

It's about 1.058-60 OG. Pilsner malt, flaked rice and rice syrup solids, a pound each of the last two. I get the IBU's over 50 and pitch a good, clean lager yeast. In the past that was often Danish, but this year I used my new favorite, Budvar. All in all, something to look forward to when summer finally gets here.

More pilsner

Because the days are getting longer and the basement is going to start getting warmer, the dilemma on each brew day becomes: should I brew a pilsner or should I make something that I haven't brewed yet this year. Like a bock, Vienna/Octoberfest, Dunkel or Rauch.....or should I just keep making Pilsner. So with an aging jar of Urquel slurry in the fridge, Pilsner won. Basic simple grain bill: Bohemian malt and white wheat. Hops are more fun: Saaz, Hallertau, Magnum, Tettnang and Spalt (still cleaning out the fridge). Starting gravity andIBU's are both 57. Yum. Can't wait.

The picture is of what I think is a pretty cool way to get your kegs delivered. I really like Venice.

Digging out..............

It's been a loooong week here at the brewery. By the time you start digging out from 2 feet of snow and figure out where to put it, a nice Sunday brew starts to look pretty good. Just racked the Budvar pilsner. It already tastes pretty good and isn't that cloudy either. A new brewer might consider it ready to bottle now, but patience will really pay off. The cellar is hovering just above 50F, so I will probably lager this pilsner for at least 4 weeks. I could go longer but that will work, then another couple of weeks to carbonate, so it's still going to be some time before it's in my glass.
Today's brew is an American pale ale. I have been storing a Rogue "pacman" yeast since the end of December. So I'm making a very hoppy, light orange pale ale. The starting gravity looks like it's coming in at 1.060 so it'll take plenty of Sorachi Ace and Amarillo and a little leftover Columbus for the aroma.

Rye & lies

Another Sunday brew day. Wasn't sure all week if I'd have the time to brew today, but the slurry of Urquell in the fridge wasn't going to last forever. And it's 48F in the basement. I decided yesterday I'd brew either a Munich Dunkel or a Schwartzbier since I now have 15 gallons of pilsner going. But I changed my mind and today's brew is a Red Rye Pilsner. Still can't get past the current pilsner theme....this is a beer I've done a couple of times. A nice dark red, pretty bitter, and the added twist of rye. It's a classic homebrew, totally invented & no official style of beer. I usually try to mix it up when I'm brewing. So in anticpation of lots of classic German/Czech pilsners on the way, this will be a nice change.

Recipe: German pilsner malt, dark munich malt, rye malt, flaked rye, caramunich I, and a pinch of chocolate rye to redden it up. Hopping is Northern Brewer for bittering, Spalt, Centennial, Liberty and Tettnang.

Now for the liberal part:

I'm watching the political shows this a.m. as I brew. Can't believe Douglas Feith has the cohones to say that the whole WMD scam was legit. Bastard. Wish he'd go over and prove it.....

Anyway, the Scooter Libby trial has been interesting...I hope Big Dick gets called to testify. Inquiring minds want to know.

If it's Sunday it must be meet the pilsner...........

Sunday is brew day. When my kids were little I used to brew during the week when they were in school. Now it's less of an issue and I don't care if they don't like the smell.
This is the brewery. Not very fancy. A 5 gallon brewpot is my mash tun. I can do infusions in the stove, step and decoctions on the stove. I use an old bottling bucket and a false bottom for sparging. Not very complicated. I can fit #13 of grain in the pot. For stronger brews I'll make 3 gallons or add some malt extract. I brew more often than my fellow brewers making 10-15 gallons, but I have more variety in the cellar.
Today's brew is a German Pilsner. It's a simple beer, just two grains today. Bohemian lager malt and white wheat. With a high mash temp I can forgo the crystal malts. German Perle, Hallertau Traditon, and lots of German Hallertau. I used a slurry of Budvar yeast that I had saved from last week.
Pilsner gets a bad rap. I don't make North American cat piss. This is real beer.
Sunshine in a glass.......crisp and dry. Bitter and aromatic. Refreshing. Good with all kinds of food. A show off beer for a brewer. If you mess up: too dark, too harsh, too malty, out of balance: you missed it. I watch the thermometer in the basement all fall, waiting to see it drop below 60F. My cellar is cold and dark. It is a keller, a cellar for brewing lager beers. I have till late April to take advantage of it.