a boring beer?

Well, it's a new year and it's my second brew of the year. I took advantage of no hangover and a quiet (everyone was sick) house to brew on New Year's Day. No surprise, a pilsner. A second pitch of the Wyeast specialty yeast, Rasenmaher. 50F in the basement brewery and it's chugging along nicely.

Today's brew is one I've been grumbling about internally for a while. Our homebrew club has in internal competition in which the winner names the next year's challenge. This year: American rye. Admittedly, I have all I can do to brew enough for us to have homebrew on tap most of the time. Therefore I tend to brew what I/we like. Lots of pilsner, pale ales, Irish red, some dark and or smokey beers. This is not a beer I would brew ordinarily. I like rye. I really enjoy the extra tang it adds to a beer. So when I do use it it's usually in a specialty brew, like a red rye Pilsner or in a smoked porter, or an American amber. American rye, as a style, is pretty boring. Not much color, body or bitterness. Yawn. But, it's a challenge. Okay. Rye beer, in particular, rye beers done with a high percentage of rye in the mash is a challenge. Gummy, gluey, sticky, and the dread stuck mash are all usually a part of any brewers discussion of rye. So I guess the challenge will be, how much rye do I dare?

48% is the number. Using rice hulls and a slight modification to my typical procedure, sparging in progress.

Since I don't normally do a mash out, I mashed on the thick side and layered the mash with hot water as I transferred it into the lauter tun. 1/2 pound of rice hulls as well. Wort is running very well and I have a lovely golden color.

The picture to the right is from Friday. A hawk is dining on a bluejay in the driveway. Gorey but fascinating to watch. I've never been so close to a hawk before. He/she was very intent on the meal. But it glared at me as the camera beeped as it powered up. I was inside. That's some fine hearing.

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.

2 hour brew,part 2

Okay, the schwartzbier seems to be coming along just fine, so I want to try another 2 hour brew.

Start time, 11:00 am

fermenter is already filled with sanitizer

about a gallon of water heating on the stove to make dissolving the malt extract easier

starter is made, yeast looks very good

oats go into cool oven to toast as it preheats to 350F



The recipe:

Toasted Oatmeal Stout

#1 toasted oats

12 ounces chocolate rye

8 ounces 90L US crystal

12 ounces dehusked carafa 1

4 ounces roasted barley

4 ounces mild ale malt



#6-6 ounces Munton's amber malt extract

After I mixed the extract into the gallon of hot water on the stove @11:12, stirred well with spatula, then I started topping off to boil volume with quarts of H2O that I had heating up for 3 minutes in the microwave. That should get everything up to a boil quicker. Oats toasted to a golden color in about 20 minutes. Don't forget them! As soon as you can smell them, it's time to stir or take them out.



11:36 Boil! Set timer for 1 hour

Hops:

1-1/2 ounces E. Kent Golding pellets, 5.5% AAU @ 60 minutes

1-1/2 ounces E Kent Golding pellets, @20 minutes



12:15 am rinse out funnel, cup, strainer, fermenter Add wort chiller to boil. Add 20 minute hop addition



12:39 Boil is done; wort chiller hooked up. Grain bag is in the middle of the chiller.

1:05 Pitched and covered @ 72F



Because the oatmeal grain blend was bigger than most recipes, it really filled the funnel/strainer. Luckily I had the better part of a suitcase of water, so I was able to use that to rinse the grain bag. Did that, then topped it off with tap water.
Okay, a little more than 2 hours, but not bad. done!

Two hour homebrew?

I've had an idea for awhile about how to brew more efficiently. Normally we steep the grains for a 1/2 hour or so, while the kitchen gets cleaned up and the fermenter gets filled with sanitizer. Then add the malt, boil for an hour and chill. Can I brew a five gallon extract w/specialty grain homebrew in two hours?


What if:
1. the kitchen was already clean/tidy?
2. dissolve the malt in the pot and get the boil started right away?
3. steep the grains in the wort while the chiller runs?







Schwartzbier, Jan 5, 2010


9:00 am Dissolve #6.8 d.m.e. in 3 gallons of H20


9:20 am Boil starts, get fermenter filled with sanitizer, start adding hops


10:10 am Wort chiller into pot


10:15 am Drain fermenter, rinse strainer, measuring cup, lid, airlock
10:20 am Add whirlfloc tablet


10:25 am Boil finished

11:00 am Wort chilled, topped off, pitched and in the cellar

Done in 2 hours. I realized that the grains weren't really in the pot very long while the chiller was running. So I poured the wort in the pot through my strainer first to get rid of the hops. Then I put the grain bag in the strainer and rinsed through the grains as I topped off the fermenter. There was a nice color in the wort coming out the strainer and I think I probably ran a gallon and a half of water through the grains.

All in all, this seems like it works. I had #2 of specialty grains. I'll be looking forward to seeing if I get all the color and roastiness I want in this schwartzbier.

Done!

A Tale of Two Pilsners

It's spring! It's snowing! My cellar is still 53F!

So, because I know how tasty a bitter pilsner can be on a hot summer day, it's going to be a pilsner brew day. And because I've been crazy busy, it's going to be a 10 gallon partial mash. Most of the time I make my pilsners with the classic ingredients. Today, because I'll do two fermentations side by side, I'm pitching two different yeast: Czech Pilsner and Pilsner Urquel. But maybe today it's a good time to get out of my Saaz/Hallertauer rut. Maybe its time for a Chinook & Cascade Pilsner...

This is a pilsner from December. Yum. Good food photography is harder than it looks.

Unexpected present

My plans today were to make a 10 gallon partial mash. An altbier as the base wort, then a separate grain tea to make a porter out one. Well, last night, at a very fun St. Patty's day party, I was given 5 gallons of reverse osmosis sap. OG 1.030 What to do?
So I'm turning the all grain grains into an old ale. German pale ale, dark munich, 4 different crystal malts, some East Kent Goldings and a blend of European ale and London yeasts. Starting gravity looks like the mid-70's so I think I'll add all the yeast that I was going to use for the 10 gallons. That's the plan....boiling right now.

Red Rye Lager

Long time no blog, but I've been brewing.  Brewed and gone: Irish Red ale & a dry Stout.  In the keg now, American Pale Ale and a German Pilsner is up next.  Did a 10 gallon partial mash of a brown ale: American ale yeast/hops upstairs and a pilsner blend in the cellar.  Not sure what either one is, probably just homebrew. 

Today is a reddish lager with 30% rye.  I use malted rye, flaked rye and just a couple of ounces of chocolate rye to redden it up. Hops will be leftover odds & ends from the fridge.  Will try to go moderate, maybe 35-45 IBU's.  Usually wait to make up the hop schedule once I have a reading on the starting gravity after the sparge.

So after the brew is over, it's done, pitched, in the can.  Used Bullion, US Hallertau, and Liberty.  Yum Yum.  The "keller" is 47F...so I pitched a huge jar of slurry.

It's all good.