Brewer’s Cache

Just finished the last glass of Elaine’s Big Head Pale Ale and the keg went dry.   The hop flavor of this beer mellowed out nicely over time hoppyness but it maintained a fantastic balance with the malt. ’Tis a shame that it didn’t last a couple of more days.  I have some relative coming in tomorrow and was hoping to share a glass of this ale with them.   The Somegood wheat beer has also improved considerably in the last month.  For a while there, I was always tasting some faint aftertaste that I just couldn’t identify; this has since disappear and Somegood wheat has turned out to be a nice drinkable pint.

I only have a two tap system and this provided me to a chance to tap the Sim City India Pale ale that has been waiting in the keg for almost two months now.   I drew a pint of the Sim City IPA to clear the bottom of the keg and then filled one up for me.   Being my first IPA, and a homegrown recipe at that, I had been concerned with the bitterness.  With a Bu/Gu of .75, a harsh bitterness would put the tastebuds on your tongue into and then out of their misery.  I was pleased to find that this new beer has a nice smooth but distinct bitterness that I think will really continue to age nicely.  I will give an observation on this ale in about a week when it reaches it terminal carbonation level.

Also today,  after leaving Jamil’s American Brown Ale in the primary one full month to they day, I will be racking it off directly into the keg where it will sit cold condition until the other tap is free.

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I figured that I would mention that this beer is the only beer that I have made so far whose prefermented wort was actually pretty darn tasty.  This wort had a very complex flavor full of maltyness and roastyness and all sorts of goodness.

Pitching this wort on the previous batch kicked started this yeast like I have never seen before.  It was up and running full speed in less than two hours.   This certainly is a new persional landspeed record.  I guess so much for ester production but that is just fine; I wasn’t looking for fruity flavors in this one anyway.

I had a real hard time keeping this temperature down, even in the tub.  It fermened for a solid 48 hours.  As of today, this beer is still in the primary fermenter.  I am giving it a long rest on the yeast to ensure that the yeast has time to clean up the mess from a warm fermenation.  Thankfully, I don’t think that this beer fermented warm enough to generate any of those hot fusil alchols.

I will be transfering this into a secondary in the next few days and then moving it into the back of the kegerator.  I want to give this some time to clarify before moving into a keg.  If you skip the secondary, you can safely move it into the keg but the first few glasses are a bit chunky–and if you bump the keg real good, you will get some serious haze for a few more glasses ( of course, it still tastes fine either way ).

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It came to me at last, a good name for my American Pale Ale recipe. A decree has been made and hince forth the generically named “American Ale”  is now titled “Elaine’s Big Head Pale Ale”. A beer with a head so big that a bird flew into it as if it couldn’t get out of the way. Hmm, I’ve never seen that before..

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Boil overs can be a real problem when brewing some beers, especially the high protein ones like wheat beers. To prevent boil-overs and the sticky aftermath, here are some simple suggestions.

Of course, the most obvious solution is to buy a bigger brew pot. When you are brewing all-grain beers, this can be pretty expensive; 5+ gal pots are not cheap.

Add the wort in stages. If I collect more wort than I can boil at once, just add the extra wort after the hot break has formed but before you add your first round of hops. After the hot break, a lot of those foamy proteins ( I suspect ) will have had their big display and will not cause you any more trouble. The newly added wort may foam up a bit but it should be managable. The downside is that by adding cold wort to your boil, you will very likely cool it off and have to pause the boil timer while waiting for the wort to come back up to temperature.
Stir. Stir. Stir.
A trick that I can across that works well: use a spray bottle filled with cold water. When the foamy suds keep on rising, break out your spray bottle and spritz them down like you are trying to put out a fire. You need to keep on stirring of course. This has saved me a couple of times recently. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me earlier!

“Skim the Scum”
When you come to a boil, you can skim the foamy, scummy stuff off the top of the boil.   Use a ladle and collect this stuff into a pot and add it back within the first ten minutes of the boil.

Use a straw.
Ok. This method doesn’t make the slightest bit of sence for the full-boil.  If you are having trouble with boilovers when preparing wort for a yeast starter and you are using a vessle that doesn’t let you get a spoon through the neck ( like a flask ), then use a long straw a blow into the vessle to keep the foam under control.

If you have any other tried an true methods, feel free to post them in a comment.

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This is based on Jamil’s American Brown Ale, an award winner.  You can find the the original recipe at www.beerdujour.com.   Horizon hops are not available this time of year so I am going to substitute .5 oz magnum ( its what I have on hand ).
Target OG : 1.49 for 5 gal batch.

Grain Bill
6 lbs     Marris Otter
1.5 lbs    American  2-row
0.25 lbs    Victory
.65 lbs    Crystal 40
.65 lbs    Crystal 60
.25 lbs    Chocolate Malt

90 minute boil

Hop Schedule
.5 oz    Magnum hops @ 60 minute
1 oz    Amarillo @ 15 minutes
1 oz   Amarillo @ 0 minutes

Yeast:
White Labs wlp001 California Ale Yeast.

 Mash Schedule:
Single Infusion Mash at 152F for 1 hour.
Mash Out at 170F for 15 minutes
Sparge for 1 hour.
 Notes:

I actually managed to sparge for a full hour and collected about 7 to 7.5 gal of wort.  I will boil 6.5 gallons of this to start and add the remainder after 30 minutes ( after some has boiled off and the immediate threat of boil over had passed.)  My mash method was a Continuous/Batch hybrid method.  I kept the wort level above the grain bed until I had collected about 5.5 gal of wort.   I then let it rest for about 15 minutes and then allowed the remained to drain.  Dont forget to vorlauf.

I am going to ferment this as cold as possible.  My home AC unit is on the fritz and room temperature during the day is around 80 degrees.  I will keep this in the bath tub and hopefully ferment this in the low 70s.

I am also pitching this on top of my previous batch, the Sim City IPA, so I will effectively have a HUGE starter.  If you are not pitching on top of a previous yeast cake, be sure to make a yeast starter.

Also, after this brew is done, I will have succesfully finished by 10th batch, 50 gallons in all. I know this is a small number for a number of you, but I don’t get to brew but once every two months or so.  I have been on an accelerated brew schedule lately in order to fill up the four kegs that I purchased, but after this one, I am back to brewing every two months. 

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This recipe, which I have not yet tasted as of this post, is based (loosly)on Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale. If you are a total computer geek, you may be able to get why this brew in particular dons the name Sim City Pale Ale. With a Bu:Gu of .75, this beer is hop intensive–maybe overkill for my midwestern US pallet. You friends of the brew on the West Coast may be right at home. The orignal recipe called for use of 2-row, not 6-row, but my LHBS’s grain shipment ran late and he didn’t have any in stock ( Can you believe it!?!)

Grain Bill:

10 lbs 6 row malt
1 lbs Crystal 60
1 lbs Crystal 120
Hops :

.5 oz Magnum( 14.5%) 60 min
1 oz Galena ( 11%) 30 min
1 oz Cascade(5.1%) 5 min
Yeast:

White Labs WLP001 Califorina Ale Yeast.

Mash Schedule:

Single Infusion Mash at 154 F for one hour. Mash out at 169F for 10-15 minutes and then sparge.

Boil for 90 minutes.
Ferment at 170F until good and done.

Notes:

I tried to refine my batch-sparging technique a bit this round. I sparged slowly and kept refilling the Lauter Tun with hot ( 170F) water to keep the wort level above the grain bed. When I had collected nearly all of the wort, I let the train drain normally. This time around, I collected more wort than I can boil at a given time ( I have a 6.5 gal max capacity). After boiling the wort for 30 minutes, I added the extra wort to the boil. I didnt prepare a yeast start this time, but should have. I saw active fermentation about 20 hours into the primary. I had to put the fermenter into a bathtub with cool water to keep the temperature down. It ran higher than I would have liked but this yeast to supposed to ferment clean so we will see how it turns out.

If you want a real Sierra Nevada pale ale, I would suggest that you keep looking for another recipe.

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This beer still needs some aging.  Because I had to use all of my hops to bitter this beer, it has absolutly no hop aroma or flavor. Another first for me.  The only thing that comes through in the aroma is a a bit of maltyness.  The malty flavor is substainally reaffermed in the flavor of this beer.  It is very different.  I attribute most apparent maltyness to the use of Maris Otter; but it could also be out of balance.   This puppy only has a BU:GU of around .30 ( I didn’t quite hit my target).

The mouthfeel of this beer is unusual.  It is pretty thick on the tounge like one would expect with all that wheat and the 1 lbs of dextrine malt.  The beer seems to mask the carboonation a little bit.  Even after carbonating to just over 2 volumes,  this beer still feels a little flat.  Maybe that effect is commong for heavy mouth-feel beers?

For as much protien in this beer, I also expected it to be a little easier to produce a nice, thick head.  I have to pour from the tap directly to the bottom of the glass to get it churned up.  With my American Ale, also on tap, I can pour down the side of the glass till half full and then tip straight up fill the rest to generate a good head.
At this point, I don’t think that I would recommend brewing this recipe exactly as written.  The mouthfeel is too thick.  I would suggest that one of the following things be changed:  use some more bittering hops ( pick one with more alpha acid) , swapping some basic 2-row for the Maris Otter–Idon’t normally think of malty wheat beers, or drop the dextrine malt.

I bet this one will benifit from aging. I will give it a couple of more weeks to see if it improves a bit.

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This American Ale needs a better name. Other than that, it has a a perfect balance and is very hoppy. I was not expecting so much hop flavor; it was the first time that I spread out my hop additons over the whole boil. The American Ale has been in the keg for a three weeks now and is running very clear ( The first few pints were downright chunky–I didn’t use a secondary on this one). This beer has excellent head retention and just looks great in one of my tall 21 oz beer glasses ( Hefe style ). I have to take it easy on this brew; I was to let it age a bit more and save some for my Big sis that is coming to visit next month.

Update: 7/3/07, this beer has a better name.   This beer is all good head, so big that a bird flew into it as if it couldn’t get out of the way.

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After toiling with getting the kegerator door to seal well, I decided on adding an external latch to snug up the door. If I had underage kids in the house, this would solve the problem of teenage tampering.

From Solving the s…

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Attaching the door panel was more of a pain that I had anticipated. It was very difficult to position the panel on the door precisly so that the rubber seals would properly seat. Free of the door, the panel was flexible; it was easy to adjust this and that to get a seal. On a ridge frame, making changes required redrilling new holes and rescrewing countless screws. In the end, I achieved a reasonable seal. I still might attach an exteral clasp to secure the door shut and sealed.

I used a one inch hold saw to cut the shank holes. Because the fridge door is 99.9% insulation, it cut through it like butta. You can see in the following pics the results. I still plan on staining the platform ( with its new hardwood tops ) to match the door panel.

From Attaching the…

The beer shanks pass through the fridge door; the faucets attach to the end on the exterier side.

From Attaching the…

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On the outside, you can see the faucets attached to the shanks. These are shirron seal-forward faucets. I understand that they are worth their weight in gold. Fortunately, they don’t cost that much. You can pick these up at morebeer.com or any other good online homebrew shop.

From Attaching the…

From Attaching the…

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