Today’s beer is different in a couple of ways. First I am using a different hop schedule. This one is based on a presentation from Daniel Morey in December 2000 called “Hop Schedule Guidelines: Award Winning Homebrew and Classic Beer Style Recipes.” The second thing is a different yeast. This one is Wyeast 1768-PC English Special Bitter Yeast. It is a seasonal yeast that is currently available and is similar to 1968 London ESB Ale but slightly less flocculent. The third thing is… I cannot remember the third thing, but I am sure there was one. I’ll think of it.
I remembered the third thing. I am going to go with a different chilling regimen. Last time, I believe that I had a noticeable amount of Dimethyl sulfide (DMS). I believe that this was from my 20-minute hot steep to extract hop aromatics. This time I am going to start my whirlpool cooling right at flame out which is why I wanted to use a different hop schedule in the first place.
Oh, and there’s a fourth thing. I am not going to do any dry hopping in the fermenter. The two ounces of dry hops are all getting added in the keg!
Last night I weighed out and crushed my grain and weighed out my hops. The rest of the hops went in the freezer. I set up the brewery and measured out my mash and sparge water.
7:13 Flame is on. Yeast is out of the refrigerator and smacked. Each has a manufacturing date of July 12, 2011. According to the Mr Malty Pitching Rate Calculator, that makes a viability of 74%, giving me 222B cells. The target for this recipe is 227B cells or 2.2% low. I am going to say that is close enough.
7:45 Strike water is hot — maybe a little too hot. It is about 182 °F while it should have been about 178 °F. I’m going to transfer it to the mash tun and then check it again after the transfer.
7:51 The strike water temperature after the transfer to the mash tun is 172 °F. My records say I am looking for 167 °F, but the last batch was 169 °F and that worked out well. I am going to let it cool to 169 °F.
7:53 I weighed out the mash salts while the strike water was transferring to the mash tun.
7:54 The strike water is down to 169 °F. I am going to go ahead and add the grist and the mash salts.
8:00 Let’s say the mash started at 8:00 a.m. At 8:10, I’ll check on the stabilization temperature.
8:13 The mash had some hot spots as high as 160 °F. Some stirring brought the temperature down to a fairly uniform 157 °F. I’m going to go with that.
8:40 It is starting to rain.
9:01 The temperature at the end of the mash was 157 °F. Proceeding to vorlauf and lauter.
9:10 Lauter is complete. Proceeding to batch sparge.
9:12 Sparge water temperature is 167 °F.
9:14 The gravity of the first runnings is 1.061 SG at 127.5 °F. Calibrated gravity is 1.074 SG.
9:15 I am lighting the burner under the first runnings while I collect the second runnings.
9:15 The boil salts are in.
9:16 The volume of the first runnings is maybe a cup shy of 3½ gallons.
9:18 I noticed that neither set of runnings are as clear as the last couple have been. They are not the cloudiest, but they aren’t the clearest, either.
9:24 Think about getting a set of burner igniters for the Camp Chef.
9:28 The batch sparge is done. It looks like the combined volume is just a hair over 6¾ gallons.
9:29 The gravity of the second runnings is 1.020 SG at 129.6 °F. Calibrated gravity is 1.033 SG.
9:46 I had a very small boil over — not too bad at all. I wasn’t really paying attention and I had the lid on to get it up to the boil faster. The lid is off now and I am going to wait for the hot break to subside.
9:48 Maybe I am just impatient, but it seems like it is taking a long time for the hot break to subside. I understand that this comes from protein in the grain. That seems consistent with my observation about the cloudiness of the mash. This may be a higher protein bag of grain. It would be good to request a copy of the analysis sheet that accompanied the bag when purchasing.
9:50 While I am waiting for the hot break to subside, I am going to go ahead and sanitize the carboy.
9:53 The hot break has subsided. I have a nice boil going. I am going to put my bittering hops in and start a timer for 60 minutes. I will say the boil started at 9:54.
9:58 The gravity of the boil is 1.042 SG at 110.7 °F. Calibrated gravity is 1.050 SG. Target was 1.052 SG.
10:33 I went ahead and brought around the hose for chilling and used it to clean up the mash kit.
10:39 The chiller, Irish Moss, and Yeast Nutrient are in.
10:44 The flavor hops are in.
10:49 The aroma hops are in.
10:54 Flame out and chilling.
11:15 Chilled to 68 °F. Removing the chiller. Lifting the hop bag to drain. Stirring to form a whirlpool. Covering and letting the grub settle for 20 minutes. Original gravity volume is 5¼ gallons. Target was 5½ gallons. That corresponds to about 1.3 gallons per hour boil off rate (19¼%). That seems unusually high. At that volume, though, I only need 222B cells, which is supposedly what I have.
11:36 Draining.
11:39 The original gravity is 1.062 at 68 °F. Calibrated gravity is 1.063 SG. Target was 1.059 SG. I got no impression of DMS in the hydrometer sample.
12:00 Kettle is drained.
12:05 Swirling the carboy to aerate.
12:10 Aerated. Transferring to fermentation refrigerator. Pitching and thermostat set for 68 °F.
12:30 Everything is cleaned and put away.
Monday Morning (8/15) Beer is showing signs of yeast activity. Fermenting at 64 °F.
Monday Night (8/15) Beer is fermenting nicely at 66 °F.
Tuesday Morning (8/16) Fermenting at 65 °F. Seems to be past high kräusen. I may have to heat it to do a diacetyl rest.
Tuesday Evening (8/16) Still at 65 °F.
Wednesday Morning (8/17) Still at 65 °F. Kräusen has fallen. CO₂ is still evolving with a bubble in the air lock every few seconds.
Wednesday Evening (8/17) Now at 66 °F. Ambient is only 68 °F.
Thursday Morning (8/18) Still at 66 °F. CO₂ evolution has slowed to a bubble every six seconds or so. The beer seems to be clearing (yeast dropping out).
Friday Morning (8/19) Now at 67 °F. CO₂ evolution has slowed to a bubble every thirteen seconds or so. The beer is quite clear now.
Saturday Morning (8/20) I’ve taken the beer out of the refrigerator to sit at room temperature (68 °F) for a few days.
Saturday (9/3) Kegged. Final gravity is 1.006 SG at 69 °F. Calibrated gravity is 1.007 SG. That corresponds to 88% attenuation, which is kind of high for a yeast whose range is 68–72%. The hydrometer sample tasted good and was stunningly clear, so I do not expect any infection. The beer was stunningly clear. Perhaps the extra week of fermentation had an impact. I bet I read it wrong. I bet is was 1.016 at 69 °F, corrected to 1.017 SG. That would be 72% attenuation, which is right in line with the specifications of this yeast.
Saturday (9/10) Tasted my first glass today. It still has a lot of suspended yeast, and the carbonation is a little less than I would like, but I will say that the new hop schedule is a success. If you gave me this first thing in the morning and told me it was a glass of grapefruit juice, I would have no reason to suspect otherwise. The hop flavor and aroma is amazing.
Plus/Delta
I think there are several things I need to think about:
- Potable Water Hose
- Swap out all the plastic
- Consider a glass hydrometer jar
- Consider a stainless steel funnel
- Two Stage Temperature Controller
- Recirculation Chiller
- Ask for the Malt Analysis on the grain you order
- pH Meter
- Conversion Check (Iodine Test)
- Burner Igniters
- Hop Bag Holder
- New Keg (or here, here, here, here, or here)
- Whole hops for the keg
- Don’t forget to cold crash before kegging (oops!)