Month: September 2011

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(29) Sunday, October 2, 2011 Brew Day — Dry Stout

You ate already. You're a night horse.

Today’s brew is Jamil Zainasheff’s Dry Stout recipe. For those of you with a copy of Brewing Classic Styles, this is the Cerveza de Malto Seco. Since this recipe is already available online, I am going to go ahead and document here what I am brewing. Perhaps you will feel encouraged to go buy your own copy of the book.

Original Gravity: 1.042 SG
Boil: 60 minutes
Mash: Protein rest for 15 minutes at 120 °F (49 °C) then saccharification rest for 60 minutes at 150 °F (64 °F).
Fermentation: Ferment at 65 °F then do a diacetyl rest.
Serving: Serve at 52–55 °F (11–13 °C) with 1–1.5 volumes of CO₂.

Grain Amount
Thomas Fawcett & Sons Halcyon 70%
Flaked Barley 20%
Briess Black Barley 10%
Hop
Kent Goldings 60 min. 38.5 IBU
Yeast
Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale 162B Cells

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(28) Saturday, September 24, 2011 Brew Day — Cider

Gretchen and I pressed 3½ bushels of the apples from our orchard today. It was a mix of a half-dozen varieties of which we are uncertain, though one is definitely Cortland and another is probably Macintosh.

Gretchen picked the apples Monday and Tuesday and they have sat in the garage all week. I find that letting the apples sit for a week softens them, which makes them easier to press, which produces more juice, and forces them to ripen more, producing more sugar. Some rot, but the improved yield more than makes up for the ones we have to toss.

We got 8¼ gallons of juice. I put 6 gallons in a cleaned and sanitized food grade plastic bucket along with six crushed Campden tablets. We pasteurized the rest, sealing two in clean gallon jugs. The remaining quart is the refrigerator. We will probably drink it for breakfast.

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Magnesium

There is a discussion on the AHA Forum about adding magnesium to brewing liquor. I have wondered about this since my water is so low in magnesium (3 ppm). That is pretty low. I had heard, as had the poster, that you do not need to worry about the level because malt contained all of magnesium needed1. The poster points out that John Palmer cites a minimum of 10 ppm in How to Brew. Finally, the poster mentions his own experience in identical brews where the only deliberate difference was adding 10 ppm of magnesium — as magnesium sulfate, or Epson Salts — resulting in greatly improved fermentation.

Martin Brungard talks about seeing a paper that shows significantly enhanced yeast flocculation performance in wort with 5 ppm magnesium.

Denny Conn cites Tobias Fischborn’s 2009 NHC presentation, which mentions the importance of the calcium to magnesium ratio, though it gives no guidance on what it should be.

  1. According to Winning Homebrew it is from Greg Noonan’s book New Brewing Lager Beer, but it is also in George Fix’s book Principles of Brewing Science:

    Magnesium ions also play an important role in yeast growth, primarily as a cofactor in metabolic reactions. Malt generally will provide sufficient magnesium for these purposes, even when the brewing water is low in this ion. Corrections with MgSO₄ additions are needed only with very high adjunct worts.

    ↩

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Here’s To It

Here’s to it
And to it again.
If you get to it
And can’t do it
Call us!
We’ll do it.
We’re used to it.
We used to do it.
We want to do it.
We love to do it.
So, here’s to it.

This is an old toast I learned back in the 1980s with a friend.

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(27) Friday, September 2, 2011 Brew Day — Harvest Ale

Thursday Evening (9/1) Gretchen and I just picked the hops we grew at the cabin this year. When we did this last year, I told myself that I would be ready to brew with them this year. This is the result of that preparation. Amat Victoria Curam.

I worried about bugs and thought maybe I should wash the hops, so I asked for advice on the AHA Forum.

I found that if I let them sit overnight outside, most critters voluntarily vacate the premises! — pinnah

So that is what I am doing.

I ended up with the following:

  • 15¾ ounces of Cascade
  • ⅞ ounce of Chinook
  • ¾ ounce of Zeus

I also have 1 ounce of Magnum pellets at 13.5% AA — just in case.

Yakima Chief gives the range for Cascade as 4.5–7.0% AA. If I assume I am at the low end of the range, that would give me 4.5% AA for dried hops. Likewise, the Chinook would be 12% and the Zeus would be 14%.

Then there is the question of how to compensate for the undried state of the hops.

Dave Wills from Freshops recommends 5x and that has worked well for me. — Denny Conn

If we go with the one-fifth of the low end alpha acid for these hops we get:

Variety Alpha Acid %
Fresh Cascade 0.9
Fresh Chinook 2.4
Fresh Zeus 2.8

A hop schedule like this seems reasonable:

HOPS Weight Bitterness
Magnum, 13.6% AA, 60 minutes 1.00 oz 37 IBU
Fresh Zeus, 2.8% AA, 20 minutes 0.25 oz 1.2 IBU
Fresh Chinook, 2.4% AA, 20 minutes 0.96 oz 1.2 IBU
Fresh Cascade, 0.9% AA, 20 minutes 5.25 oz 7.8 IBU
Fresh Zeus, 2.8% AA, 10 minutes 0.25 oz 0.7 IBU
Fresh Chinook, 2.4% AA, 10 minutes 0.96 oz 0.7 IBU
Fresh Cascade, 0.9% AA, 10 minutes 5.25 oz 4.7 IBU
Fresh Zeus, 2.6% AA, 5 minutes 0.25 oz 0.4 IBU
Fresh Chinook, 2.4% AA, 5 minutes 0.96 oz 0.4 IBU
Fresh Cascade, 0.9% AA, 5 minutes 5.25 oz 2.6 IBU

That gives me a total bitterness of 61 IBU using Tinseth, and a BU:GU ratio of about 1.1 given my 1.056 SG original gravity.

The grain is weighed and crushed, the brewery is set up, and the water is measured out.

See you in the morning.

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