“The familiar dot ‘.’ symbol from Internet addresses is used in this book to terminate sentences.” — Mr. Bunny’s Guide to ActiveXless than a minute ago via web 
Favorite 
Retweet 
Reply
Joel Spolsky
spolsky
Water Lillies
(23) Memorial Day 2011 Brew Day – BVBHA1.1
7:40 Gas on.
8:11 Adding strike water to mash tun. Temperature 170 °F.
8:16 Strike water stabilized to 165 °F.
8:20 Grains mixed into mash.
8:26 Mash stabilized at 155 °F. 6.87 gallons (26 liters).
8:57 Just realize that I forgot to add my mash salts. I stirred them in and remeasured the temperature at about 152 °F. Also, the volume is dropping which seems to indicate that the grain is absorbing more as time goes by.
9:20 Beginning vorloff for first runnings. Volume is 6 gallons in mash tun.
9:27 Boil salts are in the kettle. Collected just shy of 3.5 gallons. Gravity of first runnings was 1.075 (1.065 at 118 °F).
9:30 Flame is on under the first runnings while collecting the second. Sparge water temperature is 180 °F. The batch temperature when the sparge water was added is 167 °F.
9:40 Collected just shy of 3.5 gallons for the second runnings for a total of about 6-15/16 gallons in the kettle. Second runnings gravity was 1.029 (1.012 at 143 °F). Boil gravity is 1.052 (1.050 expected).
9:55 Boiling. Waiting for hot break.
10:00 Bittering hops added.
10:19 Smacking yeast packs. One manufactured on 5/4 (78% viability). The others on 5/16 (87% viability). Together providing 252 billion cells. The recipe calls for 225 billion.
10:45 Flavor hops added. Immersion chiller in. Irish moss in.
10:50 Yeast nutrient in.
11:00 Aroma hops added. Flame out. Lid on loosely. Letting hops steep for 20 minutes.
11:20 Started chilling and lifted hop bag to drain.
11:47 Wort chilled to 68 °F. Turning off and removing chiller. Removing hop bag. Stirring to form whirlpool and letting the wort settle for 20 minutes.
12:09 Taking original gravity sample and draining the kettle to the carboy. Original volume is 5.5 gallons.
12:17 Original gravity is 1.059 (1.056 @ 82.4 °F) as expected.
12:25 Kettle is drained. Rocking carboy to aerate wort.
12:36 Carboy in fridge. Yeast pitched. Temperature is 72 °F. Set for 68 °F. When it reaches that temperature, I will lower it to 64 °F.
Wednesday Evening, June 1 Added dry hops.
Monday Evening, June 6 Final gravity is 1.016 (8.3 Brix). Expected 1.018. 5.7% ABV. 72% ADF. Cold crashing to 38 °F.
Saturday, June 11 Kegged. Gravity 1.015. Added a hop bag containing 15.4g Chinook 11.4% AA, 14g Chinook 11.1%AA, and 28.9g Cascade 7.1%AA. So, that’s about an ounce each of Chinook and Cascade. Carbonating to 2.3 volumes (15 psi at 50 °F).
I sampled the beer while testing the carbonation in the keg. I did detect a low level flaw. While reading the notes from Wyeast, I found the following:
A thorough diacetyl rest is recommended after fermentation is complete.
Yeah… I didn’t do that. I cold crashed right after fermentation completed. Next time, I will let the beer sit warm for a few days while the yeast cleans up after itself.
Friday, June 23 I am going to say this beer is at its peak, 12 days after packaging. The last one was 19 days.
Sunday, July 3 Kicked. Good to the end.
Brush Valley Brewing House Ale v 1.1
Tomorrow I am going to make the first revisions to my house ale recipe.
The changes in this recipe are:
- Adding Irish Moss
- Adding Brewer’s Choice™ Wyeast Nutrient Blend
- Using Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale™ yeast, rather than Wyeast 1056 American Ale™
- Because I am changing the yeast, I will also be raising the fermentation temperature from 62 °F to 66 °F
These are also a couple of procedural changes:
- Adding all of the mash water at once and stabilizing at the strike temperature
- Fermenting in a refrigerator — I built a plywood stand for the fermentor to sit on and switched my controller from heating to cooling mode
Tonight I set up my brew stand. I measured out my mash and sparge water. I have my mash tun and fermenter standing by. I weighed and ground my grains and measured out my three hop additions as well as my mash and boil salts. I rounded up my Irish Moss and my yeast nutrient. I’m sure I’ll think of some things I have forgotten when I finally need them. For now, I think I have enough of a head start to call it an evening.
Tasting Notes on BVB House Ale v 1.0
This was not supposed to be one of those “Wow!” beers, and it is not. It is a good tasting, smooth, creamy beer, with a nice citrus aroma and flavor, a good malt backbone and some sweetness to offset the bitterness of the hops. It does all of that and I am quite pleased.
That is not to say it is perfect. It is not.
There is a tremendous amount of yeast still in suspension.
I wanted to play with different yeast varieties, but I think I need to try to address the flocculation of the yeast first.
Wyeast 1056 (WLP001) typically exhibits good flocculation — Wyeast describes it as medium to low.
I had thought that my adjusted water and all-grain recipe would provide enough nutrients to not require supplementation or assistance, but there are two things that I could try in future brews.
First, I have some Brewer’s Choice™ Wyeast Nutrient Blend. It could be that the yeast is simply missing something it needs. There were no off flavors that would have indicated stressed yeast, but perhaps whatever is needed to allow good flocculation does not impact flavor when it is missing.
If that does not work, I also have some Whirlfloc tablets. I have this belief that they should not be necessary. James Spencer of Basic Brewing Radio and Chris Colby of Brew Your Own magazine did a collaborative experiment to demonstrate the effects of Irish Moss — the source of the carrageenan in Whirlfloc — that I felt showed minimal impact to the clarifier. Besides, they are intended to bond with positively charged proteins, rather than yeast.
If none of that works, I may have to crash cool my fermenter before racking to the keg.
When I get around to experimenting with the yeast variety, I have in mind trying both 1968 (WLP002) and 1098 (WLP007). In particular, 1968 exhibits very high flocculation. It does not attenuate quite as well, so it may be slightly sweeter. It also has a higher temperature range, so I might have to go with 64 °F fermentation instead of 62 °F.
Update 3/24/11: I believe this beer is just peaking. It is just slightly too bitter — that is, slightly too much contribution from the first addition, it is not too hoppy. Apart from that it is nicely smooth. A bit hazy, but the yeast seems to have finally dropped.
(22) Friday, February 18, 2011 Brew Day – BVBHA1.0
8:39 I printed out the recipe for markup during the brew day. I weighed out and ground my grains and measured out my hops and my mash and boil salts last night. Setting up brewery.
8:54 Collecting sparge water in hot liquor tank to use to preheat the mash tun.
9:01 Flame on under sparge water. Collecting mash water.
9:20 Boil kettle sight glass measures accurately for two and four gallon measured volumes.
9:25 Mash water collected and heating.
9:33 Adding sparge water to mash tun to preheat.
9:47 Transfer sparge water back to hot liquor tank. Transfer mash water into mash tun. Add grains and mash salts. Mix. Rest ten minutes.
10:03 Mash stabilized at 150 °F. Boiling water to adjust.
10:14 Mash stabilized at 156 °F. Mashing until 11:00. The mash occupied about 6.75 gallons in the mash tun. The recipe expected 5.7. It sounds like I have a calculation wrong on my spreadsheet somewhere.
10:48 Heating sparge water.
10:59 Vorlauf. Lauter. Sparge. First runnings were 3.75 gallons. The recipe expected 3.5. Heating first runnings while sparging.
11:15 Sparge complete. Boil volume is 6.5 gallons. Recipe expected 7 gallons. Going to do a second sparge with another half-gallon of water.
11:19 Boil salts are in. There are some grain chunks in the boil kettle.
11:31 Ended up with about 7-1/8 gallons of boil volume. Took pre-boil gravity sample.
11:52 Boiling. Hot break. Adding 60-minute hops to hop bag and starting 60 minute timer.
12:21 Pre-boil gravity is 1.052 SG. Recipe expected 1.050 SG.
12:38 Adding 15-minute hops. Placing immersion chiller in kettle to sanitize. Retrieving yeast from refrigerator and smacking. According to the Mr. Malty Yeast Pitching Rate Calculator, yeast manufactured on 2/1/2011 has a viability of 85% on 2/18/2011. Since each pack starts with 100 billion cells, 85 billion of them are viable. I have three packs, so I have 255 billion. The recipe calls for 225, so I have enough.
12:53 Added 0-minute hops and turned off flame. Letting hops steep for 20-minutes. Taking original gravity sample. End-of-boil volume was slightly less than 6 gallons.
1:14 My 20-minute hop steep is complete. The wort temperature has dropped to about 180 °F, as expected. Lifting hop bag out of wort to drain and beginning wort chilling.
1:38 Wort has cooled to 68 °F. Removing chiller, starting final whirlpool and allowing trub cone to settle for 20 minutes prior to draining. Original gravity is 1.059 which is what the recipe expected.
1:59 Draining wort from boil kettle to carboy fermenter.
2:17 Drained to carboy. Aerated. Going to pitch yeast and adjust fermentation chamber controls to 62 °F.
Saturday, March 5th Kegged. Final gravity was 1.012 (expected 1.015). That gives an apparent attenuation of 78.8% (expected 75%), and 6.2% ABV (expected 6.0%). I’m guessing the wort was more fermentable than I expected because I was low on initial mash temperature (150 °F instead of 156 °F) and it took a while to get it up to temperature (15–20 minutes). I expect if mashed properly, the beer would have more body than this one will.
Brush Valley Brewing House Ale v 1.0
I am finally starting on my own house ale recipe. I plan to brew it this Friday.
I formulated this recipe to produce five gallons of beer for packaging. I assume a boil-off rate of about one gallon per hour with a full-volume boil. I use bagged pellet hops for all hop additions. I assume a loss due to trub of a half-gallon in the boil kettle and another half-gallon in the fermenter.
Recipe: Brush Valley Brewing House Ale v 1.0
BJCP Style: 14B — American IPA
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%
Pre-Boil Volume: 7 gallons (26.5 L)
BG: 1.050 SG (12.4 °P)
Original Volume: 6.0 gallons (22.7 L)
OG: 1.059 SG (14.4 °P)
FG: 1.015 SG (3.7 °P)
ADF: 75%
Bitterness (Rager): 52 IBU
ABV: 6.0%
Color (Morey): 11 SRM (21 EBC) — Deep amber
Boil Duration: 60 minutes
BU:GU 0.89
Balance value: 1.84
Calories per 12-ounce Serving: 197 — 117 from Alcohol, 80 from Carbs
| Grains | Quantity | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Crisp Maris Otter Malt (3.5 °L) | 11.0 lb. (4.990 kg) | 88 |
| Crisp Light Crystal Malt (45 °L) | 1.5 lb. (0.680 kg) | 12 |
| Hops | IBU | |
| Centennial 9.6% AA, 60 min. | 1.0 oz (28 g) | 36.9 |
| Centennial 9.6% AA, 15 min. | 1.5 oz (43 g) | 14.8 |
| Centennial 9.6% AA, flame out | 1.5 oz (43 g) | 0 |
| Centennial 9.6% AA, dry | 1.0 oz (28 g) | 0 |
| Yeast | ||
| Wyeast 1056 American Ale | 225B Cells | |
| Water Treatment | Mash | Boil |
| Gypsum (CaSO₄) | 2.0 g | 1.5 g |
| Calcium Chloride (CaCl₂) | 2.0 g | 1.5 g |
Adjusted Mash Water Profile
| Sodium (Na): | 1 ppm |
|---|---|
| Calcium (Ca): | 107 ppm |
| Magnesium (Mg): | 3 ppm |
| Sulfate (SO₄): | 71 ppm |
| Chloride (Cl): | 57 ppm |
| Total Alkalinity (CaCO₃): | 118 ppm |
| Residual alkalinity: | 40 |
| Chloride to sulfate ratio: | 0.81 (Balanced) |
| pH: | 5.42 |
Step by Step
This is a single step infusion mash at 1.5 quarts/pound with a batch sparge. It will require a total of 8.2 gallons (31 L) of water.
Preheat the mash tun by bringing the 3.5 gallons (13.2 L) of sparge water to 170 °F (77 °C) and place it in the closed mash tun while heating the strike water.
Heat 4.69 gallons (4.5g + 3c, 17.7 L) of strike water to 168.0 °F (75.6 °C) for a grain temperature of 69 °F. Drain the sparge water from the preheated mash tun back into the hot liquor tank. Add all but about a gallon of the heated strike water to the mash tun.
Mix in the crushed grain and the mash salts, making sure to break up any dough balls. Cover the mash tun and let it sit for about 10 minutes. The mash should stabilize at 156 °F (68.9 °C). Take a few readings and use the remaining strike water, boiling water, or ice water to adjust the final temperature and volume which should be about 5.7 gallons (21.5 L). Cover the mash tun and let it rest.
After 60 minutes vorlauf, and lauter. Sparge with 3.5 gallons (13.2 L) of water to bring the collected volume to approximately 7 gallons (26.5 L) at 1.050 SG (12.4 °P).
Add the boil salts and boil for 60 minutes. While boiling, add the remaining ingredients according to the schedule in the ingredient list.
After the boil, whirlpool hot for 20 minutes, then cool the wort to 62 °F (16.7 °C). The volume should be approximately 6 gallons (22.7 L) at 1.059 SG (14.4 °P). Whirlpool for another 20 minutes, then transfer approximately 5.5 gallons (20.8 L) to a sanitized fermenter. Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast.
Hold at 62 °F (16.7 °C) until the end of high kräusen, then increase the fermentation temperature 1 °F per day until the beer temperature is 68 °F. After 9 days, add dry hops for five days. The final gravity should be about 1.015 SG (3.7 °P).
Keg and force carbonate to 2 volumes, or transfer approximately 5 gallons (18.9 L) to a priming bucket and prime using 2.80 oz (79.4 g) of sugar for approximately 2 volumes of carbonation, then package in 53 12-ounce bottles.
Mash Temperature Experiment
Say you have a fairly simple recipe that you like. A base malt, one specialty malt, one hop variety, and a readily available, consistent yeast. Simple enough that you can make it consistently.
Now, vary only the mash temperature. Mash the first batch at 142 °F. Mash the next at 150 °F. Mash the last batch at 158 °F.
Do a side-by-side comparison and record your observations.
Five Rules
- Know what you like
- Calibrate your equipment
- Use the best ingredients you can find
- Close your valves
- Control your temperature
Use Kosher Salt
But as a rule, stick to kosher salt and you’re pretty much good to go for all your salting needs. And again, it’s not the salt on the kitchen counter that’s the problem in the American diet. It’s the hidden sodium in all the canned, boxed, and fast food we can’t keep our hands off of. Most people, if they eat fresh food, they can season it all they like with salt.
(Via ruhlman.com.)