Author: Mark Linton

In a humble log cabin off an unregarded back road, somewhere, deep in the heart of Pennsylvania’s hill country, we find our intrepid hero — the Brush Valley Brewer.
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While Thinking About Beer Styles…

Stop Thinking Outside the Box – Dan Pallotta – Harvard Business Review:

You cannot possibly think outside the box unless you understand the nature of the box that bounds your current thinking. You must come to know that nature deeply. You must have real insight into it. You must accept it, and embrace it at some level, before it will ever release you.

There’s a Zen saying, ‘What you resist persists, and what you allow to be disappears.’ Thinking outside the box without understanding the box is a petulant exercise in resistance — every idea that comes from the process has the box written all over it. It’s a reaction to the box. It’s fighting the box. It’s a child of the box.

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Aeration

Once the wort is chilled to pitching temperature, it needs to be effectively, but not overly, aerated. Most home brewers will not have the budget for a digital oxygen meter (unless you really have a serious bank account and are a possessed brewer). The dilemma of using pure oxygen versus aeration via agitation is easy to resolve. Use aggressive shaking if you are strong enough to do so. If it is too heavy for you, then use pure oxygen. It is easy to over-oxygenate the wort in a small vessel with pure O₂, so tread carefully. Levels of oxygen over 12 mg/l can have a toxic effect on the yeast and result in stopped fermentation.

Gordon, Dan. “Lager Brewing the German Way.” Zymurgy Nov.-Dec. 2011: 32–37. Print.

Methods of Aeration / Oxygenation

Homebrewers have several aeration/oxygenation methods available to them:  siphon sprays, whipping, splashing, shaking, pumping air through a stone with an aquarium pump, and injecting pure oxygen through a sintered stone.  We have tested all of these methods using a dissolved oxygen meter and have found that, when using air, 8 ppm of oxygen in solution is the best that you can achieve.  Injecting oxygen through a stone will allow much higher dissolved oxygen levels.  The chart below shows methods tested and the results.

Method DO ppm Time
Siphon Spray 4 ppm 0 sec.
Splashing & Shaking 8 ppm 40 sec.
Aquarium Pump w/ stone 8 ppm 5 min
Pure Oxygen w/ stone 0-26ppm 60 sec (12ppm)

It was concluded that pumping compressed air through a stone is not an efficient way to provide adequate levels of DO. Traditional splashing and shaking, although laborious, is fairly efficient at dissolving up to 8 ppm oxygen. To increase levels of oxygen, the carboy headspace can be purged with pure oxygen prior to shaking. The easiest and most effective method remains injecting pure oxygen through a scintered stone.

Wyeast Laboratories, Inc. “Oxygenation.” Wyeastlab.com. Wyeast Laboratories, Inc., 13 Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Nov. 2011. <http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_oxygenation.cfm>.

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(30) Sunday, October 29, 2001 Brew Day — 2011 Holiday Ale

Hey zeus
Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Dir. John McTiernan. Perf. Bruce Willis, Jeremy Irons, and Samuel L Jackson. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1995. Film.

The Brush Valley Brewing 2011 Holiday Ale is a smooth, full-bodied beer with a rich copper color from traditional, floor-malted English Maris Otter, caramel, and pale chocolate malts lending hints of caramel, chocolate, coffee, and nuts. Cascade hops used throughout the brewing process add subtle flavors and aromas of citrus and spice.The West Yorkshire yeast provides esters reminiscent of marshmallow and hazelnut. At 6.5%, this beer will help keep you warm on cold winter nights.

Recipe

Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%
Boil Volume: 7 gallons (26.5 L)
Boil Gravity: 1.054 SG (13.3 °P)
Original Volume: 5.6 gallons (21.2 L)
Original Gravity: 1.068 SG (16.5 °P)
Final Gravity: 1.021 SG (5.3 °P)
Apparent Degree of Fermentation: 69%
Bitterness (Tinseth): 64 IBU
Alcohol by Volume: 6.5%
Color (Morey): 16 SRM (31 EBC) — Copper
Boil Duration: 60 minutes
Calories per 12-ounce Serving: 232 (127 from Alcohol, 105 from Residual Extract)

FERMENTABLES Quantity Percent
Crisp Maris Otter 12.5 lb (5.670 kg) 89.3%
Crisp Crystal 60L 1.25 lb (0.567 kg) 8.9%
Crisp Pale Chocolate 0.25 lb (0.113 kg) 1.8%
14 lb
HOPS Bitterness
Cascade, 5.4% AA, 60 minutes 2 oz (57 g) 28.4 IBU
Cascade, 5.4% AA, 30 minutes 2 oz (57 g) 21.8 IBU
Cascade, 5.4% AA, 15 minutes 2 oz (57 g) 14.1 IBU
Cascade, 5.4% AA, Dry hopped 2 oz (57 g) 0 IBU
8 oz
YEAST Attenuation
Wyeast 1469-PC West Yorkshire Ale 234B Cells 69%

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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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