The Good....and the Bad....Back to Back Brew Sessions

12.27.10 began the nightmare of the Drunken Uncle Dunkelweizen. Sure, I thought it would be easy. I made a yeast starter Christmas night and was set up for an easy morning sanitation and simple dark wheat brew session. So I thought at least. I should have realized almost immediately that this was going to be bad. I hooked up the hose to start washing down my system when it froze almost instantly. No worries though, I disconnected the hoze and hooked it up where my washer connects to the water supply.

The overall brew session went fine in the first half of the day. We hit our strike in temps, held our mash temps, and properly stepped up our mash. It was when we sparged that we noticed a great deal of grain passing through the silicone tubing. I've noticed it before when doing batches so I didn't think much of it. The false bottoms help to keep grain out, help being the key word. We would later realize that about 2 gallons of volume was due to grain occupying the boil kettle.

Needless to say, we couldn't tell how much grain was in the boil kettle until we drained the cool wort out, but cooling the wort turned out to be a 3 hour fiasco. Grains got through the 3-piece ball valve, but clogged in the therminator (lead chill plate system).

Initially we weren't sure of where the clog was coming from so we tested all avenues of possibility. We confirmed that flow was passing through the 3-piece drain valve, through the pumps and back up through the outlet side of the pump, but not the therminator. We put the keg in a pile of snow but the snow was not match for the volume of hot wort. It was at that point we decided to drain out the wort into the fermenters, cap it with an airlock to prevent contamination, and let it sit over night to chill before pitching the yeast.

While it was fun in the beginning, it quickly became a brewer's nightmare and put a damper on the day. The good news is that we were sitting at 1.059 OG and pulled a quick fermentation time. The bad news is that we were supposed to extract 11.00 gallons of wort and ended up with 9+ gallons.

Here's the Drunken Uncle Dunkel fermenting through.

She'll pull through nicely I'm sure with that spicy, phenolic Weihenstephan Yeast, though I don't think I've ever had a true DunkelWeizen. First time for everything.

A Restless Evening

After that horrible brew session, I determined myself to remedy the situation. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/ was the source for some good answers. Here's what I came up with:

1. A False Bottom is not enough by itself to stop trub and grain from getting through.
2. A Hopbag adds protection
3. A kettle screen (bazooka screen) supplements the grain bag and keeps everything out
4. A whirlpool helps to keep trub to sides of kettle when draining.

I moved ahead with a few of these options. I bought a kettle screen and constructed a hopbag solely from homedepot parts. The hopbag was nothing more than 4 10" bolts, a 5" PVC connector pipe , a 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bag, and an adjustable clamp.

The hopbag is exactly what it says, but also more. When I transfer wort from the mash tun into the boil kettle, I let it pass through the hopbag to collect any loose grains, etc. I can then remove any loose grains collected and achieve my boil volume. Then, when I boil and add hops, some of the trub will remain in the hopbag, but unfortunately not all. The kettle screen adds to the equation by blocking any particles from passing through the drain valve. Marvelous!

Today I put the modifications to the test, and let me tell you was I pleased. I brewed up 10 gallons of Orange Pale Ale and ended up with 10 gallons in the fermenter. Here are some pics and videos of todays solo brew session.

The Hopbag I built for about $7.

Hopbag while transferring wort into boil kettle.

Hopbag with grains after transferring wort into boil kettle. It caught them

Hops in hopbag.

This is the setup when chilling wort with hose.

This is the setup chilling the wort with a recirculated ice bath

Here is a video of the chilling process, part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6nZ_qRwrbw

Here is a video of the chilling process with a recirculated ice bath made from snow, part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCfs1EX29g8

Chilled wort: 65F in a little over 15 minutes.

A lot of trub still gets past the hopbag as you can see here on the kettle screen.

Cheers!

Label Making

Completely unnecessary, yet so fulfilling. Making labels for my latest porter was a project and a half considering I have no photoshop skills, however, i think they turned out marvelous. I put about 85-90% of the work into and my soon-to-be wife took care of the kinks. I managed to do things with the software that she never figured out for herself. The difference between her and I is that she does it for work and I just clicked around and accidently ended up doing unwanted things.

Being that my graphic design skills are so basic, I stuck with a black and white design. Next time of course I will work on adding color, etc. I've been looking at labels from all types of beers and found some common components in many of them. Almost all are color, some utilize clear labels, but almost all have some facts, descriptions, and origins of the beer/brewery itself. In comparison, mine is black and white with some color, uses a white label, and has descriptions of the beer and some homebrew notations. For example, I have a statement that states, "Please recycle by returning empty bottles to Halbe."

I am doing this for pure enjoyment and that's it. Labels cost money, printer ink cost money, and bottles cost money. I can reuse the bottles in two ways. If I do the same batch again I can reuse the labels too. They hold fairly well. If I decide to do a different batch I can apply some heat and carefully remove the label and insert a new one. I could even half-ass it by just smacking a new label over top of the old. Actually, that brings up a funny point. Lagunitas Brewery in Cali decided to get very daring with their commercially available brews and started creating very whacky labels, infringing the copyrights of famous songwriters and remarks about LSD, jail, etc. Needless to say, the Cali government stepped in and they had to cease. Instead of pouring beer down the drain (Lagunitas brews about 50,000 barrels of beer per year), they just stuck duct tape over the infringement, crossed it out with crayons, markers, etc. People were buying good beer that came in a package that looked something like a moonshine bottle.

Anyway. Here is my first label. I may make some changes before I print them all out. I have to make sure the beer turns out well before I label 3 cases of porter. If it doesn't, then I will brew again. I am confident though. I hit my numbers and the beer tastes great pre-carbonation. I have come a long way in brewing over the past 3 years. What's really interesting is the palate and nose I am developing for beers. Take a look at the label and you will see that I already have a description of the beer and it's not even ready. This is in part because a pre-carbonation taste gives off the obvious flavors (nut, roast, etc) and the grains and hops tell me how it is going to pan out as well. So here's to it.

The holidays are gonna be great as I will have a keg of belgian dubbel on tap, a keg of porter on tap and 3 cases of porter to be consumed. On top of that, it looks as if we are brewing something between xmas and new years, so even more beer to come in the next few months. Let me know what you think.

The Belgian Dubbel Experiment

Brewed 10.20.10
Fermentation: Primary 3 weeks, Secondary None
Kegged/Bottled: 11.14.10
Drinking: Now, but beer is a little green still

So we put the brewery to the test with this one, and it looks as if it is panning out as planned. After having worked out many of the kinks with my system and successfully brewing my biggest and most complex beer to date one can live by the notion that anything is possible. Sitting at a respectable 9.83% ABV and utilizing a complex grain bill, this beer enters my bloodstream as anticipated. The biggest challenge with a beer this high in alcohol content is masking the alcohol itself with the subtleties pulled through from the grain bill. Here's how it went down.

11.50 Gallon Batch
OG: 1.085
FG: 1.010
Color: 21.6 SRM
IBU's: 20.5
Calories: 375 cal/pint
Yeast: Trappist Ale WLP#500
Yeast Starter: Yes, 2 Liters

19.71 lb Pilsner 2-row (Belgium)
6.57 lb Munich Malt (20 L)
1.10 lb Caramunich Malt
1.10 lb Special B Malt

3.28 oz Saaz Hops (FWH, 90 Minutes)
2.74 lb Dark Belgiam Candi Sugar

Mash @ 150F 90 minutes, Boil for 90 Minutes

Double Batch Sparge

Ferment at 68F

There you have it. So if you took a close look you can see some very interesting things going on here. First, I had no secondary fermentation occurring here. Belgian beers and wheat beers tend to have a cloudy appearance as part of their character and style. Secondary fermentation assists in removing any haze by filtering out additional sediment. Depending on the beer, secondary fermentation may be required or may not. In this case it was not, but in the case of my recent porter it was mandatory.

Also, look at the brew date and the drinking notes. This beer was brewed almost two months ago and is considered green. A beer this complex requires aging to mellow out. I mentioned that it tastes a little green. This is for 2 obvious reasons, the first being that I can still taste the alcohol. It takes some aging to get the flavor in the grains to pull through and override any alcohol taste. Note that it wont entirely mask the alcohol but more so than it currently is. Secondly, the aging process assists in the removal of any yeast flavors and aromas. I mentioned that I used Trappist Ale Yeast and increased cell count with a 2 liter yeast starter. That is a lot of yeast, but it is needed to convert massive amounts of fermentable sugars over to alcohol, all 9.83% of it. My first swig a week and half ago was very yeasty in flavor. Since then, that unwanted flavor has subsided. I planned this beer just right because I wanted to drink some good beer just in time for the holidays. Looks like I will be.

Take a look at the calories in this recipe. The software I use, Beersmith, calculates the amount of sugars and starches possible to yield of each grain and converts that to calories through a formula I am unaware of and uninterested in learning. 375 calories is no Mich Ultra, it's more like a cheesecake dessert. I am not worried though because this is 2 beers and out. I don't see myself drinking 6 in a session, but you never know.

The hop schedule is the only simple thing about this recipe. The recipe calls for first wort hops @ 90 minutes, Saaz hops. This makes perfect sense. It's lower in the IBU scale, bitterness at 20.5. You don't need any aroma hops because all aromas will be coming from Special B and munich malts. You don't know any less or additional hop bitterness because quite frankly, you can't even taste it. Plus, the mellow notes coming from the special b and munich malts allow for quite the taste, especially when combined with the sweetness coming from the belgian sugar. Too much bitterness would downright kill a beer this tasty.

Conclusion

Great beer at 1/4 of the cost. 4 cases for $95. Not bad, considering a case of Chimay would be $100. That's the beauty of homebrewing. No marketing, taxing, and overhead to pay for. To end this topic I would like to thank bucky for helping me out. It was a long arduous process, but will definately be a repeat. I don't know what else I would change. I'll have to see how this mellows out and revisit the thought. I invite you to come over and drink a few with me. Hail a taxi on your way out the door, you'll need it.

cheerios!