Messages

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All Grain Brewing / Water profile: Can someone just tell me what to do?

« on: December 14, 2012, 09:26:49 AM »

Water chemistry boggles my mind. I have been trying to build mash and sparge water from RO water. The RO water from my local water store has a pH of 6.5 and typically has 30 ppm of god only know what. I have been using an online spreadsheet to try to calculate salt additions but I don’t feel good about the results. My mash pH comes in a little high at 5.6. Since I am trying to extract a highly fermentable wort, I am shooting for 5.4. I have not been treating my sparge water and the sparge is fine reaching 5.7 by the end. I fly sparge.  However, my boil pH is high at 5.5. I have been lowering the mash pH to target and the boil pH to 5.1 with acid. I am getting excellent extraction efficiency but the final product seems to be a little harsh, from the hops I think. This weekend I am brewing a Saison. I have a full line of salts and an accurate balance. Could someone recommend mash and sparge water salt additions for this grain bill and hop profile: 59% Begian Pils-2L, 9.82% Vienna-3.5L, 9.82% Munich-10L, 4.91% flaked wheat-1.6L, 2.15% Special B-180L, 2.15% Special Roast-50L, and 12.27% dextrose. I expect a SRM of 8.7. Hops will be 3 oz. of Kent Goldings – 60 minutes, 2 oz. of Styrian Goldings – 15 minutes and 2 oz. – Styrian Goldings at flame out for an expected IBU of 32.5 (Tinseth’s method). I expect an original gravity of 1.057.  This is a 12 gallon batch and I will use 4 gallons of mash water up to 15 gallons of sparge water. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.
 

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: WLP 510 Bastogne Ale Yeast

« on: October 19, 2012, 03:21:10 PM »

Sorry for the typo on my earlier reply; As posted it's  "Bastogne" Belgian Ale Yeast

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: WLP 510 Bastogne Ale Yeast

« on: October 19, 2012, 02:49:31 PM »

Earlier this year my Belgian Pale Ale was selected by a brewery in Seattle (Ruben's Brews) to brew commercially. For that beer I use an isolate from a bottle of Orval I have had for over three years. Because we could not pull off the logistics of increasing my isolate to 5 bbl pitching size (I'm from CA) we substituted WL Bagstone Ale yeast for the commercial batch. Although I have not tasted the Ruben's Brews version, Adam (owner and brewer) says it came out great. I am sure he would have mentioned any brett as it would be considered off for this style. If your in Seattle, check out Ruben's Brews and my Belgian Pale.

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All Grain Brewing / Looking for boil tips

« on: October 18, 2012, 10:28:03 AM »

Boiling 14 gallons in a 15 gallon pot is a challenge. For my last batch, I collected 13 gallons of wort then 30 minutes into the boil I added 1 gallon of boiling water just prior to the first hop addition. This approached worked fine as far as hitting the required amount of boiled wort. Question: Are there any problems to this method regarding the finished beer? Also: Does anyone have other solutions to boiling in an undersized vessel?

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Brett C and a 1.011 Saison?

« on: September 28, 2012, 09:29:14 AM »

I have been working on developing an Orval clone for a couple of years and finally achieved what I wanted and I think what you are looking for. Here is what I did. For a 10 gallon batch: Using the grain bill of a dark saison and a yeast cultures from Orval and Moinette the beer reached 1.006 after the primary fermentation. After 3 weeks in a bright tank the beer was cold crashed at 32 degrees F (with gelatin) for a week. 3 days before bring the temp  up to 56 degrees F  a 1500 ml starter of Brett C (White Labs)was prepared. Transferring the beer to fresh, sterile, purged carboys, I pitched the Brett. After allowing the Brett work for 1 month at 56 degrees F, the gravity was down to just under 1.005 and I bottled using a fresh pitch of my Orval culture and bottle conditioned for 3 months at 56 degrees F. Six months after pitching the Brett, this was the best beer ever (my opinion). It is also my opinion that allowing the Brett to do it's work at cool temps creates the flavor profile you have described.

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Transfer to secondary with March pump

« on: September 28, 2012, 09:00:10 AM »

Thanks for all the informative replies. morticaixavier is correct, foam was my biggest worry. I think Kaiser is right in that CO2 escaping from solution caused the foam and also explains the lower than expected carbonation. Perhaps majorvices is on to something with the possibility of losing volatile aromas along with CO2. In addition, the loss of CO2 makes fine tuning carbonation a shot in the dark. This turned out to be a pretty good beer but I am into brewing great beers. This recipe won first place in Catagory 18D at both the 2012 World Cup of Beer in San Francisco and 2012 Peak-to-Peak ProAm in Colorado. I have entered this batch in the Dixie Cup in Houston and will be interested in seeing the scored sheets. Since I am not set up to transfer with CO2, I am going back to transferring by siphon.

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Yeast and Fermentation / Transfer to secondary with March pump

« on: September 27, 2012, 02:45:00 PM »

I recently upgraded from 5 to 10 gallon capacity. I quickly found out a pump was a necessary part of that upgrade. I selected a March pump and have had great success. One issue arose when transferring to the bright tank; The beer became very cloudy with a lot of foam. I transferred near the end of fermentation (1.008). The beer was clear by the next day and I bottled 3 weeks later at a final gravity of 1.006. The end results was a good beer with no apparent effect from the transfer. The only noticeable difference was a bit lower carbonation than expected.   

Questions: 1) Are there others out there transferring near finished beer with a March (centrifugal) pump? 2) What caused the beer to be so cloudy and foam? 3) Are there possible effects I haven't noticed? and 3)Any advise on how to reduce the foam (I tried restricting the flow with no apparent effect)?