Messages

1426

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Dornbusch's Advice for Alt?

« on: January 01, 2011, 08:49:15 PM »

Thanks Denny, I kind of thought the advice was a little dogmatic in several respects.  I generally like the idea of a d-rest, not only for attenuating diacetyl but just to be sure things finish as completely as possible.  Conditioning on a yeast cake doesn't make much sense, and he does say you should rack a time or two which doesn't jibe with the rest of the advice.  I'm torn on the protein rest, but I don't typically have problems with a good rocky head when using the right yeast.  I did appreciate his description of the subtle differences between British and German malt, I usually try to get the authentic ingredients but didn't know exactly what parameters might be affecting the outcome.

1427

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: How much did you brew in 2010?

« on: January 01, 2011, 08:43:14 PM »

I documented 45 brews, all around 3gal.  I also made quite a bit of wine.

1428

General Homebrew Discussion / Dornbusch's Advice for Alt?

« on: January 01, 2011, 06:56:12 AM »

I've now read his altbier style book written in '98 and noticed he espouses some dogma that is now being questioned (eg, hot side aeration.)  I have a couple of questions regarding his advice, that I was hoping to solicit opinions on.

First, he spends a good deal of time emphasizing the need for a protein rest, and lays out some good reasoning.  I have been under the impression that today's malts, even the German malts, are well-modified and as such no longer need to have this protein rest and that it can even be detrimental.  Is this the case, or should I be doing a protein rest for this style?  Not sure how much German malting methods have changed in the last twelve years.

Second, he mentions the need to lager on yeast.  I have been reading that people typically keg and force-carb prior to lagering, which would seem to be at odds with his advice (although he does call for racking a time or two during lagering).  I am doing a diacetyl rest on my alt right now (low 60's after 10 days at 56F), should I lager the primary or rack to keg and lager in that?  His reasoning seems less intuitively appealing on this, since the idea of yeast doing much metabolism at 40F and lower seems unlikely and reduction of gasses like H2S would occur slower since the solubility of gas is greater at lower temps.

I'm not badmouthing this book, in fact for a style book it has a lot of excellent information on general brewing (mash pH, calculating SRM/IBU) as well as great info on alts.  Just looking to do the right things to get a nice altbier.

1429

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Picking This Year's Pale Ale Hop Blend

« on: December 31, 2010, 11:42:57 AM »

Glad to hear I'm not alone in my outlook on dry hopping.

Now for an admission.  I have that overly bitter APA in the keg, and more recently I brewed another that included British crystal instead of Briess, as well as a touch of special roast.  Lo and behold this brew is excellent, citrusy hops are center stage but the malt sweetness takes the edge off.  I looked at the amount and kinds of hops and to my surprise I used about the same hop schedule.  So I guess I've focused too much on hops being the source of the problem in that one recipe.

1430

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: 2011 Brewing Goals

« on: December 28, 2010, 09:58:15 AM »

I took the BJCP exam and got a recognized level (dissappointing, I was hoping for certified).  My weak area was in judging.  My goal this year is to judge some beer contests (which I have never done) to improve in this area.  Might even enter a beer or two as well, again something I have never done.

Brewing-wise, I'm going to do some lagers in my new fermentation chamber.

1431

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: What's Brewing This Weekend - 12/24 Edition

« on: December 24, 2010, 09:40:47 PM »

Brewed a British Bitter today using the West Yorkshire LE yeast.  Tomorrow I'm brewing a hefe and splitting the batch between WLP300 and 380, planning to blend.

1432

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First Pull Off My Solera

« on: December 23, 2010, 04:09:22 PM »

To the noob this all sounds fascinating. Could someone in five easy steps explain the process?

1.  Make a beer using lambic blend, Roeselare blend, and/or bottle dregs.
2.  Add it to a barrel or other container.
3.  Periodically remove up to 50% of the beer in the container, replace it with newly brewed beer.

These beers can go two or three years to get really good, and traditionally have been blends of older and younger beers.  This technique just accomplishes the blending via the single container.  The advantage of using the wooden barrel, is that the microbes like the wood environment and the wood contributes some flavor early on.  Lambics can be made in glass though, I've done several now.

I suppose one could also do this with a Russian Imperial stout or Baltic porter.

1433

All Grain Brewing / Re: Water Analysis

« on: December 23, 2010, 01:04:18 PM »

Related question, how much does a municipal water supply's mineral content vary from month to month?  Say it was coming from a river, I assume this would be more subject to seasonal variation than a reservoir or aquifer.

Oscar, as a first step you might try adding a 1/2tsp of calcium chloride of sulfate and look at how that changes your breaks.  If you see an improvement, you probably do need to adjust your water.  also, based on knowing if your water is relatively hard or not, you can make some initial assumptions about what you'll need to add.

1434

All Grain Brewing / Re: Electric Apartment Brewers... I have questions for you.

« on: December 23, 2010, 01:00:28 PM »

I brew 3gal batches in the kitchen on my electric stove (conventional coil element).  Works great if you can keep up with yourself.  I like brewing often (as in weekly) and this gives me a chance to brew lots of styles.  I have a 5gal kettle, I cool in the sink with cold water changes.

As an aside, I have fond memories of apartment living.  They crop up every time I have a clogged drain line or a yard to mow.  I've found that no matter how much room you have, you will fill that with "stuff" and need more.

1435

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: corn sugar v. force carb

« on: December 23, 2010, 12:52:46 PM »

I force carb but don't leave it on gas while I'm dispensing.  I usually have to bleed a little pressure off to keep it from foaming badly, and I might have to put a little more gas on the keg before its done.  I only make 3gal batches so kegs go reasonably quickly.

My friend carbs his kegs with sugar.  Works fine when its new, not sure if it lasts through the whole keg though.  He doesn't dispense with gas either.  The only potential negative I see is the extra two weeks at a warm temp.  If you have the beer then that is a moot point.

1436

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First Pull Off My Solera

« on: December 23, 2010, 12:31:56 PM »

I'm not sure what you would term my "solera," but I use 2 6-gallon Better Bottles.  I keep the newest batch in one, and the aged stuff in another.  Every 12 months, I combine both carboys, bottle half, and brew another batch using the dregs.

That would be the equivalent of what I'm doing, possibly with some difference in "average age".  I was using the term for my container, but you are correct that it technically is blending products like sherry, pot or vinegar of different ages.  Since my container is integral to the process, I was calling it by the term "solera".

Do you use the same recipe or vary things a bit in terms of grist and/or bugs/yeast?

1437

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: How Do You Balance Late Additions?

« on: December 23, 2010, 12:23:10 PM »

I hadn't read or heard of this before, but its an intriguing idea and seems intuitively reasonable.  Considering that super-high alpha hops are a relatively recent invention, it would become more critical than when most hops were in the 3-6% range.

But is the oil quantity different, or is it the character?

Quality is important of course, and why its worth using blends.  But getting a similar amount of the various essential oils would hlpe create a balance, assuming of course that the different oils have similar "strengths".

Just found my table for ranges or %AA, %BetaAcids, and %oil for 20 varieties.  Looks like a pretty loose correlation between %AA and %oil.  I'll run the stat's to see what the correlation coefficient is, just for fun.  I still don't think it will mean much since I'll bet oil composition varies a lot variety-to-variety.
Edit: Looks like there is some positive correlation between AA & oil, but correlation coefficient is only 0.656  The scatter plot looks like this:

Doesn't seem very useful in drawing strong conclusions on aroma & flavor vs. bitterness.

Interesting, just looking at the graph it appears there is at least a weak correlation.  I suppose it would be better than nothing.  Maybe instead of AA it would pay to balance on the basis of oil content.

1438

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First Pull Off My Solera

« on: December 23, 2010, 10:19:59 AM »

I think you could market a barrel-brewed wild beer that was six months old.  I'd worry about bottling it due to instability, but kegging would make it simple enough.  From what I hear about places like Avery that do these things, aging isn't a real issue since people lap it up as fast as they come out.

On the other hand, I've had some lambics that threw a heck of a lot of diacetyl at six months and didn't recover until the year mark, so it'd always be a bit of a crap shoot.

1439

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: How Do You Balance Late Additions?

« on: December 23, 2010, 10:17:37 AM »

in another thread it was mentioned that the super high-alpha hops have a lot of oils in general and can overpower other hops from a flavor/aroma standpoint.

In thinking about this, I'm not real sure I could agree.

I hadn't read or heard of this before, but its an intriguing idea and seems intuitively reasonable.  Considering that super-high alpha hops are a relatively recent invention, it would become more critical than when most hops were in the 3-6% range.

Also, it would explain my disatisfaction with my most recent late addition blend for my APA, where it comes across as somewhat one-noted.  It included 18% Summit in the blend, the other two were 12% at most.  I suppose if the Summit were 1/3 more potent for all oils, then it would only contribute:  18/ (12+12+18 = 42, or 43% of the total flavor/aroma.  As opposed to the 33% I thought I was getting.

1440

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: First Pull Off My Solera

« on: December 23, 2010, 08:30:05 AM »

We all have the right to be incorrect on occasion, its in the AHA bylaws.  Glad to hear you aren't experiencing flavor problems relating to autolysis.  I'm pretty careful with my ferm temps, I made enough bad beer because of warm temps when I was first brewing.