Messages

1726

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Just had my first kolsh...

« on: February 24, 2012, 08:47:46 AM »

Just thought I'd chime in with my version. Probably the best beer I've ever brewed. It's in metric because I really don't understand how pounds and ounces / quarts and gallons work.

38L batch
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.010
44% US 2-row - 3.5kg
44% Rahr Pils - 3.5kg
12% Red wheat malt - 1kg

Single infusion at 149*F
Mashout at 160*

@ -60min - 60g US Vanguard 5.2%AA ~ 20 IBU
@ -10min - 15g of the same ~ 2 IBU
@ -0min - 35g of the same ~ 0 IBU

ferment with WY2565 at 58* for 8 days
Raise to 68* for another 8 days
40* for 3 weeks, then bottle.

Bottle at 2.5vol

1727

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Bulk aging barleywine, do I need to re-pitch yeast?

« on: February 24, 2012, 08:37:21 AM »

I know the dominant opinion is no secondary, ever, excep for fruit and hops. Are there any contrary opinions out there for beers 1.080 and up? Does secondary with bulk ageing make a huge difference vs. extra time in primary and bottle?

I sometimes bulk age, sometimes bottle and age, depending on how many bottles or carboys I have free at any point. Haven't noticed a difference really, but I haven't done any controlled experiments either.

1728

Ingredients / Re: Deciphering the various water spreadsheets

« on: February 24, 2012, 08:11:34 AM »

In trying to match up calcium and residual alkalinity with the target profile, and then get the mash pH down, this was my result.

For yellow-to-brown beers, think of residual alkalinity as your enemy that prevents you from hitting your mash pH. Alkalinity only becomes beneficial when making dark beers, and even then you need to be careful not to overdo it.

As for calcium, 50ppm minimum is the rule-of-thumb for proper yeast health, flocculation, and protein coagulation, but I don't know of any benefits for going over that amount.

Briggs says "Perhaps the concentration of calcium ions should not greatly exceed 100 mg/l in the mashing liquor as no great advantage is gained from higher doses and there is the risk that too much phosphate may be removed from the wort, and the yeast may then have an inadequate supply."

FYI when working with very low concentrations of substances in water, mg/L is close enough to ppm as to be interchangeable, although they're not strictly the same thing.

Also, not to muddy the waters or anything, but malts contain minerals too. I've seen a figure of 35ppm of Ca+ contributed by the malt during the mash. So if your water contains 160ppm, plus the 35ppm from the malt, that puts you way over the recommended range for calcium. I also suspect the calcium content of the malt is why some people claim good results brewing with extremely soft water.

1729

Ingredients / Re: Deciphering the various water spreadsheets

« on: February 23, 2012, 07:49:57 PM »

You're adding both chalk and acid to the mash. One negates the other. I never add alkalinity to the mash. Calcium and sulfate are a bit higher than I would go, but not awful.

1730

All Grain Brewing / Re: Applely Starters

« on: February 23, 2012, 10:38:35 AM »

any idea why one would recommend direct pitch and the other re-hydration?  I always rehydrate everything, regardless of what the instructions say.

It's just marketing. Some people are afraid of rehydrating and will buy the yeast if the manufacturer says you don't need to rehydrate. It's like how people will pitch vials without making starters. It's "acceptable" but maybe not "best practice." Dry yeast packs contain twice as much yeast, but if you pitch it without rehydrating you'll kill about half of them, making the number of cells about equal with a single vial.

1731

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Brew day Starter?

« on: February 23, 2012, 09:23:33 AM »

Nice to have the yeast going strong when you pitch into the fermenter.

Agreed. A small active starter is better than a large sluggish starter.

1732

All Grain Brewing / Re: Applely Starters

« on: February 23, 2012, 09:03:55 AM »

Expounding with maximum verbosity:

Thanks for the explanation. That's interesting. What did you ferment them at? I know a lot of people love Notty, but I've never enjoyed it. I've fermented it at 68-70*F and it was maybe the worst yeast I've used. I might try it again at 60* and see if that's better.

I've also gotten much better results with all dry yeast by rehydrating prior to pitching. It seems to help yeast health as well as density.

1733

All Grain Brewing / Re: Multiple Mash Temps at Once

« on: February 23, 2012, 08:14:50 AM »

Now that that's out of the way, are there any good (ie technical) reasons why this is a dumb idea?

Well, I guess what I was saying wasn't clear. here's what I was getting at: http://beerbarons.org/pdf/brewingCheatSheets/mashRests.pdf

(temp range / optimum)
Beta Amylase: 52-68/60-65 C - fementable sugars
Alpha Amylase 54.5-77/68-70 C - dextrins, long chain sugars

So if you have one mash at 52*C you'll pretty much only get beta activity (let's ignore the proteinases for now). If you have another mash at 70*C you'll pretty much only get Alpha activity. Temperatures between these ranges will have different enzymatic activity proportional to how far from optimum the mash temp is.

Alpha and Beta are complementary enzymes. They need each other to produce a proper wort. Think of it like making firewood. Alpha cuts down the tree, Beta cuts the tree up into logs. One won't work without the other.

Separating the mash into two mash at different temperatures could make one mash highly fermentable and one mash highly unfermentable, but you could get the exact same ratios of alpha and beta activity in a single mash.

(EDIT: now that I wrote that, I remembered a highly fermentable "reverse" mash schedule where the mash it taken to 160*F and slowly backed down to 140*F to get a highly fermentable wort. So I don't think just mashing below alpha range would actually make a fermentable wort)

The only time I could see doing two mashes would be when using, say undermodified wheat malt and overmodified British malt (Maris Otter/Golden Promise), where the wheat malt needs some protein/beta glucan work, but the proteins in the rest of the grain bill would be too degraded by extended low temp rests.

1734

Ingredients / Re: Source for Nelson Sauvin? Also dosage rates?

« on: February 23, 2012, 07:40:16 AM »

It looks like Brewbrothers has them:

https://www.brewbrothers.biz/brewcart/

Thanks for the heads up. Hadn't heard of them before. My wife really wants a Nelson Sauvin IPA and was bummed out when I told her she'd have to wait until the new harvest. 

EDIT: Hops are on their way. I was thinking of doing an IPA for the missus and a Belgian Brut. I was thinking of dry hopping with 1oz/5gal for the Brut and 2-3oz/5gal for the IPA, but I hardly ever brew hoppy beers and any advice would be great.

1735

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Please Help - Specialty Style Data Collection Project

« on: February 23, 2012, 07:31:13 AM »

That's a b**** of a style to brew and one of my favorites. You should write an article on how you make it!

Drew is way ahead of you: http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/methode-champenoise-beer

1736

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: balance

« on: February 22, 2012, 07:36:49 PM »

I think a more dense brownie goes better with ice cream than traditional cake.

Agreed. As terrible as AppleChiliBennigans is, one of them has a brownie a la mode that I can't resist. Heck, I can't resist any brownie a la mode.

1737

All Grain Brewing / Re: Applely Starters

« on: February 22, 2012, 06:46:41 PM »

Half got the starter (which tasted nasty), half got dry yeast.

Expound on this

1738

All Grain Brewing / Re: Applely Starters

« on: February 22, 2012, 01:22:22 PM »

A lot of my starters smell tart or appley. I wouldn't worry about, but you can if you want to.

1739

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Fermenting in a 7.9 Gallon Primary

« on: February 22, 2012, 10:30:15 AM »

I've diluted with water post-ferment without issues. Usually I do this when I overshoot my OG on brew day, and don't have time to sterilize top-off water right then.

1740

All Grain Brewing / Re: Multiple Mash Temps at Once

« on: February 22, 2012, 09:52:07 AM »

I'm kinda at a loss trying to figure out what advantages there would be to it.

I think it's kinda like "triple hops brewed."