Messages

931

All Grain Brewing / Re: Step Mashing a Hefe...Why?

« on: July 21, 2012, 12:11:09 PM »

Mr Malty and Yeastcalc both say 69% viability for a smackpack dated 6/12, recommend 1.75 billion cells, and recommend a 2.2-2.3 liter starter.

FWIW, my SOP for a 5-gallon batch of a ~1.050 weizen is to pitch 1 smackpack of WY3638 with no starter. With a fairly fresh smackpack, this equates to about 4-5 m/mL. When fermented at 65F, this yields a phenol/ester balance that I really enjoy. I've never noticed any fusels with this fermentation regime.

Having said that, just because I found a procedure for a specific yeast that suits my palate well doesn't mean I'd recommend it empirically for everybody and for all weizen yeasts. In fact, with all the conflicting and/or inconclusive information that's out there I will probably play with pitching rates with a weizenbock this winter to really dial in what suits my palate the best.

My recommendation would be to build a starter based on Mr Malty or YeastCalc's recommended pitching rate, then use fermentation temperature to control your desired phenol/ester balance. I think this is most likely to put you in the ballpark of where you want to be. Then, if you want to tweak something like pitching rate you can do it on a future revision.

932

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Fresh HOPS, How To?

« on: July 21, 2012, 07:34:59 AM »

One thing I'd recommend is if you don't know the AA% of the hops, then you might want to keep the wet hops for your late additions and use hops with known AA values for your bittering addition.

933

Ingredients / Rauch Malt vs Heavy Toast Oak

« on: July 21, 2012, 07:30:15 AM »

I'm starting to plan my robust porter for the fall. I want to get a hint of smokiness in there above and beyond what I'd get from black malt or roasted barley alone. I've seen smoked porter recipes calling for 3-5% rauch malt, but I was wondering how heavy toast oak would work instead. I'm thinking the vanilla would be nice, and I can get away with brewing a lighter-bodied/drier porter and letting a little bit of tannin fill out the mouthfeel a bit.

Does anyone have any experiece with one versus the other? Can I get a nice smoky highlight out of toasted oak before I suck out too much tannin/oakiness? I'm shooting for smoky campfire but not woody campfire.

934

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Attenuation

« on: July 20, 2012, 08:50:22 PM »

If this is a recent change, is there any chance you have an infection? Brett maybe?

Carapils or flaked barley will give you some body. Or you could try a similar, but less attenuative yeast like WLP051.

935

Kegging and Bottling / Re: 12/16oz Bottle Taste Difference

« on: July 20, 2012, 08:25:04 PM »

Gently stir with a sanitized spoon after you rack into your bottling bucket. It really makes a huge difference. I also purposefully leave my racking hose long and let it coil along the side of the bottling bucket. This way the beer being racked over swirls into the priming mix.

936

Beer Recipes / Re: Recipe help please

« on: July 20, 2012, 03:31:54 PM »

How convenient that today was 10% off day for me at Austin Homebrew supply I'm doing a series of 1 gallon single hop pale ales next month. Looks like I'll be adding Summit to the list.

937

All Grain Brewing / Re: Step Mashing a Hefe...Why?

« on: July 20, 2012, 12:27:05 PM »

Wow... there is some great information here. If nothing else, it seems clear to me that there is a lot more to pitching rate than the generalization "Ales should be pitched at X and Lagers at Y". And I'm sure yeast health/activity play a huge role as well.

Having said that, I will still be doing what Mr Malty or YeastCalc recommend 90% of the time. I will continue to pitch my weizens at a lower rate than my ales (I won't call it underpitching at this point, because as far as those strains go, I'm not convinced that it is), and I may toy with a little bit of low pitching on certain Belgians as well.

938

All Grain Brewing / Re: First All-Grain Brewday - plus some followup ?'s

« on: July 20, 2012, 08:21:42 AM »

Losing 4-5F over 90 min is pretty good, IMHO.  I'd lose 8-10F in that same time on my half barrel system over the same time, but I get that down to 1-2F by insulating.  90 min is a long time to mash, though.  Sure you need all that time?

I did a 90-minute mash since that's what many of the Aussie BIABers seem to do. Also, being the first time I brewed with this setup, I wasn't sure what kind of brewhouse efficiency I was going to end up with. Since I'm pretty happy with the efficiency I got, I will probably go for 60 minutes next time and stick with that if my efficiency remains in the 70's.

Thanks for the insulation tips. I'll definitely try that out if temp loss becomes a problem.

939

The Pub / Re: song title game

« on: July 20, 2012, 05:02:55 AM »

Through the Never - Metallica

940

Ingredients / Re: challenger hops

« on: July 19, 2012, 07:47:57 PM »

If it were me I'd go ESB or English Pale Ale. Pick a UK-style ale recipe you like and swap these for the Goldings. Decent UK bittering hop as well.

941

Ingredients / Re: Special B in a Rauchbier?

« on: July 19, 2012, 01:10:01 PM »

FWIW - Schlenkerla makes both a Maerzen and a Bock, and they've even done a dopplebock in limited release. If you're not doing this for a comp, you can go in any direction you want with this.

I have been unsuccessful in getting through a full bottle of any of them, so I can't really comment on how well they work. Outside of a light smokiness in a porter, I just can't seem to get into the smoked beer thing other than as a curiosity.

942

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Is Wit Fermentation Sensitive to Pitch Rate?

« on: July 19, 2012, 12:50:36 PM »

I've made a lot of Belgian beers the "low-pitch, hot-ferment" method, and none of them were anywhere near as good as that oaked BDS was. YMMV, but I haven't found underpitching to do anything but make my beer worse.

I've kinda been wondering if this is an either-or situation. I.e., if you underpitch can you get away with lower fermentation temps, but still retain the phenol character? And if so, do you gain any other benefits (i.e., can you get more phenol with less fusel)?

943

All Grain Brewing / First All-Grain Brewday - plus some followup ?'s

« on: July 19, 2012, 12:23:29 PM »

I had my first AG brewday yesterday, and for the most part it was a rousing success. Despite spilling about a pint or two of my strike water, I was within a degree of my target mash temp. I'm doing BIAB, but with a separate mash tun. This means I don't need to futz around with the heat on my stove to hold my mash temp. Plus, I have it rigged so I can suspend the bag off the bottom of the tun once I drain it and then squeeze the hell out of it against the side of the cooler. I only lost a bit under 1/2 gallon to 6.25 lb of grain.

The biggest surprise was my efficiency. I based my recipe off a 70% brewhouse efficiency. Since I don't get a big boiloff, I need a thicker mash than most BIABers and I guessed low on my target efficiency. Turns out I hit a bit over 79%.

So now my questions. I lost about 4-5 degrees F during a 90 minute mash. This seems reasonable to me, but how does this compare to everyone else? I can't help but wonder if the grain bag may be wicking off a bit of liquid and cooling things down.

Also, my next brew is going to be a Barleywine at about 1.100 OG. Anyone have a guess how much efficiency I may end up losing brewing something this big? Obviously, the actual number will be specific to my system, but what kind of ballpark would you expect if you were batch sparging (for example)?

944

Beer Recipes / Re: Recipe help please

« on: July 19, 2012, 10:28:36 AM »

If it were me I'd go English IPA using the Summit for bittering and the Glacier and EKG's for flavor/aroma.

945

The Pub / Re: song title game

« on: July 19, 2012, 09:03:07 AM »

Hot Legs - Rod Stewart