Stores

Ingredients available:

Malts
8kg Vienna malt
6Kg Pilsner
5Kg Cara-amber 60EBC
5Kg Cara-hell 25EBC
2Kg Munich malt
2Kg Wheat
900g Sauermalz
1Kg Chocolate malt

Hops

100g Fuggles
40g East Kent Goldings 4.95% alpha
50g Target 9.7% - Use quickly, open & old
80g Cascade pellets
~50g Challenger 6.5% alpha (old)
~60g East Kent Goldings 6.3% alpha (old)

Number XIII - First Taste

Not bad at all! This bottle was put into the fridge (ie. very cold so no fermentation would happen) on Saturday evening, having been bottled on Tuesday night, so it's perhaps no surprise that it's lacking a bit of carbonation even for an ale.

The flavour is good, the bitterness is about right, the hop flavour seems characteristic to the EKG used, but the dry hopped Cascade haven't come through much at all. I wonder what went wrong there. It's also a bit cloudy, not that that bothers me much but having a nice clear beer is just better and previous beers have been much better.

It's a bit less alcoholic than I feared, but that's a good thing - I thought that I'd produced a monster but it tastes around 5% which is still more than I wanted but within the bounds of normal. All in all I hope that some survives for the Brew Club meeting on the 25th.

Number XIII - Bottling

Worked well enough, I used Chemipro Oxi to sterilise the bottles, I hope it has worked as it was all done a bit quickly and I wasn't quite so careful as I usually am to make sure the bottles are clean. May be a surprise or two in there. It also said on the box that rinsing wasn't necessary but on the outside the bottles were covered in a nasty white residue without rinsing, so the first four bottles were filled unrinsed, the rest were swilled out with cold water.

Bottling sugar was 90g of glucose, boiled for 15 minutes, then cooled and added to barrel. A small amount of this did get spilled, otherwise all went smoothly - now 40 bottles of beer downstairs. Temperature is around 12C. Guess a week of secondary fermentation will be enough before a first test, perhaps at the weekend.

Number XIII - Decanted

Today I decanted Number XIII into a clean barrel for a further fermentation in the cellar - primary fermentation is still going on slowly, I can see it in the remaining yeast and I'll leave it another week before bottling.  Taste is good, but I was drinking the last dregs from the barrel so they were a bit too bitter, there's definitely alcohol in there too - perhaps a bit too much for my taste!

SG is 1016 @ 20C.

ABW = (1.055 - 1.016) * 105 = 4.1%
ABV = 3 * 1.016 / 0.794 = 5.2%

Or using the ABV Calculator: 5.6% ABV, which is more or less what it tastes like!  There's also an IBU calculator.

Note: OG estimated to be 1.055 as I didn't measure it after adding 4l water to the ~15l wort at 1065

Note: Correction to hydrometer readings of additional 0.002 to 0.003 per 10C over 20C.

So, it seems to be too strong and decanted into the second barrel there's only half full.  Need to improve water control.

For the brewery expansion I was looking on ebay today and found 10KW gas boilers can be had for about 50 euro - leaving enough money for a large 50l stainless steel pan and still have change for what the 2KW electric boiler would cost.  This would mean doing the boil in the wash room which would be OK.  Search ebay for 'gasherd' and up comes loads of ads like this:

9,5 KW Gaskocher Profi 4 Fuß Hockerkocher 9,5 KW 40cm

Piezo- und Zündsicherung mit 1,5m Schlauch u. Regler 47.99 euro. Then need the gas bottle and that's it, could probably use my existing pans but it would be nice to buy a big steel one that can be used as a mash tun too.

This would allow the boil to be gas powered, the general water heating to be electric, I could do the mash upstairs then carry the wort downstairs to boil, ferment in the cellar if I can keep it warm enough in winter.  This would save some lugging around of fragile, half fermented beer.

Harvested the yeast into sterile yeast jars and put into fridge.  Let's see if they're useful in a couple of weeks when I try the next beer.

Number XIII - Lessons

Try an iodine test on sugar solution and see what happens.
Fix mash tun, watch out for plastic tap as it stresses when hot and may break - can I improve that too?
Try to design a metal pipe from boiler for adding hot water to mash, and for connecting to a filter/cooling system.

The fermentation for Number XIII is slowing now, tomorrow it will be ready to take to the cellar and filter into another barrel for a longer fermentation.  Tuesday is a day off so I'll do it then.  I will also preserve a couple of vials of this yeast as it seems to have worked well enough.


Tested again at about 9pm and it's turning out to be a good one - dry and hoppy with a slight citrus fruit taste.   Very pleased.
Fermentation is finished, no visible activity at all.

Number XIII Brewing process

The brew started very late in the day caused by a trip to Richelbrau on Richelstr in Munich, then a leaking tap on the mash tun.  Fortunately all problems were solved and Bob & Tim came round for moral support and help with milling the grains.

Friday 28/10/2011
15:00 heated 10l water in boiler, started to repair mash tun & prepare milling grains.
16:45 Ran water onto grains in insulated mash tun, temperature easy to stabilise at 65C but the mash is very thick -18l water would be better, as according to the 3:1 rule I read about
17:15 Still stable at 65C, fantastic.  Heated 5l water to 95C
17:40 Added to grains, reached 72C with some extra heating of drained wort.  Not sure what happened here, seem to have lost half an hour somewhere, I think my notes are confused as my memory tells me the mashing was supremely easy and well co-ordinated.
18:15 Up to 76C, looks good.  The temperatures have been achieved by adding hot water, and draining and heating wort as required.  Not sure how much water got added but the mash was too thick so I tended to add quite a bit of extra water to maintain the temperature, and the temperatures seemed pretty accurately to the plan.  Heating to 76C seemed to require quite a bit more effort, must watch out in future - even though it's only 4C rise there's a lot of liquid to heat.
19:00 Iodine shows almost complete, but I realise I don't know how to read an iodine test.
19:30 Iodine test shows bad, heat again to 76C
19:45 Stable at 75C, iodine still showing starch, or is it?
20:15 Must be done now, and I'm bored.  I realise I don't know how to read an iodine test so I'll assume this is OK.  Apart from the mash being too thick everything has gone according to plan.  Sparge with 3x1.5l boiling water until kettle is full.  Saw at Richelbrau that sparging and rinsing wort through trub is a good idea to filter the wort, tried this a few times and it seemed to help, but probably didn't do enough.  Also I would usually have boiled the sparge water separately and used two kettles (one kettle, one large saucepan on cooker) but I didn't use enough water at the mash start.  Next time use much more with 6+Kg of grain.
20:45 Sparge done, start heating to boil.  Lost a lot of heat in sparging & rinsing.
21:45 Boil starts, with lid off and boiler on max it works ok.  Add hop 1.
23:00 Add hop 2, Irish moss.
23:10 Add hop 3
23:15 Boil finished, filter Irish moss & hops.  A bit easier with hop bags but still necessary.  Need to find a better way to filter before cooling.
Start cooling - plate cooler works fine with very slow wort flow - OG1065@24C, barrel approx half full.
Added 4l of cold water, forgot to remeasure OG!
Dry hopped with 20g Cascade
00:30 Yeast pitched.

Saturday
09:00 Slow fermentation @22C, I'm a bit worried it has all gone wrong, that my mash didn't work. 
12:00 Fermentation looks slow, but it is fermenting.  Let cool to 20C as yeast will work better there, asked at Giesinger who sold me the yeast.
19:00 Fast fermentation at 22C, air lock plops every 10 sec
00:00 Fast fermentation at 22C, as before, scraped kreusen off.
First taste with Bill - very good, full bodied malt but still sweet as the fermentation isn't done yet but a good bitterness and hop flavour & aroma with a fruity hint. I'm very pleased!

Sunday
10:00 Fast fermentation at 22C, air lock plops every 10 sec
15:00 Fermentation slowing


Notes
Lauter tun worked well - 4 x 3mm silver coated insulation is fine.  All fittings are pretty water tight, it all works well.  Plastic pipe on boiler not ideal with boiling water, will look at a copper attachment there.
Boil was too slow to start and difficult in one boiler as it is over full and can never achieve 30l to fill the fermentation barrel, will try to find a second - aha Bielmeyer, made in Germany.  Everything else (mash tun) is ready for 30.
Giesinger are great for the ingredients in an emergency but they're expensive at 3.50/Kg of malt, still the guys are great and Florian was more than happy to chat about beer for a bit.  Better get malts at Richelbrau, they'll sell for closer to 1.00/Kg.  The ale yeast at 3.50 for a huge vial is good though.

Number XIII - Research & Recipe

As ever Number XIII will be an ale, light golden brown coloured, with distinct hop character - some bitterness but much aroma and flavour.  It would be a bonus if there's a subtle fruity or ester flavour and for this I'll try dry hopping with Cascade pellets.  The alcohol content will be about 4% and there will be about 30 litres of it.

Compared to previous brews the grain bill will be a touch more at 6.5Kg of malt, to ensure it's got the alcohol content I'm after, and the hops are chosen by what I've got - Target & East Kent Goldings for the brew (bittering and aroma) and then for something a bit different I'm going to also dry hop with Cascade at 1g/litre in the fermentation barrel.

The Recipe
Malts:
4Kg Pilsner malt - base 1
2Kg Vienna malt - base 2, colour
500g Malted wheat for head retention
60g Sour malt to lower the pH and aid mashing

Hops
Boil:
50g Target  9.7% alpha, sealed packet from 2007

Aroma & Flavour, 5 minutes before end of boil
39g East Kent Goldings  4.95% alpha last 15 min
21g East Kent Goldings  4.95% alpha last 5 min

Dry
Cascade pellets 5.9% alpha at 1g/litre into brewing barrel before adding yeast.

Adjuncts, just to annoy the Reinheitsgebot fanatics:
15g Irish moss in the boil, last 15 minutes


Method
There will be a three stage mash, 30 minutes at 65C, 72C, 76C  with the Pilsner malt being the dictating factor there.  The schedule was given to me by Jakl in Richelbrau, he's an ex-Augustiner braumeister so he should know what to do.  I'm always cautious with the mashing as the only near disaster I had was caused by that.  This should also give a good malt characteristic to the beer.

To achieve this I'll heat 10l water to 80C and run onto grains.  This may cause the 50C stage to be a bit hotter but that should be OK, and I can control down easier than up.  Then another 2.5l of water at 90C for the subsequent stages.  This will allow for 14l or 15l of wort before sparging, and enough headroom to not overfill the 20l boiler.  The grain/water ratio should be 1Kg / 3litres so I'm a bit short of water.

The Braueule uses steam to heat the mash if necessary and that seems like a good idea.  I wonder if I can think of some way to produce steam that can work like this.

Boil 90 minutes as Pilsner malt can produce DMS and a longer boil is necessary to prevent this, although the comments on that page say they've used Pilsner malt as a base and never noticed anything funny with shorter boils.  Usually I use Pale Ale Malt but nobody had that available this time.

The major equipment change since Number XII is I have insulated my mash tun plastic barrel with 4 layers of 3mm silver coated boiler insulation on all sides and the lid, which I hope will be enough.  Last time I had lots of trouble keeping the mash temperature stable.  To the mash tun I also added a tap, and bought better 1/2 inch screw connectors for the water connections so I'll waste less time drying the kitchen out afterwards and perhaps annoy the Mrs. a bit less.

Then for the hops I've invested in hop bags which should make the filtering after the boil a bit easier - I've always had trouble preventing hops getting in the cooler which as I use a plate cooler is a significant problem if it happens.

Now I'm just off to the shops to see if I can find any way of making steam, and some hygienic sealed boxes for storing malt in while it's in the cellar.

The First Brew for Far Too Long - Preparation

So, we went to visit Völker in Bayrischzell, here's his website: www.brumas.de. As well as the brewing machine he also sells malts and hops so I picked up a few Kg of malt, as well as some hops.

Ingredients available:

Malts
10kg Vienna malt
10Kg Pilsner 
5Kg Cara-amber 60EBC
5Kg Cara-hell 25EBC
2Kg Munich malt
2Kg Wheat
1Kg Sauermalz
1Kg Chocolate malt

Hops

100g Fuggles
100g East Kent Goldings
100g Target 9.7%
100g Cascade pellets
~50g Challenger 6.5% alpha (old)
~60g East Kent Goldings 6.3% alpha (old)


An interesting page on malt characters from Foam Rangers:

Vienna Malt (Lightly kilned)

Vienna is a rich, aromatic malt that will lend a deep color and full flavor to your finest Vienna or Märzen beers. It has sufficient enzyme power for use as 60 to 100% of total mash. Vienna malt or Helles malt is the characteristic grain of Vienna lager and Märzen; although it generally takes up only ten to fifteen percent of the grain bill in a beer, it can be used as a base malt. It has sufficient enzymatic power to self-convert, and it is somewhat darker and kilned at a higher temperature than Pilsener malt. ASBC 3-4/EBC 7-10, DP 50 °Lintner.

Wheat (torrefied)

Aids in head retention and adds a light, creamy, smooth character as well as a mild toasted wheat flavor.

Cara-hell 25 EBC
Wird u.a. in Ale-, Hefeweizen-, Maibock- und blonden Abteibieren verwendet. Geben Sie 10-15% zu. Verleiht ein volleres Aroma, einen milderen Geschmack und eine tiefere Farbe.

Sauermalz 6 EBC Wird zur Senkung des pH-Werts der Würze unter dem Reinheitsgebot verwendet. Sorgt für ein besseres «Vermaischen» und eine erhöhte Bierstabilität. Geben Sie 1 bis 10% bei.

Amber malt

Amber malt is a more toasted form of pale malt, kilned at temperatures of 150-160 °C, and is used in brown porter; older formulations of brown porter use amber malt as a base malt (though this was diastatic and produced in different conditions to a modern amber malt). Amber malt has a bitter flavor which mellows on aging, and can be quite intensely flavored; in addition to its use in porter, it also appears in a diverse range of British beer recipes. ASBC 50-70/EBC 100-140; amber malt has no diastatic power.

Cara-hell
Weyermann® Yellow Pages - english
Caramel malt, Use at 10 - 15 %

• fuller body
• improved aroma
• good effect on beer foam
• full, round flavor
• deep saturated color

Cara-amber
EBC 60 - 80 (Steep): Medium caramel malt. Imparts fuller body and improved malt aroma to dark beers, particularly German altbiers, stouts, bocks and porters. Sustitute for Belgian Biscuit. biscuit malt

• improved flavor stability
• promoted fullness
• enhanced color
• full red color
• better mash working

Munich malt

Munich malt is used as the base malt of the bock beer style, especially doppelbock, and appears in dunkel lager and Märzens in smaller quantities. While a darker grain than pale malt, it has sufficient diastatic power to self-convert, despite being kilned at temperatures around 115 °C. It imparts "malty," although not necessarily sweet characteristics, depending on mashing temperatures. ASBC 4-6/EBC 10-15, DP 40 °Lintner.

Pale malt

Pale malt is the basis of pale ale and bitter and the precursor in production of most other British beer malts. Dried at temperatures sufficiently low to preserve all the brewing enzymes in the grain, it is light in color and, today, the cheapest barley malt available due to mass production. It can be used as a base malt, that is, as the malt constituting the majority of the grist, in many styles of beer. Typically, English pale malts are kilned at 95-105 °C. Color ASBC 2-3/EBC 5-7. Diastatic power (DP) 45 °Lintner.

From the local DIY shop I picked up some 3mm silver coated insulation foam for the boiler and the mash tun. Will mount these today, also need to sort out the cold water supply in the kitchen, I'm not happy with how it has worked up to now.  A few m of pressure hose and another tap would work wonders here I think.