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.

Random stuff

Using a washing machine to brew beer: It's a German priest, Michael Fey, who used a top loading washing machine as an automated brewing machine, as reported in Techspot. He kicks off an 'experience report' on his website here.

Once I've got the wife happy by finishing some jobs around the flat, this is my project!

And apparently in Germany betaisadonalösung is a good replacement for iodine for brewing purposes.

Drinking No. XII - Tested on friends

Generally went down very well at our summer party, everyone said they enjoyed it and it was gone before much of the bought Tegernseer Helles was consumed but it was a bit 'thick' for my taste and too sweet. I guess this hints to incomplete fermentation because not all the sugar converted.

Oh well, I'll just have to try again ;-)

Time to put No. XII into the Pressure Barrel

I was wondering how much priming sugar to use and here it states about 85g should do the trick. Will probably add a bit more for luck and then I have 10 days for the fermentation. Excellent, will do it tonight.

Actually I used 108g glucose, because that's what fell out of the bag, in about 1l water boiled for 10 minutes and cooled again, the final volume of beer in the pressure barrel is about 35 pints. It's in the cellar, about 18C, so I hope fermentation will start.

I also took 2 bottles of yeast from the primary fermentation barrel to see how well they preserve. Will have to cover with boiled malt extract soon, I don't have a lot of expectation but you never know...

Number XII First Taste

Very good, actually and it certainly contains alcohol ;-). I returned from holiday on Sunday (yesterday) and saw signs of fermentation on the side of the barrel and was very relieved. FG is 1012@18C so need to work out what that is in reality. Measured Sunday evening.

Taste is about right, light with gentle hops, will transfer to pressure barrel for second fermentation soon. Again, it's late so no extra details now.

Brewing Number XII

Number 11 will be a light summer ale for our summer party. Recipe was found on the internet and then modified to my own creation. I'm after something light colour and flavour with gentle hops.

The method will be slightly different - I will do the mash in a plastic bucket and insulate it with a blanket to hold the temperature. A slight departure from the normal route but will be easier to do if it works.

Ingredients

5Kg pale ale malt 7EBC
1Kg cara-pils malt 5EBC
500g malted wheat 3EBC
1tsp gypsum
1tsp Irish moss
Hops
37g Fuggles 4.1% alpha boiling hops
30g East Kent Goldings 6.1% alpha aroma hops
Note both hops are old and lacking character.

Method

1. 09:30am Heated 10l water to 70C, too hot, 65 is enough.
2. 11.10am Drained into plastic bucket wrapped in a blanket with malts crushed and in grain bag, adjusted temperature with 1l water, reached approx 56C
   
3. Started heating 6l water to approx boiling. The mash is about the right temperature it seems.
   
4. 11:42am added 5l water at 90C to grains, it seems this did not get the mash hot enough, it never reached the required 69C, apparently.
   
5. 1:24pm Problem - temperature dropped too low so conversion is not complete, heated the liquid on the cooker in 3l pans and returned to grains, now at around 70C so should convert OK. I hope.
6. 1:52pm Conversion still not complete, iodine still cloudy. Colour of beer looks about right, but will it ferment...
7. 2:15pm Looks like I made a mess of it, conversion not complete according to iodine test, start boil anyway.
8. 3:00pm Boil starting, add Fuggles hops.
9. 4pm final hops added and let to sit for a moment, begin cooling
10. 5pm cooled to 25C in the barrel. OG as measured just after brewing was 1060 so I added 6l water to bring it down to 1040ish. Will pitch yeast now and clear up.

Review of brewing - everything seemed fine except the iodine test didn't work properly. Will have to review the temperatures, I think I did everything right and I've read on the net that sometimes a false negative (and also false positives) are possible so perhaps I'm lucky...