Category: HomeBrewing

+++ The last several batches of beer I’ve made have each had a disturbing similar quality that I don’t too much care for.  A couple of Hefeweizens, and Pale Ale, a Baltic Porter have each had an off, slightly sour flavor that I have come to decide is some kind of infection. Since general brewing process and sequence of events has not changed in the last few years, I decided it was my kegging equipment that was likely causing this. Especially since I think that after a beer is in the keg for a few weeks the effect seems to get a bit worse, if anything.
+++ So, I spent the afternoon, taking apart all my fittings and tap faucets, cleaning them and soaking them in sanitizer, along with buying 20 feet of beverage tubing and replacing all I had in use. I have two different sizes of tubing. One is 3/16″ ID which I use for kegs that need to be kept at a higher pressure to maintain a high level of carbonation, like German wheat beers for example. British ales and stouts are better at a considerably lower carbonation level.   Having 5 or 6 feet of 3/16″ inner diameter line restricts the pressure in that line to a tune of 2psi per liner foot. So I can keep my keg at 15psi to maintain high carbonation, but by the time it gets to the faucet it will have dropped to about 5psi, which is a good serving pressure. This gradual progressive pressure drop decreases the amount of foaming in the glass than a short larger diameter line would give you.

+++ My other faucet is rigged with a little shorter line that is 1/4″ diameter, that kegs with lower carbonation requirements will get hooked up to. It is not a totally automatic system, but it is a step or two towards keeping beers at the right fizz level and still being able to pour a beer with not a ton of foam.
+++ It was also a good time to clean out my keggorator, which is a 5.5 cf chest freezer, controlled by an external thermostat, and a twin faucet tap tower mounted on the lid, wiping the insides all down with a sponge and idaphor solution.  Now that every thing is all nice and clean, it’s time to make some beer and get something else hooked up on that other faucet.  I’m thinking a CDA

It was a bit too late to head out to my favorite establishment for a beer so I took my chances on an unlabeled flip-top bottle of, what I assumed to be my home-brew.   Could have been anything, really.  I typically label stuff I make that I bottle, or more often I keg most of my batches and then sometimes bottle a few from there if I want to take some bottles to a party or to a friends house or what ever.

Anyway, this one popped really loud so I knew it had some serious carbonation in it.  Sure enough, when I poured it, very gently, a pale pink clear beer came out with a huge white fluffy head. It was the Raspberry Wheat I made, gosh, I think about a year ago for a wedding in western Washington I attended.   Crystal clear and the carbonation is so high that even as I drink it down, the top is continuously covered by a white skin and a 1/4″ thick head around the edge.  Big raspberry aroma and a very light wheat cereal note as I used the American Hefeweizen yeast as I recall. which does not impart much of that classic German Hef flavor.  The fruit flavor is a bit tart and lacking that fake “Jolly rancher” or soapy flavor that a lot of commercial Ras-Wheats have.

This has encouraged me to check on the few others that I have in there that are a bit of a mystery.  Im pretty sure that at least a few of them are a 15+% Imperial Stout that I made back to 2007.   Here’s to happy mystery beer hunting..

I want to make sure I have a couple options on tap at the house this summer so I am trying to keep the rotation going.  The other day I decided on a Heffy for a number of reasons.  One being that they are inexpensive.  Being a pretty low gravity brew to begin with, only about 12# of grain was needed.  I had some yeast saved from a prevous batch last fall so that saves me another $8 that a fresh vial of WLP320 would have cost.   Secondly, they are quick to make.  The same all day Saturday is required for brewing, but a week in primary and it will be ready to keg.  We are talking about 10 days from brew to glass.  So, I got that going for me…which is nice.  Oh and another thing.  It is one of the few styles that my wife will drink.

Hefeweizen literally is Hefe (yeast) meaning the beer is cloudy with the still suspended yeast swimming around, and weizen (wheat) so basically a cloudy wheat beer.

So there.

The details on the beer are this:

Grain Bill:

• 6#  Wheat
• 5#  Pilsner malt
• .5# Melanoidin
• .5# Honey Malt

The latter 2 were just to add a little something to make it less boring, even if I did break out of the norm a bit.

Mashed at a relatively cool 151F so as to maximize ferment-ability.  It is more complicated than that, but suffice it to say this is to prepare the resulting sugars to be more readily consumed by the yeast resulting in a more attenuated or dryer finished product.  1oz of Domestic Hallertauer leaf in a nylon stocking supplied the slight hop bitterness that this style needs.  Fermenting with a resurrected 1.5qt starter from a half pint of yeast slurry from the same kind of beer form last October.  The yeast strain I am using, as I mentioned before is White Labs WLP320.  It is a Hefeweizen strain but produces much less of the classic banana and clove flavors that are characteristic of the classic German Hef’s.   I like the milder flavor and it is easier to share with other non-beer-geeks.  It is sometimes called an American Wheat or and Oregon Hefeweizen.  I wasn’t sure if being in the fridge for 9 months would hurt it, but after nearly 24hrs the starter got going and pitching that in to this batch got things going in a hurry.  I managed to keep the fermentation temp down to 68-70F to keep the production of fruity tasting “esters” in control.  A T-Shirt covering the fermenter, wetted down with a fan on it, does the trick nicely.  Probably not the first time the words “Wet T-Shirt” and “Beer” were in the same sentence.

Anyway, the fermentation activity has peaked I think and in a couple more days it will be pretty much done.  This one also will likely be entered in the home brew contest next month at the Western Idaho Fair

——-

After 1 week in Primary, the airlock is letting out 1 bubble every 30-35 seconds.  I am hoping for a good final gravity of about 1.012 or so.  The last Hef I made was a bit too heavy and sweet.
By tomorrow afternoon it should be down to about 1per min.  Which is about my threshold for moving a beer into secondary, or in this case, straight to the keg.   Hefeweizens are OK, even preferred to be young and cloudy so secondary, which is usually meant for settling and clarifying is not needed here.  This will also work out well because the next beer I am making will use the same yeast.  Literally the same yeast.  As in,  after cooling the freshly made Weizenbock, I will put it in the same fermenter that the Hefeweizen was just removed from.  With the leftover yeast “cake” still in there.

1.  Less cleaning of carboys.  (a good thing)

2. A rather large colony of live and hungry yeast right there and ready.  (another good thing)

——

Well, airlock activity held steady at 20-30 bubbles per minute so I didn’t want to keg it just yet, but I wanted to use all that nice yeast sludge on the bottom for the batch I brewed today so I transferred it to a 5G carboy.  Nearly an additional  gallon was transfered to a growler and a 2l soda bottle with a pressure cap that I can attach my CO2 system to.  I will chill and force carbonate that one for some early taste tests in a day or two.

The gravity on this Hefeweizen stands currently at 1.014 which is where it will finish I’m sure.  I’m happy with that I guess.

A few days or a week in secondary and then the keg.

Well, it is kegged and after a few days to get it carbonated it will be ready.     The first few samples were decent but not quite what I had hoped.   Terrific fresh citrusy hop aroma, but a sharp, harsh medicinal fumey bitterness.   It seemed to be getting  better as it continues to condition at 34F or so but still not quite there.   I still plan on entering it in the fair about 6 weeks from now though.   I think I can dry-hop it some more with the same nylon stocking hop bag method that I used in the boil but I need to weight it down so it will at least partially sink in the keg.   I thought of a lead fishing weight, but since I plan to actually be drinking this stuff, maybe I will use something that doesn’t have a poisoning method named after it.

After 9 days in Primary, I just racked the Pale Ale I made in to Secondary fermentation, along with a few ounces of Amarillo and cascade leaf, floating hoppily on the top snug in there nylon stocking “hop-bags”.  They are a bit too buoyant though as I think the knit or weave used is so tight that air cant get out of them very easy, so I am concerned I am not getting as much beer-hop surface contact.  Probably need to add some kind of ballast to them somehow.

Gravity is 1.0 even and after adjusting for a 75F sample that is about 1.002.  It started at 1.048, so that gets me a 4.8% ABV fairly dry brew.  That sample I took during the transfer tasted very good.  IBUs a litle on the high side for a Pale but nice fresh citrusy hop flavor, bot at about the level I was shooting for.  It’s still early but this is looking pretty good.

A week or so dry-hopping and I will keg it, possibly with another smaller DH addition.

So, the IPA I made last month was technically a “contract brew” for a friend. As it neared completion I was a bit concerned as it tasted a little off. The Hop bitterness I thought tasted perfumy or soapy and it didn’t ferment down as far as I had hoped leaving it a bit too heavy and sweet.
I needed to have it done before Christmass as the person I was making it for, planned to give them out as presents. That realy added to the pressure and stress.
I mean, if you make something for yourself and it doesn’t turn out quite right its no big deal. But when you get it all finished and bottled up and hand it over and say “…here you go, oh by the way it’s not that great…” it takes a lot of the fun out of the whole process.
My little bottling apparatus, worked very well and the carbonation was maintained, just right. Maybe even a little too much, which is an OK problem to have.
He picked up the beer (nearly 2 cases of it) and mentioned that he was going to be sharing some with some friends at a dinner party that night. Now I was really worried. I can see it now. “Hey check out this awesome beer a guy made for me…here have some…”
However in the end, I got a text message a few hours later about how much he liked it and that it went over pretty well.
I guess I’m just a nervous Nellie. I still feel like I owe him some of what I consider a better effort.

This one went off without a hitch. I knew that with 6oz total of whole leaf hops I would have to aim a bit high on total volume, since they soak up so much. Couldn’t have come out any closer, though. A little over 6 G in the fermenter. SG is at 1.052 which is a touch lower than i wanted but if I had boiled off another half gallon like I typically do, I would have nailed that too. Still, if I get down to 1.014 even, that will be OK, and still get me 5.1% ABV which will be fine. I am hoping for a little more attenuation though, and if it gets down to 1.01 , that will be about 5.6%, which is a bit more like it, and would really bring out the hops more.
I went with .75oz 14% AA Columbus for 45min (42 IBU)
2oz 5.7% AA Cascade for 10min (20 IBU)
2oz 5.7% AA Cascade For 5min (9 IBU)
2oz 9.5% AA Amarillo at flame-out
Alll that should get me about 60 IBU which is fairly modest but about right for this moderate gravity IPA. I’ll be dry hopping as well with probably an ounce each of Amarillo and Cascade for a week or two in Secondary, which will ramp up the fresh hop aroma and flavor.
I am using yeast I harvested from a pale ale I made last month. If it doesn’t show decent signs of taking off after 24 hrs, I will pitch a new vial.
I don’t want to jinx myself, but I have high hopes from this one.

Next batch up will be an India Pale Ale. Going with a similar recipe as I have done many times, but this time I have a lot more whole leaf hops to use. I might add a little something else there just to give it a little character. Biscuit malt, or Aromatic malt…something.
11# 2-Row
.5# Melanoidin
1# Wheat
.5# Dextrin 20L
Mash at about 151F to increase ferment-ability and keep the finished product a little on the dry side to enhance the Hop flavors. Shoot for about 1.055 SG and 1.010-1.015 FG.
1 oz Columbus 40 min
1 oz Amarillo 10 min
2 oz Cascade 5 min
2 oz Cascase 0 min
That should give me about 60 IBUs and all that Cascade at the end should add plenty of Fresh citrusy hoppy goodness. I’ll dry-hop as well in secondary for about a week.
Probly start this late Saturday afternoon. I think.