#10 Biere de Table

For my first beer with the Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde yeast, I chose to go with a sessionable Biere de Table. I've never actually had a Biere de Table, but it seems like a more traditional take on the Biere de Garde style. With most modern Farmhouse ales (Biere de Garde and Saison), the alcohol level has steadily increased, especially in the American Craft  interpretations of these styles. I thought that a more reserved and traditional version would be better for spring and aimed for an original gravity of about 1.043, which would have given me a beer of about 3.5% ABV.

I was also excited to begin using starters prior to fermenting each batch of beer. After repitching yeast cakes from previous brews for the past few months and experiencing how much repitching fresh yeast has improved the quality of my beers, I thought making a starter prior to each batch was the next best step to take as I try to improve the quality of my beer. Starters should allow me to pitch a population of healthy, nourished yeast that is large enough to cleanly ferment beers of varying strengths. 

The starter being stirred (after 1 day)

Biere de Table

Batch Volume (Gal): 6.00

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 6.16

Total Grain (Lbs): 10

OG: 1.052   

Anticipated FG: ~1.012   

Anticipated ABV: ~5.3%

IBUs: 23.1

SRM: 7.6

Brewhouse Efficiency: 83%

Boil Duration: 65 min

Grain                                               (Lbs/oz.)   (%)

British 2-row Pale Malt (Pearl)            8           80

Biscuit Malt                                         8 oz.        5

CaraMunich 45                                   8 oz.        5

Victory Malt                                        8 oz.        5

Wheat Malt                                         8 oz.        5

Hops    (AA%)   (IBU)   (Oz.)    (Boil[min])

Saaz        3           12.2       1              60

Saaz        3           10.9       1              45

Yeast

Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde (Pitched Activator packet into a 1 L starter for 1.5 days)

Water

1 tsp 5.2 pH stabilizer (in mash)

1/2 tsp Calcium Chloride (65 min)

1 tsp Calcium Sulfate (65 min)

1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

1 Whirlfloc tablet (5 min)

I mashed in at 1.5 qts/lb and hit ~151-152 initially. I then brought it up quickly to 156 F and brought it back down to about 152 F (I was aiming for 153 F, so finally settled on 152 F). Hopefully the mash created a medium attenuable wort, leaving a nice malty sweetness behind.

The new and improved base for the malt mill

Unfortunately I think I ran into the same problem I experienced with the Scottish 60 Ale. I'm fairly certain I must have a bacterial infection in my 5 gallon mash tun, bacteria that must have taken over after I left the grains in the mash tuns after brewing the barleywine a few weeks back. The larger 10 gallon mash tun seems clean after cleaning it a while back with PBW cleaner. I'm starting to think that the older 5 gallon mash tun however has too many scratches in the plastic that must be harboring these bacteria, that then go nuts when I mash my grains and provide them with food. The same banana-esque aroma was present; a slightly funky/dank smell to the wort and the same aroma when smelling the spent grains. The wort tasted a bit thin too, which I think may be the result of bacteria consuming some of the more complex sugars left in the mash, sugars that would have ultimately otherwise provided body to the finished beer.

Collecting the wort during the sparge

After tasting the Scottish 60 the other day, it tasted fairly strange. It was clean but very watery and dry. Even though it's a low gravity beer, it should have been somewhat sweet as it was brewed with a large portion of specialty malts and mashed in at a high temperature. I'll have to see if I can clean out any remaining bacteria in the 5 gallon mash tun cooler, but it's more likely I'll be buying a new cooler, which won't set me back too much. It's a better solution than ruining another batch of beer.

I also overshot my targeted OG by quite a bit. I wanted to use up the rest of my 55 pound bag of British base malt so I intended on collecting less runoff from the mash, leaving more sugar in the mash and sacrificing efficiency a bit. I was a bit preoccupied though and the sparge ran a little fast. I collected more than I intended but chose to go with it. The beer will be a little bit less sessionable (if it's even drinkable) but should be a good spring beer if it turns out well.

The brewday went well otherwise, so it's too bad I may lose another batch of a session ale that would otherwise be in the keg for the spring, but at least the Biere de Table and the Scottish 60 were fairly inexpensive to produce. I'd rather screw them up than an IPA. The starter did take off fairly quickly, even if the wort I brewed today is a little bit less ideal after the bacteria got to munch on it before I was able to boil it. And although the Scottish 60 ale may not turn out to be a good beer, the yeast repitched from the batch produced a great tasting Wee Heavy after two weeks of fermentation. I'm thinking that the same will happen when I brew a soured Biere de Garde in about two weeks. The yeast should propagate and be just as healthy as if they fermented a healthy batch of beer.

The yeast starter after chilling in the fridge to make the yeast settle to the bottom

The English Pale Ale with American hops and the German Kolsch are still carbonating. I've had lots of trouble trying to get these beers to force carbonate. They foam immediately when I pour them off of the tap, which may be the result of me shaking the kegs too much in an attempt to dissolve carbon dioxide into the beer faster than simply hooking the beer up to gas and letting it sit. It definitely is not be a technique I will be using in the future. Luckily I've been brewing so much, I still have some bottles available to drink. The Belgian Dubbel I brewed in January is finally fully carbonated after a long period of conditioning. 

After taking a sample of the beer I brewed for Laura, the "laurabelle" barleywine, I think I'll be bottling it soon. It tasted unbelievable, and I'm excited to get it into 12 oz. bottles so it can begin to carbonate and condition, (possibly for up to a year) but with the way it tastes at this point, it may not be around that long. I'll have to finish the label as well. It finished out fairly dry for a barleywine (final gravity of 1.025) but is still fairly sweet, and comes in at a whopping 12.3% ABV. It should be a great beer for next fall and winter.

Starter for the Biere de Table

Boiling the 1 L of Starter Wort

After playing with the arrangement of the magnets in the stirplate for hours, I finally found an arrangement that has been working somewhat consistently for the starter I made today for the Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde yeast.

Aerating the Starter

I had to take two more smaller rare earth magnets from the hard drive of my old laptop and attach those to the first two rare earth magnets from my old PC hard drive. I then shortened the distance between the magnets in the stir plate and the stir bar in the erlenmeyer flask and things have been working well so far. I only have duck tape currently holding the magnets in place however, so I've been spending lots of time pushing the magnets back into place. The attraction between the magnets and the stir bar pushes them together until the magnets begin to rub against the top of the stir plate box, slowing down the rotation of the stir plate. I'll have to find that sweet spot for the magnets and mount them permanently with epoxy prior to brewing up the next starter for the soured Biere de Garde.

I brewed up this 1 L starter at about 1.040 OG and pitched the Wyeast activator package without popping the internal nutrient package. Hopefully this starter will allow me to just about double the yeast population prior to pitching them into the Biere de Table I'll be brewing in the next few days. I was surprised to find that even with a relatively low OG Biere de Table (about 1.043 OG) I still needed additional yeast cells to ferment the beer cleanly. So it seems that using starters to ferment will help me produce better beer in the future, especially with high gravity brews. Hopefully together with the new oxygen system I picked up to add pure oxygen to the wort prior to pitching yeast, these starters will provide large populations of very healthy yeast, resulting in great beer.

Finishing the Stir Plate

I ordered a 2000 mL flask and stir bar the other day from Northern Brewer so I was finally able to figure out how to set the magnets I salvaged from an old CPU on the computer fan. 

I separated the two rare earth magnets from the metal forms that held them in the computer hard drive and stacked them on top of each other to improve the attraction towards the stir bar. After playing around with different arrangements, I chose to set the magnets on a metal washer that will eventually be glued to the computer fan. With this setup, I can adjust where the magnets sit on the metal washer, allowing me to adjust them if I ever have trouble finding a consistent spin of the stir bar in the future.

I had to pick up another piece of equipment from Radio Shack after realizing that my original 5 V cell phone charger wasn't a sufficient power source to power the stir plate. I purchased a AC to DC power source that has an adjustable voltage which should prove useful when adjusting to find the right amount of power to spin the stir bar. 

Unfortunately, the 2000 mL flask was not such a great purchase as it has a slightly domed bottom to the flask. Every time I've tried to start the stir bar, the stir bar is thrown very quickly towards the sides of the flask. I think I may end up using my french press coffee flask in the meantime instead as it has a relatively flat bottom and was able to maintain the stir bar's spin for the few hours I tested it. Since the next brew is a low ABV Biere de Garde version of a table beer, I won't need a starter until the following brews. I'm hoping I can find a decent flask in time for making starters for the soured Biere de Garde and American IPA (Bell's Two Hearted IPA clone) I have planned.

Filtering the Kolsch

Both the German Altbier and the English Oatmeal Stout kicked within a couple of days of each other this week, and both were quickly replaced by the English Pale Ale with American hops and the German Kolsch. Both beers have been filtered and should be carbonated by next week. The Scottish 60 Schilling Ale and Barleywine continue to age in carboys, and the Scottish Wee Heavy is just about finished with fermentation.

Slainte Mhaith

# 9 Scottish Wee Heavy

In anticipation of drinking beer next fall, I thought spring would be the right time to brew at least one big beer that I would plan on laying down throughout the summer to age. So after brewing a low gravity Scottish 60, I thought the Scottish 1728 ale yeast would make for a great  high gravity Scottish Wee Heavy.

Scottish Wee Heavy


Batch Volume (Gal): 6.00
Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 7.5


Total Grain (Lbs): 18.63
OG: 1.088   Anticipated FG: ~1.020   Anticipated ABV: ~9.0%


IBUs: 29.4
SRM: 19.4
Brewhouse Efficiency: 76%
Boil Duration: 105 min


Grain                                                (Lbs/oz.)    (%)
British 2-row Pale Malt (Pearl)          15.5         83.2
Crystal 40                                               1            5.4
CaraAroma                                          8 oz.         2.7
Crystal 120                                           8 oz.        2.7
Honey Malt                                          8 oz.        2.7
Munich Malt                                        8 oz.        2.7
Chocolate Malt                                    2 oz.        0.7


Hops                         (AA%)   (IBU)     (Oz.)    (Boil[min])
Northern Brewer     10.6       21.9         0.6            60
Northern Brewer     10.6       7.5           0.4            30


Yeast
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale (repitched 200 mL of yeast slurry 
from 60 Schilling)


Water
2 tsp 5.2 pH stabilizer (in mash)
3/4 tsp Calcium Chloride (105 min)
1/2 tsp Calcium Sulfate (105 min)
1 Whirlfloc tablet (10 min)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

I mashed this beer at 1.5 qts/lb and aimed to hit anywhere from 158 F to 155 F for a 60 minute mash. I have been having trouble reaching my targeted mash temperature with the larger mashtun, so I set my aim a little higher than normal. I ended up hitting the upper end of that mash range at 158 F for about 15 minutes and slowly brought the mash down to 155 F for the remaining 45 minutes with stirring. Hopefully that high initial temperature won't result in a beer that is too dextrinous. The high gravity and large grain bill should create a fairly sweet beer alone, so such a high mash temp may result in a cloying beer. But I think either way, the alcohol should provide some sort of balance if the beer should finish at a high final gravity.

Letting the mash cool from 158 F to 155 F

I've started to notice a consistently salty flavor in my beers, so I've been trying to limit both the amount of 5.2 pH stabilizer that I use in the mash, as well as the amount of calcium chloride I add during the boil. I've heard that 5.2 can contribute a lot of sodium to the beer, leaving it salty, although the container claims that 5.2 adds nothing to the flavor of the final beer. Calcium chloride is the more likely culprit however. Tasting a grain of calcium chloride is one of the most intensely salty tastes I've ever experienced, so it's likely that I'm adding too much chloride to my beer, possibly in addition to the chlorides that already exist in my brewing water. I'll have to get a water test done so I can finally begin to understand the salts my brewing water needs in order to achieve the regional water profiles of the beer styles I brew.

Sparging the grains to remove the sugar

The brewday was smooth and uneventful other than the point at which I spilled a fair amount of my grain all over the floor. I'll have to build a better base for my grain mill; the one that the mill came with doesn't offer much stability. 

Part of me wishes I that I brewed the Wee Heavy from the first runnings of the mash and followed it up with a Scottish 60 from the second runnings. If I had been able to make a starter, that would have worked out great as I left a good amount of sugar in the mashtun after collecting all that I needed for the Wee Heavy. I'm running out of containers to condition my beer in though, so it's probably for the best that I give the parti-gyle brewing a rest for a while.

Having a pint of Alt during the boil

This beer should ferment at around 60-62 F for at least the next two weeks. The low fermentation temperatures should enhance the malt profile of this beer while reducing esters, as was the case with the Scottish 60 Schilling. After fermentation, I hope to condition this beer for a long time in the carboy at the coldest temperatures I can achieve. Then I'll bottle the beer and let it condition until next fall. As this beer should be strongly sweet, alcoholic, and malty, I'm expecting that I'll be able to keep my hands off it throughout a hot, humid summer; long enough so that there's still plenty to enjoy when the weather's right for such a big beer.

I plan on brewing a few Biere de Gardes in the upcoming weeks, after some more space opens up in the kegs/carboys. I'll start off with a Biere De Table which should be a great low ABV beer for the spring and then follow it up with a soured Biere De Garde. The kegs in the kegerator containing the German Altbier and the English Oatmeal Stout are starting to get lighter, so the English Pale Ale and the German Kolsch should take their places relatively soon.