#18 American Wheat Ale with Willamette Wet Hops

A Willamette hop cone on the bine

After debating whether repitching from previous 1056 batches (Terrapin Rye Pale ale and the O Hike Ale test batch) or pitching a fresh pitch of 1056 into a small beer would result in a better batch of O Hike Ale, I chose to go with the later. The O Hike test batch is still in the process of dry hopping and so I figured it was premature to remove the beer, leaving the dry hops and yeast cake behind. The Terrapin Rye is just about finished fermenting and almost ready for bottling, but I figured I should just be safe. Rather than repitching yeast that has been with the Rye ale for the past three weeks, I thought it would be best to grow a new pitch and repitch it into the O Hike Ale just after wrapping up fermentation on a low (~1.040 OG) wort. My past experience with repitching yeast into a second, high gravity beer soon after fermenting a low gravity beer has yielded some of my best beer by far, and I hope the same will happen with the O Hike Ale.

I had a few style options from which to choose. In order to produce a large quantity of the healthiest yeast I could propagate I purposefully chose the style in order to minimize IBUs, color, and gravity of the beer. That ruled out pale ales, brown ales, etc. I had hoped to brew an American Rye, but my local homebrew store was out of Rye malt. I chose to go with another wheat beer before the end of summer. The recipe turned out to be very similar to that of the Belgian Wheat, so it will be useful to contrast the two once the American Wheat has finished fermentation.

A Willamette hop bine with cones

I was also lucky enough to brew with some fresh, wet Willamette hops from Bert's Beers in Hooksett, NH. Bert apparently has more of a hop crop that he can utilize as a homebrewer, and when I stopped in the store for a mixed six pack, he was offering some of his Willamette crop for free. I was only able to come away with 1.5 ounces of wet hops (roughly 0.3 ounces dried) so I wasn't able to brew this beer with a huge finishing hop charge at the end of the boil, but I think this small amount of fresh hops should offer a noticeable contribution to the flavor and aroma of this beer. I'm still contemplating whether or not to dry hop with an ounce of Centennial after fermentation as this may likely cover some of that delicate flavor and aroma from the Willamette wet hops; I'll plan on kegging this beer, tasting the finished beer, and then either dry hopping or drinking the beer as is depending on how much I enjoy the finished aroma.

American Wheat Ale with Willamette Wet Hops

Batch Volume (Gal): 6

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 5.33

Total Grain (Lbs): 10

OG: 1.044   Anticipated FG: ~1.010   Anticipated ABV: ~4.5%

IBUs: 19.7

SRM: 4

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70%

Boil Duration: 75 min

Grain              (Lbs/oz.) (%)

Pearl 2-row         10        50

Wheat Malt         10        50

Rice Hulls           8 oz.  (at mashout to improve lauterability)

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

Willamette   4.8       19.7      1          60

Willamette    ~           0       0.3         0           (Wet)

Centennial   9.1          0        1      Dry Hop

Yeast

 Pitched 1056 American Ale yeast activator pack directly

Water

Ca: 86 Mg: 2 SO4: 8 Na: 4 Cl: 8 HCO3: 148 

(targeted Munich water profile)

1 Whirlfloc tablet (10 min)   1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

 

Mash Schedule:

Single Infusion   60 min at 152 F, 10 min mashout at 170 F

4 g CaCO3 (in mash), 6 mL Lactic Acid (in mash); 

targeted and hit 5.4 mash pH

4 grams of CaCO3 and the 6 mL of Lactic Acid

I was excited to find that for the first time I was able to dial in my mash pH using a new excel sheet that I believe was created by John Palmer, author of How to Brew. I've been experimenting with an online brewing water chemistry calculator when looking to imitate a specific water profile or create my own, but until today I had not yet been able to use salt and acid additions to dial in mash pH. My aim was to imitate a Munich water profile just as I had done with the Belgian Wheat before; however, soon after I had added CaCO3 to the boil of the Belgian Wheat I realized that CaCO3 solubility is dependent upon being in the presence of acid and will only dissolve partially when added to the mash. Most likely I added very little if any HCO3 to the beer when I added it directly to the boil during the brewing of the Belgian Wheat. Most of it likely remained insoluble and precipitated to the bottom of the kettle, failing to make it into the final brew.

Willamette wet hops before the "flameout" addition

When in the presence of an acid such as Lactic Acid however, CaCO3 appears to be at least equally soluble/insoluble if not completely soluble. I'll have to do some more research on this topic but I am hoping that much more of the CaCO3 was able to solubilize into the mash in the presence of acid. 

This was also my first instance of using Lactic acid or any acid for that matter in the acidification of the mash. Up until now I had only acidified the mash to a very small extent when brewing using salts (CaSO4 and CaCl2), and these additions were simply based off of the color of the mash as a predictor of pH of the mash. Using this new excel sheet, I mashed in at exactly the pH I had aimed for (5.4), to the level of accuracy that my pH strips will allow. I have meant to experiment with lower mash pHs with the expectation that a lower mash pH will allow for a crisper and cleaner finished beer. Higher conversion pHs (5.6-5.8) are known to produce a beer that is softer and "rounder" whereas lower conversion pH (5.5-5.4 and lower possibly) produce a beer that is crisper and "brighter" due to a more acidified beer. It will be interesting to see how playing with mash pH will influence the resulting beer, something I hope to do now that I have Lactic Acid as another tool to produce this result.

Spraying the grain before "wet milling"

Other than a few issues with the milling of the grist and overshooting my original gravity by a few points (aimed for 1.040), the brewday went well. I was a bit amazed to see how little hotbreak, coldbreak, and over all protein there seemed to be in the wort. With wheat malt I expected a much cloudier wort. I believe after stirring up the grain bed during mash out may have re-suspended the protein from the husks, and caused the protein to be filtered out by the grain bed during lautering. It's hard to know whether separation of a large portion of the protein from the finished wort is a positive or negative for the finished beer; it may result in greater clarity of the finished beer, yet it may withhold necessary protein useful to the yeast during replication/fermentation.

Since the activator pack I pitched was manufactured only ten days ago, I am confident it will do a great job fermenting this relatively low gravity beer and will offer a healthy population with which I can ferment the "production" batch of O Hike Ale. After fermentation, I plan on cold crashing this beer in order to squeeze out all of the yeast I can. Once all the yeast settles out, I'll have a large yeast cake on the bottom of the fermentor from which I can scoop out the healthiest pitch of yeast. One of the parameters that I hope to improve on in the "production" batch of the O Hike Ale over the test batch is the size of the repitch, and a large repitch will be essential for fermenting the batch I hope to produce.

The Willamette wet hops after the end of the boil and during chilling of the wort