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| The Terrapin Rye Pale Ale clone |
Since Reunion is about four weeks from yesterday, I brewed what will hopefully be the final batch of O Hike Ale.
I was able to taste the O Hike test batch while it continues to carbonate in the bottle before brewing and I chose to alter the fermentation of the beer. I think I failed to pitch enough yeast into the test batch, resulting in an under-attenuated beer after it finished at about 1.020. It's sweet, even for a beer of this size and bitterness, so I focused on pitching a good size pitch for the most recent brew of this beer. The fermentation also ran a little hot. Although 1056 is a great yeast to use if you can't control fermentation temps, the fermentation ran a little too high. In such a large beer, some of the harsh alcohols came through a little too strongly so the new fermenation chamber I built shortly before brewing this beer should help with this issue, as well as allow me to ferment beers correctly in the future which I'm really excited about.
O Hike Ale
Batch Volume (Gal): 5.5 (should be 6.0)
Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 7
Total Grain (Lbs): 18.71
OG: 1.076 (should be 1.081) Anticipated FG: ~1.015 Anticipated ABV: ~8.0% (should be ~8.7%)
IBUs: 70 (should be ~65)
SRM: 14.6 (should be ~14)
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60%
Boil Duration: 90 min
Grain (Lbs/oz.) (%)
Pearl 2-row 15 80.2
Crystal 40 1.5 8.0
Munich 1.1 5.9
Carastan 1.1 5.9
Chocolate Malt 0.01 (42 grains) 0
Hops (AA%) (IBU) (Oz.) (Boil[min])
Northern Brewer 12.3 25.9 0.5 80
Columbus 14 44.3 4 7
Amarillo 9 0 2 Dry Hop
Yeast
Repitched ~150 mL of thin slurry of 1056 American Ale yeast from American Wheat Ale
Water
Ca: 49 Mg: 2 SO4: 40 Na: 4 Cl: 40 HCO3: 50
(targeted Colorado water profile)
1 Whirlfloc tablet (6 min) 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (6 min)
Mash Schedule:
Single Infusion 60 min 151-150 F, 10 min mashout at 170 F
1.3 g SO4, 1.5 g CaCl2, 1 g CaCO3, 4 mL Lactic Acid (all in mash);
hit ~5.2 pH mash at mash temp
The one brewday I had hoped would go well turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I rushed to finish the fermentation chamber in anticipation of this brew, but made me unable to get my recipe, ingredients, and equipment ready in time for the brewday. Since Hurricane Irene came in on Sunday, that left Saturday the only day to brew in order to get this beer ready for the September Reunion.
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| The compost benefits from 18 lbs of spent grain and excess wort |
I had to assemble the mill after last weeks cleaning and the reassembly must have caused some issues for the drill. I just about burnt out the drill trying to grind my grain, and the replacement O-ring I used to space the rollers may have been too large and provided too much resistance, thus putting a larger than normal strain on the drill. Wet milling I believe has made a huge improvement in the quality of the grist; the husk is left mostly intact and pillowy while also separating the starch completely from the grain. I really think wet milling has improved my mashing and lautering, but wet milling appears to have made it much more easier to grind the husk into a paste on the rollers. It's difficult to remove, and soaking the rollers in PBW has only caused leaching of something out of the rollers, leaving behind black spots and remaining bits of husk. I may have to leave the wet milling behind or at least reduce the amount of water I spray the grain with before milling in order to avoid this goey mess left on the rollers.
Even though the milling of the grain was frustrating, it likely had little influence on the final beer; however the issues I experienced with the mash are more likely to have impacted the beer I hope to serve at Reunion. I believe I may have, in the process of using the wooden mash paddle to stir the grain, ground some of the grain husk through the false bottom in the bottom of the mashtun. Once it came time to empty the mashtun and lauter the grains, the flow was blocked by all this grain husk that I pushed through the false bottom. I spent a good twenty minutes with a wire coat hanger trying to remove the blockage only to finally resort to dumping the mash into two buckets, unclogging the valve, and returning the mash to the mash tun for the lauter. I've had this problem before, and I'm not sure the dumping and splashing of wort at this stage will result in hot side oxidation, but I'm worried it may be a detriment to the final beer. I am hopeful however that due the boiling of the wort shortly after this aeration, that all of the oxygen that I added to the wort during this transfer was boiled off quickly, before the oxygen could cause any long term damage to the wort. With all these issues, I'll have to taste the beer after fermentation and see whether or not I give it another shot and rush a batch in three weeks before Reunion.
On a positive note, I think the mash went fantastic even with complicated salt and acid additions. I wanted to closely replicate the Colorado water profile provided by the Can You Brew It show on The Brewing Network when they brewed their Gordon clone. I kept the sulfate to chloride ration just about equal, increased my calcium to just about 50 ppm, and upped the carbonates to about 50 ppm as well. This required the addition of Lactic Acid in order to acidify the mash in the presence of CaCO3. The brewing water chemistry calculators have been excellent tools when trying to imitate water profiles and/or targeting mash pH. I measured a mash pH of ~5.2, but I've had trouble knowing if that is measured with mash temperature accounted for or not. If it isn't, it should be a great mash pH, if mash temp is accounted for with the pH strips, it may be a tad low. I've been trying to push mash pH lower with each subsequent batch in order to see if a lower mash pH, and thus lower overall beer pH, will result in the more crisper and brighter beers I've heard talked about on Brew Strong on The Brewing Network.
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| The outrageously small amount of chocolate malt (brown, center) |
Due to the fact that I had to pour the mash in and out of the mashtun, I failed to collect a good amount of sugar that I should have from the mash. I bumped up the grain bill for this brew since I had failed to hit my target gravity at 75% efficiency. This time I had aimed for 70% efficiency to hit 1.081 but came up short again since my lauter was so inefficient after the stuck mash fiasco. The mash pH may have played a part in this, but I have no way of knowing since I had the issue with the mash. I'll have to see if a lower pH will result in this type of inefficiency in the future.
As a result of having an extremely low efficiency (60%) many of my other numbers were off. I chose to dilute the wort to 5.5 gallons rather than my typical 6 gallons post-boil in order to keep the gravity of the beer high. This however caused my IBUs to be about five IBUs too high (70 rather than ~65) and my color to be too dark (14.6 rather than 14). Again, I'll have to wait and see how this influences the final brew, but since it's not necessary that I clone a batch of beer for Reunion, I may end up being ok with this beer and choosing to hand it out anyway.
The chilling of the beer was another one of the few bright spots in this brew. After doing some research as to what my next chilling system may be (either whirlpool chiller ala Jamil Zainasheff or plate chiller) I figured I could at least begin to replicate a whirlpool chiller by more actively stirring the wort, post-boil, around in the kettle around the immersion chiller. The wort cooled quicker (~20 minutes to 60 F) than in the past when I have simply used the copper coils to stir the wort every 10 minutes or so. This seemed to at least replicate the activity of what a whirlpool chiller would produce, although I wasn't able to stir as constantly as a whirlpool chiller would be able to cycle the wort. This may or may not be my next project/investment in my brewing system, but I think it could greatly improve my reduction in DMS in my final beer as well as enhancement in the aroma of the final beer as the result of finishing hops in the boil.
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| Tasting the O Hike Test Batch during boil |
Even with everything that went wrong during this particular brewday, I'm willing to see how this brew turns out. It may or may not be influenced by the missteps I had during the day, but one thing I've learned as my brewing experience has increased, is that a beer is made during fermentation and not necessarily during "wort production" (aka the brewday). I'm hoping that pitching the correct amount of yeast and keeping the fermentation temperature under 72 F will save this beer, but I'll have to see once fermentation is done at the end of the week. The yeast slurry I pitched from the American Wheat ale was a bit thin, but it seems to have started fermentation fairly quickly, and the "fermentation chamber" I built shortly before brewing this beer is working perfectly at keeping this fermentation under control at 68 F. I plan on ramping up the temperature as things progress, so hopefully this will result in a nice clean brew. Whether or not I brew a second "final" batch of O Hike ale will depend on how this batch tastes at the end of the week.
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Building the Fermentation Chamber:
During the colder months, I've been lucky to have a basement that is relatively cold in order to ferment ales anywhere from 60 F to 75 F and an upstairs that would allow fermentation above those temperatures. However, as I've brewed more and more, I've realized that a sufficient, healthy pitch of yeast at the correct fermentation temperature is what makes or breaks a batch of beer. Ever since I began brewing all grain, I was overly concerned with the things that happened on brewday. While those things are important, they don't compare to the correct fermentation process in the production of beer, and it seems that only during the winter have I been able to attain this correct fermentation process with certain styles of beer. Winter has been great for high gravity British beers, while the summer has been great for Belgian ales, but I have wanted to forget about brewing seasonally for a while now, and the fermentation chamber will hopefully give me that opportunity.
The fermentation chamber I built should allow for a wide range of ale temperatures; so far it appears that I can reach anywhere from 60 F (without accounting for heat from fermentation) to whatever the ambient temperature is outside the chamber. I hope to find how to adjust the thermostat of the ac unit I have cooling the chamber in order to reach even lager temperatures, which will open up a new entire group of beer styles that I will be able to brew. I plan on purchasing a temperature controller prior to attempting any lager brewing, but for now, the internal thermostat of the ac unit seems to work perfectly for my ale fermenations I'm glad to find.
I built the fermentation chamber using 3/4 inch plywood screwed together with 2" foam insulation cut into place to create roughly a 2' by 20" chamber to fit a fermenter or possibly a keg(s). The gaps between the insulation were sealed with caulking. The door is another 2" piece of insulation on another 3/4 inch piece of plywood held tight by ratchet straps with weather stripping providing the extra bit of seal I need between the door and the body of the chamber. The ac unit I picked up off of Craig's List for 20$ and it's been working excellent for what I need. It's only 5,000 BTU, but since the chamber is only about eight cubic feet, the unit has little work to do to keep the chamber a few degrees colder than the ambient temperature. The fan runs constantly, with the ac kicking infrequently, so I think a temperature controller should help to turn off the unit entirely if I end up purchasing one. This should save on electricity, and I believe the unit will be even more efficient once only the ac turns on once and a while to maintain fermentation temperature. This chamber has worked excellent so far, so I hope it can help me make better beer in the future.
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| The fermentation holding steady at 68F while the chamber ambient is ~65F |
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