#12 American IPA (that turned into a Belgian IPA)

After brewing lots of beers that have tended towards the maltier and less hoppy end of the beer style continuum, I thought a big aromatic, resinous American IPA would be a great beer to brew in order to change things up in my recent brewing trend.

One of my favorite American IPAs and a favorite beer in general has been Bell's Two Hearted Ale. I brewed my first clone of this beer a year and a half ago, and I've wanted to take another shot at it for a while now. I altered my original clone recipe that I had found online in favor of more toasted malts like Vienna and Victory to provide that "warm" malt flavor found in Two Hearted, and I went from six ounces of hops to a total of ten ounces of Centennial hops. The hop additions could definitely be overkill, but then again, with American IPAs, there's no such thing as "too hoppy". I chose to hop this beer in a method somewhat similar to the "hop bursting" technique, with a large number of IBUs coming from late hop additions in the boil and a few coming from early additions and first wort hopping.

Bell's Two Hearted Ale (clone #2)

Batch Volume (Gal): 6.00

Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 6.33

Total Grain (Lbs): 14.25

OG: 1.069   (aimed for 1.064)   Anticipated FG: ~1.012 - 1.010   

Anticipated ABV: ~7.5% - 7.8% (should be ~7%)

IBUs: 60.9 (should be 62 IBUs)

SRM: 6.7

Brewhouse Efficiency: 78%

Boil Duration: 65 min

Grain                                               (Lbs/oz.)   (%)

British 2-row Pale Malt (Pearl)         11            77.2

Vienna Malt                                      2.25         15.8

Victory Malt                                      8 oz.         3.5

Crystal 20                                          8 oz.         3.5

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

Centennial     10         15.8      0.5    First Wort Hop

Centennial     10          8.5     0.25             60

Centennial     10          8.7      0.5              30

Centennial     10          6.8     0.75             15

Centennial     10          6.8        1                10

Centennial     10          5.7        1                 5

Centennial     10          8.5      1.5                2

Centennial     10           0        2.5               0

Centennial     10           0          2           Dry Hop

Yeast

1200 mL starter of Safale-05 was infected with lactobacillus. Yeast cake from Biere de Table secondary pitched in its place.

Water

3/4 tsp Calcium Sulfate (in mash) (mash pH ~5.4)

1/4 tsp Calcium Chloride (65 min)

1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

1 Whirfloc tablet (10 min)

The 8 oz. of hops used in the boil (left) and the 2 oz. of dry hops (right)

I mashed in at 1.5 qts/lb for 60 minutes. The mash hovered around 151-150 F. I added CaSO4 every few minutes in an attempt to lower the pH of the mash. Not sure how accurate the pH test strips I bought from Northern Brewer are, but it appears that due to my water's chemistry, relatively pale beers hit the higher end of the optimal mash pH range (~5.4 - 5.5). The 3/4 tsp of CaSO4 appeared to lower the pH a small amount and allow the enzymes to provide proper conversion. The sulfates should also help to make the hop flavor and hop bitterness crisp and bright. 

A pint of Scottish 60 Schilling Ale

I finally had a water test done that will give me the ppm levels of bicarbonate, magnesium, calcium, sulfate, chloride, and sodium. Unfortunately I didn't get the results back in time for this particular brew. The information should help me hit the correct mash temperature based on the chemistry of my water, the beer I'm brewing, and allow for additional salt additions in order to produce a water profile that will suit the style of beer.

I tried to mashout at 170 F but only reached about 160 F for a few minutes. Adding near boiling water had little effect on the large mash, so the mash failed to reach 170 F. Reaching 160 F should have at least made any enzymes that would have otherwise dried out the beer less effective, maintaining the body sugars produced by the 151-150 mash temperature.

The wort looked similar to the way it did with the last brew; it was much clearer without the use of 5.2 pH stabilizer. There was much less protein in this brew relative to the Biere de Garde, but there was still the visible coagulation of protein during the boil.

First wort hop addition while collecting the wort

Since this IPA would be dosed with so many large hop additions, I chose to brew using whole flower hops rather than pellets. Pellets would create a huge slurry of hop particles that would have been difficult to strain from the wort post-boil, so going with whole flower hops allowed me to separate the hops from the wort using the "bazooka" screen in the boil kettle. It was great seeing so much hop flowers going into the boil and anticipating the incredible amount of flavor and aroma the Centennial hops will impart in this beer.

Hops during the boil

The brewday was going just about perfect, so of course there had to be at least one aspect of the day that had to go completely wrong. As I was aerating the beer with the aquarium air pump for 30 minutes (I chose not to use pure oxygen since I have not yet been able to see how it influenced the flavor of the Biere de Garde) I poured off the spent wort from the yeast starter I brewed for the Safale-05 ale yeast. As I poured I thought "wow, someone left their spent yogurt container out" only to realize that sour, tart yogurt-like aroma was coming from my yeast starter. Upon tasting it, I realized it tasted like yogurt; extremely tart and sour. I was crushed to have brewed a beer with so many ounces of expensive hops, only to have my yeast ruined by a lactobacillus infection. 

Luckily the two previous brews had plenty of yeast at the bottom of both carboys to repitch into the IPA wort. I chose to rack the Biere de Table into an empty keg and repitched the 3725 Biere de Garde yeast slurry into the IPA. Hopefully the flavors in the Belgian yeast will play against the aromatic, citrusy Centennial hops well. I love Belgian IPAs, so this may turn out to be a great beer and a fortunate mishap.

A bomber of the Belgian Dubbel

#11 Biere de Garde

After letting the Biere de Table sit in the fermenter after a surprisingly long fermentation at 70 F, I wanted to repitch the Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde yeast in a higher gravity Biere de Garde brewed for summer. I had intended to sour a portion of the base malt in a mash a few days before brewing this beer but realized I couldn't brew this upcoming week. I'd like to get into sour mashing at some point, but that may have to be at some point this summer.

Rye malt is one of my favorite adjunct malts and I wanted to brew a beer that would benefit from the spicy, tangy flavors it produces. I've used it before in a Rye Pale Ale that came out a bit too spicy, so I chose to lower the percentage of the rye malt in the grain bill from 13% (as in the Rye Pale Ale) to 5.4% for the Biere de Garde. Together with the same proportion of Biscuit malt, I'm hoping this beer ends up fairly bready, spicy, and tangy from the specialty malts used, as well as the Belgian yeast.

Biere de Garde

Batch Volume (Gal): 5.66

Pre-Boil volume (Gal): 6.33

Total Grain (Lbs): 14

OG: 1.068   Anticipated FG: ~1.012 - 1.008   

Anticipated ABV: ~ 7.4% - 7.9%

IBUs: 32.6

SRM: 7.4

Brewhouse Efficiency: 74%

Boil Duration: 65 min

Grain             (Lbs/oz.)    (%) 

Pilsner                 11          78.6

Rye Malt           12 oz.       5.4

Biscuit Malt      12 oz.       5.4

Wheat Malt       8 oz.        3.6

Flaked Oats       8 oz.        3.6  (unmilled)

Crystal 20          8 oz.        3.6

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

Northern Brewer     10.6     21.2    0.5          60

Cascade                     7.4       7.5    0.5          30

Northern Brewer     10.6      3.9    0.55          5

Cascade                     7.4        0     0.55          0

Yeast

Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde (repitched 130 mL 

of thin yeast slurry from Biere de Table)

Aerated wort with pure oxygen for 25 seconds

Water

1/4 tsp Calcium Chloride (in mash) (mash pH ~5.4)

1/4 tsp Calcium Sulfate (65 min)

1 Whirfloc tablet (10 min)

1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min)

I chose to, for the first time in a long time, mash this beer in without 5.2 pH stabilizer to see how well the grains would buffer the mash alone. At 5 minutes during the 60 minute mash, I was surprised to see the mash was close to the optimal 5.2 - 5.5 pH range for starch conversion. I added a small amount of calcium chloride to see how much the addition would lower the mash pH. The calcium chloride produced a small decrease in pH to the 5.4 pH I was hoping for. Once I can get a water test done, I should know exactly how to add calcium chloride and calcium sulfate in varying ratios to lower the pH of the mash into that ideal range, while also providing ions to the mash that will ultimately enhance the flavor of the beer. My past additions of salts in the boil have only provided flavor, but calcium in the mash will be a great substitute for the 5.2 when mashing as the 5.2 contributes too much sodium in the final beer.

Testing the mash pH after the calcium chloride addition at 15 min

I mashed for a total of 60 minutes at about 151-150 F which should produce a fermentable wort, resulting in a dry, high alcohol beer for summer drinking. I also chose to try a quick "mashout" by bringing up the wort that was collecting in the boil kettle to 170 F. Typically the wort that collects in the boil kettle is anywhere from 140 - 120 F, so I've always been concerned that there are still enzymes that have yet to be denatured by high temperatures and they continue to eat the sugars produced by the chosen mash temperature. In order to retain those sugars that will provide body in the finished beer, I'll have to experiment with raising the wort temperature to mashout (170 F) to help retain the character of the wort produced during the 60 minute mash. There is always the chance however that there is no additional enzymatic activity after the 60 minute mash and no additional "drying" of the beer occurs.

The new heat shield / wind shield

During the sparge the wort came out a bit cloudy, and I'm assuming this was due to the high protein content of the wheat malt, the rye malt, and the flaked oats. One of the big differences I noticed in the brewing of this beer without 5.2 was how the wort looked throughout the brewing of this beer. The wort began very cloudy (but tasted fine) but quickly cleared during the boil. I've never seen protein coagulation during the boil itself (other than hotbreak). The wort was so clear that I could see protein chunks floating  as the wort boiled. When using 5.2, the wort has been too cloudy during the boil to see anything. Once I chilled, the wort clouded up again, and only until I chilled the beer back down to 60 F did the wort clear once more as protein recoagulated. The finished wort came out of the boil kettle and into the fermenter crystal clear, so once this beer bottle conditions and the yeast drop out of solution, this could end up being a bright golden Belgian ale for summer.

I used my new oxygen system to infuse in a higher ppm of pure oxygen into the wort than I have been able to in the past by only using an aquarium air pump. By aerating wort with an aquarium air pump or splashing the wort in the fermenter, 8 ppm is the maximum amount of oxygen that can dissolve into the wort, and this number decreases as wort OGs get higher (1.060 and up). So at least when I'm brewing a beer over an OG of 1.060, I'll be using this new oxygen system to reach 8+ ppm of oxygen in the finished wort. This system is much faster and cleaner as well, only taking 25 seconds to properly aerate wort. That's opposed to the aquarium air pump that takes 30 minutes, doesn't aerate the wort sufficiently, and produces a mess as the beer foams up and spills out of the fermenter.

Coagulated protein in the boil

Using the oxygen system

Hopefully I will be able to dial in the amount of oxygen I need (or the amount of time needed to bubble oxygen through the wort) in order to get a good fermentation. High oxygen levels could result in watery, character-less beer and/or cell death (producing off-flavors from cell autolysis) however, so I'll have to make sure I never go overboard when diffusing oxygen.

I'll be waiting a while until the next brew. Not sure when I'll have another chance to brew, but I'd like to brew an American IPA for late spring / early summer anyway, so waiting won't be a problem. I'll be brewing a Bell's Two Hearted IPA clone with a total of 10 oz. of whole leaf Centennial hops. Two Hearted is one of my favorite IPAs and one of my favorite beers, and it will be great to get another chance to clone this amazing beer (this is attempt number two).

The Columbus hop rhizome is now a little hop plant. It's been doing well in the pot with the amount of sun we've had in the last few days. Leaves on each of the 3 larger bines are starting to unfurl and it's growing fairly quickly. Once the other two rhizomes arrive and all the snow finally disappears in NH, I'll have to plant them outside and build a small trellis to start guiding their growth.

Starting the Hop Crop

I was glad to receive my Columbus hop rhizome yesterday from Northern Brewer. I'm still waiting on the organic Cascade and the Northern Brewer rhizomes I have coming, but I thought I should get the Columbus rhizome in some potting soil as soon as possible. It already had a few bines starting to grow so it should take easily to the soil and be healthy once winter is over in NH and I can finally plant my hops out in the backyard. Although the first year's yield will probably be low, I should have a few ounces of dried hops (or wet) to dry hop or finish hop a few "hop harvest" IPAs.

The Columbus rhizome

I got around to bottling the two biggest beers I have ever brewed last weekend. The Wee Heavy was bottled after two weeks of fermentation and one week of conditioning. I'm a little concerned I bottled a little too early however as the final gravity was a little high for a finished Wee Heavy (FG 1.028). Hopefully the yeast will only ferment the 3.5 oz of priming sugar I added and there are no residual sugars that they can eat. I'd hate to have this beer be ruined by over-carbonation as it should be one of the best beers I've brewed so far. The "laurabelle" Barleywine I brewed back in February has been ready to bottle for a while now, and I wanted to let it age in bulk before dividing it into separate 12 oz bottles. I filled about 42 12 oz bottles, mostly of the Sierra Nevada stubby type of bottle, which I think really suits the Barleywine (or other strong ales) style. Soon I'll be labeling the brew and finishing the caps with bottle wax.

I plan on souring about a pound of pilsner malt soon for the soured Biere de Garde I have planned next. Should be a great brew for warm summer nights, if souring a portion of the mash turns out to be a good idea. 

After doing some research, the Wyeast 3725 Biere de Garde yeast actually sounds like it's more of a Saison yeast, a yeast from the Fantome brewery in Belgium. The Biere de Table fermented for an abnormally long time at about 70 F, only slowing a couple of days ago (8 days of fermentation for a 1.052 OG beer is somewhat unusual in my experience). The Biere de Table brewed two weeks ago and the upcoming soured Biere de Garde may actually turn out to be more Saison-like, which would be great for summer drinking. Saison is one of my favorite styles, so I wouldn't mind if these brews resemble the Belgian side of the Farmhouse ale tradition, although I wouldn't mind if they are still reminiscent of the French Biere de Garde Farmhouse ale style either.

#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.