Brew13: Cream ale

Target abv:: 5
Max og : 1.0636

Target og: 1.052
Target brewhouse eff: 82%

Target size:1.5G

Grain (max ppg)

2 lb 2row (50.6)
  (10% 0.2 lb / 3.2 oz roasted)
0.5 lb (8 oz) whole foods bulk polenta (13)

Hops
2/10 oz Centenniel 9.9% 60 min
1/20 oz Centenniel 9.9% 5 min

Target ibu:

Yeast

Safale us-05 Dry ale yeast 3.75g

Water

2.5 G Arrowhead spring water

Prepare ice bath in cooler.

Mash:
  Cereal mash: 10% 2row + corn, 3qts per pound = 1.5qts @ 15 min 158-160F, 20-30 min boil

  Roast mash: Use 10% (3.2oz) of grain. Grind rest of grain. Roasted 75 min @ 300F

  After crystal grain finishes roasting, cool, grind. Start mashing rest of grain at 152F. (Mash temp was low closer to 140-142F)

  Measure mash wort with hydrometer.

  Lauter rest of grain. Measure sparged water with hydrometer and pH.

  Combine mash, sparge, and steep water. Measure with hydrometer. Boil.

Boil:

  Begin rehydrating yeast and boil wort for 60-75 minutes

• OG:  1.042 @ 118F

Chill in ice bath

• Chilled to 73F

At desired brew temperature 68-70F, remove boil pot from bath. Reset temperature of cooler water to desired brew temperature.

Strain wort into fermenter. Pitch yeast. Move fermenter into cooler.

Shopping List

Barley crusher
Calcium sulfate (gypsum)
Calcium carbonate (chalk)
Idophor
Iodine

Brew10 Tasting

Sweet, slight wood smoky aftertaste.
Tried mixing tangerine and clove in.

Beer was not too drinkable by itself as the sweet and smoky didn't work well. The tangerine and clove helped a little. Ultimately ended up mixing most of this beer with Sam Adams Winter Lager to give a good tasting beer.

~5

Brew11 Tasting

Clear beer! No real taste. Almost like light beer. Not sweet, not bitter, not hoppy, not malty. Pretty plain with a little bit of alcohol. ~5.5

Brew9 Tasting

Tasted 2 more bottles on Thanksgiving. Still decent Belgian style ale. ~7

Brew7 Tasting

Last bottle. Opened on Brew10 brew day. Tasted pretty much the same as when it was brewed. Perhaps a little less mouthfeel. Still good brew -7.5

Brew11 Bottling

Equipment: Boil pot, jars, draft bottle and cap, tasting bottle and cap, racking cane, tubing, hydrometer, iodophor, sugar

Steps:

1. Cold conditioned beer for ~24 hours start temp:~66F terminal temp:~50F
1. Airlock vodka sucked into fermenter due to vacuum
2. Boil jars for 20 mins 
3. Cap boiled water in jars 
4. Put jars in water bath to cool
5. Sanitize all equipment
6. Made sugar mixture of ~2.8 tbsp corn sugar and 5 tbsp water
1. Too little sugar! Need to recalculate this. I think it should be closer to 3.6 tbsp.
7. Add sugar mixture to bottles that will be bottle conditioned
8. Siphon from fermenters to bottles
1. Siphoned to small bottle first, clamped tube slightly and moved over large bottle, let go to siphon into large bottle
9. Measure FG, if haven't already
1. ~1.008 w/o sugar
10. Burp bottle before capping
11. Add water to fermenter 
12. Rack yeast water to large jar 
13. Rack large jar to small jars
1. Not much yeast captured

Brew12: Stout

Target abv:: 5
Target og: 1.048
Target size:1.5G
Grain
1.625 lb (1 lb 10oz) 2row base mash
0.625 lb (10oz) 2row dextrin mash
0.25 lb (4oz) black malt

Hops
Target ibu:30-40
1/5 oz Amarillo (9.1%) @60

1/5 oz Amarillo (9.1%) @30

Yeast
Safale us-05 Dry ale yeast 3.75g

Water
3 G Ro water

Prepare ice bath in cooler.

Mash:
  120 oz mash water treated with 1.5g CaCl, 0.5g MgSO4, 1.5g NaHCO3
  Start mashing base grain at 148F and dextrin grain at 158F.

• Base grain started high at ~155, quickly cooled to 146
• Dextrin started low at ~155F, slowly heated to 159

  Measure mash wort with hydrometer.
  Lauter rest of grain. Measure sparged water with hydrometer and pH.
  Combine mash, sparge, and steep water. Measure with hydrometer. Boil.

Boil:
  Begin rehydrating yeast and boil wort for 60-75 minutes

• OG: 1.036 @125F

Chill in ice bath

• Chilled to 75F before pitching yeast.

At desired brew temperature 68-70F, remove boil pot from bath. Reset temperature of cooler water to desired brew temperature.
Strain wort into fermenter. Pitch yeast. Move fermenter into cooler.

Brew11: Pale ale

Target abv:: 5
Target og: 1.048
Target size:1.5G
Grain
2.4 lb (2lb 6oz) 2row

Hops
Target ibu:40
3/20 oz centennial (9.9%) fwh
3/20 oz centennial (9.9%) 30 min
3/20 oz centennial (9.9%) 15 min

Yeast
Safale us-05 Dry ale yeast 3.75g

Water
3 G Ro water
3/10 tsp = 1g Calcium chloride added to strike water
3/20 tsp = 0.75ml phosphoric acid added to sparge water (5.5 pH at sparge temp)
  -- Add 0.6ml 70%! Tried to dilute back down, but seemed to only get back to about 4.9 pH

Prepare ice bath in cooler.

Mash:
  Crystal mash: Use 10% (4oz) of grain. Grind rest of grain.
  After crystal grain finishes roasting, cool, grind. Start mashing rest of grain at 151F.
  Measure mash wort with hydrometer.
  Lauter rest of grain. Measure sparged water with hydrometer and pH.
  Combine mash, sparge, and steep water. Measure with hydrometer. Boil.

Boil:
  Begin rehydrating yeast and boil wort for 60-75 minutes

• OG: 1.03 @ 120F

Chill in ice bath

• Chilled to 78F

At desired brew temperature 68-70F, remove boil pot from bath. Reset temperature of cooler water to desired brew temperature.
Strain wort into fermenter. Pitch yeast. Move fermenter into cooler.

Shopping List

Small hydrometer
calcium chloride
Phosphoric Acid
Yeast: Safale 05
pH strips or meter 4-7 range (at least register 5-6)
Auto siphon

Yeast rehydration

http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-guild/talk-brewing?g=posts&t=3462

Best to rehydrate in regular water at 95-105F (closer to 105F is probably better). Regular water is water that has the same hardness as tap water. Rehydrating in wort can be damaging. Rehydrated yeast should be pitched into wort around 30 minutes from initial rehydration.

Pitching rates

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/why-not-pitch-your-yeast-cake-166221/
http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php
http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_FAQ.html

For 1.5 Gallons, I need roughly 30-68 billion yeast cells. Dry yeast ranges from 6-20 billion cells per gram. So 4 grams or 1/3 of a dry 11.5g yeast packet.

The standard, according to Fix, Daniels, Bamforth et al., is one million active cells per milliliter of wort per degree Plato. Or:

1,000,000*1ml*1°P

Constants:

• There are 3785 ml per US gallon, or 18,925 ml in 5 US gallons. Round this up to 19,000 (19L) for ease of calculation if you do predominantly 5 gallon batches.
• One °P is roughly equivalent to 4 points of gravity. For an approximation, 1.048 is thus 12°P. This goes askew above around 1.060; in fact, you may find it simpler to consult a chart like this:http://plato.montanahomebrewers.org/ - or use the formula:

{Plato/(258.6-([Plato/258.2]*227.1)}+1 = Specific gravity 

Thus, for 5 gallons of wort at 12°P, we need

1,000,000 * 1 ml * 12°P, or 12,000,000 cells per ml.

12,000,000 * 19,000 = 228,000,000,000 - that's 228 billion cells.

You can expect around 1 billion active cells in a ml of harvested slurry, depending on how much trub and break material makes it into the fermenter. My counts ranged from 0.5 billion to 2 billion, depending on style brewed and brewery practice. 1 billion is a solid average across a dozen different breweries, professional and amateur.

Creating color

http://www.mosquitobytes.com/Den/Beer/Hmbrewing/Malt.html

For crystal/carapils:
Mash 2-row amount to be converted to color grain in french press at 160F for 1.5 hours at 1:1 ratio. 1oz wt:1oz liquid ratio.
Separate liquor and grain. Put liquor in mash tun.
Put grain on parchment or better on metal screen and roast in convection oven at 250+F for crystal, 240-F for carapils for 1.5 hours.

For other roasts:
Place 2-row in drum roaster. Set roaster to the following temp/times:

• Vienna malt
• 185-194F, 1-2h?
• Munich malt
• 221F, 1-2h?
• Chocolate malt
• 450F, <2 h
• Black malt
• 450F, 2-2.5 h

New lauter tun design

Grains are pulled from mash tun in bag.

3 pot system:
8 qt boil pot
6 qt hot water pot
4 qt sparge pot

Place grain bag in sparge pot. Ladle hot water into sparge pot. Stir gently for __ mins. Ladle sparge wort into boil pot. Repeat until wort pH is __ or gravity is __.

Brew10 bottling

Equipment: Draft bottle and cap, racking cane, tubing, hydrometer, iodophor, corn sugar, boil pot

Steps:

1. Cold condition beer
1. Skipped this step; beer was already cold
2. Sanitize all equipment
3. Made corn sugar mixture of 3.5 tbsp cane sugar and 7 tbsp water
4. Add sugar mixture to bottles that will be bottle conditioned
5. Siphon from fermenters to bottles
6. Measure FG, if haven't already
1. FG measured at 1.014 prior to bottling
7. Burp bottle before capping

Use hard alcohol in airlock

Shopping List

2 hydrometers

Brew10: Smoked Ale

http://www.tedbrews.com/2008/06/smoked-amber-ale.html
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f77/rogue-smoke-ale-clone-54890/

Single Infusion Mash (152, 60+ mins)

Equipment: Mash tun (6 quart crockpot, nylon bag), Lauter tun (8 quart & 4 quart sparge pots, strainer/steamer), Boil pot (20qt pot), Fermenter (2 gallon bucket), Airlock, Hydrometer, Idophor, Thermometer, wort chiller (1 frozen gallon bottle, 34qt pot, 8qt pot, ice), strainer, ruler, stirring spoon, scale, pint measuring cup

Recipe:

2.5 gallons kenmore filtered water

Target: 1.75 gallons wort, OG: 1.055

1 lb 12 oz (1.75 lb) 2-row base

4.8 oz (0.3 lb) Crystal 80

4.8 oz (0.3 lb) Cherry wood smoked malt
3.1 oz honey at 10 mins

IBUs: ~26

0.3 oz EK Goldings (5%) at 60 mins
0.13 oz Cascade (7.5%) at 60 mins

Yeast: Windsor Dry Ale Yeast (11g)

Steps:
Crush grain

1. Spray some water on grain and let soak for a few minutes
2. Put 8-12 oz of grain in santha
3. Run for 1-3 minutes (at least 1 minute, but not much more than 3 should be needed)

Mash:

1. If boiling prepare bath with 2 gallon ice
1. Skipped this
2. Heat Mash tun
3. Prepare strike water. Using ratio 1.5 qt/lb, 3.5 qts water to 165  F
1. Strike water closer to 170F
4. Temper in grains with strike water
1. Mash at ~151 to start!
5. With thermometer, maintain mash temp
1. Set crockpot to warm (water did dip to around 149F by the end)
6. Stir mash every so often
7. Prepare sparge water: ~175 F at .5qt/lb water loss to grain, 1.2 qts loss, 4.7 qts water, round up to 5
8. At end of mash, scoop wort over grains into lauter (4qt pot). When pot is full, pour wort into boil pot. Repeat.
9. Measure gravity.
1. 1.060 for 0.5 gallon
2. Hydrometer broke!
10. While measuring gravity and wort volume, sparge into secondary pot until reaching sparge wort amount or 1.75 gals wort in boil
1. Continued to sparge while boiling

Boil:

1. Bring wort to rolling boil
1. Stove had to go to 8; didn't reach rolling boil across whole wort
2. 20qt pot does not work on this stove!
2. Once wort has reached boil, pull 4 oz and chill to 90s F in water bath
1. Skipped this
3. Add hops according to schedule
4. Rehydrate yeast by pouring chilled wort over it. Shake to mix and measure/split mixture into 2 for fermenters
1. Skipped this
5. With a 10-15 minutes left in boil, sanitize fermenter, airlock, wort chiller, strainer
6. Near end, add extra water to reach target brew amount if needed
1. Added to get to 5.5" on 20qt pot
7. Finish boil at 60 mins
8. Chill wort in bath using ice bath and ice submersed pot
1. Took ~40 mins
2. Chilled to final: ~78F
9. Measure OG
1. Could not
10. Pour and strain wort into second
11. Pitch yeast
12. Cap with airlock/blowoff tubes

Brew1X: Jalapeno Ale

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/jalapeno-cream-ale-131294/

Brew9 Tasting

Bottle #1

ABV: ~9%

IBUs (calculated): 30

Aroma: Raisins, sweet but not overly so

Hops: Very slight
Yeast: low/none
Texture: medium/heavy
Finish: sweet, low alcohol taste
Duration: short (seconds)

Overall:7

Brew6 Tasting

Bottled from coors keg

ABV: ~7.5%

IBUs (calculated): 105

Aroma: Sweet lemon, slightly grassy

Hops: Definite pine, bitter
Yeast: low/none
Texture: crisp, light
Finish: dry
Duration: long

Overall:8

Still freakin good. A lot of original passionfruit aroma is gone, but the beer appearance-wise is really clear! A great beer for summer that I'd definitely brew again.

Brew8 tasting

Bottled from coors keg

ABV: ~5.5%

IBUs (calculated): 40

Aroma: Nutty, sweet

Hops: Very slight pine flavor
Yeast: low/none
Texture: medium
Finish: sweet, nutty
Duration: short (seconds)

Overall:8

Still freakin good.

Airtightness experiment

Equal amounts by weight
Add baking soda, cap as much as possible, add vinegar, cap with airlock
1 gallon jug first

This does work. The airlock bubbled FOR the jug, NOT FOR the rubbermaid 2 gallon octagon container, and FOR the 2 gallon vittles container.

White chocolate

~30% fat content
~30-50% sugar
~20-40% other solids

Hop tea experiments

French press (~180F for 6-10mins)
vs
Moka pot
vs
Alton Brown distillation (~200F for 20-30mins)

0.5 oz hops in 8oz water

Shopping List

Flaked barley
Styrofoam coolers
Grain mill (http://www.barleycrusher.com/barleycrusher.php)
Tap-a-draft bottle

Brew9 Cost Analysis

Materials cost:

• Grain: $20.68
• Hops: $4.23
• Yeast: $7.95+2.25 = $10.20
• Water: $0
• Sanitizing solution: $1.50
• CO2: $0
• Priming sugar: ~$0.25+0.85 = $1.10
• Bottles: $33
• Wire hoods: $2.62
• Corks: $15

Energy cost:

• Heating: ? ~$0.30 (~2 kWh)
• Cooling: ?

~$89

Brew9 Tasting

Force carbed ~10 oz

ABV: ~9%

IBUs (calculated): 30

Aroma: Cloves, sweet cherry, slight hint of banana

Hops: None, but sweetness is balanced well by bitterness
Yeast: slight bready-ness
Texture: medium, close to brown ale maltiness
Finish: sweet
Duration: short (seconds)

Overall:9

After all this beer has been through, I was pleasantly surprised. A very tasty belgian dark strong ale.