Choco-Berry Brown Brew Day Tomorrow

On Tuesday I stopped by the Red Salamander and picked up my grains for my Choco-Berry Brown. After getting a little advice from the guys in the Beeradvocate.com homebrew forums, I decided to stick with the original brown ale recipe, so that if anything is "off" it can be attributed to the raspberries. I thought that was a good idea, so the recipe will be the same as the River Grand Brown Ale except that I will be using Mt Hood hops instead of Sterling. According to Karl at the Salamander, Mt Hood should be even more neutral than the Sterling were. I picked up 8.5 gallons of water this evening, and I *THINK* I have enough propane to do my boil. I really need to get a 2nd or bigger tank one of these days... it will make my life easier if I can heat my sparge water on the propane burner too. Gotta clean the kitchen up tonight after dinner. I've got a full growler of IPA from Mt Pleasant Brewing Co... I think my ducks are in a row!

Potential upcoming brewdays...

All right, this is all very much subject to change, but I want to get this down "on paper" so that I can see how this might all work. See I would like to brew my Raspberry Brown ale next weekend if at all possible. But I would also like to potentially brew on June 20th, 27th, or 28th as well with a co-workers husband, so I just need to make sure my fermenters will be empty by then.

May 23rd - Brown Ale into Primary in Bottling Bucket
June 6th - Brown Ale into Secondary in Std Bucket with Raspberries
June 20th - Bottle Berry Brown (using Bottling Bucket)

Ok, so that kind of precludes brewing with the guy on the 20th, that day will be full enough and I'm not keen on bottling and brewing on the same day yet.

So, I'll have to talk to my co-worker and see what day she wants to pawn her husband off on me for brewing. She will have to pay for Grain, Hops, Water, Yeast, and Bottles, and give me a six-pack for "rent" on my fermenters. He said something about a honey-wheat beer, and I'm pretty sure he had American Wheat in mind. If that's the case... here's what I see as a potential recipe:

4lbs 2-Row
3lbs White Wheat
1lb Vienna
3lbs Honey

1oz Glacier 5.5% FWH

Safale S-05 (as always... could use the English yeast for more flocculation... but since it's a wheat beer, who cares?)

Step Mash
-Protein rest, 122°F 30min
-Sacch Rest, 154°F 30min
-MashOut, 168°F 5min

This needs to be in primary a minimum of two weeks, honey is slow to ferment.

I'd like to give my co-worker a cost estimate so she can decide if this is what she is doing. Here's what it would cost if I ordered all the ingredients from Morebeer.com:

2-Row: $1.25/lb x 4lbs = $5.00
White Wheat: $1.57/lb x 3lbs = $4.71
Vienna: $2.10/lb 1lbx = $2.10
Glacier*: $3.50/2oz x 1oz = $1.75
Honey: $12.50/3lbs x 3lbs = $12.50
S-05: $2.25/pack x 2packs = $4.50
Water: $1/gallon x 9gallons = $9
Total: $39.56

*Morebeer.com does not have Glacier in stock, so I'm using the price for Cascade. I'm pretty sure The Red Salamander has Glacier, and if not I have an extra ounce.

Now if he opted to not use real honey, and instead go with Honey malt and an all-malt beer, it would probably be about $5 cheaper. And... I still need to contact the Red Salamander and find out how much it would really cost. Or, just order it online for them.

Back in action!

It's been a LONG time, both since I've blogged, and since I've brewed. But finally, I'm back in action! After spending nearly a week up at the Mount Pleasant Brewing Co, I've got the itch and MUST SCRATCH!

I'll get into more detail in the next couple of days, but today I got some more equipment, including a brand new 50ft wort chiller, and some ingredients, and on April 4th, I'll be brewing a batch of Pale Ale with the hops from my sister-in-laws' hop farm over in Zeeland.

A new Mash Tun, a plan, a pale ale

So I may still have no idea what's going wrong with all my brews... but I have a bit of a plan. First off though... some encouragement in the form of new equipment!

I ordered a new Mash Tun and Sparge Assembly from brewd00d.com. I got the 48-QT model, which is big enough to do 8%abv or so 10gallon beers, so it should last me basically forever (I don't see myself ever doing 20gallon batches, I like too much variety for that much of a single brew, and I don't even see me brewing more than 5-gallons of some big beers). I got this "loaded" if you will, so I had the sparge assembly installed in the lid, and I ordered the sparge faucet which I will adapt into my old Mash Tun to re-fit it as a Hot Liquor Tank. This setup should allow me to reach 75%+ efficiency, Brewd00d reports 80-85%. This will save me some money, in some cases up to $10 on grain per batch. Next thing I need to do is build a 3-tier stand for my coolers to sit on for gravity feeding!

So as far as my infection problems go... These are what I see to be the possible causes of my problem:
-Infection from the air
-Infection on the thermometer that sits in the wort post-boil
-Overall sanitization
-Infection in the Fermenter
-My Cat?

If the infection is coming from the local (as in Grand River Valley, Portland MI) air, there's not much I can do about it, except be VERY careful not to splash the wort, and keep it covered at all times after boiling, and then use an oxygen tank to oxygenate, rather than shaking for aeration.

The thermometer? I'm not so sure... it's possible though, so I will not leave the thermo sitting in the wort. I won't even read the temp for 30 minutes after boiling, I know the wort chiller takes at least that long for now. Then I'll use my small steel thermo which will have been in the sanitizer, and put it back in the san when I'm done with it.

As far as overall santization goes... I don't honestly think I've been doing anything wrong there. I've brewed a few times with other people, and so far I seem to be slightly more anal than most I've worked with. There has however been one big difference. Nobody I've brewed with has ever used Iodophor as their sanitizer! They've all used an acid-based sanitizer, Star-san or off-brand equivalent. Now there's lots of discussion on the homebrew forums about which is better, and people seem to stick with what they like with no clear indication of which is the "best". All I know is that something I am doing is not working right, so I've got a bottle of Acid-san and will try that.

An infection in the fermenter, like a scratch with some bacteria growing in it? This seems to be the most likely scenario to me, and I don't know if I think it's very likely... The only thing I can do to combat this is to clean them real good, and sanitize them real good. Theoretically chlorine is no better at sanitizing than Iodophor or Acid-san, but I think I'm going to whip up a stiff bleach/water solution to soak my fermenters, lids, airlocks etc in, after giving them a thorough cleaning.

Lastly, my cat... Now I've heard that Cats harbor all sorts of bacteria, and I wonder how much of that is present in the air in my house? I wonder if my stuff that has been sanitized is getting infected post-sanitization? Or perhaps I'm picking up the bacteria in the air during transfer? I'm not sure... but next time I think I'll sanitize my fermenter and stuff, and then let them drip outside and transfer to my fermenter outside. Then I should never have to have my beer open to the air inside my house until after alcohol forms.

So, next weekend I will put my new Mash Tun and refitted Hot Liquor Tank to use, along with new sanitization methods, to brew me up a pale ale. I've got plenty of Summit to use as my bittering hop, and I picked up a couple of ounces of Glacier for my aroma and flavor. I think I'm going to skip dry hops on this, as most of the pales and IPAs I've made have been dry hopped, and I just want to know if I notice a difference right off. Since Summit and Glacier are both low-cohumulone hops (cohumulone being the compound in hop oils that causes very coarse, resinous, harsh, and strong bitterness) they should provide nice bittering without overpowering coarseness. Because of this I've taken this recipe right to the edge of American Pale Ale IBU range, which tops out at 50. Assuming gravities hit right, this should be basically 48 IBU. I'm very curious how the flavor will turn out, as I haven't had a beer with Glacier as the main flavor hops survive yet. Glacier is reported to have peach, apricot and orange notes, and Summit should be citrusy, grapefruit and tangerine perhaps, though there's not going to be much Summit flavor in this, the Glacier should really dominate. And with Summit and Glacier hops, I'm thinking I may have to dub this Frozen Peaks or something... So here's the recipe:

Frozen Peaks Pale Ale

8lbs American 2-row $12
1lb Victory Malt $2
.5lb Crystal 40L $1
9.5lbs Grain $15

.5oz Summit 16.7% FWH $0
1oz Glacier 7.4% 15min $2.50
1oz Glacier 7.4% 0min $2.50
2.5oz Hops $5

2-packets US-05 $4

9 gallons Absopure Spring Water $11

Total cost: $35 (not including propane, maybe another $5?)

Now I should get a OG of about 1.051 with 75% efficiency, and if I do well I could end at 1.056 with 82% efficiency or so. To achieve 1.051 on my old mash tun would require an additional 3.5 lbs of base malt. Since this recipe is using the American 2-Row, it's only saving me $5.25. However, if this was Maris Otter, it would be $7 savings (and if I, for example, brew a Maris Otter based Barleywine at about 10%, this new mash tun will save me at least $13). In relation to buying beer then... I'm about breaking even on this batch. A case of Samuel Adams might run me $30, plus tax and deposit. This should be a better (read: more flavorful, more grain and hops per gallon) beer than SABL, so I might equate this closer to Sierra Nevada or Founders Pale Ale. The Founder's could run me closer to $40 a case, so I'm doing pretty good there. And, theoretically, I should end up with close to a sixer more than a case of beer in a 5 gallon batch. To cut costs, I think my next step is water filtering, and trying the tap water in Portland. Maybe I can find someone a the club who has a filter I can borrow for a trial batch.

So my future brewer expansion plans look like this:

1. Build wood stand for HLT and MT for gravity sparging, kind of like these setups. This will be made of 2x4s and maybe 4x4 legs. I'll have to decide if I want the mash tun to be high enough to drain into the kettle right on the burner, or if I can drain to a kettle on the ground and go from there. It'll depend on exactly what height I decide I want my mash tun at. I don't want to have to bend over to stir, or climb anything to fill my HLT... but I also don't want to have to pick up a nearly 55-lb full kettle if I don't have to.

2. I might try to find a decent water filtering solution after this, because I think using filtered tap water will be my next big savings. I don't know what my exact price per gallon is on my tap water, but I'm sure it's less than the $1.19 or whatever that I spend on spring water, as my water bill is only $20 a month or so for the whole house. so I figure a water filter, if the water is acceptable, should save me at least another $8 a batch.

3. I think next will be oxygenation. I can get my wort all oxygenated so the yeast start fast and fully ferment with zero risk of infection with an oxygenation system. There's a couple of options, using either an air pump and filter, disposable oxygen tanks and cheap regulator, or "normal" refillable oxygen tanks and expensive regulators. All systems use an air-stone, like in an aquarium, to deliver the O2 into the wort. I tend to think I would go with a refillable O2 tank, so that someday I can upgrade to inline oxygenation, when I got to inline cooling, without having to buy a new tank.

4. After that will be my 2nd wort chiller for my pre-chiller setup I discussed in another post.

5. Then, I will likely try to get a bigger propane tank! Heating my strike and sparge water on the stove is cool and all, but eventually I want to this be an entirely outdoors operation. So I need a bigger tank so I don't have to fill up as often.

6. Next perhaps will be a new boil kettle, one with a spigot and ball valve. This will be in preparation for future upgrades to the cooling, oxygenation and transfer systems. Once I've got spigots on my HLT, MT, and Kettle, I'm ready to add pumps, counterflow chillers, and inline oxygenation. Then my brewery will need to be put an on all inclusive cart, since I won't need gravity anymore. Sweet =)

Wild!

There's at least one flavor that the majority of beer drinkers would, I'm sure, insist does not belong in beer. There are likely many more, but the one I speak of today is: Sour. Yup, sour. You might not think that Sour would be a very good flavor in beer, but let me tell you, there are some wonderful sour beers!

Currently, I am drinking a Rodenbach, a red ale from the Flanders region of Europe (on the boundary of France, Netherlands, and Germany). The sour in this beer is awesome, not a mouth-puckering sour, but smoothly sweet and sour. It's really a treat. Another sour beer that I have tried and REALLY enjoyed was Festina Peche from Dogfish Head. Festina Peche was a Berliner Weisse (sour, light German wheat beer) fermented with peaches.

In the Flanders region of Europe, and in Belgium, many sour beers are produced through spontaneous fermentation, in other words they let the natural yeast and bacteria in the air "infect" their beer and ferment it. In this case, the infection can come from many agents: Saccharomyces (regular beer yeast), Brettanomyces (another yeast), Lactobacillus (bacteria in Yogurt), Pediococcus (bacteria that makes Sauerkraut), and others less desireable single-celled beasties. In the production of the Lambic style of beer for example, the cooled wort it allowed to sit uncovered for a period of time to allow the infection of yeasts native to the Senne valley around Brussels.

So this led me to wonder... Are there enough native yeasts and bacteria in the Grand River Valley around Portland for me to get spontaneous fermentation? The answer is... yes. After brewing my Colin's Colsch recipe the second time last Friday, I took my gravity sample and left it outside all night, and in a window sill all day. As of this morning, something is causing some bubbles and fermentation to occur. I don't know yet what it is, it could be weeks before it even ferments out, but I'm very curious to find out what I harvested! So we'll see if that pans out and if I can brew a Wild Portland ale!

But in researching everything I could about wild ales and wild yeasts/bacteria, I found some good notes on how to make Berliner Weisse. Apparently the key is... DON'T BOIL! A guy had posted a recipe in a thread on BeerAdvocate. It was very simple. Do a step mash with lots of wheat malt... and then let it cool and ferment for 6 months. See the missing step? Straight from Mash, to chill, to ferment! And apparently what ends up fermenting the beer is Lactobacillus spores on the grain itself! The trick is (apparently) to mash up to 175F, which will kill most of the nasties but leave the Lacto to live. So, I plan on trying this in November. I will probably buy a new fermenter just for this, since it's going to take 6 months... but I would LOVE me a Berlined Weisse come next May or June!

I'll let you all know how my wild experiment turns out!