Laminated Envelope

After all of the infections in my past 8 batches, then cleaning and sanitizing all the equipment, it was finally time to test it. I made some new adjustments to my brew house to help facilitate the brewday as well. I split my cold and hot water lines for my laundry and added Fresh Water hoses to it so I have water in the brew house now (no more running back and forth to the bathroom for strike and sparge water, or cleaning). I also got some plastic 4.5 cup measuring cups for hops. While my strike water was heating, I thought it best to calibrate my thermometer only to find it was 7*F off, meaning that on the past few batches when I thought I was mashing at 147*F, I was really at 140*F... thus 83% attenuation on my Bitters with yeast that stops at 72%. This also made my mash hit 159*F instead of 153*F, so I hit it with cold water until it evened out at 153*F.

After I ran off my first runnings, I hit it with my sparge water and gave it a good mix. Started to run off the second runnings and noticed that it was quite slow from 7.5-8 gallons, then no movement at all... my very first stuck sparge (23 batches). I gave it a good stir, recirculated, and ran off the remainder to 10 gallons @ 1.040. 1.040 was supposed to be my OG post boil. I hit 90% efficiency. Had to think on the fly for this one. I didn't want a 1.050 Blonde Ale, so I topped it off with cold water to hit 12 gallons preboil @ 1.033, and added another 0.10 oz of Zeus for the adjusted bittering. Boiled it down to 10.5 gallons in an hour for an OG of 1.037 (should have boiled another 15-20 minutes to get it closer to my desired OG of 1.040). My Immersion Chiller - designed for 5 gallon batches - took the 10.5 gallons from boiling to 90*F in about 22 minutes, not bad (another 15 minutes to get it to 65*F).

After letting it settle, and sanitizing my Better Bottle, conical, and a 6.5 gallon plastic bucket, I started running it off into the Better Bottle (measurements are fully calibrated on it). At about 1.75 gallons, I stopped the flow and dumped it from the BB to the bucket, then filled the BB to 4 gallons and dumped it into the conical (which was severely off on its measurements). Then I sent 4 gallons to the BB and the last of it to the bucket (2.5 gallons total). I aerated the BB and conical and pitched the 1.5L West Yorkshire starter into the two batches. I pitched a starter of Brett I made from Orval previously into the bucket for a Brett Blonde with the extra wort (didn't want to pitch the yeast for 8 gallons into 10.5).

The Blondes were rocking within 16 hours, and full bore by 30 hours, but the Brett Blonde was still a no-go at 42 hours, so I dumped the rest of the Orval starter into it before work and came home to a nice pelicle. After another 36 hours the pelicle is full bore and bubbled up nicely. Another 24 hours later and the Brett Blonde has a krausen. Wort stability test was still showing no activity at one week, which is awesome, I opened it and it is pure fresh wort.

After one week, I took samples and readings on all of them. The Better Bottle smells of peaches, melons, and a touch of sweet malt at 1.010. The conical is at 1.007, the aroma is lightly phenolic and has a light dirty fruit smell... I am thinking the conical is infected and will now house sours only which sucks since it would be perfect for lagers, yet I want to do more sours so that works too. The Brett Blonde is acidic, light, funky, a little fruity, and slightly oxidized (I dumped the whole 2L 8 month old starter into 2.5 gallons, to be expected), and it is @ 1.007 as well.

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American Blonde Ale
10.5 gallons
20 IBUS

4 SRM
3.5 ABV
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11# Pale Malt
1# Carafoam
0.5# Honey Malt
45 minute mash @ 153*F
90% Efficiency
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60 minute boil
60 mins 0.20 oz Zeus 15.4% AA
25 mins 1.00 oz Amarillo 10.4% AA
0 mins 1.00 oz Amarillo 10.4% AA
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1/4 tsp Gypsum - Mash
3/8 tsp Calcium Chloride - Mash
1/4 tsp Gypsum - Boil
1/2 tsp Calcium Chloride - Boil
1/4 tsp Yeast Nutrient 12 mins
1 tab     Whirfloc 12 mins
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Chill to 62*F
Pitch 1.5L Starter WY 1469 West Yorkshire
Split to 3 fermenters
Ferment 68*F for 7 days
Ambient for 21 days
Bottled 18 - 12 oz bottles w/ 4 carb tabs each from Better Bottle only
Soured all remaining beer
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OG 1.037
FG 1.010

Just for fun... the name of the beer came from an infamous day for a co-worker that she will never live down. Back when our new branch was just opening and didn't have their own laminating machine, they would send any items for laminating to our main branch. The branch sent a couple new membership cards over to have laminated and placed into an envelope that was ready to mail to the members. The sticky note said "Please laminate and mail to the members" meaning, laminate the cards, place in envelope, and mail. The blonde of all blondes placed the cards into the envelope, then laminated the envelope and sent it back to the branch with a big question mark. Thus, an apt name for a Blond Ale... Laminated Envelope.

It's Been Awhile

As you can easily see, it's been awhile since I posted on the blog, and I thought that an update might be in order. Here are a few things I have been working on and brewing. After the last brew when I tested my efficiency, stabilized my system, and began to work on my own brewing "software" a lot has happened.

I brewed a partigyle Wee Heavy with Heather Tips and a Scottish 90- that was aged on Oak and Laproiage Islay Scotch. The beers didn't turn out as I'd liked. They are way too fruity and not very malty. The 90- is much further down this line than the Wee Heavy. All of this is recipe based. I added both c120 & Special B which added tons of fruit and none of the caramel and subtle dark fruits I was looking for. The peat malt came off quite phenolic. Using 1056 subdued any maltiness I was looking for and through off lots of fruit. I have already reworked the recipe to remove the c120 and Special B, and added French CaraMunich and CaraVienna for light caramel and toasted sugar, and British Dark Crystal for more of the same, and went for 1968 London ESB to pull of a heavily malty character.

I also brewed a second partigyle, a 10.6% Imperial Stout with Chipotle & Cherries, and a Session Stout with Orange and Cinnamon. The big beer was fermented for 3 1/2 weeks, then aged 1 week with Chipotle and 3.75# Sweet Cherries, then another 3 weeks with just the cherries, then aged 1 more week on its own before bottling. It is quite smooth, fruity, dark, rich, chocolaty, and a slight roast. The second beer was quite devoid of character. I took a tip from Gordon Strong and cold steep some more Chocolate Malt, C75, and Black Patent, boiled it with more orange zest, and added it to the fermenter. I also added Malto-Dextrin at bottling for some more body and also offset all the oil from the orange zest so there is still great foam and head retention.

For Christmas I got my refractometer and and an aquarium temp control unit (I will post more about this in another post). I also got a second Better Bottle which was great for my next brew session. I did a "SmAsH" (Single Malt and Single Hop) type beer. I say type because I used Magnums for the bittering addition since EKGs are low in Alpha Acids and way too expensive. I used Great Western Pale Malt, and finished the batch with 3oz of EKG hops in the last 15 minutes of the boil. I then split the 8 gallon batch into 2 Better Bottles and pitched 2 different yeasts: WY 1968 London ESB and WY 1469 West Yorkshire. Come end of fermentation I used the new temp controller to up the temp for a Diacetyl Rest. I then crashed the beers to clear them. The whole thing went great, but I ended up under carbonating them since the app calculates based on temp and I used the crashed temp not the ferment temp.

My library finally got Farmhouse Ales after a year of waiting for it. While reading it I brewed a simple Saison using the WY special Farmhouse Ale strain. I mashed at 147*F, the same that I did last Summer when I brewed my two Saisons using the Dupont strain WY 3724 Belgian Saison, but the beer didn't finish as low as I had hoped (the 3724 took the beers down to 1.004 & 1.005, 3726 to 1.008). After a week in the Better Bottle at a constant 75*F, I primed and bottled in champagne bottles for added stability against the higher carbonation and the possibility that the beer might not have been finished at bottling.

I have also made a lot more adjustments to the brewing spread sheet I created. I added a refractometer adjustment section that takes the Brix and calculates OG, efficiency, and once fermentation is finished converts for alcohol to give FG, and ABV. I also added all of the malts with gravity, Lovibond, and cost from the homebrew shop as well as flavor descriptions. I was able to get a list compiled of all the hops in one of the fridges with all the Alpha Acids. I will be adding the cost and flavor aroma profiles for all of the hops as well and adding the second fridge's stock as well.

I also used my temp controlled fridge to maintain a constant 71*F to carbonate the Saison and my Imperial Stout. I will be posting some taste reviews soon on all these beers once they are carbed up and ready, so be watching for these blogs as well as a how-to-build your own dual stage temp controller for $40 (why pay $150 for a Johnson or Ranco).

Efficiency Experiment: The Results Show

As planned, I did my efficiency experiment this past weekend and I think I found my culprits. I double milled my malts to ensure a good crush. I mashed with 1.5 qts/lb. I ran off my first runnings and measured them so I could hit my sparge water volume perfectly. I got my pre-boil volume perfect. I boiled for an hour, and added hops on schedule and lost exactly 1 gallon to boil off which is what I wanted. I hit 80% efficiency (measured pre and post boil).

When I went to fill the conical... not even enough volume to register on my measurements (which start at 4.5 gallons.) I topped it up with a measured 1 gallon of water to see where I was at, and hit 5 gallons on the nose. I lost 1.5 gallons of wort to my hops and kettle! I had been chatting with Denny Conn about my issues as well and he said that he figures about 12oz of beer lost to 1oz of hops. I had 7.5 oz of hops (5.5 whole, 2 pellet) and that would give me roughly 3/4 of a gallon lost to hops, and 3/4 gal lost to keggle pick up tube. That brought my efficiency down to 60%.

Efficiency Experiment

As stated in a previous post, my efficiency on my last batch was shotty. I took a look at all 11 of my all grain brews and the efficiencies I've had, and they are always jumping. My first batch, a Black IPA, I got 66% from 13# of grain, using US Pale base malt. The second, an English Bitter, I got 83% from 8# of grain, Marris Otter base. The third and fourth, both Wheat beers, I got 76% from 19#, on a split batch, 65% Wheat, 35% Pils, batch 5 was a sour of the remaining wort from that mash, in which I hit (I assume) about 78%. Batch 6, a Saison, was 70% from 9.75#, Pils base. Batch 7, same day, a second Saison, 76% from 8.25#, Pils base & 25% Rye. Batch 8, a Mild, 72% from 8#, Munich I & Victory base. Batch 9, a Lambic, 75% from 11.5#, Pils, Vienna, and Wheat. Batch 10, same day, a Fresh Hop IPA, 68% from 13.5#, US Pale base malt. Batch 11, a Brown, 62% from 14.5#, US 2Row base. As you can see, there isn't any real consistency in my efficiency, so I decided I need to actually get the process refined and find my efficiency. I will be conducting an experiment to find out my volume losses and efficiency.

Broke Down Brown

Seeing as the leaves are changing, the sun is mostly gone, the days are shorter, the skies are gloomy, the temps have dropped, and everything is wet here in Eugene, I took a look at my brews. I have a Mild in the bottles, as well as a Fresh Hop IPA. I have a partigyle Wee Heavy & 70- Scottish Ale planned for early November, and an Imperial Stout / Oatmeal Chocolate Stout partigyle planned for early December. So I have 2 beers ready that need to be consumed quickly, and the next brews won't be ready to drink until mid to late December; I thought it would be nice to have a nice, dark, smooth, malty beer to snuggle up to on the cold, gloomy fall evenings. I wrote up a recipe for a Brown Ale with American Two-Row, Abbey Malt for maltiness, lots of Pale Chocolate Malt, a healthy dose of C60, and some Flaked Barley to give it a nice smooth mouth feel. Gave it generous additions of Nugget, Zues, and Amarillo hops, and its set for some dryhopping this weekend. But then... where did the name come from?

I had my buddy over to help me brew, and we did it after work on Friday (late start). I worked up the water additions and everything on this one. We let the strike water heat while we ate dinner, then doughed in... wait a second... I forgot the additives I spent 3 hours figuring out! Go to measure them out... wait a second... my scale just jumped from 0 grams to 4 grams... it's not measuring accurately! Pinch of this, pinch of that... fingers crossed!

Set the Brew Timer on my smart phone... wait a second... it keeps stalling, the timers went off as they should, but I had no way of knowing how long had passed, nor how long was left!

I added the sparge water at almost boiling to the mash to try to get up the temp for the sugars to move more fluidly... dumb mistake... now this is a no-sparge!

Collected our wort and fired up the burner... just about 195*F I notice there is no longer a flickering under the pot... wait a second... out of propane!

Hooked up the second tank and commenced to boil. Added all my hops, everything is going good. My buddy, a new father, had to take off while we were chilling, so I was going to drain the kettle myself, no problem since I usually brew solo anyways. Everything is sanitized, draining from the Keggle into the conical perfectly. Check my OG, 1.061, just right! Clean up my stuff and then look at the fermenter... wait a second... the volume is at 4 gals and not moving anymore! 2 gals short!

Look inside the keggle and... wait a second... the pick up tube stopped working! Tried to get it working to no avail. Sanitized my hands and un hooked it, tipped it up, still nothing. Sanitized a strainer and removed the hops. Still nothing. Sanitized a mason jar and drained it by hand, one scoop at a time. Got to 5.2 gals @ 1.061... wait a second... that's only 62% Efficiency!

I ended up boiling a pot of water, and after cooling, added it to the conical to bring the volume up, the gravity and the IBUs down.

Needless to say, I think you know why the name is Broked Down Brown!