Batch #5 - Banana Wheat Ale

I am going after that always tricky banana flavor again today with our Banana Wheat Ale.  This time we are using the Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin recipe as the base Wheat Ale recipe, however we are using a different yeast, and will not dry hop the batch.  Below is today's recipe:

3.68kg US 2-row 50%

2.77kg wheat malt 37.6%

90g home toasted wheat malt 1.2%

830g torrified wheat 11.2%

Boil for 90min

11g Nugget 9%AA at 90min

2g Horizon 12%AA at 90min

2g Summit 17.5%AA at 90min

8g Willamete 5.2%AA at 45min

27g Santiam 5.6%AA at 15min

9g Willamete at 15min

WYeast 3333

Mash at 150F for 45 minutes

Ph at 5.5

Pitch at 72F for 7 days

Rack at 72F for 4 days

Cold Crash at 36F for 3 days

Keg and Carbonate

The brew day today went very smooth except for one part, trying to set the ph for the sparge.  For some reason I keep overshooting the level with lactic acid.  I will add 1ml and let the water circulate in the HLT for 10 min and take a reading, it was showing 6.6.  I added 1ml more, let it circulate, took another reading, 6.4.  I added 1ml more, did the same circulation for 10 min, took another reading and it was showing 4.8!  No idea why the big jump, or if it was correct.  I need to read more on my ph meter and see if there is something I'm doing wrong.

Other than that part, everything else went great.  I have the beer fermenting right now, can't wait to see it tomorrow doing its magic!

Today I also took a moment to do a quick video of the brew day to show how the mash process works on this brew system.  Enjoy!

Tasting Notes - Batch #1

Batch #1 - Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA Clone
Style - IPA

Targets 
OG - 1.077
FG - 1.025
ABV - 6.81%
Efficiency - 92%

Actuals
OG - 1.071
FG - 1.011
ABV - 7.86%
Efficiency - 85%

Misc
IBU's - 47.89
Color - 1.069

Appearance
The appearance of this beer matches the Dogfish Head very closely, however there is a slight bit more chill haze in our brew.  It is an inviting color, pours with a nice head.

 Smell
The hops are present, but a little more subtle than Dogfish Head.  They have a light floral aroma, and notes of citrus.  Though it doesn't match the Dogfish Head, it is a pleasant smell.

Taste
This beer is not very bitter, low IBU's.  The biggest different between ours and Dogfish Head is that ours is missing any Chocolate Malt flavors.  There is a hint of it in Dogfish Head, and none used in ours with no taste of Chocolate Malt.  It is very slightly sweet up front with a smooth finish.  Many of my neighbors who are not craft brew drinkers really liked it, which tells me it wasn't too strong in any direction.  Some people felt they could taste Grapefruit.  I suspect so because of the sweetness up front, and the slight bitter taste for a finish.

Mouthfeel
This is a great beer to drink, not too heavy and not too light.  It doesn't coat your mouth.

Overall
Though I think this a fail in trying to create a Dogfish Head clone, it is a good beer on its own.  Probably not hoppy enough to actually be called an IPA, probably more a simple Pale Ale.  We used two different yeasts on this batch, Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) and White Labs 0041 (Pacific Ale).  I felt the American Ale yeast was a little less dry and slightly sweater, or with more hints of fruit.  The Pacific Ale also had fruit notes, but they were more subtle.  Both yeasts cleared out almost the same.  I would make this brew again as people really liked it, however as this was our first brew, some of what we did will not be re-creatable.  If you read our notes from that brew day you will see the challenges we had that we worked to overcome.

We just kegged Batch #2, and hopefully will be able to taste next week.  We'll see if we improved!

Weekend of Bottling and Kegging

This is the first weekend we took off from brewing. However there was no shortage of work to complete! We had four carboys ready for kegging today. That is a lot of cleaning, sanitizing, etc... I actually had to purchase two more kegs on Friday so I would have enough kegs.

I am getting ahead of myself though. First let me say that Batch #1 was finally ready to drink this weekend. The weather here was perfect, so Friday after work I opened the garage door, and the beer was flowing. Most of my neighbors stopped by for a sample, or two, or three. We were out there until around 11pm, it was great. Feedback was very positive!

Saturday I needed to free up some kegs, and clean out the two new ones I bought on Friday. I bottled the last of the British Brown Ale, which only had about 4 bottles left in it. Then I bottled the last of keg 1 from Batch #1. To my surprise we only had about 10 beers left! We really went through a lot!

Today was all about cleaning the kegs, kegging, and transferring Batch #4 to secondary. The tasting notes from the batches we kegged today are as follows:

• Batch #2 - This batch was split and fermented with two different yeasts, an American Ale yeast and American Ale II yeast. Visually the American Ale yeast looked great, it had really cleared out. The American Ale II yeast though was still cloudy. Tasting of the two was ok, but there was an odd finish to both. Am hoping that is going to settle out as it conditions.
• Batch #3 - This beer really changed its flavor from last week when we transferred. It has lost a bit of its sweetness, and gained some good hops from dry hopping. We did not split this batch so both 5-gallon carboys have the same ingredients.
• Batch #4 - We transferred this into secondary today. Tastes a bit sweet like Batch #3 did at this stage. Am doing a little something different for dry hopping this time, am going to us a mesh bag to hold the hops so hopefully they fully submerge into the carboy.

Cleaning Kegs

Transfer of Batch #2 to Kegs

Next weekend we will be brewing our Banana Ale. Already looking forward to the next brew day! We will also have two more kegs to do. The beer is backing up!

Batch #4 - Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin Clone

Today was a "take 2" of the Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin. Last week when we brewed we suffered a bit of a stuck mash. Our HERMS system takes the liquid from under the false bottom in the Mash Lauter Tun (MLT), circulates it through the Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) to heat up, then is deposited back on top of the grain bed in the MLT. Last week's issue ended up being that the grain bed was too dense, this was due to a couple of factors.

First, wheat is a heavy ingredient in this brew. As such wheat is more dense than barley. When you crush a barley you get the husk as well as its insides. Wheat does not have a husk. A trick you can do is to add rice hulls to your mash to create that airspace needed so the grain bed doesn't get so dense.

Second, I crush the grain a bit finer than other people with this similar brew setup. After learning this I set the crusher to a larger gap (.045 inch).

With these two adjustments made, today's brew went much smoother. The mash was spot on temperature, I was able to mash out by raising the temperature up to 169, then I sparged for 1 hour. Everything went as planned.

Yesterday I prepped everything ahead of time for today's brew so I wouldn't have to worry about measuring anything, cleaning, transferring, etc... That work paid off today as I was able to relax during much of the brew session. The only item I needed to do today was to transfer last week's brew to secondary and dry hop. Outside of that it was all brewing! (lots of cleaning as you go too)

I also spent today cleaning up the freezer fermentation chamber. I made two mistakes in setting this up last week. First I did not check to ensure the defrost plug was completely secure. I ended up having puddles all week that needed cleaning. The other item is I did not setup my blow-off tubes correctly and some overflowed into the freezer bottom. After I transferred the batch in there today I cleaned up the freezer and secured everything for today so as not to repeat this week with another mess.

All-in-all I am very happy with the rhythm of today's brew day. There was not any lost time anywhere, everything flowed around well (with no spills), and cleanup was better and easier today as well. Brew days are long, and getting more efficient not only produces better brews, but saves time.

Right now it takes me around 9 hours on brew day! Some key time factors:

• 30-45 minutes to bring 20 gallons of water in the HLT up to 155 degrees
• 30 minutes to transfer water to MLT and bring temp back up
• 30 minutes putting in grains, stirring, and setting ph level
• 45 min mash
• 20 min mash out
• 60 min sparge
• 20-30 min to bring up to boil
• 90 min boil
• 45 min chill and transfer to fermenters
• The rest of the time is cleaning...lots of cleaning!

No idea what the above actually calculates to, and some recipes have different mash times, and boil times, but that is the bulk of it time after time.

I should also mention I got to taste Batch #1 as I Kegged it yesterday. Tastes really good for our first batch. The original Dogfish Head 60 min IPA I believe has some chocolate malt in it (I need to investigate that). Our recipe did not, so you don't that that subtle flavor, which is ok by me. I do believe the dry hopping could have been better though, as I don't think I got the full effect. Issue was many of the hops simply laid on the surface of the wort. I think there are tricks you can employ to ensure the hops remain submerged.

Today I also got to taste last week's Batch #3. I think this tasted great! Really looking forward to how this weeks improvements improve the taste between the two batches.

Next week we will be kegging batches #2 & #3, and brewing a new batch of Banana Ale. Until then!

 

Batch #3 - Little Sumpin Sumpin Clone

On Saturday 9/2/12 we brewed our 3rd batch.  A clone of Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin.  A beer I've only recently tried, but really enjoyed.  It is an American Wheat Ale with a bit of hops.  While shopping recently at Brew and Grow I mentioned to one of the guys who work there who brew that I wanted to do this recipe, and he turned me onto the Jamil Show on the Brewers Network where this was podcasted:

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/705

This episode is an interview with the brewers at Lagunitas where they share their recipe for Little Sumpin Sumpin.  We needed to reduce the recipe to our size brew, and I figured someone online already did this, so I found the following which matched my quick calculations (found here):

3.68kg US 2-row 50%

2.77kg wheat malt 37.6%

90g home toasted wheat malt 1.2%

830g torrified wheat 11.2%

Boil for 90min

11g Nugget 9%AA at 90min

2g Horizon 12%AA at 90min

2g Summit 17.5%AA at 90min

8g Willamete 5.2%AA at 45min

27g Santiam 5.6%AA at 15min

9g Willamete at 15min

24g Cascade dry hop

24g Centennial dry hop

24g Simcoe dry hop

24g Chinook dry hop

18g Amarillo dry hop

15g Columbus dry hop

WLP002

Mash at 150F

Pitch at 62F, raise to 68 after 36', then raise to 70F after another 36'.

We actually had to do some small variations on this recipe as our hops were not at the same Alpha levels, but using a simple online calculator we could convert to the proper amounts for our needs.  After plugging this into our beer recipe tool it showed that it would be lower in IBU's than the original, but I was ok with that as I wanted more of a hint of hops.  We'll see how this turns out and will increase next time if needed.

Our brew day went ok except for our mash phase.  For some reason we were not getting good flow through our HERMS system between the MLT and HLT, and temps were slow to adjust.  We think the liquids were just struggling too much getting through the grain bed.  This might have been the case because this recipe calls for lots of wheat instead of our usual grans.  What this taught us is going forward I am going to bring up the strike water about 4 degrees above our mash temp before mashing.  This way we start mashing at temp once grains are introduced and we don't have to mess with bringing up the temp, rather just maintaining it.

The rest of the brew day was usual hanging around, drinking home brews, and lots and lots of cleaning!  We did get to transfer our Batch 1 (Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA Clone) to secondary and start dry hopping.  We got to taste it, and wow there is a big difference.  We really have taken our beers up a significant notch here!  We can't wait to try this now.

I did make a mistake in dry hopping the IPA though, I forgot to split the hops between the two carboys, instead I dumps x2 the hops into the first carboy.  So that one will be our Double IPA!  Fortunately I had enough hops on hand in my inventory to do the second carboy properly.  We will be kegging it next weekend.

We also added a new piece of equipment to our gear.  We picked up a reach in freezer which we have controlled by a Johnson Control Thermostat Controller.  We are using this to ferment our beers so we can control temps to within 1 degree.  I have read a lot about how fermentation temperature control is simply crucial, otherwise you are often taking a shot in the dark.  Yeast simply tastes differently at different temps, and no two yeasts are the same.  For example the Little Sumpin Sumpin clone calls for 36 hours as 65 Degrees, 36 hours at 68 degrees, then complete out at 70 degrees.  Try to do that in your basement without temp control!

Here is our upcoming schedule of beer related work:

• Bottle Case of British Brown Ale on tap for our friends in Indy who helped us brew it
• 9/8
• Keg Batch 1
• Transfer Batch 2 into secondary and dry hop
• Take a look at Batch 3 to see progress
• 9/15
• Batch 1 should be ready to drink!
• Keg Batch 2
• Transfer Batch 3 into secondary and dry hop
• Brew Weekend!  Time to brew Batch 4
• 9/22
• Batch 2 should be ready to drink!
• Keg Batch 3 (will probably need to bottle remaining Batch 1 prior to free up the needed 2 kegs)

Upcoming Schedule of Brews

We are trying to plan out our next several brews.  This helps us identify what ingredients we can buy in bulk, as well as work out schedules of fermenter use and ready to drink dates.  With holidays coming up in several months, you have to start planning now!  Here is what we have so far:

• Little Sumpin Sumpin Clone - To finish off Summer right!
• Banana Ale - The always elusive banana ale recipe we keep trying.
• Pumpkin Ale - Yum
• Strong Belgian Ale - Haven't determined what kind yet.
• Holiday Ale - A nice brew we made last year for the holidays with lots of flavor.
• Stout - Haven't determined what kind yet.

Since we are brewing about every other week, this is about 3 months of brewing.  As there is about a one month turn around time on brewing to drinking, that means the last beers won't be ready to drink for 3-4 months, which puts us right at the holidays and winter.

After we get all these brews under our belt we may start a lager which takes much longer to make.  Lagering a beer is going to be a little tricky as you have to keep at cold temps for extended periods of time.  Since we brew 10 gallons at a time, that means we have 2 carboys of beer to keep cold during this process.  Doing this in the winter time gives us a few more options as the garage will be cold all day and night.  We'll see though if that makes sense when the time comes.

Today's brew, Little Sumpin Sumpin!