Batch #19 - IC 5150 Ale

This week's brew is a tribute to a famous craft ale brewed out of Colorado.  The hint of that brew is in this title.  Here is a pic of the nebula IC 5150.

This week's brew session went fantastic.  I feel I have my software dialed in now as I hit all my marks.  This is a lower gravity beer as well, so that probably helped.  Here is the recipe:

Batch Size - 5 gallons

Grains

9 lbs 14.1oz - 2-Row Belgian

1 lbs 3.8 oz - Special B Malt

9.9 oz - Munich Malt

9.9 oz - Crystal 120L

Hops

0.52 oz - Brewer's Gold 10.4 alpha (90 min)

1.41 oz - Saaz 3.1 alpha (45 min)

Yeast

Wyeast 1762 - Belgian Abbey II - Target 223 billion cells

The brew schedule was as follows:

Mash

1.25 q water/lb

90 min at 152 degrees

Mashout to 170 degrees for 10 min

Sparge for approx 1 hour

Boil

90 min boil

Start - Add Brewer's Gold

45 min - Add Saaz

Final 10 min - Add Whirfloc

Fermentation

Primary - 14 Days @ 65

Secondary - 21 Days @ 55

Keg Condition - 21 Days @ 60

Here are the specs on this brew:

IBU's - 

Color - 20.5 SRM

Calories - 193 per 12 oz

Estimated OG - 1.058

Actual OG - 1.059

Estimated FG - 1.013

Estimated ABV - 5.9%

New Estimated ABV from OG - 6.0%

I hit all my numbers on this brew which felt real good.  The only part that didn't go complete to plan is factoring in how much wort evaporates getting the brew pot up to a boil.  I need to figure that part out and include it into my software.  The reason for it being an issue is it reduced the amount of time the starter hops were on.

The next time I brew I also am going to pay close attention to getting gravity readings right at flameout, and then in fermentor.  I sort of tried to do so this time, but got caught up in activities.  I took a reading at flameout and was at around 15 brix which is where I wanted to be.  I later took a reading from some of the wort going into fermenter and it was a higher reading, too high.  I then waiting until the entire wort transferred into carboy and took a gravity reading with my hydrometer which was in line with what I was looking for.  Lesson is next time I am going to really focus on these readings and understand how (if at all) gravity readings change from taking a reading in boil kettle at flameout vs. final chilled wort in carboy.

I am lining up some cool spring/summer brews to get going over the next few weeks.  Getting ready for these cold temps to break!

Batch #18 - Bode's Bourbon Barleywine

I have taken on the name Bode's Bourbon Barleywine for this brew.  Am trying to finally tie some astronomy into my beer names.  For those interested, Bode's full name is Johann Elert Bode.  He is credited with finding Bode's Galaxy (M81), as well as having a hand in naming Uranus (hehe).  Below is Bode's Galaxy.

After trying a big Imperial Stout a couple of weeks ago (which is still fermenting), I decided to take on another big beer with a Barleywine.  Here is the recipe I used:

Batch Size - 5 gallons

Grains

16 lbs 13oz - Pale 2-Row

1 lbs 3.9 oz - White Wheat

1 lbs 2.3 oz - Cara Belgian

15.3 oz - Caramalt

9.2 oz - Munich Malt

9.2 oz - Caramunich Malt

Hops

5.35 oz - Fuggle (60 min)

1.61 oz - US Goldings (10 min)

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 - American Ale - Target 625 billion cells

The brew schedule was as follows:

Mash

1.25 q water/lb

90 min at 158 degrees

Mashout to 170 degrees for 10 min

Sparge for approx 1 hour

Boil

150 min boil

Final 60 min - Add Fuggles

Final 10 min - Add Whirfloc and US Goldings

Fermentation

Primary - 14 Days @ 65

Secondary - 30 Days @ 70 on Bourbon Soaked Medium Char American Oak

Keg Condition - 30 Days

Here are the specs on this brew:

IBU's - 66.4

Color - 10.5 SRM

Calories - 357 per 12 oz

Estimated OG - 1.101

Actual OG - 1.093

Estimated FG - 1.029

Estimated ABV - 9.6%

New Estimated ABV from OG - 8.5%

A few notes on this brew.  First, I have learned for reasons I am still learning (if that makes sense) that when brewing a high gravity beer it is easy to have a lower efficiency than normal.  This proved to be true for this brew as I fell a little under my mark.  After brewing I watched this video which gave me some ideas for next time:

Another part of this process which I'm dialing in is my BeerSmith2 software setup.  There are many dynamics to this software that take time to learn.  Not only learning about the software, but learning about details of your beer equipment and process.  Going into this brew I felt I had things dialed in pretty well, however my results were not completely what I was expecting.  What I'm also learning is that I can take a gravity reading at the end of my boil to see if I'm where I should be.  If too low then I simply need to boil more.

More on the idea of boiling more.  This is a bit trickier than it sounds because you add your hops at specific times.  With that said I have been using the following calculator at Brewer's Friend:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

There is also a tool in the BeerSmith software to help with this too.  Using a tool like this will help determine how much more you need to boil off before you hit your gravity.  Knowing how much you need to boil off, and the rate your system boils off wort, you can determine the amount of time it takes.  For example I use 1.8 gallons per hour of boil off, so if the software tells me I have 1.8 gallons left to go, then I know I have 1 hour left.

As you can see there are some moving parts here.  Ideally you hit your pre-boil gravities so you don't have to modify along the way and you end up with the exact volume you are hoping.  However you have to be flexible to hit your numbers.  Remember the bitterness of hops are balanced by the sweetness of the beer, so if you get either too out of balance you may not like the results.

So far the fermentation is going well.  I made a huge starter and pitched it a couple of days after the brew.  I of course wanted to pitch it on brew day but the starter being so big took a big longer than expected.  If you are solid in your cleaning and sanitizing, then there should be no issues with simply holding the wort ready to ferment in a closed container (in theory, though adds risk).

What I learned from last time is to aerate the wort well.  Immediately after pitching the yeast I ran oxygen for as long as I could before it started to foam over.  I let it settle a couple of hours, then did it again.  I let that settle a couple of hours, then did it again.

If you watch the above video John Palmer discusses that really what would be better is to pitch the yeast at high krausen.  This is something I am going to read and learn more about.  Previously I've been allowing the starter to complete, then settle, then decant off the top beer leaving the slurry.  I then swish the slurry around to stir it all up and pitch.  There seems to be debate online regarding pitching the spent beer which is why I decant it off.  However in order to pitch high krausen you have to pitch the fermented beer too.  More reading to come...

This weekend I am going to go simpler and brew a Fat Tire Clone.

A Lesson on Efficiency

An area that has perplexed me a bit in brewing is the term "efficiency".  I have heard some people throwing out numbers like 70%, or 80%, even as high as 95%!   I built an Electric Brewery system where the designer claimed to be getting very high efficiencies, in the 95% area.  I figured as I have the same equipment, any deviation from that would be surrounding my techniques.

One of the other great mysteries to me about efficiency is what my software was telling me.  My iPad software iBrewmaster asks you to enter your system's efficiency, then when the brew day is over and actual numbers are in, it calculates the actual efficiency.  I was doing great to hit 85%, pretty far off the 95%.

Then I started to use Beersmith2, and wait a minute, what is this "mash efficiency" it is talking about?  A picture is starting to form here, that maybe there are multiple measure points of efficiency.  By chance a great thread started on the Electric Brewery forums which discussed exactly this topic.  Turns out other people were wondering the same, and out of this some clarity surfaced.  You'll have to look past some of the frustrated posts made at one point, but after that some of the real figuring out of the calculations take place.

http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26250

Posted within this thread is a great article from Brewer's Friend:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2012/11/30/making-sense-of-efficiency-definitions/

After reading through these, some things started making more sense.  Back around Batch #9 I started making only 5 gallons batches.  Making 10 gallons each time was leaving a lot of experimental brew left over at times, so while experimenting doing 5 gallon batches made more sense.  If you notice in Batch #9 I started hitting bad gravity numbers.  I went through everything thinking I was making mistakes in process, I even found out that the Cargill grains I switched to had a lower diastic power, however with these reads the clarity finally hit.

Going to 5 gallon batches changed my brewhouse efficiency %.  It was as easy as that.  Since there is trub and wort left in the boil kettle after transfer to carboy, as well as wort in the chiller and hoses, that volume does not change between 5 gallon and 10 gallon batches.  However as a percentage, against a 5 gallon batch it is a higher percentage.  With that said, that reduces the overall percentage of efficiency the entire brewhouse is getting.

So what is the point of all of this?  The goal is if you have a good understanding of these numbers, you can more effectively use these software tools.  This will allow for more consistent brews and hitting your target numbers.  Well fact is if you brew the same recipe over and over, you would iron out the recipe over time to become consistent.  However if you are bouncing around a lot doing different recipes as I have been lately, then understanding efficiency is important because the only constant is the equipment.

I am probably not done learning this dynamic.  I'm sure there are many other aspects to fully understand, but I at least feel like I've learned and figured out something pretty big.

Batch #17 - Belgian Tripel

I thought it would be nice to brew a Belgian Ale today.  The below recipe is a bit stronger than a traditional Belgian.  Today's brew day was nice and warm, however I did not hit the numbers I was hoping to.  I have been trying to dial-in and learn Beersmith2, unfortunately this was some of my issue today.  Fortunately after the brew day I immediately figured out my issues and am confident things will be tighter next go around.

Here is today's recipe:

Batch Size - 5 gallons

Grains

10 lbs 6oz - Belgian Pilsner

14 oz - Cara-Pils

14 oz - Flaked Maize

1 lbs 11.7oz - Sugar

Hops

1.22 oz - Hallertauer

0.41 oz - Saaz

Yeast

Wyeast 1762 - Belgian Abbey II - Target 420 billion cells

The brew schedule was as follows:

Mash

1.25 q water/lb

60 min at 153 degrees

Mashout to 170 degrees

Sparge for approx 1 hour

Boil

60 min boil

Start - Add Hallertauer Hops

50 min - Add Whirfloc

55 min - Add Saaz Hops

Fermentation

Primary - 14 Days @ 70

Keg Condition - 14 Days

Here are the specs on this brew:

IBU's - 15

Color - 3.7 SRM

Calories - 100 per 12 oz

Estimated OG - 1.072

Actual OG - 1.060

Estimated FG - 1.010

Estimated ABV - 8.1%

New Estimated ABV from OG - 6.6%

As you can see I ended up with too low an OG.  I took a gravity reading pre-boil and should have been at 1.050, but was at 1.047.  I figured this was not too far off given the high gravity of this beer so I did not adjust.  Where my big mistake was made was I (for some reason) had the brew at a 90 minute boil.  The software then calculated a higher starting pre-boil volume assuming I would boil it down.  However I only did a 60 minute boil, so I ended up with 8.1 gallons in my brew pot.  Generally due to trub loss, wort I can't get out of boil kettle, and shrinkage, I normally lose almost 2 gallons.  Working backwards I really should end my boils around 7.5 gallons (as I look to put in 5.5 gallons into fermenter).

After later running the numbers if I had boiled this down I could have come close to the OG I should have hit.  Oh well...

My next mistake was with my yeast starter, this is still a bit new for me.  The yeast had settled down in the flask, so I was pouring off the excess starter beer to leave the yeast, but I had stirred a bit of yeast up in the process that I didn't want to lose.  I ended up with 2L of starter yeast that I pitched into the wort.  I ended up overflowing my fermenter a little.

Who knows though, maybe this brew will surprise me.  We'll see though, right now I don't have high hopes.

Batch #16 - Bourbon Imperial Stout

This was the longest, most difficult brew day I have ever had.  I knew it was going to be a challenge every step of the way in trying to take on a huge 13% ABV Imperial Stout.  There are so many things at play which contribute to this challenge.

First, developing the proper grain profile.  The types of sugars (fermentable vs unfermentable) is a big factor.  These brews need to finish a bit high in FG.  What I've read is ideally somewhere around 1.030 to 1.035.  Going much lower loses mouth feel and thins the beer out, being higher results in too sweet a beer.

Second, the mash and boil will be different to get that amount of sugar out.  Using standard 1.25qt to lb water to grist ratio requires a lot of water for mash, not to mention added water needed to sparge.  This results in more wort volume than needed for the boil, which means a very long boil to get it down to the right amount.

Third, handling the yeast and fermentation.  Most ale yeast strains do not hold up past 11% ABV.  Any higher and the alcohol will kill the yeast itself.  There are some strains that can handle higher, but they are a bit trickier to use because they could take the FG down too low if not careful.  Another option is to start with one yeast, which will contribute the most to the flavors, then finish with another as needed to manage the FG.

Fourth, this is a bourbon oak aged stout which requires proper oak aging.  Since I am brewing on a smaller scale and don't have full bourbon barrels, I need to soak small amounts of charred oak in bourbon and pitch into secondary to age.  Everything I read references a surface area to volume ratio, this is difficult to do with oak spirals.  I have experimented a little using oak this way.  The first time I let an ale sit on whiskey oak (batch #7) for a month.  That batch evolved on a daily basis after kegging until ultimately settling down about 3 weeks later.  Initially it was too oaky, then the vanilla started to emerge, then all flavors settled down.  I had broken up batch #7 into 2-5gallon batches.  The second batch I let sit on oak for 2 months, and I just kegged that yesterday.  It tasted too oaky again to me, but this time I am going to let it sit for a few weeks before passing judgement.  Based on this outcome I am going to use this to determine how long to age the stout on oak.  My secret hope is that 2 months is too long, which means I found the point of going too far and can dial it back.  Plus that means beer quicker!

Here is the recipe I ran with:

Batch Size - 5 gallons

Grains

15 lbs - 2-Row

5 lbs - Munich Malt

4 lbs - Chocolate Malt

2 lbs - Crystal Malt 60L

2 lbs - Roasted Barley

1.5 lbs - De-Bittering Black Malt

28 oz - Light Pilsner DME (will explain this later)

8 oz - Molasses (will explain this later too)

Hops

7.8 oz - Willamette

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 - American Ale - Target 600 billion cells

The brew schedule was as follows:

Mash

1.25 q water/lb

120 min at 150 degrees

Mashout to 170 degrees

Sparge for approx 1 hour

Boil

4 hour (roughly) boil

Final 90 min - Add Willamette Hops

10 min - Add Whirfloc

Fermentation

Primary - 14 Days @ 62

Secondary - 30 Days @ 70 (will depend on how long to oak)

Keg Condition - 100 Days (maybe longer)

Here are the specs on this brew:

IBU's - 60

Color - 87.4 SRM

Calories - 510 per 12 oz

Estimated OG - 1.139

Actual OG - 1.138

Estimated FG - 1.035

Estimated ABV - 13.9%

This was an incredible learning experience, and it was such a long brew day.  With clean up, it was a solid 14 hours.  Let's talk through the day.

It started find, measured and crushed a lot of grain.  This is not too far off the volume of grain for a 10 gallon batch, so I figured the mash would be pretty straight forward.  I mashed at a lower temp (150) to pull as many fermentable sugars as I could.  After the mash I brought the temps up to 170.  It took a bit longer than I expected because of the volume of grain, but it did get there, and I let it sit for 10 min.

Once I started the sparge, I noticed differences.  The top of the grain bed was a bit frothy so it was hard to tell where the grain bed actually was.  While sparging I also doubted the accuracy of my site gauge, mostly because I couldn't tell where the grain bed line was by looking in, and it simply felt off.  I figured with the higher amounts of sugar it was possible it got clogged.  Eventually I got the sparging leveled off, and felt it ultimately went well enough.  Ultimately I used all the water from my HLT, interestingly enough that proved to be 16 gallons of boil wort (I started with 20 in my HLT).  Through evaporation, some loss of liquid in lines, and grain absorption, 4 gallons went away. 

With 16 gallons to boil, it was time to take a gravity reading.  Initially I was going to take one just to see where I was sitting, then the plan was once I got down to 10 gallons, which would be the amount I'd want to normally start a boiling session with for 5 gallons, to take another reading.  Unfortunately the readings I took at the 10 gallon mark made me feel my gravity was too low.  First I had to get the sample down from a boiling temp to a measurable temp.  After cooling things down I was only getting readings around 1.085 when my pre-boil calcs said I should be around 1.109.

Unfortunately the brew shop had already closed, but fortunately I had some DME on hand for my yeast starters and I had about 8 ox of molasses.  In an act of winging it, I threw what I had into the boil pot.  I let that dissolve then tried another reading, however I was still getting too low of readings.  At this point it was as far as I could take it though as I had nothing else to throw in unless I wanted to start another mash.

My system boils off roughly one gallon every 30 minutes.  As I was at 16 gallons and I needed to reduce to 10 gallons to start my recipe boil, that was 3 hours of boil time to reduce.  My goal initially was to end with 8 gallons of wort so I wouldn't be scraping the bottom of my BK to get every drop of wort.  However with the lower gravity readings I was seeing, I decided to push that boil down as low as I could take it and still get 5.5 gallons into a fermentor.  With shrinkage from cooling, and some loss, that meant taking things down to about 7.5 gallons.

Where I ended up was pitching the hops in 90 minutes before end of boil, and I took it down to 8.5 gallons.  Cooling the wort was also tricky as it was so thick.  Though I was pulling out foaming proteins right before the boil started to avoid lots of proteins settling later, the hop blocker still got pretty clogged.  It was slow to pull everything out, and I had to regularly scrape the hop blocker to clear the hops and stuff clogging it up to allow liquid through.

The moment of truth was upon me, to take that real reading of what I had left.  It came in at 1.138!  With a target of 1.139 that was fantastic to see.

Cleanup was a bit longer because this stuff was thick.  I had to run lots of hot water through everything, and lots of general scrubbing.  The cleaning seemed quick though knowing I hit my target SG.

I pitched the yeast, which I felt for my second starter the yeast looked good, and first thing this morning I checked things and saw the usual signs of a good fermentation.

Next steps will be to see how far this yeast takes the batch.  I plan to let it do it's thing over a couple of weeks, then will take a reading.  Will watch the activity as well of course and my take a reading sooner if things slow way down.

The funniest thing I learned during the session was that taking a gravity reading with my refractometer for something that is in the 1.138 area is not possible.  Their was no blue line through my eyepiece.  In fact rather than seeing my usual blue/white view, it seemed angry and was a pinkish white all over.  I chuckled to myself and moved onto my hydrometer.

I am very excited about this brew.  I have completely fallen in love with this style beer, and when the good ones cost $15-20 per 22oz bottle, having 640 oz on hand for $60 to make is music to my ears!  Time will tell if I hit the marks on taste and flavor, but I like the direction so far.