I wasn't planning on doing this today, but I had a pretty bad day. I came home from Uni after lectures and needed to do something to occupy my mind. Before I knew it, I had measured out grain and started heating up water.
The first thought I had was that I have two strains of yeast in the fridge that both need using to keep them viable. One was the Brettanomyces Bruxellensis that I've used a couple of times. The other was some Saison yeast that I had grown as a starter from 3 bottles of the first saison I brewed. I did this as I wasn't happy with the saison yeast the last time I brewed with it.
With that in mind, I had to brew a bigger than normal batch and the biggest I could go for and still get a decent gravity from was 35 litres (this becomes important later on).
So, I measured out the grains, and used the following.
Marris Otter 5015g (everything I had left in stock)
Lager Malt 1000g (everything I had left in stock)
Pale Wheat Malt 740g (do you see where this is going?)
CaraPils 340g (yup, same here)
Munich light 275g (here too)
Pale Rye Malt 200g (the only one I still have left now, other than specialty malts).
I mashed in 18.9 litres of liquor at 72 to give me a mash of 64 with 8.4g of gypsum and 1.7g of Calcium Chloride. This was left for an hour, then I started the "sparge".
For the sparge I recirculated the first 10 litres, and also added 31.5 litres of liquor at 73 with 14.1g of gypsum and 2.8g of calcium chloride.
Before the sparge happened I went into auto pilot and set up the equipment so that I could bottle the previous Hoppy Belgian Brown, I also sterilised the bottles with boiling water. Whilst the sparge was happening I bottled the entire brew. I had checked before cold conditioning and it was down to 1.008. I had taken it out of cold conditioning yesterday to bring the temperature up. I checked the gravity and it was down to 1.005. That's more like it, shame it took so long to do anything. I had dumped the yeast from primary as I wasn't happy with it.
From the sparging I got 42 litres of wort out with a pre-boil gravity of 1.045, pretty much where I wanted it to be. This gives a mash efficiency of 86.1%. Possibly the best I've had for a while, so I'm happy with that.
Onto the boil and it took a while to get up to boil. I was a bit worried as I was boiling 42 litres in a 50 litre maximum capacity boiler. When I say 50 litre maximum capacity, at 50 litres it would be touching the lip at the top.
Well, it got up to boil and I had to work pretty hard with the stirring to make sure it didn't boil over, but luckily it didn't. Once up to boil I added 9 grams of Magnum with an Alpha acid of 16.5% to give me 9.7 theoretical IBUs. It shows 8 grams, I added a little more as it looked sparse.
I probably should have waited to see how the single aroma addition Belgian brown went before doing that again, but I thought "fuck it". So I did nothing other than clean for 50 minutes. At the 10 minute mark I added a protofloc tablet, then at 5 minutes I added the hops.
I wasn't sure what to add (it's not like I have a shortage of hops in the freezers), but a fortuitous offer of some experimental pellets from a friend meant this was to be hopped with only experimental hops in my experimental fashion.
Experimental 366 (2013) whole leaf 100g 15.5% @ 5 minutes for 20.2 theoretical IBUs
and
Experimental VA-13-084 (2013) pellets 88g (no idea) @ 5 minutes for some theoretical IBUs.
The pellets were put into a "hop sock" made from the tied off top bit of some tights (they were new, don't panic) as my system can't really handle pellets in the boil at the moment without getting them in the FVs later on.
After flame out I put the lid on for 20 minutes while I set up the counterflow wort chiller. Once this was all set up, I started the run off. I collected 20 litres into on FV, and for some reason I only got 15 litres in the other FV. I thought I must have done a fuck up, my mind's not on the task after all. I pitched the Brettanomyces Bruxellensis into the 20 litre FV, and the saison into the 15 litre. It's worth noting that during the run off, the wort running through the wort chiller was as clear as a very clear thing.
It was only when I came upstairs and checked the brewing sheet that I realised that I had intended to only get 35 litres. So this was bang on.
I checked the gravity and I got an OG of 1.051 which gives me an overall system efficiency of 78%. It's not world shattering, but it's always nice to hit volumes and get a decent efficiency.
A note on this, I have an idea what my starting gravity is going to be, but I am more interested in volumes and efficiencies. If the gravity is higher or lower than the expected gravity at 75%, it doesn't really matter. I'm not going to do anything about it, just chalk it up to experience. I'm finding that my efficiency is going up, which means that the gravities are creeping up, this just means that I will take readings over 5 brews, and set the new efficiency based on that. That will then set how much grain I need to use for the following 5 brews.
Thoughts and musings - 03/07/2014
So, I'm drinking the very last bottle from this batch, the brett B. The saison dried out pretty quickly and was peppery and spicy, with subtle hints of mango and passion fruit. Very enjoyable. The bretted version stayed mango and pineapple. This glass (being the last) is the best, it's got a hint of tartness at the end of the mouth.
There were 2 bottles of the brett version, but the first I opened was a bit of a gusher. I checked the readings with my refractometer and it had dropped from the 1.007 I bottled it at to a rather low 1.002. Quite understandable why it was a gusher. I've got another brett B beer brewing at the moment, so I will take the findings from this and apply them, meaning that I will leave the beer in primary for at least 2 or 3 weeks, or until it's at least below 1.005. That way, when I dry hop it, it will push it to terminal gravity.
I threw away the gusher after doing gravity checks on it (I'm not going to drink it), and got the final bottle. This opened with a healthy "FSST", but no gushing. I checked the gravity on this and it too was 1.002 (5.2 brix from an initial 1.051) but with no gushing. I'm drinking it as we speak and it's lovely. Thin, fruity, hints of tartness, and lovely.
This is why I love brewing, and what I enjoy about using interesting ingredients (such as brett), there's so much to learn from it all. Cheers.
The first thought I had was that I have two strains of yeast in the fridge that both need using to keep them viable. One was the Brettanomyces Bruxellensis that I've used a couple of times. The other was some Saison yeast that I had grown as a starter from 3 bottles of the first saison I brewed. I did this as I wasn't happy with the saison yeast the last time I brewed with it.
With that in mind, I had to brew a bigger than normal batch and the biggest I could go for and still get a decent gravity from was 35 litres (this becomes important later on).
So, I measured out the grains, and used the following.
Marris Otter 5015g (everything I had left in stock)
Lager Malt 1000g (everything I had left in stock)
Pale Wheat Malt 740g (do you see where this is going?)
CaraPils 340g (yup, same here)
Munich light 275g (here too)
Pale Rye Malt 200g (the only one I still have left now, other than specialty malts).
I mashed in 18.9 litres of liquor at 72 to give me a mash of 64 with 8.4g of gypsum and 1.7g of Calcium Chloride. This was left for an hour, then I started the "sparge".
For the sparge I recirculated the first 10 litres, and also added 31.5 litres of liquor at 73 with 14.1g of gypsum and 2.8g of calcium chloride.
Before the sparge happened I went into auto pilot and set up the equipment so that I could bottle the previous Hoppy Belgian Brown, I also sterilised the bottles with boiling water. Whilst the sparge was happening I bottled the entire brew. I had checked before cold conditioning and it was down to 1.008. I had taken it out of cold conditioning yesterday to bring the temperature up. I checked the gravity and it was down to 1.005. That's more like it, shame it took so long to do anything. I had dumped the yeast from primary as I wasn't happy with it.
From the sparging I got 42 litres of wort out with a pre-boil gravity of 1.045, pretty much where I wanted it to be. This gives a mash efficiency of 86.1%. Possibly the best I've had for a while, so I'm happy with that.
Onto the boil and it took a while to get up to boil. I was a bit worried as I was boiling 42 litres in a 50 litre maximum capacity boiler. When I say 50 litre maximum capacity, at 50 litres it would be touching the lip at the top.
Well, it got up to boil and I had to work pretty hard with the stirring to make sure it didn't boil over, but luckily it didn't. Once up to boil I added 9 grams of Magnum with an Alpha acid of 16.5% to give me 9.7 theoretical IBUs. It shows 8 grams, I added a little more as it looked sparse.
I probably should have waited to see how the single aroma addition Belgian brown went before doing that again, but I thought "fuck it". So I did nothing other than clean for 50 minutes. At the 10 minute mark I added a protofloc tablet, then at 5 minutes I added the hops.
I wasn't sure what to add (it's not like I have a shortage of hops in the freezers), but a fortuitous offer of some experimental pellets from a friend meant this was to be hopped with only experimental hops in my experimental fashion.
Experimental 366 (2013) whole leaf 100g 15.5% @ 5 minutes for 20.2 theoretical IBUs
and
Experimental VA-13-084 (2013) pellets 88g (no idea) @ 5 minutes for some theoretical IBUs.
The pellets were put into a "hop sock" made from the tied off top bit of some tights (they were new, don't panic) as my system can't really handle pellets in the boil at the moment without getting them in the FVs later on.
After flame out I put the lid on for 20 minutes while I set up the counterflow wort chiller. Once this was all set up, I started the run off. I collected 20 litres into on FV, and for some reason I only got 15 litres in the other FV. I thought I must have done a fuck up, my mind's not on the task after all. I pitched the Brettanomyces Bruxellensis into the 20 litre FV, and the saison into the 15 litre. It's worth noting that during the run off, the wort running through the wort chiller was as clear as a very clear thing.
It was only when I came upstairs and checked the brewing sheet that I realised that I had intended to only get 35 litres. So this was bang on.
I checked the gravity and I got an OG of 1.051 which gives me an overall system efficiency of 78%. It's not world shattering, but it's always nice to hit volumes and get a decent efficiency.
A note on this, I have an idea what my starting gravity is going to be, but I am more interested in volumes and efficiencies. If the gravity is higher or lower than the expected gravity at 75%, it doesn't really matter. I'm not going to do anything about it, just chalk it up to experience. I'm finding that my efficiency is going up, which means that the gravities are creeping up, this just means that I will take readings over 5 brews, and set the new efficiency based on that. That will then set how much grain I need to use for the following 5 brews.
Thoughts and musings - 03/07/2014
So, I'm drinking the very last bottle from this batch, the brett B. The saison dried out pretty quickly and was peppery and spicy, with subtle hints of mango and passion fruit. Very enjoyable. The bretted version stayed mango and pineapple. This glass (being the last) is the best, it's got a hint of tartness at the end of the mouth.
There were 2 bottles of the brett version, but the first I opened was a bit of a gusher. I checked the readings with my refractometer and it had dropped from the 1.007 I bottled it at to a rather low 1.002. Quite understandable why it was a gusher. I've got another brett B beer brewing at the moment, so I will take the findings from this and apply them, meaning that I will leave the beer in primary for at least 2 or 3 weeks, or until it's at least below 1.005. That way, when I dry hop it, it will push it to terminal gravity.
I threw away the gusher after doing gravity checks on it (I'm not going to drink it), and got the final bottle. This opened with a healthy "FSST", but no gushing. I checked the gravity on this and it too was 1.002 (5.2 brix from an initial 1.051) but with no gushing. I'm drinking it as we speak and it's lovely. Thin, fruity, hints of tartness, and lovely.
This is why I love brewing, and what I enjoy about using interesting ingredients (such as brett), there's so much to learn from it all. Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment