Midweek Brew Day - Kolsch

My boss has requested a beer for a Memorial Day weekend party that he is going to.  The only way I am going to get this beer fermented, kegged, and carbed was to brew it soon.  Since I will be out of town this weekend I am brewing this beer on a weeknight…which I don’t do very often.  With 2 kids I am usually in bed by 10 or so and exhausted.  Luckily my wife stepped up extra tonight and I had enough kid free time to brew!

Since Kolsch is something that I really enjoy drinking (Schlafly Kolsch is my all time favorite) I am brewing a double batch.  I am doing a single hop, 3 additions to this beer.  Tettnang this year has a great aroma to it and am looking forward to making a few beers with it out of the pound I ordered.   I missed my mash temperature the first go so my mash turned into an infusion mash.  The first step was 144* for 20 minutes.  The second step was 150* for 70 minutes.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
14lbs	Pilsner
4lb	Munich 10
2lb	White Wheat Malt
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
19	Tettnang	60
5.8	Tettnang	20
2	Tettnang	5
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
150F	90 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP-029
Stats
11 gal	85% efficiency	IBU: 26-27

Kentucky Common – Take Two

POLAR VORTEX IS OVER

Finally back to brewing.  I am both tired of hearing Polar Vortex and tired of it occurring.  We’ve have finally had a break in the unbelievably cold weather.  In central Illinois the wind chills have been below 10* for a couple of months.  I usually brew a batch or 2 of beer during the winter but with the temperatures so low I just can’t bring myself to go outside to do it.

My coworkers have requested that I make another batch of Kentucky Common for them.  This dark cream ale is an easy drinker, but with the Rye malt added it isn’t your typical cream ale.  I changed a few things with this recipe.  The main thing is I switched out the US-05 yeast for Nottingham.  I don’t think there will be that much of a difference in the final beer, but Nottingham is what I had on hand.  My efficiency was about 5% higher this time due to oversparging by a bit. 

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
7lbs	2 row
1lb 4oz	Corn
12oz	Flaked Rye
3oz	Crystal 120
3oz	Carafa III
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
20	East Kent Golding	90
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
148F	90 minutes
Yeast	Nottingham
Stats
6 gal	85% efficiency	IBU: 20

Blue Moon Clone

Lately when I go to bars and I’m not in the mood for craft beer I have been getting Blue Moon.  I started thinking that Blue Moon would be something I could have on tap to be my every day drinking beer.  I remembered I subscribed to a thread on Homebrewtalk.com in which Wayne1, an ex Coors Sandlot Brewer, posted details about Blue Moon …at least how it was made 13 years ago.  I decided to make 2 kegs worth of this beer to either ferment the second batch for me or to take into work.

One complaint was the run off time with the Wheat and the Oats causing slow sparges.  I added a pound of rice hulls to the mash to help counter this.  By the second batch sparge things were still draining slow.  I don’t know if more rice hulls would help with this kind of grain bill.  The second sparge did drain eventually but it took as long to run off the second sparge as it did the original mash and first sparge. 

I pulverized the spices in my spice grinder and added them at the times indicated. 

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
9lbs 12oz	Pale Malt
7lb 12oz	White Wheat Malt
2	Flaked Oats
Adjuncts
1	Rice Hulls
.75 tsp	Sweet Orange Peel – 5 minutes
2.5 tsp	Coriander – 10 minutes
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
16	Hallertau	90
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
150F	90 minutes
Yeast	US-05
Stats
11 gal	75% efficiency	IBU: 16

German Water

This beer is an attempt at making a table beer that you might have found on a German table a few hundred years ago.  Beer at that time was used as an all day/every day drink since most water was undrinkable.  Before pasteurization was discovered people did not understand that the boiling of water to make beer is what made the beer safe to drink.  If this beer was made to strong people wouldn’t be able to go about their daily lives …and the cost would be to great for the average family to continually make.

German Water will clock in around 2.7% and have a whole 7 IBUs.  My other purpose for this beer was to see how well unfermented wort will store in a no-chilled keg.  So far I have had great successes with  no-chill beer and have put off fermentation for up to a week.  With this beer I am going to wait and ferment the second batch in about a month.  I don’t want to put it off much longer than that since it doesn’t have a higher IBU count to help with warding off microbes. 

There is a good possibility that this beer might be severely lacking so the second batch may get some dry hopping.  I will post an update on the beer once it is kegged and drinkable.  I also plan on naturally carbing this beer.  I have noticed most beers I have made taste better if they are naturally carbonated as apposed to force carbonation.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
10	German Pilsner
2	Munich 10l
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
4	Hallertau	45
2.5	Hallertau	20
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
150F	90 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 036 -  Duesseldorf Alt
Stats
12 gal	75% efficiency	IBU: 6-7

Cold Weather Time - Oatmeal Stout

With fall and winter approaching I needed to make some beer that is good cold weather beer.  Stout definitely is a beer that I drink a lot more of in the cold weather months than I do during spring and summer.  The brew day was pretty uneventful and everything went off without a hitch.  I have made this recipe before using the seasonal Yorkshire squares yeast and it tastes a lot like Samuel Smith’s.  I also decided to not toast the oatmeal.  Partially this was laziness and partially because I wanted to see how much difference there was to the beer from previous batches.

One change I have made to my brew recipes is to shoot for 7 gallon batches.  This way it gives me a good size starter and a full keg of no chill beer.  It may sound like to much but you don’t get the shrink loss from pre-chilling the beer.  If I fill my keg up to the very top so I get some spill over when I put the lid on I usually have an inch of headspace when I crack open the keg to ferment later.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
10 lb 3 oz	Maris Otter
1 lb 4 oz	Instant Oatmeal
10 oz	Chocolate Malt - 450
10 oz	Dark Crystal
3 oz	English Roasted Barley
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
28	East Kent Golding	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
152F	60 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 004 -  Irish Ale
Stats
7 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 28

Belgian Quad …Yet To Be Named

With my Divination supply starting to run low I started another Belgian Quad beer which will hopefully be ready when my supply is done.  This beer is inspired by Jamil’s Duppel recipe but I upped the base malts to Quad level and make my own Candi Sugar.  The Duppel recipe created a great beer so I am hoping that it translates well to a stronger base malt profile.

I started this mash and then went on a few errands and to the local Farmer’s Market so it sat for at least 20 minutes.  With a strong grain bill the extra mash time won’t hurt the beer.  When I made my original Quad I mashed that beer for 3-4 hours. 

So far this beer smells great while it is fermenting.  The only thing I would change is a blow-off tube.  I have had to swap the airlock a few times with all of the krausen that has bubbled up.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
6.5	Pilsner
6.5	2 Row
1	Munich 10
.5	Caramunich II
.5	Special B
1	Homemade Amber Candi Sugar
1	Table Sugar
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
20	Tettnanger	60
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
148F	120 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 530 – Abbey Ale - Cake
Stats
6 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 20

Super Session Belgian Single

My wife has recently requested that I start another batch of Belgian Quad to replace the dwindling supply I have in the house.  Since this takes a 6-12 months depending on how long I age it I started the project in motion with this beer.

Quads take a large quantity of yeast to ferment the 10% worth of alcohol producing sugars.  Instead of making a large starter for the one vial of yeast I want to use I decided to make a 5 gallon batch of beer to make all of my yeast, and I’ll be able to have 5 gallons of beer to drink while I wait.  This beer is pretty basic.

Malt Bill / Ingredients
Pounds	Type
2.5	Pilsner
2.5	2 Row
.5	Caramunich II
.25	Special B
Hops
IBU	Type	Time
12	Tettnanger	45
Mash Schedule
Temp	Time
158F	60 minutes
Yeast	White Labs WLP 530 – Abbey Ale
Stats
6 gal	80% efficiency	IBU: 12