Black Banana Dunkleweizen

Way back in April (of 2013) I did a triple brew day, but I never got around to posting the recipes.  The first beer I brewed that day was a Dunkleweisen, a first for me. 

 

Brew Date: 4/27/2013

Beer Number: B30

Beer Name: Black Banana

Type: Dunkelweizen

Primary Fermenter: 3 gal. glass carboy (101 days)

Secondary Fermenter: N/A

Volume: @ 2.75 gal into fermenter

OG: 1.038

FG: 1.003

Expected IBU: 15

Expected SRM: 19

Expected Alcohol %: 4.59%

Calories: 122

 

Ingredients:

2 lbs. White Wheat malt

1 lb 12.8 oz. Vienna malt

2.1 oz. Crystal 40L

2.1 oz. Special B (100L)

1.6 oz. Carafa III special (450L)

7 g. Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) 60 min.

WLP300 Hefeweizen yeast

 Step by Step Process:

Yeast Starter (4/21)

1. Boiled @ 150g Pilsen DME in @1.5L water for 15 minutes
2. Cooled and pitched yeast harvested from B27
3. Covered with sanitized foil and swirled infrequently for 4 days
4. Kreusen appeard @36 hours
5. Crash cooled in 35F keezer 2 days before pitching

 Wort

6. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher; double-crushed wheat
7. Heated 5.51 qt. strike water to @172F and poured into mash tun
8. Once tun settled to 166F, added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @152F
9. Mashed for @7 hours (7:30AM to 2:45PM) – with ending temp @128F
10. Pulled 2.75 qt. decoction, heated to @175F  and then brought to a boil for @4 min
11. Added back to the mash which brought the temperature to 162F
12. Added 1 qt. boiling water to mash tun
13. Added 2.25 gal. @170F water to mash tun
14. Recirculated @ 2 qt.
15. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
16. While draining, fired burner and set heat on medium/low
17. When empty, filled with 3 gal. of 170F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
18. Brought to a boil
19. Pitched bittering hops and boiled for 60 minutes
20. After boil, placed kettle in ice water bath – was close to pitching temperature in @ 1 hour
21. Transferred to sanitized carboy in fermentation chamber temp. 58F
22. OG was 1.038, below targeted OG of 1.048 – possibly due to initial sachrification rest lower than measured
23. Pitched yeast starter into @ 58F wort
24. Activity evident the next morning temp @60F
25. @3 days – activity evident temp @63F
26. @4 days – activity has slowed, temp @62F
27. @6 days – no more activity visible temp @61F

Yeast Starter (4/27)

28. Decanted liquid from 4/21 yeast starter and allowed to warm on counter for @ 1 hour
29. Collected an extra 1.5 quarts of wort (final runnings)
30. Brought to a boil for @10 minutes and then cooled in an ice bath
31. Once cool, poured into yeast starter – activity evident within 2 hours

Kegging (8/6/13)

32. Transferred to sanitized keg with 20 psi – target 4.0 volumes CO2

 

2013 Year in Review

I wanted to take a look back at my brewing from this past year. 2013 was a tough year for brewing. If you don’t count the days where I made hard cider (which consists of pouring yeast into pre-pressed apple cider), I was only able to brew two times. As our three children get older, we are involved in so many things and are often going in three different directions. 

Number of batches brewed: 6 (same as 2012) 

Number of gallons brewed: 24 (down from 38 in 2012) 

Number of brew days: 4 (2 beer and 2 cider) 

First brew day: 3/1/13 (26 days earlier than 2012) 

Last brew day: 12/1/13 (57 days later than 2012) Of course this consisted of pouring Brett into a gallon of apple cider, so it probably shouldn’t count as a “brew day”. My last beer brewing day was 4/27/13. 

Batch with highest alcohol: 6.7% B34 Cider with Brett (down 1.0% in 2012) 

Batch with lowest alcohol: 4.5% B30 Dunkelweizen (down 0.6% from 2012) 

Weighted average ABV of all batches: 5.20% (down from 5.62% in 2012) 

Favorite batch to brew: B33 Ordinary Cider and B34 Cider with Brett 

Favorite batch to drink: B29 Redczech Bohemian Pilsner 

Worst brew session: B30 Dunkelweizen/ B31 Vienna Lager/Ale / B32 Lambic It was a triple-header brew day and it lasted forever. 

Favorite name: Redczech Pilsner (I didn’t name anything else I brewed in 2013) 

Amount of grain used: 36 lbs 3 oz. (down from 87.6 lbs in 2012) 

Amount of hops used: 7.5 oz. (down from 20 oz. in 2012) 

Biggest equipment upgrade: refractometer 

Biggest trend: “brewed” 2 one gallon batches of cider and brewed two lagers 

Goals for 2014: 

1. Brew two more times than 2013 

2. Brew at least two lagers 

3. Brew at least one Flanders Red and           one Lambic 

4. Brew one BJCP style I’ve never brewed

Triple Brew Weekend

Wow what a brewing weekend! I did another triple brew day last week. My wife took my two youngest to a Mother-Daughter camp so I took the opportunity to fill up some fermenters. I brewed a Dunkelweizen, a large batch of a Vienna-Citra “SMASH” that I split between Cal Ale and Lager yeast, and the 2013 version of my Lambic. It was a long, busy day. I mashed in my Dunkelweizen at 7:30 AM and I was finished cleaning at 2:30 AM. In between I packed the car for their trip, took my oldest to the mall to buy a birthday present, took her to and picked her up from a birthday party and took her out to dinner.


I also did some interesting things with my 2011 Lambic. I bottled 10 bottles of it. I also put a gallon on 3 lbs. of figs and another gallon on 2 lbs. of cherries. The rest went into a keg to be used for blending down the road.

All in all, a very busy but (hopefully) fruitful weekend.

SMASH, sort of

I’ve got a crazy idea!  Ok, maybe it’s not that crazy, but I think it’s different.  Several times I have brewed a batch and split it between two yeasts, for example an American IPA split between Cal Ale yeast and Duvel yeast.  A lot of people have done that.  What I want to do is brew a hoppy pale ale and split it between Cal Ale yeast and lager yeast.  My main inspiration for the lager portion is New Belgian’s Shift - a clean, drinkable, citrusy, hoppy beer.  Another wrinkle is that I’ve purchased a bag of Vienna malt and I want to do a pseudo-SMASH with it.  It is pseudo because I’m adding about 3% carapils to help with foam and body and I’m adding ¼ oz. Warrior (to the gobs of Citra) for bittering.  I think I can very easily classify the ale portion as an American Pale Ale, but what do I call the lager?  With 40+ IBU of citrusy hops I can’t really call it a Vienna lager.  Regardless of the style, I think it’ll be tasty.

Brewing a Lager

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It’s been a pretty crazy start to 2013 with very little time for brewing. In a previous post I mentioned that my brewing goals for the year were to brew more than 2012, brew a lager and brew flavorful session beer. I did manage to meet one of those goals (and hopefully a second). I snuck in a brew session on my birthday and brewed my first lager. I brewed a pseudo-Bohemian Pilsner a couple years ago with Kolsch (ale) yeast and it was great. This was a natural starting point for my first real lager. I took this recipe and tweaked down the grain due to improved efficiency, but basically brewed the exact same beer.

Brew Date: 3/1/2013

Beer Number: B29

Beer Name: “Redczech Pilsner”

Type: Bohemian Pilsner

Primary Fermenter: 5 gal. glass carboy (28 days)

Secondary Fermenter: N/A (lagering in keg)

Volume: @ 4.5 gal into fermenter

OG: 1.048

FG: 1.013

Expected IBU: 39

Expected SRM: 4

ABV: 4.6%

Calories: 160

Ingredients:

6 lbs. 5 oz. Weyerman Pilsner Malt

6.5 oz. Carapils malt

21 g. Saaz pellet hops (3.0% AA) FWH

36 g. Saaz pellet hops (3.0% AA) 90 min.

21 g. Saaz pellet hops (3.0% AA) 15 min.

WLP830 German Lager Yeast

Step by Step Process:

Wort

1. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher
2. Heated 8.4 qt. strike water to @135F and poured into mash tun
3. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @127F
4. mashed open @ 20 min. where temp. settled to 122F
5. Pulled 3.5 qt. decoction and brought to a boil, missing the conversion rest
6. Added back to the mash which brought the temperature to 155F
7. Mashed open for @35 min. dropping to 151F
8. Added 3.5 qt. boiling water to mash tun for mash out – temp settled at 164F
9. Added 1 gal. @150F water to mash tun
10. Recirculated @ 2 qt.
11. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
12. While draining, fired burner and set heat on med and added first wort hops.
13. When empty, filled with 3 gal. of 160F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
14. Collected a total of @ 6.5 gal. wort
15. Brought to a boil
16. Pitched bittering hops and boiled for 90 minutes, added hops at 15 min
17. inserted wort chiller at 15 min.
18. Using wort chiller, cooled to 70F in @ 20 minutes
19. Covered kettle and left outside in ambient air of @30F for @ 1 hour while cleaning
20. Transferred to sanitized carboy in fermentation chamber temp. 58F
21. OG was 1.054 on @4.0 gal. so added ½ gal. distilled water to bring down to 1.048
22. Allowed to cool overnight with frozen water bottles
23. @7AM 3/2/13 pitched yeast directly from vial – temp. 50F
24. Temperature dropped to 45F throughout the day – no visible activity
25. @ 12 hours removed all frozen water bottles and top
26. @48 hours temp. 50F with no activity; removed airlock and shook carboy then replaced airlock
27. @108 hours – first signs of fermentation activity with a few fine bubbles on surface; temp. 54F; added 1 12 oz. and 1 20 oz. frozen bottle
28. @120 hours (5 days) krausen had formed and periodic bubbles in airlock; temp. 53F; replaced water bottles

Kegging (3/29/2013)

29. Transferred into cleaned/sanitized/CO2 flushed keg and placed in 33F kegerator
30. Yield @ 4 gallons

I was a little concerned about it taking 5 days to show signs of fermentation but I know I underpitched the yeast. I sampled a few times and did not detect diacetyl so I elected not to do a diacetyl rest (I have heard that a diacetyl rest can have negative effects so I didn’t want to do one unless it was necessary). I plan to carb it to 2.5 volumes of CO₂ and hopefully I’ll have a tasty session lager. I harvested 4 mason jars of yeast to be used in my next lager project.

Beaverdam Brewery - 2012 The Year in Review

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I wanted to take a look back at my brewing from this past year.

Number of batches brewed: 6 (down from 8 in 2011)

Number of gallons brewed: 38 (down from 47 in 2011)

First brew day: 2/3/12 (97 days earlier than 2011)

Last brew day: 10/5/12 (43 days earlier than 2011)

Batch with highest alcohol: 7.5% B24 Hoptologist IPA (down from 7.7% in 2011)

Batch with lowest alcohol: 5.1% B23A Citra Ass Down APA and B23B Citra Funky Ass Down 100% Brett APA

Weighted average ABV of all batches: 5.623% (up from 5.36% in 2011)

Favorite batch to brew: B26 Man Down! Hefeweizen

Favorite batch to drink: B22 Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back (Dry Irish Stout)

Worst brew session: B24 Hoptologist/B25 Redneck Saison/B26 Man Down! It was a triple-header brew day and it lasted forever.

Favorite name: Hoptologist IPA

Amount of grain used: 87 lbs 9 oz. (down from 97.2 lbs in 2011)

Amount of hops used: 20 oz. (down from 29.65 oz. in 2011)

Biggest equipment upgrade: The faucets, manifold, etc. from my keezer

Biggest trend: brewing with wild yeast and bacteria; this started in 2011 but I currently have 4 carboys filled with lambic, flanders reds and an IPA that has been bretted

Goals for 2013:

1. Brew two more times than 2012
2. Brew my first temperature-controlled lager
3. Brew flavorful session beers

Hoptologist IPA Tasting

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I brewed an IPA a while back that was inspired by Bells Brewery’s Hopslam. This is not meant to be a clone, although I used Simcoe and Amarillo hops and included a bit of honey at the end.

Aroma: pine with a hint of tropical fruit, a touch of malt sweetness, no noticeable esters or diacetyl

Appearance: slightly cloudy, amber, ½” of off-white head that settles to a thin layer, leaves a nice lacing down the glass

Flavor: This one is all about the hops; nice pine punch with a touch of tropical fruit; just enough malt to keep it from being completely out of balance, but the balance is definitely skewed toward the hops; clean fermentation; finishes with a nice clean bitterness that lingers a moment in the aftertaste

Mouthfeel: smooth, medium mouthfeel; low-moderate carbonation with no astringency

Overall impression: great American IPA with the balance definitely toward the hops; bring the carbonation up a bit, which should help improve head retention

I have enjoyed this IPA. I’m going to try to brew a lower gravity version of this beer because it is hard to drink more than 1 or 2 before falling over. Definitely the biggest drawback to this beer is that it will knock your package into your watch pocket.

Lambic Tasting at 10 Months

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While I was taking gravity readings and bottling and kegging the other weekend, I decided to take a gravity ready and try a sample of the Lambic that was brewed last October and still sits in primary. This one is not nearly as complex as I want it. After this sampling, I pitched some additional brett to try to turn up the funk factor in this beer.

Aroma: mostly acid on the nose with a slight touch of funk; needs much more funk

Appearance: crystal clear, pale yellow, still

Flavor: sweet and sour; I still detect a touch of malt sweetness although this has attenuated down to 1.001; sweetness is offset by a sour acidic taste; the lactic acid is definitely the main character; no funk or complexity to speak of

Mouthfeel: light body, fully attenuated, still

Overall impression: acidity is refreshing, but this beer really needs some brett complexity

The One and Only Hefeweizen Tasting

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Thankfully I at least was able to drink one pint of the authentic (i.e. German wheat yeast) Hefeweizen before the keg decided to empty itself in the bottom of my kegerator. Having never brewed or even drank an authentic Hefeweizen, I decided to compare it side-by-side with the standard for German Hefeweizen, Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier. I think mine compared very favorably with the control. I’ll definitely need to brew this again soon.

Aroma: wheat spiciness with a hint of banana and a touch of spicy clove; no hop aroma

control: has a light spicy phenolic aroma, but nowhere near as complex as the homebrew

Appearance: yellow/gold; slightly cloudy; voluminous white head that fell to ½ “ during the session; slightly darker and clearer and less head retention than the control

Flavor: cracker-like flavor from the wheat malt; primarily banana on the tongue with a bit of clove in the background; no hop flavor and just enough bitterness to balance the malt sweetness; much more flavor that the control

control: slight tastes of banana and clove with a sour finish

Mouthfeel: low-medium carbonation; light to medium-light body; smooth; much lower carbonation than the control, which is effervescent with a light body

Overall impression: much preferable to the control; good balance between spicy yeast phenols and banana esters; appropriate malt/bitterness ratio; needs more carbonation;

Much of the carbonation was bled off during the dispensing. I am still struggling to balance my system. I carbed this keg to 3 volumes, but it was dispensing with such great pressure that I could barely crack the tap and I think this made much of the CO2 bleed off.

Tasting Notes: A Neighbor's Belgian Wit

My neighbor has recently resumed his homebrewing after a many year hiatus and he gave me one of his Belgian Wit’s to try.

 

Aroma: faint hint of orange, some spice, herbal/pepper aroma; no diacetyl

 

Appearance: cloudy, almost muddy orange with amber hues; carbonation low; very thin white ring of head that hung around through the sitting; a few shades too dark and not enough head retention for a Belgian Wit

 

Flavor: a small amount of spice accompanied the stereotypical “extract twang”; no dominant malt of hops flavor – very well balanced; some spicy esters from possibly a high fermentation temperature

 

Mouthfeel: thin body, low carbonation, no alcohol warmth or astringency; finished a bit on the tart side

 

Overall impression: Great first attempt! You have the basics of making a Wit down. You made a very well balanced beer that is relatively refreshing. The thing that hurt this beer the most was the low carbonation – a Belgian White should have around 2.75 to 3.0 volumes of CO2, which would help with head retention; Also, try a full volume boil which will help you brew beers with lighter colors and will reduce that “extract twang”

 

Non-Brewing Brew Weekend

Summer is a busy time with my children on swim teams, but now that the summer swim season is over, I’m finally getting the chance to get back into the swing of things. The wife and kids were out of town this weekend so I thought I was going to have the opportunity to brew. I’m planning to brew a Flanders Red, but I couldn’t get my hands on Wyeast’sRoselaire blend, so I decided to postpone that brew session until a later date.

Although I didn’t brew, I did a number of brewing related activities that I had been putting off.

I bottled my saison that I brewed back in April (yes, the summer is busy). My original plan was to bottle half of the batch straight and add some Brett C to the other half, but when I took a gravity ready it had attenuated all the way down to 1.000. I’ve had meads do that, but I had never had a beer get that low, and with a notoriously lazy saison yeast too. Needless to say there aren’t many sugars for the Brett to chew on, so I called an audible and decided to bottle the entire batch straight.

I kegged my Hopslam inspired IPA (brewed the same day as the saison). Even after 4 months, that thing is super hoppy. I can’t wait to keg hop that bad boy once it is ready to serve. My yield ended up being 5.75 gallons, so I racked the extra into a growler and added a slurry of Brett C. Hops and funk – yum!

I also had a small batch of Citra pale ale that was fermented with Brett C. I went ahead and bottled that this weekend too. It was a lot more funky than I thought it would be, but I think I like it.

I’ve had a lambic sitting in the fermenter that I brewed 10 months ago and I wanted to get a gravity reading and sample it. It has attenuated down to 1.001 but still not very complex. It is a lot more sour than it was a few months ago but the funk really hasn’t taken off. I pitched a few ounces of Brett C slurry into it to try to funkify it a bit.

I also did some kegerator cleaning, and this is where I shed some tears. I had some liquid down in the bottom of my chest freezer so I pulled all of the kegs out to clean it. Among the kegs was a hefeweizen that I kegged about a month ago that I had drank 1 pint. When I heaved the keg it was completely empty. It had emptied onto the floor of the kegerator. Needless to say several 4 letter words were uttered. I can’t understand how the keg could have drained but my bottle of CO2 didn’t keep pushing gas until it emptied. Once I dry my eyes, I’ll post the tasting notes from that one pint. I did the tasting alongside a bottle of Weihenstephaner and the homebrew compared very favorably.