Greenfield Brew Crew - American Wheat Ale

Well, it's been over 10 years since I've posted - mostly because I brewed only a handful of times in those ten years.  But it looks like I'm back in the saddle so hopefully with my new brew crew the brewing will be more consistent...

I’ve had a several year hiatus from brewing, but was at a Kentucky Derby party in our new neighborhood and it came up that I am a home brewer (once a brewer, always a brewer, right?).  One of my new friends also used to brew.  He recently retired and was looking for an excuse to brew again.  I have another longtime friend that has also moved to our neighborhood and also wanted to get in on the action.  Over the next few weeks we discussed our brew day and it became clear that we had three very different tastes in beer.  I cautioned that we wanted to make an easy beer first to get our feet wet.  Everyone ended up compromising a little and we decided on an American Wheat Beer.  I based it off my previously brewed Amarillo American Wheat recipes, however those were basically session White IPAs and one of my co-brewers is not a fan of bitter beers, so I was trying to keep the bittering in check targeting 30 IBUs.

I have pounds and pounds of hops (that have been kept properly sealed and stored at sub-zero temperatures) in my freezer.  Although I’ve kept them stored properly, you have to assume some degree of degradation of the alpha acids.  I think I over estimated that degradation because this beer is much more bitter than 30 IBUs – it drinks likes it’s in the 50 range.  I’d brew it again in a second because it is a perfect White Session IPA, but it just wasn’t what I was aiming for (I guess I’m out of practice).

It was a pretty long evening of brewing, but honestly it went fairly smooth for not brewing for several years.  It was nice to have friends to brew with.  I had never brewed with others before and I think I could get used to it.

Brew Date: 6/7/2026
Beer Number: B54
Beer Name: Greenfield Brew Crew Wheat
Type: American Wheat
Primary Fermenter(s): Eric’s 6 gal. glass carboy (12 days); 3 gal. glass carboy(12 days); 3 gal. PET carboy (12 days)
Secondary Fermenter: none
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.010
Expected IBU: 30 (actually drinks like 50+)
Expected SRM: 4
Alcohol %: 5.4%

Ingredients:
9.25 lbs. American 2-row malt
9.5 lbs. white wheat

4 oz. acid malt

25g Warrior pellet hops (x.x%AA) 60 min.

56g Amarillo pellet hops (x.x%AA) 15 min.

28g Liberty pellet hops (x.x%AA) 15 min.
56g. Amarillo pellet hops (x.x%AA) 5 min.
28g. Liberty pellet hops (x.x% AA) 5 min.
56g. Amarillo pellet hops (x.x%AA) 1 min.

28g. Liberty pellet hops (x.x% AA) 5 min.
Safeale US-05 – 2 packets in 2L starter

Yeast Starter (2026-06-04):

1. Boiled 200ml in 2L of filtered water in Erlenmeyer flask;
2. Covered with sanitized foil and allowed to cool ~2 hours;
3. Boiled 1c. filtered water and transferred to coffee cup to cool;
4. Once cooled, added 2 packets US-05 (dated 2025-03) to coffee cup to rehydrate;
5. Placed starter flask in refrigerator and until temperature dropped cool to touch (75F estimate);
6. Pitched wort from coffee cup into flask and placed on stir plate at ~2PM;
7. Plate was intermittently throwing the stir bar; Until 2026-06-05 at 7AM, estimate starter was stirred roughly ½ the time;
8. At this time, adjusted stir bar and speed to better handle the spin;
9. Approximately 8AM, high kreusen and “yeast over”
10. Left on stir plate until 6/7 ~8AM at which point it was placed in the refrigerator to cold crash.
11. While bringing wort to a boil, collected approximately 1L of wort from grain bag in separate pan and boiled for ~5 minutes.  Cooled in an ice bath(allowed it to get down into the 40s by mistake) and then transferred to the starter flask, swirling regularly to wake up the yeast;

 Wort

1. Morning of brew day, collected 14 gallons of soft Reedville water and treated with 1 camden tablet;
2. Double-crushed grain in Barley Crusher;
3. Heated 48 qts. strike water to @155F;
4. Added grains to grain basket (in gain bag) and stirred – temp. settled at @149F, added heat periodically to keep temp between 149 and 151;
5. mashed @ 60 min;
6. Took a refractometer reading which showed preboil gravity to be ~1.049;
7. Added ~2 gallons of pre-collected/treated water to bring refractometer reading to ~1.045;
8. Pulled grain basket and allowed to drip into kettle while bringing up to a boil;
9. Had a small boil over before adding hops;
10. Boiled for 60 minutes, following the hopping schedule above;
11. Using wort chiller, cooled to 80F in @ 30 min.;
12. Kettle drain clogged and used sanitized pitcher to transfer wort split into 3 fermenters;
13. Pitched yeast from starter;
14. Placed into kegerator set to 63F (fermenters were 76F when placed into the fermentation chamber);
15. At approximately 12 hours, first visible signs of fermentation seen in the 6 gal. fermenter, followed by the two 3 gal. fermenters within 3 hours;
16. On day 5, ramped temperature control to 65F;
17. On day 7, ramped temperature control to 68F.

 Kegging/Bottling

·       On Day 12, transferred contents of all three carboys to 2 sanitized kegs – Approximate yield 9.5 gallons;

·       Set CO2 to 30 psi for 1 week and then bled pressure and reduced to 12 psi;

·       24 days after kegging; filled numerous bottles for my co-brewers (due to foaming I have concern about oxidation in some of the filled bottles.

Tasting

And the beer is fantastic.  We took a keg to a 4^th of July party and it was the hit of the night.  The keg was over carbonated and not using my kegerator for many years, it’ll take a while for me to dial in my system, but practice makes perfect, right?  The beer itself is a light straw color (it is 50% wheat after all).  It pours hazy but clears nicely in the glass.  The nose is incredible.  I love the Amarillo-Liberty combination – great citrus notes with a little bit of spice from the Liberty to make it interesting.  The flavor follows the aroma exactly.  It’s highly carbonated with a light mouthfeel.  It’s easy to drink several pints of this beer.  The wheat definitely brings a bready note.  We used a clean yeast at a low fermentation temperature, so I wasn’t expecting any yeast character and it is definitely as expected. Although the beer wasn’t exactly what I was targeting, it is definitely a winner and I’m going to be disappointed when the keg kicks (although it will allow the kegerator to be a fermentation chamber for the next beer.

 

My brew team is already planning our next beer.  Since we’ll be brewing at the beginning of September, it’s looking like a quick turn-around Marzen for Octoberfest.

Hoptologist Light Session IPA

The third and final beer brewed during the triple-brew weekend was a session IPA.  A couple of years ago, I brewed an IPA patterned after my favorite IPA, Bell’s Hopslam.  It was never meant to be a clone but ended up being a fairly good substitute.  It was probably the best beer I had ever brewed.  The problem was that if I drank more than two, I stood a very good chance of falling over.  She weighed in at 7.5% ABV but drank like a 5% beer.

I set out trying to craft a beer with all of the elements of “B-24 Hoptologist” in a smaller package.  I basically cut the grain bill in half and cut the hops by about 40% and thus came up with B-38 “Hoptologist light”.  This one is heavy on the hop flavor and easy on the booze.

 

Brew Date: 8/8/2014

Beer Number: B38

Beer Name: “Hoptologist Light”

Type: American Pale Ale

Primary Fermenter: 6 ½ gal. glass carboy (76 days)

Secondary Fermenter: N/A

Volume: 5.5 gal.

OG: 1.043

FG: 1.008

Expected IBU: 46

Expected SRM: 7

Alcohol %: 4.59%

Calories: 140/12 oz.

Ingredients:

7 lbs. Briess 2 row pale

1 lbs. white wheat malt

5.6 oz. Crystal 40L

5.6 oz. Crystal 60L

4.0 oz. Carapils

14g Centennial pellet hops (6% AA) @ 60 min

7g Simcoe pellet hops (14% AA) FWH

7g Amarillo pellet hops (8% AA) FWH

7g Simcoe pellet hops (14% AA)  @ 15 min.

7g Amarillo pellet hops (8% AA) @ 15 min.

14g Simcoe pellet hops (14% AA)  @ 15 min.

14g Amarillo pellet hops (8% AA) @ 15 min.

1 oz. Simcoe leaf hops (14% AA) keg hop

1 oz. Amarillo pellet hops (8% AA) keg hop

US05 Yeast

5.7 oz. clover honey

 Step by Step Process:

Wort

1. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher (double-crushed the wheat)
2. Heated 11.19 qts. strike water to @175F and poured into mash tun
3. Allowed tun to settle to 155F
4. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @152F
5. mashed @ 60
6. Poured 0.9 gal. 170F water to tun
7. Recirculated @ 2 qts.
8. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
9. While draining, fired burner and set heat on med.
10. When empty, filled with 2.6 gal. of 170F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
11. When empty, filled with 2.6 gal. of 170F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
12. Collected a total of @ 8.0 gal. wort
13. Brought to a boil and added 14 g. Centennial pellet hops as soon as hot break formed
14. Boiled for 60 minutes, following the hopping schedule above
15. Using wort chiller, cooled to 80F in @ 30 min.
16. Covered and allowed to cool overnight
17. The next morning, OG reading was 1.038 (target of 1.046)
18. Boiled 2 cups water and then dissolved 5.7 oz. in the pre-boiled water and transferred to kettle
19. Transferred to sanitized fermenter and placed in fermentation chamber with frozen bottles
20. Sprinkled packet of US05 yeast onto wort surface at 63F
21. Activity visible within 24 hours
22. Changed water bottles every 1 – 2 days

Kegging (10/24/14)

1. Transferred into sanitized keg
2. Set regulator to 16 psi at 34F for quick carbonation
3. Final target is 2.5 volumes CO2 (10 psi at 34F)

Keg Hopping (10/24/14)

1. Sanitized new large mesh bag in star san and then squeezed out all liquid possible
2. Sanitized a handful of marbles
3. Placed marbles in bag and then placed 1 oz. Amarillo leaf and 1 oz. Simcoe leaf
4. Tied mesh bag and placed in bottom of keg before transferring from fermenter
5. Keg would not pour
6. On 1/10/14, transferred to another sanitized keg and discovered that the mesh bag had sunk to the bottom and was sucked into the dip tube preventing the keg from pouring.
7. Purged head-space with CO2

Lucky Lizard Saison

The second beer I brewed during my bachelor weekend was a saison.  I love saisons, but I have struggled to brew one that I have loved.  This is the third time I have attempted a saison.  The first one was straight-up Jamil’s recipe from his book Brewing Classic Styles. It had a very simple grain bill – Pilsner with a little light Munich and wheat.  It was a decent beer but nothing special.  For my second attempt, I went the polar opposite with a bunch of different malts trying to get some complexity.  I replaced some of the pilsner with Maris Otter, and I added some acid malt and even a little chocolate malt and hit it with some brown sugar and pepper.  This was certainly a step up from my first attempt and I liked the twang from the acid malt, but it still wasn’t there.

At this point I started focusing on my yeast.  I had used White Lab’s saison strain the first two times but I wanted to do something different.  I was able to get my hands on East Coast Yeast’s Single Saison strain (ECY14) and thought this might do the trick.  I tweaked the grain bill once again, substituting US 2 Row for the Pilsner and Vienna for the Maris Otter, but pretty much kept the specialty grains the same.  The ECY did a number on it attenuating it down to 1.003 in 2 weeks.  I have high hopes for it if I can just get it bottled.

 

Brew Date: 8/8/14

Beer Number: B37

Beer Name: “Lucky Lizard Saison”

Type: Saison

Primary Fermenter: 7 gal. plastic bucket (xx days)

Secondary Fermenter: NA

Volume: 5 gal (target 3 gal.)

OG: 1.044

FG: 1.003 (as of 9/5/14)

Expected IBU: 25

Expected SRM: 4

Calculated Alcohol %: 5.38%

Calories: 141/12 oz.

 

Ingredients:

2.65 lbs. Breiss US 2 Row Malt
1.25 lbs. Wyerman Vienna Malt
0.375 lbs. Wyerman light Munich Malt (8.25L)
0.4 lbs. wheat malt
0.2 lbs. acid malt
.03 lbs. chocolate malt
8 oz. rice hulls
1 lb. white sugar
14 g Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) @ 60 min
14 g Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) @ 5 min
ECY14 Saison Single Stream

Step by Step Process:

ECY14 Yeast Starter (8/8/14)

1. Boiled @ 200g Pilsen DME in @2.0L water for 15 minutes
2. Transferred @ .75L to ½ gallon growler
3. Cooled and pitched bottle of ECY14 Saison single strain
4. Covered with foil and swirled periodically
5. Minimal kreusen appeared

Wort

6. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher (double-crushed the wheat)
7. Heated 6.29 qt. strike water to @170F and poured into mash tun
8. Allowed temp. to settle to 153F
9. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @149F
10. @45 min. added 0.9 gal. 170F water – bringing temp. to 158F
11. Heated 6.25 qt. water to boiling and poured into mash tun to raise temp. to 149F
12. Recirculated @ 2 qts.
13. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
14. While draining, fired burner and set heat on med.
15. When empty, filled with 2.85 gal. of 170F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
16. Collected a total of @ 6.0 gal. wort
17. Brought to a boil and boiled for 60 minutes adding hops per above
18. Placed in an ice bath and cooled to below 100F  in @ 30 minutes
19. Covered and allowed to cool overnight
20. Next day OG was 1.033
21. Boiled 1 lb. white sugar in 24 oz. water and poured into plastic fermenter
22. Siphoned wort into sanitized plastic fermenter

Fermentation

23. Pitched entire yeast starter @ 70F
24. Placed fermenter in fermentation room
25. Signs of fermentation within 8 hours
26. @48 hours – no signs of visible fermentation
27. 10/24/14 gravity reading 1.003

2014 Lambic

The wife and kiddos went to Charlotte to visit family for the weekend, so I knew I needed to take advantage and do some brewing.  And, boy did I!  I brewed a Lambic, a Saison and a session IPA.

The first beer I brewed was a Lambic.  This is the third Lambic I have brewed.  The first version, back in 2011, was one dimensional – all sour with no funky complexity.  The 2013 version, I’ve bottled but I haven’t tasted yet.  This year I was able to get my hands on a vial of East Coast Yeast Bug Farm.  I pitched this along with a pint of the yeast cake from last year’s lambic (WLP655 Belgian Sour Mix).  I have high hopes for this one.

 

Brew Date: 8/8/2014

Beer Number: B36

Beer Name: Lambic 2014

Type: Lambic

Primary Fermenter: 6 gal. glass carboy (?? days)

Secondary Fermenter: n/a

Volume: 5.5 gal into fermenter

OG: 1.049

FG: ?

Expected IBU: 5

Expected SRM: 4

Expected Alcohol %: ?%

Ingredients:

4 lbs., 6.4 oz. Breis US 2 Row Malt
3 lbs., 8 oz. white wheat malt
1 lb., 1.1 oz. flaked wheat
.5 lb. rice hulls
7 g. Mt. Hood pellet hops (6.0% AA) 60 min.
ECY01 BugFarm
1 qt. B32 2013 Lambic dregs
1.75 lbs. brown sugar

Step by Step Process:

ECY01 Yeast Starter (8/8/14)

1. Boiled @ 200g Pilsen DME in @2.0L water for 15 minutes
2. Transferred @ 1L to flask
3. Cooled and pitched bottle of ECY01 BugFarm
4. Covered with foil
5. No Kreusen appeard

Wort

6. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher, double-crushed wheat
7. Heated 11.75 qts. strike water to @180F and poured into mash tun
8. Allowed tun temp. to settle to 170F
9. Added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @155F at top of mash
10. @30 min. temp had dropped to 153F
11. @55 min. Poured 0.9 gal. of near boiling water, which raised temp to 173F
12. Recirculated @ 2 qts.
13. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
14. While draining, fired burner and set heat on medium-low.
15. When empty, filled with 2.6 gals. of near boiling water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
16. When empty, filled with 2.6 gals. of 190F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
17. Collected a total of @ 7.6 gal. wort
18. Brought to a boil
19. Added 7g. Mt. Hood hops at 60 min.
20. Using wort chiller, cooled to below 100F in @ 20 minutes
21. Covered kettle and allowed to cool overnight (inside garage)
22. Gravity reading the next morning was 1.040 (target of 1.048)
23. Boiled 1 lb. 12 oz. brown sugar in 1 qt. of water and added to wort.
24. OG after sugar addition was 1.049
25. Transferred to sanitized carboy and pitched starter of ECY01 BugFarm and 1 quart of dregs from B32 2013 Lambic (harvested earlier in the day)
26. @ 24 hours, krausen was evident

Secession Brown Ale

I hadn’t brewed in over a year when lo and behold my wife had to accompany my daughter most of the day for dance recital practice.  I thought I’d try to do a “quick” partial-mash English brown ale.  I had only done one partial-mash brew in my life, as I jumped straight to all-grain after that one partial-mash batch.

This ended up being a tasty and very sessionable brown.

With all of the talk of Scotland declaring independence from the UK, I decided to name this Secession Brown Ale.

 

Brew Date: 5/17/2014

Beer Number: B35

Beer Name: Secession Brown Ale

Type: Northern English Brown Ale

Primary Fermenter: 5 gal. glass carboy (77 days)

Secondary Fermenter: N/A

Volume: @ 5.00 gal into fermenter

OG: 1.043

FG: 1.009

Expected IBU: 29

Expected SRM: 14

Expected Alcohol %: 4.46%

Calories: 141/12 oz. 

Ingredients:

1 lbs. UK 2 row pale malt

9.6 oz. Special Roast

6.4 oz. Victory malt

6.3 oz. Crystal 40L

3.2 oz. Pale Chocolate (200L)

3 lbs. Muntons UK light DME (@15 min.)

0.6 oz. East Kent Goldings (7.2% AA) @60 min.

0.4 oz. East Kent Goldings (7.2 AA) @ 5 min

WLP013 London Ale yeast

Step by Step Process:

Wort

1. Crushed grain in Barley Crusher
2. Heated 3.25 qt. strike water to @175F and poured into mash tun
3. Once tun settled to 165F, added grains to tun and stirred – temp. settled at @150F
4. Mashed for @3 hours– with ending temp @138F
5. Added @3.0 gal. 175F water to tun and let sit for @15 min.
6. Manifold came loose – had to empty mash into kettle to re-install manifold; returned mash to tun
7. Recirculated @ 2 qt.
8. Opened valve slowly and then wide open and drained into kettle
9. While draining, fired burner and set heat on medium
10. When empty, filled with 3 gal. of @170F water, stirred mash, recirculated and drained
11. Brought to a boil
12. Pitched bittering hops and boiled for 60 minutes
13. Rehydrated 3 lbs. DME in ½ gal. hot water; added to boil w/ 14 min. remaining along with chiller
14. 14. Lost rolling boil for @3 min. but returned to rolling boil for last 11 min.
15. 15. Added flavor/aroma hops @5 min.
16. 16. Ran chiller for @20 min. with wort temp dropping to @79F
17. Transferred to sanitized carboy in fermentation chamber with frozen water bottles
18. After @12 hours – cooled to upper 58F
19. Pitched yeast directly from vial
20. OG was 1.043, below targeted OG of 1.047 – probably due to higher volume

Kegging (8/2/14)

21. Transferred (approximately 4.75 gal.) to sanitized keg
22. Set CO2 to 6 psi (target 2.18 atmospheres at 34F)

 

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