Since the debacle with the rye stuck mash I have brewed two more batches. One was a 10 gallon batch of Amber (really English bitter, but I am doubtful that my target audience wants to drink a beer I call ‘bitter’) and the other was five gallons of a Hoppy Wheat beer. Both batches went amazing. Efficiency was high. Runoff was smooth. I believe the reason for the smooth brewing sessions are directly related to my batch sparging manifold improvements.

I currently use the stainless steel water supply braid to filter my wort out of the mash tun. What I saw was that on most batches, when I cleaned the grain out of the tun, the 50% or more of the braid would have become crushed. This could have been as a result of the grain weight or also from some too vigorous stirring. I went to the hardware store and purchased about a 5 inch section of 3/8^th inch copper pipe. I then drilled about 25 large holes in this pipe. When I was done with it, the pipe looked like Swiss cheese, there was literally more holes than there was solid copper. I then inserted this section of copper into the manifold. The end result was I could literally stand on this thing without it getting crushed. Now I’m not a huge guy, but I weigh in at 180. I am doubtful that I will ever have that much grain in this system.

Additionally, this also let me do was crank the Barley Crusher down to about .033 which yielded efficiency of 79% and 87% in those sessions. The next step will be a version of Denny Conn’s
Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter. This should be a good test for the system because this will be the first big (1.086) beer brewed on the system.

So Saturday night I brewed a new recipe, a Rye IPA with 20% rye malt and 10% crystal Rye.  Throw in a pound of wheat you have about 35% of the mash coming from grains with no husks.  A definate potential for a stuck mash.  But that sort of thing never happens to me. Nah.  It couldnt.

It did.

I mashed in at 155.  Let it sit for an hour.  Mashed out with two gallons.  Stirred well.  Opened the valve and a trickle greeted me.  A trickle continued.  I closed the valve. Stirred and scraped and Opened it up again.  A trickle.  I tried to push the fluid out the drain manually.  Nada.  It was really freaking stuck.  I ended up putting on kitchen gloves and cutting off the braid.  Even then, nothing but a trickle.  I ended up manually straining the grain with a colander and mesh bag.  I did the same for the sparge.  The boil ended up with massive amounts of grain in it.

I will off up this advice.

1. Keep a couple pounds of rice hulls in the house at all times.
2. If you are forced to manually mash, Use two strainer bags.  Over over the colander and one over the container you are draining into.  If I had done this I wouldn’t have had the grain problem.
3. I can and probably will happen to you one day.

I proceeded with the batch as planned.  It definitely has some additional bite. I have a good feeling I will end up serving it to people when they are too drunk to know any better.

I just completed the brewing of the Wader Patch Wit. I’d like to say that it was smooth sailing and my family was not pushed to the wayside to make it happen, but then I’d be a liar. This was my first adjunct mash. A normal mash looks like this:

1. Crush Grain and put in cooler(Mash Tun)
2. Put 165 degree water on grain
3. Close Mash Tun wait 60 minutes (Conversion)
4. Drain Mash Tun
5. Rinse grains with hot water (Sparge) (repeat if necessary)

It really a pretty simple process and the end result a sugary wort, which when boiled with hops yields the product that will become beer.

Yesterday I brewed using grains that had not been malted. Malting in nutshell is taking raw grain(typically barley) letting it germinate, then dried it to stop the germination process. Basically its about making the starches available for conversion to sugar during the mashing process. I was using raw wheat and rolled oats to get a strong wheat flavor and creamy mouthfeel for the wit. In order to extract sugars from the wheat and oats this is the process (American Adjunct Mash) that had to be followed:

1. Crush Raw Wheat and Oats very finely. Wheat is MUCH harder than standard barley. So hard in fact that I had to enlist my family to help me crank it after I burnt out two drill batteries and one arm.
2. Heat Oats and Wheat with water to 122 degrees. Hold for 15 minutes.
3. Heat to 150. Hold for 15 minutes
4. Boil for 15 minutes.
5. Add to main mash (at 122 degrees)

The second list really isn’t a whole lot longer in steps, but the fact that I had another mash(the top list) going at the same time made it complicated. I did the adjunct mash using a five gallon stock pot which was filled almost to the top. Once I got the gruel to a specified temperature I used the oven preheated to warm then turned off to keep the grains at that temp. That worked pretty well, I only lost less than a degree with each temperature rest. Thank God I actually did the boiling portion outside on the propane burner or I would still be scraping off the ceiling. When that mess started bubbling I was really thankful that I had my trusty mash paddle. There is no way it could have come off without it.

I ended up with an average efficiency of 65%, I attribute this lower number to not crushing the oats and wheat fine enough. They should be grits consistency; mine were definitely coarser than that. The upside was I did not have any issues with my run off. I collected 10.5 gallons at 1.045, this should yield about 4.5% abv. It has nice straw like color and is happily fermenting away at 69 degrees in right now. I am targeting the first week of May for bottling.

Roughly translated the beers name means trout season. To me trout season is about nature and friends. I hope that this beer reflects that. This is a first for me. A two part beer.

The first beer is ment to be drank in late June. It is a dry, slighly earthy. Very drinkable. Designed to welcome summer and all that it has to offer.

The second beer, is targeted to be consumed in late summer. It reflects a year of learning. Of consuming. A complex flavorful beer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some photos from the transfer to the larger fermenter last night.  I think this beer is going to turn out quite good.
 

You of course can follow the status of this brew in the under development brewlogger.

The brewing session went really pretty well on Saturday, most of them do. There were a few hiccups, such as running out of propane, but all in all not bad. As we brewed we sampled some fine Belgian and Flemish brews. Additionally we drank a black saison which I thought was really good. I am thinking that I should brew up a nice session batch of this style of beer for the summer. I am going to start working on a recipe to brew in Mid-April. . The highlights: 1085, 6.5 gallons. It is currently fermenting like crazy.

Matt and I brewed what was supposed to be a 10 gallon batch of Enis Oil yesterday. It took us all day and I think we discovered the upper limits of our system. The mash tun was literally full to the top(34 lbs of grain). The boil really never got to rolling either. We finished with 12 gallons of wort (@1087). It was bubbling away when I left for work this morning. We are hoping that the California ale can ferment it down to 1015 which would yield a approximate alcohol by volume of 9.4%. Should make for some good summer drinking.

You can follow the progress of the Enis Oil in the brewlog.

I have brewed two more batches since my last update. A Rye IPA and a Chinook IPA. I will update with my recipe notes as soon as I have the chance. Couple salient points about the brews.

I reused the yeast from the sweet stout, on the Rye IPA, and then on the Chinook IPA. Each time at just past peak Krausen I sanitized a Mason jar and measuring cup and scooped a bunch of yeast off the top. I then stored this in the fridge until the night of brewing. Each time I took a little of the mash out and put it in my starter flask. About a half hour into the boil I added the yeast to the flask. By the time I am at pitching temp the yeast in the flask is going nuts. I have had <12 hour lag time.

There may be some sanitation issues with this as the mash out has not been boiled and may contain bacteria. Its somewhat risky. But it is working.

The second thing is Star San is the shit. I will recommend it to all to anyone who asks.

Both beers turned out great. More from the notes.

The stout has fermented down to 1.010(!) which is as low as I have ever had a beer go. Now the question is was that a result of my mashing or the yeast (safale 56). I skimed the floating yeast and will be pitching it in my next batch with will be a rye ipa or the arrogant bastard clone.

On this past Saturday I did my first all grain batch.  It was the b3 sweet stout recipe.  The session went very well really.  I aquired a keg from a local liquor store and cut the top off so this also was my first full boil.  It was truely a day of firsts.

I batch sparged my grains(mash in at 164 deg settled at 154) which took longer to do than I thought it would. What took the longest (35 minutes?) was just draining the tun.  I had shortened my stainless braid because I didnt thing the length mattered, however in hindsight it may.  Will see with upcoming batches.   Worst case I will spend the 3 dollars to get another braid.

The boil was really easy with no fear of boilovers.  I just got it boiling, set the timer and walked away.  No standing over the vessel anymore.  I need to get the ball valve on the keg asap because racking it really sucked.  I may try adding a braid to the end of it to filter or perhaps a stainless scrubby.  Something to keep the trub out of the fermenter.

In the end I believe that I may have mashed in with too little water (3 gallons) because I sparged with about 4 gallons and still came up alittle short (4.5) on my batch.  In the future I will need to watch it closer.  My numbers we good though.  If I had gotten the full 5 gallons my OG should have been 1.050 in the end it was 1.060 (Which is what it should be given decrease in volume)

This was also my return from brewing exile after I lost 2 batches. Heres hoping that the fermentation goes well.