matt76's Brewdays

[fury_tea]

(I would probably also help myself immensely if I kept everything else constant and stopped having to substitute things in the grain bill and changing the yeast! )

Hahah you're in good company because, I've never made the same beer twice! I'm always messing with something. But I also like trying new beers and if I'm in a pub with lots of range (those were the days) I'll often not have the same beer twice so that's my excuse.

 

[matt76]

Hahah you're in good company because, I've never made the same beer twice! I'm always messing with something. But I also like trying new beers and if I'm in a pub with lots of range (those were the days) I'll often not have the same beer twice so that's my excuse.

Yeah, I think this is one of the reasons I like doing smaller batches, I always have lots of different beers to choose from - very rare that I'll have two of the same beer in an evening.

Not counting but I suspect I have more than 10 of my own beers to choose from at the moment! Blimey, that seems a lot, best get drinking!

But this is something I'm aiming to do in my brewing this year - stop changing everything all the time and go for more consistency. I've settled on just mashing everything at 67degC as that is a good compromise for everything I make. In addition I've picked 3 beers that I want to keep brewing this year so I can focus on fine tuning them. I buy enough ingredients for 5 brews at a time so that still leaves room for 2 experimental "seasonal specials" in each block of 5.

 

[matt76]

Meanwhile in other news...

Seriously BRY-97, WTF??? My AG#65 GH Rye Beer continues to baffle me. Primary fermentation was done in 3-4 days as it dropped rapidly from 1.045 to about 1.014. And yet it seems determined now to carry on dropping consistently 1 point per day. It's currently down to 1.009 (BF predicted 1.011 which I wasn't quite expecting to reach) and not looking like flattening off either.

Best guess this is down to the experimental dry hop I added at yeast pitch, the enzymes in the hops are continuing to slowly liberate more ferementable sugars.

On the plus side, all the crud that was floating around in the FV is continuing to pack down nicely, so that's a positive

 

[matt76]

Update: AG#65 GH Rye Beer

Well this is very odd. The Tilt had got down as far as 1.008 and was nudging into 1.007 late this morning (temp steady at 20degC). Currently it's wavering between 1.007-1.008, even after disturbing the FV as below.

I decided to take an actual hydrometer reading just to see, and it read 1.010 at 20degC (BF predicted 1.011). And just to be extra sure I double checked the hydrometer in water at 20degC. Really odd!

[Edit to add, the Tilt and the hydrometer agreed at yeast pitch so need to investigate why they've had a falling out]

pH = 4.5 @ 20degC => normal, as expected

As for the beer, it's ruddy nice actually...

Colour = Pale, hazy - might clear up a bit, but it's fine.

Aroma = Nice citrus aroma

Taste =
- I don't think there's any hint of burnt flavour from the scorched element.
- Bitter - probably in part a consequence of the amount of Chinook I added at the start of the boil combined with the unexpected 30min hopstand after the kettle cut out.
- Citrus - I get more grapefruit or maybe lemon than the orange I might expect from Amarillo.
- Mouthfeel is a bit strange, a bit slick or oily - absolutely certain there's no diacetyl or anything like that, I think it's more a consequence of the rye which I noticed on brewday seemed very viscous. I'm optimistic it won't be so apparent once it's carbonated.
- After the trials and tribulations of brewday I have to say I don't think I'm getting any pronounced malt flavour, certainly nothing I can say "ooh that must be the rye flavour"!!!

Overall I'm very happy so far - will have to check with the hydrometer again in a day or two before cold crashing and fining

 

[foxbat]

The internet thinks that Tilts get gunge stuck to them from the krausen that causes incorrect readings.

 

[matt76]

The internet thinks that Tilts get gunge stuck to them from the krausen that causes incorrect readings.

Yeah, they're *%^&ing $h1te, I definitely wouldn't buy one if I were you!

I hadn't got around to investigating yet but I guessed something like that, thanks for the tip

Big question now is despite the offset in gravity measurements, is it still fermenting..... (gut feeling is yes, just about, given the yeast pitch dry hop and the occasional bubble from the airlock)

 

[MartinF]

If there's one thing the Tilt will tell you, it's whether or not it's still fermenting. Doesn't matter if the reading is a degree or two out, if the reading drops, it's fermenting. If not, it isn't (much).

 

[matt76]

If there's one thing the Tilt will tell you, it's whether or not it's still fermenting. Doesn't matter if the reading is a degree or two out, if the reading drops, it's fermenting. If not, it isn't (much).

Thanks for the tip @MartinF - this was my guess what was happening so good to know

 

[matt76]

Thanks for the tip @MartinF - this was my guess what was happening so good to know

Actually I'll add to that and say this is where I really see the value - it's knowing whether the beer is still fermenting, albeit slowly, without having to open up the FV more than strictly necessary. This is especially handy if you're trying to minimise oxygen exposure (because I like to do my oxygen exposure all in one massive hit in the bottling bucket! )

 

[matt76]

AG#66 American Stout

First up I'm perfectly well aware that a session stout is an oxymoron, but if you don't like it you can go and make your own!

I was originally planning to make another batch of my Black IPA but go back to chocolate/chocolate rye malt to give it a bit more roast flavour as I found Carafa 3 last time a bit bland and "meh". But then having suggested it to @pilgrimhudd (and also because I've been reading Terry Foster's Porter & Stout book) I started thinking about an American Stout.

After carefully planning and designing the malt bill based on various sources I realised once all is said and done it's actually pretty much a slight variation of my Black IPA recipe!
- I doubled the amount of Munich
- I swapped out the Carared for a mix of Caramunich and Extra Dark Crystal
- A mixture of Chocolate & Chocolate Rye malts - I'd have gone for the latter but I had some of the former to use up
- Finally add in some Roasted Barley to differentiate it from my Black IPA
- (N.B. The smaller grain amounts were originally 125g but I increased them a bit to use up some old stock/even things out)

After faffing around trying to decide what hops I decided in the end just to stick with what I do for my Black IPA, except I've moved the dry hop to the whirlpool as I want to re-use the yeast cake for a strong tropical stout that is to follow.

16L tap water, 1.25ml lactic acid 80%, 1g gypsum, 1g CaCl, half a Campden tablet.
Calcium 169, Chloride 74, Sulfate 77, Alkalinity 295 (yes, I know that's very high!)

1500g Golden Promise Malt
500g Munich Malt
180g Caramunich
150g Extra Dark Crystal 160L
150g Chocolate Malt
150g Chocolate Rye Malt
150g Roasted Barley
2.78kg Total

60min full-volume no-sparge mash @ 67degC.

Boil 30mins:
15g Simcoe 12% AAU 30mins
15g Citra 13.5% AAU 15mins
20g Amarillo 8.3% AAU 5mins
1/2 Protofloc tablet 5mins

Whirlpool 5mins @ 85degC:
15g Citra + 15g Simcoe

All went pretty much to plan - was a bit worried after the issues last time but no boil dry warnings and no scorched element etc.

10.5L in the FV, plus 3L crud in bottles which I reckon will net me another 1L or so once it has settled out.

Pitched 5.5g (half pack) BRY-97 - as noted above I plan to re-use the yeast cake for the strong tropical stout that is to follow. Done this before with liquid yeast but never dry - though Lallemand seem pretty clear on their website they have no issues with re-pitching.

43 SRM (so it's quite dark then!)
49 IBUs Rager
OG 1.046 according to the Tilt
(I measured about 1.047 with the hydrometer but hard to see the line as the wort is so dark!)

Should end up about 4.5-4.6% ABV if it ferments down to 1.011 as predicted by BF but I'm not sure it'll go quite that low - firstly because the mash temp kept creeping up a bit, secondly because of all the unfermentables in stout.

I've made a couple of stouts before but not something I've done often so be interested to see how this turn out. Happy so far just to be back to a straightforward brewday!

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Sounds bleddy lovely that matt.

 

[matt76]

Sounds bleddy lovely that matt.

Already got a bottle set aside to send down

 

[matt76]

Made some notes on my AG#63 Mexican Lager in the What Are You Drinking thread...

Really pleased - and in addition I'm convinced that Weyermann Carapils is definitely adding something for head retention & lacing in my beers, with my setup and my water

 

[foxbat]

I think if I squint at the right angle I can see some chill haze in that lager.

 

[matt76]

Bottling: AG#65 GH Rye Beer

And finally, it is done (or at least I bloomin' well hope it is!) Here's the Tilt log...

After the rapid primary fermentation it just kept going and going and going, down and down at a rate of about 1 point per day without really ever slowing up. I finally decided I'd had enough when it got down to an indicated 1.005.....

I did something I never do and racked the beer to a secondary FV, with a bit of gelatin for good measure. My suspicion is the neverending fermentation was probably hop creep due to the dry hop added at yeast pitch - only other possibility is it was something to do with all the weird gloopy trub from all the the rye malt. Anyway, I just wanted to get the beer off all that trub (about 3L worth!).

As expected the Tilt came out with a load of gunk stuck to it causing it to read a few points lower than reality. I left the secondary FV at room temp for a few days after which a second hydrometer reading confirmed it was steady at 1.009, a few points lower than predicted by BF. It bubbled a bit at first though, hopefully displacing oxygen introduced at transfer.

FG = 1.009
pH = 4.5
Yield = 19 x 500ml bottles (very pleased with this, it's a lot more than I expected with all the trub present at yeast pitch!)

Colour = Pale and hazy (I think this might be polyphenol hazr from the interaction between yeast and dry hop, as you get in hazy IPAs, rather than particles still in suspension)
Aroma = Citrus
Taste = Bitter with a dry finish. Citrus, orange/orange peel, grapefruit. I think it definitely seems more orangey now than before I racked it to secondary.

ABV = 4.75%
SRM = 5
IBU = 28 (Rager) (supposedly! I think it's more, due to the extended hop steep on brew day).

So all in all it seems like a nice beer so far, so long as the hops don't suffer due to oxygen exposure. I still don't get anything that says "that'll be the rye" so maybe I could have achieved much the same thing with just base malt and saved myself a lot of bother!

However, I learned something useful - apart from avoiding rye in the future I mean! Using a secondary was interesting - I think most folks don't bother these day, but it was a bit less cleaning on bottling day, and if the beer turns out not to have oxidised then it's an option for dealing with hop creep if I need to in the future.

 

[matt76]

Bottling: AG#66 "NPS" American Stout

I've called this NPS because it's Not Particularly Stout (stout meaning strong in the original terminology) - I always intended it to be session strength but it attenuated a lot less than I expected. And for any purists, pedants or traditionalists reading, yes, thank you, I'm perfectly well aware session stout is an oxymoron, feel free to go brew your own

OG = 1.046
FG = 1.017
Unlike the last brew which wouldn't stop fermenting this was basically done in 4-5 days. I could have bottled a lot sooner but left it until closer to the next brew day as I wanted to harvest the yeast cake.

ABV = 3.75% (about 0.5-1.0% less than planned but it didn't seem especially sweet or anything so not particularly concerned)
SRM = 43 (black enough to set Johnny Nicepainter off)
IBU = 49 (Rager)

Yield = 22 x 500ml bottles
Primed with 35g table sugar which gives a modest 1.66 vols CO2 or so

Colour = Black
Aroma = Malty
Taste = Dark with nice roasty bitterness. Bit of resiney hop character, maybe a hint of orange. More muted hop character than Black IPA but this one wasn't dry hopped so this is expected. I wanted to harvest the yeast cake in this case so no dry hop, but I would be interested to try it again with a dry hop as I would with my Black IPA.

Harvested the (very pure!) yeast cake and put most of it in a vitality "shaken not stirred" starter for the Tropical Stout that is to come next (more on that story later).....

I'm a guzzler not a sipper so not in the slightest bit bothered about lower strength beer - indeed, I'm generally aiming for more sessionable beers around 4.5% ABV these days, although I would like to get my beers to be more predictable.

I've read a few posts lately about under-attenuation of dark beers and/or certain yeast strains, and this is something I've experienced myself. I have a theory about this and will try and get around to posting it at some point.

Anyhoo, looking forward to seeing how this one turns out in a few weeks

 

[matt76]

AG#67 Tropical Stout
This is pretty much straight up Josh Weikert's "Make your best Tropical Stout", scaled down to 10L or so.

Last time I did a big beer (Baltic Porter) I wasn't really happy how it went process-wise (although the beer turned out great). This time I used a few simple tricks to hit a higher OG with less grain and less faff:
- Overnight mash which I've found yields significantly better efficiency
- Increased my boil time from my usual 30mins to the more conventional 60mins

All went pretty smoothly. Efficiency wasn't as high as I expected - I suspect in part at least because this is still a much bigger grain bill than I'd normally use. Also boil off was less than I thought, even with the longer boil.

Even so, I'm happy enough how it went.

One little twist was I harvested the BRY-97 yeast cake from my American Stout when I bottled it yesterday. I wouldn't normally bother, certainly not with dry yeast, but as this is a bigger beer I wanted to make sure I hit the ground running. So, following some tips from @saccharomyces (thanks ) most of the yeast cake went into a vitality "shaken not stirred" starter overnight which was ready and primed for pitching today, with the result the airlock was bubbling soon after

I've had trouble recently with darker beers under attenuating - I have a theory why this is, but on the flip side I've found in the past that an overnight mash yields a more fermentable wort than a more standard 1-2 hours.

Well, let's see how it turns out.

15L tap water, 1.25ml lactic acid 80%, 2g CaCl, half a Campden tablet.
Calcium 171, Chloride 106, Sulfate 40, Alkalinity 288 (very high as always)

3000g Golden Promise Malt
125g Roasted Barley
125g Chocolate Malt
125g Chocolate Rye Malt
125g Carared
125g Dark Crystal Malt 80L
125g Extra Dark Crystal Malt 160L
125g Special B Malt
4.875kg Total

Overnight full-volume no-sparge mash, 9h45m @ 67degC.

Boil 60mins:
10g Styrian Wolf 12.4% AAU 60mins
5g Amarillo 8.9% AAU 10mins
5g Citra 13.5% AAU 10mins
1/2 Protofloc tablet 5mins
5g Amarillo 8.9% AAU 0mins
5g Citra 13.5% AAU 0mins

All went pretty much to plan.

8L in the FV, plus 3L crud in bottles which might yield a bit more depending how much settles out (8L of strong beer is plenty for me).

Pitched my "shaken not stirred" starter of BRY-97 and put it in the brew fridge at 20degC - airlock was bubbling within a couple of hours.

48 SRM (very dark!)
43 IBUs Rager
OG 1.079 (efficiency a bit lower than anticipated)

Not sure where this will end up, hopefully somewher in the 7-8% ABV range. Wort tasted rich and thick but exceptionally sweet, hopefully due to lots of fermentable sugars. Let's see what happens

 

[pilgrimhudd]

We're having a tropical stout-off?? Bring it on!

 

[matt76]

Bottling: AG#67 Tropical Stout

Considering the high-ish OG of 1.079 I was quite surprised this finished really quickly, in about 4 days (I think the vitality starter helped a lot here). But I was less surprised, and a tiny bit peeved too see a high-ish FG of 1.023.

Contrary to style I tried adding a dry hop, 15g each of Amarillo and Citra, to see if I could encourage it to go a little further with hop creep (which I've done successfully before) but to no avail in this case.

So the result is probably hoppier and arguably not really to style (maybe more of a strong American stout now - I've honestly no idea other than reading style guidelines!) but very tasty nonetheless I think

Approx. 8.25L in bottling bucket
2.21vols CO2
50g brown sugar boiled in 250ml water for 2mins

Yield = 25 x 330ml bottles

Colour = Black
Aroma = Hoppy
Taste = Dark. Hoppy. Tropical fruit from the dry hops. Think the roast is there but not overbearing, could still maybe do with a touch more.

ABV = 7.4% or 7.9% (depends which formula I use!)
SRM = 48
IBU = 43 (Rager)

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Blimey! 4 days? Super quick!

Sounds nice, I think I may have the opposite with mine, less hoppy but more roasty than I'd hoped.