Yeast Cake



This is a 6.5 gallon fermentor, the Krausen clogged up the first airlock and it had to be switched out with a second one.

 The Pale Tranquility seems to be humming along nicely now. This was the first time that I have attempted to pitch a new batch of wort onto an existing Yeast Cake of the same strain.

This particular one was WLP001, California Ale yeast left over from my second batch of Sky Blue (The Blue Moon Clone). Technically I didn't pitch it into the same fermentor as it had the leftover ring of Krausen still clinging to the inside. Instead I used a sanitized container and funnel to transfer the existing yeast slurry out. The funnel has a built in screen so it was able to keep left over trub from the Sky Blue from intruding into the new wort.

It took about 30 hours for the yeast to take off, but once it did it took off with a vengence. Previous uses of WLP001 never achieved this level of vigor. Within 12 hours of the first signs of activity the airlock was semi-clogged due to the krausen filling up all the headspace. This one probably could have used a blow off tube, if I had known in advance that it would have performed like this then I would have set it up. Either way, it didn't make any mess at all and is happily churning away.

My next planned beer is probably going to be an Oktoberfest so I won't be able to use this same yeast right out of the fermentor. I will happily wash this batch though and store it for later use.

The eternal Krausen

The Blue Moon Clone I brewed over the weekend still has a 2 inch Krausen on it. It first formed within 18 hours of being pitched and has been going strong ever since. You can see the little yeasties happily chugging up and down in the carboy, and it has been 6 days already!

The Smithwicks won't be finished in time for St Pats tomorrow, unfortunately. There is still airlock activity as of last night, albiet quite slow. I don't even have time to cold crash and do a super-fast carb job on it, not and do it justice. It has to be ready and able to bottle from the keg by the 23rd though, so I'm hoping it hurries up. I need at least 48 hours to crash the yeast or it will be way to cloudy for judging.

Brew Day!

Brewing the Blue Moon clone finally. Only a few weeks after I had planned.

Brew Day 03/03/13

It had been a long dry spell since the last Brew Day, back in December if I recall correctly.

Thanks to my long suffering wife for doing parenting duty while I played in the Garage. Granted, during the Mash I also grilled some steaks and veggie kabobs which she found rather tasty, so there's that.

Anyway, I brewed the Smithwicks for the brew club challenge. I'm not sure if I'll have it ready for St Pats but it should be good for the end of the month judging at the next beer club meeting.

Everything went well, except for the hose that was frozen for a while until I thawed it out with the jet heater in the garage, but even that was overcome.

I'll probably brew again this coming saturday, the Blue Moon Belgian White clone that I had planned to be the next one until the Smithwicks interjected itself into the rotation.

Oh, 1.056 OG on a target of 1.051, so there's that.

PS: I broke my drill I use to crush the grains, so now I get to buy a new one! (always look on the bright side of life, doo doo, doo dum dee dee doo doo)

Ranger IPA A/B

Nate (coworker and fellow brewer) was kind enough to provide me with two bottles of his Ranger IPA that he brewed roughly at the same time I brewed mine. To be fair, he actually suggested the clone, although we used slightly different recipes.

I finally got around to opening one of his bottles to compare with what I have on tap. It's a rough task, I know, but I make these kind of sacrifices so you don't have to.

From here on out I'll be refering to mine as Ranger A, and Nate's as Ranger B.

To the comparison...

After the pour both produce a moderate head, very similar, and both leave nice lacing on the glass after drinking. Head retention seems to be the same, not quite disappearing but leaving a nice coating on the surface.

Ranger B on the left, Ranger A on the right. Head is very similar.

On the nose, Ranger B has a more pronounced fragrance of subtle fruitiness than Ranger A. One of the ways ours recipes differed was in the dry hop stage, I think the aroma comes down to this.

As to flavor, there is very little difference between the two, with just a bit more of a 'greener' hoppiness to Ranger B, once again I attribute it to the difference in dry hopping stage.

The major difference between the two is in clarity. This is most likely completely down to the fact that Ranger A is on tap, and has been able to settle in the keg while chilled for a good month now while Ranger B is bottled so has not had the same chance to clarify.

Ranger B on the left, Ranger A on the right. You can see the print on the piece of paper through Ranger A at this point. Ranger B has a bit of chill haze right out of the bottle, but it cleared up quite a bit once it warmed up a little. Once again, this is most likely all due to the fact that Ranger A was able to settle in the keg for a month while Ranger B did not have that conditioning.

All in all, I'm quite happy that both Rangers were so close. It was my first All Grain brew while Nate has been doing BIAB for quite a while now. I took Ranger A down to the LHBC meeting at the end of January and everyone there was favorably disposed towards the clone. I was still being asked for samples after I had already ran out of the samples that I brought down.

Brew Club Challenge

My LHBC has put forth a challenge to its members to brew a Smithwick clone. To be judged against each other, and the real deal, in an informal competition at the end of March. I'm up for the task, so this is what I'm planning.

8 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb CaraPils
.375 lb Crystal 60
.25 lb Crystal 120
.12 lb Roasted Barley

1 oz Kent Golding

WLP004 - Irish Ale Yeast

Mash 1.3 U.S. Qts of water per pound of grain @ 154 degrees f.
Sparge with close to 2 U.S. Qts of water per pound of grain @ 178 degrees f.
Ferment at 60-65 degrees F (This will be the hardest part to get right for me as I don't have the means to Lager yet, but I'll think of something)

Blue Moon Belgian White Clone

Here is the recipe that I've put together for the next brew, a Blue Moon Belgian White clone:

6 lbs - American 2 row
4 lbs - White Wheat
1 lb  - Flaked Oats

I'm planning to mash on the warm side for a sweeter conversion, target will be 156F.

Boil for 90 minutes:

1.5oz Mt Hood @ 90
1.5tsps crushed Coriander @ 10
.5tsps crushed sweet orange peel @ 5

Will use WLP001 - California Ale yeast as the information I've read says to use.

The particulars:

OG: 1.057
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: 25.2
Color: 4.0 SRM

Not sure when I will get around to actually brewing this, probably sometime in February.

Next Brew

I know it will still be a few weeks before I brew again, but it is already in the planning stages.

I'm going for a Blue Moon Belgian White clone. I've researched a number of different recipes up to now and I think I have a good feeling for what it needs. I haven't quite built out the recipe list for what I'm going to use yet though.

My friend from Aurora (you know who you are) very generously got me a gift certificate to NB that will be utilized, along with a few other purchases. One thing I don't know if they have yet is the right adjuncts. A Blue Moon thread on HBT talks of specific dried orange peel to use, the commentor was one of the brewers that helped develop the beer back in the 90's.

Once I get the grain bill, adjuncts, and yeast decided, I will post the recipe and brew day schedule that I plan to use.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Blue Moon, it holds a special place in my heart as it was one of those beers that launched my beer snobbery at Old Chicago.

Cheers!

Taste Test

I'm looking forward to next week. One of my coworkers, who is also a home brewer, brewed the a Ranger IPA clone recipe right around the same time that I brewed Ranger Danger. (he actually pointed out the recipe to me). I don't think our final recipes were exactly the same. I will try to get his recipe from him so I can point out the differences.

I brought him a sample of mine to work today, and hopefully next week he'll bring me a sample of his. It will be cool to do a comparison test between the two recipes to see how they are similar, and how they are different. This is the first time that I've been able to compare one of my brews against another.

I really like the Ranger Danger, and will most likely brew it again sometime during the summer months.

Ranger Danger in the Kegger

Took the Ranger IPA clone out of the fridge from cold crashing tonight. It had a lot of hops floating on the top when I put it in, cold crashing made all of it sink. That kind of surprised me a little. I know it helps particulates to settle out, as in yeasts, and other small size matter. But the whole leafs that were floating on top were also affected.

Tested the gravity as well.
OG: 1.059
FG: 1.005
ABV 7.2%

Tasted very very good even though it was not carbed yet. Looking forward to this one very much as it was the first AG brew I finished.

One of my brewing friends will be over this weekend, but I don't think this one will be quite ready by then, although sampling will be done with gusto!

Brew Day

Brewing the Northern English Brown today. Cold and rainy out so looks like I will be in the garage.

I'll also be smoking some baby back ribs, as well as a turkey breasts. The garage is going to smell awesome!

UPDATE: Okay, all done with the brew. Started heating water at 8 AM. Crush grains, mash, sparge, boil, chill, cleanup. 1:30 PM. Not to bad if I do say so myself.

In between brew activities, I prepped 3 slabs of ribs and a turkey for the smoker. Started those around 10 AM. They should be done around 3 PM or so.

The Northern English Brown has been dubbed 'Brown Turkey'. My target gravity was 1.052 based on the brew calculator. One thing I did was crush the grains a little be finer this time. It looked even better than the last one. I had a large majority of half husks for setting the grain bed, but this time around very few of those husks had any malt clinging to the inside.

I think this might have increased my efficiency, as I came out at 1.066 OG. Thats quite a bit higher than I would have expected from the grain bill using my BrewR calculator, but maybe someone else can run numbers for me and give me a different idea on what I could have expected.

Here is the grain bill:
8lbs Marris Otter
1lb Victory
.5 lb Caramel 120L
.25 lb Chocolate

I did a yeast starter on the WLP002 that I'm using on this beer so hopefully fermentation will start a bit quicker than the last brew. Time will tell.

Rib Cage IC

I was browsing HBT looking for a faster way to cool my wort. There are times in the summer where it has taken me 75 minutes to cool from boil to pitching temp, and that is just not fast enough. I have plans to make a prechiller to help combat that, but then I ran across this thread.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/diy-interwoven-rib-cage-immersion-chiller-106415/

The OP calls it a Rib Cage Immersion Chiller (RCIC). My current IC is only a 20' length, and during the spring/fall/winter it doesn't do to bad, but I'm still running times of about 40 - 45 minutes to reach 70F. Many of the people in this thread claim to have gotten down to under 15 minutes to cool 5 gallons.

With a prechiller added, other claim under 10 minutes for 5 gallons. I'm thinking I'm going to try out a similar design, and retask my current IC into the prechiller portion for the warm months.

There are several other alternate takes on the RCIC, and I think I'll attempt the following:

I like the design, it has the dual coils both being fed cool water at the top, split with a T, and then the outflow is collected with another T at the base, leading out with a single outflow tube. The in/out single tube will need to be a larger diameter than the coils themselves I would think to keep from a chokepoint slowing the flow of water. I plan to make something similar.

Here is another one:

This one is quite a bit more radical and involves quite a bit of work to make, but I bet it cools down faster than blazes given that each coil is being feed cool water. To much work though.

Let me know what ya'll think.

Northern English Brown

Next beer to be brewed is going to be a Northern English Brown Ale. I've looked at numerous recipes to get a good idea of how most of them are built. Here is what I've come up with for the style.

Mash at 150F for 90 minutes.

8# Marris Otter
1# Victory
.5# Crystal 120L
.25# British Chocolate Malt

Boil for 90 minutes.
1.5 oz UK Fuggles @ 60
.5 oz UK Fuggles @ 10

WLP002 - English Ale Yeast

Specification Targets:
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.013
IBU 25.6
SRM 21

Style Guidelines
OG: 1.040 - 1.052
FG: 1.008 - 1.013
IBU: 20-30
SRM: 12-22

This should be on the upper end of the ABV scale at 5%, mid hoppyness for the style, and on the darker end.

Should be fun.

First AG Brew Day

Brew day began roughly around 9:30 AM when I began measuring out water. I calculated that I would need just over 7 gallons between Mash and Sparge. I used the figures of 1.25 qts per lb of grain, with 8.7 lbs of grain. Using 1/2 gallon of water per lb of grain for sparging, adding the two I came up with 7.1 gallons needed.

I started heating strike/sparge water a bit before 10 AM. By 10:20 AM I had set 2.75 gallons with the grain for the mash. Temp going into the tun was done at 168F, I checked it after 30 minutes and it had settled down to 148F, perfect target for the recipe (see Ranger IPA post).

The Mash. Using 8.7 lbs of grain the MT was a little over half full.
Bigger beers using up to 12 lbs of grain should be no problem with this MT.

At 11:20 I had the heated sparge water at 174F and into the HLT it went. Started setting the grain bed and then draining the wort. I learned that the flow of water from the HLT to the MT is slower than draining the MT into the Kettle. The flow fluttered out after about 20 minutes, so I closed the valve and let the sparge water build back up. When I resumed I used a slower flow out of the MT to the Kettle so that all the water would not drain off the grain.

Flow of water out of the sparge arm.

The grain seemed to have absorbed a bit more water than I anticipated as once the wort was drained I ended up with 6 gallons, instead of the 6.75 that I anticipated. I will adjust next time and prepare a bit more sparge water to use.

HLT on the left going to MT, and then the Kettle. Eventually I'll build a 2 Tier stand for the HLT and MT, and let the kettle stand on the legs from the burner.

Once all the wort was in the kettle I started to bring to a boil. I hit boiling at 12:15 and did first hop addition. From there it was a standard 60 minute boil with Tons of hops, some pellet, some leaf (LHBS only had Simcoe in leaf).

The large amount of hops, with some being leaf made the trub at the end of the boil cost me a gallon of water. I didn't want to drain to much of the sludge into the fermentor so I ended having to top off with a gallon of water to hit my 5 gallon total. Next time my calculations will be taking into account a better estimate of losses from HLT, MT, and Kettle.

As a consequence of the loss to the kettle I missed my target gravity, but was very close. My BrewR calculator gave me an estimate of 1.061 OG and I ended up with 1.059. Not to shabby for my first attempt if I do say so myself (and I do!).

I ended up tweaking the Ranger IPA recipe from the post below to the following:

• 8.25 lb 2-row
• 3 oz Chrystal 120
• 30 oz of corn sugar (I had 6 packs of priming sugar sitting around not being used, as I keg 99% of my brews)

I haven't yet bothered to figure out the efficiency of my mash, but given how close I was, and how much water I used to top off I think it was pretty good.

All in all, I would call today a smashing success based on my goals. From the very beginning at 9:30 AM to finishing clean-up of all equipment, putting it all away, yeast pitched, etc... I was done at 2:45 PM.

And, I have dubbed the brew 'Ranger Danger' as I altered the hops bill a bit as well (I like hops, alot). The IBU's calculated out a bit above an American IPA style, and a bit above the recipe I used as a guidline.

• 1 oz Chinook @ 60 mins
• 1 oz Simcoe Leaf @ 30 mins
• .75 oz Cascade @ 15 mins
• .75 oz Cascade @ 0 mins
• 1.5 oz Cascade Dry Hop

Recipe was targetted at 70 IBU's, BJCP style 14B is 40-70 (really? 40? wusses), with this hops schedule BrewR came up with 72 IBU's for Ranger Danger.

Looking forward to drinking it in a month.