Too many to brew!

I suddenly have loads of brew ideas but there just isn't enough time to brew them all!! And to my horror, I also realised last night that I have a sack full of grains still sitting in the storeroom. It was meant for a Belgian quad. A year ago.

Ok, so this is my to-brew list in the coming months:

1. White Stout (done today!)
2. Flanders Red (wort ready, getting ready to pitch)
3. Belgian Quad from a year ago
4. Brut IPA rebrew
5. Smoked Berliner Weisse
6. Honey Ale

No-chill Hop Additions

As most of you may know, I have been brewing exclusively using the Aussie No-Chill method. Classically, you the hot wort into a HDPE container (the "Cube"), I simply distrust hot plastic too much to do that now. Instead, I use a Corny keg. Yes, you end up with a 19L batch instead of the full 5 Gallons. But on the other hand, having near-to boiling wort in there for this length of time effectively pasteurizes the entire keg as well! A few precautions though, in case you're looking to do this as well:

1) After closing the Corny keg lid, pump some CO2 into it to pressurize the keg. Kegs are meant to take internal pressure, not vacuum. I've seen the inner lining warp before.
2) The keg will be HOT. (Not that a HDPE plastic container won't be ...) Seriously, write huge warning labels and block easy access to the keg while it is cooling down.

Anyway, one thing about No-Chill is that it theoretically messes up with your bitterness/IBU calculations and aroma/flavour hop additions. So far I've been horrible at adjusting for that, and I've yet to see any good data reflecting actual lab-based IBU calculations for No-Chill additions. However, I stumbled upon this lovely chart from Brusolophy. Neat!

Brewing water parameters

Just wanted to dump this info somewhere, where I can easily retrieve in future. PUB isn't exactly forthcoming about the exact water parameters we have, so it can be frustrating when trying to dial in water profiles for brewing. Thankfully an industry friend helped me out on this. And as the brewery is somewhat near to my home, I'm going to just base it off the assumption that we get approximately similar water profiles:

Ca 21ppm
Mg 2ppm
Na 18ppm
Cl 28ppm
SO4 27ppm
Alkalinity (CaCO3) 36ppm

Granted, we're lucky that straight tap water in Singapore is fine for brewing. But tweaking it to achieve proper Ca2+ levels, mash pH and Cl-/So4- ratios do make a significant difference for some beer styles.

More importantly though, it's really the chloramines in our water that messes up the beer - I think RO/DI is probably overkill, but some metabisulfite added to the mash/sparge water will really help prevent phenol formation during fermentation. For the really obsessive ones out there, using sodium metab will also add some ions to the beer - 2.67mg/L of Na+ per every 1mg/L chloramine neutralized. But seriously .. there're probably more things to worry about on brewday than that tiny bit of Na/Cl/whatever else is generated during neutralization!

On a totally unrelated note - I'm still contemplating switching platforms. Google has been totally neglecting Blogger and I'm pretty comfortable working on Wordpress, but there is still a little bit of sentimental value here haha. Probably think about this one for a few more weeks before deciding. 

Brew Notes: Oktoberfest!

It's Oktoberfest time! But you don't brew them in October - they're actually brewed in March and lagered over many months. So yep ... this is a late, retrospective post on this year's Oktoberfest beer.

I wanted to brew a Märzen this year just for the heck of it. I’m not a big fan of lagers in general, but since the Barneys and I got together to do a Cream Ale, I decided to repitch the Cream Ale yeast cake. Which means that yes, I cheated. I used a mix of lager and ale yeasts, fermented it at middle-of-the-road temperatures under pressure, then lagered it.

Grain Bill 

85% Pale Ale (US) 

4% Caravienne Malt 

4% Caramunich Malt 

4% Abbey Malt

3% Acidulated Malt 

Hops

28g Perle @ 60 mins

28g Mt Hood @ flameout 

Yeast 

Repitched yeast cake from Beer Is A Vegetable 

(Mix of Saflager 34/70 and US-05)

Mash

68C for 60mins 

Fermentation 

15C x 10 days under 15 PSI of pressure, then 

18C x 3 days (diacetyl rest), then 

2C x 1 month (lagering) 

Tasting Notes

Tasted after 1 month of lagering. 

Pours a deep, golden-copper color with a good persistent off-white head. 

Aroma is predominantly that of a bready maltiness, but I did pick out some fruity notes and slight medicinal phenolics. I thought that the phenolics contributed a major fault in this beer, but the Missus could only pick it out when I kept pushing her in that direction. 

There is an initial perception of malty sweetness, but it gives way to a moderately dry finish. Again the maltiness is there, more bready than toasty. There is still a perceptible hint of the alcohol levels in this beer, which I think further lagering will smooth out. 

Mouthfeel is moderate and supports the malt backbone well, which helps to prevent this malt-forward beer from being cloying. 

Overall, given the young age (for a lager) and fermentation characteristics (again for a lager), I feel that this is a really decent Märzen. It probably isn’t good enough to place in front of a BJCP judge though, given the phenolic and estery faults. I’ll lager it for a few more month before re-tasting; time (and lagering) can really ease quite a bit of these faults. 

The Missus loves it so much though that I think I’ll have to redo this one to perfect it. A few changes that I’ll probably make:

• Make doubly sure I dechlorinated the water (maybe that’s where the phenols came from?) 
• Use just Saflager 24/70 at double the cell count 
• Start fermentation at 13C and ramp up to 16C over 3-4 days under pressure 

Brew Notes: Biere de Miel

Literally “honey beer”, little is actually recorded about this as a style per se. Rather, it most likely represents a variation of a farmhouse beer using whatever adjuncts or ingredients in hand. I was inspired by Jester King Brewery’s take on this beer (a sour), as well as a non-sour honey beer I tasted on tap at Temple Cellars.

At the same time, I had 2 cultures that were waiting for me to try out - Lachancea thermotolerans and Pichia apotheca. L.thermotolerans received a fair bit of media publicity as it is an yeast that produces lactic acid. A strain was reportedly isolated from bees/wasps/something like that, and an attempt made to patent it in commercial brewing. The downside though, is the fermentation temperature - although its specific name is “thermotolerans”, it dies at temperatures above 18C. (What a wuss!) 

P. apotheca is another interesting yeast, very kindly sent to me by the good folks at the University of Washington. It was first isolated from an aged beer, and later found to be an yeast new to science that is of hybrid origins. The lead researcher of the paper tells me that pure fermentation’s using P. apotheca was disappointing, so I decided to use this as part of an alternative, non-Brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces) beer. 

Biere de Miel’s grain bill was designed to be simple. I wanted to eventually have it as a tart, clean and rather dry beer with floral and honey nuances. Pilsner Malt should contribute a backbone of malt sweetness, while wheat malt provides residual dextrins to support some body. I decided to go with a single varietal honey - Eucalyptus. I bought this stuff during a visit to my sis’ in Melbourne, and it had been patiently waiting in line to star in either a mead or a beer. The honey was added only at flameout and again for secondary fermentation, so as to preserve the volatile aromatics. Likewise, I used noble hops for this brew for their floral qualities. Finally, the beer was aged on French oak staves to lend restrained vanilla and woody notes for contrast and interest.

Grain Bill
71% Pilsner malt
14% Wheat malt
3% Honey malt
1% Carafa Special III
10% Eucalyptus honey
Hops 
20g Galena @ 30mins
20g Tettnanger @ flameout
20g Hallertau Mittelfruh @ flameout 
Secondary Additions 
0.25kg Eucalyptus honey
Medium+ Toast French oak
Yeast
Pichia apotheca - Initial fermentation for 3 days
Lachancea thermotherans - Primary fermentation, 2 weeks

Poof!
 So I left the wort unattended for a few days, due to unforeseen issues - my P.apotheca culture kept getting destroyed by people at home who knocked it over. By the time I was ready to pitch both P. apotheca and L. thermotolerans, the keg was over-carbonated. I believe I had injected it with pure O2 before that, which led to this - but I'm not too sure. In any case, the wort tasted like wort. No off-flavours, no phenols, no sourness, so I cleaned up the mess and pitched the yeast. 






L.thermotolerans chugged along like a beast at 17C! On a sneak tasting 2 weeks in, I'm a little disappointed by the apparent sourness.

Brew Notes: Mandheling

As tasty as it looks!

Background:
Many brewers love their coffee too - I often find a phenotypic consistency across personalities (aside from the obsessional attention to detail). Among the coffee varieties, I find great pleasure in home-roasting the Sumatran Mandheling beans. These little things are traditionally wet-processed, and I buy the green beans in bulk (I really mean BULK. I buy 25 pounds at a time.) Roasted to a dark Vienna, these are earthy, dark and rich but yet mild on acidity. They are the perfect partner to a porter, provided the blending is done delicately without overshadowing the beer.

Yes I know .. I usually use a frying pan to roast beans because I'm too lazy to bring the rotary roaster out

This porter was originally brewed as an American Porter (BJCP Category 20A) for the 2018 IBC Judging. It was therefore force-carbonated and several bottles filled with a counter-pressure bottler. The rest of the keg continued an extended lagering period (4 months at 2C) and later infused with cold-brewed Sumatra Mandheling coffee beans 2 weeks before serving. Hop additions were mostly late in the boil to maintain their volatile aromatics, in line with an American porter.

For the yeast, I originally did a forced ferment test using the Lithuanian Simonaitis. After tasting the wort though, I changed my mind and switched to using the Voss strain instead, as I had a hunch that the slight burnt orange phenolics produced by Voss would meld nicely with the style. Not disappointed!



Grain Bill:

77% US Pale Ale (2 Row)

7% Chocolate malt
4% White wheat
4% Carapils
4% Crystal 120
4% Flaked oats

Hops:
15g Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus @ 15 mins
28g Tettnang @ hopstand
28g Cascade @ hopstand
Water Profile:
52ppm Ca2+

4ppm Mg2+

8ppm Na+

82ppm SO4-

60ppm Cl-

30ppm HCO3-
Mash:
67C for 60 mins
Mashout 75C for 10 mins

Fermentation:

Voss (Kveik) yeast

Pitched and fermented at 30C

Tasting notes:

Appearance - The beer pours with a solid tan head. It appears dark chocolate in colour but when held to the light, reveals its true color - a deep, clear ruby.

Aroma - prominent but not overpowering coffee notes, complemented by a fragrant, fruity aroma.

Taste - early initial samples had a light, though perceptible, alcoholic presence and earthy phenolic notes which faded out on extended lagering. Bittering is smooth and complements the underlying chocolatey, roast character. There is the character of plum-like notes in the background. The coffee is barely perceptible during tasting, only coming out if you look hard enough.

Mouthfeel - medium body with low-medium carbonation

Brew Notes: Bubbling Brook (West Coast IPA)

Background:
IPA is one of those things that the Missus and I disagree on. I absolutely love IPAs (almost as much as I love sours) but she hates them. "Too bitter", "Yuck!", "Ewwww! Why did you sneak me an IPA?!?". Well you get the idea.

Nonetheless, I still manage to sneak in a few IPAs throughout the year. In fact, this year's First Brew was an Imperial IPA! This one is more moderate - "just a West Coast IPA", but it deserves special mention because of a few things:
1. I'm using a different yeast strain that I've not used before
2. there will be quinoa as an adjunct to see if it improves head retention
3. the use of Brewtan-B

Yeast - I've been keeping this strain in storage for a bit (primarily because the other kveik strains have been enough to keep me really busy!). This is the Framgarden kveik from Stordal, Norway, and it came to me as a dried yeast. There's generally very little information on this strain, but according to the sensory notes contributed by Richard Preiss from Escarpment Labs, it looks like Framgarden is capable of producing a range of fruity esters described as "red apple" and "floral". Also, there is a hint of lager characteristics too. Fun, fun, fun!

Quinoa flakes were hard to come by so I ordered them in by mail. Theoretically the saponins in quinoa could help in head retention? We'll see!

Brewtan B was a last-minute addition. I happened to chance upon it at Raymond's, and as we all didn't have much experience with it, I figured I'll just throw everything into this brew. In terms of the grain bill, it's my regular go-to IPA base - I always enjoy that biscuity, bready character that Maris Otter lends to IPAs! Don't go overboard though. We're doing an American IPA here, not a British Bitter.

Grain Bill:

60.5% US Pale Ale (2 Row)

30.5% Maris Otter Malt
5% Flaked Quinoa
4% Carapils

Hops:
13g Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus @ 60 mins
13g Simcoe @ 10 mins
47g Centennial @ Hopstand
47g Citra @ Hopstand
47g Simcoe @ Dry Hop #1 (5 days)
23g Citra @ Dry Hop #1 (5 days)
47g Simcoe @ Dry Hop #2 (2 days)
13g Citra @ Dry Hop #2 (2 days)

Mash:
64C for 60 mins
Brewtan B - 1/4 teaspoon (not the most scientific, I know ..)
Mashout 75C for 10 mins

Fermentation:

Framgarden (Kveik) yeast

Pitched and fermented at 30C

Rock-solid flocculation!!! Literally! It just formed clumps and fell to the bottom of the fermenter. 

Given how Framgarden drops out of suspension, filtering was probably overkill. 

Tasting Notes:
Coming soon