The Screwy Brewer

Screwy's Recipe 65 - Screwy Witz Witbier

2012-01-14T23:40:00.000-05:00

Over the past several months I've been slowly converting all of my favorite extract recipes over to all grain. I've converted my Stouts, IPAs, Oktoberfest and several others over the past six months saving my wheat beer extract recipe for last. I was a little anxious about converting the wheat beer recipe to all grain because I would have to add flaked wheat and flaked oats to the mash. I've never used flaked wheat or flaked oats before and I was worried that if I didn't do it properly I could get a stuck mash. A stuck mash would mean wasting an entire brewday and ending up with no beer to show for it, not to mention throwing away all those ingredients.

Wheat, Oats, Barley, Hops And Secret Ingredients In Screwy Witz

Thankfully the morning I picked up my grains Joe Bair was helpful enough to explain which step I had to do differently in preparing the mash when using flaked ingredients. Thanks to Joe's advice I was able to brew two 5 gallon batches back to back without running into any problems or getting a stuck mash. Once the mash was completed brewing an all grain wheat beer was just the same as brewing any other all grain recipe as far as the lauter, boil and fermentation went.

Screwy Witz Witbier At Four Weeks

The last time I brewed a Belgian Witbier it was from an extract recipe had I ordered from Mr. Beer in 2010. I had spiced up the recipe back then by adding crushed coriander seeds and orange rinds to provide some citrus notes and some cardamom to add bit of spicy heat. Back then I hadn't really developed a taste for this style of beer yet but lot of people who tried it really liked it. Since then I'd been brewing wheat beers using DME and steeping grains and those recipes produced a nice drinkable wheat beer that was a hit with the people who drank them. So I set out to convert my basic wheat beer recipe from DME to all grain, with further plans in mind of using some adjuncts to create as many different wheat beer styles as I can.

I Love A Good Wheat Beer Any Time Of Year

Now with any fear of a stuck mash out of mind and far behind me I focused on creating the perfect Belgian Witbier recipe, one that I thought came the closest to what I wanted and others would expect in the final beer. My goal here was now two fold convert my DME recipe to all grain and then extend that conversion further out into the BJCP guidelines for a true Belgian Witbier which states 'Moderate sweetness (often with light notes of honey and/or vanilla) with light, grainy, spicy wheat aromatics, often with a bit of tartness. Moderate perfumy coriander, often with a complex herbal, spicy, or peppery note in the background. Moderate zesty, citrusy orangey fruitiness. A low spicy-herbal hop aroma is optional, but should never overpower the other characteristics.'

Flaked Oats, Flaked Wheat, Wheat Malt, Pilsener Malt And Rice Hulls

Within a week and only after having invested a lot of time doing online research I put together my final ingredient list. I emailed the list over to Princeton Homebrew and anxiously waited for the reply from Joe Bair confirming when he thought he could have my order ready and which of my preferred ingredients were in stock. I know whenever I email an order in to be filled it depends on how hectic it is in the store before I get a reply confirmation back. I always make it a point to send my list over well in advance of my planned pick up time and remember on the drive over that I may have some time to look around and ask questions while I wait to pay for my order.

Mixture Of Rice Hulls And Malted Grains Go In First

The day I picked up my ingredients Joe asked if I'd ever done an all grain wheat beer before and I said no this would be my first time. Joe suggested that I first add the malts, rice hulls and strike water to the mash tun and mix them all together until they hit my mash temperature, making sure there was enough room and strike water left on top of the tun so when I added the flaked oats and wheat they were submerged.

Flaked Wheat And Oats Added To Top Of Mash

Loading the mash tun was easy to do even though l had never done it this way before. The idea was to simply create a sort of filter bed made up of rice hulls and grains that would prevent the thick proteins from the flaked oats and wheat from sticking the mash. I just added a cup full of pilsener malt then a cup full of rice hulls and then a cup full of pilsener malt then a cup full of wheat malt until all the hulls and malts were in the mash tun. Then I added strike water until I reached my mash thickness, stirred all the grains together hitting my mash temperature and leaving enough room for the flaked grains and additional strike water.

Mash Tun Topped Off And Ready To Go

Into the mash tun went the rice halls along with the Belgian pilsener malt and German wheat malts. I filled the tun up to the 4 gallon mark when I hit my mash temperature of 152F after mixing all the rice hulls and grains together with the strike water. Next I poured the flaked wheat and flaked oats on top of the mash and then added enough strike water to fill the tun up to the 4.75 gallon mark and then screwed on the lid and began the 60 minute countdown. After doing this for the first time I realized that this whole process was easier to do than it was to explain and it made perfect sense. The rice hulls mixed in with the malts provided a deep enough grain bed that the mixture of flaked oats and wheat on top would never be able to clog up the filter and cause a stuck mash.

Single Infusion Mash And Fly Sparge

Since the flaked oats and wheat had to sit undisturbed during the entire mash process there was no need to open the tun or mess with it for the entire hour. I built this mash tun myself and have used it dozens of times so far and it always holds the mash temperature from start to finish. I start out by preheating the mash tun with about 2-3 gallons of 170F water for 20 minutes or so only dumping it out just before I'm ready to add in my grains and strike water.

Vorlauf The New Wort Until It Runs Really Clear

Right after I stir the mash and tweak my mash temperature I screw on the lid of the mash tun and immediately place two folded towels on top of the lid to help hold in the heat and keep it from escaping through the lid. Since the cooler itself was designed by the manufacturer to hold cold liquids the lid wasn't engineered to hold in heat but the folded towels placed on top of the lid provide the needed insulation.

Adding The Screwy Witz Special Ingredients To The Boil Pot

One of my favorite parts of the brewday were spent preparing the spices that went into the boilpot along with the hop additions and bitter orange peel. I put all the spices in a small plastic container for convenience and then just added them all to the boil at the same time. Belgian Witbier by style should use Noble hops that complement the citrusy coriander and spicy cardamom induced flavors and aromas that are unique to this style of beer.

Cooling Down The Wort To Pitching Temperature

If there's one step left in my brewing process that needs further improvement it's the wort cooling process. I learned a lesson in physics about the heat transfer in liquids the first time I used a water bath cool my wort down. Unlike hot air that rises up drawing in the cooler surrounding air to replace it as it's being heated water acts a whole lot different. With my sink filled with 55F water and a bunch of frozen water bottles I found that the water closest to the boil pot was really hot. But the further I moved my hand through the water away from the boil pot the colder the water temperature was. I ended up using my mash paddle to carefully stir the water bath to keep the colder water circulating against the side of the boil pot.

Racking Cooled Wort To LBKs Using An Auto Siphon

As the wort was cooling I gave it several good stirs to keep the hot wort in contact with the cooling coils and the side of the boil pot. This really sped up the cooling process a lot by preventing a thermal barrier from forming around the colder coils and pot surfaces. Another benefit of stirring the wort is it forces all the cold break to collect in a neat little pile on the bottom of the pot making racking only the clean wort into the fermentors much easier.

Screwy's Recipe 64 - Burstin' Out Pale Ale

2011-12-01T17:11:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to have the house to myself long enough to brew two all grain IPA recipes back to back. I picked up the ingredients Friday afternoon at Princeton Homebrew and started preheating my mash tun by 11:00am on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. Having this much uninterrupted brewing time allowed me to focus on some of the finer details of my brewing process and to try out a few new ideas. I was even lucky enough to take home two 125ml bottles of East Coast Yeast's ECY-12 which really made my day.

2-Row /Crystal 10L Malt With Cascades, Centennial And Columbus Hops

My goal was to brew an American IPA style beer using mostly 2-Row as the base malt with just a bit of Crystal 10L to add some sweetness. The idea was to let the hops come through loud and clear so I used a hop schedule that added more than half of the IBUs in the form of flavor and aroma hopping. While I was at it why not include first wort hopping in the process too, and so I did. The ECY-12 would be the perfect yeast choice to ferment this beer too because it's such a clean fermenter at 58F, it's a lager like yeast but not really a true lager yeast.

The bittering levels for an American IPA are between 60-70 IBUs and this recipe calculated out to be 71 IBUs with an original gravity of 1.061. I started my hop schedule by lautering 5 gallons of wort onto an ounce of Columbus hops and then adding another ounce of Centennial at 20 minutes and the other 2 ounces of Cascades at 10 and 7 minutes before flameout. I also held a couple of ounces of Cascades in reserve to be used for dry hopping once the primary fermentation is done. With 15 minutes remaining to the boil I added a tablet of WhirlFloc to help coagulate some of the proteins and make them easier to keep out of the fermentor.

1.080 Start Of Lauter 1.030 End Of Lauter And 1.060 Original Gravity

I used a single infusion mash for 60 minutes at 155F to prepare the wort for lautering. after the wort was running clear I took my sweet time fly sparging and filled the 5 gallon boilpot in a little over 30 minutes. Since the ECY-12 yeast is a medium attenuator and this beer comes in at just under 6% ABV I chose a mash temperature of 155F, your mileage may vary if you use a lower or higher attenuating yeast or a higher ABV brew. For a lower attenuating yeast you may want to mash a few degrees lower and just the opposite for a higher attenuating yeast. Whichever yeast you use be sure it ferments cleanly without producing excessive ester, phenol or other overpowering flavors that will interfere with the up front hop character so important in an American IPA style beer.

1 Ounce Of Columbus Hops Added As First Wort Hop Addition

The trick to getting this high IBU beer right is in getting all that great IPA hopping without turning the beer bitter. I've used First Wort Hopping several times in my IPAs and I'm a believer in any process that claims increased bittering without introducing any harsh resin or vegetable off flavors. So into the boilpot the Columbus hops went submerged in hot wort for the entire 30 minute lauter, another 30 minutes while the wort reached the boiling point followed by a good 60 minute boil. The other big challenge to making a good American IPA is loading up the wort with enough hop aroma and flavor so that it will remain hop forward after spending a month or two in the bottle or keg. I've heard from other brewers and experienced it myself where a nice hoppy beer at bottling kind of losses it's aroma after sitting in the bottle for a few months, this is what I'm trying to avoid by using the hop bursting technique.

Vorlauf Wort Until The Grain Bed Sets And The Wort Runs Clear

If you've done all grain brewing before and used a mash tun you know the first few quarts of wort to drain out during the lauter are pretty cloudy and loaded with bits of grains as shown in the picture on the left. After recirculating, or performing the vorlauf process, until the grain bed has been set the wort runs clear as shown in the picture on the right. I took the extra time to recirculate the wort before lautering so that only the clearest wort went into the boilpot. The lauter itself took a little over 30 minutes, I always set a timer at the start of the lauter and adjust the flow so I fill a quarter of the pot every 7-10 minutes until it's filled with 19 quarts of wort. I keep the lid on top of the boilpot the entire time to keep the heat in and any flying bugs out and it takes my stove 30 minutes to bring the wort up to a boil. As the water in the wort evaporates I replace it about halfway through the boil with boiling water I keep in a separate pot just for that purpose. At the end of the boil I remove the hops sacks and add enough of the boiling water so that the wort level is a half inch down from the top of the boilpot. That's just enough room so the wort doesn't spill out when I carry it over to the sink and put my wort cooler in it to cool the wort down quickly.

Screwy's Burstin Out Pale Ale

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=74, SRM=5, OG=1.061, FG=1.015, ABV= 5.9%

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew

10.5 pounds US 2 Row

0.5 pound Crystal 20L

1 ounce Columbus (pellets)

1 ounce Centennial (pellets)

3 ounces Cascade (pellets)

East Coast Yeast ECY12 - Old Newark Beer™

..or...

White Labs WLP001 - American Ale Yeast™

Mash at 155° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60 minutes.

Ferment at WLP001 at 68° F (18.8 °C), ECY12 at 58° F (14.0 °C) until final gravity is reached.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 170° F water for 20 minutes, preheat and dump it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 165° F

Pour 14 quarts of 165° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 68° F

Pour the remaining 165° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 155° F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 19 quarts of sweet wort to 20 quart pot

Full Wort Boil:

Add 1.0 ounce Columbus hops as the FWH added to boil pot during lauter

Add 1.0 ounce Centennial hops with 20 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/2 tablet WhirlFloc with 15 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1.0 ounce Cascade hops with 10 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1.0 ounce Cascade hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

(Dry hop 1.0 ounce Cascade hops after primary fermentation for 5 days)

Primary Fermentation:

Use autosiphon to prevent excess hop and grain debris from getting into fermenter

Fill two Mr. Beer fermenters equally with wort and top off with filtered water to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch WLP001 at 70° F or ECY12 at 60° F

Ferment to final gravity, raise to 3-5° F over 2 days, dry hop and hold for 5 days

Secondary Fermentation:

n/a

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

..or..

Keg with priming sugar, purge with Co2 and naturally carbonate for 7-14 days at 68°F

..or..

Bottle prime and carbonate at 68° for 14 to 21 days

Adding Mr. Beer Yeast As Nutrient

Once the wort got up to a good hard boil I started my countdown timer. The wort boiled pretty much unattended for the next 40 minutes before I had anything more to do to so I started getting my next hop additions, wort cooler and racking cane ready. During this time I gently rolled the ECY12 yeast every once in while to mix the cells up into solution in the bottle so they all poured out easily into the fermentor when pitched. The East Coast Yeast bottles contain a huge amount of yeast cells packed into a large 125ml jar. I have no problem splitting a single jar into two separate jars for pitching into each of my two 2.4 gallon fermentors since each 125ml jar of yeast is capable of fermenting 5 gallons of beer.

Each ECY Bottle Contains Massive Cell Counts

The ECY12 is priced the same as Wyeast or White Labs liquid yeast and each ECY jar contains at least twice the amount of yeast in a typical smack pack or tube, making using this exceptional yeast a no brainer. Not to mention that the yeast is grown locally by Al Buck, hand delivered in a cooler to Princeton Homebrew my LHBS and is awesome for fermenting just about any type and style of beer. Princeton Homebrew is the exclusive distributor of East Coast Yeast and currently ships up to 7 vials anywhere in the United States for $16.00 including ice pack and bubble wrap. Orders are now available to be placed online using PayPal and you can subscribe to the ECY Google Group by visiting the Princeton Homebrew website and getting the latest East Coast Yeast inventory information. You should act fast though the last shipment was sold out in just 21 minutes.

Sanitize 2 Bottles, Split And Pitch Into 2 Fermentors

With 5 minutes remaining in the boil the brewhaus aromas coming off of the wort were by now unmistakable and pure heaven to breathe. Even with the continuous movement of fresh air being blown in one window and hot boil vapors being exhausted out another window at a fast rate it was very obvious to anyone in the room we were making beer. As the count down timer rang out signaling the end of the boil I used a pair of sanitized stainless steel tongs to begin removing all four hop sacks from the boil pot. I placed them inside a strainer placed on top of a small aluminum pot to allow any remaining wort to drip out before emptying the spent hops into the garbage. I learned the hard way that spent hops and grains need to be drained, bagged and taken outside to be disposed of as soon as possible on brewday. The first and last time I didn't do that the brewhaus got infested with fruit flies, it seems they really like breeding in spent hops for some reason.

Giving The Boiling Wort Some Final Stirs Before Flameout

To help cool the boiling hot wort down quickly I filled one side of my double sink up halfway with cold water and about a dozen frozen water bottles to get the temperature of the water even lower, basically making a huge ice bath to place the boil pot in. After removing all the hop sacks and pouring in enough boiling make up water to raise the level of the wort up to a half inch below the top of the boil pot I carried the boil pot over to the sink and placed it in the ice bath. I quickly put my wort cooler into the boil pot and connected it to the sink after routing a vinyl tubing from the discharge end of the cooler to the drain of the other double sink. As the boil pot sat in the ice bath I opened the valve on my filtered water faucet letting the water flow into the ice bath raising the level up to an inch below the top of the boil pot, to totally submerse the wort in cold water. Using the ice bath with the wort cooler to cool down the hot wort dropped the wort temperature very quickly from 212F to 90F in about 10 minutes or so. I was able to get the wort down to it's 65F pitching temperature in about another 20 minutes, stirring the wort once or twice to keep the hot wort in contact with the cold sides of the boil pot and cooler coils helped it along.

Large Double Sink Makes For A Huge Functional Ice Bath

With the wort cooled down to pitching temperature, the hop sacks removed and the fermentors and racking cane sanitized it was now time to transfer the wort to the LBKs. Stirring the wort while it was cooling off helped form a nice pile of trub in the center of the boil pot which worked perfectly with the racking cane and clip I use to transfer the wort. Since the thickest part of the trub pile is near the center of the pot and the racking cane hangs close to the wall of the boil pot the wort is easily transferred clean to the fermentors. Once again having a double sided sink comes in handy because by simply putting a temporary shelf across the top of one side, placing the boil pot on it and the fermentors in the bottom of the other side allows the wort to transfer by gravity. I found the top of an old unused cooler that fits perfectly across the top of my sink without sliding and therefore eliminating any chance of accidentally spilling hot wort. The top is made of plastic which is easy to clean and sanitize as needed, it was a very lucky find for me and I use it all the time.

Happiness Is Racking Clear Trub Free Wort Easily

As all the racking and cooling was going on I managed to keep turning and gently shaking the two bottles of East Coast Yeast I was going to pitch. I do this to get as many cells into suspension as possible by keeping them stirred up and preventing the cells from sticking to the bottles walls. I do this with all brands and types of liquid yeast because I want to end up with as many cells as possible in my fermentor and not inside the bottles to be thrown away. Another interesting fact I found out is that fruit flies are also attracted to yeast solutions whether it be rehydrated dry yeast or liquid yeast. I mention this because it took me nearly a week to eliminate the infestation of fruit flies from my brewhaus and until I did I got a first hand look at what they were attracted to. If you've ever had a similar experience you know what a nuisance they can be especially when your transferring cooled wort and pitching yeast, they seem to be everywhere and shooing them away gets to be a real pain.

Pitching Half A Bottle Of ECY12 Directly Into Fermentor

With the wort transferred to the fermentors, the yeast stirred up into solution and both my hands hurting form aerating the wort for several minutes it was time to unscrew the top of the bottles and pitch the ECY12 yeast. Once the yeast was pitched it was back to aerating the wort all over again for several more minutes so that I could get as much oxygen as I could back into the wort before screwing on the fermentor lids. After boiling the wort mostly all of the oxygen that was present in it before the boil was now gone. Since yeast need oxygen, during their initial lag and growth phases in order to multiply and build up energy for the upcoming fermentation, aerating the wort is the only way to put the oxygen back in it. Sore hands are the price I pay for manually aerating the wort instead of investing in an O2 tank, gauges and diffuser stone which would make aeration much easier and actually increase the levels of oxygen to higher levels than when using a spoon.

Cleaning Up The Mash Tun After The Lauter Was Done

A typical all grain brew day takes me 5-6 hours from start to finish including cleaning up all my brewing gear and storing it away until my next brew day. I brew 5 gallon batches now all the time and rack the wort that's made into two 2.4 gallon Mr. Beer fermentors. I started out doing it this way because I bought 6 of the smaller fermentors when I first got started brewing beer and since then I have found them to be pretty versatile. They are easier to carry around when full and to clean when empty. Their smaller capacity let's me fill up two of them from a single 5 gallon batch and allows my to ferment or dry hop one of them a little differently than the other and judge the results to see which one is the best. It also allows me to mix the two together to take the experimentation a bit further if needed. The LBKs work well as secondary fermentors and double as bottling buckets too and it's not too rare that I have all 6 of them in use at the same time.

Final Gravity Reading 1.012 At Bottling

The Burstin' Out Pale Ale was ready to bottle in about 10 days after pitching the ECY12 yeast into it and fermenting it at 58-60F until I got the final gravity reading of 1.012, which actually finished about 2-3 points lower than qBrew had calculated. I always naturally carbonate my kegged beer so I added to each 2.5 gallon corny keg 5 tablespoons of pure cane sugar boiled for 5 minutes in half a cup of filtered water then cooled down to 68F. This comes out to roughly a half a teaspoon full of pure cane sugar per 12 ounce bottle and adds between 2.5 - 2.75 volumes of Co2 which is just perfect for this style of beer.

First Pour From Bottle At 12 Days

Bingo! What more can I say, at only 12 days old this beer is already perfect. I'm not sure how to describe it but I'll try. The first thing you notice when opening the bottle is that familiar 'ppfftt' immediately followed by an aroma that is undoubtedly what you'd expect from an awesome IPA. Not bitter at all but full of hop aroma and flavor with great lacing and head retention. The ECY12 cleanly fermented this beer letting all the hop aroma and flavors through with absolutely no traces of astringency or resinous off flavors. I only had two bottles to sample but they were both delicious so I just racked a corny keg in the refrigerator for drinking this weekend. I feel like I've died and gone to hop heaven.

Naturally Carbonated And Delicious

After sharing this beer with a few of my favorite hop loving friends, and some family members that don't care for hoppy beers at, I am now convinced that this recipe is destined to be real favorite of mine. Full of American hop aroma that hits you square in the face as you lift the glass to take your very first sip. Next thing that takes you by surprise is the soft smooth mouth feel and the amount of pure hop flavor in each sip.

Perfectly Balanced, Not Bitter And Naturally Carbonated

Nothing stands in the way of the beer when delivering the most favorable hop flavor and aromas directly to you with each and every taste. Its soft golden color reminds me of fields of grain waving in the wind on a midsummer afternoon. Burstin' Out Pale Ale's unsurpassed long lasting foam, superior lacing and 'session' beer-like qualities are deceptive of it's nearly 6.0% ABV alcohol content. I'd suggest this beer with a pepperoni pizza while sitting down watching a good movie.

What Every Brewer Should Know About Yeast

2011-11-24T16:16:00.000-05:00

As a new brewer it took me quite a while before I was able to understand what was going on inside the LBKs during 'the fermentation'. I see posts here all the time from new and conditioned brewers alike about off flavors in their beer and how or why they have them. So this morning I decided to sit down with my morning coffee, since I couldn't sleep anyway, and try to set the record straight and try to explain the 4 things every brewer should know about yeast.

Here's how I view the relationship between yeast, off flavors and fermentation temperatures throughout the typical beer fermentation. While I'm writing this with brewing an Ale in mind the same principals apply equally to Lager fermentations too.

Phase 1 begins as soon as you pitch your yeast and is referred to as the lag phase, which we brewers want to keep as short as possible. The yeast are using up the sugars and oxygen in the wort to load up their food reserves, they won't ferment anything until they've been well fed. Stressing the yeast out with too high temperatures or too low numbers of viable cells will prolong the lag phase and the fermentation will take longer to complete while increasing the amounts and types of off flavors like diacetyl that may or may not ever condition out.

Phase 2 starts as soon as the lag phase ends because now the yeast have enough energy stored up to start multiplying, this is referred to as the growth phase. This is where you begin to see a bit of foam floating at the surface the wort from the production of Co2 and the pH and oxygen levels of the wort will start dropping. If you've pitched enough healthy yeast at the right temperatures into well aerated wort the lag time should have been 6-12 hours and the yeast are now full of energy and off to a very healthy start.

Phase 3 begins as soon as the growth phase is done and is triggered by a lack of oxygen in the wort, this is known as the fermentation phase. This is the phase where the production of Co2, alcohol and your beer's flavor is at it's peak and the wort temperature rises 3-5F higher than the ambient air outside the fermentor. The yeast will stay in suspension, so they come in contact with as many sugars as possible, over the next 3-7 days before they run out of sugars to eat and flocculate out to the bottom of the fermentor. Higher temperatures during this phase will produce more esters or fruity flavors and aromas, like the banana flavors in a hefeweizen. It's interesting to note that another cause of ester production is wort that hasn't been aerated enough.

Phase 4 is the final phase of the fermentation process and it's referred to as the sedimentation phase where the yeast begin consuming and converting any remaining flavor precursors in the wort like diacetyl that will produce off flavors in your beer. During this phase the yeast cells are preparing themselves to go dormant and storing up energy reserves for their deep sleep, even though this is where most of us flush them down the drain. I'd like to point out that the amount of cleanup work left for the yeast to do is dependent on how well we treated, or mistreated, our yeast during the first 3 fermentation phases.

During the sedimentation phase I raise the temperature of my fermentors 3-5F and hold it there for at least 3 days before bottling or kegging my beer. I do this because the yeast will only convert the flavor precursors it created earlier if it's warmer than it was when they created them. There is a limit to this rule though since the yeast can only do so much cleanup before they go dormant. Once the yeast go dormant any remaining flavor precursors will be left in your beer to produce off flavors.

The moral of this post is to always use fresh healthy yeast in sufficient quantity pitched into well aerated wort at the recommended temperature and you will produce some great tasting beer.

Screwy's Recipe 63 - Snowy Daze Barley Stout (all grain)

2011-10-26T06:19:00.000-04:00

Another brewday was here and I still had a couple of hours to decide what style of beer I would be brewing and to finalize an ingredient list. With the cooler weather here now in the Northeast, and the fact that my pipeline was pretty well stocked with wheat beers and assorted pale ales, I decided to go with one of my perennial favorites a nice Chocolate Barley Stout. I've spent a lot of time brewing this style of beer using DME and steeping grains and have gotten the recipe down to where I can consistently brew a great tasting stout that's ready to drink in 4-6 weeks. Now I was ready to try my hand at designing and brewing an all grain version of the same Chocolate Barley Stout extract recipe, a very flavorful and easy drinking brew coming in at 5.3% ABV.

Screwy's Snowy Daze Stout

A very long time ago, maybe as early as 1720s according to some accounts, the term stout was given to represent a strong beer. Although the meaning of stout has changed over the years that followed because it was often used to describe many different styles of beer. At one point in history you could even order a Stout Pale Ale, as back then the word stout meant strong so if any style beer of the day had what it takes (6.6% ABV or higher) it could also be called a stout. By most accounts the most popular beer of that period was a known as a Stout Porter which really described a dark Porter beer that had a high alcohol content.

Victorian Era Ad For Ale

It wasn't until the 1840s when Guinness decided to rename their 'Extra Superior Porter' to 'Extra Stout' that the name became synonymous with a strong dark beer style. When researching history of Stout beer you'll see that it originated from another dark beer style called a Porter. There were different strength porters too, with the stronger brews being called Stout Porter, and they were served to English dock workers who were also known as porters. The ales houses of the day, or Porter Houses, provided some much needed food and drink to all those hard working dock workers so it comes as no surprise that they served Porter House Steaks too. So there you have it, hungry and thirsty Englishmen known as porters going off at the end of their work day to porter houses to eat porter house steaks and washing them down with stout porter ale.

I drink Guinness now and have for a good number of years and while I like it's dark color and creamy barley taste I wouldn't call it a very strong beer. But a lot of people to this day are under the impression that a stout beer means a very strong beer and in fact there are many stouts brewed today that really do have a high ABV but they don't have to. I think it's because of the history of the word stout itself that people today still think of stout beer as a very strong beer.

East Kent Goldings, 2 Row, Roasted Barley, Chocolate and Crystal Malt Mix

I was pretty excited about brewing this recipe because it was my first try at building an all grain stout ale recipe. I had stumbled across a really informative post on the HomeBrewTalk forum a couple of years ago about building the perfect stout recipes. The poster seemed to know what he was talking about and after reading what he had to say I was able to find other information online that seemed to support his recipe.

In this stout recipe I decided that the only hop influence needed would be for bittering because I wanted to make sure that the full aromas and flavors of the roasted barley would shine through. I chose East Kent Goldings because of their earthy and spicy character and mild aroma and I added half as first wort hops and then added the other half to the boil with 30 minutes remaining.

Mashing Stout Recipe Grains For 60 Minutes

I preheated my 5 gallon mash tun with 2 gallons of 170F water for about 20 minutes before dumping the water out and replacing it with grains and strike water. The grains were at 68F so I added 14 quarts of 165F strike water to the tun and then stirred in the 11 pounds of grains needed for the recipe. I then topped off the tun with enough 165F water to fill it up to the 4.5 gallon mark. I then adjusted the temperature by adding a little hot or cold water as needed and gave the grains a really good stir to break up any clumps and eliminate any chance of channeling.

First Wort Hopping 3 Ounces Of East Kent Goldings

Big clumps of grain mean less grains are going to come into contact with the mash water, you can actually still have dry grains inside the clumps when mashing. Channeling means the sparge water doesn't come in contact evenly with all the grains to rinse all the converted sugars off of them and into the boil pot. Instead during the lauter water flows from the top of the mash tun straight down to the spigot via the channels and out into your boil pot leaving precious sugars behind and giving you lower conversion rates and weaker wort. These two things in themselves are the easiest things to correct and a brewer's failure to correct them are probably the single biggest reason for all grain batches lower conversion rates, but they are easy to avoid just by stirring the mash really well.

Fly Sparging Stout Wort After A 60 Minute Mash

So far this recipe was just a theory and it really came to life for me when I first unscrewed the cover of the mash tun and got a whiff of the earthy, chocolate and coffee aromas that were quite powerful. The recipe's grain bill uses only 12% dark malts, 9% Crystal malt and the remaining 79% uses 2 Row as the base malt. I was almost a little skeptical on just how much of the roasted grain aromas would come through but after brewing my extract Stouts I was sure this ratio of dark grains to 2 Row wouldn't be a problem.

By this time the entire brew area took on the aroma and smells familiar to anyone who has ever been to a Starbucks or worked in a coffee plant were they roasted imported green coffee beans to a deep dark color. When lautering the hot wort I got a nice warm comforting feeling from the aromas coming off of the mash and wort as the boil pot filled that was perfect on the first cold day of Fall.

Recirculating A Half Gallon Of Freshly Made Wort

Once the wort was running free of bits of grains I drew off my SG sample and put it in the refrigerator to cool down and then spent the next 30 minutes fly sparging and lautering the hot aromatic wort into my 20 quart boil pot. The wort's OG reading came out to 1.056 which was about 3 points lower than qBrew had calculated which to me wasn't too far off the recipe's calculated 1.059.

Original Gravity Reading Of 1.056

I remember being really excited about brewing my first all grain stout recipe, it was something new and challenging and I knew it would come out awesome. The mash had gone well and I took my time with the lauter and fly sparge making sure the strike water temperatures were good and the grain bed kept covered with no less than an inch of strike water the entire time. Now it was on to the next phase which would ultimately take me closer to brewing the perfect stout, the boil. It took my stove about 20 minutes to bring the 160F wort up to a boil. I left the hop sack in the boil pot the entire time and boiled the wort for 30 minutes.

Stout Wort With First Wort Hops And 30 Minute Boil

With my 20 quart boil pot filled to the brim with both wort and hop additions added a nice rolling boil for 30 minutes things started to get interesting. I had been warming and shaking up my two yeast viles and had already sanitized the 2 LBKs I'd be using to ferment this batch. I also had my wort cooler soaking in sanitizer so I was all set for the coldside brewing that was soon to follow. I think of my beer brewing processes in terms hotside and coldside brewing. The hotside includes everything from openning the grainbags to cooling down the wort before pitching yeast. The coldside includes everything after that including the fermentation, conditioning and bottling or kegging of the beer.

Adjusting Yeast Temperature And Consistency Before Pitching

At the start of my brewing session just as I was preparing the mash tun I took the tubes of WLP004 yeast out of the refrigerator and set them in a bowl of OneStep to so they could gradually warm up to pitching temperature. Both tubes had been refrigerated and kept cold at the LHBS and I did the same when I got them home. Over the next several hours as the grains mashed and the wort was lautered and boiled I would give both tubes a shake or two to mix up the yeast cells with the beer inside the tubes. I wanted the yeast to have a nice creamy consistency when I eventually pitched them into my wort. This is a good way to make sure there are no clumps of cells lumped together and that as many yeast cells as possible get emptied from the tubes when pitched.

White Labs WLP004 - Irish Ale Yeast™ Pitched At 70F

I use a wort cooler connected to my sink to cool my wort down to the yeast's pitching temperature. On average the 8 coils of 3/8 inch copper tubing with cold tap water flowing through it can cool the 5 gallons of 210F wort down to 65-70F in as little 20 minutes. The summer months are more challenging than the winter months are for cooling wort because the tap water in summer may only be as cool as 75F. That's when I fill one side of the utility sink with cold water and frozen water bottles and run a vinyl tubing from the cooler's return line directly down the drain of the other sink. That's just one of the many advantages there are when installing a double sink, the extra capacity is easily reconfigurable to meet the needs of many brewing processes.

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=37, SRM=37, OG=1.059, FG=1.015, ABV= 5.7%

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
8.5 pounds US 2 Row

1.0 pound Crystal 20L

0.5 pound Chocolate Malt (British)

1.0 pound Roasted Barley

3 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) (pellets)

11g Danstar Windsor Dry Ale Yeast Rehydrate and pitch at 70° F

..or...

White Labs WLP004 - Irish Ale Yeast™

Mash at 155° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 30 minutes.

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68-72° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 72° F over 2 days then hold for 5 days

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 3-4 weeks at 36° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 36° F

I use Mr. Beer fermentors and they hold around 2.4 gallons of wort but I used all 11g of yeast that's typically packaged for 5 gallon brews.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 170° F water for 20 minutes, preheat and dump it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 165° F

Pour 14 quarts of 165° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 68° F

Pour the remaining 165° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 155° F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 19 quarts of sweet wort to 20 quart pot

Full Wort Boil:

Add 1.5 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops to boil pot when lautering as first wort hops

Add 1.5 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 30 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/4 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F

Primary Fermentation:

Use autosiphon to prevent excess hop and grain debris from getting into fermenter

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch rehydrated yeast at 70° F

Ferment to final gravity, raise to 72° F over 2 days and hold for 5 days

Secondary Fermentation:

n/a

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

..or..

Keg with priming sugar, purge with Co2 and naturally carbonate for 7-14 days at 68°F

..or..

Bottle or batch prime and carbonate at 68° for 7 to 14 days

After the first 12 hours the fermentation had taken off vigorously. When I looked in on the progress the next morning I was happy to see that a thick healthy layer of krausen had already formed at the top of both fermentors. With minimal lag time this was a good sign that the fermentation was off to a great start. By the next day the fermentation had completely filled the headspace of both fermentors and one of them was beginning to overflow into the the drip tray. Over the course of the fermentation I had to remove and clean the fermentors a couple of times but overall less than a cup or so of beer was actually lost.

12 Hours Later A Thick Healthy Krausen Had Already Formed

With the final gravity reading holding at 1.016 I figured it was time to bottle this stout up, even though the qBrew calculation said the final gravity should finish at 1.015 this reading was close enough for me.The results were in and I liked them. According to my measurements this stout came in at 5.3% ABV with 190 calories per and 22 carbs per 12 ounce bottle. The other good news was the apparent attenuation was also around 70% which for me is just perfect for this style of beer.

Final Gravity Reading Of 1.016

I had cleaned, rinsed and sanitized fifty 12 ounce bottles and my bottling bucket, bottling wand and racking tubing so now I prepared my priming solution. I used StarSan as my sanitizer for the first time, up until now I had only been using OneStep and I have had good results using it all this time. I decided to try StarSan mainly because it was cheaper to buy and faster acting than OneStep which requires a 10 minute soak to be effective. I poured the StarSan solution into my bottle rinser and then gave each bottle 2 or 3 good squirts just to make sure the entire inside surface was coated with sanitizer. Before placing the bottles on the bottle tree to drain I dipped the neck of each bottle into the StarSan solution about an inch to make sure the cap area was covered too.

StarSan, Bottle Rinse And Bottle Tree

I boiled about 5 tablespoons of pure can sugar in a cup of water and stirred it until the sugar was dissolved to prevent scorching or burning the sugar. After cooling the priming solution down to pitching temperature I added it to the bottling bucket along with 2 tablespoons of pure vanilla extract and then racked the fermented beer on top so it all mixed together as the bucket filled. Once the bucket was filled I used a large sanitized plastic spoon to gently swirl the beer and sugar solution together to make the mixture more consistent, which in turn would make the carbonation levels between bottles more consistent too. Interestingly enough I found that adding pure vanilla extract to the beer at bottling actually enhances the chocolaty flavors of the Chocolate Malt in the recipe, who would have guessed.

Adding Vanilla Extract At Bottling Enhances Chocolate Flavors

When bottling I first put 50 bottle caps in a small bowl filled with StarSan and then using a bottling wand attached to my bottling bucket I filled each bottle to the very top. After removing the bottling wand the level of beer in each bottle fell about an inch leaving just enough headroom for the carbonating beer inside. When each bottle was filled I placed a bottle cap on them and using my finger to prevent spilling any beer I inverted the bottles 2 times before setting them on the table to be capped after they were all filled. Using a bench capper made capping the bottles quick and easy and in no time at all I had 2 cases of bottles capped and ready for carbonation.

The bottles have been carbonating at 68F for almost two weeks now and this weekend end I plan to put a couple of bottles in the refrigerator for a day or two and them sample them. By this coming weekend the beer will have been brewed 4 weeks ago and should be ready to drink. I like to start sampling my home brewed beer after waiting at least 2 weeks for them to finish naturally carbonating and if they taste great then they'll be gone all the sooner.

Snowy Daze Stout Naturally Carbonated And Delicious

This stout is definitely one of my favorites of all times, the flavors of the Roasted Barley and Chocolate Malts just come through amazingly clear. Ready to drink in only 4 weeks the mouthfeel is medium bodied with 2.5 volumes of Co2 for carbonation and actually makes drinking a few in a row easy to do. The most striking thing when you lift the glass is the roasted barley malt followed immediately by a definite but not too overpowering hint of chocolate. I can only explain the clarity of these flavors as being so clear because of the amount and type of yeast I pitched and the all grain ingredients used in the recipe. All in all this is now my most prized house beer recipe, a well balanced and not overly sweet or bitter Stout style that continues to get great reviews from everyone who's tried it.

Screwy's Recipe 62 - Screwy's Noble Wheat

2011-10-01T03:51:00.000-04:00

This 5 gallon recipe is designed using the Weizen/Wiessbier wheat beer style guidelines for gravity, bitterness and color. It includes Muntons Wheat Dry Malt Extract as the backbone of the recipe with some steeped Crystal 10L for improved head retention and body. I'm targeting the Paulaner Hefe Weizen wheat beer style I and some friends have been drinking lately.

I included two pounds of Pure Clover Honey to boost the alcohol content and enhance the aroma of cloves imparted by the Safbrew WB-06 wheat beer yeast strain. I would like to have used German Hallertauer hop additions for bitterness, flavor and aroma but I had to substitute Crystal hops instead because the German Hallertauer hops weren't available.

Honey, Wheat DME, Crystal Hops, WB-06 And Crystal 10L (Not Shown)

This recipe is geared toward a 5 gallon batch but and I've also included the recipe in qBrew download format so it won't be hard for others to tailor it to different size batches if needed. It's an extract with steeping grains recipe so it doesn't require more than 4-5 hours to brew depending on your brewing pace. I like the wheat beers because they're ready to drink in about 3-4 weeks and they taste great.

Screwy's Noble Wheat SRM 7

I loaded qBrew with my Recipe #58 and made a few slight changes to my previous wheat beer recipe substituting Crystal 10L for the CaraPils I used the last time. I also had to use Crystal hops in this recipe since my favorite Halleteur hops were not available on brewday. The Crystal pellet hops I used had a lower percentage of alpha acid so I had to adjust the boil times in order to get the correct IBU range, something that qBrew does very easily. Once the new recipe was tweaked I saved it as Recipe 62 - Noble Wheat.qbrew and emailed the list to Princeton Homebrew for pickup later that day.

Estimated IBU=9, SRM=7, OG=1.062, FG=1.016, ABV=6.0%

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Recipe: Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=9, SRU=7, OG=1.062, FG=1.016, ABV=6.0%
2 pounds honey

1 pound Crystal 10L

5 pounds Muntons Wheat DME - 55% Wheat/45% Barley

1/2 ounce Crystal pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes

2 pounds of Honey for 30 minutes

1/2 ounce Crystal pellet hops boiled for 20 minutes

1 ounce Crystal pellet hops boiled for 7 minutes

11.5 gram Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast

Pitched at 70F and fermented at 70F until final gravity is steady for 2 days

Directions:
** Steep grains in 3 gallons of 153F filtered water for 30 minutes **

Remove grain bag from 20 quart boil pot

Stir in DME top off with filtered water and bring to a hard boil

Add hops at 60 minutes

Stir in clover honey and boil for 35 minutes

Add hops and boil for 20 minutes

Add Whirlfloc and boil for 9 minutes

Add hops and boil for 7 minutes

Place in ice bath, or use wort chiller until wort temperature cools to 70F

Aerate and pitch yeast at 65-70F
Ferment at 68F temperature until final gravity is steady for 2 days
Add 1/2 ounce Cascade hops for finishing and let soak for 5 days

The Grains Steeped For 30 Minutes Before Adding DME

I filled up a 20 quart boil pot with about three gallons of filtered water and set it on the burner, this would be my steeping pot. When the water hit about 160F I put the steeping grains in and checked the temperature to make sure it stayed at 153F-155F for the entire 30 minutes of the steep. During this time I rounded up all the bowls, spoons and thermometers I'd need for rehydrating the Safbrew wb-06 dry yeast.

Boiled Filtered Water Cooled To 95F And Dry Yeast

Of course I kept the bowls covered the entire time, except when stirring the yeast slurry, so that no bugs or other things like mold spores and wild yeast can get in. The bowls were soaked in One-Step for 10-15 minutes and I boiled filtered water for 15 minutes and then cooled it down to 95F before sprinkling in the dry yeast. I also soak the yeast packets and scissors in One-Step for at least 10 minutes before cutting open the packets.

Safbrew wb-06 Rehydrated In 95F Water Before Pitching

Since reading Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff's newest book 'Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation' I've learned a new respect for the yeast I use in my homebrewing. On page 124 of the book they wrote how important it is to rehydrate dry yeast before pitching it into wort, in fact they included the following line 'Failure to rehydrate dry yeast properly will result in the death of approximately half the cells'. It's so easy to do and such a standard part of my brewing process now I always rehydrate any dry yeast before pitching it.

Adding 5 Pounds Of Dry Wheat/Barley Extract Mix

Once the steeping was done I added the 5 pounds of wheat DME to the boil pot and stirred it in really good before the wort began to boil. I found that doing it this way reduced the chances of having a hotbreak boil over while making the DME clumps easier to dissolve into the wort.

20 Quart Pot With Wort, DME, WhirlFloc And Hop Additions

As the wort boiled for 60 minutes I added in my hop additions. During this time I also rehydrated the dry yeast and sanitized the LBKs and cooling coils. I also kept another 16 quart pot of filtered water boiling on a back burner. As the water level dropped in my main boil pot I would use the extra boiling water to replace the water that had evaporated from the wort.

Cooling Wort Down To Pitching Temperature

My hotside brewing had gone as planned so it was time to start cooling down the wort and getting it ready for pitching the rehydrated yeast. I had topped off the boilpot with boiling water about 10 minutes before flameout to make sure I had enough wort in the boilpot before cooling it down. My racking cane, tubing, LBKs, spoon and yeast were all ready, waiting for the wort temperature to get down low enough to begin racking to the fermentors.

Transferring The Cooled Wort To The 2 Mr. Beer Fermentors

I also put a couple of frozen water bottles into my fermentation chamber to cool it off before putting the filled LBKs inside it. Right after pitching the yeast I move the LBKs into the fermentation chamber to help prevent the temperature inside the fermentors from getting too high. I found that doing this, in combination with rehydrating the dry yeast and providing plenty of aeration reduces the lag time and gets the primary fermentation off to a vigorous start.

Original Gravity Came Out 1.054

The interesting thing about the OG of this batch is that it came out 8 points lower than qBrew had calculated. I'm thinking that possibly the 1.045 rating on the wheat DME and the 1.035 rating for the honey may have been too high. Even with the lower gravity reading this beer should still develop alcohol levels in the 5% range which is pretty respectable for a nice wheat beer.

According to the experts yeast do best when the oxygen levels in the wort are between 8-10 parts per million. In reality most homebrewers introduce between 4-6 parts per million of dissolved oxygen into their wort by either shaking or whisking the fermentor and wort causing it to foam up. With a lot of effort the dissolved oxygen levels can get as high as 6-8 parts per million or when using an aquarium pump and air stone.To hit levels of 10 parts per million you really need to have a bottle of oxygen handy.

Plenty Of Aeration To Assure A Vigorous Fermentation

I peeked in on the LBKs after 12 hours of fermentation and was happy to see that both fermentors had taken off as expected. The combination of the right amount of fresh yeast, proper rehydration and a well aerated 70F wort had all worked together nicely to keep the yeast healthy and the fermentation strong.

Short Lag Time And A Strong Primary Fermentation In 12 Hours

For the next few days I'll keep an eye on the temperature inside the fermentors. I now that during peak primary fermentation the yeast can cause the temperature of inside the LBKs to go up and the increased heat if left unchecked will mean higher levels of esters which in turn will introduce stronger banana flavors in this wheat beer. This is like the fifth or sixth time I've brewed this beer so I pretty much know already how it will taste once it's ready to drink. I figure at 70F the fermentation should be done in about 8-10 days and adding in another 2-3 days for the yeast to do their cleanup and another 10-14 days to naturally carbonate the beer to 3.5 volumes of Co2. By next month I'll be drinking a really nice wheat beer just as the fall weather takes hold here in the northeast.

Final Gravity Held At 1.014 For 3 Days

The final gravity reading came out about 2 points lower than qBrew had estimated finishing at 1.014 instead of 1.016. To me this beer finishing off at 5.3% ABV is just about perfect because I usually like to drink a couple of them at a time without worrying about getting too hammered.

Transferring The Beer To The Bottling Bucket

I cooled down the boiling water and sugar solution to 70F and and then racked the wheat beer on top of it, I also sanitized my Teflon spoon and gently swirled the beer and sugar solution together to mix them up really good. From there I used the bottling bucket and bottling want to fill the 12 ounce bottles. I rinsed the bottles out with hot water and then gave them 3 quick squirts of StarSan before placing them on the bottle tree to drain until filling.

Bottles Sanitized With StarSan

I filled the corny keg directly from the fermentor adding a priming solution of 9 tablespoons of pure cane sugar boiled in a half cup of water to the keg first. The bottling solution was at 70F when I added it to the keg and the beer from the fermentor mixed in with it as the keg filled. Once the keg was filled I hit it with 20 psi of Co2 to set the seal and then vented it a couple of times to purge out any oxygen.

9 Tablespoons Of Pure Cane Sugar For 2.5 Gallons

Screwys Recipe #61 - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

2011-09-21T22:25:00.002-04:00

I bottled up and kegged my latest batches on Friday, they were extract/steeping recipes I brewed two weeks ago to give my pipeline a quick boost. Now with the cooler weather and all day Sunday to myself I decided to brew another batch of my Screwy Pale Ale. I really wanted to get a hold of some East Coast Yeast ECY-10 or ECY-12 but Al's on vacation now and it didn't make it in his last delivery to Princeton Homebrew. So early Sunday morning I fired up the coffee pot, qBrew and starting entering my recipe's ingredient list and about 20 minutes later my recipe was done. It's basically a remake of my American IPA style using 2 Row malt, some Crystal 10L and Columbus, Centennial and Cascade hops.

Screwy Pale Ale Ingredients

I emailed my ingredient list to Joe Bair and headed over to Princeton Homebrew around lunchtime to pick them up. Luckily Joe had extra help on and my order was ready and waiting. Somedays it can get really crazy busy there and I may have to wait a bit to get the entire order put together but it never takes too long. Joe told me he would let Al Buck know I'd like to get some of his ECY-10 or ECY-12 the next time he dropped off a new supply of yeast. For this recipe I would be using Safale US-05 dry yeast again. I read on some websites where fellow brewers said the Safale US-05 is the dry form of WLP001 California Ale yeast, which Joe was out of this weekend.

A Low 152F Mash Temperature For A Drier Beer

The last batch of SPA I made last month is pretty close to the best all grain summer recipe I've made this year. I've been using 2 Row and a bit of Crystal malt in both recipes but this time I'm mashing at 152F instead of 158F to try and give the finished beer a little bit dryer finish this time. Both the ECY-12 and the Safale US-05 are medium flocculators so the there should be little if any difference in how the beer ferments but of course the final gravity readings will tell me that for sure.

I Recirculated The Wort For a Full 10 Minutes This Time

After mashing at 152F for 60 minutes I began to recirculate the wort to make sure it was flowing into the sample cup nice and clear before I let it fill up my 20 quart boil pot. It's a pretty big stainless steel cup that holds close to 12 ounces of wort and I must have emptied it back into the top of the mash tun at least 10 or more times before transferring the wort to my boil pot. This is the longest I've spent recirculating wort, since I wasn't feeling pressured for time, I was able to try out a few new tweaks to my brewing process.

Clear Wort Flows Onto Hop Sack During First Wort Hopping

I added 1 ounce of Columbus pellet hops to the boil pot and then slowly drained the wort from the mash tun into the boil pot. I adjusted the rate of flow down until it was a bit slower than it was during the recirculation and it took slightly more than 30 minutes to fill the entire pot. During the lauter the combination of hot wort mixed with the aroma from the hops and filled the brew room and made it smell really good.

I have a window fan blowing fresh air into the brew room at one end of the brew room and an open window at the other end to exhaust the hot boil fumes and keep fresh air constantly circulating into the room. Indoor brewing allows you to brew regardless of the weather, which works out great for most folks with limited available time for brewing.

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=65, SRM=5, OG=1.061, FG=1.015, ABV= 5.9%

I pitched rehydrated Safale US-05™ yeast into the 70F wort right after aerating it really well.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew

10.5 pounds US 2 Row

0.5 pound Crystal 10L

1 ounce Columbus (pellets)

1 ounce Centennial(pellets)

1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

2 ounces Cascade (pellets) - Dry Hop 5 Days

11g Safale - US05 Rehydrate and pitch at 70° F

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68-72° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 72° F over 2 days then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 3-4 weeks at 36° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 36° F

Mash at 152° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60 minutes.

I use Mr. Beer fermentors and they hold around 2.4 gallons of wort but I used all 11g of yeast that's typically packaged for 5 gallon brews.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 170° F water for 20 minutes to preheat it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 165° F

Pour 14 quarts of 165° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 68° F

Pour the remaining 165° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 152° F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 18.5 quarts of sweet wort to 20 quart pot

Full Wort Boil:

Add 1 ounce Columbus hops with 60 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounce Centennial hops with 20 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/4 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounce Cascade hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

(Optional) 2 ounces Cascade hops dry hop 5 days in secondary before bottling

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F before pitching yeast.

Primary Fermentation:

Use autosiphon to prevent excess hop and grain debris from getting into fermenter

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 11g of rehydrated Safale US-05 pitched at 70° F

Ferment to final gravity, raise to 72° F over 2 days

Secondary Fermentation:

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 3-4 weeks at 36°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 68° for 14 to 21 days

20 Quart Boil Pot With Hop Addition

Once the boil took off I set the timer to 60 minutes and let the first hop addition boil away in the wort. The 2 Row seemed to create a lot of break material during the boil forming large pieces of coagulated proteins and tannins that I later left at the bottom of the pot when racking the wort to the fermentor.

I Kept Removing The Hot Break Every So Often

A fair amount of hotbreak also formed on top of the boiling wort. This foamy stuff is said to be bitter so I remove it before it gets a chance to sink to the bottom of the boil pot. Another good reason for brewing all grain when you have plenty of time is you get to think of and try out new ideas.

Rehydrated Safale US-05 Yeast Before Pitching

After adding in the last of the hop additions and WhirlFloc the boil completed and I used my wort cooler to get the temperature down to 70F for pitching. I rehydrated the yeast in boiled water cooled down to 90F. The yeast soaked for almost an hour before I was ready to pitch it into the wort and by this time it had cooled down to about 70F.

Racking From The 20 Quart Boil Pot To 2 Mr. Beer Fermentors

As I racked the wort from the boil pot to the fermentors it ran very clear and it had a nice light yellow color. I was able to fill both fermentors to just above the 'Q' mark while still leaving a lot of trub in the boil pot making this batch a full wort boil using first wort hopping.

Our City Water Supply Tastes Good But I Filter It For Brewing

The second fermentor did come up just a bit short of the top off mark so I added about two pints of filtered water directly to the fermentor until the top of the wort was just above the 'Q'. This extra bit of water dropped the original gravity of the second batch down a few points lower than I thought. This would have been a great batch to have added in a little DME to the recipe to give the original gravity a boost.

Cold Break Left Inside The Boil Pot After Racking To Both Primaries

As usual I whipped the wort up into a nice thick foam before pitching the rehydrated yeast and then whipped it up good again to make sure it was aerated really well before screwing on the lids and placing them inside the fermentation chamber. About 3 hours earlier I had put half a dozen frozen water bottles in the top shelf of the fermentation chamber which cooled it down to around 50F.

Freshly Pitched And Ready For Fermentation

I know that during the primary fermentation the yeast can raise the inside temperature of the fermentors 5-7F higher than when the yeast was first pitched. Having plenty of extra time for brewing and not feeling rushed for a change I figured I'd start them off cold and then let the yeast gradually raise the temperature inside the fermentors to 68-72F.

12 Hours Later A Nice Layer Of Krausen Already Formed

The next morning my theory proved right since both fermentors showed healthy signs of krausen and the digital thermometer read 68F. This meant the yeast had been given plenty of time to multiply and gradually raise the temperature inside the fermentors without causing any significant increase in lag time.

24 Hours Later Primary Fermentation was In Full Swing

Later that night I peeked in to see that the primary fermentation phase was in full swing. There was plenty of activity inside the fermentors and the krausen layer had grown significantly thicker in size. In my mind I had covered all three things under my direct control as a brewer for getting the best fermentation possible, which will also give me the best beer possible in the process.

Aerated Wort Whipped To A Foam Before And After Pitching

I used fresh, viable yeast and enough of it. I rehydrated the dry yeast in water according to the directions published by Fermentis. I made sure the pitching and fermentation temperatures were within the optimum range of the Safale US-05 yeast. I also took a lot of time aerating the wort before and after pitching the yeast to make sure I had gotten as much oxygen into solution as possible. And finally my recipe had the right levels of nutrients in it because it didn't include too many adjuncts, just barley malts and hops.

Removing Spent Grains From The Mash Tun

This coming Saturday I'll take my first hydrometer readings I'm pretty sure these two batches will be done fermenting in 5-7 days. Once they've reached final gravity I'll be weighing down my hops sacks adding an ounce of Cascades to each and dry hop them for 5-7 days. Right after that I'll bottle them and let them carbonate for another 7-14 days before taking some samples.

This Is What My July SPA Looked Like

This months SPA will come out lighter than July's SPA recipe because it uses only .5 pound of Crystal 10L instead of 1 pound of Crystal 20L. The Safale US-05 yeast produces a clean, crisp beer with low diacetyl and by getting it off to a rousing start there should be little ester production which set the stage for allowing the hop additions to shine. I plan to dry hop with Cascades for 5 days after it hits final gravity but the amounts will be determined after giving the beer a taste test.

Recipe #60 - Ptarmigan Pale Ale - With A Twist

2011-09-04T07:19:00.001-04:00

For the past month or so I haven't been able to find time to do any brewing, between the sweltering east coast heat, travel, vacations and other commitments it was nearly impossible to even consider it. But I'm happy to report that all changed yesterday. With the three day Labor Day weekend coming up I was finally able to set aside time to work in the brewhaus and brew up two of my favorite Mr. Beer recipes, with a few new twists.

Steeping 2 Pounds Of Crystal 20L In 2 Gallons Of 154F Water

About 3 weeks ago I had ordered double recipes of both Ptarmigan Ale and Proud Papa Pilsner from the Mr. Beer website. I decided to try these recipes once again because it had been nearly a year since I'd actually brewed either of them last. This time I would include in the recipes steeping some Crystal 20L to give the finished beer a little more body and head retention. Since switching to all grain brewing I really learned to enjoy a full bodied beer with all the great lacing and head retention they produced. I knew the Ptarmigan Pale Ale and Proud Papa Pilsner extract recipes would definitely benefit by steeping some grains in them.

Both 16 Quart Boil Pots Hold 2 Mr. Beer Recipes Each

My plan to reduce brewing time was to use 3 pots, one to hold the steeping grains and 2 more to hold the boiling wort. The larger 20 quart pot is where I steeped the Crystal 20L grains for 30 minutes or so in 154F filtered water. The two smaller 16 quart pots were filled about 2/3 with filtered water and put to the heat to start them boiling during the steep.

Once the steeping was complete I removed the grain bag letting it drain for a minute or two without squeezing it, to remove as much liquid as possible. I then poured the steeped wort evenly distributed between both 16 quart boil pots and brought them up to a rolling boil for about 60 minutes or so.

Rehydrating 4 Packets Of Safale US-05 In 90F Water

While waiting for the wort to boil I boiled a few cups of filtered water and cooled it down to 100F or so before pouring it into 4 small mason jars I had soaked in One-Step. I then emptied the 4 packets of Safale US-05 yeast, one packet each, into the jars and gave them each a gentle stir using a sanitized plastic fork. I had by now already tossed 4 packets of Mr. Beer fromunda yeast into both boil pots to act as nutrients for the Safale US-05. I figured this along with rehydrating the dry yeast before pitching it and by pitching an entire packet of yeast, double the amount needed for a Mr. Beer sized batch, I would have a strong fermentation with as little lag time as possible.

Rehydrated Yeast Cream After 45 Minutes

As I got my racking cane, wort chiller and fermentors sanitized and ready for use I would from time to time give the yeast in each of the mason jars a few gentle stirs. When you first pour the dry yeast into the water it will tend to clump up pretty bad. But as the water starts soaking through the yeast's cell walls the clumps are eliminated and the mixture now takes on a creamy texture. Since the dry yeast is packaged with a bit of food for the cells you can expect to see a small amount of krausen develop in each of the jars too.

Pitching Rehydrated Yeast Into Well Areated 70F Wort

The small mason jars are easy to work with, they pour nicely into the fermentor and they don't tend to slip out of your wet hands. They're easy to fit in a small pot when sanitizing and the gaskets under the lids work well to keep out and dust and bugs. I've already added them to my brewing process so no more fumbling around using small cereal bowls and plastic wrap to rehydrate the yeast in.

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=36, SRM=15, OG=1.056, FG=1.014, ABV= 5.4%

I rehydrated and then pitched Safale US-05 Dry ale yeast directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it really well. I soaked the mason jars in One-Step™ as a precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download the Ptarmigan Pale Ale recipe file for qBrew

1.0 pound Crystal 20L

4.0 cans Mr. Beer High Country Canadian Draft (HME)

2.0 cans Mr. Beer Pale Export UME

1.0 ounce Amarillo @ 7 Minutes (pellets)
1.5 ounce Cascade dry hop for 5-7 days (pellet)

11.5 g Fermentis Safale US-05™ Dry Yeast at 68°-72° F

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 65-70° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 74° F over 2 days then rack to secondary fermentor

Dry hop for 5 to 7 days at 70° F

Cold condition secondary fermentor for 1 week at 36° F

Keg prime with 5 teaspoons of pure cane sugar per 2.25 gallons for 14 days @ 70° F

or...

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 36° F

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Directions:

Steep: 1 pound of Crystal 20L in 8 quarts of filtered water at 154° F water for 30 minutes

Pour the wort into a 16 quart boil pot

Top off the boil pot with boiling filtered water

Full Wort Boil:

Boil for 60 minutes total

Add 1 ounce of Amarillo hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

Add boiling water to boil pot as needed to keep it topped off

After a 60 minute boil remove the heat source and stir in Mr. Beer extracts

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F before pitching yeast

Primary Fermentation:

Use auto siphon to prevent excess hop and grain debris from getting into fermentor

Fill the Mr. Beer fermentor with wort to the 'Q' above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort thoroughly by whisking it for a couple of minutes
Pitch 11g of rehydrated Safale US-05 Ale yeast at 70° F
Aerate the wort again for several minutes to get as much oxygen into as possible

Ferment to final gravity at 68° F, raise to 74° F over 2 days

Secondary Fermentation:

Rack to sanitized secondary at 70° F
Dry hop with 1.5 ounces of Cascade hops for 5 to 7 days
Cold crash for a week before bottling or kegging.

Screwy's Cooler Dropped The Wort Temperature To 70° F In 20 Minutes

The entire 'hotside' brewing process completed as planned and there was plenty of wort in the boil pot to almost completely fill both Mr. Beer fermentors. After using my wort cooler and the wort now at 70° F it was time to rack it off into the little brown kegs. Previously, while the wort was boiling away, I had sanitized all the fermentors and racking gear that I would be using during the brewday.

It didn't take very long to do because I always clean out the fermentors and give them a soak in OxyClean FREE right after every use. This way when I go to use them the next time all that's needed is to take apart the spigot assemblies and lids and soak them in One-Step™, then screw in the spigots and fill the fermentors half way with One-Step™ and let them soak for 10-20 minutes before use.

A Single Boil Pot Fills Two Mr. Beer Fermentors

The racking cane makes transferring the wort from the boil pot to both Mr. Beer fermentors really easy to do. It also prevents spilling any wort during the process helps keep cleanup to a minimum. If you're still lifting the boil pot and pouring wort from it into the tops of the LBKs then you should seriously consider buying a racking cane. They're inexpensive, easy to maintain and fun to use.

Ptarmigan Pale Ale Original Gravity Read 1.048

The hydrometer reading I took just before I placed the fermentors in the fermentation chamber read 1.048 which was about 8 points lower than the qBrew calculations. This was expected since the Mr. Beer extract numbers have been found to be a bit overstated to start with. If each can of HME/UME was off by only a single point the OG reading of the finished wort would be off by 6 points or a point per can.

Screwy's Fermentation Chamber And Frozen Water Bottles

I had put a half dozen or so frozen water bottles in the fermentation chamber to bring the inside temperature down lower before placing the now filled and pitched fermentors in it. I know that the temperature of the fermenting beer will go up during the first day or so and this is why I keep them cooled off a bit during that time. I planned to ferment this batch at 68-70° F until they reach final gravity, so I'll only need to replace the frozen water bottles for the first day or two in order to hold the temperature between 66-68° F. This temperature in my basement brewing area is a constant 68-70° F this time of year so it'll be perfect for fermenting this entire batch.

Four Mr. Beer Sized Batches Fermenting Away

I'm fortunate enough to have built Screwy's Fermentation Chamber last year when I decided to brew up my series of Spinning Monk Lager beers. Since then I've also used it for maintaining fermentation temperatures of my Ales as well as Lagers. It's very well insulated so just a few frozen water bottles are needed to keep the temperature lower as needed. I tape the probe of my digital thermometer directly to the outside of the Mr. Beer keg so the readout shows the temperature of the beer.

Thick Layers Of Krauzen Form After 12 Hours

I always look forward to taking that first peek inside the fermentation chamber to see how well the fermentations have taken off. I like to wait at least 12 hours before taking my fist peek. I was pleased to see that all four fermenters showed signs of very active fermentation, which is exactly what I had hoped to see. Pitching fresh, viable yeast at the proper temperatures is the key to getting your fermentations off to a great start. The sooner the population of good yeast cells multiplies themselves to the point of being the dominant microorganism in town that better the beer will turn out.

All Four Kegs Show Active Fermentation After 36 Hours

Well it's now all over except for the wait. By the end of this week I'll take my first final gravity readings and toss a sanitized muslin sack filled with hops into each fermentor and let them soak for another 5 to days. Then I'll take more final gravity reading to see when this batch is ready for bottling and kegging. I will be using pure cane sugar to naturally carbonate both the 12 ounce bottles and the 2.5 gallon corny kegs again this time. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

The Proud Papa Pilsner recipe followed basically the same exact brewing steps as did the Ptarmigan Pale Ale recipe except of course it used different hops and extracts that the Mr. Beer recipe called for.

Final Gravity Of 1.012 Held For 3 Days In A Row

It's Sunday and time to take my final gravity readings and toss in my dry hops. The plan is to let the hops soak at the bottom of the fermentors for the next 5 days. I want to bottle and keg all 4 LBKs this coming weekend. I split 3 ounces of Cascade pellet hops between the 4 batches so there should be plenty of hop aroma when they're ready to drink.

Sanitized Sack And Stainless Steel Weights Ready To Go

I found that a single nut and lock washer were all that was needed to send the hops sacks to the bottom of the fermentors. Having the entire hop sack submerged under the beer will assure the beer has maximum contact with the hops adding maximum aroma in the process.

All Four LBKs Will Get A 5 Day Dry Hop

The fermentors are safely tucked away in my fermentation chamber and kept at 71-72F for the next 5 days until I'm ready to bottle them. I don't think I am going to bother cold crashing these four batches because I'm getting anxious to get them into my pipeline as soon as possible.

Priming Sugar Solution And Beer Go Into Bottling Bucket

The Cascade hops had a good 5-6 day soak in the primary fermentors and next I transferred the beer to my bottling bucket. I boiled some filtered water and stirred in 5 tablespoons of pure cane sugar to make up the priming solution.

I was able to fill both 2.5 gallon corny kegs with my Ptarmigedon ale and drinking on tap in about 3 weeks. It has a nice hoppy character that's citrusy but not overpowering. This one tastes so much better than the Proud Papa Pilsner recipe I brewed on the same day.

When I first started brewing using Mr. Beer extract only recipes I actually liked the Ptarmigan Pale Ale recipe enough to brew it a number of times. By adding steeping grains to the original recipe the head and lacing were a lot better and the addition of the Cascade finishing hops blended in nicely with whatever they put in the HME too. The Fermentis Safale US-05™ yeast produced a nice clean tasting ale, one that I will be brewing again.

The Pacific Northwest - How To Beat The Heat

2011-08-20T09:19:00.004-04:00

This has been a really long and hot summer for most folks so I decided to post not about beer recipes or brewing techniques this time. Instead I will share with you some of the highlights of my summer vacation to the Pacific Northwest. The trip was really cool both literally and figuratively in that the weather there was on average 50F lower than it was where I live in New Jersey on the east coast of the United States. Of course any trip requires a tasting of the local beers and this one was no exception. I was fortunate enough to be traveling with a best friend who has years of traveling and beer drinking experience, in short we had a blast!

View From Atop The 510 Foot High Space Needle

Our first stop was in Seattle Washington where we planned to stay for 2 days prior to heading out for the rest of our trip. As it happens we lucked out and picked 2 of the most perfect weather days they've had in recent memory both days were sunny and warm with temperatures in the upper 80s.

Everyone Loves A Walk On A Sunny Day

We loved Seattle! The very first stop we made after checking into the Westin Hotel was to head on out to Pike's Brewery were we meet up fellow brewer and forum member Kenny Lee to sample some of Pike's best beers and grab a bite to eat. We ordered pitchers of Pike's regular IPA which we all really enjoyed followed by their Double IPA then their Dry Wit and their Kiltlifter Scotch ale before ordering and up some Scuttlebutt Amber (from Everett, WA.) from their guest tap. We ate and talked about beer, brewing and travel while drinking these amazing beers and downing some great bar food. Pike's is a must see when you're in town. We planed on sampling each of their beers and as it turned out we ordered full pitchers of each of them instead, what can I say we like beer!

Words Simply Cannot Describe The Wonders

Within days we would be viewing one of Earth's most impressive and beautiful places from the warmth and comfort of our cruise ship. The slow, peaceful and meandering visit to Alaska's Glacier Bay Park will forever be one of the coolest things I've ever been lucky enough to have experienced in my life. The table I sat at was located 140 feet above the waterline and only 50 feet from the nearest bar where they served up ice cold Alaskan Brewery Summer Ale and Amber Ale. Although I really liked their Pale Ale it was only available in the towns we stopped in, for some strange reason the ship's bars didn't stock it.

If Beer Is Proof That God Loves Us Then What Is This?

We spent the entire day and much of the early evening in our front row seats looking out at the grand vistas that appeared around every bend of the bay. Whenever something spectacular came into site we rushed outside to the deck rail to snap our pictures. Much of the time we found ourselves moving from one side of the ship to the other in order to get pictures of the scenery as we passed by. It was hard to believe that this 1000 foot deep bay our enormous ship was navigating through was solid glacier ice 250 years ago. All the glaciers that feed into Glacier Bay are in retreat except for one, which scientists say is actually growing 12 feet a year. Maybe someday that glacier will influence all the others to do the same and restore the bay to it's former glacier self.

Did Someone Say There's A Heat Wave?

At the height of our trip the time change was 4 hours earlier than east coast time and the sunset at 10:30 pm local time. Some of our shore excursions started at 6:00 pm and we had to be back on board the ship by midnight. In between all the beer sampling, time changes and the extended daylight hours we lost all concept of time somehow not knowing or caring about anything but what we were going to do next. In all honesty we found ourselves adrift in time, left alone by the rest of the world's problems of the day, to experience some of the most spectacular sites on earth. This my friends and fellow brewers was as close to Nirvana as anyone can ever come to expect and in so many ways one of the best vacations I've ever had.

Screwys Recipe #59 - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

2011-07-18T16:36:00.002-04:00

I'd been undecided on what to brew all week long, up until Saturday morning. Saturday mornings are when I quit changing my mind and makeup a real ingredient list to brew later in the day. So I fired up the coffee pot, qBrew and starting entering what would soon be my new recipe's ingredient list. After about 30 minutes my recipe was done, it would be my take on a classic American IPA style using 2 Row malt, some Crystal 20L and White Labs WLP001 - California Ale Yeast™. Well that's what I thought anyway.

ECY12 'Old Newark Beer' Yeast Takes Center Stage

After firing off my ingredient list in an email to Joe Bair I headed over to Princeton Homebrew around lunchtime to pick it up. While I was there Joe and I got to talking about yeast and I mentioned how a fellow forum member Ed Vazquez had just recently sent me a book to read. And how the book 'Yeast The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation' written by Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff was not an easy read, but was jam packed with all kinds of great information.

I Split The Bottle Of ECY12 Into Three Empty Yeast Tubes

Joe was explaining to me how East Coast Yeast had made available the same yeast strain used by the Ballentine Beer company back when they were located in Newark NJ. How awesome is that! Ballentine's Ale was the first television sponsor for the New York Yankees and was brewed just a few miles from where I was born. As a kid I remember seeing their cans of beer and ale in my father's refrigerator and I might have even had a sip or two of it when he left the room...but I can't swear to it.

1954 Yankees Champ Ballantine Beer Display

A few minutes later in walks Al Buck owner and founder of East Coast Yeast, he was at Princeton Homebrew dropping off some fresh yeast. After a short introduction by Joe Al asked what I was brewing and he recommended I try his ECY12 yeast for my American Pale Ale. I had been wanting to give ECY a try for some time, Joe is the only distributor for Al's yeast products on the east coast and he always has a fresh supply of it on hand.

So I put back the tube of WLP001 and put the ECY12 in my bag instead, this brew day was starting to get interesting. Maybe it's the nostalgia, or the rave reviews that Al's yeast has been getting in the New Jersey brewing community but I had some and was soon going to use it to make beer. If the ECY12 was good enough for Mel Allen, Red Barber and the Yankees it was certainly good for my latest beer.

Brewdays Start With Coffee And qBrew

Back at the brewhaus it was time to get things started, there was strike water to be heated and a small ice bath to prepare for keeping the yeast at 60F during the boil. I used some 170F water to preheat my mash tun while the two pots of 170F strike water were heating up. Once the strike water was at temperature I dumped the preheat water and filled the tun half way with strike water, poured in the 68F grain and stirred in the remaining strike water.

11 Pounds Of Grain In Preheated 5 Gallon Mash Tun

The mash temperature was 159F initially and after a bit a stirring to make sure the mash was free of clumps and hot spots it settled in at 158F. I make sure I hit my target mash temperature within a minute or two of pouring in the grain to avoid denaturing the mash.

159F Initial Mash Temperature

After mashing for 60 minutes I began the lauter, the idea was to fill up my 20 quart pot with 4.5 gallons of wort over a 30 minute period. The initial gravity reading of 1.080 at 80F corrected to 1.084 at 60F. This was the strength of the wort at the beginning of the lauter once it had started running clear into the boil pot. Since my hydrometer is calibrated to read at 60F I used qBrew to get the compensated reading which was actually 1.084.

Initial Gravity 1.084 Corrected At 60F

The boil pot took a little over 30 minutes to fill with wort. The lauter went well and once it had completed I took another gravity reading of 1.030 at 80F which correct out to be 1.032. This assured me that there was still plenty of sugars left in the mash at the end of my lauter and there shouldn't be any issues with astringency due to extracting tannins.

Boil Pot With 4.5 Gallons Of Wort

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=66, SRM=8, OG=1.061, FG=1.015, ABV= 5.9%

I pitched ECY12 - Old Newark Beer™ directly into the 60F wort right after aerating it really well. I soaked the bottles and tubes in One-Step™ as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew

10.0 pounds US 2 Row

1.0 pound Crystal 20L

1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

2 ounces Cascade (pellets)

125 ml East Coast Yeast ECY12 - Old Newark Beer™ at 53-68° F

Aerate, pitch at 60° F and ferment at 64-66° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 68° F over 2 days then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 3-4 weeks at 36° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 36° F

Mash at 158° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60 minutes.

Ferment at 64-66° F.

Since I use the Mr. Beer fermenters and they hold around 2.5 gallons of wort I can use half of the yeast that's packaged for 5 gallon brews and still get a high cell count. I see this as another low risk way to save money on ingredients while maintaining quality.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 170° F water for 20 minutes to pre heat it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 170° F

Pour 14 quarts of 170° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 68° F

Pour the remaining 170° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 158° F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 18.5 quarts of sweet wort to 20 quart pot

Full Wort Boil:

Add 1 ounce Magnum hops with 60 minutes remaining to boil

Add 2 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 20 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/4 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounce Cascade hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

(Optional) 1 ounce Cascade hops dry hop 1 week in secondary before bottling

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 60° F

Primary Fermentation:

Use autosiphon to prevent excess hop and grain debris from getting into fermenter

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 45 ml of East Coast Yeast ECY12 - Old Newark Beer™ at 60° F

Ferment to final gravity, raise to 68° F over 2 days

Secondary Fermentation:

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 3-4 weeks at 36°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 68° for 14 to 21 days

Wort Aerated And Pitched At 60F

After getting the wort and yeast to an even 60F I aerated the wort really good using a long handled spoon until it was nice and frothy. I pitched the liquid yeast in and whipped it up really good again before screwing on the top of the fermenter, wiping down the outside and putting it in my fermentation chamber where I could better control the temperature once fermentation took off.

OG Reading 1.059 A Point Lower Than qBrew Calculated

The original gravity reading, taken after adding some filtered make up water to bring the volume up to 2.25 gallons, was 1.059 or just about a point short of the qBrew calculation. It's important to get your brewing process and equipment dialed in and then keep good records of volumes, timings and temperatures. I've done it from the start and now I can hit my target gravities everytime based on mash thickness, time and temperature.

A Peek Inside After 12 Hours At 62F

After 12 hours of fermentation I took a peak to see what was going on inside the fermentation chamber. There was a nice layer of trub at the bottom of each fermenter and just the slightest amount of krausen had begun to form. I knew from reading that during this inception phase of the fermentation the yeast cells were busy multiplying like little Viagra crazed bunnies and in a short while the primary fermentation would be in full swing.

A Peak Inside After 24 Hours At 62F

Another peek inside my chamber 12 hours later proved my initial observations were correct, the fermentation had clearly taken off now. I'll gradually let the temperature rise up to the 64-66F range over the next several days. I hadn't planned on brewing a lager beer this weekend but as luck would have it I had everything needed to do just that. Some great new yeast, some American 2 Row malt to try out for the first time and my trusty fermentation chamber.

Screwy's SPA Recipe #57b

I guess I'll just sit back, relax and have a home brew......

After 3 weeks of fermentation, which was the same day I returned home from my trip to Alaska, I racked the pale ale to sanitized secondaries and added in some Cascade hops to enhance the aroma. This coming weekend I plan on adding some priming sugar solution to the corny kegs when I fill them to allow the beer to naturally carbonate. I did this the last time and after 2 weeks at 68-70F all that was needed was to hook up the corny kegs to enough Co2 to to serve up a perfect pour.

Sample Taken Before Racking To Secondary

The 2 Row malt hand the ECY12 fermented the pale ale down 2 points lower than my initial qBrew calculations, this is a very good thing. The initial samples I drank tasted very clean and the beer fermented out to a clear golden and very appealing golden color. I decided to add some Cascade hops to the secondary so after a week I'll be bottling and kegging this batch up and thinking about how good they're going to taste.

Final Gravity Hit 2 Points Lower Than Expected

I added a priming sugar solution of 5 tablespoons pure cane sugar and boiled water to my 2.5 gallon corny kegs and racked the finished beer into them. I then sealed and purged the kegs with 15psi of Co2 and set them off in a corner of the basement to naturally carbonate. After 12-14 days I moved one of the kegs into my refrigerator and the next day I tapped the keg to give it a taste.

Screwy Pale Ale - SPA

I really liked what I tasted too. The natural carbonation was soft and pleasing allowing the finishing hops to come through, this is definitely a winner in my book. I've forced carbonated several beers and I'm absolutely sure there is a huge difference between those beers and the beers I've taken the time to let naturally carbonate.

Screwy's Recipe 58 - Screwy's Noble Wheat

2011-06-29T18:00:00.009-04:00

This 5 gallon recipe is designed using the Weizen/Wiessbier wheat beer style guidelines for gravity, bitterness and color. It includes Muntons Wheat Dry Malt Extract as the backbone of the recipe with some steeped CaraPils for improved head retention and body. Taste wise it is remarkable similar to the Paulaner Hefe Weizen wheat beers I had during lunch with some friends.

I also added a bit of Pure Clover Honey to boost the alcohol content and enhance the aroma of cloves imparted by the Safbrew WB-06 wheat beer yeast strain. There are 3 German Hallertauer hop additions for bitterness, flavor and aroma to lend just the right finish.

Hallertau, Honey, Wheat DME, CarPils Malt And Safbrew WB-06

I was able to brew this recipe in just under 4 hours from start to the end of cleanup and even had time to clean out some bottles and a corny keg in the process. It's pretty much the same exact recipe I brewed back in May 2011 but this time I based the recipe on a 5 gallon batch size. I also used CaraPils for the steeping grains to enhance the body and head retention and because of it's light color.

Screwy's Noble Wheat SRM 4

As always I begin my recipe design by opening qBrew and loading in the most recent version of the recipe and begin my research. The last batch produced some very drinkable beer in about 3-4 weeks. The bottle carbonation levels and mouthfeel were perfect and the finish had soft notes of nutmeg and clover. Although the addition of Carahell steeping grains produced a slightly darker SRM 8 beer that was still within range of the Weizen style.

Estimated IBU=13, SRU=4, OG=1.053, FG=1.013, ABV=5.2%

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Recipe: Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=13, SRU=4, OG=1.053, FG=1.013, ABV=5.2%

2 pounds honey

1 pound CaraPils

4 pounds Muntons Wheat DME - 60% Wheat/40% Barley

1/2 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 30 minutes

2 pounds of Pure Clover Honey for 25 minutes

1/2 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 17 minutes

1 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 7 minutes

11.5 gram Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast

Pitched at 65F and fermented at 65F until final gravity is steady for 2 days

Directions:
** Steep grains at 153F for 30 minutes **

Remove grain bag, stir and pour into 12 quart boil pot

Top pot off with filtered water and bring to a boil

Add hops at 30 minutes

Stir in clover honey and boil for 25 minutes

Add hops and boil for 17 minutes

Stir in DME and boil for 10 minutes

Add Whirlfloc and boil for 9 minutes

Add hops and boil for 7 minutes

Place in ice bath, or use wort chiller until wort temperature cools to 70F

Aerate and pitch yeast at 65-70F
Ferment at 65F temperature until final gravity is steady for 2 days

I filled up a 12 quart boil pot 1 gallon of filtered water and set it on the burner, this would be my steeping pot. When the water hit about 160F I put the steeping grains in and checked the temperature to make sure it stayed at 153F for the entire 30 minutes of the steep. While this was heating up I filled my 20 quart boil pot with filtered water and set it on a burner, this would later be my make up water volume for both 12 quart boil pots.

Steep 1 Pound Of CaraPils @ 153F For 30 Minutes

After 30 minutes of steeping I could see the color of the wort was much lighter than my previous batch, the substitution of CaraPils in place of Carahell malt for the steep will definitely make my beer lighter in color. I removed the grain bag and began moving half of the steeped wort into another 12 quart pot for the side by side boils.

Two 12 Quart Pots With Steeped Wort

With the steeped wort evenly distributed between both pots, I topped them off with the heated water from the 20 quart pot to get both up to their full wort volumes. As I re-brew my house recipes and locking down their ingredients and brewing processes I try to save time by planning long running tasks ahead of time and to run in parallel wherever possible. Heating 20 quarts of water on my stovetop takes at least 30 minutes and by heating it the same time I do the two 12 quart pots it's pretty close to boiling by time the steeping is done.

12 Quarts Pots With Steeped Wort And Full Boil Volume

At this point both pots were heating up to boiling so I started getting my yeast ready. I filled 2 White Labs yeast tubes with filtered water, poured them into a small pot and added some extra water to compensate for losses due to boil off. I then soaked a small bowl, fork and the 2 yeast tubes in One-Step for 10 minutes to get them ready for use.

11 Gram Package Of Safbrew WB-06 Split In Two

I boiled the measured water for 10 minutes, let it cool down to 90F and then filled the 2 yeast tubes with it. Next I emptied the yeast tubes into the small sanitized bowl, sprinkled in the dry yeast and soaked the tubes and caps in One-Step again. After 20 minutes I stirred the yeast into a cream using a sanitized plastic fork, filled both tubes, capped them tightly and placed them caps down in a small bowl of the sanitizing solution.

1 Pound Of Pure Clover Honey Per Pot

Since I've read so many different takes on how brewers are using honey in their recipes and brewing process I finally decided to boil the honey for 25 minutes. I'm convinced that this length of time in the boil will kill off any wild yeast or bacteria that could cause problems later on. At 30 minutes my first hop addition went in followed 5 minutes later by the honey addition. The flavor hop additions went in 8 minutes later followed by the addition of the wheat DME 7 minutes after that.

Wheat DME Gets 10 Minute Boil With Hops And Honey

The WhirlFloc and last aroma hop addition went in and when the boil was done I used the wort cooler to get the wort down to the 70-75F pitching temperature. It's important to cool your wort as quickly as possible to prevent wild yeast and bacteria from contaminating it causing off flavors or making it undrinkable. I place my boil pot in the sink, fit my wort cooler inside it and turn on the water flow.

Wort Cooler Gets The Temperature Down Quickly

Using an auto siphon makes moving your beer out of the boil pot almost fun and leaves most of the debris behind in the process. I can't even imagine how I did without one for so long, all the spills have been eliminated and my primary fermenters contain so much less trub than when I used to simply pour the wort into the fermenter.

The Auto Siphon Is A Huge Time Saver

With the temperature near 70F and the wort transferred to the fermenter I aerated and pitched my yeast. I poured the rehydrated dry yeast from one of the two tubes I had prepared earlier directly into the fermenter and aerated it again before screwing on the lid.

Half A Rehydrated Package Of Safbrew WB-06 Wheat Yeast

I rinsed off the outside of the fermenter and then wiped it dry using a clean towel and put it inside my fermentation chamber to ferment. I placed a few frozen water bottles in there to drop the initial fermentation temperature down to the 65-70F range.

Original Gravity 1.054

The original graviy reading showed 1.054 which was only a point off of the qBrew recipe calculation. The color of the wort was also lighter in color then my initial recipe making the cosmetic appearance of this beer closer to the lower end of the BJCP style guideline.

12 Hours Later Both Fermenters Showed A Lot Of Activity

The next morning I checked in on the fermentation progress and found both fermenters had a healthy initial fermentation going. I will be fermenting this batch in the mid sixties until they both reach their estimated final gravity of 1.013. At the 65F temperature I can see them both going about 10 days before I take my first readings.

Bottling Day: (09-Jul-2011)

Noble Wheat Day 11 - FG Was 1.010 At 70F

Today I had my second consecutive hydrometer reading of 1.010 at 70F so it was time to bottle it. My Bottle Priming Calculator, for a German Weissbier style beer, called for 3.6 to 4.48 volumes of Co2 as the correct carbonation range. This quickly translated to 8 tablespoons of pure cane sugar for a 2.25 gallon batch to get 4 volumes which was right in the middle of that range.

Cooling Priming Sugar Solution To 70F In Ice Pan

I dissolved 8 tablespoons of pure cane sugar into about a cup of filtered water and boiled it in a small pot while stirring for 10 minutes. After the boil was complete I filled a pan with cold water and placed the pot in it then added a bunch of ice cubes to cool the solution down faster.

Adding Priming Solution First Before Transferring The Beer

Once the priming solution reached 70F I poured it into a sanitized Mr. Beer keg that I used for my bottling bucket. I transferred the 70F beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket using a small length of vinyl tubing that reached to the bottom of the bottling bucket. After all the beer was transferred I used a sanitized long handle plastic spoon to gently swirl the beer around a few times to make sure it was mixed thoroughly.

Transferring Fermented Beer To Bottling Bucket

I like using a bottling bucket for 2 very important reasons. It leaves nearly all of the dead yeast and trub behind in the primary fermenter and out of your bottled beer. It also mixes the beer completely with the priming sugar solution to give you more uniform carbonation between bottles from the same batch.

Sanitized Bottle Tree With 48 Long Necks

With the beer and priming solution mixed and ready to go I began filling the 12 ounce bottles that I had sanitized earlier and allowed to drain for about 30 minutes. The sprayer at the top of the bottle tree really makes the sanitizing go by quickly, just 2 or 3 pumps and the bottles done and ready to drain.

I dip the bottle necks into the sanitizing solution before using the pump to spray their inside and I soak the bottle caps in the sanitizer. This is just to make sure that the entire surface of the bottle that comes in contact with the bottle cap is free of contamination before capping them.

46 Long Neck Bottles Of Noble Wheat

My long handled bench capper makes short work of capping the bottles. I can cap a case of long necks in only a couple of minutes. I fill the bottle with beer, place a cap on top to prevent anything from getting inside and when I have them all done I quickly press the caps on. A quick wipe with a wet washcloth gets any spilled beer off the bottles before I put them in a plastic container to carbonate.

Screwy's Noble Wheat Poured From Bottle

After initially thinking I had some issues with bottling I found out I was mistaken when I poured a my first glass from a bottle that had been cold conditioned in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. The color came out perfectly according to the calculations I had gotten from qBrew and the taste was absolutely amazing and spot on. This is an easy to brew recipe that produces a really easy to drink wheat beer with plenty of flavor. The combination of the Halleteur hops, Safbrew WB-06, Clover Honey and Pilsner steeping grains combine to make this a very rewarding beer to add to my pipeline.

Screwys Recipe #57b - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

2011-06-12T18:14:00.014-04:00

I have two batches of my Screwy Pale Ale in various stages of production now, one is just finishing up primary fermentation and the other had been moved to corny kegs a few weeks ago for conditioning. The weather was lousy this past weekend and I saw it as an opportunity to sneak in another brewday.

The only question was what was I going to brew, a nice Chocolate Barley Stout, another batch of my Screwy Noble Wheat recipe or maybe another Screwy Oktoberfest/Marzen lager. This brewing thing was really starting to get interesting.....so many great tasting beers, so little time.

Marris Otter, Crystal 40L, Biscuit, Magnum, Kent Golding And Cascade

I had an extra tube of White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ in the mini refrigerator, left over from last weekend's brewday when I brewed my Screwy Pale Ale for the second time. The latest samples I took of the now nearly fermented ale tasted amazing so I decided I would be brewing it again.

Brewdays Always Start Out With Coffee And qBrew

I loaded my SPA recipe from last week into qBrew and made some changes to the grain bill cutting back on the Crystal malt and adding a shade more Biscuit malt this time. The plan is to reduce the sweetness and increase the biscuit flavor while leaving the hop schedule the same. This should produce a beer that has subtle differences when compared to last week's recipe.

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=65, SRM=11, OG=1.062, FG=1.016, ABV= 6.0%

I pitched White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it. I soaked the tubes in One-Step™ as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
10.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

0.5 pounds Crystal 40L

0.5 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

1 - White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 70° F over 2 days and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Infusion Mash at 158° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68° F (18.8 °C).

The only real changes I made in the ingredients from last week's recipe was to substitute 1.75 pounds of Crystal 60L with 0.5 pounds of Crystal 40L this time and to add another 0.25 pounds of Biscuit Malt. To keep the total grain weight at 11 pounds, the maximum I can mash in my 5 gallon mash tun, I added another pound of Marris Otter.

Hitting The 158F Mash Temperature

I know that 11 pounds of grain when mixed in with 172F strike water to a total volume of 4.5 gallons give me a 1.25 mash thickness at 158F. This also leaves me enough room to add a small amount of cold water, or some hot water to lower or raise the mash temperature if needed.

30 Minute Lauter With First Wort Hops In One Pot

I decided to toss some hops into one of the boil pots at the start of the lauter to see if I or anyone else will be able to taste the difference between this batch and the other one without the FWH. I always boil the pot on the right first for 60 minutes and it's the first one in the fermenter. The other pot usually boils for 90 minutes because I have to wait until the first pot has cooled down enough to pitch since I only have one wort cooler.

Start Of Lauter Gravity Was 1.092

Once the wort was flowing clear I drew off a sample and cooled it down to 60F to get a reading on the gravity of the wort at the very start of the lauter. The sample tasted very sweet and it was also somewhat thick as well, it had a lot of nutty caramel grain flavor to it that was very pleasant.

Left Pot 90 Minute Boil Right Pot 60 Minute Boil

Both pots of wort got a good hard boil and a fast cool down to remove any DMS produced quicker than it could form. I also skim off any break material I see floating on the top, I like to keep the wort as free of any unwanted grains or proteins as I can before siphoning it off into the fermenters.

The Wort Took About 20 Minutes To Cool Down To 70F

Once the wort was cooled down to pitching temperature I used my auto siphon to move the wort to the primary fermenter. I pitched half a tube of WLP005 yeast directly into each of the Mr. Beer fermenters after briskly aerating the wort before and after pitching the yeast.

Mankind's Greatest Achievement The Auto Siphon

I view every time I move my beer as being another opportunity to clean it. Usually there is about half a quart or so of thick gooey sludge left in the bottom of the boil pot after transferring the cleaner wort to the fermenter.

Allow For Boil Off And Trub Loss When Figuring Boil Volume

When I looked at the fermentation progress 24 hours after pitching the yeast I saw that there was already a nice thick layer of krausen floating at the top and a layer of trub forming on the bottom of both fermenters.

Fermenting Away Nicely At A Steady 68F

I could also smell the nice fruity aromas seeping out of the fermenters along with the Co2 being produced. This was a great brewday.

1.016 Final Gravity And Ready To Bottle

I took another final gravity reading today and it was spot on according to my qBrew recipe calculations. Tomorrow I plan on bottling this up into the 12 ounce Sierra Nevada glass bottles I've been stocking up on until now. I like buying the Sierra Nevada bottles because of their unique stubby shape and because they come with free beer inside them to drink.

If I can find the time in the next few days I would love to brew this same exact recipe again and pour the cooled wort right on top of the same yeast. When a brew comes out tasting exactly the way I wanted it too I hate pouring the poor yeast down the drain especially after they did such a great job.

Bottle Carbonated Sample Tasted Awesome

I had to try a sample of this beer while I was brewing up another batch and I'm glad I did. This beer tasted good even though it's only been carbonating and conditioning in the bottle for a little under 3 weeks. I also kegged 2.5 gallons of this batch and batch primed it with the same amount of pure cane sugar I had used for the bottling bucket. Allowing the beer to naturally carbonate in the corny keg as it conditioned.

Natural Carbonation Was Done In The Corny Keg

Screwys Recipe #57a - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

2011-06-05T18:20:00.007-04:00

After sampling this beer last week I thought it tasted so good that I brewed this exact same recipe again this past weekend. I was trying to decide what to brew and kept coming back to this Screwy Pale Ale because I think it's going to be a winner. So I emailed my order over to Joe early Sunday morning, drove out to pick it up and was brewing beer by lunchtime.

Marris Otter, Crystal 60 And Biscuit Malts

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=65, SRM=14, OG=1.062, FG=1.015, ABV= 6.0%

I pitched White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it. I soaked the tubes in One-Step as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
9.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

1.75 pounds Crystal 60L

0.25 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

1 - White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 70° F over 2 days and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Infusion Mash at 156° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68° F (18.8 °C).

The only real change I made in the ingredients was with my yeast selection, this time I was able to use some really fresh White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ as opposed to the Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast I used last week. After soaking the new WLP005 tube in 70F One-Step I used an empty tube from an earlier brew to measure the yeast out into 2 tubes, one for each of my 2 fermenters.

2 For 1 Economy

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak tun in 8 quarts of 170° F water for 20 minutes and dump it to preheat tun)

Heat 20 quarts of filtered water to 172° F

Pour 14 quarts of 172° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 70° F

Pour the remaining 172° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 156°F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to both 12 quart boil pots

Full Wort Boil: (Split these quantities between both boil pots)

Add 1 ounce Magnum hops with 60 minutes remaining to boil

Add 2 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 20 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/2 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounce Cascade hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F

Primary Fermentation:

Use auto-siphon to rack wort from boil pots to fermenters

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 tube White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ at 68-70° F

Ferment to final gravity then raise to 70° F over next 2 days

Secondary Fermentation:

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

After lautering off a little over 5 gallons of wort I took a gravity reading of almost 1.020 proving to myself that they were still plenty of sugars available to be drawn off from my 11 pounds of grain. I got into the habit of taking gravity readings at 3 critical points during my brewing sessions, when I first begin to lauter, when I have finished lautering and after the boil just before pitching my yeast.

1.090 @ 70F Sample At Start Of Lauter

The initial sample I took showed 1.090 and tasted really sweet, no tannins there. I had 1 bad experience where my all grain batch turned out very astringent and I attribute that to sparging with too hot strike water and too much volume.

An Exhaust Fan Is Required To Remove Boil Vapors

I recently installed an exhaust fan to remove the wort boil vapors from the basement where I do my brewing. At the opposite end of the basement I leave the window open to draw in fresh air from outside. I recommend that anyone who considers brewing beer indoors includes adequate ventilation in their plans. Removing the odors and hot vapors created during a typical brewing session will go a long way in keeping living area healthy.

Doing Dual 2.5 Gallon Boils At Once Is Easy

Since I brew indoors on my stovetop I split the 5 gallons of wort collected into two 12 quart pots so I can get them both up to full boil quickly.The trick to getting roughly same same OG in both pots during the lauter is to alternate between the 2 pots when filling them.

Fly Sparge Using A Stationary Diffuser Gives Great Results

I fly sparge and take at least 30 minutes to fill both boil pots with sweet wort. The new bracket I made to hold my sparge diffuser really worked out well for me. I was able to pour 168F strike water into the top of the mash tun without having to hold and balance the diffuser with one hand.

1.020 @ 70F Sample At End Of Lauter

After filling both boil pots with about 11.5 quarts of sweet wort I took another hydrometer reading to see how much sugar was still left in the 11 pounds of grains. This sample still tasted sweet, no tannins or astringent tastes were present, the reading was 1.020 which is above my 1.010 minimum threshold for lautering.

Transferring the cooled wort to the fermenters has become so easy I almost can't wait to use my auto-siphon when I brew, it works that well. The wort I rack to the fermenter is cleaner too, much of the trub is left behind in the boil pot so the wort that does make it into the fermenters is cleaner. During the boils I've also been ladling off a lot of the hotbreak and foam that accumulates on the top of the boiling wort.

Original Gravity Showed 1.060 @ 70F

My original gravity readings confirmed I came very close to hitting my target OG of 1.062 proving that my mash conversion efficiency was what I had expected. I pitched a 1/2 a tube of WLP-005 into each of the 2 sanitized Mr. Beer fermenters at 70F after aerating the wort into a foam.

Aggressive Fermentations Developed After 24 Hours

About 24 hours later both fermenters showed very active fermentation and a nice trub layer on the bottom, a sure sign that there would be more great tasting beer to come. While I keep an eye on these two latest batches of SPA this week I'll be also be bottling up the two previous batches I brewed on May 28th.

The final gravity reading taken just before bottling came very close to my 1.015 target and after 2 days of getting the same 1.017 hydrometer reading it was time to bottle.

1.017 Final Gravity Before Bottling

Bottling Day:

Re-purposed Sierra Nevada Bottle Rinse

Since I was able to make a connection where I can buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottles that ship with free beer inside, I haven't been buying too many empty longnecks. I like the Sierra Nevada bottles because they are shorter and stubbier than the standard 12 ounce longnecks and are easy to tell apart.

After soaking the bottles in a mixture of OxiClean FREE and water for at least an hour I peel off the paper labels and scrap the remaining glue off with the edge of a plastic ruler. I let the bottles dry on the outside before putting my vinyl labels on them permanently.

Bottles Filled With One-Step Soak For 10 Minutes

I used my priming calculator to determine how much pure cane sugar would be needed to carbonate 2.25 gallons of beer, the answer was 5 tablespoons. I filled a small pot with about a cup of filtered water and brought it to a boil. Then I stirred in the 5 tablespoons of pure cane sugar and let it boil for about 5 minutes.

5 Tablespoons Of Pure Cane Sugar And 1 Cup Of Water

I cooled the sugar 'syrup' and poured it into a sanitized keg that I used as my bottling bucket. Then I transferred the fermented beer from the primary fermenter to the bottling bucket, right on top of the sugar syrup so it mixed in well.

Transfer Using A Short Length Of 5/16 ID Vinyl Tubing

Once the beer and sugar were in the bottling bucket I gently stirred the mixture for a minute using a sanitized spoon. The stirring helps evenly distribute the beer and sugar which will make the finished bottles have more consistent carbonation levels.

Bench Capper Made Short Work Of Capping The Bottles

I used a bottling wand and locking spigot to bottom fill each bottle and placed a sanitized bottle cap on each until I was ready to cap them all. The long arm and stable base of the capper made it very easy to cap a case of bottles once they were filled.

Bottling Sample Of My Screwy Pale Ale Recipe

The samples we tasted were really perfect having a nice hoppy character, somewhat sweet and that coveted biscuity finish. There was nothing harsh about this beer at all in fact the flavor, smell and aromas came together to make this a truly memorable beer. This will make for some good beer drinking come July 4th when the carbonation should be completed.

Screwy Pale Ale On July 1, 2011

Another winner in my book! This beer had a beautiful 14 SRM color that fell within the very upper limits of an English IPA beer style. There was a nice carbonation level that produced a creamy head of foam that lasted through the entire beer. The hops were prominent but not too overpowering, the IBU were about 5 points higher than the classic IPA style, and there was a nice biscuit finish. All in all this recipe gets my 2 beers up award and has earned a place in my standard recipe library as one to brew again.

Screwys Recipe #57 - Screwy Pale Ale (All Grain)

2011-05-30T10:48:00.012-04:00

This time around I added another pound of Crystal 60L and removed a pound of Marris Otter but I left the 1/4 pound of biscuit malt unchanged. My 5 gallon mash tun allows me to mash 11 pounds of grain with a 1.25 thickness in just under 4.5 gallons of space, leaving me more than enough room to tune the mash temperature up or down as/if needed.

Size 5.00 gallons: Estimated IBU=59, SRM=14, OG=1.062, FG=1.015, ABV= 6.0%

I pitched Safale S-04 dry yeast directly into the 70F wort right after aerating it this time. I soaked the packets and scissors in One-Step too as an extra precaution against infection.

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
9.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

1.75 pounds Crystal 40L

0.25 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellets)

2 ounces Kent Golding (UK) (pellets)

1 ounce Cascade (pellets)

1 - Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F until final gravity is reached

Raise to 70° F over 2 days and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Infusion Mash at 156° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Ferment at 68° F (18.8 °C).

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 180° F water for 20 minutes to pre heat it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 173° F

Pour 14 quarts of 173° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 67° F

Pour the remaining 173° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 156°F and mash for 60 minutes

Fly sparge with 168° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to both 12 quart pots

Full Wort Boil: (Split these quantities between both boil pots)

Add 1 ounce Magnum hops with 60 minutes remaining to boil

Add 2 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 20 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/4 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounce Cascade hops with 7 minutes remaining to boil

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F

Primary Fermentation:

Pour wort through strainer to remove excess hop and grain debris

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 package of Safale S-04 Dry Ale Yeast at 68-70° F

Ferment to final gravity, raise to 70° F over 2 days

Secondary Fermentation:

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

I got to use my new auto-siphon to transfer moving my cooled wort into the fermenters, it worked perfectly too. All this time I had spent pouring from the boil pots into the Mr. Beer fermenters was soon forgotten as using an auto-siphon was so easy to do. I placed my cooled wort on top of the sink attached the auto-siphon to the side of the pot and pushed the tube down to the bottom of the pot, all without spilling a drop.

This tool was so easy to use, clean and sanitize I still can't wait to use it again the next time I brew. I just fill the tube and tubing with One-Step and let them soak before connecting the tubing and transferring the cooled wort.

I was able to transfer all the clear wort out of the boil pot and into my fermenters leaving only the trub behind. The clear plastic allows you to see the wort and stop the siphoning at any point.

By the end of brewday there was a nice layer of krausen on top of both fermenters a sure sign there was plenty of yeast activity.

I pitched the dry yeast right on top of the cooled wort after aerating it. About a minute later I aerated the wort again mixing the yeast up and spreading them around the entire keg to mix thoroughly with the wort. A quick starting fermentation is always a good sign that this fermentation will go well.

After 10 full days of fermentation at 70F the hydrometer reading was 1.019 pretty close to the estimated final gravity of 1.015 so tomorrow I'm going to transfer them to corny kegs, give them a little gas and let them condition out for another 4 weeks or so before drinking.

Sanitized the corny kegs then racked the SPA to them today. Gassed them with 10 psi to set the lid seals and purge the O2 out of them. I'll let them condition in my office for another 3-4 weeks before tapping in. The samples I tasted form both kegs when filling were great, this is going to give me something to look forward too in the coming weeks.

I put one of the corny kegs in the refrigerator on June 20th and gassed it with 30 psi of Co2, it had been conditioning for a little over 3 weeks. A few days later I drew off a couple of glasses to see how it tasted and it definitley needs more conditioning time.

SPA Sample After 24 Days

(June 23, 2011) When I drank it there was not much hop flavor or aroma present, this one could definitely have benefited by some dry hopping, I may drop a sanitized muslin sack with .5 ounce of Cascades into each of the kegs in another week or so and let them sit for another week. The beer also had a biscuit finish and an slight alcohol bite that warmed the stomach a bit as it went down.

I have to let this one condition out for a few more weeks before I try it again as 4 weeks after brewday is just too soon to be drinking this beer. The other keg is conditioning in the basement where the temperature is still below 70F and I'll tap this one in four weeks to see how it tastes.

Recipe 56 - Screwy's Noble Wheat

2011-05-15T18:17:00.019-04:00

In my never ending search to re-brew the same great recipes I've already brewed and enjoyed, well the same recipes with a few new twists that is, I decided to re-brew my previous interpretations of a Weizen/Wiessbier wheat beer style. This recipe would include steeping Carahell grain and then adding Hallertauer (Germany) hops and Briess Bavarian Wheat DME to the boil, along with a pound of honey just for good measure.

The finished beer should come out a light golden color, dry and with some hints of banana and that faintly sour finish typical of a Bavarian style wheat beer. The alcohol by volume will be somewhat higher than the BJCP style guidelines, giving this beer enough kick to slow folks down from drinking it all too quick. The Noble in the name of this beer comes from the fact that Hallertauer hops were selected and used for this recipe.

The brewday started off at the computer using qBrew to quickly put together this new recipe using the same recipe I brewed last in October 2010. I then decided after some Internet searching that I should add some steeping grains to the recipe and increase the amount of honey as well. Once the steeping water was around 160F I placed the muslin sack with the Carahell grains into the steeping pot and very quickly adjusted the temperature to 153F and held it there for a full 30 minutes.

The steep went pretty much as planned, I found that by using a thicker walled stainless steel pot and keeping the gas burner on the very lowest setting the steep held a steady 153F from start to finish. I also filled my 20 quart pot with filtered water and gave it the gas to get it hot enough for the boil ahead of time. This helped by reducing the wait time, had I added cold water to the steeping wort, to reach my full boil volume in the other pot.

The only stressful part of the brewing day was when I turned my back on the boil pot a little while after I added the DME! I watched in shock as the hot break suddenly rose to about a quarter inch above the rim of the boil pot as I fumbled to quickly turn the gas burner off. It was a miracle the whole thing didn't boil over the pot and onto my nice clean stove.

I added my hop schedule as planned which gave the wort time enough for a good hard 30 minute boil, leaving the top off the entire time. I was able to cool the wort down to 70F for pitching in less than 20 minutes which helped to make quick work of pitching the yeast.

qBrew had estimated the OG to be 1.063 and my initial hydrometer reading showed 1.061 at 70F which for me was close enough to my estimated target. To take the hydrometer reading I filled the tube with clear wort, being careful not to include any trub, then spun the hydrometer around with my fingers to shake loose any bubbles that would otherwise throw the reading off.

The fermentation took off really fast and by the next morning, about 12 hours later, there was a nice healthy layer of krauzen on the top of both fermenters and a whole lot of activity inside. The inside thermometer probe read 72F and was around 3-4F higher than the room temperature of my office where I do most of my ale fermentations. I was able to split an 11 gram package of Safbrew WB-06 which allowed me to pitch half a package into each Mr. Beer fermenter and save a few dollars on yeast in the process.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=14, SRM=6, OG=1.063, FG=1.016, ABV= 6.1%

1 pound honey

1/2 pound CaraHelll

2 pounds Briess Wheat DME - 65% Wheat/35% Barley

1/4 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 30 minutes

1 pound of Honey for 25 minutes

1/4 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 17 minutes

1/2 ounce Halleteur pellet hops boiled for 7 minutes

11.5 gram Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast

Pitched at 70F and fermented at 70F

Directions:
** Steep grains at 153F for 30 minutes **

Remove grain bag, stir and pour into 12 quart boil pot

Top pot off with filtered water and bring to a boil

Add hops at 30 minutes

Stir in honey and boil for 25 minutes

Add hops and boil for 17 minutes

Stir in DME and boil for10 minutes

Add Whirlfloc and boil for 9 minutes

Add hops and boil for 7 minutes

Place in ice bath, or use wort chiller until wort temperature cools to 70F

Aerate and pitch yeast

Ferment at 70F temperature until final gravity is reached

To split the Safbrew WB-06 yeast package into 2 equal parts, for pitching one into each fermenter, I used a couple of left over White Labs yeast tubes which were perfect for the job. The whole process was very simple to do and worked out perfectly. You can substitute the White Labs yeast tubes with any other small containers that are equal in size, the idea is to get equal volumes of yeast into both containers.

Instructions:
Step 1: Fill both yeast tubes with water, empty them into a small container and mark the water level on the side of the container. This will tell you how much boiling water to add to the bowl for rehydrating the dry yeast.

Step 2: Soak the bowl, thermometer, small spoon, and yeast tubes in One-Step for 10-15 minutes while boiling about a cup of filtered water.

Step 3: Pour the boiled water into the small container until it reaches the water level mark.

Step 4: Set the emptied bowl in a small dish, pour the water in the small container into the bowl and place some ice cubes in the dish to help cool it off.

Step 5: Once the water cools to 90F sprinkle the dry yeast evenly over the top of the water in the bowl, cover it with a paper towel and let it sit for 20 minutes.

Step 6: Stir the yeast every 5 minutes or so until it has the consistency of a thin cream then pour the contents of the bowl into the 2 empty yeast tubes and screw on the caps until you're ready to pitch.

This morning I walked into my office and the fermentation was in high gear. There is a nice banana aroma coming from each of the fermenters, a very good indication of a perfect fermentation. Using viable yeast, enough of it, pitching and fermenting at the yeast's optimal temperature and sanitizing your brewing gear properly are important to producing great beer. After brewing for a while I've leaned the importance of saving time and money wherever and whenever possible without hurting quality as I'm sure you have as well.

The samples I tasted at bottling and kegging time were great they had that nice wheat beer taste that let those great Hallertauer hops come through in the background. They final gravity reading I took read 1.010 which says how well this beer attenuated. I didn't notice any obvious honey flavor or aroma but this is one very interesting wheat beer recipe with lots of interest.

This beer was brewed on May 15th moved to secondaries on May 20th and cold crashed until I kegged it on May 26th. We began drinking it on May 30th for Memorial Day and it tasted really good, proving a wheat beer can be turned around in as little as 2 weeks.

Recipe 55 - Oktoberfest/Marzen Lager All Grain

2011-05-01T10:01:00.008-04:00

This is my latest all grain Oktoberfest/Marzen lager recipe. I decided to brew a lager beer this time because of how well received my past lagers have been. Plus I've been looking at my empty fermentation chamber for the past few months and figured it was time to get some use out of it. The ingredients were bought at Princeton Homebrew, where I get all my brewing supplies. I sent Joe Bair, the owner of Princeton Homebrew, an email with the list of items I needed and he had them ready for me to pick up a few hours later.

CaraMunich, Melanoidin, Munich, Pilsener, Hallertauer And Saflager 23

Since brewing my original recipe this past January I've developed a new process for mashing my grains and have been using it for several months now. It involves calculating the recipe using 2 times the normal Mr. Beer size which for me is 2.13 gallons. I setup qBrew to use 4.25 gallons, instead of 2.13 gallons, then add my grain bill and hop schedules until I get the recipe close to the ABV, IBU and SRM range I'm targeting.

qBrew Grain Bill For 4.25 Gallon Batch Size

Since mashing takes an hour to an hour and a half I figured why not just double up on the grain bill and mash it all at once. This definitely shaves at least an hour off my brewing time while still giving me the same end results, two Mr. Beer fermenters filled with wort. My Screwy Mash Tun can hold 11 pounds of grains using a mash thickness of 1.25 to 1.5 and produces 4.25 gallons of 7% ABV beers with no issues.

qBrew Hop Schedule For 4.25 Gallon Size

For a 4.25 gallon batch I mash as usual and then lauter into 2 boil pots, alternating the filling frequently so that both pots get an equal share of the sugar rich wort as it leaves the mash tun. I lauter for 30 minutes and moving the fill tube between both pots gives me something to do while waiting for them to fill up.

Lauter And Alternating The Fill Between Both Pots

The hops schedule is then split into 2 so that each of the boil pots get the right amount. For example the qBrew recipe calls for 1.5 ounces boiled for 60 minutes, so I divided that by 2 and added .750 ounce to each boil pot. After mashing and filling the boil pots equally we can look at the rest of the boil as if we were doing 2 batches again.

Hop Additions Divided In Half To Add To 2 Boil Pots

I used qBrew's default 'Oktoberfest/Marzen' style guidelines as the basis for crunching this recipe's numbers. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Size 4.25 gallons: Estimated IBU=34, SRM=13, OG=1.072, FG=1.018, ABV= 6.9%

1/2 pound CaraMunich

1/2 pound Melanoidin

5.0 pounds Munich (German)

5.0 pounds Pilsener (German)

1.5 ounce Hallertauer (Germany) pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes

0.75 ounce Hallertauer (Germany) pellet hops boiled for 30 minutes

1/8 tab WhirlFloc boiled for 9 minutes

0.75 ounce Hallertauer (Germany) pellet hops boiled for 7 minutes

Directions:
** Infusion mash at 156F for 60 minutes **

Soak mash tun in 12 quarts of 160F water for 20 minutes then dump to pre heat tun
Heat 20 quarts of filtered water to 170F

Pour 14 quarts of 170F water into mash tun

Mix in 11 pounds of crushed grain mix at 60F

Pour the remainder of the 170F water into mash tun filling to 4.5 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 156F and mash for 60 minutes

Sparge with 170F strike water to set mash bed to 168F

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to each boil pot

(Using 2 boil pots)

Boil for 60 minutes (8.5 quarts remaining for fermenter)

Add 3/4 ounce bittering hops at 60 minutes to flameout

Add 3/8 ounce flavoring hops at 30 minutes to flameout

Add 1/8 tab WhirlFloc at 9 minutes to flameout

Add 3/8 ounce aroma hops at 7 minutes to flameout

Pitched at 65F and fermented at 54F for 25 days

Raise to 60F over days 26 to 28 then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold lager for 4-6 weeks at 34F

Two 12 Quart Boil Pots And A Smaller Pot To Hold Extra Wort

I keep an extra pot of wort boiling on a back burner and use it to replace wort lost in the boil pots during the 60 minute boil. I want to make sure I have at least 8.5 quarts of wort to put in each Mr. Beer fermenter before pitching my yeast. The extra wort ensures a full wort boil using the smaller 12 quart pots on the stovetop.

Nice Layer Of Krausen 12 Hours Later At 54F

This is my first time using Saflager 23 for this recipe so I expect it will behave a bit differently than the Saflager 34/70 I've used several times before. I'll look in on the fermentation every few days to see how it's progressing and I may have to make some adjustments to the fermentation times.

Here is a view inside the fermentation chamber on day 2 where the krausen has continued to thicken over the past 2 days. The temperature probe attached to the side of the fermenter wall is reading around 50F right now and I will adjust it upward to 52F where it will remain for the rest of the fermentation.

Day Two Fermentation At 50F

On May 28, after a 2 day diacetyl rest, I racked the lagers into clean secondaries and cold crashed them in the refrigerator at 36F where they''ll stay until I'm ready to keg them in time for the 4th of July weekend.

Oktoberfest Bottling Sample @ 38F

On June 10th I bottled up the Oktoberfest Lager beer in 1 liter and some 12 ounce longnecks. The samples I tasted were spot on as for what I had expected. I plan on drinking these around the last week of June so they should have at least 14 days to carbonate in the bottles.

Condensation Formed On Bottles Filled With 40F Beer

The bottles have been carbing for about 7 full days and the 1 liter PET bottles are hard to squeeze now, a sure sign that the carbonation is taking place and working. Since it's only possible to check the carbonation level in glass bottles by actually popping one open I like bottling a least 1 PET bottles to use as a firmness gauge.

I brewed this recipe and allowed 4 weeks for primary fermentation at 54F, 3-4 more weeks for cold lagering at 36F and 3 more weeks at 62F for natural carbonation and conditioning. I'll let this brew fully carb up before chilling down and starting to drink them. I'll snap a few more pictures of the finished lager in a glass and provide my feedback trying my best to describe the taste.

Screwy's Recipe #54 - Chocolate Barley Stout (Steep/Extract)

2011-04-23T22:52:00.014-04:00

The last Barley Stout I brewed back in November was made using DME and steeping grains. In this version of my Chocolate Barley Stout recipe I use Carapils, Crystal 10L, Chocolate and Roasted Barley Malt steeping grains added to a Golden Light DME base. The yeast I picked for this latest brew is Danstar Windsor Dry Ale Yeast and after only 4 or 5 hours both fermenters have very active fermentations going on already.

I know that Carapils and Crystal 10L will both add sweetness to this stout which is then offset by the Kent Golding 60 minute hop boil. I brewed a Chocolate Stout which used only Chocolate malt and it gave a nice full mouthfeel while desperately lacking the smoky goodness of Roasted Barley. This recipe uses all the aforementioned grains and smelled unbelievably awesome while brewing.

Carapils, Crystal 10L, Chocolate and Roasted Barley Malt

I used qBrew's default 'Sweet Stout' style guidelines to crunch the recipe's numbers. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=46, SRM=42, OG=1.071, FG=1.018, ABV=6.8%

1/8 pound Carapils

1/8 pound Crystal 10L

1/4 pound Chocolate Malt (British)

1/2 pound Roasted Barley Malt (British)

3 pounds Muntons DME - Light

1.5 ounces Kent Goldings (UK) pellet hops boiled for 60 minutes

11 grams Danstar Windsor British Ale yeast
Pitched at 70F and fermented at 68F

Directions:

Heat 10.5 quarts of filtered water to 160F
Add grains and steep for 30 minutes between 152-157F

Remove grain bag and add hops then boil wort for 60 minutes
Rehydrate yeast in 90F sterile water with 30 minutes left to boil
Add DME to wort with 15 minutes remaining in the boil
Add 1/8 tab of Whirlfloc with 9 minutes remaining in the boil
Remove from heat and remove hop sack

Use Screwy's Cooler until wort temperature cools to 70F
Pour cooled wort into fermenter keg and pitch yeast
Ferment at constant 70F temperature for 5 to 7 days
Rack to secondary for 2 to 4 weeks
Cold crash at 34F for 3 to 5 days they rack to keg or bottle

Steep The Grains At Constant 152 To 157F For 30 Minutes

I rehydrated the Windsor yeast in boiled water cooled between 86 and 92 degrees and stirred the mixture occasionally. By the time my wort was chilled to 70F the yeast mixture was the same temperature as the wort and ready to pitch.

Danstar Windsor British Ale Yeast New Packaging

The yeast has only been pitched about 7 hours and the fermentation is furious already. I place the lids of plastic storage bins directly under each Mr. Beer fermenter just in case they kegs decide to overflow they won't ruin the carpeting. I had the same fermentation spillover happen last December when I brewed the Barley Stout recipe for the first time so I had a strong feeling it might happen again this time.

The Next 3 Days Will Require A Lot Of Clean Up

I woke up this morning to a potentially huge mess, luckily the fermenters were on top of drip trays and the spill was contained. I sopped up most of the beer with a washcloth and then got the rest with napkins and paper towels. One of the fermenters is still spitting Co2 and beer but the other one has seemed to calm down now, I must have pitched that one before the other.

The Mess 16 Hours After Pitching The Yeast

Yesterday I racked the Stouts to clean secondary fermenters where they'll sit for another few weeks at least before bottling them. The insides of the primaries were pretty gunked up with stuff produced during the primary fermentation so I figured it won't hurt to get the beer out of there.

After 2 weeks in the secondaries I moved the fermenters to the refrigerator to cold crash for 5 days. The idea is to let the cold temperature help drop out any suspended yeast or trub still remaining in the beer to the bottom of the Mr. Beer kegs before bottling and kegging it up. This step is important because it reduces the amount of gunk that eventually would end up in your glass.

If you've ever washed out a corny keg after killing it you'll know what I mean, even after cold crashing there is a slight layer of trub at the bottom of the keg. I've noticed that the beers I've racked to corny kegs without cold crashing first left a thicker layer of trub on the bottom than those I did take the time to cold crash.

My final gravity hydrometer reading at room temperature showed the beer fermented out to 1.017 or about a point lower than qBrew had estimated. The beer sample I drank was clear and dark and had that nice roasted Barley taste that came through nicely even without the carbonation being present. I plan on kegging one batch and bottling the other in 12 ounce bottles today and adding 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract per gallon of stout to enhance the chocolate flavors.

I kegged 2.5 gallons of the Chocolate Barley Stout directly to a corny keg adding 2.5 tablespoons of pure vanilla extract to the keg before filling it. I purged the keg with some Co2 before transferring the Stout to it by connecting the gas ball lock to the beer out side of the keg. I filled the keg up to the dark line on the inside of the keg, locked on the lid and hooked the gas up to the gas in and purged it a few times. I'll let it sit with 15 psi for 5 days before 'sampling' it.

I had enough Stout left over to fill 17 long necks after topping off my corny keg. I primed them with a shade more than .5 teaspoon of pure cane sugar and I'll let these carbonate for 3 weeks and condition for another 3 weeks before I start drinking them. I didn't add any vanilla extract the the bottles but at almost 7% alcohol they should be very tasty.

This Chocolate Barley Stout was brewed on April 23 and kegged on May 14th and it was gone by May 29th. I still have about 8 twelve ounce bottles left and I'll drink them too soon enough. The addition of 1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract per gallon of stout worked well in bringing out the chocolate flavor in this beer.

The next time I brew this recipe I will add another 1/2 pound of Roasted Barley malt to the recipe to increase the roasty flavors that balance out the chocolate flavors. The Kent Goldings hops worked well in the background for adding enough bitterness so the beer was not overly sweet. For my tastes every Stout should have a strong Roasted Barley backbone and any adjuncts added should work with and not overpower that.

Screwys Double Recipe #53 - American Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada Clone)

2011-04-16T08:07:00.005-04:00

This past February I brewed an 'off the charts' hoppy pale ale and produced a definitely memorable beer, loved by the hop heads and not so much by the light beer crowd. With an estimated IBU of 130 plus points from Saaz, Chinook, Northern Brewer and Cascade hops with first wort additions and 90 minute boils this was a powerhouse of an ale.

10 Lbs. Marris Otter, 3/4 Lb. Crystal 40L and 1/4 Lb. Biscuit Malt

This time around I used qBrew to calculate a not so in your face hoppy recipe that calculated to be a mere 78 IBUs, something still tasty enough for the hop heads in the crowd. I also searched the Internet looking for all grain Sierra Nevada clone recipes out there to see if someone had already unlocked the secrets to brewing this very popular beer at home. I finally found a recipe that was first posted in 2007 and had been revised by other brewers several times over the years until, as I understood it, the recipe actually replicated the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale recipe.

All Grain Wort With Whole Leaf Hop Boil

Of course the only way you can ever really tell if any recipe is great is to actually go ahead order the ingredients and brew it. I understand that there are differences in brewing processes like their efficiencies, fluid transfers process and fermentation technique that do show up in their finished beer. But most folks who've claimed to have brewed this recipe really seemed to agree it was spot on, so I decided to brew it myself.

I used qBrew's default 'American IPA' style guidelines as the basis for crunching this recipe's numbers and the recipe download contains my complete ingredient list and brewing notes. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Size 4.25 gallons: Estimated IBU=63, SRM=13, OG=1.073, FG=1.018, ABV=7.1%

10 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

3/4 pound Crystal Malt (40 °L)

1/4 pound Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Yakima Magnum (pellet)

1 ounce Northern Brewer (plug)

1 ounce Cascade (whole leaf)

1 Safale S-05 11g American Ale yeast

Mash at 152° F for 60 minutes.

Boil for 60-90 minutes.

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 68° F for 12 days

Raise to 70° F over days 13 to 14 then rack to secondary fermenter and dry hop

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Directions:

Infusion Mash: (Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 180° F water for 20 minutes to pre heat it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 172° F

Pour 14 quarts of 172° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 58° F

Pour the remaining 172° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 152°F and mash for 60 minutes

Sparge with 172° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

Add 1 ounce of Yakim Magnum hops to boil pot as first wort hop addition

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to both boil pots

Full Wort Boil: (Split these quantities between both boil pots)

Add 1 ounce Northern Brewer (U.K.) hops with 30 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1 ounces Cascade hops with 10 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/4 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F

Primary Fermentation:

Pour wort through strainer to remove excess hop and grain debris

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 package of Safale S-05 Dry Ale Yeast at 70° F

Ferment at 68° F for 12 days, raise to 70° F over days 13 to 14 for rest

Secondary Fermentation:

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

Mashing Mixed Grains At 152F For 60 Minutes

By now I'm pretty good at calculating my grain thickness, grain temperature and strike water temperature and volumes to hit my mash temperatures every time. Although I do keep extra hot filtered water and cold filtered water on hand just in case it needs a bit of tweaking, or I suddenly change my mind on the mash temperature I want to use.

Lauter Into Two 12 Quart Boil Pots For 60 Minutes

After splitting the wort into 2 separate boil pots I'd been boiling 1 pot for 60 minutes and the other pot for 90 minutes. The 30 minute difference was to allow me to chill the first pot down and pitch the yeast before using my wort chiller to cool down the second pot. I have to change this method though since I can actually tell the difference between the 2 batches, due to the extra boil time.....I think.

Bottled In 1 Liter And Half Gallon Sizes

Well it's May 21, 2011 a little over 4 weeks since I brewed this beer and the first sample I took is very bitter and astringent tasting. I can feel a very fry, bitterness on my tongue and it has a really graining taste that overpowers the hops and last for several minutes in your mouth. It looks clear and has great carbonation but it is really rough. This one I won't even bother tasting for another 4 weeks, it's just that bad right now.

I ended up pouring the rest of this recipe down the drain, it never got any better after conditioning for 3 weeks in the bottles.I think I know what caused the infection, although I can probably never be really sure. I thought back and remembered pouring the cooled wort into the fermenter through a metal strainer to catch the hop leaves. I had given the strainer a quick soak in One-Step but after cleaning it later I noticed the mesh wasn't made out of stainless steel and it had some oxidation on it in several places.

I've since replaced that strainer with an auto siphon made out of clear plastic. I have found the auto siphon to be really easy to use, clean and sanitize too. It's a great tool to have in the brewhaus and I actually look forward to using it for transferring wort and beer.

Surviving Sample Of Recipe #53

I found a growler of this recipe that I hadn't thrown out with all the rest of this batch that went south. I carefully opened the twist cap and to my surprise no gushing at all. So prepared for the worst I poured a glassful and tasted it and to my surprise it tasted pretty good. Unlike the rest of the batch that turned out to be undrinkable this half gallon of beer actually tasted okay.

Split A Yeast Pack In Half For Mr. Beer Batches

2011-04-15T07:37:00.000-04:00

Whenever I brew Ale recipes I like to split a single tube, or package, of yeast into two 2.13 gallon Mr. Beer fermenters. And I do this without worrying if that will be enough yeast to properly ferment all of the beer. I've been doing this for over a year now with perfect results, pitching half the packaged amount of yeast works perfectly for Mr. Beer sized batches. Yeast companies package and sell their homebrewer products based on 5 gallon batches, the typical size used by most brewers at home.

Split A Single WLP005 Yeast Tube Into Two

I also look at this as a great way of keeping yeast costs under control while continually pitching fresh yeast. I cool my wort down to the yeast's lower end of it's optimal temperature range and then maintain that temperature throughout the primary fermentation which usually lasts between 1-2 weeks.

Very Active Primary Fermentation Using WLP005

Once the activity inside the keg has stopped for a few days I'll raise the temperature 2-3 degrees and allow another day or two before racking to a secondary fermenter for cold crashing. The last brew I made was my all grain Screwy's Pale Ale where I pitched a single 11g package of Safale S-05 into two Mr. Beer fermenters. The brew before that was my all grain Extra Screwy Bitters where I pitched a single tube of WLP005 into two Mr. Beer fermenters. In both cases the fermentations took off quickly and finished up with a low final gravity.

Final Gravity Reading When Racking To Secondary

Splitting a dry yeast package is straightforward and easy to do. I boil about a cup of filtered water for 10-15 minutes and let it cool down to 90F and pour it into a small sanitized bowl. I pour in the dry yeast and let it sit for 20 minutes, during this time the yeast will slowly begin to rehydrate. Stir this yeast mixture every 5-10 minutes until it becomes creamy in texture and it's ready to pitch.

Rehydrating Dry Yeast Before Splitting It In Two

Once the yeast is nice and creamy fill two small sanitized cups evenly with the rehydrated yeast mixture and you're now ready to pitch. I've prepared my yeast up o 2 hours ahead of time and have had perfect fermentations every time. During the time it takes to rehydrate the dry yeast the temperature of the mixture will fall to room temperature, just right for pitching into your cool wort.

Screwy's Double Recipe #51 - Extra Special Strong Bitter (All Grain)

2011-03-29T09:04:00.003-04:00

This recipe is a retake on my latest attempt, 2 weeks ago, to brew the perfect ESB using all grain, select hops and the yeast pitched in my previous ESB fermentation. I call it a double recipe because of the way it's brewed. I used 11 pounds of grain and 7 ounces of hops in this recipe. The recipe is calculated using a 4.25 gallon batch size, which is 2 times the volume of a Mr. Beer keg, this way I can fill 2 Mr. Beer kegs from a single batch.

Marris Otter, Biscuit, Fuggle, Kent Golding, Willamette and WLP005

The trick to doing a double batch using my method is to have two 12 quart boil pots filled with hot wort during the lautering process. I now put 1.5 ounces of Fuggle hops in each of the 2 boil pots at the start of the lauter and then alternate between the 2 pots when filling. If you completely fill one pot before filling the second pot the first would have a much higher OG than the second.

3 Ounces Of Fuggle First Wort Hops In 2 Boil Pots

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Size 4.25 gallons: Estimated IBU=66, SRM=11, OG=1.073, FG=1.018, ABV=7.1%

10.0 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

1.0 pounds Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

3.0 ounces Fuggle (U.K.) hops (first wort hops)

2.0 ounces Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops (15 mins)

2.0 ounces Willamette hops (7 mins)

1 Tube White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70° F and ferment at 66° F for 12 days

Raise to 70° F over days 13 to 14 then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Keg at 30 psi for 2-3 days and serve at 34° F

Mash at 156° F for 90 minutes.

Boil for 60 minutes.

Ferment at 66° F (18.8 °C).

Directions:

** Infusion mash at 156°F for 90 minutes **

(Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 180° F water for 20 minutes to pre heat it)

Heat 21 quarts of filtered water to 174° F

Pour 14 quarts of 174° F water into mash tun

Mix in 11.0 pounds of crushed grain mix at 58° F

Pour the remaining 174° F water to fill mash tun to 4.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 156°F and mash for 90 minutes

Sparge with 170° F strike water to set mash bed to 168° F

(Split these quantities between both boil pots)

Add 3 ounces of Fuggles (UK) hops to boil pots as first wort hop addition

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to both boil pots

Full Wort Boil:

Add 2 ounce Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 15 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/8 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 2 ounce Willamette hops with 7 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Use Screwy's Cooler wort chiller to cool wort to 70°F

Primary Fermentation:

Pour wort through strainer to remove excess hop and grain debris

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to just above the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 package of Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) at 70°F or WLP005

Ferment at 68°F for 12 days, raise to 70°F over days 13 to 14 for rest
** WLP005 Rouse yeast occasionally if needed to promote fermentation

Secondary Fermentation:

Rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30 psi for 2-3 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

Setting The Grain Bed For Before The 30 Minute Lauter

I use a 5 gallon mash tun that I made myself with parts purchased from Home Depot. I used the calculation below to determine how much water and at what temperature it had to be added to hit my 156° F mash temperature. I set my mash thickness to 1.25 using 11 pounds of grain and that came out to 13.75 quarts of water

** Infusion mash at 156° F for 90 minutes ** 

Mash Thickness:   11.0 * 1.25 = 13.75 quarts

Grain Absorption: 11.0 *   .13  =  6.0    quarts

                               ---------------

                                                                                 19.75 quarts 174°F (Strike Water)

The combined grain and water mash volume would take up 4.32 gallons of space in my 5 gallon mash tun, leaving me a little over .5 gallon of room for making temperature adjustments if needed. Using a Strike Temperature Calculator I found that a mash thickness of 1.25 and a grain temperature of 58° F would require the strike water temperature to be 174° F to hit the 156° F mash temperature.

Two 12 Quart Boil Pots One Boils 60 Minutes The Other 90 Minutes

By boiling one pot for 90 minutes and the other pot for 60 minutes I am able to use a wort chiller to cool the first pot down to pitching temperature and pitch the yeast with about 10 minutes to spare before the end of the second pot's boil. This saves considerable time over doing two 90 minute mashes followed by two 60-90 minute boils.

Wort Chiller Quickly Lowers The Temperature For Pitching

As the wort was cooling down I filled a keg from one of the Mr. Beer fermenters that had my original ESB recipe in it for 14 days. I left about 1/4 inch of beer on top of the trub at the bottom and screwed the lid back on it for safe keeping until I was ready to pour the cooled wort into it.

Kegging The Original ESB Recipe To Make Room In The Fermenter

Once the wort had been cooled down to the same temperature as the trub in the fermenter I poured it directly into the fermenter stirring up the trub and yeast that was left there after filling my keg.

Trub And Yeast Reused From The Previous Fermentation

Pouring the cooled wort directly onto the trub at the bottom of the fermenter allows air to get mixed into the wort and it also breaks the trub up into smaller pieces. This has the same effect as aerating the wort before pitching new yeast.

Pouring Directly Onto Trub Aerated The Wort

Five hours later I looked in to see a nice thick layer of krausen at the top of both fermenters. The temperature inside the fermenters had already climbed a few degrees.

Fermenters With Thick Krausen After 5 Hours

By the next morning both fermenters had really taken off, the krausen was touching the tops of the lids and the inside temperature had risen to 70° F a full 5° F higher than room temperature.

Fast And Furious Fermentation In Action

Refrigerator Draft Beer Tap Installation

2011-03-26T13:10:00.002-04:00

After buying about 100 one liter PET bottles and using them exclusively for bottling my homebrew for almost a year I decided it was time to try kegging instead. It's not that I came to hate bottling I had by this time gotten really efficient at it. I used a priming calculator to determine how much sugar I had to add to each bottle to hit the right carbonation level for the style of beer I was bottling.

Perlick 'Perl' 575SS Sanitary Beer Faucet With Creamer

I guess what bothered me the most was the small amount of trub at the bottom of each bottle and the fact that most folks didn't know how to pour a glass without stirring the trub up making the rest of the beer cloudy. Filtering my beer sounded like an expensive time consuming process that I wouldn't want to do, but kegging now that sounded promising.

I had picked up my kegging system complete with 5 pound aluminum Co2 tank, regulator with high and low pressure gauges and the assortment of tubing, valves and beer in and beer out ball locks needed for a kegging setup. I had also bought two 2.5 gallon kegs to hold my beer and initially put the whole setup, including a cobra picnic tap to serve the beer, inside my refrigerator. Things were now starting to get interesting the idea of having fresh homebrew on tap was awesome!

Co2 Kegging System Tank, Gauges And Kegs

We soon realized that going inside the refrigerator to pour a beer and having to open the door open each time was a pain. This would become really expensive during the summer as well when temperatures inside the garage can reach 100 F and holding the door open would cause the compressor to run continuously. The best idea was to mount a beer tap right into the sidewall of the refrigerator, this would be more convenient and save a lot of energy.

Perl Tap Mounted In Refrigerator Sidewall

In order to mount the 2.5 inch beer shank in the refrigerator wall we used a 1 inch hole saw and an electric drill. We measured from the floor up to the center of the beer shank 41 inches, using an average person's comfortable pouring height, and marked the center of the hole.

Use A 1 Inch Hole Saw To Drill The Shank Hole

The Perl tap was screwed onto the shank on the outside and then the shank nut was used to tighten the tap assembly from the inside of the refrigerator. The length of 5/16 inch ID vinyl tubing was then pushed onto the 5/16 barb on the shank and held in place with a small hose clamp. The other end of the 50 inch long tubing was then connected to the beer out ball lock using 2 small hose clamps to hold the 5/16 inch ID vinyl tubing to the 1/4 inch OD barb on the ball lock.

Inside Shank Connection Shown With Beer In Tubing

Next we mounted the Co2 tank and gauges on the outside of the refrigerator, this was done to give back some much need room to store beer and other items and to provide more accurate gas pressure gauge readings when adjusting the Co2 regulator. A 5/8 inch diameter hole was drill through the wall and a small rubber grommet was pushed into place to protect the vinyl gas line from being cut by any sharp metal edges.

Small Rubber Grommet In 5/8 Inch Hole For Gas Line

A screw fastened to the garage wall and a length of electrical wire was used to protect the regulator and gauges from crashing to the floor in case they were carelessly knocked over. A grommet was also used on the hole inside the refrigerator to protect the tubing and provide a more finished look to the installation.

Keg, Gas And Beer Lines Are All Ready To Pour

After all the holes were drilled, the beer and gas lines run and connected, the beer keg was placed inside the refrigerator and the ball locks snapped tight. The Co2 valve was opened and the 6 psi serving pressure was applied to the keg, our first pour was only moments away. The Perl faucet dispensed the beer perfectly the very first time, pouring a full glass of beer in in seconds with no foam over.

Extra Room Inside The Refrigerator Is Another Benefit

Now that the draft beer tap has been properly installed and setup to pour a perfect draft beer every time my next challenged is going to be in keeping up with the demand. A full 2.5 gallon keg of beer can be properly force carbonated and ready to drink in less than a week which knocks off about 10 days wait time when bottle carbonating.

The Perl Beer Faucet Dispenses A Perfect Poured Draft Beer Every Time

Screwy Double Novacaine Brewday

2011-03-19T10:54:00.004-04:00

Last June was the first time I ever brewed Mr. Beer's Novacaine barley wine recipe and I'm glad I did. Novacaine was a huge hit with everyone who was lucky enough to get to drink it before it ran out. I bottle primed using pure cane sugar in 1 liter PET bottles and let them condition in my basement for 5 or 6 months before drinking them. This year I brewed 2 batches of the same recipe and plan on letting them condition until Thanksgiving, this time giving them 9-10 months before drinking them.

Double Order Of Novacaine Ingredients

Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=48, SRM=36, OG=1.102, FG=1.026, ABV=9.9%

Novacaine
REFILL INCLUDES:
1 Can West Coast Pale Ale HME
1 Can St. Patrick's Irish Stout HME
1 Can Golden Wheat UME
2 Cans Pale Export UME
2 Packets Sterling Pellet Hops
2 Packets Northern Brewer Pellet Hops
1 Pouch Wyeast 1056 - American Ale Liquid Yeast
2 Muslin Hop Sacks

Directions

Stand extract cans in hot water and pour OneStep cleanser mix on lids

Place Wyeast 1056 yeast in warm location and smack pouch 3-6 hours before pitching

Boil 11 quarts of filtered water

Add 1 ounce Northern Brewer hops with 5 minutes remaining to boil

Remove from heat and add all extracts

Add 1 ounce Sterling hops in muslin hop sack

Use wort chiller to cool wort to 70° F

Aerate, pitch at 70°F and ferment at 66°F for 18 days

Raise to 70°F over days 19 to 21 then remove hops sacks and rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34° F

Bottle prime with cane sugar and carbonate for 21 days at 70° F

Condition For 8 months between 60-74° F

To brew the Novacaine recipe I pretty much followed the instructions that shipped with the ingredients. The only 2 things I did differently was to boil the Northern Brewer hops for 5 minutes and do a full wort boil then used my wort chiller to cool the wort down to 70F for pitching. Mr. Beer said to bring the water to a boil then turn off the flame and toss in the Northern Brewer hops, last time I boiled them for 5 minutes as well and the Novacaine tasted great.


I Gave The Northern Brewer Hops A 5 Minute Full Wort Boil

I was able to do a boil enough water to completely fill the Mr. Beer fermenters without having to add any cold makeup water. Doing it this way makes having a wort chiller a necessity as it allows you to cool the wort down very quickly to the exact pitching temperature of the yeast. I want all conditions possible to be idea so the yeast can take off quickly and begin a healthy fermentation, especially with a high gravity recipe like Novacaine.

Cooling The Wort Down To 70F Took 15 Minutes

I had the Wyeast sitting in a bowl of 70 F One Step cleanser for 20 minutes to match it up to the temperature of the wort before pitching it. After pitching the yeast I left both fermenters in the basement to cool down a bit before moving them upstairs to the fermentation room.

Both Kegs Fermenting In 66F Room After 1 Hour

By mid morning of the next day both fermenters showed a healthy level of krausen and filled the room with the aromas of fermenting beer. They'll stay in this room for another 18 days before I raise the temperature a few degrees over days 19-21 and then rack them to a secondary removing the hops sacks and cold crash them for a week in the refrigerator before bottling.

12 Hours Later A Healthy Primary Fermentation Was Underway

Four and a half gallons of this really nice barley wine will be sure to lift the spirits of both friends and family for the late fall and early winter holidays coming up.

I bottled up both batches and added 1.5 teaspoons of pure can sugar to each 1 liter bottle for priming the natural carbonation.

These Will Be fully Conditioned By Thanksgiving Day

I'm a happy guy right now. We started drinking a few liters of this Novacaine recipe this weekend. Brewed back in March of this year and after 6 months of conditioning they taste as good, or better, than we remembered when I brewed them for last Thanksgiving Day. The only problem is now I wish I had brewed more than just 4 gallons.

Nothing Says Happy Thanksgiving Like Novacaine!

Im down to me last 3 plus gallons and it's the middle of September, I think I can manage my supply so it lasts until the holidays. The weather here in the Northeast has dipped into the low 50's the past few nights making for some really good Barley Wine drinking.

I plan to brew this same recipe again next March and this time bottle some of them up in 12 ounce longnecks so they're easier to give out to friends and family around the holidays.

Screwy's Recipe #49 - Extra Special Strong Bitter (All Grain)

2011-03-13T08:12:00.014-04:00

After months of brewing German style beers like Pilsener, Okoberfest/Marzen and Weissbier I now have locked down quite a few recipes that produced beers I really enjoy drinking. I also turned my attention to producing some nice American ales based on recipes that included hops like Cluster that were available to Prohibition Era immigrant brewers.

Lately I've been focusing on English ales like India Pale Ale (IPA) and Extra Special Strong Bitter (ESB) and trying to design recipes that produce interestingly complex mixtures of malts and hops. As always I began my research on the BJCP website to get the official take on how this beer should come out. The next step is to drink a few different brands to get an idea on how the bigger brewers have interpreted the style and then search the Internet to see how other home brewers have brewed the style.

Marris Otter, Biscuit, Challenger, Fuggle, Kent Golding and WLP005

I used created a new qBrew's default 'Screwy Brewer's Extra Special/Strong Bitter (ESB)' style guideline as the basis for crunching this recipe's numbers. It's loosely based on qBrew's default 'Extra Special/Strong Bitter (ESB)' guideline, the recipe download contains my complete ingredient list and brewing notes. You can download the latest qBrew database below and use it to upgrade your current ingredient database. This latest ingredient database includes more yeast, fruits, extracts and other helpful entries then ever before.

Click to download Screwy's latest qBrew database

Recipe:

Click to download this recipe file for qBrew
Size 2.13 gallons: Estimated IBU=56, SRM=11, OG=1.070, FG=1.017, ABV=6.8%

5 pounds Marris Otter Malt (UK)

1/4 pound Biscuit Malt (Belgium)

1 ounce Challenger (U.K.) hops (first wort hops)

1/2 ounce Fuggles (U.K.) hops (20 mins)

1/2 ounce Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops (7 mins)

1 Pack Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) or White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

Aerate, pitch at 70°F and ferment at 66°F for 12 days

Raise to 70°F over days 13 to 14 then rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg at 30psi for 5-7 days and serve at 34°F

Directions:

** Infusion mash at 150°F for 60 minutes **

Heat 16 quarts of filtered water to 170°F

Soak mash tun in 8 quarts of 180F water for 20 minutes and then dump out to preheat tun

Pour 8 quarts of 170°F water into mash tun

Mix in 5.25 pounds of crushed grain mix at 60°F

Pour the 170°F water to fill mash tun to 2.50 gallon mark

Stir water and grain mixture and adjust to 150°F and mash for 60 minutes

Sparge with 170°F strike water to set mash bed to 168°F

Add 1 ounce of Challenger (U.K.) hops to boil pot as first wort hop addition

Lauter for 30 minutes adding 11.5 quarts of sweet wort to the boil pot

Full Wort Boil:

Add 1/2 ounce Fuggles (U.K.) hops with 20 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/8 tablet WhirlFloc with 9 minutes remaining to boil

Add 1/2 ounce Kent Goldings (U.K.) hops with 7 minutes minutes remaining to boil

Use Screwy's Cooler wort chiller to cool wort to 70°F

Primary Fermentation:

Pour wort through strainer to remove excess hop and grain debris

Fill the Mr. Beer fermenter with wort to the 8.5 quart mark

Aerate wort and pitch 1 package of Wyeast 1968 (London ESB) at 70°F or WLP005

Ferment at 68°F for 12 days, raise to 70°F over days 13 to 14 for rest
** WLP005 Rouse yeast occasionally if needed to promote fermentation

Secondary Fermentation:

Rack to secondary fermenter

Cold condition secondary fermenter for 1 week at 34°F

Keg/Bottle:

Keg and force carbonate at 30psi for 5-7 days at 34°F

Bottle prime and carbonate at 70° for 7-14 days

First Wort Hop Additions Added To Both Boilpots

I decided to double up on the recipe and mash 10.5 pounds of grains at the same time, this saved me an hour and a half since I only had to mash and lauter a single batch. I used a mash calculator to figure out my mash volumes and temperatures. Adding 50% of my hop additions to the boil pots during the 30 minute lauter lets them steep in the hot wort which makes their aromatic oils become more soluble and not evaporate during the boil.

Preheated Mash Tun With 180F Water Fro 20 Minutes

My brewing area is around 58F so I preheat my mash tun to get it closer to my mashing temperature before beginning my mash. After 20 minutes I dump out the water and prepare for mashing by pouring 2 gallons of 170F filtered water into the tun. I next add in my 10.5 pounds of 58F crushed grains and then stir in enough 170F water to fill the tun to the 4.5 gallon mark, adjusting the temperature as needed to hit my 150F mash temperature.

Mash Thickness Of 1.5 And A Temperature Of 150F For 1 Hour

After mashing at 150F for an hour I cracked open the valve on the tun to recirculate around 2 or 3 cups of wort in order to set the grain bed and clear up the wort before running it into the boil pots. Once the wort is running clear I sparged the grains with 170F strike water until both boil pots were filled with 11.5 quarts of wort each.

Pour Sparge Water On Plastic Lid To Avoid Disturbing The Grain Bed

I timed the boils of both pots to be about 30 minutes apart since it takes about 15-20 minutes to chill the wort down from boiling to the 70F pitching temperature. This allows me enough time to pour the chilled wort through a strainer into the primary fermenter while the other pot is still boiling. This takes a bit of multitasking because you don't want to miss the hops additions to the boiling pot while you're racking to the fermenter.

The Left Pot Is 30 Minutes Behind Right Pot's Boil

I keep a pot of boiling water simmering on the stovetop in case I need to add a cup or so of makeup water to the boil so I have enough volume for the fermenter.

First, Second, Third Hop Additions And WhirFloc Have Been Added

The tap water is a cold 60F this time of year in my area and the hot wort cooled down quickly. I removed the hop sacks from the wort before putting the sanitized cooling coil in the boil pot.

From 212F To 70F In Less Than 20 Minutes

My first choice for yeast was to pitch Wyeast 1968 - London ESB™ but I decided to try out White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™ instead. I've never used the White Labs yeast before although I have seen their somewhat unique way of packaging their yeast before. On a visit to an injection molding plant many years ago I saw the same type of White Labs yeast tubes, that is before they were formed into 1 liter bottles.

White Labs WLP005 - British Ale Yeast™

This yeast is pretty easy to use, just warm it to 70F and shake it up really well until it's uniform in consistency and color and it's ready to pitch. I split a single tube into 2 Mr. Beer sized batches as 1 tube will ferment up to 5 gallons of wort.

After 5 Hours Both Fermenters Showed Good Amounts Of Krausen

The White Labs website has a lot of information about all their yeast strains including WLP005, the lazy yeast. This yeast is a fast starter and highly floculant producing malty ales in a relatively short period of time. There is also much discussion among homebrewers about stalled fermentations and the manufacturer suggests rousing the yeast may be needed to re-suspend the yeast.

I pitched the yeast at 70F and put the fermenters in a 70F room and after 5 hours there was a good amount of krausen present already. When I checked the fermenters again after 15 hours of fermentation the krausen had already fallen a lot and the yeast was settled on the bottom of the fermenters. It seems this yeast unlike most Ale yeast ferments from the bottom up and racking early to a secondary will actually hurt the fermentation more than it will help.

Rousing The WLP005

On day 2, about 24 hours later, I noticed the krausen had fallen off alot. I remembered reading on the White Labs website that the WLP005 yeast may need to be roused back into action if the fermentation looked like it was stalling.

Re-energized Fermentation After Gentle Rousing Of Mr. Beer Fermenters

Apparently the folks at White Labs know their products as the gentle rousing stirred the yeast back into suspension and the fermentation really took off again. After 14 days of fermentation I took a final gravity reading of 1.011 and racked the fermented beer to my kegs for force carbonating.

Final Gravity Was 1.011 Before Kegging

I used a short piece of 3/8 inch outside diameter rigid tubing, that I cut off of a bottling wand, and a length of 3/8 inch inside diameter soft vinyl tubing to attach my Mr. Beer fermenter to my transfer tubing. This allows me to have a tight connection in the spigot and then use flexible tubing that is easy to position inside the keg.

Flexible Transfer Tube Allows Easy Positioning

Once the keg was full I sealed it tight and used Co2 to purge the air out of it by applying pressure while opening the relief valve a few times. Both kegs are inside the refrigerator at 34F and I'm applying 30 psi to each one to force carbonate them. Over the next few days I'll pull a sample pour to see how the carbonation levels are and then use about a 6 psi serving pressure.