Time for a Schwarzbier

Time for a Schwarzbier. I've always liked the style and the better ones I've tried are nice drinking lagers. I planned to use the yeast cake from the Oktoberfest, so when that quieted down, I racked it and harvested the yeast. This is the third generation of the yeast and likely the last use of it.

This time, I took some guidance from Nic and made up a spreadsheet to track what I was doing. In retrospect, I think that I got a lot more useful information that using my old format. I still have the time-based notes and they are useful, but the extra detail is nice. That spreadsheet is available here.

There are two problems I picked up on while documenting in this new-and-improved way:

Volume calculations
Although I corrected for the volume difference between ambient, mash temp, and boiling, I seemed to have collected more from the first and second runnings that I actually got in the boil kettle. Because the sparge water is in the boil kettle, I need to put the first runnings into a bottling bucket, sparge, transfer the bottling bucket contents to the boil kettle, sparge again into the bottling bucket, then transfer that into the boil kettle. The bottling bucket isn't perfectly vertical, but I accounted for that. Somewhere in measuring the wort depths and calculating volumes, I introduced some errors.

Efficiency
I read through Brewkaiser's wiki and used his efficiency spreadsheet. While my calculated efficiency comes out areound 77%, the lauter and conversion efficiency numbers were off (well over 100%). I think that decoction threw that off and I just didn't understand the calculations before using the spreadsheet. I'll see what happens next time I brew since that likely won't be a decoction.

Finally, my 24" brewing thermometer was out-of-whack. For some reason, when I was ready to mash, it read about 20F below actual (as measured with my digital and mercury thermometers). I was able to recalibrate with ice water, hot tap water, and boiling water by using the adjusting screw on the back, but I'm surprised that I needed to. I lost about 45 minutes figuring that out and resolving it. From now on, I'll validate the reading before starting to mash. I'll also need to put a flat-headed screwdrived into the brewing toolkit.

Day 0 (25 Sep 2010)
0815 :: Preheat mash tun with 8 gal hot tap h2o.
0840 :: 4.55 gal h2o on full (T = 65F).
0847 :: Mash h2o @ 115F; want to mash in @ 160F.
0851 :: Mash h2o is 138F.
0853 :: Turned burner down to constant flame cf noisy flame - replace rusty burner?
0858 :: Mash h2o is 167F.
0900 :: Mash h2o tempin tun only 148, so reheat the mash h2o to 175F.
0913 :: Mash h2o @ 182F.
0930 :: The dial thermometer was off by about 20F! recalibrated against the digital instant-read at freezing, boiling, and hot-tap. back on process now.
0935 :: Mash h2o is too hot (obviously) so I'm air cooling.
0938 :: Mash h2o is 168F.
0951 :: Begin mash in.
0954 :: Completed mash in.
0956 :: Mash @ 152F.
1013 :: Drew off 2 gal; mash temp down to 149F; began boil @ 152F with non-sputtering flame.
1018 :: Decoction @ 166F.
1022 :: Decoction @ 181F; mash @ 149F.
1028 :: Decoction @ 206F; 60 minute boil will be done @ 1130.
1058 :: Decoction boiling nicely; mash @ 149F.
1124 :: Decoction boil continues; mash @ 148F.
1134 :: 1.5 gal decoction added back; mash to 161F.
1140 :: Sparge water on.
1156 :: Sparge water @ 106F (uh oh).
1200 :: Sparge water @ 121F.
1207 :: Sparge water @ 145F.
1215 :: Sparge water @ 172F --> pre-vorlauf.
1237 :: Heating to boil; 12 Brix.
1258 :: Boil (1.0 oz 6.4%AA German Hallertau in loose).
1343 :: Whirlfloc and IC in to sanitize.
1358 :: Flame off, chill, then whirlpool and 15' stand.
1400 :: 14.25 Brix.

Day 1
0900 :: Oxygenated for 90s @ 0.12 lpm and 0.06 lpm. The 0.06 lpm rate doesn't seem to work well - very few bubbles are visible. From now on, I'll up it to 0.12 lpm and extend it to 90s to account for loss via bubbles.
0915 :: Pitched 3/4 of the harvested yeast.

Day 2
0630 :: Lots of kraeusen and bubbling.

Day ? - 11 December
I kegged the Schwarz today. FG was 1.014, a bit high for a Schwarz, but inside the guidelines.

Oktoberfest

I've always liked Oktoberfests. I went to college in a predominantly German town that had Canada's largest Oktoberfest celebration. I've tried making one early on in my brewing career and it was poor. It lacked the mouthfeel that a good Oktoberfest has. Apparently, a decoction mash is really needed to get that and I tried two Oktoberfests using decoction. Unfortunately, not being able to directly heat my mash tun, these turned out poorly - I dumped them.

So, based on my good experience with lauter decoctions on my Schwarzbiers, I thought I'd try that for the Ofest. In a lauter decoction, you mash-in with at about 1.6 qts/lb, let the mash rest for 15 minutes, then pull off a lot of the liquid (leaving a thick oatmeal in the mash tun). You then boil this pulled fraction for 60 minutes, then add it back to the mash and let is sit for 30 minutes. After that, the process is as usual.

For yeast, I planned to use a portion of the yeast harvested from my Lawnmower Beer, but I used all of it. I know that may be too much yeast, but we'll see. The yeast from this Ofest will be the yeast that I use for my Schwarzbier.

Oktoberfest

6 gal into the primary (5.75 - 6.0 actual)

Brew date: 04 September 2010

Grist

• 9 lb 10 oz Vienna
• 1 lb 2 oz Dark Munich

Hops

• 0.625 oz German Hallertau (6.4% AA) @ 75 min

Yeast

• Saflager 34-70, harvested from the Lawnmower Beer.

Brewing Notes


Day 0
0645 :: 9 gal hot tap H2O into tun to preheat.
0705 :: 4.3 gal mash H2O heating.
0715 :: Grain temp is 72.3F so I want to mash in with 1.6 qts/lb @ 160F.
0716 :: Mash H2O is at 120F; flame was low so I turned it up.
0721 :: Mash H2O @ 150F; will stop @ 165F.
0722 :: Began draining tun preheat H2O.
0728 :: Mash H2O @ 178F ... oops.
0737 :: Mash H2O in tun; temp is 166F.
0746 :: Mash H2O in tun; temp is 161F.
0748 :: Mash in @ 160.3F; 3 minutes to put it all in and get it mixed up.
0751 :: Mash temp is 148F; stirred and @ 0753, temp was 151.5F.
0759 :: Mash temp is 151.5F.
0806 :: Began pulling off 2.08 gal for lauter decoction (the dunnmaische).
0810 :: Had to peek into mash tun to check grain, temp loss here.
0814 :: Mash temp @ 150.5F; lauter portion on to boil.
0820 :: Dunnmaische is boiling.
0820 :: Took a sample of the wort from the mash tun; cooled it; pH was between 5.0 and 5.3 (closer to 5.3) with the pH strips from www.sanitationtools.com.
0850 :: Mash temp is @ 150F.
0850 :: Currently cool and still, 48F.
0910 :: We seem to have boiled off 0.4 gal of the dunnmaische.
0920 :: Poured about 1.5 gal of dunnmaishce into the tun.
0922 :: Mash tun temp is 164F.
0935 :: Mash temp @ 165F.
1000 :: Mashout with 180F H2O.
1010 :: 4 gal first runnings, 4.5 gal second, 0.5 leftover.
1030 :: Currently @ 9 Brix (1.036).
1050 :: Boil.
1130 :: 0.625 oz 6.4% AA Hallertau hops in.
1200 :: Kettle seems to be at 7.25 gal.
1215 :: Whirlfloc and IC into kettle.
1230 :: Boil kettle volume @ 6.75, going another 15 min to get volume down and gravity up; currently 1.046 (11.5 Brix).
1245 :: Flame off.
1310 :: I decided to to a 15 min whirlpool to see if I can minimize trub; gravity going into kettle was 13.5 Brix (1.054).
1310 :: Looks like ~ 5.75-6.00 gal into primary.

Extra Notes:

1. I think I need to adjust my grain absorption number (0.136 gal/lb) downwards. Lately I've been seeing less absorption than what I was used to. This time, I had to do a longer boil to end up with 6.00 gal into fermenter.
2. Yeast harvesting is difficult. The yeast layer is very thin, so I tried to pull the trub off the bottom and then liquid off the top. Not sure how successful that was, but I got the harvested yeast + trub + beer down from ~1 gallon to ~0.5 gallon.
3. Clean sanitizing solution off refractometer before taking gravity reading - it dilutes a few Brix pts.

Day 1
0900 :: Oxygenated at 0.06 lpm and 0.12 lpm for 3 minutes. Normally I do just 0.06 lpm, but the bubbles weren't really evident so I cranked it up a bit.

Day 2
0800 :: Fermentation has taken off! Pitching all the yeast made a big difference in fermentation
lag time, hopefully not in the finished product.

Day 8
1800 :: Fermentation is now down to 1 bubble every 20-25 seconds.

Day 13
1815 :: Hydro sample shows the gravity at 1.014, smack-dab in the middle of the BJCP range (1.012-1.016).

Day ? - 11 December

I kegged the Schwarz today. FG was 1.013, right where I want it. 

Calculating V(T)

So when I brewed the Lawnmower Beer, I wondered about the change in volume of water vs. temperature. That's a pretty straightforward analysis so I used EngineeringToolbox to get some values and made the little calculator below. True, I am assuming that wort behaves like pure water, but for my application I think that assumption is acceptable.

Initial volume [gal]:
Initial temperature [degF]:
Final temperature [degF]:
Final volume [gal]:

Lawnmower Beer

I'm in a low-alcohol session beer stage right now and since it's summer, it's time to make some lawnmower beer. I've always used some version of Jamil's recipe (80% 2-row, 20% Minute Rice) and have had the best results (taste-wise) with the default recipe. Fletty even gave me a 44 at 1st Round of Nationals, even though he panned the beer at the club meeting.

I've got some old 2-row (20+ lbs of it) lying around and I think it is too old; over a year. I kept it sealed and dry, but everything has a shelf life so tomorrow I'll use most of it up. I'll be doing a 10 gallon batch and while my mash tun can handle it, I like to get 12 gal into the fermenter so I end up with 10 gallons drinkable, and that means almost 15 gal in the boil kettle. That's always the balance when I do "10 gallon batches" - how much can I really deal with. I will shoot for 14.25 gal into the kettle, which, with thermal expansion, is just shy of 15 gallons.

Standard American Lager

12 gal into the primary (11.5 actual)

Brew date: 14 August 2010

Grist

• 16 lb 2-row
• 4 lb Minute Rice

Hops

• 0.5 oz Magnum (10% AA) @ 90 min

Yeast

• Saflager 34-70, 0.5 liter starter stepped up with another 0.75 liters

Brewing Notes

Day 0

0630 :: 6.25 gal on for sparge (burner not @ max).

0652 :: Mash H2O @ 149F.

0655 :: Preheat tun with 8 gal hot tap H2O.

0658 :: Mash H2O @ 172F - flame off.

0728 :: Mash H2O @ 159F so mash in.

0733 :: Mash @ 149F.

0748 :: 10.75 gal vorlauf/sparge H2O on full.

0743 :: Mash @ 151F, opened tun @ stirred.

0750 :: Mash @ 151F again ... time to adjust calculation?

0803 :: Vorlauf/sparge H2O @ 100F.

0815 :: Vorlauf/sparge H2O @ 133F, mash @ 151F.

0822 :: Vorlauf/sparge H2O @ 151F.

0833 :: Begin sparge; vorlauf/sparge H2O @ 181F.

0858 :: 14.5 gal on to boil.

0900 :: 10.5 Brix (1.041).

0915 :: 191F.

0920 :: Currently 73F with 88% RH, little to no wind.

0920 :: Boil; hops in.

1035 :: IC and whirlfloc in.

1050 :: Flame off.

1110 :: 80F, so into the fermenter.

1112 :: 11.5 Brix (1.046).

I ran into problems when sparging. My mash tun is 10 gal and with the grain and mash water, 

I was up to almost 8 gallons. When I wen to add my 3.5gal of pre-vorlauf water, I ran into trouble. Same again when I want to batch sparge - 7+ gal of water just won't fit! I need to be better prepared in the future.

I also noted that I gathered more than 14.5 gal of wort, probably about 1-1.5gal more. My guess is that the Minute Rice doesn't absorb the same amount of water as grain, it absorbs less.

Another thing I want to look into. How much does the volume of the wort change with temperature? I start off with 10 gal of 165F wort, then bump it up to 212F, then chill it down to 80F, then ferment at 52F. 

Day 1

0900 :: wort @ 54F, so I decanted the starter and added about 0.5 liter of resuspended yeast.

Day 3

1800 :: Fermentation proceeding.

Day 4 

0630 :: 24 bubbles/min @ 52F.

Day 21 (04 Sep)

Racked into two kegs. The gravity was 1.011. Hopefully that will drop over the next few months of lagering.

Do I Need a Better Brewing Setup?

Today's brew event was a combination of things. A new recipe experiment for a friend and an attempt at multi-step mashing with a cooler-as-a-mashtun system. The beer is a Patersbier. The actual beer that this is based on comes from at a Belgian monestary and is brewed solely for consumption by the reverent Cistercian brothers. This ale is not served or sold to the public, making it one of the rarest beers in the world. Although the NB kit is Pils only, mine has some acidulated malt (3.5%) and some CaraVienne (3.5%). The hops were also changed up a bit since I have a bunch of Styrian Goldings that were freebies at this year's Upper Missippi Mashout.

The other trick in this beer was to do a short (12 min) mash at 112F, then the rest of the mash at 149F. With a simple system like mine, that means doing the normal hot water addition to hit the initial mash temp, then adding boiling water to reach the final mash temp. There are plenty of calculators out the that tell you how much boiling water to reach your next temp ... I was led astray by them. I had planned to do a bit of a lauter decoction at the end of the mash but I could not hit the second temp with the calculated values and things went to hell in a handbasket. I ended up having an inital mash at 112F, then added far from enough boiling water. While I madly got extra water boiling, the mash had an unintended 25 minute rest at about 121F, then finally the final (planned) 45 minutes at 149F. The notes below tell all the sordid details.

Boiloff was another weird problem. Over 90 minutes, I boiled off 2.25 gal, way more than normal. It was 13% more humid, so I'd expect less boiloff but I got way more. I guess I just had the boil going a lot more than with the two Crouch Vales.

And another problem - the BreweryTimer app. While the boil timer is great, once the other alarms go, they will not shut off unless I restart the app. I said last time "why didn't I code this up"; now maybe I will.

Patersbier

6 gal  into the primary (planned, 5.25 actual)

Grist

• 9 lb 10 oz Belgian Pils
• 6 oz Acidulated malt
• 6 oz CaraVienne 75L
• Mash @ 112F for 12 min
• Mash @ 120F for 25 min (unanticipated)
• Mash @ 149F for 48 min
• Boil for 90min

Hops

• 1.5 oz Styrian Goldings (2.6%AA) @ 90 min
• 2.5 oz Styrian Goldings (2.6%AA) @ 0 min

Yeast

• Wyeast 3738 Trappist High Gravity, ferment at 63F

I made a 1 liter starter about two days ahead of time.

Brewing Notes

Day 0
0750 :: 3.5 gal on to boil.
0756 :: Mash water @114F.
0802 :: First H2O into tun @ 142F; rest of H2O continues to boil on lower heat.
0805 :: Remainder of H2O @ 195F - heat off.
0810 :: Added tap H2O to tun (keeping vol constant) and got temp to 128F.
0814 :: Mash in @ 124F;  remainder of H2) on flame.
0821 :: Overshot the mash temp - had to add 2 qts tap H2O to get mash temp down to 113F.
0824 :: Mash @ 114F.
0830 :: Mash @ 116F - looks like my (and Promash's) calcs for water:grain and temperature are off for low ratios.
0833 :: Add remainder of H2O for mash.
0840 :: Mash temp only to 122F - WTF! putting 3 gal on to boil to bring it up to 149F - will add slowly until 149.
0905 :: Added 3 gal of boiling to get to 149F.
0910 :: 148F mash.
0917 :: 148F mash, 125F sparge.
0955 :: When I sparged, the mash bed was very very compacted - needed to stir it up to get all the liquid out. Normally I don't have to do that.
1000 :: I got 5 gal first runnings.
1005 :: I only added enough sparge water to get 2.5 gal second runnings.
1010 :: Preboil gravity is 10.25 Brix (1.041) with 7.5 gal --> 80% eff.
1013 :: With full flame, 185F.
1015 :: Current conditions : 71F, 73% RH.
1153 :: Flame off, start immersion cooler. The immersion cooler results are
3 min -- 120F
4 min -- 106F
5 min --  99F
6 min --  93F
8 min --  84F
I love the nice cold Lakeville water.
1211 :: I only got about 5.25 gal into carboy ... big boiloff? The boil rate didn't seem that high.
1212 :: OG is 13.5 Brix (1.054). This doesn't really jive with any boiloff calcs, but it is what it is.
1215 :: The wort is in the refrigerator getting down to 64F (pitching temp).

Day 1
0630 :: I aerated for one minute at 0.12 lpm, then pitched the entire 1 liter starter. The starter was about 68F and the wort was about 65F, so close enough.
1900 :: Nice bubbling (12 bubbles/min).

Day 2
0700 :: Even more airlock activity - 24 bubbles per minute. No blowoff into the airlock jug. The carboy is about 63F.

Day 4
1800 :: It has been stable around 63F for a few days now. Activity has dropped to zero at this point. I will rack to secondary tomorrow night.

Day 7
I was going to rack it, but the gravity was only 1.014.

Day 16
Back from vacation, the gravity is 1.012 - I guess I could have racked it. Something happened while I was away and the temp got up to about 72F, but almost no fermentation occurred (the gravity barely dropped) so I hop no off flavors got into it.

Crouch Vale - Version 2

Today is replace-the-front-shocks day. I've never done it before and thankfully the corrosion isn't as bad ad I thought it would be. I was unsure of doing it myself, but I found this series of videos over on eHow. Nathan McCullough rocks. The only hiccup I had was replacing the stabilizer control links. The nuts had seized and the 'bolt' portion was a ball joint so you couldn't get a grip on them. I had to cut them out. I hadn't planned on replacing the links, but I noticed last night that the driver's side was shot so I ordered a new set (both sides). This may have been the whole noise-in-the-front-end problem in the first place, but I had already bought the shocks and the original ones have 100k (miles) on them, so I went ahead and did the whole job.


Ok ... on to beer.


I brewed Crouch Vale Version 1 last Tuesday and now it's time to do Version 2. The recipe is identical with two exceptions:

• I decreased the amount of Halcyon to 7 lb and added 10oz of Crystal 75,
• I washed the yeast from Version 1 and added half of it at pitching time.

Everything else was the same (temperatures, times, etc) but I had some problems. My mash screen (a bazooka tube) got loose during the mash and I had a heck of a time getting it back in. While is was out, though, some grain got into the mash tun valve and buggered everything up. I got my first runnings (less than normal amount) by using a pitcher and a kitchen seive, cleaned things up, then got my second runnings in the normal batch sparge way. Efficiency seemed to drop a bit from the previous version: my preboil wort was 1.035 which means 75% efficiency. Boiloff was a bit higher than planned and although I ended up with 6 gal in the carboy, the postboil wort was 1.038 - spot on what I wanted.


Brewing Notes:


Day 0
1730 :: preheat tun w 7 gal hot tap H2O
1737 :: flame on! 2.5 gal on to boil
1749 :: 185F and nucleate boiling
1757 :: want to mash in @ 162F; currently @ 168F; allowing thermal eq'm
1804 :: after some swirling for cooling, 162F so mash in
1807 :: mash screen came out; fished it out and let the mash go on - will insert at end of mash
1823 :: mash @ 151F
1840 :: 6.25 gal sparge H2O on (2.45 pre-vorlauf + 3.8 sparge)
1840 :: mash @ 151F
1850 :: sparge H2O @ 122F
1902 :: sparge H2O @ 165F; mash @ 149
1904 :: screen disconnectd again; had to take first runnings via seive
1940 :: finally got 7.5 gal of wort; OG = 7 Brix (1.028) --> 75% eff
1948 :: current conditions are 78F and 61% RH
1953 :: full-on boil; going with a fuller boil than normal to ensure that I get the boiloff I want
2100 :: my Bullion hops are 7.9%, so I am using 3.5oz @ 15 min
2108 :: Bullion hops, whirlfloc, and IC into kettle
2123 :: flame off. IC down to 74F in under 15 min
2143 :: into fermentation chamber @ 63F


Day 1
1800 :: Oxygenate for 120s @ 0.06 lpm; Why? This article  (and many other sources) say you need about 0.12 liters of O2 added (assuming perfect absorbtion). If I dial my regulator to 0.12 lpm, it foams a lot and not all the O2 is absorbed. Halving the flow rate minimized bubbles (maximizes absorbtion) and it only takes an extra 60 s.
1810 :: Add half of previous batch harvested yeast.

Day 2 
1810 :: Kraeusen is present. Slowly bubbling.


Day 3
1715 :: Kraeusen is this with persistent. 63F spot on.


Day 4
0630 :: Kraeusen is present. Still persistent bubbling.


Day 6
1900 :: No more evident bubbling, but there is some kraeusen present.


Day 7
0700 :: The gravity is 1.010 so I will rack to a keg tonight. The hydro sample is noticeably different from Version 1; not nearly as hop forward or bitter, with distinctly more malt character. I am really looking forward to getting both of these carb'd up and onto the tap.

Tasting Notes

OK, it is also a nice beer. Less hop presence, but there's a flavor that I'm not a big fan of. Greg calls if phenolic. Kris says that it is the Crystal 75. Good malty profile.

Carafa Flavors

We did a tasting experiment at a club meeting a few months back - four Kellerbiers. The main point that I took away (and am noting here for posterity's sake) is that Carafa I adds chocolate flavor, Carafa II adds black patent flavor, and Carafa III adds roasted barley flavor.

I need to modify my Schwarz recipe accordingly. I  blindly boosted the Carafa I and Carafa III last time, hoping to increase the roast but ended up making it too chocolatey. My next batch should keep the Carafa I at original levels but up the Carafa III.