The first attempt at a lager did not go as planned. We were making a Czech-style pilsner for the national Pilsner Urquell homebrew challenge. We withdrew.
I specifically remember the yeast vial saying that one was enough. It didn't mention a starter either. These are huge rookie mistakes. After a few weeks of agitating the fermenter, we decided to up the temperature a few degrees instead of re-pitching the yeast. This was a huge mistake. Increasing the temperature causes the yeast to release all sorts of fun off-flavors. The biggest being diacetyl acid, which smells like butter. Gross.
So we bottled it and hoped for the best, but we got the worst. I tried to convince Dan to pour the whole thing out. Dan always wants to think the best about our products and insisted that we try it out. Dan was ready to pour it all out after two sips.
Not only was the final product entirely too dark for a pilsner, it had a terrible aftertaste. Oh yeah, and I stuck my entire arm in the fermentation vessel. Nothing went right with this beer. It's our first disaster in brewing; much worse than the hefeweisen that didn't carbonate properly. Butter beer = bad. Really bad. Now if we could only brew a salty beer, Casey would LOVE it.
We tried brewing another pilsner about three weeks ago. We used a starter this time around, but apparently didn't pitch enough yeast again. I re-pitched a week ago and should be done fermenting in the next couple of days. I'm still hopeful!
Showing posts with label Tongue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tongue. Show all posts
Monday, September 5, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
We Have Liftoff!
First of all, After School Special was bottled without incident. All praise the presence of Casey in such matters. The Irish Moss worked really well to clarify our beer, so this will be our first that won't be cloudy and contain extra yeast and hops and whatever else. The only regret I have about this beer is that there's nothing inherently interesting about it. We followed an amber ale recipe, changing only one type of hops and a slight deviation in yeast. I know I'm brewing for a lot of people that are not nearly as interested in beer as I am, but I still wanted to wow them. Maybe the fact that it's homemade beer will wow them?
In other news, I got the lager to restart fermentation. Dan and I had lengthy discussions about repitching yeast - what effect will it have on the beer? Will it change the flavor? Will it matter? We decided to raise the temperature a few degrees and agitate the wort to give it a last chance. Voila! It's finally bubbling and gurgling and doing normal yeasty things. Just thinking about it makes me want to take a gravity reading.
In other news, I got the lager to restart fermentation. Dan and I had lengthy discussions about repitching yeast - what effect will it have on the beer? Will it change the flavor? Will it matter? We decided to raise the temperature a few degrees and agitate the wort to give it a last chance. Voila! It's finally bubbling and gurgling and doing normal yeasty things. Just thinking about it makes me want to take a gravity reading.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Murphy's Law
Saturday's brewing session proved to us that brewing beer takes some experience, some trial and error, and some problem-solving skills. Or, it proves that Casey is a necessary and key component to our little group.
With Casey entertaining family, Dan and I descended upon his kitchen with two goals. We were going to brew the amber ale known as After School Special and we were going to bottle Slow Brains. No problem. This is our 6th brew together, so we have the whole thing down to a science.
Our biggest issues surrounded the bottling of Slow Brains. This was version 2.2 of Brains, the one aging in an oak barrel for a couple of weeks. Bottling is usually pretty easy. We timed it so the other brew was going on while we could bottle, usually a nice 45 minute window.
Issue #1: we wanted to bottle in 750ml bottles. We tested the bottle capper on one of the bottles and...oops. It's stuck. Really, really stuck. Turns out we can't use any bottles that used to have corks. I proceed to break through the neck of the bottle with a screwdriver to release the capper.
Issue #2: The spigot on the barrel is bigger than the hose we use to transfer to the other bucket. We use the other bucket to mix the beer with sugar, so we can bottle ferment the beer. I have to sit and hold the bucket so the beer doesn't spill on the floor.
Issue #3: There's still small wood chips and other crap inside the barrel that needs to be filtered out. Dan wraps cheesecloth around the spigot as a filter.
Issue #4: Something gets stuck inside the spigot of the barrel (maybe more wood chips?). There's still about a gallon of beer stuck in there! Well, so much for our carefully designed filtration method. I turn the barrel over and dump the final gallon out of the bung hole up top.
Issue #5: We run low on bottles (since we couldn't use about 10 of them) and rush to try to find other bottles to use. We end up throwing away about 4 bottles worth of beer since we can't bottle them and need to attend to the other brew.
Besides that? No problem!
The actual brewing went fine. Our original gravity was a bit high, but it seems to have come out well.
Then...
Oh boy. THEN! Then I went home, barrel in hand, ready to test the gravity of our lager. I mean, it had been a couple of days. I wanted to see how it was coming along. I carefully take it out of the chest freezer and pop it up on the table. I turn the spigot down to take the reading and the spigot comes loose from the inside of the fermenter. Beer starts leaking from the spigot onto the floor. I uttered a few choice expletives and ran it over to the sink. I prepped for my surgery by scrubbing my arm with dish soap, rinsed off, and proceeded to stick my entire arm into the fermenter to tighten the spigot. Just great. We discussed changing the name from Tongue to Arm or Elbow. I kind of like Elbow Grease Pilsner. I hope my arm was not too diseased that it will ruin the beer. Once again, only time will tell.
With Casey entertaining family, Dan and I descended upon his kitchen with two goals. We were going to brew the amber ale known as After School Special and we were going to bottle Slow Brains. No problem. This is our 6th brew together, so we have the whole thing down to a science.
Our biggest issues surrounded the bottling of Slow Brains. This was version 2.2 of Brains, the one aging in an oak barrel for a couple of weeks. Bottling is usually pretty easy. We timed it so the other brew was going on while we could bottle, usually a nice 45 minute window.
Issue #1: we wanted to bottle in 750ml bottles. We tested the bottle capper on one of the bottles and...oops. It's stuck. Really, really stuck. Turns out we can't use any bottles that used to have corks. I proceed to break through the neck of the bottle with a screwdriver to release the capper.
Issue #2: The spigot on the barrel is bigger than the hose we use to transfer to the other bucket. We use the other bucket to mix the beer with sugar, so we can bottle ferment the beer. I have to sit and hold the bucket so the beer doesn't spill on the floor.
Issue #3: There's still small wood chips and other crap inside the barrel that needs to be filtered out. Dan wraps cheesecloth around the spigot as a filter.
Issue #4: Something gets stuck inside the spigot of the barrel (maybe more wood chips?). There's still about a gallon of beer stuck in there! Well, so much for our carefully designed filtration method. I turn the barrel over and dump the final gallon out of the bung hole up top.
Issue #5: We run low on bottles (since we couldn't use about 10 of them) and rush to try to find other bottles to use. We end up throwing away about 4 bottles worth of beer since we can't bottle them and need to attend to the other brew.
Besides that? No problem!
The actual brewing went fine. Our original gravity was a bit high, but it seems to have come out well.
Then...
Oh boy. THEN! Then I went home, barrel in hand, ready to test the gravity of our lager. I mean, it had been a couple of days. I wanted to see how it was coming along. I carefully take it out of the chest freezer and pop it up on the table. I turn the spigot down to take the reading and the spigot comes loose from the inside of the fermenter. Beer starts leaking from the spigot onto the floor. I uttered a few choice expletives and ran it over to the sink. I prepped for my surgery by scrubbing my arm with dish soap, rinsed off, and proceeded to stick my entire arm into the fermenter to tighten the spigot. Just great. We discussed changing the name from Tongue to Arm or Elbow. I kind of like Elbow Grease Pilsner. I hope my arm was not too diseased that it will ruin the beer. Once again, only time will tell.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Lager Brewing
Tuesday marked our first brew in quite some time. It felt like an eternity between sessions, but now we're doubling up and going again tomorrow. Tuesday was different for a couple of interesting reasons. First, we used my apartment since that's where the chest freezer is living. Second, we used leaf hops instead of pellet hops. Third, we actually used an online site to get the recipe correct.
A little about our creative process. I'm not ashamed to say that we use a Clone Recipe book as a basis for all our brews. We decide what type of beer to brew, look up some recipes and choose one. Then we decide how we want to tweak it to make it our own. This might include changing one type of hops, adding some sort of other ingredient (honey, brown sugar, etc.) Up to this point, we never paid attention to IBU's, temperatures or specific gravities. I mean, we measured the original gravity and final gravity to get an ABV reading, but never tried to hit a target. The thought process was that we would get the right amount of ingredients in at the right time and, voila, beer would emerge. And emerge it did. But it could be better.
This time we fed our recipe into a recipe calculator (at www.hopville.com) and made sure to match the temperatures to get specific IBU's and ABV. Amazingly, we hit all of our targets on the first try. That isn't to say we didn't have any trouble. About 40 minutes into the boil, I realized we put the wrong amount of water into the calculator. Suddenly, our IBU went from 39 to 25. Holy Crap! Luckily we had extra hops and the website. Dan and I (Casey was out grabbing our Ledo's Pizza) fed some quick numbers into the calculator and now our lager is quadruple-hopped and is 36 IBU's. Disaster averted.
The other odd change was the whole leaf hops. I'm used to the pellet hops just disintegrating as they are poured into the wort. I don't know why I was surprised, but the leaf hops don't do that. They steep like tea. Now, instead of a clear wort, we have a pound of hops boiling in water. That's fine, but straining that out took some creativity. We scooped the hops into a strainer, then Casey used the bottom of a pot to press out the extra wort. That was not in our original plans.
In the end, I'm really excited about this lager, named Tongue. It's sitting in my freezer and fermenting at about 50 degrees. The Irish Moss we used was already clarifying the beer, so hopefully it will be a nice, clear yellow color. The competition is weighed heavily on accuracy to style and cleanliness. That's 85% of the score. Fingers crossed, this will be our first excellent beer.
A little about our creative process. I'm not ashamed to say that we use a Clone Recipe book as a basis for all our brews. We decide what type of beer to brew, look up some recipes and choose one. Then we decide how we want to tweak it to make it our own. This might include changing one type of hops, adding some sort of other ingredient (honey, brown sugar, etc.) Up to this point, we never paid attention to IBU's, temperatures or specific gravities. I mean, we measured the original gravity and final gravity to get an ABV reading, but never tried to hit a target. The thought process was that we would get the right amount of ingredients in at the right time and, voila, beer would emerge. And emerge it did. But it could be better.
This time we fed our recipe into a recipe calculator (at www.hopville.com) and made sure to match the temperatures to get specific IBU's and ABV. Amazingly, we hit all of our targets on the first try. That isn't to say we didn't have any trouble. About 40 minutes into the boil, I realized we put the wrong amount of water into the calculator. Suddenly, our IBU went from 39 to 25. Holy Crap! Luckily we had extra hops and the website. Dan and I (Casey was out grabbing our Ledo's Pizza) fed some quick numbers into the calculator and now our lager is quadruple-hopped and is 36 IBU's. Disaster averted.
The other odd change was the whole leaf hops. I'm used to the pellet hops just disintegrating as they are poured into the wort. I don't know why I was surprised, but the leaf hops don't do that. They steep like tea. Now, instead of a clear wort, we have a pound of hops boiling in water. That's fine, but straining that out took some creativity. We scooped the hops into a strainer, then Casey used the bottom of a pot to press out the extra wort. That was not in our original plans.
In the end, I'm really excited about this lager, named Tongue. It's sitting in my freezer and fermenting at about 50 degrees. The Irish Moss we used was already clarifying the beer, so hopefully it will be a nice, clear yellow color. The competition is weighed heavily on accuracy to style and cleanliness. That's 85% of the score. Fingers crossed, this will be our first excellent beer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)