Saturday 18 October 2014

Group brewing session

I'd somehow not completely alienated some friends with my incessant and nerdy rambling about beer, and yeast and stuff, and surprised me by agreeing to come round early one Saturday morning to make some beer (I did promise bacon and egg sandwiches).

One of my friends, Richard, always raves on about Castle Eden Ale, so I duly found a recipe in Brew Your Own British Real Ale and went about bastardising it a bit.

I increased the Pale Malt and removed the sugar, I don't want granulated sugar in my beer whether or not Camerons/Castle Eden include it or not. I had the bittering hops (Target) so that was all good, but I would have used Goldings or Fuggles if that was all I had. Because Styrian Goldings are now pretty hard to come by I decided to use some Styrian Celeia, which are one of the newer hybrid "super Styrian" varieties, ok ok I'll stop now before you get bored.

Anyway, I did my best to get organised the night before, sorted the water out at least (campden tablet and CRS to knock the residual alkalinity down to 20ppm CaCO3, wake up at the back) and piled my kit up in the kitchen ready.

Richard turned up first, with bacon, then Matt, Lee was late but he had been working away so we didn't mind (although I think the others were working out how many more bottles they would end up with if he was a no-show).

Richard weighed out the grains and Matt helped with setting everything up, after talking them through the process as the water got up to strike temp it was to to begin to under-let the mash tun and for the excitement and action to begin.

Once that was out of the way we decided to have round one of bacon & egg sandwiches and coffee, we then killed some time making some sour dough bread that I had kicked-off the night before.

As is always the way, the ninety minute mash time went quickly, and we proceeded to batch-sparge the grains, again totally uneventful, although it was handy having so many assistant brewers as this time an open tap was spotted before filling the boiler.

Matt dealt with the hops like a true professional, tipping them in with a deft flick of the wrist and while eating another bacon and egg sandwich I took them through the cooling process. For the late hop addition I'd added  another 25 grams to the frankly pathetic 7g in the recipe, which might not constitute a "massive hop bomb" addition, but it should add a lot of flavour and hopefully a bit of mouthfeel.

We lost 1ltr of beer to the boiler and hops, the pick up pipe must be leaking air so it didn't syphon the last, but in the end 22ltrs of 1.038 wort made it into the fermenter.

It was gone noon at this point, and they had to go, so I pitched the Nottingham yeast and moved the bucket into the fermenting chamber (sounds better than fridge) and cleaned up alone (nothing new there).

It was good fun having people to brew with, it might have been even more fun if we'd had been drinking, but then it might have been a mess and chaotic, as it stand all three left enthusiastic and keen to get brewing, so if you have a friend or two that you haven't bored to death yet why not get them involved one day soon?

As usual our American cousins have gone and gotten organised!

Here's the recipe folks:
 


Recipe: 30 Close to Eden
Style: Standard/Ordinary Bitter
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 23.00 L     
Boil Size: 27.81 L
Estimated OG: 1.038 SG
Estimated Color: 7.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 35.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type       % or IBU     
3500.00 gm    Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)          Grain      89.86 %      
395.00 gm     Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC)                Grai       10.14 %      
20.00 gm      Target [11.00 %]  (90 min)                Hops       27.7 IBU     
33.00 gm      Styrian Celeia [5.40 %]  (10 min)         Hops       7.6 IBU      
0.25 items    Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)          Misc                      
1 Pkgs        Nottingham (Danstar #-)                   Yeast-Ale                 

15.00 gm      Styrian Goldings [5.40 %]  (Dry Hop after 4 days for 7 days

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 3895.00 gm
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp    
90 min        Mash In            Add 9737.55 ml of water at 73.6 C   66.0 C   
 

22/10/14: After fermenting for four days at 18c I dry hopped with another 15g of Celeia, already tastes great, looking forwards to drinking this one, but not sharing it with FOUR other people!

30/10/14: Bottled 41 500ml bottles, used 56g of corn sugar which should give a reasonably high carbonation (about 1.8 volumes given the beer was 10-11 deg c when I bottled it). So that's 10 bottles each with on left over, decided to add a single coffee bean to the one left over as an experiment.

Wednesday 8 October 2014

Flanders Red - Belgian Sour Mix vs. Roeselare Blend


Flanders, or Flemish Red ales are sharp, acidic and refreshing, they have fruity flavours and aromas that develop from the malt, yeast and extended aging in large oak vats.

There is some evidence that Flanders Red and English Porter beers share the same heritage, that might seem at odds with the flavours you find in these beers today, but makes more sense when you begin to understand the process for maturing and aging them. Back in the early 19th century Porter was stored and aged in very large wooden barrels, this invariably meant it took on an acidic twang, tart if not fully sour, and at the time this mature beer was known as "stale" and it's younger fresher self as "Mild".

At some point in its evolution it was discovered that mixing an amount of old sour Porter with younger, milder beer would result in the same overall result.Thus the un-blended fresh beer, or Mild and a stronger flavoured or stale beer, could be blended to create Porter, as long as a stock of mature stale beer was maintained. Indeed, it was even shipped to pubs in separate casks and then blended by the barman to suit the taste of his drinking clientele (often unbeknown to them).

The blending of fresh and sour beer is how Flemish or Flanders Red Ales are still produced today, with breweries such as Rodenbach blending various amounts of young and mature beers together to achieve their different beers.

Unfortunately sour beer went out of favour in England and almost all Porter these days is in fact more akin to the original "Mild" beers of the 19th century, although some smaller artisan breweries are starting to produce a more "authentic" version so maybe the style will catch on again in the UK.

The most famous of all Flanders Red Ales is made by Rodenbach, the story goes that in the second half of the 19th century Eugène Rodenbach brought the English Porter brewing methods back to his native Roeselare, while the accuracy of this seems unlikely given that blended Porter was really on the wain in England by 1870, it is certainly true that for whatever reason he began brewing a beer using this approach and a style of beer was born. These days only Rodenbach and Verhaeghe make beer in this traditional way.

Grain bill, minus some wheat
Anyway, before I get all misty-eyed, let's get back to my attempts at brewing something that will hopefully, with patience and a bit of luck, give me a drink that will be interesting and refreshing, if not an exact clone (how could it ever be?) of these fantastic beers.

My starting point, like many people I guess, was Jamil Zainasheff's recipe in his book "Brewing Classic Styles", it wasn't my only source of information however, there are recipes all over the internet these days, and probably the best article can be found on the BYO site.

Indeed it was that site, plus a few others that encouraged me to adapt the method to hopefully give me the best chance of success.



My grain bill for a 22L batch was as follows:

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      
2296.49 gm    Pilsner (2 Row) UK (2.0 EBC)              Grain        38.90 %       
2296.49 gm    Vienna Malt (6.9 EBC)                     Grain        38.90 %       
434.21 gm     Munich Malt (17.7 EBC)                    Grain        7.36 %        
219.04 gm     Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC)                  Grain        3.71 %        
219.04 gm     Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC)               Grain        3.71 %        
219.04 gm     Special B Malt (354.6 EBC)                Grain        3.71 %        
219.04 gm     Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC)                 Grain        3.71 %        
26.64 gm      Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %]  (60 min)    Hops         14.2 IBU 
 

This is pretty similar to Jamil's, it's scaled up to suit my efficiency (72% vs the book's assumed 60%) as well as the size of the batch. The key ingredient is the Special B malt, the darkest of all Belgian Caramel Malts, it provides the deep reddy-brown hue that is so recognisable.

The hops were also a year old and so the IBUs are likely to be less than predicted, although recipes give between 10 and 20 IBUs as normal, the lower end should allow the bacteria and wild yeasts at least a fighting chance.

I also had another dilemma, which yeast to use. WLP655 from White Labs or Roeselare Blend from Wyeast. Both have their advocates, but waiting a year to find out which I preferred was too much for me to handle.

To solve this I decided to do a split batch and try both, finding that 3 US Gallon (just over 11 litres) PET carboys were now available, very similar to my 6 US Gal Better Bottle, I ordered a couple, some bungs and two airlocks.

Racking after four days
I had also concluded that I didn't want to ferment each with just the two different cultures, I would used a neutral ale yeast (Nottingham, as that is what I had in stock) and let that go for four days, before racking into the carboys, adding the souring cultures and aging for a year or so. The reason was that I was ready to brew on Sunday, I didn't have the carboys and I didn't want to have to buy four carboys so I could rack off the trub in a few weeks time. Only time will tell of course whether this was a good idea.

The final tweak was to mash at 70 °C (158 °F), this I did to ensure that there would be plenty of sugars left for the Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus bacteria to munch on.



I hit all my numbers, having to add 1ltr of previously boiled water to make up for evaporation (90 min boil, longer boils are generally a good idea if using Pilsner Malts as it helps deal with DMS).

The OG of the beer was 1.059, after four days it was 1.019, the beer was still cloudy and sweet tasting, but actually not unlike traditional Mild, I might even be tempted to have a go at an tasty malty session beer using a very similar grain bill, maybe a few more hops and a lower mash temp.

I then racked it into the two new carboys, added the cultures and labelled them up ready for their long hibernation through the winter and next year. I will probably add some oak once I feel it is nearly ready to bottle, but only for a couple of weeks. I also may well end up blending the two beers, or saving one for another year to mature and sour further, it all depends on what happens.



Further reading:

BYO Magazine on Flanders Red

Martyn Cornell on Porter

Beervana visit to Rodenbach



Friday 3 October 2014

Immersion vs. Counter Flow Chiller

I've just decided to get an immersion chiller, I've been using a home made counterflow chiller for the last 30 or so batches of beer, and the results have been pretty good, the thing works well and seems very efficient (I can pretty much chill 23lts to 20 deg c with 30lts of tap water).



So, why after all this time, this happy beer making?

Sanitisation


I am forever worrying about getting the inside of my chiller clean and sanitary, it's 8mm microbore copper tubing and there is no way of getting all the liquids out of it unless you connect it up to a compressor to blow air through it (which I do), this is a faff.

On a brewday I first have to flush it through with oxyclean, I then have to rinse it, I then have flush it through with Starsan, I then collect the first runnings in a jug and discard, for some reason, even after all the cleaning, this often has a noticeable green verdigris tinge, urgh.


As for the immersion chiller, well, if kept clean all that needs to be done is for the chiller to be inserted into the boil kettle 15 minutes from the end of the boil, that's it.

Time and the effect on hop bittering and aroma.


The throughput of 10mtrs of 8mm microbore is pretty low, this mean it takes ages for the boiler to drain. All the while the wort is sitting there at nearly boiling point and the hops are continuing to isomerise and the volatile aroma oils are being driven off.

According to this BYO article, "Alpha acids will continue to isomerize after flameout until the temperature of the wort reaches about 175 °F (79 °C)."

Therefore getting all the wort down to below this temperature, as quickly as possible, will ensure that this stops, and you should have a much more predictable level of bitterness.  It should also help prevent the flavour and aroma compounds from being driven off, indeed according to the same BYO article, if you hold the temperature between 160–170 °F (71–77 °C) you can find increased aroma and flavour is obtained.

This level of control is just not available with a counterflow or plate chiller.

Conclusion


It might be that the optimum is to use the immersion to drop the temperature to halt bittering, and then stabilise for 30 minutes while an additional amount of hops is added purely for aroma and flavour. Then both the immersion and counterflow could be used to get the beer down to pitching temp as quickly as possible, clearly there is room for much experimentation!

Oh I estimate I lose half a pint to the chiller.