Sunday, January 15, 2012

Quick Update

Today we transferred the ESB into the carboy. We took a gravity reading an it came out at 1.012, so fairly close to the expected values. What was interesting to us, was the fact the ESB appears to be extremely clear right now. Our past experiences have shown that our beers need a week or so in the carboy to have all the yeast and other particulate settle out. We'll see how this one turns out as the week progresses.

Yesterday we moved the wheat beer into the carboy, and hopefully Matt and Kristy will get you the updates soon.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

It's Brew Day in the Royal City

Here are some updates from today's brewing effort. Pictures to follow soon.

Bavarian Dunkelweizen

We used a total of 3.373 lbs of grain for this partial mash with 5L of water at 75C
The actual mash temperature was 68C and we let it soak for 30min. We sparged with 1.7L of boiling water.
The total wort boil was about 3.25 gallons with an OG of 1.050. So we're looking at an ABV of 5.5%
One thing to note, we discovered you should give your mash a really good stir before taking an OG measurement. There can be some wild swings in readings.
Wheat Ale Extract
Adding grains for the mash
Adding the mash to the boil


ESB

The amount of grain was just about exact to the recipie we published earlier. For this brew we mashed with 1.5L of water for 30 min (again starting at 75C but it dropped to 68C when the grain was added). It was sparged with 1.7L of boiling water.

The total wort boil was the same as the Dunkel and came out with an OG of 1.050, so again looking at an ABV of 5.5%
Warming up the kettle for the mash

The mash just prior to adding it to the boil


Style:ESB
Tasty Brew (Desired)
Tasty Brew (Predicted)
Hopville (Desired)
Hopville (Predicted)
Actuals
O.G
1.039-1.045
1.052
1.049-1.057
1.055
1.050
F.G.
1.009-1.014
1.013
1.012-1.015
1.014
1.012
IBU
20-45
53
>30
21.1
TBD
SRM
6-14
18
>6
18
TBD
ABV
3.7-4.8
5.0
>4.6
5.5
TBD


We've been using a lot of resources to help us learn and understand the brewing process a lot better. We found two online Beer Recipe calculators that help you compare how your recipe stands up to the style of beer you're brewing. It also gives you the ability to manipulate the ingredients, quantities and process so you can see how it will affect the outcome. We'll keep updating this through out the brewing process.

For me the most interesting thing to note is the IBU row. Tasty Brew and Hopville use different percentages for the Alpha Acid percentage in the hop varieties we used. So it'll be interesting to see how ours actually turns out.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

New Year, New Beer(s)!

Hello there good reader!

Well it's a new year and time for a couple new batches of beer. Tomorrow we're going to get an ESB and a Bavarian Dunkelweizen on the go.

ESB

Qty (1) Wyeast 1098
8.5lbs Pale Malt Extract
10oz Crystal Malt (60L)
4oz Chocolate Malt
1.6oz Roasted Barley
1.5oz Northern Brewers Hops
1oz Cascade Hops

Now this is a bit of a bastardized recipe from a couple sources so we're not quite sure what the expected ABV s going to be, or the bitterness or the colour. We suspect it'll end up somewhere in the 4-5%ABV range, with a very dark red colour, and the IBUs are anyones guess.

Bavarian Dunkelweizen

Wheat Ale Yeast ( Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat Blend)
7.5lbs Wheat Extract
1lbs Pale Malt
1lbs Wheat Malt
0.5lbs Munich Malt (10L)
0.31lbs Chocolate Malt
0.5lbs Crystal Malt (60L)
1oz Crystal Hop
1tsp Irish Moss

Like the ESB this is is a bit of a bastardized recipe. We'll keep you updated on the brewing and the results tomorrow.