Brewing again... (part 2)

 

So no that the general brew day process planned out, time to figure out the grain bills.  I have an amber ale and a dark IPA in mind. The recipes I picked are both based on two-row malt barley and I have some old grains I want to use up also. The additional ingredients needed will cost about $40. This is a supplemental challenge so we'll be short on a few things but all sorts of odds and ends to choose from for specialty malts. The plan is just add in whatever I have kicking around clearing out some old ingredients I would have otherwise thrown out. This will be a journey, the recipes will be brewed on separate days allowing me to work out the bugs. 

I expect to make a few mistakes on along the way but I also want to experiment with a more casual brewing process, in the past I was pretty stringent in following the recipe and it works but can be stressful resulting in unwanted anxiousness on brew day. What I want to figure out, if there is really a big difference in the outcome if you switch up a few things?

I put in my order with the local brewing supply store and decided to wing it a little.  The schedule and recipe generally goes like this:

1. Thursday - pick up ingredients and mill grains. I plan on doing these recipes on different days but might as well mill everything at once, while we have the equipment out. I use a power drill to run the mill saving my arm from a lot of cranking.
   
2. Friday - 1st Brew - Fat Tire Amber Ale remix - most of the regular grain recipe with a few minor improvisations but swap out hops completely.  Instead of Willamette and fuggles, I had picked Citra, Lumberjack to  start and Simcoe hops to finish. Why? Well why not? It's for science! I also planned on dry hopping this batch but changed my mind in the end - let's try to keep it simple.
   
3. My memory on how to brew was rusty so I spent some time reading brewing books, comparing ideas and notes from past brews.   
1. As expected I messed up a little on brew day, but I think brewing can be a forgiving process as long as you keep it clean and be patient.
2. I put the Citra and Lumberjack in just before the wort had boiled - or so I thought - it ended up being another 20+ minutes before we say any signs of a rolling boil so altogether the Citra and Lumberjack stayed in about 90 minutes - and boil start was significantly delayed by the hop oils. It might end up a little bitter?
   
4. After brewing the wort, it's important to quickly cool it down to ~68 F before transferring to a fermenter and pitching the yeast
5. Then you monitor the fermentation process for 5-10 days
1. Should  start to see foam forming on top within 48 hrs
2. The airlock will bubble steady until fermentation is complete.  Watch for slow bubbling (i.e. 1-2 bubbles per 60 seconds)
3. Some yeasts will react more aggressively than others.  Some will have 1-2 inches of foam throughout the process while others may require intervention to prevent the fermenter from exploding at their most active time (definitely not a wanted outcome).
   

 

Brewing again ... (Part 1)

 

Decided to pull out the brewing gear after a few years of inactivity.  Brewing during COVID did not work out for many reasons - but mostly because I would have drank way more.  I think it's a good time to get some practice brews in and experiment a little more than before so here's a little mini-series about how it has progressed.  

This series of posts is intended to help future me remember how to brew again.

Keep in mind it took about a day to prepare and find all the brewing gear I had "strategically" scattered around the basement through various basement emergencies in the past 3 years.  This post will never help me with that however, I just need to be more organized about storage and perhaps brew more frequently.

Luckily there were some old ingredients safely stored which I was able to incorporate into the recipe.  About 25 lbs of two-row barley and a variety of specialty malt grains will fill in two recipes I had good success with in the past. While I was a little short on some ingredients I decided to improvise.  Also there was a cider kit that I've convinced myself is worthy of experimentation so after making the first brew I planned to reuse the yeast for the cider kit to see how it turns out.

For planning a brew it's important to have everything you need for brew day:

1. Clean and sanitized equipment
1. Brewing vessel/bucket/carboy
2. Kettle(s)
3. Stir spoon
   
4. Hoses and siphons
   
5. Hydrometer and sample tube
   
2. Malts/grains/hops are measured out and any whole grains milled coarsely
1. Grains will be added to large brew in a bag to steep in the brew kettle
   
2. Hops can be measured and placed in cloth bags to add to boil as needed
3. If you are limited on hop bags just tie the bag so it can be reopened but tight enough where it will not open on it's own.
   
3. Water is prepared and ideally room temp (to speed initial boil). 
1. Use Camden tablets or balancer chemicals if needed
2. I usually use tap water in recent brews but in the past have used store bought water jugs
4. General Notes
1. Initial brew to bottle time is 1-2 weeks for most standard recipes
2. it's best to track activities along the way, especially when you find a good process and want to replicate it later. 
3. Use a beer brewing notebook or template to keep track of all the important variables.
4. Original Gravity will be the reference point for initial alcohol potential. The final product may be lower or higher than expected from this initial reading but it's a good estimate.  Hydrometer or a good refractometer will be required for this measurement, it's also a good excuse to taste a sample
5. Final Gravity measured at bottling time can then be used to calculate the alcohol content of the brew after the yeast and enzymes have done their work  
• The simple calculation for ABV = (og – fg) * 131.25
• Online calculators use a more advanced formula for higher gravity beers ABV =(76.08 * (og-fg) / (1.775-og)) * (fg / 0.794)