I kegged the beer on July 24, using a closed transfer followed by force carbonation.I chilled further to 35° (July 8) and 33° (July 9), and let it lager on the yeast at that temperature until kegging. I let it further rise to 58° (July 3) and 60° (July 4), before chilling to 55° (July 5), 50° (July 6), and then 45° and 40° over an 8 hour period (July 7). The first week of fermentation was at 50°, and I let the fermenter free-rise to 54° on July 1.I brewed the beer on 24 June 2020, with a starting gravity of 1.047.I let the fermenter chill the rest of the way down to 50°, and gave it a 30 second burst of pure oxygen before pitching the yeast.After a 90 minute boil, I turned off the heat and chilled down to ~75°, before transferring to the fermenter.I brought the kettle to a boil, adding hops and finings per the schedule.I got 7.1 gallons at a gravity of 1.041, for 77% mash efficiency. After 10 minutes, I vorlaufed and collected the full volume of runnings in the kettle.At this point (~60 minutes into the mash), I added the rest of my hot water (~3 gallons) to hit a final mash rest of 167°.After 15 minutes, the temperature was down to 154° or so. The water was added over a 5 minute period. 45 minutes after the initial infusion, I added 6.25 quarts of near-boiling water to raise the mash temperature to 157°.The mash was down to 145° after 25 minutes. I added 2.5 mL of 88% lactic acid to adjust pH. I mashed in at 155°, to hit a 147.8° mash temperature.For my 4 gallons of initial strike water, I added 3.6 mL of 88% lactic acid to neutralize alkalinity, along with a Campden tablet.Claremont tap water, alkalinity neutralized by 88% lactic acid.Full-volume infusion step mash, 40 minute rest at 148°, 15 minute rest at 158°, 15 minute rest at 168°.Saflager W34/70, repitch of yeast from previous batch. Hallertauer Mittelfrueh hop pellets (3.2% alpha), 60 minute boil Also, I used Hallertauer Mittelfrueh hop pellets instead of US Vanguard, a rare case as of late in which I am using the German variety instead of American hop equivalents! I didn’t have Belgian aromatic malt on hand, so I used Carahell instead. I also used W34/70 instead of a bock yeast, with a repitch of the yeast cake from my Tremonia Lager. I did a shorter step mash schedule, skipping the 131° rest in the original recipe and going straight to 148° for the first rest. The malt character needed some work.įor this round, my base recipe followed Gordon Strong’s helles in Modern Homebrew Recipes, with some modifications for ingredients on-hand as well as process. I made my first attempt three years back, and it was alright, but nothing to write home about. They have notoriously delicate malt character, and are seemingly the cause of endless jousting on brewing forums (particularly when the low oxygen brewers get involved). It’s not always successful–“ Mow the Damn Lawn, Farke” was on tap only two weeks after kegging–but I’ve certainly gotten better.įor a recent lager brew, I decided to chase after the elusive Munich helles style. So, this summer I’ve been working to build up a backlog of beer to allow a bit more time for full conditioning.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |