Jan 08 2008
Oops…I did it again
Had a delightful brewing day yesterday. I haven’t done a Belgian Dubbel before but I came across an old recipe that a homebrew club in Belgium (where else) put together to clone Roquefort 8. It’s an outstanding beer and since its’ in their backyard, I figured if anyone could put together a credible recipe, it’d be them.
So what makes a good brewing day? Excellent question.
First, not rushing around. Rushing around and excessive multitasking are my biggest faults here. If I don’t get stuff organized the day/night before, I’m in trouble. Getting ready basically involves weighing and crushing the grain, weighing and sorting the hops, measuring water & adding whatever salts are needed, and getting the equipment where it needs to be with any hoses and LP tanks connected.
Ideally, I just like to wake up and start the burner under the hot water tank. If I don’t get this stuff ready, I feel like I’m behind the 8 ball the rest of the day. It turns what should be a really fun day into a chore.
Second, have the yeast ready. You can get the best ingredients and spend hours brewing a fantastic beer. But if the yeast isn’t ready to do it’s job, you’ve just wasted your time. I’d say yeast management is arguably the number one culprit behind that ‘homebrewey’ taste that a lot of beginners get. The final effects behind not adding enough yeast and the subsequent care and feeding of that yeast are enormous: off-flavors, increased esters, increased chance of infection, and premature end of fermentation are just the start.
Luckily, Wyeast has a decent calculator on their site that allows you to estimate your yeast pitching rate. Granted, there’s a ton of variables involved in building yeast volume but I’m very glad somebody figured this out.
This batch was 5 gallons at about 19°P meaning I needed about 19 million cells per ml. Going from the simple smack pack to a 3 liter starter on my stir plate yielded (in theory at least) 19M cells. Seeing as I had visible activity in the fermenter within 6 hours, I’d say I was pretty close.
Last, and by no means least, have Rachel on board with the brewing day. I spend upwards of 4 to 6 hours in and out of the garage. It’s not solid work but there’s periods where I need to check out and stay for a half hour at a time.
What else makes a good brew session?
Hitting target mash temperatures is one. With a little corn in the grain bill, I used a 3 step infusion mash. Using boiling water for the temp increases, I nailed all 3 steps within 1°F. That makes me very happy.
A reasonably efficient mash is another. Depending on which mash tun and mash method I use, I’ll estimate between 50 and 80% efficiency. I got about 75% out of this one which is pretty decent. I yielded about 8.5 gallons of about 14°P wort that I boiled down to 5.25 gallons of 19°P wort in 75 minutes.
An easy, stress-free cooling is a third. I’m a bit of a freak about saving water. While I have an incredibly efficient counterflow chiller, I still save the water to use in something else - wash the car, add to the clothes washer, or add to the hot tub if it’s low. I can typically cool 5+ gallons of boiling wort to 68°F in 10 minutes using around 10 gallons of water. Like I said, it’s pretty efficient. Anyway, there’s a balancing act between getting all the wort out of the kettle while leaving behind the protein and hop gunk (it’s called ‘trub’).
Once I’m done cooling, I pitch the yeast and aerate for 20 minutes or so and then set it in the fermenter fridge. This beer I set to go between 72-75°F. I pitched it at around 2 yesterday afternoon and it was really rocking by 8.
The beer, from what it looked and tasted like out of the kettle, should be good. A beautiful red mahogany color with a touch of hops and coriander seed in the nose and sweetness from the candy sugar. I’m fairly optimistic about this one.
Basically, my work is done here and it’s up to the yeast now. I bet it’ll ferment out by next weekend. I’ll try it then and rack to a keg to condition for a few weeks. I’m up in the air about bottling (which I despise) or kegging (disappears fast). Regardless, it should be ready by mid-February.
I hate waiting.