Its time to take a break from my back yard and brew again. 2 months is definitely my limit even with all the landscaping going on outside.

My Bier De Garde kicked a few weeks ago, which means we definitely need to get another farmhouse ale queued up. I really enjoyed the velvety mouth feel, flavor, and dryness that the Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast adds to the beer so I’m definitely thinking of using it again. If you have ever tried the new Stillwater Stateside Saison, the same yeast is used and I felt it added a really nice flavor to that beer as well. I had a chance to speak with Brian Strumke the owner several months ago at a Frisco Grille pint night and he indicated that the fermentation is on the warm side. He lets the beer free rise in the 70s capping so it doesn’t get too high. I’m thinking I will probably do the same, maybe a 70-75 degree fermentation and rise, but we’ll see how cold we can chill the beer.

Since this will be our 3rd farmhouse ale, we decided to add a twist to it with the addition of extra hops and some of my favorite wild yeast, brettanomyces. Typically saisons don’t really get too much hop character, maybe a couple ounces in a 5 gallon batch and somewhere around 20-25 IBUs. For this beer I would like to stick to the low acid hops that are traditional with saisons and just add more. Maybe somewhere around 10 ounces for a 10 gallon batch, 40+ IBU, and with sufficient balance of bitter, flavor, and aroma. The details will be figured out later as I don’t have a recipe finalized yet.

For the brett I’m thinking I will either do all bruxellensis or a blend of bruxellensis and claussenii because that worked out very well for the Wild Levitation. Definitely going to give the 3711 yeast plenty of time give the beer a nice saison flavor, but I still want a decent level of brett flavor, so the plan is to pitch the second starter while high krausen is still near its peak. Hopefully the balance will work out, but worst case is we get a little extra brett.

Last thing I want to mention is that this is going to be a family brew, so I’m only inviting a few neighbors and of course much of my family. The usual invitation will go out for the next brew.

Cheers!

I know I have been quiet on the blog for a while, but I am here now. My outside project has taken over most of my time which leaves little time for beer related things. Anyways….

Saturday the 1st of May is National Homebrew Day and our 28th brew. I have chosen to make a Vienna Lager, a new style for me, but not too far from the Marzen we made in 2008. The Vienna Lager style is a German lager that is malty, a little weaker (in gravity and ABV) than its Marzen cousin but has more of a reddish color. Its characterized by its heavy use of Vienna malt and regional yeast used in fermentation.

The Vienna Lager was created by Anton Dreher, son of the owner of Schewechat Brewery near Vienna. Anton created the style in 1841 after isolated lager yeast was first used in a Pilsen in Bohemia. Using this new yeast and previous knowledge acquired on espionage trips to England, Vienna Lager was born.

Chuck will be brewing at my place for the event and we may have one other brewer, but I have not got final confirmation of this just yet. We still have the Old Ale, Bier De Garde, Schwartzbier, and Ritbier on draft so there will be plenty to drink. If you feel like bringing something see if you can find a Vienna Lager as its tradition to sample the beer that we are making.

Hope everyone can make it.

A couple days ago, I had my first starter mishap after easily having 40+ successful starters using the same techniques. It made me go back and review some of my procedures to find where the mistakes could have been made. Thus, this seems like a perfect opportunity to create a tutorial on the ins and outs of starter making.

Question 1: Why do I need a yeast starter:

This is simple, to ensure you have enough yeast to ferment your wort. In most cases the amount of healthy yeast cells provided in the White Labs vials and Wyeast smack packs will not be enough. The generally accepted figure is that you will need 1 million cells/ml/degree Plato of wort. This may need to be adjusted under special circumstances but it holds true in most cases. White labs claims that their 50 ml vials are each “equivalent in cell count to a pint starter, or 75-150 billion cells” and Wyeast claims that their 125 ml packs “have a minimum of 100 billion cells.” Thus its safe to say that each vial holds approximately 100 Billions Cells.

Now lets do a quick calculation to determine the cells needed for a basic 1.050 sg ale (5 gallons):

5 gals = 18927.05 ml, 1.050 sg = 12.37 Plato
1,000,000 cell * 18,927.05 ml * 12.37 P = 234.12 Billions cells. Thus you need more yeast.

There are a couple of other points worth mentioning:

1. The vials could have more or less yeast then the average. The Wyeast is likely to have more because of the increased volume of the pack.
2. These vials/packs are only really viable for 4 months or so and should have an expiration date. Note that the older the yeast gets, the more dead cells you will have and therefore the more yeast you will need to compensate.

Step 1: How much yeast do you need?

This can be calculated using the equation above if you like. I prefer to use the Mr. Malty Yeast Pitching Rate Calculatorbecause this was built based on years of experience on the subject. This calculator will take a couple other factors into play when making the calculations. I ignored these before because I didn’t want to confuse you. These other facts are:

• The gravity of the wort: Higher gravity wort needs a higher pitching rate.
• Volume of wort: The more wort the more yeast you need
• Type of yeast used: Ale or Lager. Lagers are fermented at colder temperatures and therefore they require a higher pitching rate.
• Form of the yeast: liquid, Dry, or Slurry. Liquid yeast is very viable, dry yeast has more dead cells but lasts longer in storage, and slurries have TONs of yeast mixed with protein and hops.
• Oxygenation technique: shaking, with stone, stir plate. A simple starter with no oxygen versus one on a stir plate will affect how well the yeast grows. The better growth you get, the less yeast you need to start with.
• Viability of the yeast: how old is the yeast? This is really only a factor for liquid yeast.

With all this information it will tell you:

• How many cells you need
• Number of vials needed with and without a starter
• The size of the starter you need.
• It also adds a very handy slide bar that lets you change the vial parameters to see how that affects the starter volume.

Step #2: How much sugar do you need?

If you ask the yeast suppliers they will tell you to make a starter with OG of 1.040 sg or less. The primary reason for the low gravity is to keep the yeast in the growth phase for as long as possible. The point of the starter is to grow more yeast so you have enough for primary fermentation, thus you don’t want your starter to do much fermenting (producing Co2 and Ethanol). If you go to far over the 1.040 sg the yeast will spend less time in the growth phase and may skip it all together (this is called the “crabtree effect”).

Assuming you are using extract, find out how concentrated it is from the supplier. I generally use Briess Pilsen Light which requires 0.89 lbs of extract per gallon of water to reach 1.040 sg. This comes out to 92.99% dry basis, using my beertoolspro calculator. Scale this appropriately according to how many liters of starter you need and your all set.

Step #3 Make the starter 

Assumptions are that you have used the steps above to determine or starter volume, amount of vials you need, and amount of extract you will need.

Equipment you will need:

• Starter vessel: I use a Erlenmeyer flasks made out of borosilicate glass because it can be put directly on the stove and won’t crack when it changes temperature quickly.
• Ingredients: Yeast, extract, non-chlorinated water, yeast nutrients (optional(
• Stopper and airlock for the flask.
• Temperature probe that can reach liquid
• Wort oxygenation kit
• Sanitizer
• Stir plate and stir bar (both optional)

Steps:

1. Take yeast vials/packs out of the refrigerator and let warm to room temperature.
2. Sanitize all equipment (flask, stopper, airlock parts, stir bar, oxygenation stone, temp probe)
3. Fill flask with non chlorinated water to size specified. Add a little extra for boil off (the amount will depend on the surface area at the surface of the water)
4. Measure out your extract exactly and pour into the flask. I use a funnel and go slowly. When done shake vigorously until they are mixed.
5. Place the flask on heat at high setting. Wait till boiling. Turn down heat to prevent boil over but maintain boil for 10-20 minutes.
6. Add nutrients if desired.
7. Take of heat and place in ice bath to speed cooling.
8. Place a temperature probe in liquid and cool till between 70-75.
9. Use a refractometer or hydrometer to check the gravity. If it is too high, add room temperature non-chlorinated water to the starter to dilute it to 1.040 sg or below.
10. Oxygenate the starter for 15-30 seconds
11. Pitch yeast from vials or packs.
12. Put in stir bar if using a stirrer and place stopper and airlock on top
13. Maintain 70-75 degree F temperature for duration
14. If your planning on pitching starter as is, only two days ahead is needed (Thursday fir a Saturday brew). Otherwise you will want to do the starter 3-4 days ahead so you have enough time to decant the wort off the yeast.
15. To decant, wait until starter has finished. Place yeast in refrigerator for 1-2 days or until yeast has flocculated. Siphon liquid off yeast to desired level. Leave some liquid so you can shake the yeast cake off the bottom at pitching time.
16. Before pitching a decanted starter you can add some cooled 70 degree wort to it a few hours before. This will activate it and get it moving faster.

One thing I would like to call out is step #9. This is important because sometimes the extract you have may average on the high side. If this happens your starter will have too much sugar and you need to dilute it to prevent the crabtree effect.

Follow these steps and you should have just the right amount of healthy yeast every time you brew.

I decided for some reason on Wednesday that we should brew this weekend. For one I will be by myself, which will leave some free time, and its going to be the first REALLY nice weekend after that abysmal snowy winter.

So the question before us at the St Patrick’s day pint night at Frisco was what to make. We will be brewing again on May 2nd for national homebrew day, so it had to be something that can go fairly quick and doesn’t interfere with those plans. I have been thinking about the idea of a traditional witbier Celis style for a while. A friend recently brewed one from a recipe in the radical brewing book with great success, so this was further motivation. I nice witbier on a warm spring or summer day is a wonderful thing.

Sounds nice alright, but why not spice it up a little and make something new and different. This idea was actually thought of a few weeks earlier when I was trying to compile a list of potential future brews, but didn’t think it would happen this soon. The idea is to make a traditional witbier, but replace at least half of the wheat with Rye. Everything is the same except for the rye.

I’m not really sure how this will turn out, but it could be very interesting. I really like the flavors in rye and I think it will do good to spice up the wit and give some nice malt notes. Rye has similar properties to wheat so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. I guess the interesting thing will be to see what the wit yeast does to it.

The name is kind of corny and probably not the most appropriate, but it was easy to replace the W with an R. So I’m sticking with it. Hopefully everyone can make it out. As usual there is plenty of beer to be consumed. I need help finishing off the RHIPA so I can tap the Old Ale.

The first of my Lost Abbey Sinners club beers has arrived. In this shipment I got two bottles each of Red poppy Ale and Angels Share. Both were packaged in the new 375 ml bottles, so there just the right amount for one person.

The first one I tried was the Red Poppy Ale poured into a stem-less red wine snifter.

Aroma:
Light oak and sour notes. Hint of cherries.

Appearance:
Dark mahogany with significant turbidity. Pours smooth with little to no head. Some light carbonation is apparent on the edges of the glass. After some time sediment drops to the bottom of the glass.

Flavor:
Light sourness up front, with stronger lingering sourness on the finish. Feels mostly like acetic acid with a touch of lactic mixed in. Cherry sourness mixes with the strong acetic feel on the finish. Light oak is present in the midrange and as the sourness fades on the back of the tongue. Somewhat non-complex coming straight from the fridge but is getting more complex as it warms.

Mouth-feel:
Very appropriate mouth feel for the style. Not light in any way, but lingers on the tongue with just enough body to hold the sour and oak flavors in your mouth.

Overall Impression:
Very nice mild sour beer. I would like to see some more notes from the malt and a little more oak flavor, but its still very enjoyable. Maybe a hint of Brett C. or A. might go nice with the oak/sour combo. Mouth-feel seems to be about perfect.

I made a 1.5 liter starter using WLP653 (Brett Lambicus) about 60 hours ago and I'm not seeing any activity at all. I did the starter like all other 40+ starters I have done before, but this time I'm not seeing any progress.

The starter has been kept at 70-75 and I even added a little yeast nutrient just in case. The vial did seem to have very little sediment, but I figured this was normal. The vial is dated best before 7/8/10, so seems like it should be viable.

I have done both C. and B. strain starters before like this without problems.

Any idea what might be happening? Bad yeast, need more time, more nutrients, more warmth?

Only other thing worth mentioning is that I am using a stir plate.

Link to Thread

Update - 3/1/2010

The starter finally started after 84 hours, probably the longest it has ever taken. Fermentation is slow, thus it looks like it will take a few days to finish. I did write to White Labs prior to it starting. Below is the response:

Brettanomyces is a lot slower worker than Saccharomyces so you have to be really patient with it.  We normally recommend a full week when making a starter, and there is not a lot of cells in the culture on purpose.  Brett seems to work best when it's stressed, so keeping the cell count low will force it to do a lot of growing in your beer, thus creating a lot of flavor compounds.  Since the Best Before date is in July of this year, you have a very fresh culture of Brett so it's very unlikely that the yeast is no good.  Give it a full week and see how it goes.  Also, when making a starter, try to keep your gravity at 1.040 or below, otherwise the yeast may skip the growth phase and go directly to fermentation in what is known as the "Crabtree Effect"

Some good points here. Brett works better when its stressed, so if you want stronger brett character use less yeast. Second good point is the reference to the "Crabtree effect." I've never heard it called this before, but its nice to have a name for it. This is why starters are always kept under 1.040sg. When I was diagnosing my starter earlier I noticed the gravity was high (around 1.050sg), so I'm hoping I don't have a problem. I may have to adjust my starter calculations down in the future to account for the unpredictability of dry extract.

This years Belgian fest was better than ever due to the additional company and excellent beers. It was some what difficult getting there because the event was held in the aftermath of the two huge winter storms of Feb 2010, but we eventually made it.

The adventure started with us taking the bus from Owings Mills because the trains were not running at the above ground stations. I don’t really have many positive things to say about this form of transit. It was slow and we took a couple of strange detours. We eventually made it to the transfer point to the underground rail, but once moving they were also going really slow for some reason. By the time we made it out of shot tower we had lost a lot of time and only had a little over an hour to eat and get to maxes.

Left with little options, we grabbed some delicious pre-made McDonalds breakfast sandwiches and made the walk to Maxes. We made a quick stop into our usual breakfast stop (Blue Moon) to say hi to Scott, but the wait staff were confused with our entry and quick exit. We turned the corner to Maxes to find a handful (maybe 15) already waiting. We quickly brushed off our transit imposed lateness and squeezed into line at the opening point of the door, this is where experience pays off. The event opened on time and we quickly grabbed our usual table, sure to put two together for the added guests. The tables were bar tables instead of the usual ones, but that worked out fine.

John, Scott, and I started off as usual with samples but when my cousin and her husband arrived they started ordering all kinds of things, thus many things were tasted. I’m going to do my best to reproduce both lists and highlight the ones from mine that were good. Here is my list first:

*Was supposed to be a 12 oz Gueuze (L Enfant Terrible), but we got a 22 oz strong dark instead. Didn’t notice until now.
** This is a duplication from a previous year by mistake.
*** May be the same beer as the bottle in #10 even though one letter difference. Wouldn’t have happened if the first beer was correct.

Here is the sample list from Rebecca’s notations:

For my last brew I decided to insulate my mash tun because the projected temperatures were below 20 degrees Fahrenheit and we needed to hold our temps very well without doing HERMS.

After some research on the homebrew talk forums I found that a lot of home brewers have success with Reflectix wrap. This stuff is essentially just bubble wrap with an aluminum backing, but it provides a simple and easy to apply insulating layer. It comes in rolls of 24” wide which is almost perfect for my keggle. I picked up a 25ft roll along with two rolls of reflectix aluminum tape. I would definitely recommend getting the tape because it helps bind multiple levers together very well.

Creating the complete wrap took a few hours but was well worth it.

Getting Started

You will need the following items for this project

• Scissors
• 24” x 25ft roll of Reflectix Insulation
• 2 rolls of Reflectix aluminum tape
• Sharpie for tracing
• 2 hrs of time

Step 1 – Cut the first Wrap

Wrap the insulation around the kettle and cut to length giving yourself plenty of extra. Next, cut the width of the wrap so that the handles of the keggle are free to grab, this is about 4-5 inches off the 24” wide piece. Next, cut all your gaps and holes to enable it to fit around all your fittings. After that it should be easy to mark the length while around the keggle so that you have a seam in the front of the keggle.

Step 2 – Cut Remaining Wraps

This really depends on how much wrap you have and how much insulation you think you need. I created 4 wraps, so during this stage I created 3 more. To save time, use your first wrap as a template for your remaining wraps. Though make sure that every wrap you add gets a little longer because the diameter is getting bigger. If you don’t your outer wraps will be too short. I just eyeballed it, but if I was doing it again I would just do the math. I’m guessing each wrap adds at least 3/8 inch in diameter, so with 3 wraps this will add up. If you make a mistake, you can always hide it with the outer wrap. The outer wrap is the most important one to size because it’s the one everyone will see. Cut the holes and gaps last and do them each by hand to make sure they line up with everything. Note that simply drawing outlines from your first wrap on the later wraps won’t work because the circumference is changing with each wrap. Make sure all the seams line up in the same place at the front.

Make the last wrap 4-6 inches longer than the rest. You will use this to keep the wrap closed with Velcro. Plus it will cover the seem with insulation but still make it easy to remove the wrap for cleaning.

Step 3 – Bind Wraps Together

Next put all the wraps in place around the keggle. Line all the seems to the same place in the front middle of the keggle. Use the tape to bind all the layers together while they are in place. This will ensure the proper curvature is maintained. Once you have tacked it together on the top, take the piece off and finish tacking on the bottom and any bare spots so that you have one big wrap.

Step 4 – Apply Velcro

If you didn’t get Velcro, I would recommend it. Apply the grabbing portion of the velcro to the underside of the last wrap on the shorter side (left side for me). On the longer part that overlaps, apply the fabric side of the velcro. Make sure that when you position the strips, that you do so with the wrap held and stretched tight. This will ensure you have a nice tight seal when closing the wrap.

Step 5  - Make a Lid

This is real easy. Take the remaining 4-5 inch strips that you cut off for the width and start wrapping them around the top of the keg with the main wrap in place as a guide. Bind where reflectix touches itself with tape. When the strip is done grab another and start it where the other left of, binding with tape. Do this until you have the same number of wraps as your main wrap. You should have just enough length to do it. While in place, bind the layers together at the seams using the tape, similar to how you did for the main wrap. Do this on the top and bottom and make sure its solid before continuing. Next, cut a square piece that fits over the top of the keggle. Place it on top and cut off the edges. Make sure to leave a bit of overhang. Something like a 1/4 inch will work fine. Tape the lid shut on all sides of the top so there are no places for heat to escape.

I only used on layer for the lid, but you could do more. You would just need to make the lid a little higher to accommodate the extra padding at the top

Step 6 – Brew some beer

The high for the day in which I first used this wrap was 19 degrees F. What I observed is that the wrap did an awesome job, only really losing 1 degree after a long time once the mash temperature had stabilized. In my opinion well worth it. If I ever switch to electric I will certainly do the same thing for my HLT and BOIL kettle.

Another great brew is behind us and thankfully finished fairly smoothly even though it started a bit slow. The snow crept up on us around 12:00 pm and kept coming down harder and faster until we finished around 3:45 pm. The snow certainly made it difficult but I had four people out there with me in the snow making things easier.

Things started a bit slow with me and John forgetting how to light the main burner. The thermocouple was not opening the valve even when heated with a blow torch, but I completely forgot how to engage the pilot. Not a good way to start. Once we got that rolling, we moved over to milling the wheat and grain. The wheat gave us a bit of a problem because its un-malted and therefore a very hard kernel. To make matters worse my references suggested a very small milling setting. When I went to start milling using my drill the initial force required to get the rollers started was too much, resulting in the whole mill rotating and wheat spilling out onto the floor. No one was holding it of course, but we were not expecting that. We salvaged what we could form the ground, but luckily I had some extra. Once John was holding on tight and I hand primed the rollers, it seemed to grind fine. We ran it through twice to be sure.

The first infusion did a good job at raising the temperature from 113-136, but the second infusion was not as successful. Presumably this was because the mass of water in the kettle was much greater that the previous. For the second and 3rd infusions, we added the prescribed amount of water then used HERMS to get the temperature up, but we stopped it afterwards to prevent clarifying the wort. The Reflectix wrap I used to insulate the mash tun did an awesome job. I’m not sure I saw it drop more then 1 degree once it was stabilized the whole time. IT provided excellent insulation. I’ll post about the Reflectix wrap later.

The highlight of the day was all of the Lambics that we tasted throughout the event. Highlights were the Lambic De Hill, Cuvee De Ranke, and Hansens Kriek. I enjoyed them all really, but they started to run together after we finished a few of them, so its hard to be objective. We even pulled out a Wild Levitation and Berliner Weisse towards the end of the day. The Wild Levitation tasted even better than before, but it was late in the day.

We finished with about 11 gallons of wort in 2 carboys with a gravity of 1.070 sg. This is 14 points higher than planned. I was planning for 12 gallons which means we boiled off a gallon more than expected. I was also expecting 69% efficiency due to the turbid nature of the mash, but if you adjust for the lost gallon the efficiency goes up to 80% assuming the extract data is correct. So, more sugar for the bugs to eat and maybe a stronger lambic, but I am ok with that. I pitched 1 1/2 vials of WLP655 Sour Blend into each carboy and set the temperature to 70.

It was a cold (like 19 degrees) and really messy towards the end, but in the end a great day. Now I have 11 gallons of lambic ready to grow.

John came by for a growler of the Bier De Garde and we had a chance to sample all of the beers in storage. All are very promising.

Old Ale

4 weeks into fermentation, 2 weeks into secondary (2 oz oak chips and brett started added). Gravity is 1.022 sg.

Aroma: Slight maltiness with a small amount of brett and oak apparent.
Appearance: Dark amber red. No carbonation. Few small floaties at the bottom of glass
Flavor: light malt flavor that is well balanced with subtle maltiness.
Mouthfeel: Light front end with more full backend due to flavors
Overall Impression: The balance on this is already very nice. It could use a bit more oak age because that is barely present. The brett is apparent and probably at the right level now. With a little more oak, it could take more brett. Has a mild sweetness from the malt and treacle that will also develop nicely with age.

Schwarzbier

This stopped primary a week early (due to under pitching). The gravity was about 8 point higher than designed, but it works because its a tad too atringent. It's has 1 week of lagering so far.

Aroma: Deep roastiness with a subtle lager yeastiness
Appearance: Dark brown with a bit of red on the edges. No carbonation
Flavor: Deep roast astringency hits you immediately. Probably too much. You get used to it after a few sips and its nice once your past the initial shock.
Mouthfeel: very light on the front, but no too watery. Feels like a lager
Overall Impression: This is definitely too astringent for a lager, but hopefully after a few months this will mellow out a bit. The drink itself is nice because it has a good roasty flavor but is not very heavy or alcoholic. Very session-able beer if you can get over the initial bitterness.

Lambic #1

This has been aging for a year now. I needed to get a sample for next weeks brew, so I figured why not. Siphoned off 15 oz from the carboy we didn’t sample last time. Enough for a sample and a 12 oz bottle for the brew.

Aroma: Smells just like a lambic. Lactic sourness mixed with brett very apparent on the nose.
Appearance: Light straw to rich golden in color. Slight haze.
Flavor: Slight lactic sourness mixed with oak. Fishes with an oaky brett taste that lingers on the tongue as it dries. Little to no sweetness, fairly dry.
Mouthfeel: Very light, but not too bad because of the flavor. Could have a little more body but very drinkable.
Overall Impression: Very happy with the aroma and flavor. I will like to get a little more sour, which should happen with age. This carboy doesn’t seem as oak as the other, but still plenty of oak. It seems to be more sour than the 8 month tasting but don’t know if this is due to age or because its from a different carboy.