Blonde Bottled and Cranberry Wheat Secondary

Friday, October 21st, the first blonde ale was bottled.  The total volume, 48 12-oz bottles.  Final abv is only 3%.  The result has shown me that improvement is needed in efficiency in the mash. An update with taste, aroma, color will be later.

Saturday, October 22nd, Cranberry Wheat was transferred to the secondary.

The cranberry wheat is a cranberry bog! It smells tart and hints of the juniper berries are coming through.

Only about 4 gallons were transferred.  This has been typical with the cranberry ales I have done and have presented a problem that I needed to find an answer for! Along with the beer being transferred, 1/2-oz of juniper berries, crushed by my lovely brew partner my wife, was added along with the juice from crushed 6-oz of cranberries.  Adding the juice is an attempt to get the cranberry flavor in this beer.  I added the juniper berries because I think they will complement the cranberry flavor, we shall see how it turns out.

Double Brew Columbus Day: Cranberry Wheat Ale and Blonde Ale

So to celebrate Columbus Day, I decided to brew two beers; a cranberry wheat ale and a blonde ale.  The cranberry wheat will take a bit longer to be done as it has fresh cranberries. The plan is to have it ready by thanksgiving.  The blonde ale should be ready to be bottled in just a few weeks.  Also to note that these are both all-grain recipes.

First, a little background on the cranberry ale, this is the second cranberry ale I am attempting.  The first cranberry ale was a standard pale ale recipe that I added crushed cranberries to the primary fermenter. It turned out all right, but I wanted to change it up a bit.  The wheat base I thought would help the cranberries shine through.  As for the blonde ale, I wanted to have my hand a simple pale ale.  A blonde is type of pale ale, that has the appearance of a straw-blonde.

Above is my home brewery set up.  I use two modified water coolers, a 5 gallon (top tier) and a 10 gallon (mid tier), a 7 gallon boil kettle and I have several fermentation containers.  For the cranberry ale, I used the 6 gallon bucket and for the blonde ale, I used a 6 gallon carboy.  The top tier 5 gallon water cooler is the hot liquor tank.  This is used to hold hot water, strike or sparge water, until it is needed for the mash.  The mid tier 10 gallon water cooler is the mash ton.  The grains and hot water are added and mixed in this container.

Cranberry Wheat Ale:
6 Gallons
IBU: 21.55
ABV: 7.2%

Ingredients:
Grains:
5 lbs Red Wheat, 3.3L
5 lbs 2-Row - Pale, 2
2 lbs 2-Row - Pilsen, 1L
1 lbs Light Crystal, 10L

Hops:
1 oz Vangard (AA 5%) @ 60 minutes
0.25 oz Vangard (AA 5%) @ 5 minutes


Additions:
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz orange peel, bitter @ 10 minutes
0.5 oz Crushed Juniper berries @ 5 minutes

66 oz crushed cranberries


Secondary Fementer:
0.5 oz crushed juniper berries
6 oz crushed cranberries
Note: These are to be added once the beer has been transferred to the secondary.  Let it sit in the secondary for at least 2 weeks or until flavor is achieved. Will be updating this beer. I just wanted to add in here that there will be some secondary additions.


Yeast:
WLP300, Hefeweizen
Note: Made starter day before.

Mash: 2-step protein develop (90 minute mash)
Protein rest: 3.25 gallons (13 quarts) of 130F water added to grains.  Let sit for 30 minutes.  Target to get a temperature around 122F to get the grains to extract necessary proteins for fermentation and head retention.
Mash: Add 1.625 gallons (6.5 quarts) of 212 F water added to the mash.  Stabilize to 152F let sit for 60 minutes.
Sparge: Mash out after 60 minutes and sparge with 3.5 gallons of 181 F water.
Target pre-boil gravity and yield: 1.059 of 8.3 gallons
Actual yield: 1.037 of 6.5 gallons.

Boil for 60 minutes, add hops and additions per schedule. Post boil gravity reading 1.045 and 5 gallons of wort.

While boiling mash, crush cranberries in 6 gallon fermenter bucket.  Once boil is complete, pour hot wort directly on crushed cranberries.  Let cool naturally.
Note: For the future, I would place the bucket in an ice bath after 30 minutes to cool it faster.  It took 5-6 hours before the wort cooled to pitching temperature.
Once cooled, I added the yeast starter and placed in the beer closet.


Blonde Ale #1
Note: This recipe is called Blonde Ale #1 because I plan to duplicate this recipe but with different hop additions to see the difference in the flavors that will be imparted. 
5.5 Gallons
IBU: 22.3
ABV: 4.6%


Ingredients:
Grains:
7 lbs 2-Row - Pale, 2L
0.5 lbs Vienna, 4L
0.75 lbs CaraPils, 1.5L
0.5 lbs Light Crystal, 10L

Hops:
0.5 oz Challenger (AA 7%) @ 60 minutes
0.25 oz Challenger (AA 7%) @ 30 minutes
0.25 oz Cluster (AA 7.9%) @ 20 minutes
0.25 oz Cluster (AA 7.9%) @ 5 minutes


Additions:
1 tsp irish moss @ 10 minutes


Yeast:
Wyeast 1056: American Ale
Note: No Starter.

Mash: Single step Infusion (60 minute mash)
Mash: Strike 3.5 gallons of 163 F water added to the mash.  Stabilize to 158F let sit for 60 minutes.
Sparge: Mash out after 60 minutes and sparge with 4 gallons of 181 F water.
Target pre-boil gravity and yield: 1.047 of 8.3 gallons
Actual yield: 1.035 of 6 gallons.

Boil for 60 minutes, add hops and additions per schedule. Post boil gravity reading 1.035 and 5 gallons of wort.  I added 1/2 gallon of cold water post boil to bring it up to 5.5 gallons.  This brought down the gravity and for the future, I wont add water to make up for lack of wort.

Cool to pitching temperature and pitch yeast.

I designed a wort chiller that I thought would be good.  I had a tube in a bucket of ice water.  It turns out, there needs to be a longer tube to be a more effective heat exchanger.  I will stick with the immersion wort chiller for now.  I had to let it cool naturally which also took a while to cool (~5 hours).

So how did I accomplish a double brew day by 2pm?  Well I started at 6am, cleaned all the equipment.  At 8 am I started the mash for the cranberry wheat. Once I mashed out, I had heated up strike and sparge water for the blonde ale.  After the mash out, the water was place in the hot liquor tank (the top water cooler in the picture at the beginning of this post.) As the boil started for the cranberry wheat, I started the mash for the blonde ale.  Because I did not cool the cranberry ale and added it directly to the bucket fermenter on top of the cranberries, I was able to mash out the blonde ale immediately following the end of the boiling of the cranberry wheat ale.

Some notes and final thoughts on this brew day.

My "new" chiller attempt: I made a new chiller for the blonde ale to chill.  I wanted to make a chiller that cooled my wort very quickly.  I took a bucket and fashioned a ball valve on the bottom similar to the mash ton. I then had a coil of plastic tube coil up to the top.  Filled the bucket with ice water and attached the racking siphon to the inlet and siphoned the hot wort through. It definitely needs to be re-engineered and will be another project I will work on.  I was attempting a heat exchanger but it didn't turn out too well. It was still pretty hot when it came out.  Needs some work.  Until I finish the chiller I will have to resort to my old wort chiller.

Cooling the wort: For the cranberry wheat, after about 30 minutes, I should have put it in an ice bath to cool it down faster rather than just waiting on it to cool naturally.

Mashing: To increase efficiency, for the future I will try to mash with slightly more water and try to keep the temperature closer to 152-155F.  The yield for the blonde, did not mash out too efficient. 

Better Bottle: Do not use as a hot liquor staging area.  The 5 gallon better bottle melted to a 3 gallon better bottle when added the strike water to hold for the blonde ale while the cranberry wheat mashed out.

Other than that, everything turned out good or so I hope.  We shall see how these beers turn out. Until next time, cheers!

Barley Barely Wine - Bottling Half Batch

Back in July or August I brewed a barley wine, once the fermentation was complete, I split the batch up into two separate secondaries, 3 gallon carboys.  In one, I added oak chips that I soaked in bourbon for 24 hour and the other nothing.  The one that had nothing was only about half full and I didn't have a stopper so I used duct tape to seal the airlock.  This was not the best option as I think it affected my beer greatly :-/ in a bad way (infection).  However, there was no sign of anything growing in the beer (sat for 2-3 months before I bottled it).  In hindsight, I should have bottled the left overs instead of filling a 3 gallon carboy halfway without a stopper, especially since I didn't add anything to the carboy.  Oh well, I will let it sit for awhile to see what happens.  It only came out to 12 beers, so I am not too worried about loosing it.

I am still letting the rest of the barely wine sit in the secondary with the wood chips, I might try some to see how it tastes. 

All-Grain Pumpkin Ale

So my first all grain recipe is a Pumpkin Ale.  It was brewed on September 25th.  It was 5 gallon recipe.  I just transferred to the secondary (10/2), only 4 gallons made it.  Lots of trub (hops, spices, and pumpkin) left behind.  I had my lovely wife and my friend Mike help me brew.  We made a pretty good brew team.

The target on this beer is as follows:
Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons
Original gravity: 1.075
Final Gravity: 1.022
ABV: 7.0%

Actual results (as of Sunday October 2nd):
Batch size: 5 gallon --> 4 gallons Secondary
O.G.: 1.075
F.G.: 1.010
ABV: 8.4%

The higher ABV is a tribute to the pumpkin that was added.  The brew calculator did not have pumpkin as a fermentable option.

Ingredients:

Grains:
10 lbs. 2-Row Malt
1 lbs. Crystal Malt (~90L)
1lbs. Wheat

Sugars and Other Fermentables:
2 lbs Brown Sugar
60 oz. Canned Pumpkin Puree (unspiced)

Hops (49 IBUs):

1.5 oz Cluster pellets (aa7.9%) @ 60 mins
0.5 Challenger pellets (aa 7%) @ 10 mins
0.5 Challenger pellets (aa 7%) @ 5 mins

Notes: After tasting when transferred to the secondary, the bitterness was a little over powering.  If it was a normal ale, it wouldn't have been too bad, but because Pumpkin and the spices are the star, next time would use less hops.  I was attempting to balance out the higher alc%, but I should have left it with less hops.  The bittering may also have been from not sparging correctly.

Yeast: Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale

Additions (Spices):
1 tsp. Ginger
1 tsp. All-spice
1 tsp. Nutmeg
1 tsp. Clove
2 sticks of Cinnamon

All added 5 mins before the end of the boil.

First, the pumpkin was spread out on a cookie sheet and baked at 350F for 45 minutes, a nice light browning.  Then I let it cool to room temperature.  I used single step infusion for the mash type.  What this means is that I head the mash to a single optimum temperature ~152F, rather than raising and lowering the temperature to develop proteins.  It depends on the style of beer, the grains used and equipment as to what mash type one will use when doing all-grain brewing.  The grains and pumpkin puree was added to the mash ton along with 4.5 gallons of 163F strike water.  The temperature stabled at around 150-155F.  I let it sit for 60 minutes.  While waiting for the mash, I warmed up the sparge water, 4.2 gallons to 181 F.  After the 60 minutes, I mashed out into the brew kettle.  The first 2 quarts of wort, I cycled back in until it was clear.  I then sparged with the 181F 4.2 gallons of water.  For future, I will try to fix the hot liquor tank that had a leak in it.  In doing this I can have an even spread of the sparge water and maintain the water bed with the grains preventing it from sticking to the mesh strainer.  I think that not having it sparged correctly, i.e. leaving water above the grain bed resulted in some of the husks to get into the wort and boil causing the bitterness. Lesson learned is to be more careful with sparging.

I ended up with about 6 gallons that boiled down to 5 gallons after the hour long boil.  I added the hops and spices at the times given in the recipe.  I used the wort chiller to cool the wort which took 30 minutes.  I might try looking into building a more efficient wort chiller.

It was done fermenting by Friday (5 days) at a final gravity of 1.010.  I transferred it to the secondary and was only able to get 4 gallons.  There was a lot of trub, but that was expected.  Next time, I might try to top off the primary to get around 5.5-6 gallons because the ABV is a bit high and wouldn't be hurt too much by adding some water.

Test (10/02): Gravity Reading: 1.010
Aroma: "pumpkin pie" notes of clove hints of cinnamon and nutmeg not overpowering.
Color: orange/reddish (20-24)
Taste: "pumpkin pie" flavor not as prevalent, slightly more bitter than expected.