Double Brewday!

Today was a first on several counts:

1. Brewed 2 beers in a day

2. My buddy Blake from beerwithblake.com finally joined me on a brewday.

3. Reusing yeast by innoculating a Witbier with some yeast I washed a few weeks ago.

4. Stayed (mostly) sober throughout brewday - somewhat of a feat for many of us home-brewers.

Oh yeah, and 5. FINALLY doing a write up of a brewday walk-through. Whoop!

Anyway, we started about 10am after coming back from Houston this morning. First batch was Armadillo Amber, a sessionable Amber Ale I've been meaning to brew since January. Second batch was a Witbier I've named Wit Girl Wasted. Cheesy name, yes, but it's a tribute of sorts to Angela. She got me started in the hobby about 1.5 years ago and this was my way of giving thanks to her for being so supportive of my passion (she digs those Belgian beers).

But enough with the sappy stuff; here's the walk through:

Getting mash infusion to temp.

Checking mash temp to make sure we're good to go.

Mashing AA (no pun intended).

After vorlaufing, transferring first runnings to keggle.

Blake earning his keep - stirring in 1st sparge.

Overhead view of transfer.

Transfer complete, time to start the boil.

Ready to start boil.

Boiling away!

Getting the immersion chiller in position.

Boil done. Sanitizing the valve for transfer to primary.

Starting transfer to primary fermenter.

Transferred to primary, yeast added, capped and ready to ferment!

The entire process usually takes about 4 hours, but by efficiently stacking steps we knocked out two brews in about 6.5 hours, including cleanup time. Not too shabby, IMO.

Here's what's happening now - Two very happy batches inoculated with their proper yeasts and finally actually CREATING beer.

 

A full fermenter is a happy fermenter.

All in all it was a long but productive, and ultimately rewarding, brewday. In a few short weeks we'll be bottling these beauts. After carbing for couple more weeks they'll be ready to drink. 

Armadillo Amber (Amber Ale) and Wit Girl Wasted (Belgian Witbier) will clock in at about 5.2% and 4.2%, respectively. Everything went smoothly (for once, hah) and I got to show a fellow enthusiast and good friend the basics of AG brewing. Prost!

Apfelwein Bottled

After a full month in the fermenter the Strawberry Apfelwein was bottled today. Whoop!

It's dry and quite tart, with some light fruitiness detectable. I'm interested to see how this stuff evolves. I ended up with 28 bottles from my 3 gal batch; some was lost to "strawberry sludge." It's exceptionally bright even though I used no clarifiers. All in all the hard cider was a very cool experiment that I'll certainly play around with more in the future.

Also, I've received ingredients for a Witbier recipe I wrote. Weather permitting I'll brew it up sometime next week. I've also acquired another carboy. Exciting stuff!

Strawberry Apfelwein

I know, I know - it's not beer. Still, it'll pack a punch, and I've been playing around with the idea of a cider/apfelwein for some time now. So, on a whim today at the grocery store I decided to pull the trigger while I'm waiting for some beer yeast to come in the mail (empty fermenters make me sad). I picked up 3 gallons of Tree Top 100% Apple Juice, checked out, went home, and got to work. Let me just say that a cider/apfelwein "brewday" goes MUCH faster than beer, and that was perfect given I didn't start until about 3 pm. I inoculated with Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast, and I'll add a couple pounds of frozen strawberries once the initial fermentation is finished. If all goes well I should end up with something in the 6-6.5% ABV range. I'll post results when it's all said and done. Depending on how this turns out, I may incorporate ciders into my normal rotation. Cheers!

Karbach Tour

On Tuesday I had the pleasure of taking a private tour of the Karbach Brewing Co. in Houston. It was an HEB-exclusive event to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Karbach's commercial canning release. The perks of making the 1.5 hour trip down? In addition to the tour - including a behind-the-scenes look into their barrel room (not included on the normal tour) - they fed us brats cooked with Barn Burner Saison, all the beer we could swallow, and a tasting glass. I even got to sample (thrice) a new West Coast IIPA they call Hop Delusion. Look for it on HEB shelves in May. If you're a fan of that style, this new offering is PHENOMENAL. Anyway, here's a few shots I took on the tour.

Brew Room: Mash Tun, Lauter Tun, Kettle, Whirlpool. Oh, and David.

Canning Room: Loaded by the layer into the canning line. Unfortunately,
they were canning at the time so we couldn't go in.

Barrel Room: The sneak peek most don't get to see.

Other Side of Barrel Room: Keeper of the to-be-canned pallets.
A heavenly sight indeed. 

I forgot to snap photos of the fermenters, but they were numerous and 90BBL each. Just a little bigger than the rigs us homebrewers use (HAH). If you're in the neighborhood, I highly recommend stopping by; great beer made by great people.

Cheers!

OOPS!

So, I may have forgotten to take pictures last Friday when I brewed up that Citra Pale Ale...



My bad.



The good news is that it fermented nicely and will start cold crashing Monday most likely. That means I'll be bottling it later next week, and after carbonating in the bottle for another week or two I'll finally get to enjoy the fruits of labor.

In the mean time, here's a little info about the brew and the specs I've gathered from this session.

The Citra Pale Ale is (obviously) brewed with Citra hops - a very tropical, high alpha, delicious hop variety -  and fermented with a unique yeast strain from White Labs and Austin Homebrew Supply: WLP299, the Persica Ale strain. This yeast is similar to WLP001, California Ale, but is a bit fruitier. What appealed to me when selecting this strain is that the "fruitiness" is supposed to be of the peach/apricot variety. I can't wait to sample this stuff!

As far as specs go - this brew session I undershot my target efficiency of 75%, ending up with only 66%. I believe I can correct this, however, since I accidentally used pure RO water which can throw off the mash pH (I think) and just isn't suitable for brewing; some mineral content IS necessary for positive results. Also, the software I'm using underestimated my boil-off, so in subsequent sessions I'll need to sparge an additional quart or two to compensate.

I'll report back soon with the results of the CPA, and possibly a run-through of bottling (if I remember to snap some photos, that is). Cheers!

Some Good News

Just placed the order for grain, hops, etc for a Citra Pale Ale and an American Amber Ale I wrote up. I can't wait to brew again. Shooting for first brewday in early February, so expect the walk-through around that time.

The Setup

Here's a quick run-through of my brewing setup.

The whole shebang. 

The Mash Tun. I'm running a stainless steel braid in this 10 gallon cooler. Depending on performance I may construct a copper manifold at a later date, but for now this method is cost effective and should still yield reasonable efficiency since I batch sparge. This is where the grains are "mashed" to produce the sweet, highly fermentable nectar of the beer gods that is called wort.

The Keggle. This baby took some time but turned out wonderfully. No pickup tube yet; I'm waiting to see how it will perform without. It is however equipped with a full port valve, sight glass, and thermometer. This vessel will hold the wort transferred from the mash tun through the boil on the 105,000 BTU Jet Burner.

The Immersion Chiller. Cool hose water will run through 25 ft of soft copper tubing immersed in boiling wort to quickly bring the heat down to yeast pitching temperatures (around 70° F). Once the wort is cooled it will be transferred to a primary fermenter, yeast will be pitched, and fermentation will commence.

I've seen much more intricate designs than my own, but the system and basic principles are essentially identical. I'll give a more thorough walk-through of the brewing process on my next brewday.

Cheers!