I brewed up a batch of Winter Warmer/Holiday Ale at the end of December. I have noticed that my sparging efficiency has been going up lately, yet I haven’t adjusted my recipes to compensate for this (i.e. use less grain). So I end up dumping a small amount of wort out prior to the boil because I just don’t need the extra sugars to hit my target gravities.

I must have been in a frugal mood because I decided to try my first parti-gyle brew session; making a “small beer” out of the late runnings from the tun. Here is how I squeezed two beers from the same mash.

I collected 4 gallons of 1.083 wort from my first runnings (I batch sparge). More than enough sugar to end up with 5 gallons of 1.060 wort which is what I wanted in the recipe. I transfered the first runnings to my primary kettle to start the boil. I added my second infusion of sparge water to the tun and collected 4 more gallons of 1.037 wort. I did some quick calculations used some of the second runnings to get the proper volume in my primary kettle (which later became the Holiday Ale). I conducted a third sparge to collect another 2 gallons of wort and added it directly to the left over second runnings. I now had 5 gallons of 1.025 wort. Which I felt was a little low so I added one pound of DME to bump it to 1.034.

I added this second/third runnings wort to a second kettle. I have two burners, so I could boil these beers in parallel. I boiled off this “small beer” down to 4 gallons at 1.042 OG. For hops in this beer I wanted to just do a single addition. I tried something different and added 0.75oz of Nugget at 30 minutes. Hoping for enough utilization to get good bitterness while retaining enough flavor character due to the limited 30 minute boil. (In all I boiled the small beer for 30 minutes, made the hop addition and boiled for 30 more minutes.)

So this small beer is a mini version of the Holiday Beer (without the spices and bourbon). I suspect it might be a little like a Mild Ale, but I pitched American Ale yeast (Fermentis US-05) into both beers, so it won’t really be very English. If it tastes pretty good I suppose I could dry hop with some cascade and call it an American Pale.
I have to admit I am more excited about this little beer than I am about the Holiday Ale. I’ll add some tasting notes once its carbed up and ready to drink.

I was reading Jamil Zainasheff’s Style Profile in the latest issue of BYO magazine.  His article is about the American Blonde Ale and he provides a recipe for his own Blondeinebier.  He lists three different yeasts that you could use to make this beer.   They were all clean fermenting American Ale yeasts, but it got me thinking.  What would the beer taste like if I used two vials of different yeast strains? 

I am not sure if there would be a detectable difference if I used two of the strains that he provides here.  The Wyeast 1056 and the White Labs WLP001 are pretty similar, but would if I threw in some other kind of ale yeast like one for an English style beer?   What if I used a lager and an ale yeast? 

Our category for “Experiments” has been empty for too long.  Next year will be about testing things out and posting the results here.   Let’s make a 10 gallon batch using the same grain bill, but divide the wort into smaller portions and pitch different yeasts. 

Good stuff.

I have a copy of the Zymurgy “Best Articles” book. It’s sort of like a greatest hits album of all the articles from Zymurgy. (For those who are unfamiliar with this publication, it’s the magazine that accompanies your membership to the AHA) It’s a little dated (published in 1998) but there are a few good reads in there, including the one on hot side aeration

I read an article last night written by the late George Fix about hot side aeration (HSA). HSA is the introduction of oxygen (in the form of air) into your hot wort. The presence of excess O2 in your hot wort leads to the oxidation of melanoidins in your wort. These oxidized molecules contribute to staling in your beer post packaging. The more of these there are the sooner your beer will become stale.

I have never worried too much about HSA because: 1. I don’t stir my wort much post boil. 2. I chill with an immersion wort chiller prior to racking the wort to my fermentor.

I always thought the biggest chance of HSA was during these later stages of wort handling, and when the wort is super hot still, i.e. above mash temps. However, Fix states that he believes that HSA happens at temperatures starting at around 86F!

86F!!!!!

His article warns about over-stirring your mash, splashing the runoff too much, and over- stirring the wort during boiling (at least I already knew that was bad). I know there is a lot of debate about HSA and whether it really happens with much ease or if you really need to work to get it to be a problem. Personal experience tells me that my process is not harmed much by HSA because I don’t really have much staling in my beers. At least I don’t think I do…

On the other hand, I will tell you something about my process that has me concerned now that I have read this HSA article. I am a batch sparger as I have said in previous posts. I collect my wort in white buckets as I run off from the mash tun. I have my kettle sitting up on my propane burner when I start. I transfer the wort from the bucket to the kettle by simply pouring it into the kettle…. It splashes a lot when I pour it, and this wort is at 168F. Then I start heating that wort while I collect my next running of wort from the tun. I dump that wort right into the kettle (wort from the bucket is at 168F, the wort in the kettle by now is near 200F) and I have more splashing.

Now like I said, I don’t think I have much in the way of stale flavors in my beers, but Fix was a smart guy and well respected. I do sometimes have a flavor component in my beer that I can’t identify, maybe it is a mild oxidation leading to HSA products in the wort prior to boiling.

What to do…

Well, Fix recommends making the same wort twice. He recommends that you really abuse the first one (stir the mash excessively, pour in the sparge water aggressively, perform a messy vourlaf, stir the wort several times during the boil, splash the wort around prior to cooling). He then recommends taking as much care as you can with the second wort to not introduce any HSA (this may just be doing your regular process), but with a little more care. I like this approach. Using two test batches one that is as close to your normal process as possible, the second… work hard at making the system fail.

Fix says that after you ferment those beers out and bottle them you may then realize how HSA effects your final product. This seems like a strange thing to do, and who wants to potentially ruin 5 gallons of brew?  But this is something to consider. I certainly will have to rethink my transfer method. Next time I may actually collect my running in my bottling bucket and use a hose from the spigot to the base of the kettle to transfer the wort.