Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

IPA Water Adjustments

On October 9, 2013

Continuing with our exploration of how water salts contribute to a beers final flavor profile, I embarked on some IPA water adjustments. Specifically, I matched my ~250ppm of chloride ions with ~250ppm of Sulfate in the form of gypsum.

I made a repeat batch of my previous Falconers Flight hop blend IPA. I made ten gallons of this wort and ran it off into two boil kettles. Once I had a boil going I added the required gypsum to one and let the other wort go without the addition.

I fermented both beers in 6 gallon better bottles and they were both temperature controlled in the same chest freezer, for the same amount of time. Both beers were pitched with an equal amount of Fermentis US-05 dry yeast (of course adequately rehydrated).

When we tasted these beers there were some obvious differences. First the gypsum plus beer seemed to have a more resinous hop character that lingered on the palate. The non-gypsum beer was a little smoother and more of a rounded bitterness that let go of your tongue. The flavor of the non-gypsum seemed a little more fruity, while the gypsum plus beer was more raw hop like. In the aroma, the non treated sample had more of the exotic fruit notes I remember from Falconers Flight hops. Whereas the treated beer seemed to bring forward the more traditional piney, citrus aromas. (Perhaps, water chemistry also can effect the type of aromas coming from different hops. Seeing as I used a blend this might be a fact lost on the experimentation of other brewers who are trying to showcase only 2-3 hops in an IPA.)

Overall, I preferred the non-gypsum version, while John liked the treated version. John though the differences were significant, I found them to be noticeable but not likely to be appreciable if you drank the beers without the side by side as a foil. To each his own to each a differing palate. I think this is mainly due to our high levels of Sodium Chloride. I think its critical to the outcome of the experiment and you’ll catch that at the end of the video.

While I did this as two 5 gallon batches one could certainly experiment with a 5 gallon batch split into a couple smaller volumes and experiment with a couple different water treatments, or different levels of salts.

This video is a bit longer than most of our others, but I think we are really intrigued and try and pick the brews apart.
Let us know what you think of these results. Have you tried this yet yourself? What other factors do you think we should work in to this exploration in the future?

Would You Rather – Grain Mill or Refractometer?

By John Krochune

On October 7, 2013

In Equipment

I am thinking of a new homebrewing equipment purchase and I was thinking I would pose the question to you, fine reader.

If you were to choose between buying a grain mill or a refractometer, which would you buy first and why?

These two pieces of equipment serve different purposes but have been on my want-to-have list for a long time. I plan to buy one and then the other. I don’t have a good reason to buy one first over the other at this point so I am putting it out there.

The grain mill probably has a bigger impact on my brewing. The cracking of grains right before brewing provides fresher malts for my brews. It would be interesting to put that notion to the test to see if there was a big difference between beer brewed with grains that were milled right before the brew versus one that used pre-milled grains (a few days old) but let’s just go with the notion that freshly milled grain is better. Is that enough of a reason to buy it first?

What about a refractometer? It would really great to be able to know the gravity of my wort as it is coming out of the mash tun. I use my hydrometer now but the adjustments I have to use due to the temperature of the wort are fuzzy at best. It would be great to have that intelligence for my pre and post boil gravities to see if I needed to doctor the wort with some dry malt extract to get the gravity up if I totally missed my target.

Also, it’s just a cool little device. All you need is a few drops and you know what your gravity. That’s pretty sweet. No need for a big sample. Just a few drops.

So which one would you buy first and why?

Let me know – Brew on!

Standard American Lager Recipe

By John Krochune

On October 4, 2013

In Recipes

All right – if you are going to be a master of lagers, you got to brew this one and get it right. You have to brew this one and work to make it come out flawlessly. Beyond the cleaning and sanitizing of your equipment, you have to make sure your fermentation is strong and complete. Here is the Standard American Lager recipe.

Boil size: 6 gallons
Batch size: 5 gallons

Ingredients:

7.5 lbs American 6-row malt
2 lbs Flaked Rice
0.5 oz Hallertauer Pellets 4.5% AA boiled for 60 minutes
1 whirlfloc tablet
Yeast: White Labs WLP840 American Lager

Instructions:

Use a yeast pitch calculator to determine how much yeast you will need to have a tremendous fermentation. If necessary, make a yeast starter if necessary a few days before you brew.

Mash malt and flaked rice for 60 minutes at 148 degrees F. You want to keep the temperature low so you can get as fermentable a wort as possible. The 6 row malt will be good to help the rice convert for you.
Boil for sixty minutes and add the hops at the beginning of the boil. Add the whirfloc tablet with 15 minutes left before the end of the boil. Cool your wort down to 48 degrees F after flameout. Transfer your wort to your fermentor and pitch your yeast. Let the beer warm up to 50 degrees F over a few days and hold it there for 2 weeks. Take a gravity reading to see if your final gravity has been reached. If it has, bring your beer up to room temperature for a few days as a diacetyl rest and also to make sure to get your beer to dry out as much as possible. Once all signs of fermentation have disappeared, lager the beer for at least 4 weeks to condition and clarify it. Slowly bring the beer down to near freezing temperatures and hold it there for the length of your lager period. Bottle or keg as usual.

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.046
Terminal Gravity: 1.007
Color: 2.90 °SRM
Bitterness: 11.6 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.2 %

Not sure I will be blown away by this beer, but it will be good to compare it to commercial examples. Again, the true reason to brew this beer to see how great your technique is.

Pilsner Water Treatments

By Mike

On October 2, 2013

In Videos

There’s something to be said for ultimate simplicity sometimes. There’s something even more to be said when it comes together in your beer. Pilsner is the ultimate SMASH beer, maybe the original SMASH beer.

When clean Pilsner malt and nobel hops come together in a perfect balance it just tastes like beer. Analog and true.

John takes a shot at adding some gypsum for his Pilsner water treatments. He brewed up a great Pilsner as a result and we’d been drinking it off an on all summer. We finally got around to cracking a bottle on camera.

This beer is part of our efforts of playing with water mineral additions to see how it effects the final flavor of the beer. John added 4 grams of gypsum into this brew hoping to help sharpen or brighten the hops a bit. A good German Pils should have a nice balance of sweet grainy malt character. But it should also have a distinctive Nobel hop nose with a moderately pronounced bitterness.

We think we are fighting agains high levels of Sodium Chloride in our water, which favors malt flavors. So the addition of the Sulfate from the gypsum should help with the hops.

We also noted the exceptional clarity of this brew. Despite being bottle conditioned, a careful pour really still gave us super clear beer. That’s what extended lagering in the bottle with give you too I suppose. But the additional calcium from the gypsum should also have helped out with the flocculation of the yeast as well. The results are pretty clear (see that pun there!).

Pilsner is simple and straightforward… so is this quick video. Enjoy.
BREW ON!

Autumn Ale Bottling Day

By John Krochune

On October 1, 2013

In Brew Log

Two weeks after the yeast was pitched, the Autumn Ale was ready for bottling. The beer had settled down from the intense foaming that occurred early in the primary fermentation phase.

Insider information: there was a request for Mike and me to brew a beer for a birthday party happening this month. Any time I brew beer for a wider audience, I go to extra lengths to ensure there are no issues at bottling that could ruin the beer.

Each bottle was cleaned well and time was taken to sanitize each bottle properly. If you’re going to bring homebrewed beer to a party, you have to make sure it’s good and not ruined by laziness.

When bottling for parties, I use 12 ounce bottles. More bottles means more fun, right? No, not really, but that size I feel is necessary for a party atmosphere. It’s easier for people to crack open a smaller bottle.

Also, brewing for parties is a good excuse to make up labels and have some fun with the look of your beer. I don’t do it often but along wit the smaller size, a good label goes a long way for party homebrew.

The beer was a nice color coming out of the siphon. I was going for a nice bronze color that goes with the season.

As for the flavor, well. I was hoping to taste more hops in the beer. Throwing over an ounce of hops into the kettle at flame out should give you more hops flavor. Of course, I was using homegrown hops so who knows what I was going to get. Thankfully, the hop flavor was clean and not unpleasant just not strong.

With some carbonation, maybe the hops aroma and flavor will pop out more. We’ll see. At this point, I am happy that the beer is clean with no off flavors.

So here’s to brewing for parties. Here’s to brewing with homegrown hops. Here’s to ensuring that beer doesn’t get ruined because you cut corners.

Brew On.