Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

Fermentis US-05

On September 19, 2008

We haven’t given enough attention to yeast profiles on this blog yet. So lets start with one of the most widely available and easiest to use yeasts: Fermentis US-05.

The Fermentis website describes this yeast as a “ready to pitch American ale yeast. Safale-US05 produces well balanced beers with low diacetyl and a very clean, crisp end palate.”

This yeast is usually found in 11.5gram packets. The packets are usually red.

I have always used this yeast for most of my American style ale and some Scottish Ales. This yeast is best for any brew that you want to have a very clean and ingredient only drive flavor profile.

As a dry yeast its important to properly rehydrate it in water prior to pitching and it may be advantageous to pitch two packs for beers over 1.060 gravity.

I have a secret tip with this yeast:
This yeast performs really well right out of the packet. Some people complain that it has a little bit of a peachy or estery profile in the aroma. I have discovered that using this yeast as a repitch from slurry it performs even better. I find that it starts faster and it ferments out even cleaner than fresh from dry (or the leading American Ale yeast from some of the liquid yeast suppliers).
I like to brew a smaller pale ale or just a simple house ale for easy drinking. Then I use some of that slurry for a fresh starter to pitch into new worts.
I guess the secret is out…

Give US-05 a shot, but I’d be surprised if you haven’t used this one already.

English Mild Recipe

By Mike

On September 18, 2008

In Recipes

This weekend I plan to brew up the dark English Mild recipe that is in Brewing Classic Styles, by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer.

I love English Brown Ale and brewing a Mild has been on my check list for quite some time.

Here is the recipe:

Dark Mild

11-A Mild
Oringinally formulated by Jamil Zainasheff

Size: 5.5 gal
Efficiency: 70%
Attenuation: 70.0%
Original Gravity: 1.037
Terminal Gravity: 1.011
Color: 18.71 SRM
Alcohol: 3.4% ABV
Bitterness: 20.7 IBU (tinseth, 10% pellet adjustment)

Ingredients:

7.0 lb Maris Otter
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 60°L
6.0 oz Crystal Malt 120°L
2.0 oz British Black Patent
0.25 lb Pale Chocolate Malt
1.0 oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 tsp Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 20 min
Safale S-04
Mash In – Liquor: 2.58 gal; Target: 154 °F

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.0

Brewers Association and Great American Beer Fest

By Mike

On September 17, 2008

In Festivals

Have you checked out the Brewers Association or the American Homebrewers Association lately? Are you a member?

I have been a member of the Brewers Association for the last three years. With your membership, you get access to Zymurgy Magazine. It’s a full-color mag with high glossy paper and many, many great articles on brewing and the industry at large. It’s probably one of the best benefits of the membership. There are also pub discounts too, which I haven’t really had a chance to take advantage of yet because there aren’t a lot of pubs in MA with discounts for AHA members.

The Brewers Association is also responsible for putting on the Great American Beer Festival, which is coming up this October 9, 10, and 11th. This is the beer fest of all beer fests serving thousands of craft beers over the three day event.

If you are not a member, you should become a member to help support their efforts of promoting craft beer and limiting outdated legislation that prohibits certain beers and homebrewing events in some states still! Minimally, you get the great magazine.

I was wondering how many Brewers Association members we have as readers. So chime in if you are a member and let us know what benefits you’ve taken advantage of lately.

Ordinary Bitter Style Profile

By Mike

On September 16, 2008

In Style Profiles

I recently posted one of my favorite recipes it seems only fitting that I should put up a post for the style profile that I love so much.

Ordinary Bitter is a low alcohol well balanced brew, where neither the malt nor the hops compete for attention on the palate. Ordinary bitter defines the term Session Beer. This beer falls under the English Pale Ale category.

Typically, the aroma of Ordinary Bitter is malt focused, but it is a mild aroma. Somewhat bready and maybe lightly sweet from English yeast strains used. A little bit of hop aroma is acceptable, but I prefer the malt forward aromas.

The color can be a light yellow to a solid copper in color depending on how much and how dark a crystal style malt is used in the grist. I like using some mid-range (40L-60L) crystal malt in this style because I think the mild caramely sweetness pairs well with the biscuit/bready qualities of the necessary English Pale malt used as a base malt.
Hops should be English based as well and East Kent Goldings (EKG) are the best choice. However, using a higher AA variety for the bittering portion of the bill is fine, but I still prefer to follow up with some EKG for flavor hop additions. Overall, the beer seems bitter despite the small amount of hops to be used which is due, in part, to the low starting gravity (typically less than 1.040SG).

Ordinary Bitter is one of my favorite drinking beers. The type of brew you can have several servings of with friends and still maintain your “uprightedness”. So start your night with your favorite full flavored stout or porter, but keep you session moving forward with a good Ordinary Bitter. I always like to have this one on draft ready to go.

Uncarbonated Beer

By Mike

On September 15, 2008

In General

What should you do when your bottled beer doesn’t carbonate?

My first rule of thumb is to WAIT. Sometimes we rush into wanting to try our beer and it hasn’t had enough time to carb up. I have had beer that carbonates in a week, but that doesn’t usually happen. (When it does it still tastes sort of green, requiring longer conditioning anyway.)

If you have given the beer three weeks to carb up at least and it’s still flat, the next factor to examine is temperature. It’s OK to move the beer to a temperature that is higher than your normal fermentation temp. There is so little fermentation that goes on it generally won’t hurt it much. For me, 70-72F is a good temp to carbonate at naturally (even though I like to ferment at 65-68F). Sometimes this step is as simple as bring the cases of beer up from the basement and into the corner of a spare room for a week or two.

If it’s still not carbonated, now what????

Well, you have to really think back now and try to remember if you added the priming sugar. If you think you forgot to add priming sugar, then find a way to remind yourself next time to be sure you add it. Maybe if you drape the bag of sugar over your capper so you can’t miss it….or tape the bag of sugar to your chest.

If you think you forgot the sugar you can to add a little sugar to each bottle, but weighing out suck a small amount is tough for each bottle. Another option would be to make a concentrated solution of sugar in water and use an eye dropper to put in the required drops to be the same sugar per bottle as intended. (Of course, this all requires a little math on your part). Probably an easier solution would be to try CarbTabs. These are little sugar tablets that go in each bottle.

The last resort that I don’t really recommend is pouring the flat beer into the bottling bucket again and adding sugar on the whole. Personally, I would rather dump out the beer or drink it flat. The process of carefully collecting all the beer again will certainly oxidize the beer making it taste really bad even if it does carb up. I’d rather chalk it all up to a learning experience than drink oxidized beer.

So if you beer is flat and doesn’t seem to want to carb up, try my suggestions. You can always keep it and mix it with a new batch of beer that you intentionally over carb with an extra ounce of priming sugar. Then blend the two in the glass. I think that is the best way to rescue a batch if you can’t bring yourself to dump out a whole batch.

Good luck. Let us know if you have more interesting methods for rescuing flat beer.