Reluctant Brown Ale

One of my closest held beliefs about brewing is that subtle beers are the mark of a master craftsmen. For example, Brooklyn brewery's Brooklyn Lager is one of my favorite beers of all time because the flavor profile is so subtle and well-balanced. While brewing a simple beer may not be as attractive to some, the lack of a huge hop bill, high gravity, or excessive adjuncts means that the craft (or the flaws) in a brew are clear for all to see. With that in mind I wanted to make something a bit less over the top to point out where I can improve in my process. 

I decided to make a nice, balanced American brown ale. Some Northern brewer to bitter it, and some Cascade for floral characteristics. I used some Marris otter, hoping for a maltier beer than with US 2 row. There are quite a few things that I didn't really think through with the this brew, however. Even now, as it's still fermenting, I'm anticipating some issues. 

The first issue is with the color of the beer. My spreadsheet for calculating color of the beer using the standard reference model (SRM) had an error in the order of operations. For each grain, the malt color units (MCUs) can be calculated by multiplying the weight of the grain times the color (in degrees Lovibond) and dividing by the batch size.

MCU = Grain weight (lbs) * Color (deg. L) / Batch size (gal)

The SRM, can be calculated by converting the total MCU (sum of the MCU contributions from all the grains).

SRM = 1.4922 * SUM (MCU) ^ 0.6859

What you can't do, however, is calculate the MCU for each grain, then convert that to SRM, sum all the SRM contributions from all the grains. That will skew the answer and result in a lighter-colored beer than anticipated. Due to this error, this beer is closer to amber than brown -- hence reluctant brown. The one saving grace was that I knocked out on to the yeast cake from the coffee porter, which will likely darken the beer a few shades. 

Another thing I didn't really think about was the attenuation of the yeast and the recent increase in my brew house efficiency. As a result, my OG was very high and the beer attenuated well, resulting in a much higher ABV than intended. Can't complain too much, but it's something that kind of got away from me with this one. I have been reading some discussion about how knocking out onto the yeast cake isn't the best practice as it is likely over-pitching, and it certainly adds an element uncertainty to the process. I will say this: it was the easiest pitch I've had in a while. I think I may try re-using controlled, measured amounts of slurry.

Finally, one other thing I'm considering with this brew and subsequent ones is the BU:GU ratio. This ratio describes the ratio of the bitterness of the beer to the sugars in the beer. One aspect that this calculation doesn't take into account is the attenuation of the yeast -- lower attenuation will be sweeter, higher will be drier, and as a result the bitterness with be more or less balanced. I found a post over at the Mad Alchemist where he calculates the "real extract" which takes into account attenuation. Ideally, a balanced beer hits somewhere around 5 (comparable to a 0.5 BU/GU ratio beer). IPAs can go as high as 10 or 13 and sweeter, low-hopped beers can be down in the 2 and 3's. This beer will end up at about 3.5 which is considerably less balanced than I would have liked. 

Reluctant Brown Ale

Grain Bill

Marris otter: 7.5 lbs (88.3%)

Chocolate malt: 0.125 (1.4%)

White wheat malt: 0.25 lbs (2.5%)

Crystal 60L: 0.25 lbs (2.6%)

Biscuit malt: 0.25 (2.7%)

Flaked barley: 0.25 (2.5%)

Single infusion mash @ 152F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Northern brewer (8% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.5 oz, 5 min

Yeast

Pitched onto the full yeast cake from the Coffee porter

Stats

SRM: 13.7

IBU: 21

OG: 1.067

Brew house efficiency: 75%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 2/9/2014. Mashed for one hour at 152 and lost 3 degrees. May need to re-wrap the foam in another layer of tin foil. Collected 1.7 gallons of first runnings and sparged with 2.75 gallons. Collected 4.25 gallons of pre-boil wort. Measured the last bit of the first runnings gravity -- corresponded to 81% conversion efficiency. Doesn't make sense considering that the brewhouse efficiency was 75%, and the lautering efficiency was 77%. Must have been some problem with the collection of some sort. Bubbling airlock within 3 hours of pitching.

Measured gravity on 2/15/2014 at 1.014 corresponding to 79% attenuation. 

Bottled on 3/8/2014 and noticed that the yeast complete failed to flocculate! I attempted a 24 hour cold crash, but had a very difficult time holding temps with my ice bath. Furthermore, because I was fermenting in a bucket rather than a carboy it was difficult to see the yeast in suspension. When I first opened the fermenter, I was struck by the yeasty smell and sharpness in the samples I tried. After parsing through some online resources, I concluded that there was no infection (as I initially thought) and instead, the massive overpitch simply led to an abundance of negative yeast-associated flavors. Autolysis is generally ignored at the homebrewing level, however, when pitching onto full yeast cakes it is possible.  

Water musings and Big C IPA

Hop additions lined up for the brew

Dark have been my fermenters of late... 

I've made a lot in the stout/porter domain in the last few months so I wanted to brew something where the grain would take a backseat. My girlfriend loves IPAs and her birthday is coming up, so I elected to try to clone one of our favorites: Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale. 

There's quite a bit out there on the web about this beer -- rumor has it that the SN's master brewer spilled the beans about the recipe on a podcast at one point or another. For my attempt, the term 'clone' fits loosely at best. 'Inspired' is probably a better word. The heart and soul of the beer, in my opinion, is the liberal use of the big C hops: Chinook, Centennial, and Cascade. I think my beer will end up 10 points higher in OG (1.076 vs. 1.064), and a shade or two lighter (10 SRM vs. 14). Mine also has more late addition hops (compared to various clones floating around on the web) which will add a lot of flavor and aroma but not necessarily IBUs. I kept my saccharification rest temperature down at 150F to keep the beer dry. A pinch of carapils/dextrine malt was added for mouthfeel.

Doughing in

Recently, I've been doing some research on water chemistry and how it effects brewing. There's a lot of literature out there -- some of it very chemistry heavy, some of it pining over antiquated water sources (and likely wrong), and some of it fairly simple and straight forward. I really like Mike's approach over at the Mad Fermentationist which is squarely in the last camp. If you boil it all down to the bare essentials, the brewer has three important tasks in descending order of priority:

1) Remove chloramines from the brewing water 
2) Balance the alkalinity  and ensure proper mash pH
3) Use minerals to accentuate certain characteristics of the beer

Chloramines are used to disinfect water and make it fit for drinking. It used to be that chlorine fulfilled this purpose, but chlorine is significantly more volatile and will escape the water with time and/or heat. Chloramines are much more stubborn in this regard -- which is bad news for brewers as they create off flavors in the beer. Charcoal filters or campden tablets are commonly used to eliminate chloramines. Personally, I use Boston tap water which is disinfected using ozone rather than chloramines, so it's a non-issue. Boston water is also notoriously soft (not much mineral content, alkalinity) making it good for brewing. Reportedly, Harpoon brewery does not treat the water for their beer at all... Though I suspect that this is probably just a rumor.


Generally brewers start with fairly soft water and add salts to adjust pH and highlight flavors in the beer. In my opinion, water adjustment seems like a slippery slope to a much more complicated brew day. I suspect I'll head that direction eventually, but I'd like to hold off for now. The only concession I'm making at this point is to use a program (I like EZ Water) to input my grain bill and water profile and calculate the necessary addition of acidulated malt to bring the mash pH down to the 'acceptable' range. For example, with this brew I need about 0.2 lbs of Acid. Malt to bring the pH into the 5.6-5.4 window. Without verification through an actual measurement of the pH, however, I am really only going on faith that the mash is in the ideal range. 

All my previous beers have had a lot of roasted malts which naturally pull the mash pH down to a more ideal number. That's not the case with this beer, which gives me an opportunity to evaluate the pH through the perception of tannin bitterness in the final product. Tannins in the beer usually indicate to high a mash pH (some suggest high pH sparge water can do this too). Eventually, once my brew day is fairly comfortable, I'll likely considering using some salts; particularly Gypsum in my hoppy beers to increase the sulfates. Sulfates reportedly dry out the beer a bit and increase the perception of hoppiness. I'll be curious with this one to see if I'm left wanting in terms of the hop character. A side by side test with SN's Celebration Ale should serve nicely for this purpose.

As a last note, I ran out of the OneStep sanitizer I had been using for my previous batches. I read up on Star San and Iodophor sanitizers -- both of which are supposed to work much better (i.e. kill about ten times the amount of bugs for a fixed contact time). I ended up purchasing a big ol' 32 oz container of Star San. I made up some solution in a spray bottle and used it for sanitizing everything on this brew day and for bottling my Oatmeal Stout. It is without a doubt the easiest sanitation method I've used to date. I can't recommend it highly enough. 

The boil and hot break forming

Big C Celebration-Inspired Ale

Grain Bill

US 2-Row: 9.5 lbs (93.0%)

Crystal 40L: 0.5 lbs (4.8%)

Carapils/Dextrine: 0.25 lbs (2.2%)

Acidulated Malt: 0.2 lbs (0.0%)*

*There's some debate as to whether acid malt can actually add sugars to the wort. Essentially, if the malt is acidulated by being sprayed with lactic acid, it will act as a normal grain. However, if it is soaked to promote the natural growth of Lactobacillus (which in turn produces lactic acid), than one can assume the sugars are consumed and it will have no extract potential. I've assumed the latter in this case. 

Single infusion mash @ 150F for 1 hour

Hop Schedule

Straining out hop material post boil

Chinook (12% AA): 0.5 oz, 60 min

Chinook (12% AA): 0.5 oz, 30 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 20 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 15 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 10 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 5 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, 0 min

Centennial (8% AA): 0.25 oz, dry hop, ~ 5 days

Cascade (4% AA): 0.25 oz, dry hop, ~ 5 days

Yeast

Fermentis Safale US-05 (one 11.5 g packet)

Stats

SRM: 7.8

IBU: 68

OG: 1.076

Brew house efficiency: 73%

Batch size: 3.5 gallons

Notes

Brewed on 2/1/2014

Pre-heated tun by adding strike water (3.75 gal) at +10F above strike temp. Doughed in when water hit 164F. Grain bed was at 153F after stirring. Added one ice cube, stirred, grain bed hit 150F. Mashed for an hour, grain bed lost 2F. Ran off 2.05 gal, SG 1.090 (92% conversion efficiency). Sparged with 2 gallons, hit 4.2 gallons of pre-boil wort (SG 1.063). Boiled 75 minutes, added hops as directed above. Strained to remove excessive hop matter from wort. 3.5 gal of OG 1.076 (73% BHE) wort into the fermenter with rehydrated US-05.

2/2/2014

Some airlock activity after 15 hours (1 bubble/min). Around 24 hours, the airlock is steadily bubbling along.

2/3/2014

36 hours in. Despite 3 gallons of head space, there is so much airlock activity that the Star San is foaming up in the airlock!