What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[Mike Neilson]

Meh I don't know aye because I as I said before my mash water with the 13%er was 200ppm of Carbonate and it bought the mash to 5.3, Maybe th Kolsch Malt helped as well?

[denimglen]

But that's referring to a mash with distilled water.

Chuck some calcium and magnesium into the mix and it's a whole different story.

I use Palmer's spreadsheet along side a pH meter and have always been within range for my pH.

From what I've read it's better to look at the SRM/EBC of the beer (instead of the %ages of grains in the grist) and go off that and calculate against residual alkalinity. But at the end of the day it's still a guide, and you'll never calculate your pH perfectly just from an estimate of colour.

It's also worth noting with 'black' beers that spreadsheet starts asking for massive amounts of carbonate to balance, but there's no need to go over an RA of 200 for any beer.

[Tony]

With the modified malts we have today, modified mash (water) is of little concern, unless you are trying to achieve a certain finish. Or unless you live off rain water in which case adding some salts may be beneficial.

[Mark Kessell]

hi guys.
planning a dry stout. so after a few comments on the malt bill.

4kg Base (kolesh or Golden Promise Pale, or any other recommended base malt)
400g Flaked Barley
500g Roasted Barley
250g Dark Crystal (250 EBC)
125g Carapils
100g Smoked Malt


i'm after a nice roasted top, with a nice caramel body, and a slight smokey after taste.
this comes out at about 45 - 50 SRM.
est. OG is about 1.057 (bit on the high side for style), but with US-05 yeast, should get an est. FG of about 1.011.

is this on track?
and if not, what would people recommend?

the plan is to step in hop for bittering between 60 and 30 mins (60 min boil), every 10 mins (so 60,50,40,30)
prolly using something like pacific gem or rakau (yes i have managed to dig some up).
and maybe aroma with something with a bit of spice.



also, a question about the remaining wort after transfering to fermenter post boil.
when i brewed my APA for the WBC at hte malthouse on the weekend just gone, i got "cloying" comments.
it finished fermenting at 1.015. so i can see why it might have been in there.

problem is, i added 1.5L if wort, after straining the boil pot, about 2 days later.
i recon it's come from this extra wort not fully fermenting.

so, how can i avoid this in he future?

[Soren]

that looks like a scrummy stout for sure but the style-nazis would probably say it isnt a dry stout:) Base malt, flaked and roasted barley are basically the ingredients you should be looking at, with a single hop addition for bitterness. but hey, I think yours looks more tasty!
adding extra wort 2 days into ferment shouldn't do anything to the fermentability, I recon you may have underpitched the yeast, mashed at too high temp or used too many special malts? what was your recipe and procedure?

[Stu McKinlay]

what Soren said about recipe.

if you are brewing for the WBC then have a crack at something along those lines - perhaps with a hint more hop or a very small proportion of another malt. if you want to win the $$$, you should be trying to meet the mark and learn about styles with this event. if you just want feedback then go for it.

In the end it seems like the prestige is worth more than the $$$. I imagine every winner will always put the money on the bar anyway!

Case swaps, or individual homebrew swaps and get togethers, are a good place to test out your more experimental beers. Or, lose on purpose, make the next WBC comp a specialty category with the base style locked in as "Dry Stout".

Cloying could come from a variety of things. It's hard to know without looking at all the notes, and even then it is hard to tell. Best to sit with a few experienced brewers and get full and frank feedback. Drink the beer with them and discuss what is wrong with it and how that might be improved. That way you'll learn about process and, importantly, describing what you taste. when it comes to learning - nothing beats drinking beer with people who know as much or more than you about it.

[Mark Kessell]

yeah - sorry about that, when it comes to brewing beer my experimental mind does tend to take over a little bit... :P

in terms of "style", how much extra malt can be added, and have it still remain in "style"?

of a 5.5kg malt bill, is 8% ok, or are we talking about 1 - 2% tops?

[Mark Kessell]

this is what i'm trying to find out.
my record keeping for the 1st 2 brews are not great.

i think my strike temp for my 1st pale ale was something like 67 deg, and the APA was 68 or so.
both OG's were 1.054.
my mate was saying the same thing. us-05 should be able to handle 23L of my OG.
the malt percentages were exactly the same.

only difference was the malts.
in my 1st, i used:
5kg bairds pearl pale as base
250g caramalt (30ebc)
250g carapils.

for my APA i used:
5kg Kolesh base
250g caramalt (30ebc)
250g malanoidin

[Stu McKinlay]

68c will be one contributing factor. The higher temp mash will result in a less fermentable wort.

Do you know if the mash fully converted? I don't test for this but I have noticed that my ferment is much more vigorous and attenuation far more consistent since I started acidifying all my brewing liquor.

ps. i'd imagine the Koelsch malt is pretty acid. I've noticed all the Weyermann malts certainly are - you can smell the difference between them and the English malts. A lactic quality.

[Mark Kessell]

the process was:
- i brought 14L of water to 75deg, transfered to mash tun.
- added 1 teaspoon of citric acid and closed lid for 10mins.
- water temp after 10 mins was still over 70 degrees, so kept lid off until 68 degrees was reached
- added grains, removing clumping, etc, etc.

sparge water was about 20L in volume, and was at about 68degrees the whole way through.

the attentuation of my 1st batch was like 85%. this one was more like 72%.

[JoKing]

68 degrees is pretty high. Sounds like the yeast was a bit old or something... maybe the Nottingham let you down a little bit. With these beers you want to be around the 1.012 mark. US-05 can get you there: even with a 68 degree mash. I'd recommend rehydrating it first to ensure its not groggy when getting pitched into the wort.

US-05 - super yeast. Can't see myself using much else from now on... the brew laze has kicked in. There is just so much that it can do. I cant justify using anything else!

[Mark Kessell]

what do you mean rehydrating?
you mean getting some spare wort and putting the yeast into that for a day ot 2?