Rauchbier 2019

Today I'm brewing a Rauchbier, a style I've brewed several times before. For this version, I'm starting off with what is essentially an Oktoberfest/Märzen grain bill. In order to add the smokey component, I cold-smoked the entire grain bill, except for the Carafa III, with Pecan... that's correct, the entire grain bill. Pecan isn't quite traditional, but I really liked the character that the Pecan contributed to my Lichtenhainer, so I'm going with it.

Like the Lichtenhainer, I added 9.5ml RO water per pound of grain before cold-smoking. This helps the smoke "stick" to the grain. The grain was cold-smoked for about 3 hours with Pecan. I ran into a bit of an issue during the smoking process; both drive wheels on my drum smoker broke loose from the epoxy that held them to the drive shaft. I ended up drilling some holes in the drive shaft, then pinning the wheels with finish nails. The initial smoke was about an hour followed by about two additional hours after the fix. The grain was then allowed to rest/condition/mellow for a week before the beer brewday.

Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today. As I mentioned above, all grain except the Carafa was cold-smoked.

6.0 # Viking Pilsner
4.4375 Weyermann Munich Type I
0.4375 Weyermann Vienna
0.125 Weyermann Caramunich Type III
0.125 Weyermann Melanoidin
0.250 Weyermann Carafa Special III (lauter)
1.0g BrewTan B (dissolved in warm water, mash)
4ml Hopshot (60 min)
28g Tradition (Flameout)
0.5 Whirlfloc
0.5t Wyeast Nutrient
4.66g BCAA (Dissolved in warm water/wort, 5 min)
Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager

Mash at 155F, 90 minute boil, chill to 51F then ramp temps up to 55F over 4 days. Perform a diacetyl rest when gravity is ~1.020.

Water Profile
Use distilled or RO water. You do not want any chlorine or chloramine present or you'll almost certainly have chlorophenol problems. To 10 gallons distilled water, add:

• 2.0g Gypsum
• 2.4g Epsom Salt
• 5.2g Calcium Chloride
• 2.0g Baking Soda

Brewing Notes

No issues. First Runnings, Pre, and Post-boil came in at 21.1 brix (1.085), 13.3 (1.052) and 17 (1.068) respectively. Gravity-wise, it's a tad higher than I was shooting for, but not too far off from style guidelines. I tasted the first runnings and it was pretty intensely smoky. I'm ok with that though because the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier is one of my favorites and is also intensely smoky. It mellowed a bit by the end off the boil, and will mellow more by the end of fermentation, but it's definitely going to be more assertive than most of my smoked beers. I'm hoping this beer is finished in time for me to enter it in Beehive Brew-off. I'm interested in seeing how judges will receive an assertive smoked beer like this.

Update 8/12/2019 - AM
Like most of my summertime lagers, this beer chilled overnight. It's down to 51F this morning so I aerated and pitched the yeast. The Tilt has been logging back and forth between 1.067 and 1.068, so it's probably right at 1.0675.

Update 8/12/2019 - PM
Forgot to mention, the yeast I pitched for this beer was the cake from my Keller-rado beer, which was the cake from my Czech Pils. This will be the last beer I pitch this yeast into, but I definitely have a ton of healthy yeast. By lunchtime today, I was already seeing the gravity starting to drop, and after work it's already dropped almost 10 points to ~1.059. If it continues at this rate, it should definitely be done in time for Beehive.

Update 8/13/2019
I may have been a little too optimistic yesterday as the gravity is actually reading a little higher this morning. The low readings yesterday were likely caused by yeast buildup on the Tilt, causing it to read lower than the actual gravity. The gravity is currently reading 1.063, which is more realistic than the drop I saw yesterday (the low was all the way down to 1.048 on one reading).

Update 8/15/2019
Tilt gravity readings are down to ~1.032 this morning. I've been slowly ramping the temps up to 55F. It'll remain here until gravity gets in the neighborhood of 1.020, when I'll start ramping the temps up for the diacetyl rest.

Update 10/13/2019
I finally got around to kegging this beer today. I was going to enter it in Beehive Brew-off, but after tasting it before the comp, I realized it was way too smoky to do well in a competition. So, I decided to let it ride for a while. It's still on the assertive side, but it has mellowed a bit and I expect it to continue to do so.

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Pale Ale with Medusa

Today I'm brewing an American Pale Ale. This is a new recipe I'm trying out. Like my recent Kellerbier, the majority of the base malt is from Root Shoot Malting out of Colorado. This beer will also feature another ingredient native to Colorado, Multi-head hops, also known under the brand name Medusa. These hops are a Neomexicanus variety, which are hops that are native to the Southwest and reportedly thrive in dry and hot climates. I planted some in my yard earlier this spring, and they almost didn't make it due to the abnormally cool and wet spring we had in Utah. It'll be at least another year before I can harvest any, so the hops in this recipe were all purchased.

Descriptions for Medusa indicate it has quite a bit of tropical and citrus character, but also a substantial dank component. I'm pairing it with some other hop varieties that will hopefully emphasize the fruity character and keep the dank in check.  Additionally,  the I'm using Imperial's Kveiking blend which is said to also contribute bright tropical notes in the finished beer.  Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today.

6.1875# Root Shoot Pale Malt

2.25# Crisp Organic Pale Malt

12oz Weyermann Barke Munich Malt 

6oz Weyermann Cara Munich II

1g BrewTan B (mash)

2.5ml Hopshot (45 min)

3.5g Mosaic Cryo (20 min)

14g Medusa (15 min)

3.5g Mosaic Cryo (5 min)

14 g Medusa (5 min)

4.66g BCAA (5 min)

7g Medusa (0 min)

3.5g Mosaic Cryo (Whirlpool 170F)

3.5g Amarillo Cryo (Whirlpool 170F)

7g Medusa (Whirlpool 170F)

7g Amarillo Cryo (0 min)

57g Medusa (dry hop 3 days)

28g Citra Cryo (dry hop 3 days)

14g Mosaic Cryo (dry hop 3 days)

Kveiking Yeast Blend

Whirfloc

Wyeast Nutrient

Mash at 154F, 90 min boil, ferment warm.

Water Profile
To 10 gallons RO water, add:
10.0g Gypsum
0.3g Epsom Salt
5.4g Calcium Chloride

Additional Notes

I've been playing around with Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA) in my lagers because it's supposed to minimize diacetyl production and speed the uptake of what is produced. I hadn't planned on using BCAA in ale recipes because yeast clean up diacetyl just fine at warmer ale temperatures.  However, I read something (can't seem to find it now) about how kveik strains may struggle if BCAA levels are low, and/or have a hard time utilizing BCAA compared to more domesticated yeast. As a precaution, I'm supplementing the wort with a low dosage of BCAA in addition to Wyeast Nutrient.I

Brewing Notes
No issues. First runnings came in about 18.5 brix (~1.074), pre-boil at 11.9 brix (1.047), and post-boil at 14.9 brix (~1.059), so a couple points higher than target (1.055). The hop blend smelled really nice going into the boil. I chilled down to about 92F before transferring to fermenter, aerating well, and pitching yeast.

Update 8/12/2019
I forgot to post an update yesterday, but it was very actively fermenting by yesterday morning. A lot of people report some of the kveik strains finishing fermentation within a couple days. I don't have a Tilt for this one, so I haven't been able to plot the fermentation. I just checked it (8/12 7am) and it's still fermenting away with a bubble about out the blow-off about every .75 seconds.

Update 10/17/2019
I just realized I never posted comments about the finished beer. This beer turned out really nice. Notes for next time, it could use a bit more bittering but I really enjoyed the hop flavor and aroma which was citrusy, tropical, basically all the good things that are typical of modern American hops. One interesting note, this beer turned out extremely hazy, very similar to NEIPAs.  In fact, some of the feedback I got from this entry in 2019 Beehive Brewoff was asking the lines of judges assuming this was entered as a pale ale by mistake, and that it was really a hazy IPA. I know that certain kviek strains are very flocculant, sometimes presenting challenges keeping them in suspension, but this blend seems to have at least one strain that doesn't flocc well. I'd like to try brewing this beer again, probably with US-05 and see if it clears better.

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Purple Corn Pre-Prohibition Pilsner

Today I'm brewing a variation of the Pre-Prohibition Pilsner that I brewed a few years back. I'm incorporating some home-malted purple corn in place of the flaked corn used in the original recipe. You may ask, why am I doing a purple corn Pilsner? Is it because purple corn Pilsners are all the rage outside of Utah, and Utah has been slow to catch on? Well no, it's just because it's fun to experiment with different ingredients. One note: when using corn malt, you need to crack it before you can mill it. I put mine in the blender on its lowest speed for 10-20 seconds. You want tho crack the kernels, not make flour. Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today.

7.25# Rahr Standard 6-Row
1.75# Home-Malted Purple Corn
0.25# Cara-Pils
1.0g BrewTan B (dissolved in warm water, mash)
4ml Hopshot (60 min)
11g Cluster (10 min)
0.5 Whirlfloc
0.5t Wyeast Nutrient
4.66g BCAA (dissolved in warm water or wort, 5 min)
Saflager W-34/70

Step mash: 30 min at 122F, 45 min at 158F, mashout at 168F for 10 min. 90  minute boil. Chill to 51F then ramp up to 55F over 48 hours. Perform a diacetyl rest when gravity is ~1.020.

Water Profile
To 10 gallons of distilled water, add:

• 0.8g Gypsum
• 0.2g Pickling Salt
• 2.2g Epsom Salt
• 0.8g Calcium Chloride
• 0.8g Baking Soda
• 0.4g Chalk

Brewing Notes

I was a little high on the initial step; about 130F. I added some ice cubes to my heat exchanger to drop the temps. The rest of the brew day went well with no issues. The wort looks like grape soda. OG came in at 1.052 (~13.7 brix). I was able to chill down to 65F, and it'll continue to chill down to 51F overnight before I aerate and pitch yeast.

1st Runnings; Pre-boil; Post-boil

Update 8/7/2019
The yeast took a little bit to get going, but gravity is down to 1.044 this morning.

Update 8/8/2019
Gravity is down to 1.035 this morning per Tilt. I should be able to start ramping temps up for a diacetyl rest Friday night or Saturday morning.

Update 8/15/2019
I hooked up my CO2 reservoir this morning and have started dropping temps for the cold crash. On that note, I used to ramp temps down for the cold crash because the school of thought was that too rapid of a drop could cause off flavors (from yeast releasing compounds). However, a recent Brulosophy experiment seemed to show that quick vs. slow temp drops doesn't have a negative impact, so I've been letting it go as fast a my little ferm chambers will go.

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Keller-rado Kellerbier

First runnings - Pre-boil - Post-boil

Today I'm brewing a Pale Kellerbier, first time brewing the style. We recently went to Denver for my youngest daughter's grad trip, and while there, I picked up some Pilsner Malt from Root Shoot Malting. I think it's fun to mix in unique ingredients when I can get my hands on them, so this malt will be the basis for my Kellerbier.

The BJCP guidelines describe the style as follows:

A very common seasonal summer beer brewed by many of the Munich area breweries and served in the beer gardens, where they are very popular 

A young, fresh Helles, so while still a malty, fully-attenuated Pils malt showcase, the hop character (aroma, flavor and bitterness) is more pronounced, and the beer is cloudy, often with some level of diacetyl, and possibly has some green apple and/or other yeast-derived notes. As with the traditional Helles, the Keller version is still a beer intended to be drunk by the liter, so overall it should remain a light, refreshing, easy drinking golden lager

Most Pale Kellerbiers are young, unfiltered, unpasteurized versions of Munich Helles beer, although Pils or a different, custom golden lager beer designed specifically for serving young could also be used. The best examples are served only on tap at many of the Munich area breweries. Bottled versions are not likely to have the freshness, hop character and young beer notes exhibited by the draft versions.

Here's the recipe as I'm brewing it today, which is based on Homebrewer Chris Allen's award-winning recipe. I'm upping the hops a bit by adding a 0 minute addition, hoping it comes out close to STS Pils from Russian River.

OG: 1.048

IBU: 17

8.70# Root Shoot Pilsner

0.25# Weyermann Munich I

1g BrewTan B in mash
17g Hallertauer Mittelfruh (FWH)

11g Blend of Aramis and Saphir (60 min)
17g Blend of Aramis and Saphir (0 min)

Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager

Whirlfloc

Wyeast Nutrient
4.66g BCAA (Dissolved in water or wort, 5 min)

Single Decoction Mash - Decoction mashes add a level of complexity to the brew day. Fortunately, this recipe only employs a single Decoction.

1. Mash in at 132°F and hold for 10 minutes.
2. Increase mash temps to 147°F, then pull 1/3 of mash for decoction. 
3. Heat the decoction to 156–158°F, hold for 10 minutes.
4. Bring Decoction to a boil, and boil for 10 minutes
5. Raise mash to 156–158°F.
6. Return decoction to mash and mashout at 168F.

90 minute boil, ferment at 49°F

Water Recipe
This is a very soft profile. To 10 gallons of distilled water, add:
3g Epsom Salts
3g Calcium Chloride

Brewing Notes
No major issues. Similar to when we brewed with Solstice Malt, the Root Shoot malt seemed a little smaller or less plump, so I had to tighten up my mill gap. I didn't adjust the grain bill for my efficiency, so my OG came in a bit high at 1.056.

The BCAA was hard to dissolve the first time I used it in the Czech Pils so, this time i dissolved it in warm RO water in a coffee mug. It was still kind of a bitch, but it was better than trying to dissolve it on the fly in the boil kettle.I

Wort was chilled to ~62F and will continue to chill down to 49F before the yeast will be pitched. I'm essentially pitching the whole yeast cake from the Czech Pils.

Update 7/28/2019
Temps were down to 49F this morning, so I went ahead and aerated then pitched the yeast.

Update 7/29/2019
As I mentioned above, I pitched the yeast cake from my Czech Pils for this beer. Because of the high cell count, there really wasn't much of a lag phase. Per Tilt, my gravity is down to 1.039 this morning.

Update 7/31/2019
Per Tilt, gravity is down to 1.022 this morning. I'll begin ramping the temps up to mid-60s for the diacetyl rest. Even the the style guidelines indicate a bit of diacetyl and acetaldehyde are ok for the style, I prefer my beers without either. Here's a screen capture of the fermentation graph so far.

Update 8/7/2019
I've started cold crashing to get as much yeast to drop out as possible. Some haze is appropriate for the style, so I'm not too concerned about clarity. Gravity is down to 1.010 (from 1.056) putting this beer at ~6.17% ABV.

Update 10/14/2019
Just a quick note, this beer took 3rd place Amber Bitter European Lager in the 2019 Beehive Brew-off.

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Czech Premium Pale Lager 2019

Today I'm brewing a Czech Premium Pale Lager. I've brewed this beer three times now, with somewhat mixed results. The first time I brewed it, it won gold in competition. The next time, it got a brett infection from my counter-pressure bottle filler (the reason why I now always pasteurize the bottle filler before and after using). The third attempt had an acetaldehyde issue, a problem I had on a couple beers I was trying to rush to get ready for competition last year. For this beer, I'm hoping for a return to the gold medal example.

I'm changing the recipe slightly, using a different base malt and different yeast this time. I always like to experiment with new I'm ingredients, so that's the reason for changing up the malt.  Yeast-wise,  I want to try out 2124 in a few beers, so I'm hoping to reuse the yeast cake. I'm also doing a little experimenting based on comments in a recent Brewing Network podcast.

In S1 E12 of Hop and Brew School from The Brewing Network, Nick mentions using a small amount of Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA) as a yeast supplement to reduce the chance of diacetyl in finished beer. The only problem is he didn't provide much info with respect to usage/dosage. I sent a question to The BN on this subject, but it will likely be a while before their next Q&A show. I also posted a question about this subject on Reddit, and I was directed to a research paper titled, Influence of valine and other amino acids on total diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione levels during fermentation of brewer’s wort.

Assuming I'm interpreting the findings correctly from this paper, supplementing between 100-300mg Valine per liter of wort, can reduce the overall amount of diacetyl produced, and seemingly increase the uptake of diacetyl at the end of fermentation. In my layman's interpretation, it basically means extra insurance against diacetyl issues and it could shorten the turnaround time when brewing lagers.

I went ahead and ordered some unflavored BCAA 2:1:1 from MyProtien and I'm going to try using it in this recipe. I'm planning on shooting for the low end of the 100-300mg/l dosage. Per the nutrition label on my package, each 7g of BCAA 2:1:1 contains:

• 2.5g Leucine
• 1.25g Isoleucine
• 1.25g Valine
• 2g Carbohydrates

That means at a dosage rate of 560mg/l BCAA, we're getting 200mg Leucine, 100mg Isoleucine, 100mg Valine, and 160mg Carbohydrates. A 5 gallon batch is ~19l, so 19*560 = 10640mg/5 gallons or 10.64g/5 gallons of BCAA would be the proper dosage to yield 100mg/l Valine. I could only find one other reference of a Homebrewer using BCAA, and that was with gluten-free brewing. The dosage rate mentioned was 0.5 tablespoon per 5 gallons. I weighed 0.5T and it came out to 4.66g. I decided it would be better to be a little low than too high, so on this first round, I'm going with 1T (9.32g).

If you're brewing a Czech Lager, you definitely want soft water. If you're in the same situation as me and your tap water is hard, plan on getting some distilled or RO water Here's the recipe as I'm making it today:

5 Gallons

8.0# 11 oz. Weyermann Barke Pilsner
9 oz Briess Carapils
1.0g BrewTan B in mash
34g Czech Saaz (60 min)
41g Czech Saaz (30 min)
20.5g Czech Saaz (10 min)
20.5g Czech Saaz (0 min)
Wyeast 2124
Whirlfloc
Wyeast Nutrient (5 min)
9.32g BCAA (5 min)

Mash at 154F. Start fermentation at 45F, ramping temps up to ~50F over 5 days. Start diacetyl rest when gravity is down to around 1.020. For the d-rest, I tend to bump it up a couple of degrees morning and night until I got about 65F. I leave it there for a couple of days before I start cold crashing.

Water Recipe
10 gallons distilled water
0.55g Epsom Salt
0.33g Calcium Chloride
0.44g Baking Soda
0.44g Chalk

Brewing Notes
No major issues. I was also kegging my latest batch of NZ Pilsner and had a very minor boil-over while attending to that. I would guesstimate I lost about 6-12 ounces of wort. I was only able to chill down to 70F, so it'll have to chill a while before I pitch the yeast. Gravity measured 1.055 per the Tilt.

Update 7/9/2019
I aerated and pitched the yeast last night. I also finally got logging working on my Tilt Hydrometer. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but I could never get it to write to the Google Sheets when I was hosting it on my own Google account. I ended up doing a couple things. First, I did some tweaks on my Nexus 6P to enable Always On Display and prevent it from going into sleep mode when charging. Then I upgraded to the Tilt 2 app, and now I'm successfully logging to the cloud using the default logging option. It'll be nice to be able to check gravity and temp from anywhere, especially with lagers and timing the diacetyl rest.

Update 7/10/2019 AM
I'm starting to get a little worried, I haven't seen any change to gravity yet and no signs obvious signs of fermentation. I'm crossing my fingers that we see something tonight.

Update 7/10/2019 PM
When I got home from work tonight, I was finally seeing signs of fermentation.

This is pure speculation, but I'm wondering if the higher concentration of amino acids could have contributed to an increase in the lag time as the yeast were trying to absorb all of the available nutrients. It would be impossible to confirm that at home without access to specialized equipment. About the only option I have is to repeat the conditions as closely as possible on another batch, and see if I experience similar results.

Update 7/12/2019
Gravity is down to 1.041 this morning.

Update 7/16/2019
Gravity was down to 1.020 yesterday, so I started ramping the temps up. Gravity is down to 1.014 today.

Update 7/27/2019
This beer went into a keg today along with gelatin for fining. The gravity finished at about 1.007, putting the ABV at 6.3%.

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