Pipeline Dwindling

This is my next to last bottle homebrew that is ready to consume, it is an attempt to make a breakfast stout. It turned out pretty bad. It ended up being about 2% percent ABV and not tasting very good. It has been in the bottle for about 8 months and is probably the worst beer I have ever brewed.
I have a five gallon batch of beer that will be bottled tomorrow, which is called Amarillo Face an American Wheat. In all reality I will be drinking in a week. It wont be ready to drink in a week but with no beer in the house I will be forced to. It should probably have at least 4 weeks in the bottle at room temp to be considered fully conditioned.
I am kinda upset at myself for letting my beer get this low. I haven't had much time at work to work on new recipes, browse forums and all the stuff that kept my head in brewing. I would like to get another batch of beer in the fermenter this week after I bottle, but I know that wont happen. With work, time, and money all getting in the way.
I also would like to try some new techniques in homebrewing. I used liquid yeast for the first time on the batch I'm bottling tomorrow. I would like to try at some point to wash and reuse my yeast as pointed out in this blog. Which was recommend by a beer buddy Esheppy. If I reuse yeast I would also like to try and make a yeast starter to confirm that my yeast is actually viable and to have enough yeast to pitch for a batch of beer. These are both things I have never done before. Also at some time I would like to get a propane burner and an 8-9 gallon brewpot and do some 5 gallon brew in a bag batches.

Amarillo Face

Today is the first time I have brewed a batch of beer in what seems like a long time. I did make the Coopers wheat a few weeks ago but that was an all extract no boil kit. Work has been really busy and I just havent had time to brew or even visit the forum. However, I have had plenty of time to drink my pipeline almost dry. So today I will be brewing a batch of beer called Amarillo Face.
Amarillo face is my LHBS's version of Three Floyds Gumballhead. It is one of my favorite wheat beers. Its a little hoppy but still very drinkable. It uses only amarillo hops, thus the name.
This is also the first time I will be using liquid yeast. I am using the Wyeast 1010 American Wheat yeast. I was a little uncertain about the timing on smacking the yeast. But I did it this morning and within 90 minutes the bag was swollen and has only gotten even more so.
I have high hopes for this brew since the guy at the LHBS says he has a hard time telling the difference between this brew and Gumballhead.




49 Amarillo Face
Brew Type: Extract Date: 6/26/2011
Style: American Wheat or Rye Beer Brewer: Scott Churchill
Batch Size: 5.00 gal Assistant Brewer:
Boil Volume: 3.50 gal Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: Brew Pot (4 Gallon)
Taste Rating (50 possible points): 35.0

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.00 lb DME Wheat Bavarian (Briess) (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 46.15 %
1.00 lb DME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Dry Extract 15.38 %
1.00 lb Rice Extract Syrup (7.0 SRM) Extract 15.38 %
0.75 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 11.54 %
0.75 lb Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 11.54 %
1.00 oz Amarillo [7.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
0.50 oz Amarillo [7.50 %] (60 min) Hops 11.5 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo [7.50 %] (30 min) Hops 8.9 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo [7.50 %] (15 min) Hops 5.7 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo [7.50 %] (5 min) Hops 2.3 IBU
0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs American Wheat Ale (Wyeast Labs #1010) Yeast-Ale

Wheat Bottling Day

A couple of weeks ago I brewed a Cooper's Brewmaster Selection Wheat with three lbs of Wheat DME and a half lb of carpils steeped. Today I finally bottled it. I had a high FG at about 1.020. The beer tasted good, not sweet and no off flavors that I could tell. I looked up the priming amount for a wheat beer on a couple of sites and finally settled on about 5 oz of dextrose for my 5.5 gallon batch. But after bottling I realized I actually got a only about 4.8 gallons in the bottles. It may be a little over carbed but hopefully I get no bottle bombs.
I used 35 glass 12 oz bottles and 6 1 liter pet bottles. I usually dont use the pet bottles but after using them for my american brown ale I realized I liked them. Less bottles to fill and they hold just enough to fill my 20 oz pint glass twice. If I dont drink both glasses in one night then the pet bottle will hold the carb just fine for about 24 hrs until I finish the bottle. I havent tested the carb beyond that amount of time, however.

Some time has passed this I wrote the first portion of this post. I actually did try keeping beer in an open pet bottle for about 3 days and the carb was fine. The head was significantly less but it was still there.
I also have tried a couple of the wheat beer with less than a week in the bottle. It is really good. The only issue I have is I believe with the Coopers yeast. It leaves a kind of vanilla aftertaste. I also experienced this with the Coopers IPA kit I did a while ago. Of course it could be the extract but I would be led to believe that since its two totally different styles of beer and I used the fromunda Coopers yeast on both batches that it is the yeast.

But the wheat beer is nice and easy to drink. I dont know the exact ABV since I only did a FG hydrometer reading. But with qbrew I estimated it to be around 5% abv. I have a lot of outside projects to do around the house and the wheat beer will be a perfect thirst quencher.

Not ready to bottle.

Mr. Beer Double American Brown Ale

I was thinking about bottling my 317 wheat beer today. Which is just a can of Cooper's Brewmaster Selection Wheat extract with three lbs of wheat DME. But I took the gravity and it was above 1020 so I'm leaving it for about another week in the fermenter. I was really hoping to get this done today but I don't want to rush it and have bottle bombs or under fermented beer.
The other day I decided to try a bottle of the Mr. Beer Double American Brown ale that I brewed a few weeks ago. It spent three weeks in the bottle and was at 12 days in the bottle when I tasted it. I put it in the freezer for about half an hour and then tried it. It was surprisingly good. The pour was perfect with about 2-3 fingers of head, the color is a little dark for a brown ale. The flavor/aroma is really good nice and hoppy up front and carmelly in the back. I didn't do gravity readings on this but according to Mr. beer its about 6.5% ABV. I will try to let these condition for a few more weeks as I can only imagine how good this will taste with a few more weeks in the bottle. But I see myself grabbing one and putting it in the fridge to drink tonight. I bottled this in the Mr. Beer 1 liter bottles, so I had 8 and now only 7 one liter bottles.

National Homebrew Day, Brew day

Saturday was National Homebrew day so I decided to brew up a quick batch. That combined with the pipeline being low led me to brew an all extract batch, which is something I haven't done in a while. I got a Cooper's Brewmaster selection Wheat Beer. I added 3 lbs of DME and steeped half a lb of carapils for body and head.

I brought 1.5 gallons or so of water up to about 160 and added the carapils for about 20 minutes. Then I brought the water close to 200 and removed from the heat and added the DME. Then I brought that to a boil for about 10 minutes. I removed it from the heat and mixed in the Cooper's wheat extract. I added the wort to the fermenting bucket that had about half a gallon of cold water and then topped of to about 5.5 gallons. My temp was high so I put the bucket in an ice batch and cooled down to about 79 degrees before pitching the yeast. The OG was 1.052, and the wort tasted really good.

.5 lb Carapils (steeped)
3.75 lb Cooper's Brewmaster Selection Wheat
3 lb Briess Wheat DME
Coopers yeast

Bottling and brewing day!

I have had a busy day off as usual. Today I bottled my Scottish 60 that had been fermenting for two and half weeks. I also am in the middle of brewing my Breakfast Stout. On top of that I had my usual duties of watching the kids.
I have decided to outline my bottling process with words and pictures.
The first thing I do is to gather all the bottles, bottling bucket, bottle tree, sanitizer and other equipment I will need to bottle a batch of brew.
Once everything is out and set up I measure my priming agent, which in this case was 52 grams of dextrose. I add this to a microwave safe measuring cup with 1 cup of water. Then I cover with plastic wrap and microwave for probably about 4 minutes. I like it to boil for at least a minute. Then I take that out and put it in the freezer, still covered with plastic wrap. While this cools I start sanitizing bottles. This batch is five gallons so I did about 52 bottles to be on the safe side. I use a bottle tree with a vinator on top filled with star san. This to me is the fastest way to sanitize. I just give each bottle three pumps on vinator with shoots the sanitizer into the bottle, then I let it drain on the tree. It takes about 5 minutes to do this amount of bottles.


After I have sanitized I then take the sugar water out of the freezer and prepare to transfer the beer into a bottling bucket. I put the primary fermenter on the counter and the bottling bucket on the floor. I use an auto-siphon to transfer the liquid. Once I start the flow I added the priming sugar to the bottling bucket just as the transfer starts. I put the hose in the bottling bucket so the liquid forms sort of a whirlpool as it transfers this mixes the sugar in evenly while not aerating the beer. Oxygen is your enemy at this point, it will stale the beer faster giving it a sort of wet cardboard flavor. So the less sloshing and splashing at this point the better.


My next step at this point is to pour a beer and give the beer a few minutes to settle down. Today I went with a Schwarzbier that is just done with its two week carbing phase. This will get much better with a few more weeks in the bottle.

After I pour the beer I move the bottling bucket on top of the fermenter on the counter. To bottle I had a short length of hose to the spigot and then put the bottling wand right on that. I find this not only keeps things off the floor where little hand like to mess with them, I actually do less work this way. I only have to transfer the bottles once from the tree to the counter and I fill and cap there. I used to add a six foot length of hose and bottle on the floor. This was uncomfortable and not very efficient for me. I stand right at the counter and fill each bottle and then cap in groups of 24 bottles. In other words, I fill 24 bottles and then cap them. Then I get 24 more bottles and then fill and cap them.


Then once all the bottles are filled and capped its time to label, box them up and clean up. I use a sharpie to label each cap with an initial or other mark. This time I chose the number 60 being that this is a Scottish 60\-. These will sit at room temp for about 2 weeks and then I will try one to make sure it is carbed and to judge how much longer I want it to condition. I usually go from 4-8 weeks for conditioning depending on the recipe. Usually the darker the beer the more conditioning it needs.


After I got all cleaned up from making the bottling mess and fed the kids lunch and such. I decided to brew. I have this Breakfast stout recipe that I am looking forward to. It is about 30 minutes into the boil. It will ferment for about two weeks and then be in the bottle for about 5-6 weeks.

Wednesday Oct 27 2010

I have done a few batches since my last blog post. The Octoberfest Cream Ale actually turned out well. The diacetyl actually conditioned out and I have a few bottles left that have been bottled for 60 days. After the cream ale I did a little experiment for Mr. Beer using a test sanitizer. They sent me the sanitizer and a batch of Bewitched Red Ale w/ mellow amber UME, which I called Mystery Red Ale, in the spirit of the experiment. I brewed that up using the sanitizer they sent with it to test. Everything seemed to work just fine. The batch is in the bottle three weeks today and tastes pretty good. I will wait the full 4 weeks in the bottle before I fill out the questionaire and send it back to them. I brewed this one straight up and fermented in the cooler at about 66-68 degrees. I primed with 1/2 teaspoon of dextrose per 12 oz bottle. The bottles were also sanitized with the test sanitizer.
The next batch was also a Mr. beer recipe, the "May The Schwarzbier With You!". This was also fermented in the cooler at about 68 degrees. It has been three weeks in the keg. I was going to bottle at two weeks, but the gravity was really high at about 1.030. I used Muntons yeast in this because it was all I had. At the two week mark I gently shook the keg to get the yeast stirred back up and it seemed to work. The gravity is down to 1.024 and I will be bottling it today.
On Sunday I went to Great Fermentations, my Local Homebrew Shop. I got ingredients for two very simple, low alcohol recipes. I got a Scottish light 60 recipe and a breakfast stout. These were both recipes I got from northernbrewer.com but I modified them a bit and added some grains I thought would work well with each style. Sunday I brewed up the Scottish 60 and it went well. No issues whatsoever. I used fermcap s in the boil, it helped a great deal in keeping the foam down during the beginning of the boil. I added ten drops to the 2.5 gallons in the boil and the foam was kept to about 1/2 an inch and only covering about half the top of the brew. My initial intention was to get this for high gravity brews to keep the krausen under control so I dont blow the top off a bucket and spew beer all over my daughters closet.
Next up is a Breakfast stout. It will be low ABV as well, probably about 3% or so. I just wanted to get a few batches going as my pipeline was dwindling by the day. The Scottish and the breakfast stout are both 5 gallon batches that cost about 20 bucks each. I am really looking forward to the breakfast stout since it will contain flaked oats and lactose. Both will lend to a nice full, creamy body, but being only 3% abv it will also be easy to drink.