Brew #57: American Pale Ale

This is the first brew of the year, an American Pale ale. It actually ended up more like an India Pale ale as the mash efficency came out at 78%, something I'm really happy about. I used a new batch sparging technique, which I'll say something about in a future post.

The batch was brewed 2008-03-27.

Style:
American Pale Ale
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
15 EBC (Amber)
Bitterness:
40 IBU
Malts:
5400g Maris Otter malt, Thomas Fawcett
270g Crystal malt 80 EBC, Dingemans
230g Caraamber, Weyermann
200g Biscuit malt, Dingemans
Mash:
66C, 60 min
78% efficiency
Hops:
30g Simcoe whole, 13.2%, 60 min
30g Cascade pellets, 5.8%, 10 min
60g Cascade pellets, 5.8%, 1 min
Yeast:
Wyeast Fat Tire yeast, 2.7 liter starter on magnetic stirrer
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
19 C

OG: 1.060 FG: 1.012 abv: 6.3%

Norwegian Homebrew Competition 2008

What: The annual festival where homebrewers serve their own beers to the public, which get to vote for their favourite beers of the evening. Homebrewers also compete in five other categories (bottled entries submitted earlier). The winners are announced towards the end of the evening.

When: Saturday April 5th 2008, 19:00-00:30 CET
Where: Studentersamfunnet Bislet, Pilestredet 52, Oslo, Norway.
Cost: 130 NOK (100 NOK if you're a member of Norbrygg)


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I'll be there, but I won't be serving any beers this year as I'm judging the finals of the five other competition categories (light lager, dark lager, light ale, dark ale and strong beers). For the same reason I won't be able to partake in any of the competitions either (doh).

A brewing tip from Norway's Julia Child

"Kjøkkentips", a book by Ingrid Espelid Hovig and Scott Givot contains a lot of practical tips about doing smart things in your kitchen. One of the tips that caught my eye that might be useful to brewers is how one can cool down a pot of hot liquid in the sink. They say that if you place a spoon upside down beneath the pot that would allow it too cool down quicker. Simple, and just brilliant, as this would expose the pot to more surface. If you chill your hot wort in the sink then this might help you cool down your wort faster.

Getting the temperature right

You may remember that I have had some issues with mashing at too low a temperature. Because the beers were mashed too low they were thin bodied as this produced more fermentable sugars. I recently bought a new thermometer (the one on the right), and that helped a little. The recent beers have had more body, but the doppelbock I brewed just before Christmas still was a little thinner than expected. It meant that I still had some problems with the mash temperatures.

Interestingly, I was offered to have my thermometers calibrated at a local brewery using professional calibration equipment. That was exactly what I needed as this would let me know exactly by how much the thermometers were off.


The temperature calibrator system that was used was a Tek Know TC2000 from Scan-Sense. The results from calibrating the two thermometers at 55C, 65C, 70C and 80C can be seen below. Click the thumbnails to see the full-sized photos.



The digital thermometer on the right is clearly the most exact of the two as its readings are the most consistent, but they are still off by 1.5C or so. It was this thermometer that I used for the last few brews, so the dobbelbock was mashed at 67.5C instead of 69C. The old white digital thermometer (now broken) must have been off by at least 3.5C as it read 2C lower than the new one. That is a quite significant difference.

In all this is very useful information to me and it will allow me to hit the mash temperatures much more precisely than before. If you have doubts about the readings from your thermometer then having it calibrated is much recommended. Even small variances on the readings in the mashing range can lead to significant differences in fermentability.

Ulrikke

Eight weeks ago Kristiane and I adopted Ulrikke, a beautiful 23 months old girl from Guangdong, China. This has worked out very well and we're now a happy family of three. I have spent the last six weeks on paternity leave, so things have been busy. Things have settled down nicely, so I should now have more time to spend on my brewing efforts. Not to mention that I now have a brewing assistant. :)

Is homebrewing beer legal?

Adam recently discussed the U.S federal limits on home brewing on his Beer Bits 2 blog, and I thought that it might be interesting to compare this with the legislation here in Norway. I have had several inquiries about the laws here in Norway, so this might be useful information for more people.

Up until July 1999 home brewing was illegal in Norway, unless you malted your own grains. Of course, malting is out of reach for most amateur brewers, so they brewed at home anyway. There is a page at the Norwegian Homebrewer's Association (which was started in 1997) site that has some detail about the recent changes. It is also worth mentioning that there were no such restrictions regarding making your own wine at home. Growing your own grapes might have been an option, but it's rather difficult this far north. Interestingly, there is one single winery in Norway making red wines, but that is besides the point.

Anyway, since 1999 it has been legal to brew beer at home without unreasonable restrictions. As far as I know there are no limits on how much you can brew either. As distillation or using various techniques to increase alcohol content, other than fermentation, is illegal one has to rely on fermentation alone, which is fair enough as most beers are made that way.

The current legislation is pretty straightforward: you can make as much beer as you like at home, and you can serve it to anyone you like, but you cannot sell it. You can even let someone with a license serve it, but they will then have to pay the associated taxes (including taxes on alcohol and VAT, and probably some more).

The home brewing legislation in Norway is surprisingly liberal given that alcohol is otherwise heavily taxed and is strictly regulated.

My own beer production has been 405 liters this year, which is a personal record. I guess it will be standing for a while, as we're getting our first child soon, and the brewing frequency will be reduced for obvious reasons.

Brew #56: Doppelbock

I kegged the German Pilsener today, and since I had a fresh and healthy yeast cake in the fermenter this was a perfect opportunity for brewing a strong doppelbock for the spring. The recipe should hopefully result in a rich and malty bock. I mashed quite high, so there should be lots of complex non-fermentable sugars. Interestingly the mash efficiency seems to have increased. I'll leave this in the fermenter for about three weeks.

The batch was brewed 2007-12-20.

Style:
Doppelbock
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
45 EBC (Brown)
Bitterness:
26 IBU
Malts:
6000g Münchener malt
1500g Vienna malt
350g Carapils
350g Caravienna
350g Dark crystal malt
100g Chocolate malt
Mash:
69C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
76% efficiency
Hops:
70g Spalter Select pellets, 4.5%, 60 min
30g Spalter Select pellets, 4.5%, 10 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, on Brew #55's yeast cake
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
In the fridge at 9.0 to 10.5 C.

OG: 1.078 FG: 1.021 abv: 7.5%

Brew #55: German Pilsener

This is a straightforward simple pilsener with hopefully quite a bit of hop flavour and aroma. I just realize that I forgot to add the sulphates required to enhance the hop crispness. Not sure how much it'll matter as I'm sure it'll be fine anyway.

I added a little specialty malts to increase the malt complexity somewhat.

The plan is to brew a doppelbock in about two weeks that I then rack on top of the yeast cake from the pilsener. The Bavarian lager yeast is supposed to be very well suited for rich and malty lagers. Pitching on top of the yeast cake from another batch is a nice way to make sure that one has enough yeast for a healthy fermentation. That is important for strong lagers like doppelbocks.

The batch was brewed 2007-11-29.

Style:
German Pilsener
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
11 EBC (Golden)
Bitterness:
32 IBU
Malts:
5800g Pilsener malt
150g Carapils
150g Aroma malt
Mash:
64C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
66% efficiency
Hops:
20g Warrior pellets, 13.8%, 60 min
40g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh whole, 3.8%, 10 min
60g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh whole, 3.8%, 1 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, 2 packs, production date 2007-04-30, 2.5 liter starter on stir plate
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
In the fridge at 9.0 to 10.5 C.

OG: 1.048 FG: 1.011 abv: 4.8%

Magnetic Stir Plate

This is one of the better brewing investments I've made in the last year. The magnetic stir plate is very good at kick-starting the beer yeast. I typically create 2 liter yeast starters from a single pack of liquid yeast.

I have three erlenmeyer flasks, in 1 liter, 3 liter and 5 liter sizes. The 3 liter one can be seen in the photo above.

Creating the yeast starter is straightforward: Fill the flask with water from the tap. Put it on the stove, turn on the heat and wait until the water heats up. Then add 1 tablespoon of dried malt extract per dl of water. Then add 1/2 teaspoon of yeast nutrient. Stir well and let it boil for about five minutes in the erlenmeyer flasks. This makes sure that both the yeast starter and the flask is properly disinfected. Cover the opening of the flask with aluminum foil or plastic wrap to prevent things from falling into the pristine wort. Cool it down to about 20 degrees C in a cold water bath before adding the yeast. Then spray the scissors and the opening of the yeast pack with a strong alcohol solution to make sure that no bacteria gets in contact with the yeast on its way to the yeast starter. Wait for the alcohol to evaporate before opening and pouring the yeast into the erlenmeyer flask. Finally, add the stir bar (make sure that it is disinfected) and put it on the magnetic stirrer. The stirring will provide the yeast with lots of oxygen.

It usually take a day or two before the yeast has fermented out the yeast starter.

Brew #54: Christmas Ale

Inspired by the upcoming season I've decided to make a strong and malty brew with a subtle hint of spices. This brew should be a nice sipping beer for Christmas. I suspect that it'll end up similar to an English Old Ale because of the muscovado sugar.

The yeast pack was smacked on Sunday and it had not really expanded fully when I made the starter wort on Tuesday evening. Anyway, after about 12 hours there were lots of activity on the magnetic stir plate. The yeast is known for its impressive capability of flocculating. After the fermentation was over large clumps of yeast where spinning around the erlenmeyer flask. When the stir plate stopped all yeast fell straight down to the bottom. Kind of cool, but I hope it ferments out my beer before deciding to clump together in the bucket.

The batch was brewed 2007-11-15.

Style:
English Old Ale
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
63 EBC (Dark brown)
Bitterness:
30 IBU
Malts:
4000g Pale malt
1400g Amber malt
1000g Rauchmalz
830g Münchener malt
400g Crystal malt
300g Dark crystal malt
300g Special B
100g Pale chocolate malt
Sugars:
500g Billington's Unrefined Dark Muscovado Cane Sugar
Spices:
6 cm cinnamon bark
1 small vanilla bean
Mash:
68C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
72% efficiency
Hops:
40g Northern Brewer pellets, 10.0%, 60 min
30g Saaz pellets, 2.0%, 10 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale Yeast, production date 2007-04-30, 2 liter starter on stir plate
Boil:
90 min
Water treatment:
2 ts calcium carbonate
1/2 ts calcium chloride
OG: 1.081 FG: 1.024 abv: 7.5%