Author Archives: Andy Farke

California Vanilla Porter

Posted on by

California Vanilla Porter

  • 5 lbs. US pale malt (2 row)
  • 5 lbs. Maris Otter pale malt
  • 1 lbs 60° crystal malt
  • 1 lbs. Vienna malt
  • 0.75 lb. chocolate malt
  • 0.5 lb. carapils malt
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (60 minutes bittering)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (30 minutes bittering)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (15 minutes boil)
  • 1 pkg. Danstar Nottingham yeast
  • 4 Madagascar vanilla beans (cut up and soaked in a 2 ounces of vodka), added to the secondary

Steps

  • I added a tablespoon of 5.2 pH stabilizer to the grist prior to mashing in, to help counteract previously suspected pH problems.
  • Mash in with 16.8 quarts of water at 170°. This resulted in a mash that stabilized at 153° within 10 minutes. The temperature was down to 152° by 30 minutes, and 151° by 60 minutes.
  • After 60 minutes, I added 0.5 gallons of water at 170°, and collected the first runnings. The gravity from these was 1.074 (at 60°).
  • I then added 3 gallons of water at 170°, stirred the mash, and let it sit for 10 minutes. I collected the rest of the wort for a total starting volume (pre-boil) of 6.25 gallons. The gravity at the start of the boil was 1.052 (at 60°), indicating a mash efficiency of around 70%.
  • I started the boil, adding 1 oz. of whole Cascade hops. After 30 minutes, I added an additional ounce of whole Cascade hops. For the final 15 minutes, I added 1 tsp. of Irish moss.
  • I cooled the wort down to 78° using my cooling coil, which took ~25 minutes.
  • I pitched the rehydrated yeast. Fermentation had visibly started within 12 hours.
  • Starting gravity was 1.064 at 60°; approximately 4.85 gallons of wort were in the fermenter.
Notes
  • I plan to add the vanilla to the secondary fermenter.
  • This is the first all-grain batch for which I feel like things went fairly smoothly–finally a decent mash efficiency (I suspect I fixed a lingering pH issue), and a good batch of wort at the end.
  • This beer was brewed on Saturday, March 15.

Laurasia IPA Bottled, Gondwana IPA Update

Posted on by

After a week of dry-hopping with 2 oz. of Simcoe hops pellets, I bottled the Laurasia IPA (8 March 2014). The gravity was unchanged from last check, at 1.020, resulting in a final abv of 6.5%. I added 4 oz. of corn sugar boiled in 1 cup of water. The final volume in the bottling bucket was 4.5 gallons, yielding 15 12-oz bottles, 13 18-oz. Grolsch bottles, and 6 22-oz. bottles.

I transferred the Gondwana IPA to the secondary fermenter on 9 March 2014. The gravity measured 1.010, down from 1.047, yielding an abv of 4.8%. Somewhat distressingly, there was a bit of a vegetal aroma and flavor to the beer; this had come off strong after the mash, but disappeared after the boil. With the aroma’s reappearance, I was worried that I would have to toss out the beer. But, I rechecked a week later (16 March 2014), and the beer tasted and smelled just fine. A good argument for patience!

Fake Tire 3.0 and Laurasia IPA updates

Posted on by

On Thursday, February 27, I transferred the Fake Tire 3.0 (my first all-grain batch) over to the secondary fermenter. The gravity was down to 1.006, which works out to 5.1% abv. This is certainly the most I’ve ever had a beer ferment out, and I suspect this was due to the unintentionally low mash temperature.

On Saturday, March 1, I added 2 oz. of Simcoe hops pellets to the Laurasia IPA, for dry hopping.

Gondwana IPA

Posted on by

After my first experimental all-grain batch, I decided to refine my technique further and attempt an IPA this time. The previous batch had issues with temperature control and poor mash efficiency. The former was resolved by insulating the cooler lid with spray-foam and preheating the cooler/tun with hot water, as well as waterproofing my thermometer leads with silicone tape. I attempted to resolve the second issue by double-milling the grain at the local homebrew store as well as by improving temperature control as noted. Temperature control was much improved, although my efficiency still isn’t where I want it to be (~57% mash efficiency). In any case, brewing science marches on.

Gondwana IPA

  • 9.5 lbs. pale malt (2 row US)
  • 1 lb. Vienna malt
  • 0.5 lb. cara-pils malt
  • 0.5 lb. 40° crystal malt
  • 0.5 lb. 20° crystal malt
  • 3 oz. Cascade whole hops (bittering)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (late addition aroma, 5 minutes before flame-out)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (last 15 minutes of boil)
  • 1 package of Safale American Yeast (US-05)
  • 2 oz. Citra hops pellets (dry hop)
Steps
  • Mash-in with 15.4 quarts of water at 173°. I stirred once, after 30 minutes. The mash temperature ended at 154° after 60 minutes. The mash ended up at about 75 minutes, due to the time required to heat the sparge water.
  • I sparged with 0.62 gallons of water at 170°, stirred, and let it sit for 10 minutes. I collected 2.78 gallons before the tun ran out of liquid. I then sparged with 3.22 gallons of water at 170°, stirred, let it sit for 15 minutes, and decanted. This round collected 3.34 gallons.
  • In total, I collected 6.12 gallons of wort, with a gravity of 1.040 at 60°. This equals a mash efficiency of 56.7% as calculated by BeerSmith.
  • I heated the wort to boiling and added the 3 oz. of whole Cascade hops. At the 45 minute mark, I added the Irish moss. At the 55 minute mark, I tossed in the final Cascade addition.
  • It took about 25 minutes to get the wort down to 70°, using the wort chiller. I then whirlpooled the wort and let it sit for 20 minutes before transferring to the fermenter.
  • In the end, I had 4.75 gallons of wort with a starting gravity of 1.047 at 60° This is a bit lower than conventional style for an IPA, but I figure that is just par for the course as I figure out this new mode of brewing.
  • I pitched the yeast, and left the beer to ferment at an ambient temperature of ~62°.


Notes

  • Mash efficiency is still lower than I like; next time I might aim for hotter sparge water to mobilize more of the sugars, and I will probably adjust my grain bill to compensate for a lower efficiency. I’ll give it another try or two, but I am wondering if the crack I’m getting from the mill at the local homebrew supply is too coarse.

Yikes and Away! Diving into All-Grain Brewing (with Fake Tire Amber Ale 3.0)

Posted on by

With a whole bunch more brew space, and over five years of solo brewing under my belt(!), I’ve been rapidly diversifying from the tried-and-true partial volume, extract with steeping grains, brews. The quality (in my humble opinion) on many of these beers has been pretty good (the Rainy Day IPA, Vanilla Voay Porter, and Fake Tire Amber Ale being particularly successful), but I do feel like I’ve gotten the handle of many aspects of extract brewing. I’m looking for a bit of a challenge and to expand my brewing skill set. The first step was full-volume boils, and the logical next step was to try all-grain. But, I had been a little intimidated by the complexity of the all-grain setups I had seen. Three-part towers, hoses everywhere, sparge arms, and the like seemed like a lot of equipment investment just to try a new technique. But then I learned about batch-sparging. Basically, all I would need was a converted cooler. Done and done!

With a converted 10 gallon cooler (ball valve and screen installed at the bottom), I was ready to go. I thought a good first beer would be to try a new iteration of my amber ale.
Fake Tire Amber Ale 3.0
  • 7.5 lbs pale malt (2 row)
  • 0.5 lbs. Victory malt
  • 0.5 lbs. Munich malt
  • 0.5 lbs. 40° crystal malt
  • 0.5 lbs. 20° crystal malt
  • 0.5 lbs. Cara-Pils malt
  • 0.25 lbs. chocolate malt
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (60 minute boil)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (5 minute boil)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss
  • 1 pkg. Safale American ale yeast US-05
Steps
  • Mash in ~13 qts. of water at 165° with malt for 1 hour. This resulted in a temperature of 154 degrees within 5 minutes, but it ended up at 145° by the end of the hour.
  • Decanted liquid, added 1 gallon of water, brought temperature up to 146°.
  • Decanted liquid, added 3 gallons water, brought temperature to 148°.
  • Decanted liquid, which had a specific gravity of 1.034 at 60 degrees. The volume in the kettle was around 5 gallons.
  • Heated to boil, added first addition of Cascade hops, boiled for 45 minutes, added Irish moss, boiled for another 10 minutes, added second addition of Cascade hops.
  • After the 60 minute boil, I turned off the flame and chilled the wort to around 70 degrees.
  • I transferred the wort to the fermenter, and pitched the yeast (which had been rehydrated in 1 cup of water). The wort fermented at ~68°.
  • The starting gravity was 1.045 at 60°, with a starting volume of 4 gallons.
Notes
This was definitely a learning experience! I had done a fair bit of reading on all of this, but even so there were a few bumps along the way. For starters, I learned that my “trusty” digital thermometer reads about 20° too low! This happened hard way when I mashed the grains to discover a ridiculously low-gravity wort–perhaps 1.020. A little investigation with other thermometers revealed that my main digital thermometer had a bad sensor (maybe from moisture?). In any case, I tossed that wort and started over. It sucks to have wasted the time and materials, but it was a useful lesson.
Even after all of that, my efficiency in sugar extraction was still not great (~50%, where I should be hitting ~70% at least). I attribute this in part to the fairly low temperatures that the mash ended at (145°, on the very lowest end of where I should be). Next time, I am going to preheat my cooler/mash tun to mitigate some cooling. I also pulled off all of the “liquor” after each water addition, which I later realized I shouldn’t have…so, I will aim for pulling off equal amounts of liquor next time, rather than draining the whole thing.
Despite all of that, I am eager to improve my technique and make the next batch. The amber ale really took off in the fermenter, and should be ready to go to the secondary very soon.