Author Archives: Andy Farke

A Whole Mess of Kegging

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Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout, ready for kegging

It’s only five weeks until AHA (American Homebrewers’ Association) in San Diego, and in preparation I’ve been brewing up a storm the past few weekends. In order to give everything sufficient time for conditioning, carbonation, and such, tonight was the night to keg it all.

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.2

  • This beer had been in the primary fermenter for 3.5 weeks, for the first 10 days at 66°, and the rest of the time at ambient temperature.
  • I racked the beer onto 2 ounces of Citra hops (13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), weighted down in a bag at the bottom of the keg.
  • Final gravity was 1.010; down from 1.048, this works out to 5.0% abv. The beer was wonderfully clear, with a medium yellow color and clean flavor.
  • I’ll let this dry hop at room temperature for a week or two before carbonating.


Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout 1.1

  • This beer had been in the primary fermenter for 2.5 weeks; I cold-crashed it for the final 24 hours down to 38°.
  • Final gravity was down to 1.021 from 1.061, which works out to 4.1% abv. The beer has really nice body to it, and should be delightful once carbonated.
  • I began carbonating this beer immediately.


Bonedigger Brown Ale 1.1

  • This beer had been in the primary fermenter for 11 days (cold crashed during the final 24 hours).
  • Final gravity was 1.013, down from 1.052. This works out to 5.1% abv. Both flavor and appearance are on the mark.
  • I began carbonating this beer immediately.
To move things along, I’m going to try a “quick carbonation” technique. For the oatmeal stout and brown ale, I began carbonation under 40 psi at 38°. In 24 hours, I’ll lower pressure to 20 psi, and after another 24 hours I’ll check out the carbonation.

Bonedigger Brown Ale 1.1

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Another one for the homebrewer conference…this is my second go at the brown ale. Basically unchanged recipe from last time.

Bonedigger Brown Ale 1.1

  • 9 lbs. 2-row malt
  • 1 lb. Maris Otter pale malt
  • 0.75 lb. 80°L crystal malt
  • 0.5 lb. carapils malt
  • 0.5 lb. chocolate malt
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops, bittering (60 minute boil)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops, bittering (20 minute boil)
  • 0.5 oz. Willamette hops pellets, aroma (5.2% alpha; 3.7% beta; 5 minute boil)
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)
  • 1 pkg. US-05 Safale American Yeast, rehydrated in 150 mL of water.
Procedure
  • I mashed in with 3.75 gallons of water at 164.5°, hitting my target mash temperature of 153°.
  • The mash was down to 151° after 35 minutes, and down to 149° after 50 minutes.
  • I added 0.75 gallons of water at 190°, stirred, and let sit for 10 minutes. I vorlaufed and collected 3.1 gallons of wort.
  • I added 3.25 gallons of water at 185°, which raised the temperature of the mash bed to around 168°. After 10 minutes, I vorlaufed and collected the remainder of the wort.
  • In total, I collected 6.4 gallons of wort at 1.052 specific gravity. This works out to 79% efficiency.
  • I boiled for 60 minutes, adding hops and Irish moss at the appropriate intervals.
  • After chilling with the wort chiller, 5 gallons of wort went into the fermenter. The starting gravity is 1.059.
  • After pitching the yeast, I set my temperature controller to 68°. On the second day, once fermentation had started, I dropped the temperature down to 65°.
  • This beer was brewed on April 26, 2015, and fermented for 10 days, before cold crashing for 24 hours and then kegging.

 

Pannotia White IPA Kegged

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Every once in awhile, you just know that a particular batch is going to be good, even early on in the process. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, you can’t stop thinking about how the final product is going to taste. I’m thinking my Pannotia White IPA just might be one of those batches.

Tonight, I transferred this batch over to the keg. It had been in the primary fermenter for 18 days, after two pretty vigorous bouts of fermentation. The first bout settled down a couple of days after brewing. Given come online commentary I read about this particular yeast strain, I agitated the carboy a bit (four days post-brewing), and sure enough, fermentation took off again. At kegging, the beer had a gravity of 1.012, down from 1.057. This works out to 5.9% abv, right within the range of what I was hoping for.

I transferred just under 5 gallons of beer over to the keg, and added 2 oz. of Citra hops pellets for dry hopping. I’ll leave it to dry hop for about a week before carbonating.

At the time of kegging, the beer was a beautiful straw color with a prominent hazy; truly a “white” IPA! There is a nice citrus and slight clove aroma, along with a delightfully balanced bitterness on the tasting. This beer can only get better from here!

Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout 1.1

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In my second brew for the AHA club night, I’m revisiting my Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout. The beer recipe is pretty much unchanged, with just a touch more flaked oats to round out the body a bit.

Eagle Face Oatmeal Stout

  • 8.5 lbs. 2 row malt (Great Western)
  • 1.25 lbs. flaked oats
  • 1 lb. 80° L crystal malt
  • 1 lb. Victory malt
  • 0.75 lb. chocolate malt
  • 0.5 lb. roasted barley
  • 0.5 lb. rice hulls
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss
  • 1.5 oz. Northern Brewer hops pellets (7.8% alpha, 4.5% beta)
  • 1 pkg. English Ale yeast (White Labs WLP002, 1L starter)
Procedure
  • 24 hours before brewing, I began a 1L starter (4 oz. of extra light DME in 1L water), and ran this on the stir plate. True to the yeast strain (WLP002), the culture was a snowstorm of flocculated yeast by the end.
  • I mashed in with 4.25 gallons of water at 169°, and hit 155-156° for my mash-in temperature. The mash had dropped to 155.4° after 10 minutes and was down to 152.4° after 50 minutes.
  • After 60 minutes, I added 0.5 gallons of 170° water, let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected 3 gallons of wort at ~1.070 gravity. Then, I added 3.25 gallons of water at 180°, which raised the mash bed to 168°. I let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the remainder of the wort.
  • All together, I collected 7.6 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.049. This works out to a mash efficiency of 81%! I suspect I collected only 3 gallons on the first round due to slow draining of the mash tun; the rice hulls were definitely a good addition to this recipe!
  • I brought the wort to a high, rolling boil. After 5 minutes, I added the hops.
  • After 50 minutes, I added the Irish moss.
  • After 60 minutes, the wort gravity was reading ~1.054 on my refractometer, a little bit lower than I wanted. So, I removed the hops (to avoid over-bittering), and boiled for another 15 minutes. This may have overboiled the Irish moss a bit, but I figured that was a small price to pay for hitting my target gravity.
  • After flame-out, I chilled the wort down to 70° using my wort chiller. In the end, I had 6.25 gallons of wort, ~5.75 gallons of which went into the fermenter. Final gravity was 1.061 at 60°. This was nearly exactly at my target of 1.062.
  • I put this in the fermentation chamber, which was set at 66°.

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.2

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Mash on!

Ramping up for the National Homebrewers Association conference, my club is going to be serving our beers at club night! I’ve (perhaps foolishly) agreed to provide three kegs, using some of my more tried-and-true recipes. First out: Gondwana Pale Ale. I’ve made this recipe in two previous iterations, and have modified the grain and hops bill just a touch as my techniques are refined. Additionally, I’ll be using a liquid yeast starter (WLP001) instead of dried yeast (Safeale US-05).

Gondwana Pale Ale 1.2

  • 8.25 lbs. 2-row malt
  • 0.85 lbs. Vienna malt
  • 0.45 lbs. carapils malt
  • 0.45 lbs. crystal 40 malt
  • 1 oz. Citra hops (pellets, 13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), 35 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Citra hops (pellets, 13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), 1 minute boil
  • 2 oz. Citra hops  (pellets, 13.2% alpha, 3.7% beta), dry hop 14 days
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss (boil 10 minutes)
  • 1 pkg. California Ale Yeast (White Labs, WLP001); prepared 24 hours in advance in 1L starter

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 3.185 gallons of water at 164°, nailing 152° on the nose for a mash temperature. This had declined to 151° after 10 minutes and 150.4° after 35 minutes.
  • I added 1.18 gallons of water at 190°, which brought the temperature up to 154°. I let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collcted 3.25 gallons of wort.
  • I added 3.18 gallons of water at 185°, which brought the mash temperature up to 172°. This was a touch high, so I added .125 cups of ice cubes, which brought the temperature down to 165°. I let it sit for another 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected the rest of the wort.
  • All told, I collected 6.95 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.037. This works out to ~72% efficiency. Because my efficiencies have been a touch low the last two batches (compared to the usual 75%+), I rechecked the gap on the rollers on my grain mill. Sure enough, they had slipped out just a touch, so I readjusted them back to 0.039.
  • I brought the wort to a boil and added the first hops charge after 25 minutes (for a 35 minute total boil).
  • I added the Irish moss after 50 minutes of boiling.
  • I added the second hops charge 1 minute before flame-out. At flame out, I removed the “old” hops, left the “new” ones in to steep, and cooled the wort. Once it was down to ~75°, I transferred the wort to the fermenter and pitched the yeast.
  • I have ~5.5 gallons of beer in the carboy, with a gravity of 1.048 (exactly where I was at for my last batch, too!). I’ll be fermenting it at 66°.
  • Within 12 hours after pitching the yeast, fermentation was well under way.
  • I brewed this beer on Saturday, April 11.