This is Not a Lambic

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Nick Ladd

This is not a pipe. – Magritte

This is not a Lambic. Many folks would call this beer a ‘pseudo-Lambic’ (pLambic), but I’m not a fan of the term. What is clear, however, is that this is the beginning of a new tradition of wild fermentation for my homebrewery.

Traditionally, Belgian Gueuze is produced by blending portions of 3-, 2-, and 1-year old Lambic. My aim with this project is to create a similar beer, using a similar recipe and methodology, while using cultured microorganisms. With some luck, this beer will become the 3-year-old aged component of a Gueuze-like blend. Of course, there are differences. Foremost, my beer is not fermented spontaneously with microbes resident in my brewery; I live way too close to the Gowanus Canal to do that. Instead, I am relying on a blend of both yeast and lactic acid bacteria produced by Wyeast and then splitting the fermentation into secondary fermenters containing a variety of cultured commercial ‘bugs’.

Aged hops were acquired from Hops Direct and used in the boil. They were quite … cheesy.

Odd looking gray goop leftover in the mash tun, a result of the turbid mash.

For this beer, I am using a very traditional blend of raw unmalted wheat and pilsner malt. I undertook a traditional turbid mash which, in a nutshell, involves pulling liquid from the mash, boiling it, and then returning it to the mash in order to hit specific temperatures. By boiling the thin portion of the mash (as opposed to the thick portion in decoction brewing), you end up denaturing a large portion of enzymes and creating a starch-filled ‘turbid’ wort. All of this is done with the intent of creating a very dextrinous wort providing fuel for the extended fermentation that this beer will undergo.

Recipe

Size: 4.25 gal
Efficiency: 74%
Attenuation: 90% (predicted)

Original Gravity: 1.047 SG
Terminal Gravity: 1.005 SG (predicted)
Color: 3.43 SRM
Alcohol: 5.58% SBV (predicted)
Bitterness: 0.0 IBU

Ingredients:
5 lb (64.5%) Belgian Pils (Castle)
2.5 lb (32.3%) Wheat Raw (Rahr)
4 oz (3.2%) Acidulated Malt (Weyermann)

3.25 oz AGED Cascade (0% AA) – added during boil, boiled 90 m
0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 m
0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10 m

1 ea WYeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend™

Turbid Mash:

113.0 °F – 10m
136.0 °F – 5m
150.0 °F – 30m
162.0 °F – 20m
167.0 °F – 20m
175 °F – 10m

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 70°F and keep at 70°F until activity slows (1 week+).
2. Raise temp to 75°F 3 days

Secondary:
1. Rack to (3) 1-gallon glass jugs
2. Inoculate with (3) different cultures:

a. Cultured Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus
b. Cultured Russian River Beatification
c. Cultured Tilquin Gueuze

Three cultures are being stepped up and added into separate secondary fermenters.

Pumpkin Beer – Brewday and Recipe

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Nick Ladd

2 Sugar Pumpkins were heavily roasted yielded about 3 pounds of sweet pumpkin meat.

2 sugar pumpkins were heavily roasted yielding about 3 pounds of sweet pumpkin meat that was pulverized and added to the mash.

Update: You can find a full review of this beer, here.

People seem to either love pumpkin beers, or love to hate them. Craft beer drinkers consume them in quantity each fall while a certain segment of ‘beer geeks’ gleefully rant about their disdain for the style and write them off as a trend (oh, the irony). Having been part of this latter group, I can confidently say that my tune has changed. In particular, I look forward to the yearly ritual of consuming high gravity samples like Elysian’s ‘Great Pumpkin’ and the signal of fall these beers represent.

Many craft pumpkin beers feature in-your-face spicing paired with a big residual sweetness. For this beer, I am shooting for something a bit different. While malt-forward, the focus is on toasty bready notes, and less on sweet caramel. This beer features low-spicing — hopefully allowing the heavily roasted pumpkin to shine through. The goal of combining a Maris Otter base with biscuit and honey malts was to produce a graham cracker like character, similar to what is found in pie crust.

Recirculating for mashout. Very nice orange color.

Recirculating for mashout. The malt bill and pumpkin produced a very nice orange color.

Recipe

Size: 2.75 gal
Efficiency: 70%
Attenuation: 72.0% (projected)

Original Gravity: 1.086 SG (Actually hit 1.077 due to pour efficiency)
Terminal Gravity: 1.024 SG (projected)
Color: 16.26 SRM
Alcohol: 8.2% ABV (projected)
Bitterness: 27.9 (projected)

Ingredients:
6.25 lb (65.4%) Maris Otter (Crisp)
1.3125 lb (13.7%) Munich TYPE II (Weyermann)
8 oz (5.2%) Biscuit Malt (Dingeman)
8 oz (5.2%) Flaked Oats (Briess)
6 oz (3.9%) Crystal 45 (Crisp)
6 oz (3.9%) Honey Malt (Gambrinus)
4 oz (2.6%) Belgian Caravienne (Belgian)
3 lb Roasted Sugar Pumpkin

8 g (100.0%) Magnum (14.5%) – added during boil, boiled 90 m
0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 m
0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10 m

1 ea Cinnamon (Stick) – Whirlpool 10m
.125 tsp Clove (whole) – Whirlpool 10m
.125 tsp Nutmeg (ground) – Whirlpool 10m

WYeast 1056 American Ale™
1 ea Vanilla Bean Soaked in Bourbon (1 bean in 2 oz. bourbon) – Secondary

Mash:
120 °F – 5m (Beta Glucan)
154 °F – 60m (Saccarification)
168 °F – 10m (Mashout)

Yeast Starter:
Final Volume into Fermenter = 2.25 Gallons
Yeast Required = 132 billion (per Mr. Malty)
Yeast Production Date: 8/16/13
Yeast Starter = 1L @ 1.040 on stir plate (per Mr. Malty) = 4 1/8oz. DME

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 60* F and keep at 62* F until activity slows (1 week+).
2. Raise temp to 70*F 2 days
3. Crash to 32*F 5 days

Homebrew Czech Pils vs. Pilsner Urquell

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Nick Ladd

The wait is over. Five weeks after my brewday, it was time to tap my keg of Czech Pils and give it a shot. Instead of doing a standard BJCP review of this beer, I’m going to compare and contrast it against a common beer that most people know and have readily available, Pilsner Urquell.

Pilsner Urquell on the left, homebrew on the right.

Aroma:
Both beers have a nice, mildly spicy Saaz hop aroma that melds nicely with the touch of residual sulfur from the lager yeast. The Saaz hops are not as present in my beer as I would have thought considering the large hop back charge they were given. There is an unfortunate touch of mango-like hop aroma in my beer — probably attributable to bittering with Citra hops and in spite of the 90 minutes which they were boiled. The Urquell has some honey-like, candied malt aromas not present in my beer, along with a touch of butterscotchy diacetyl.

Appearance:
Claritywise, both beers are nearly identical — brilliantly clear. Both have nice bright white heads, with the homebrew out-persisting the commercial beer. Both are golden with the Urquell being a hair darker.

Flavor:
The biggest difference between the two beers is in bitterness. My homebrew is considerably more bitter and is much more similar in balance to something like Victory Prima Pils. The malt character is nearly identical, although the Urquell is rounder and slightly sweeter. Again, the hops in my beer are slightly tropical which doesn’t fit the style.

Mouthfeel:
Both beers feature similar medium bodies, although my beer is slightly more carbonated, giving it a sharpness the Urquell doesn’t have.

Overall:
Both are great beers. My beer almost comes off as a German Pils with its aggressive bittering and lack of soft malt. Straight out of the fridge, I prefer the Urquell because it isn’t as sharp and has a nicer almost sweet malt character. As the beers warm, the diacetyl in the Urquell comes to the forefront and is a bit off-putting, making me prefer the homebrew.

A Tale of Three Saisons (with Brett)

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Nick Ladd

Intent. In food, beer, architecture, art, everything — a clear vision is key to truly honing your craft.

Along those same lines, I’ve gotten to the point where the intent of most batches transcends beyond simply creating something delicious to consume. I feel like each batch needs to serve a broader purpose, specifically, learning about the impact of various ingredient choices and processes.

1-gallon each of Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, Brettanomyces Lambicus, and cultured Crooked Stave Surette inoculated saison.

The intent of this beer is to see how citrusy American hops meld with various strains of Brettanomyces. Specifically, I’ve taken a pretty typical saison recipe, tweaked the fermentability of the wort by creating a higher proportion of long-chain sugars to be consumed during a secondary Brett fermentation, and hopped it to higher levels using American varietals. I am using the notoriously fickle Dupont strain which is nice and fruity, but painfully slow — something that will work well with a super-attenuative Brett strain.

Inoculating with cultured Crooked Stave Surette microbes.

Inoculating with secondary microbes.

The base beer was allowed to ferment with Wyeast 3724 until approximately 54% apparent attenuation was achieved (about 3 weeks) before being transferred into secondary 1-gallon fermenters, where each beer was dosed with different bugs:

White Labs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis
White Labs Brettanomyces Lambicus
Cultured Crooked Stave Surette (cocktail of Brett, Lacto, etc.)

With some luck, in about 6-10 months I’ll have bottles of each variety ready for consumption.

The Recipe

Size: 4.54 gal
Efficiency: 72%
Attenuation: 94.0%

Original Gravity: 1.055
Terminal Gravity: 1.003 (Projected)
Color: 5.32 SRM
Alcohol: 6.24% ABV
Bitterness: 16.4 IBU (Calculated but doesn’t account for whirlpool isomerization)

Ingredients:
7 lb (76.7%) Pilsner Malt (Dingemans)
1 lb (11.0%) Munich 10L Malt (Briess)
1 lb (11.0%) White Wheat Malt (Briess)
2 oz (1.4%) Acidulated Malt (Best Malz)

8 g (5.7%) Citra™ (14.1%) – added during boil, boiled 60 m
20 g (14.1%) Citra™ – WHIRLPOOL (14.1%)
1 oz (20.0%) Simcoe® – WHIRLPOOL (13.0%)
2 oz (40.1%) Citra™ Leaf – HOP BACK (13.8%)
1 oz (20.0%) Centennial Leaf – HOP BACK (10.0%)

0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 15 m
0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10 m

1 ea WYeast 3724 Belgian Saison™

Mash:
60m – 152 °F
10m – 168 °F

Notes:
Final Volume into Fermenter = 3.5 Gallons
Yeast Required = 125 billion (per Mr. Malty)
Yeast Production Date: 6/26/13
Yeast Starter = 1L @ 1.040 on stir plate (per Mr. Malty) = 4 1/8oz. DME

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 66* F and allow to free rise to room temp (high 70’s)
2. Keep at room temp until fermentation stops
3. Rack to (3) 1-gallon purged FVs and Pitch Secondary Cultures

Secondary Fermentation:
Rack to 3 separate 1 Gallon FVs.
Pitch with (3) different cultures:
1. Brett Bruxellensis (Whitelabs)
2. Brett Lambicus (Whitelabs)
3. Crooked Stave Surette Culture

Brettanomyces Pitching Rate:
White Labs Brett Vial: 50 million / ml
(Per White Labs FAQ: http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp650-brettanomyces-bruxellensis)

Target Secondary Pitch = 20,000 / ml / degree plato (0.02 million / ml / degrees plato)

12.62 plato X 3785 ml (1 gallon) x 20,000 = 955,334,000 (0.95 billion)

Pitch 19.1 ml of slurry from each vial into one gallon

Reactive Brewing – Czech Pils Brewday and Recipe

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Nick Ladd

Hop Union Czech Saaz leaf hops packaged in one ounce nitrogen purged opaque bags.

Most of the time, brewdays go smoothly; there can be a zen-like dance between brewer, equipment, and ingredients where all marks are hit, stress is minimized, and all is right in the brew-world. This was not one of those days. Learning how to react to the variables thrown at you during the course of a brewday and making intelligent reactions is critical to becoming a better brewer. No matter how much preparation goes into your brewing, things happen; your reactions determine what impact unexpected variables will have on the final beer.

Before I get into the brewday shenanigans, let’s talk about why I’m brewing a Czech Pils.

Blichmann Hop Rocket inline between the pump and plate chiller.

First and foremost, Czech Pils is delicious – enough said. Czech Pils also happens to be a clean, hop-forward lager that showcases the Saaz hop. This style would serve as the perfect platform for testing out my new toy – a Blichmann Hop Rocket. This contraption acts as a hop back, sitting in-line on the hot side between pump and chiller. This allows you to run hot wort through a bed of leaf hops and then chill almost immediately. It prevents too much trub from getting into the chiller, but more importantly gives another opportunity to push hop aroma and flavor into your beer. For this recipe, I am specifically interested in seeing how much and what kind of hop character the hop back provides. In formulating the hop bill for this recipe, there is a singular bittering charge with everything else going into the hop back post-boil. I can be reasonably confident that any hop aroma or flavor can be primarily attributed to the hop back addition.

The Brewday

Living on the edge, boiling 4.5-gallons in a 5-gallon kettle.

Problem 1: Yeast Selection
My problems started three days before the scheduled brewday when I went to pick up ingredients at my local homebrew shop. The recipe I developed originally called for Wyeast 2001- Urquell Lager. Unfortunately, my local shop didn’t have this strain in stock. A quick look at Wyeast’s web site led me to select Wyeast 2278 – Czech Pils as a back up. Luck would have it that they had this in stock, but the packs were 5 months old. The brew shop offered to give me a second pack at no cost, but adding yeast that old to a delicate lager was not an idea I wanted to entertain. I finally ended up selecting Wyeast 2124 – Bohemian Lager. This strain is the work horse used in most commercial lager around the world, and should work well for my beer. Best of all, the pack was only a week old. The lesson to take away is that when it comes to yeast, I’d rather compromise on strain selection and get the freshest yeast I can, rather than risk using yeast that likely has low viability – especially when brewing a lager.

Hop back fully loaded with 2 oz. Czech Saaz hops.

Problem 2: Where’d my Volume Go?
My mash went perfect; all temperatures and steps were hit. The problem occurred when I transferred everything to my kettle. When I measured my pre-boil volume I was about 0.7 gallons short of my target. My initial reaction was to start heating water to add back to my mash tun and collect more runnings. Stepping back and pausing for a moment, I decided to measure the gravity of the runnings I had collected in order to calculate how much sugar I had already extracted. It turned out that while my volume was low, I had the right amount of sugar in solution to hit my projected target gravity. To correct the problem, all I needed to do was simply top up my kettle to the projected pre-boil volume. To avoid this problem in the future, I plan to recalculate my mash tun dead space to better hit my projected volumes.

Spent hops in hop back.

Problem 3: Cheesy Saaz Hops
For this recipe, I was working with two lots of Saaz hops that I had acquired from two different shops. The first leaf hops were sealed in clear vacuum bags that had been broken down by the brew shop into smaller lots, and were noticeably brown. The second set of hops were sealed in nitrogen purged Hop Union opaque bags. Since the hops in the clear bags didn’t look great, I had planned to use them to bitter the beer and use the Hop Union sealed hops in the hop back. Once I opened the clear bag hops of dubious provenance, it became clear that they had tell-tale oxidized hop smell of cheese / stinky feet. There was no way I could use these hops in a beer, even for bittering. With the aid of brewing software, I was able to replace the 2 ounces of cheesy Saaz bittering hops with 12 grams of Citra hops; the only other hop I had on hand. This is an extremely unconventional hop to use in a Czech Pils, but in a pinch it should work. There may be some residual American hop character in the background, but I find that preferable to an oxidized hop character.

Problem 4: The Hop Back Drank All My Work
My boil went well. I knew based on the Hop Rocket’s design that it would be difficult to determine how much wort the leaf hops would absorb, and how much wort would be trapped in the Hop Rocket canister. As it turns out, I lost about a half-gallon of wort within the hop back. This lost volume will be taken into account for future beer formulations that use the hop back.

Problem 5: Warm Ground Water
We’ve been riding a heat wave here in Brooklyn with high humidity and temperatures in the mid-90’s. Consequently our ground water has warmed considerably. Even with completely throttling down the wort flow rate through my plate chiller, I was only able to get the wort down to 68° F. With lagers, I like to pitch around 46° F and ferment 48-50° F. After running the wort through my chiller I placed it in my fermentation fridge to bring it down to 46° F before oxygenating and pitching yeast. This took about 4 hours, but should help ensure a clean lager fermentation.

The Recipe

Size: 3.25 gal
Efficiency: 72% (Measured)
Attenuation: 77% (Projected)

Original Gravity: 1.052 (Measured)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (Projected)
Color: 5.09 SRM
Alcohol: 5.24% (Projected)
Bitterness: 48.4 IBUs

Ingredients:
6.5 lb (91.2%) Bohemian Pilsner Malt (Weyermann)
6 oz (5.3%) Cara-Pils® Malt (Briess)
2 oz (1.8%) Melanoidin Malt (Weyermann)
2 oz (1.8%) Acidulated Malt (Weyermann) – Added for pH Correction

90m       1 oz (29.2%) Czech Saaz Leaf (Hop Union Flushed Bag) (2.4% AA)
90m       12 g (12.4%) Citra™ Pellets (14.1% AA)
15m       0.5 ea Whirlfloc Tablets
10m       0.5 tsp Wyeast Nutrient
0m          2 oz (58.4%) Czech Saaz (Hop Union Flushed Bags) (2.4% AA) – Hop Back

WYeast 2124 Bohemian Lager™

Original Gravity 1.052

Mash Regiment:
10m       147 °F
50m       153 °F
10m       168 °F

Notes:
Final Volume into Fermenter = 2.75 Gallons
Yeast Required = 200 billion (per Mr. Malty)
Yeast Production Date: 7/1/13
Yeast Starter = 1L @ 1.040 on stir plate (per Mr. Malty). Use 1300ml Starter (5.5 oz DME)

Fermentation:
1. Chill to 46* F and keep at 48°F until activity slows (1 week+).
2. Raise temp to 58°F 3 days
3. Crash to 32°F and lager 21 days