joshbrews.com
Linux and Beer Brews

While I was brewing yesterday, I was listening to random mp3’s through jinzora. The song Full Throttle by Prodigy came on. It so reminded me of the following Strong Bad e-mail clip.

Just checked on the brew. It is starting to bubble. There is still a lot of yeast sitting on the top. Signs of foam starting to come through the yeast layer. Freezer temp 71F.

No bubbles being made, however there is a nice looking colony of yeast forming on the top of the wort. Should start bubbling in a few hours. Bumped the temp of the freezer up to 70F @ 8:30 AM (Almost 2 hours ago). I forgot to set it last night to tis temp. Had I done this, it may have already been bubbling.

Brewing is completed.

Sparge water was made of half treated tap water and half distilled water. 1.5 tsp of PH 5.2 stabilizer was added to the sparge water, then the water was brought up to 175F for sparging.

Began sparge by topping up mash with 1 quart of water then stirring. 8 quarts were recirculated to get wort to clear. SG was [email protected]. After all the wort was run off, topped up again with water and stirred. Let rest for 10 mins. 4 quarts were recirculated to get wort to clear. SG was [email protected]. Dumped remaining water into mash and stirred (was about 2/3 quarts short). Let rest for 10 mins. 3 quarts were recirculated to get wort to clear. SG was 1.021@88F.

Total Collected was 10.5 quarts. Final SG pre boil was [email protected]. Mash efficiency was 78%.

Boil was normal and followed recipe listed. Yeast nutrient was prepared according to Wyeast instructions. 1 gallon boiled off leaving 1.5 gallons(should have added a gallon of water for boil off). At flame out wort was placed into an Ice bath for 30 mins, then transfered to the carboy. Refrigerated water (2 gallons distilled, 1 gallon spring and 1 gallon treated tap) was added to make up the initial 5.5 gallons. Hot break was allowed to settle, then wort was transfered off hot break. Yeast was prepared according to the instructions on the package (while waiting for hot break to settle), then pitched after wort was transfered off hot break. SG was 1.044@68F(1.045 corrected) 5 Gallons total. Carboy was placed into fermentation freezer and thermostat was set to 64F.

I decided to make another bitter ale. Can you tell I like this style of beer yet? Recipe is as follows.

Mash
2.00 lb Maris Otter Grain
2.00 lb Pale Malt, Muntons Grain
0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine Grain
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 120L Grain
0.25 lb Wheat, Flaked Grain

Begin Boil (75 min)
3.30 lb LME Pilsen Light (Briess) (68 min)
1.00 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent (60 min)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent (15 min)
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (10.0 min)
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (10 min)
0.25 lb Turbinado Sugar (10 min)
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50%] (2 min)
1 Pkgs (11g) Nottingham (Danstar) Ale Yeast

Prepared mash water by adding 0.75 tsp gypsum to 4 gallons of tap water and boiling for 25 minutes. Pot of water was then placed into a 7 gallon bucket with water circulating from the water hose to get the temp down a bit. Temp settled down to 110F after 30 mins. This precipitated out a lot of calcium carbonate (due to Temporary hardness). This is necessary due to the hardness of the local water and the amount of bicarbonates dissolved in the water (Wells that supply the local water, range from 150 to 400 ppm hardness) .

The 5.9 quarts of mash water was made of half 2.95 quarts treated tap water (See above) and 2.95 quarts distilled water. .875 tsp of PH5.2 stabilizer was added to water. Mash water was brought up to a temp of 170F and added to 4.75 lbs of grains. Temp settled at 155F. Mash time was 90 Minutes with stirring at 30 min intervals. Mash Tun was covered with 4 towels to insulate it. After 60 minutes mash temp was at 146F. At the 90 min mark temp of mash was at 142F.

The last few Bottles of this brew that I have had do not taste like they are infected. I may have interpreted the extreme hop flavor with something else like an infection. They have mellowed some with age, and are not half bad now.

I know that wheat beers should taste best a few weeks from bottling, but this one is tasting better now that it has had almost 8 weeks in the bottle. It still tastes malty and too sweet though.

I got tired of dealing with the local HBS. They have a nice selection at their store, but the proprietors have the personality of a rotting lump of hamburger. I got tired of being treated like shit when I spend my money. Sooo…I purchased a Barley Crusher grain mill. This thing runs sweet. I filled the hopper with Maris Otter and started cranking.. after about a minute I hooked up the drill.

I crushed 8 lbs of MO in less than 2 minutes. It would have been faster if I had hooked up the drill to begin with. I did not make any adjustments to the gap setting on the crusher. the roller gap is still set to .039 in/1mm. The crush came out much better than I have ever used before. I can’t wait to brew on Saturday.