House Hefeweizen 1.5 tasting

Wheat beers are a big reason that I got into craft beer in the first place. When I was in college, I remember a friend of mine giving me a bottle of Hoegaarden and saying "this is my favorite beer." The translation being, "when I have a little extra money, I'll buy some of this stuff instead of a 30 rack of Natural Light." I can remember tasting it and being a little perplexed by the tart, yeasty flavor, but liking it. I remember coming home and looking around at local gas stations for the intriguing brew (then with a little bit of my parents' cash in my pocket) and, not being able to find it, settling for a six pack of Miller High Life. I tragically had no idea what a bottle shop or craft beer was at the time.

A few years later I realized that my Saxon Club, a group that I've been a fraternal member for all my life, had the Bavarian variation of wheat beer on tap in the form of Paulaner Hefeweizen. I love Paulaner Hefeweizen. I quickly switched from Warsteiner to Paulaner and eventually found that it was my favorite of the European wheat beers. After discovering home brewing a few years ago, it wasn't long after that I started brewing an attempt at the perfect hefeweizen myself. Rarely will I go a month without brewing a variation of my House Hefeweizen, a recipe I've settled on after brewing a handful of variations.

It's caught on too. I've got a large following amongst my friends and family for hef. It's a great gateway beer - BMC drinkers can tolerate it at first (what else will they drink on tap amongst IIPA, stout, and ESBs), but then come to crave it - and I find total non-beer drinkers are always intrigued by it. My Mom, who never drinks beer, will always pour herself a glass of hefeweizen after mowing the lawn if it's available.

What do I want in my hef? Simple. Apparent malt character - something where I'm able to pick out the bready flavor of a decent Pilsner malt and the sweetness of wheat malt - hefeweizen yeast - banana esters and a touch of clove and bubblegum flavor - a refreshing acidity that makes it great for summer drinking or quenching my thirst, and just a touch of bitterness to balance it. I like a more aggressive banana flavor than the style guidelines call for and have brewed my hefs to accomplish that. 

Last round I throttled back my fermentation temperature to get more within style guidelines with an eye towards the National Homebrewers Conference. I also cut out my decoction mash because of brew day constraints. I still used Safbrew WB-06, which I have come to love at 78-80 degrees fermentation temp, and kept everything the same. Here are the results:

Admire the head. It didn't last long.

Appearance: golden, hazy, yeasty. Just slightly off white color head with very big bubbles. Head recedes in less than a minute.

Smell: juicy fruit with a touch of bread.

Taste: bubblegum, banana, a hint of clove. It's got a nice acidity that I don't think I tasted in earlier batches. 

Mouthfeel: full and creamy. It quickly dissipates making me want to take another sip.

Overall: Solid iteration of hef. The more balanced approach allows the malt flavor to come out more than my more aggressive fermentations did. No discernible mouthfeel difference from my decoction hefs. The head retention is disappointing. I need to tweak the recipe because clearly the decoction does help with head retention. 

Next time? More carapils or maybe a bit of Munich to help with head retention. But I'm enjoying the balance and the fact that I can taste malt. I'm happy with the flavor and can confidently skip the decoction mash, unless I have the time on the brew day. Set the fermenter for 73-74-75. The new name of the game is assertive, but balanced banana yeast ester.

A minute and a sip later.

Adventures in production home brewing part 2

Last week I filtered the session pale ale. Man. "The kit" from The Filter Store worked beyond my expectations. I'm ecstatic that I don't have to deal with paper filters ever again.

If you remember, I brewed the beer, fermented it for 5 days, pitched polyclar finings into it, and crashed it at 38 degrees for two days. Since I ferment in sanke kegs, I installed the sanitized spear in the sanke, applied 5 psi of pressure, then ran the cloudy beer through the filter. The picture below gives you an idea of what the .5 micron filter accomplished. For what it's worth, the finished beer was a bit clearer than the hydrometer jar would let on, as the test draw was still pulling sediment that from the bottom of the keg that ended up clearing out about a half gallon into the transfer.

As I was hoping, I was able to get the entire 10 gallons through the filter without it jamming up. With my paper filters, I was able to get about 6 gallons through one pair of filters.

Pushing from the sanke fermenter, through the filter, and into a sanitized corny keg at 5 psi

The filter during use

Just before backflushing. Look at all the yeast at the bottom.

Backflushing...the filter came back out clear with only 2 visible patches of yeast/residue

Filtered, force carbonated, then bottled. This was about 4 hours later once I was home.

I carbonated the beer by applying 30psi of pressure and shaking the keg for three minutes. Although it was "pouring" perfect drafts, I'm a little worried at how the carbonation level will be once it is in the bottles. It's really hard to tell what the actual carbonation level will turn out to be once it's pushed from the keg through the Blichmann beer gun and into a bottle. I've had best results getting the beer and bottles as cold as possible and pushing the beer as close to 10psi as possible, then capping on foam.

Once again, this is far from how I want to brew every beer, but it was a great exercise in process and equipment. I'm confident in this new filter to use on any batch that I want commercial beer clarity on and can't afford the time to allow the beer to clear via gravity.

How did the beer taste? I saved a bottle, so I will do an in-depth review later. It was tasty though. I did a side by side with the flat beers - pre-filtering and post-filtering - and did not notice a perceptible difference in aroma. This beer was not dry hopped though. More volatile dry hop aroma and flavor is where I would be most worried that I'd lose out. The flavor was much cleaner than the pre-filtered sample, as would be expected.

The plan worked: a tasty beer that accomplished what I needed it to, brewed, fermented, fined, filtered, carbonated, and bottled in 7 days.

Adventures in production home brewing

I over promised beer. Again. It happens. This time it isn't a constraint of quantity or capacity, but rather time.

It was on Wednesday of last week that I realized I had a situation on my hands. I committed to brewing some beer for a event later this month. Unfortunately, I didn't take into account that I'd be out of the country for a week, pretty much blowing a giant hole into the conditioning, racking, and packaging period for the planned beer - a pale ale. I'd need to get the beer brewed, fermented, carbonated and packaged within 7 days.

I brewed on a Friday night and adjusted the recipe to account for the complete lack of conditioning time. Out of necessity this would be a very sessionable pale ale at 1.042 OG. In addition to 2-row, I used some extra grain that I had laying around: the last of a bag of C40, some Victory malt, and a pound of Carapils. For the hop bill, I rummaged through my freezer for hops with distinctive tropical flavor that might open the minds of the typical "that's too bitter" crowd. And I dosed my water with my go to pale, hoppy beer treatment for Warren, OH water: more gypsum than calcium chloride and a ml or two of lactic acid.

Since I wouldn't be able to dry hop it, I dumped a ton of hops into the knockout addition and used a 30 minute whirlpool steep at 180 degrees to get fresh flavor and aroma in the beer.

The result was surprisingly good. I sampled the beer on 1/14/2014 hoping that it would be fermented out completely after four days. The taste did not disappoint: it was dripping with grapefruit and tropical flavor from the Galaxy and Apollo whirlpool steep. But, it was still 10 points above the target FG. I let it sit for one more day then pitched 10g of Polyclar VT and loaded it up in the cooler where it would crash cool and prepare for conditioning. I've never used Polyclar before, but figured this was a perfect time to give it a shot. It would be fine for vegetarians, has a larger particle size to facilitate quick flocculation, and would be filtered out of the final product. The product specs say to allow 3-10 days for it to work. I've got 2.5. Given that I see gelatin work in 2 days, I don't see why the PVPP won't make a difference in that time frame.

For filtering, I recently picked up a beer filter kit from www.filterstore.com. I like the idea of a reusable cartridge filter rather than paper plate filters, which I haven't had good results with. That being said, I am a little worried that the .5 micron filter will strip out the delicate hop character that I achieved with late addition hops.We will see.

After 2.5 days of cold crashing, I plan on filtering this beer, force carbonating it, then bottling it. In one night. I don't know what to expect, but I've got a plan and frankly, not a lot of other options.

While I wish the process could have been less rushed with this beer, there's something exciting about being pressured to produce a quality product under the gun. I'm confident the beer will be good. At the same time, I'd be lying if I didn't say it the whole thing wasn't a carefully executed experiment of necessity.

Space monkey. Ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

We'll see how this guy works.

Recipe: Late Night Session Pale Ale

Brewer: Adam Keck
Date: 1/10/2014
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Estimated OG: 1.043 SG
Estimated Color: 5.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 39.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 81.8 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
10.00 g               Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent   1        -             
5.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   2        -             
14 lbs                Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)           Grain         3        84.8 %        
1 lbs                 Caramel Malt - 40L (Briess) (40.0 SRM)   Grain         4        6.1 %         
1 lbs                 Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM)              Grain         5        6.1 %         
8.0 oz                Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SR Grain         6        3.0 %         
1.00 oz               Bravo [15.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min          Hop           7        33.9 IBUs     
0.55 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)              Fining        8        -             
1.00 oz               Bravo [15.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min           Hop           9        5.7 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Apollo [17.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool  -30. Hop           10       0.0 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Galaxy [14.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool  -30. Hop           11       0.0 IBUs      
1.50 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min      Hop           12       0.0 IBUs      
2.0 pkg               Safale American  (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)  Yeast         13       -             


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 16 lbs 8.0 oz
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Saccharification  Add 20.62 qt of water at 161.4 F        150.0 F       60 min        
Mash Out          Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min             168.0 F       10 min        

Sparge: Fly sparge with 10.32 gal water at 168.0 F