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Decided to live tweet today’s #homebrew session. Why? Why not. Today I’m making a hoppy kölsch ale that was inspired by @trilliumbrewing beer called Sprang. Let’s start. #homebrew #craftbeer #kcbeer #kolsch #hops Thread
The first step is to heat the water up to 150F. My mash temperature is 149F so when I add the grains, the temperature of the water will decrease slightly. While I’m doing this, I will weigh and mill my grains.—>
Grain bill: 80% Pilsner malt, 8% malted rye, 4% acid malt, 4% carapils, 4% rice hulls. My target abv is about 4.8%, this is about 12 lbs of grain. I’ll then mill the grains to expose the husks using a grain mill and a handheld drill. —>
I need to activate my yeast, it’s a kölsch yeasr. @Wyeastlab makes these yeast activator packs where you simply smack the side to release the yeast packed to the nutrient. The packet should swell up in a couple of hours.
My grain is milled and now I’ll add it to my brew basket. This method of brewing is called brew in a bag or BIAB. It considerably decreases the time spend brewing and equipment to clean, but you operate at reduced efficiency. Some homebrewers will disagree with me on this pt.
The water is at the target temperature, time to add the grains to the water and connect the central infusion line to the tubing that’s connected to the pump. This will recirculate the hot water to extract the sugar from the grains, this creates the wort.
Now all I have to do is wait about 90 minutes for the mash to complete. But am I just going to sit around and do nothing during this time? No, we have to clean and sanitize the fermenter and other equipment.
I used a dilute acid based sanitizer (five star star San), mixed 1 oz concentrate to 5 gallons water.
Fermenter was already clean but I still need to sanitize it. I have a keg/carboy washer that does the job really well.
Let’s check in on the mash. Looks like I’m at my target pre boil gravity. I’m heating to 168F for a mash out. This step stops all the enzyme action and preserves the sugar profile. Many home brewers debate whether step is needed, but I’ve always done it.
Mashout is complete. Now I remove the basket that contains the grains from the kettle using an electric winch. The liquid in the grain bed will fall into the kettle. I want to collect as much liquid as possible. Meanwhile the kettle is heating to a boil.
We have a boil! This is also where I will my first of two hop additions. The longer you boil hops, the more bitter your beer will be. Boil time is 60 minutes.
Here are the hops I’m adding. For bittering I’m adding CTZ hop extract that I prefer for bittering hops only. I’m also going to add Nelson Sauvin (New Zealand) and citra (USA) hops with 5 minutes left in the boil. These two hop varieties are among my favorite.
5 minute hop addition. On yeah! I’ll get the chiller hooked up and ready to go for the final step.
The boil is done, the temperature of the wort has to be reduced so we can pitch the yeast. If we pitch the yeast when the wort is too hot, we will kill the yeast and then we won’t have beer. I use a counterflow chiller that makes quick work of this.
The temperature was reduced to about 120F and I’m going to whirlpool for about 10 minutes. This keeps the hops sediment in the brew kettle and out of my fermenter. It also aerates my wort for when the yeast are added.
Wort chilled and transferred to the fermenter. I also took an original gravity reading and was spot on target: 1.048.
I aerated the wort some more and added the yeast. One packet of yeast is 100 billion cells which is enough for ferment 5 gallons of a 1.060 beer. I have 1.048, but slightly more volume. I’ll be OK.
Beer is in the fermenter and the temperature control is on.
I want to ferment this at about 15.5c or 60F. Now the part that everyone hates....cleaning. You can see the kettle has a ton of hop sediment from the whirlpool. I clean most of my equipment with an alkaline wash..PBW.
I want to ferment this at about 15.5c or 60F. Now the part that everyone hates....cleaning. You can see the kettle has a ton of hop sediment from the whirlpool. I clean most of my equipment with an alkaline wash..PBW.
Still cleaning up the brew kettle, chiller, and the brew room. There is always something to clean. I have a @Baronbrew tilt hydrometer so I can monior fermentation temp and gravity over time. Also here is a shot of the brew kettle temperate history.
That brings this thread to a close. Thanks to all that spent your Sunday with me during these strange and difficult times. I’m going to enjoy some beer I brewed a few weeks ago: a New England style IPA brewed with galaxy (Australia), citra and Amarillo (USA). Cheers!
H/T to @BryanHeit and @fusepark for advice on brewing with rye. I had no problems. Fermenter was from @SpikeBrewing, hops @YakimaHops, grain @MoreBeer_B3 , system @BrewBoss1, @Baronbrew hydrometer, yeast @Wyeastlab, @homebrewfinds for good deals on equipment. #homebrew #kcbeer
