Double Brew, Deep Into the Night

It's not often that laziness lets me down.

But it sure did this past Sunday when, still in the midst of shaking off the previous night's indulgences and waffling over whether I actually felt like brewing, early- and mid-afternoon came and went before I pulled my act together and got moving on a double-batch brew I'd been planning for a while. (And one that, otherwise, would have had to wait until the new year.)

So it was dreary, drizzly and dimming as my strike water heated up, and the mash was conducted under cover of dark:

Well behind schedule already, things weren't about to improve. The mash temperature came in lower than planned, and it took several boiling-water infusions to bring it up. After the sparge, more time was chewed up bringing all this extra volume to a boil – I finally got action just shy of 8 o'clock. And of course, all that liquid meant a longer chilling time than my usual five-gallon affairs.

The yeast were pitched after 10 p.m. and cleanup didn't wrap until close to 11:30. But, as always, any fatigue or annoyance had been largely supplanted in importance by that sense of accomplishment and excited anticipation (colored with a tinge of anxious uncertainty) that comes from having fresh wort in the fermenter, ready for magic to be done upon it.

On top of its nocturnal novelty, this batch was special for its experimental nature. Using the same grain bill and hopping schedule, I split the 11-plus gallons of wort in two for purposes of making two entirely different beers: One, a Kolsch fermented with White Labs WLP029; the other a Belgian Blonde Ale using WLP530.

To account for the higher original gravity and simple-sugar addition employed in the making of Belgian Blondes, I had pulled off about two quarts of wort most of the way through the boil and added to that 1.25 pounds of sucrose (table sugar). That was chilled and added to the Belgian wort as I drained the kettle. Other than that and the yeast strains, the worts were identical: in total, 17.5 pounds of Pilsner malt; 1.5 pounds of Munich; 26-ish IBUs from Magnum hops; and another 0.75 ounces of Santium hops at 10 minutes for the heck of it.

Both batches are now fermenting away happily. The Kolsch (left) is puffing along at around 62 degrees; the Belgian at closer to 66, though I have plans to let that warm up.

Time and tastebuds will determine whether this little experiment was worthwhile. The upshot is twice as much beer for not much more work; the risk is winding up with 10 or more gallons of substandard stuff. This was not my first (nor my second) double-sized batch, but ordinarily I stick to single-fermenter brew days. But then, I also tend to stick with brew days as opposed to nights. Though it would suit my laziness, for the sake of everything else let's hope darkness doesn't prove to be any kind of magic ingredient.

Update: Kölsch recipe and evaluation

Vienna Golden

For two reasons, in late April I realized it was time to brew something light and simple. One: the Columbia summer can get blazingly hot; even Natty Light doesn't do the trick all the time. And two: I had lots of folks (out-of-towners included) headed my way for a big party, so something more "agreeable" to mainstream palates was in order.

I settled on what you'd classify as a Blonde Ale. The recipe:

OG 1.054 FG 1.009
ABV 5.9% AA 83.3%
IBUs 22 SRM 6

100% Pacific Northwest Vienna

17.6 IBUs Magnum – 60 mins.
0.25 oz. Mt. Hood – 20 mins.
0.25 oz. Mt. Hood – 10 mins.

US-05 Chico yeast

Mashed at 149 degrees; fermented at ~60 degrees for seven days. The beer was then kegged.

I went with all Vienna malt to get a little more malty complexity than simple two-row pale would offer. Besides, no better way to get to know an ingredient than to feature it exclusively, and I had recently bought a sack of Vienna.

The calendar was not my friend – party guests were bearing down – and hence this beer was rushed through primary, through cold-conditioning, through carbonating and hastily offered up on tap. As a consequence, it was pretty green off the bat, especially considering the higher-than-expected original gravity and alcohol content (I was anticipating a lower mash efficiency; and how about that attenuation).

Two and a half months since it was rushed to the keg, the Vienna Golden is, happily, doing better.

It pours a clear deep golden color with a white, fleeting head. As with other light beers I've brewed, I'm pleased with the clarity I get from nothing more than whirlfloc (when I can remember to add it – I don't know if I did for this batch or not) and cold-conditioning. The beer is clear enough to read through.

On the nose, faint esters and a touch of cracker malt. It's not entirely as clean as I might prefer in this kind of beer, but on the other hand extra fermentables plus ale yeast are liable to do that for you.

The flavor is crisp, with notes of fruity/rosy esters plus a pale maltiness. Again, it's fruitier than I like my blonde summer quaffers to be, even though, yes, it's an ale. But I've had cleaner-fermented ales in my day. The body is medium with a smooth bitterness that lasts through a dry finish into the aftertaste, where a gentle lingering bitterness predominates.

Lessons learned? Don't get bamboolzed again on mash efficiency, and plan far enough ahead to let the sucker clean itself up and mature properly prior to packaging and serving. Something tells me the Columbia heat will offer plenty of chances for another crack.

Blonde Ale

Simple, gorgeous and satisfying. Who doesn't love a blonde?

Blonde Ale, that is – what did you think I meant??

This easy style makes for a nice, uncomplicated quaffer, which also makes it a good tool for initiating those who consider "Bud Heavy" branching out. At the same time, there's enough going on here to keep beer geeks from turning up their noses. Better still, of course, the homebrewer is free to do as he pleases in concocting the Blonde of his dreams.

In my case, this golden beauty was conceived with a number of purposes in mind. First, of course, was to have something light and drinkable on hand. Second was to get some yeast going from a Wyeast smack pack I had just purchased. Third was to use up some hop leftovers I had on hand. And fourth, an ancillary objective, was to do a little experiment of sorts with some other yeast I had on hand – more on that in a second.

The stats:

OG 1.046 FG 1.011
ABV 4.6% AA 75.4%
IBUs 30 SRM 3

100% Canadian two-row
0.28 lbs light dry malt extract*

11 IBUs Simcoe – 55 mins
9 IBUs Newport – 55 mins
5 IBUs Cascade – 55 mins
0.4 oz Mt. Hood – 20 mins
0.4 oz Mt. Hood – flameout

Wyeast 2450 "Denny's Favorite 50"

* for starter; pitched along with yeast

I fermented this at about 65°. It was around 18 days from brew day to keg, with several days' worth of crash-cooling in there. About two weeks of carbonating/cold conditioning was all I had the patience for before tapping.

This beer is a pale golden color with a nice white head. The clarity has continued to improve with time; it's now just about crystal clear. There's not too much on the nose except a light floral note and some fruitiness that I take to be yeast-derived. (This was my first time working with this yeast, a strain noted in homebrew circles for its association with the even-more-famed Denny Conn, who donated some of his club's stash to Wyeast for this limited release.)

Flavor-wise, this beer is light and uncomplicated, with a touch of fruitiness as previewed by the nose. The mouthfeel is soft and smooth, the finish increasingly bitter from the above-style 30 IBUs.

In general, I do not care for much fruitiness in my beers, and this is particularly so in lighter styles, where there is less to hide behind. As such, I'm guessing I'd prefer this beer more with a cleaner yeast, like US-o5. But that's OK – as I said, this beer was as much about growing some yeast for larger subsequent batches as anything else.

This Blonde Ale was actually only half of a double batch. Into the other half I pitched White Labs 400, a Witbier yeast. I had some slurry on hand and I wanted to see how this yeast would perform in a "naked" beer like this. I had already brewed a pretty good Belgian Pale Ale with this strain; at any rate I can only control my fermentation temperature for one batch at a time, so a second batch has to ferment at room temperature. That made WL 400 a good candidate, being that it has a fairly high temperature tolerance. I may devote a post to the outcome of that little experiment, but in the mean time suffice it to say I'm not blown away by the results. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with five more gallons of beer I have to drink...