Brewing again! The batch brewed on 24-APR has proven to be just short of a complete success: good flavor, good color, good carbonization and a healthy alcohol content of approximately 5%/volume. I was quite hung over the next day after downing 4 pints while sitting out on the porch with Angela and our neighbors Richard and Kelly one fine June evening. I haven't purchased a commercially-produced beer for home consumption since this batch was ready. Now that I'm down to the last gallon or so, I've got to make more. There's even talk of a homebrew bake-off at the SHC Alumni weekend, for which I'll need to bring along a six-pack.
The only disappointment with this batch -- easily on par with the batch of stout I brewed in 1996-7 (considered a personal best) has been poor-to-modest head retention. According to Charlie Papazian, this can stem from numerous causes, including the formation of fusile oils (alcohols), water mineral content, dish soap, etc. Without a clear plan of action, I'm just hoping for better luck this time, knowing that even if I don't resolve this, at least I'll probably do as well as the previous batch, which is to say perfectly acceptable.
Angela's in Atlanta this evening and the kids are tucked securely away in bed...so I'm free to brew!
- Started out with 2 gallons of Meijer-brand "Natural Spring Water" and the Cara Pils grains. Spilled about 1oz of the grains on the floor in the process of putting them in the Muslin bag. I relaxed. I did not worry. I opened a homebrew. Brought the temp to 166F (a six-degree overshoot; probably about 1 minute's worth of inattention) Held at that temp for 10 minutes by turning off burner.
- Removed the grains, added the malt extract - again using fresh stuff from Adventures in Homebrewing - 6.6 lbs. Started to bring to a boil.
- At the start of a rolling boil (11:20pm) - added the bittering hops. Managed to avoid boilover by watching temp carefully.
- Incidently, after cleaning and sanitizing the carboy (done simultaneously while heating up the grains to save time) - I soaked a new paper towel sheet in the bleach water and draped it over the opening of the carboy. Last brew, I found a pine needle from one of the trees in the front yard in the leftover yeast at the bottom! Don't want that to happen again!
Carboy with sanitized paper towel seal 
- Also -- since outside temps hit 85F today (it's 78F in the garage tonight) I started out by placing 3 gallons of water for the carboy in the fridge earlier in the afternoon. I moved them to the freezer as I started to brew tonight.
- 30 minutes later (11:50pm) (spent the time reading Charlie's books) added the aroma hops. Also added 1/4 tsp. of Irish Moss (did these two things in the wrong order. Will it hurt anything? We'll see!)
- Finished the rest of the boil. Removed the hops bags. Put the three gallons of ice-cold water (see below) into the carboy, then put the funnel and strainer into place and poured in the wort. Measured the original temperature at 94F; original gravity at that temperature was approximately 1.039.
Other Notes
- The two or so hours that the water spent in the freezer was enough to begin to form ice around the "shell" of the gallon plastic jugs. The handles were frozen solid. Fortunately, most of the water was still liquid (about 20% of the water was frozen), and I was able to get the ice out by cutting the jugs open.
- Found the strainer this time (I didn't have it for the original batch) and poured the wort through it after boiling it for quite awhile to sanitize it. I also used it to remove the grains and the hops bags. We'll see if this makes the beer even more clear than before.
- Instead of dumping in the Irish Moss, I sprinkled a measured amount using my fingers into the boiling wort. Better dispersion/coagulation vs just dumping it in?
- It pretty much takes 1 complete propane cylinder to brew a batch. There's still some left over in the new one I opened tonight, but not much.
- A few silly little mistakes might otherwise have conspired to make tonight's brew an anxious one, but I really DO enjoy this process, even all the sanitizing and post-brew cleanup chores. I was laughing as I cut open the three water jugs with a knife to get the ice out of them. Every time I brew, something like this happens.
- One complaint -- I LOST this notebook & searched for over an hour to find it to determine which yeast I used (see ingredients, below) the last time. This time, I'm saving the packaging from the hops and the yeast, and thinking of starting a brewer's blog.
-----------------------------
Ingredients:
- 12 oz. of Cara Pils grains
- 6.6 lbs of malt extract
- 11.5 grams of Saflager S-23 dried lager yeast
- 1 oz German Perle Hop pellets - bittering (9.0% alpha acid)
- 1 oz Czech Saaz Hop pellets - aromatic (3.6% alpha acid)
These ingredients are from an Internet recipe originally called "Back Yard Pilsner" available at Adventures in Homebrewing of Dearborn, Michigan. The malt extract is from that store; they have it "on tap" in bulk quantities, and it seems to be quite a bit fresher than the canned extracts available elsewhere.
-----------------------------
Post-brew notes.
- At 8:30AM the following morning (about 8 hours after pitching) therewas discernable activity in the carboy and bubbles in the blow-off container.
- At 8:40PM that evening, a vigorous brew was underway with considerable blow-off occurring.
- By 11PM on July 30th (2nd night after brewing) fermentation has slowed significantly and a decided color change has overtaken the beer, which happened the first time as well. It's an opaque light brown color, and is quite vivid, actually. It will be ready for a regular airlock tomorrow.
