Brewing Activities? (March Edition)

I had a bit of unexpected time yesterday evening, so I did a little stove-top, 2-gallon experimental brew. I'm trying to see how low I can push the ABV of a pale ale while still retaining a satisfying amount of flavor and body. I mashed at a high temp and used about 20% rye in the grain bill to try to increase mouthfeel. I added no hops during the boil and did a hopstand for a half hour with Citra and El Dorado. This will eventually get a dry hop and come in around 3.5% ABV when it's finished.

 

I did a 3.7% session IPA (that could have been called a hoppy pale ale, I suppose) a while back and really liked the results. I did 1# flaked rye, 1# CaraFoam, mashed at 160°, and used light Munich as the base. Fermented with London III. Gravity only dropped from 1.044 to 1.014.

I'd say you're on the right track, depending what you used as a base malt. I won't say it drank like a 7% IPA, but it didn't feel this or lacking in flavor.

 

I'm curious what your process was. I don't want to open an old wound but maybe a tweak or two could keep keg hopping in the mix. I have had great results with the process. What do think went wrong?

 

Here's what I did for the 2-gallon batch. If I had some Maris Otter on hand, I would have preferred that for the base malt to give it a little more of a malt backbone. If I end up scaling this up to a 5gal batch in the future, I'll probably try swapping that in in place of the 2-row.

American 2-Row - 1 lb 10 oz
Rye - 7 oz
Honey Malt - 3 oz

OG was 1.038

 

Kegged my Festbier last night... Missed my spunding window (it dropped two points in two days when I checked, so given the gravity remaining, I thought it wouldn't even be ready until today) but it was probably 1 point from FG when I kegged it. So I added 2.5oz of priming sugar and kegged. It's tasting fantastic though! Really exciting for this one to tap in May. My first Festbier, actually. Have done Marzen a few times, though.Grist was 63% Pils, 25% Vienna, 6% Munich II, 3% Carahell and Acidulated. 22 IBU.

Also prepping for my German Pils brewing tomorrow. Grist 93% Weyermann Pils, 4% Munich II and 3% Acidulated. OG of 1.046 and FG of 1.008 expected. Hopped with Hallertau Magnum, Mittelfrueh, Spalt and Tettnanger. 40 IBU. 2206 Yeast.

 

No idea. Never did it before and honestly never had the aggravation that I have now. I have a lot of hop particulate in my beer almost like my stainless mesh opened. I even cut my dip tube and still pouring particulate. I cold crashed the keg to no avail. It sucks cause this beer smelled amazing.

 

Unsolicited advice: only large, very fine mesh nylon bags that can be knotted and tied, no hop debris on outside of bag, reasonable hop amounts (even for NEIPAs).
Starsan soak bags and air dry standing up for a few minutes with cuff on top of bag to prevent hop debris from getting on outside of bag. Only had one problem in many years of keg hopping IPAs and that was from using a bag that had too big of a mesh on a NEIPA (because I was out of my regular bags).

 

Uhhhh I just realized this is the beer I used all my nelson on.... shit. Any recommendations BAs? Leave in kegerator for two weeks at 36 and wait for it to all hopefully settle out? I was gonna dump and retry but getting nelson again will be expensive/difficult.

 

I used a stainless steel mesh tube purposefully designed for keg hopping. It's very fine.

 

Let us know what transpired when you clean the keg. cheers

 

Definitely do not dump. It will settle out for sure if you keep it cold. Worse case scenario is you have some "floaties". That is not uncommon with this style. It might not look good but still tastes and smells great. Trillium and the Alchemist have that happen sometimes.

I use bags now myself. That way I can hang them about a third of the way down and the exposure is limited to a few weeks tops as I drink it down. I bought a keg lid with a hanging tab to avoid the chance of a poor lid seal. Works great for me.

 

Just dryhopped/racked 10 gal. of IPA...4 oz Simcoe, 2 oz WC Amarillo, 1 oz Citra, 1 oz N.S.
Will see if the Nelson is detectable...didn't want to open a lb bag of something else.

 

I'm a bit annoyed this morning. I had a mishap with my keezer controller last night. It appears as though my kegs are pretty well solid at this point. At this point I can't be too worried because it is what it is at this point. But anyone have experience with freezing a keg?

 

My keezer (serving taps) is just a refrigerator in the garage. Only problem with freezing is usually in the Fall when the ambient temp starts dropping a bit...temp controller is only used for keg conditioning/lagering in my chest freezer. I can tell you this...the beer (if pourable) will start to taste better due to the increased/concentrated alcohol

 

Cold crash for a long while. Since you have a shortened dip tube, you shouldn't pick up much hop matter from the bottom. Don't disturb the keg, then pressure transfer it to a new keg through a jumper on the beer out diptubes. That should solve it, I think.

Consider adding a filter to the dip tube itself to avoid mishaps like this if the bag leaks again in the future?

 

Just give it time. It will crash/settle.

 

Seems like you'll end up below 3.5% unless you used a really low attenuation yeast. What yeast did you use? I think yeast with an increased ester profile and/or one that accentuates malt is ideal here. Low attenuation is also a plus (although I don't know if you want to get to Windsor level).

Definitely let us know how it turns out. I've been focusing my brewing lately exclusively on beers sub 5%. So far so good!

 

Ya I'm just gonna let it sit in the kegerator for a few weeks. On another note my lager is off with a moderate butterscotch aftertaste so that went back to the ferm chamber to sit at 30. I think I'm probably the most sensitive person to diacetyl in the world. I've had other people try it and they don't get what I'm describing. I even let it warm up to 68 for two days and yet it's still there to me. May be done with lagers for a bit. I wasn't sure if it was DMS since I mainly use pilsner malt (for most beers) but then realized I didn't taste it in my saison or pale ale with the same exact process. Just a bad month in general.... oh well time to get back to basics.

 

I mashed pretty high (157 degrees) and I'm using Safale-05. I don't have the spreadsheet with me, but I scaled this down from a recipe I created in BrewCipher for a 5.5 gallon batch. It put my FG at 1.009, which should actually put my final product in the 3.7-3.8% territory when it's finished.

 

Yeah, US-05 will do that, but that gravity isn't too low. Looking forward to hearing the results.