I've had a few commercial examples (including the Anchor version) and enjoyed them - it isn't a blow your hair back kind of style - light and refreshing but flavorful. Similar to a pale ale but restricted to using Northern Brewer hops exclusively (following the lead of Anchor Brewing).
As much as anything I think the process is interesting with this beer. Classically the beer is fermented in shallow open fermenters which was a technique to try to keep the beer cool without refrigeration. I'll be trying to approximate this by leaving the lid unsealed. Additionally, using a lager yeast ~10 degrees warmer than normal (I'll be fermenting at 58 F) should produce a bit more yeast character than you'd expect from a normal cool-lager fermentation (we'll see if that's the case).
I decided to use a recipe from the Brulosophy blog. Decided to follow it pretty closely but upped the grain for a 6 gal batch at my normal 70% efficiency.
Recipe Details:
- Grain:
- 10 lbs 2 Row
- 1 lb 8 oz Light Munich
- 1 lb Crystal 60L
- 6 oz Victory
- 2 oz Chocolate Malt
- 3 oz Acid Malt
- Hops:
- 1.75 oz Northern Brewer (Pellet, 4.9% AA) at 60 min
- 1 oz Northern Brewer (Pellet, 4.9% AA) at 15 min
- 1.25 oz Northern Brewer (Pellet, 4.9% AA) at 0 min
- Yeast:
- Wyeast 2112 California Lager
- Water:
- 10 gal spring water
- 1 tsp CaCl
- 0.5 tsp Gypsum
- 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
- 1 gal of spring water post boil
Process Details:
- Batch Size:
- 5 gal + 1 gal of top up water (Target 6 gal)
- Mash:
- 153 F for 60 min
- Boil:
- 45 min (Target 60 min)
- Fermentation Temp:
- Part 1:
- 58 F for 4-5 days
- Part 2:
- Allow to ramp up to 65 F for the next week
- Primary Duration:
- 3 weeks
- Secondary Duration:
- N/A
Results:
- OG:
- 1.063 - then diluted this down to ~1.052 (Target 1.055)
- Efficiency:
- 67% (Target 70%)
- FG:
- 1.010 (Target 1.013)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- 80% (Target 76%)
- ABV:
- 5.51% (Target 5.51%)
Brewing Notes:
- 7/15/17 - Created a 1.5 L yeast starter with 125 g of DME. Added a pinch of yeast nutrient for good measure. Put on the stir plate about 24 hrs before pitching time. Was not an aggressive fermentation - thin layer of foam seem to constitute high krausen.
- 7/16/17 - Brewday - 2 PM to 6 PM including setup and cleanup
- Heated strike water and cycled through system until everything was about 160 F
- Ended up with 6 gal in the system
- Added CaCl and Gypsum
- Added grain while I cycled the system. Stirred to eliminate dough balls. Mash turned out to be way too thick so I added another gallon to the mash tun
- Settled out nicely at 153 F
- Cycled the rims slowly
- Stirred at 30 and 45 min
- Heated my sparge water to about 200 F
- Fly sparged - tried to keep a thin layer of water on the surface to start without perturbing the grain bed. I've come to hate my mash tun - too much dead space under the false bottom and too large a surface area makes for inefficient use of sparge water.
- Started boiling during the sparge
- Ended up a bit short on volume at the end of the sparge
- Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared
- Checked my volumes throughout the boil. Realized with about 30 min left that I only had enough volume to boil another 15 min or so. Will hurt my bittering hop's contribution a bit but decided to cut the boil short.
- Added the Irish Moss and 15 min hops
- Added the wort chiller with about 5 min left - wort got back up to a boil by flame out to ensure good sterilization
- Added the 0 min hops
- Chilled the beer down to 80 F - ran the chiller a bit slower than normal to allow more time for the flame out hops to flavor the beer
- Drained into fermentation bucket - let it fall a couple feet and splash to aerate
- Ended up collecting 5 gal of wort. Left behind the hops and cold break for the most part. Left behind quite a bit of volume (over half a gal I'd estimate)
- Measured gravity as 1.063. Way over shot my target of 1.055.
- Decided to add 1 gal of spring water to get to ~1.052 which is much closer to the target
- Moved to the chest freezer to chill to 58 F
- Pitched the yeast starter once I'd gotten down to temp
- Left to ferment without the lid firmly sealed
- 7/17/17 - A good layer of krausen had formed by this afternoon
- 7/20/17 - Allowed the beer to increase to 65 F to finish out
- 7/26/17 - No more foam on the surface of the beer at this point. Secured the lid on the beer.
- 8/2/17 - Lowered the temperature of the fermentation chamber to 35 F to cold crash
- 8/19/17 - Fined with Gelatin
- 8/20/17 - Bottled with 5 oz of priming sugar. Had 6 gal of beer which got me 61 bottles. The beer finished at 1.010. The sample is crisp and clean with a nice balance between malt and hop.
- 9/1/17 - Had my first bottle bomb. Went off when nobody was in the room thankfully. It seemed like the last few beers I'd bottled were way over carbonated. The later ones were slightly under carbonated. Will have to see if some of the first ones got the right balance
- 10/8/17 - Tasting Notes - This is a really nice tasting beer. It has a nice complex flavor profile and is very easy to drink. I think it's quite like Yuengling Lager actually (which I like quite a bit) but with a bit more hop presence
Lessons Learned:
- I'm getting very tired of the large (~2 gal) of dead space under my Mash Tun false bottom. Also hate how difficult the bottom drain makes cleaning the thing (have to clean it in place). I'm getting close to pulling the trigger on a stainless steel mash tun from SS BrewTech. It is an expensive toy that I know wont improve my beer but I think it will make for some more enjoyable brewdays.
- I'm thinking of bagging my hops on the next batch to simplify the transfer to the fermenter. It sucked leaving all that beer behind.
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