Single Hop IPA (Centennial)

I just finished my last bottle of Double IPA last week and I'm already missing it.  I could just brew up another batch of that one but, in the interest of broadening my horizons a bit, I have decided to try out a new recipe.  I like the idea of brewing single hop beer to get a better sense of what kind of flavors each one imparts.  Based on this I have decided to brew up a "Bell's Two Hearted" clone from homebrewtalk.com.  Two Hearted is a really nice IPA brewed with only Centennial hops.

The recipe states that it is "as close as they come."  I'm not really concerned with creating a clone of Two Hearted so I will be making the following changes from the recipe:

1. Shooting for an OG of 1.055 to 1.060 which, if the beer ferments down to a target of 1.012, will get me a beer that is in the neighborhood of 6% ABV.  This is about a percentage point lower than the actual Bell's Two Hearted but I don't think I'll miss it.
2. Going with the famous Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast.  This is my first batch with this yeast (although I've used US-05 which is supposed to be the same Sierra Nevada strain).  The recipe calls for S-04
3. Changing up the hop schedule quite a bit to get some more intense hop flavor.  First, I'll be using 3 mL of hop extract to get about 30 IBU.  I'll then hold off on adding hops until the end of the boil.  I will add 2 oz of hops with 5 min left.  Then I'll add 2 oz more after the beer has chilled down to 180 F and let stand for 30 min.  Finally, I will dry hop with 2 oz.  I'm going to skip fining the beer with gelatin as I would normally do to avoid the possibility that I'll reduce the hop character.  I'll plan on bottling this beer after 3 weeks to make sure the beer is as fresh as possible when I start drinking.

I've been considering trying this one out for the last several months.  Two Hearted is actually my wife's favorite beer.  I'm hoping she approves of this one.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 10 lb 2 Row Malt
• 2 lb Vienna Malt
• 8 oz CaraPils Malt
• 8 oz Crystal 20L
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 3 mL Hop Shot at 60 120  min
• 2 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.5% AA) at 5 min
• 2 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.5% AA) added once temp is down to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
• 2 oz Centennial (Pellet, 8.5% AA) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1056 American Ale
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 7.5 gal tap water
• 1 oz Calcium Chloride in Mash
• 1 oz Gypsum in Mash
• 1 oz Gypsum in Boil
• 1 oz Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  150 F for 60 min (Target 150 F for 60 min)
• Step 2:  Ramp up to 170 F in 45 min (Target Ramp up to 175 in 30 min)
• Boil:
• 120 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 68 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.060 (Target 1.060)
• Efficiency:
• 76% (Target 76%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.012)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 83% (Target 79%)
• ABV:
• 6.56% (Target 6.30%)

Brewing Notes:

• 2/20/16 - Brewed up a yeast starter with 5.5 oz of DME and 1 liter of water.  Also added 1/8th tsp of yeast nutrient.  Set it up on the stir plate and pitched the yeast.
• 2/21/16 - Brewday - 11:40 AM to 6:00 PM including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of strike water and cycled through the system was at 160 F
• Milled grain while heating the water

• Ended up with 5 gal above the false bottom and 8.5 gal in the system
• Added CacL and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate doughballs
• Set the RIMS to cycle at 152 F
• Added 7.5 gal of tap water to the HLT, for a total of 9 gal, and heated to 185 F for the sparge
• After the 60 min of mashing I added 2 gal of sparge water to the mash tun and upped the RIMS to 185 F to heat the mash to 170 for the mash out - took 45 min
• Added extra gypsum to the kettle before the sparge
• Fly sparged - took 20 min
• Stated heating the kettle after collecting 2 gal
• Gravity at the grant was 10 brix after collecting 4 gal
• Ended up collecting 10 gal - gravity at the grant was 4 brix (1.016 by this time).  Was not a very efficient sparge for some reason
• Was up to a boil a couple minutes after ending the sparge
• Had very significant hot break - ended up boiling over a couple times
• Added the hop extract after the hot break cleared
• With about 20 min left I added the Irish Moss
• Added the first hops with 5 min left
• Killed the flame after getting down to a bit over 6 gal.  Let sit and chill down to 180 F without a lid - took 15 min
• Added the hop stand hops and let the kettle sit for half an hour with the lid on - beer was down to 165 F after 30 min
• Sprayed the wort chiller with sanitizer and put into the kettle for 5 min to be sure it was sanitized
• Chilled down to 70 F
• Transferred to fermenter with all trub and hops

• Collected 6 gal - fermenter was very full.  Measured gravity as 1.060 which is right on target.  The beer has a really nice gold color
• Moved to fermentation chamber set to 67 F.  I'm using an airlock that is extended into the fermenter as little as possible.  I expect that, as full as the fermenter is, some wort is going to be pushed up into the airlock
• Pitched the entire yeast starter which looked to be at high krausen

• 2/22/16 - The airlock filled up and overflowed with krausen.  Hasn't made that much of a mess so far fortunately.
• 3/6/16 - Added the dry hops.  I'll give the beer another 5 days or so before bottling.

• 3/12/16 - Bottled this batch today.  There was a pretty thick layer of hops at the bottom so I only ended up getting 5 gal.  Primed with 4 oz of table sugar.  This got me 51 bottles.  Measured the gravity as 1.010.  The sample has a lot of hop particulate - ended up getting a lot of hops in the bottles as well.  The beer has a really great hop forward flavor.  It is also plenty bitter for an IPA.
• 4/7/16 - Tasting Notes - Has nice flavoring hop character in the aroma and flavor but an odd flavor in the bittering hops in the finish sort of detracts from the whole package.  I wonder if some oxidation may have come into play somewhere along the line.
• 6/5/16 - Entered this beer into a local homebrew competition (22nd Annual BUZZ Off) in category 21A - American IPA.  I wanted to get some unbiased feedback on the beer to see if my palate was off the mark on the bitter character of the beer.  Ended up scoring an aggregate of 32 which is better than I thought it would do.  One of the reviewers mentions astringency and has a very similar takeaway regarding the overwhelming bitterness in the finish.  I consider this a victory for my palate.  He also mentions a smoky phenol which I hadn't picked up.  The other reviewer describes the beer as a bit malty for the style.  I assume there were quite a few IPA that were much better and much hoppier than mine (especially considering this beer's age) and that how hoppy this beer seemed was probably somewhat dependent on the level of hopping in the previous beers these judges tasted.  Really glad I decided to get in on one of these homebrew competitions - it was really exciting and fun to read these comments.  Will definitely be entering some other beers in competitions in the future.

Lesson Learned

1. This brewday was way too long.  The 45 min I spent trying to heat up the mash may have been a wasted effort.  Also, collecting 10 gal of wort was really stupid of me.  I wish I had just accepted the hit for starting gravity or purchased more grain.  The cost in terms of time and extra propane just doesn't justify chasing after an extra bit of efficiency.  I need to plan out these brewdays a bit more carefully.

Hard Apple Cider - Tasting

I fermented up this batch of Hard Apple Cider back in September using some locally grown apples.  They fermented all the way down to 0.994 which is very dry.  I decided to split the batch and dose one part with another gallon of cider to make a sweet cider.  I let this ferment for a few days and then pasteurized the bottles.  It ended up working our well - I have a sweet carbonated cider and no bottle bombs.

For the other half I added a small amount of priming sugar to avoid getting a completely still cider.  This may have been a mistake as I ended up picking up an off sulphur flavor during bottle conditioning.

I have found that both of these ciders seem to taste quite a bit better at basement temps rather than out of the fridge.  This really brings out some nice complexity.  These tasting notes were recorded for a cider served at ~60 F.

L - Sweetened & R - Plain

Back Sweetened Cider Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Light tart apple.  A bit more subdued than the raw cider.  No alcohol or yeast character on the nose.  It is a pleasant aroma
• Appearance:
• Pale gold/yellow.  It has cleared very nicely in the bottle.  Pours with a very slight head that immediately fades to nothing.  Light carbonation continues to appear while drinking.
• Flavor:
• Sweet up front and then transitions into a pretty robust sour apple flavor in the finish.  It's a nice balance between the sweet and sour flavors in the finish.  The alcohol is very well hidden and there is no yeast character I can detect.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied with a sweet sticky mouthfeel.  It really lingers in my mouth for some time after taking a sip.  It's very much like drinking raw apple cider.  It has a pretty firm bite of astringency - much more than I've ever experienced from a beer.  It gives the cider a pretty substantial mouthfeel as light bodied as it is.
• Overall:
• I really like the balance of sweet and sour from this cider.  It makes for a nicely complex drink.  The stickiness of the finish makes it a bit difficult to drink more than one of these in a sitting though.  This is probably sort of the trade you make if you are going to drink it warm (and enjoy the complexity) or drink it cold (and have a smoother/easier drinking beverage).

Plain Cider Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Sulphur smell up front with a bit of apple in the background.  Was a lot more prominent a couple months ago.  Maybe get a bit of alcohol way in the background.
• Appearance:
• Identical to the Back Sweetened half except that the carbonation is even lighter.  Pours with no head and is essentially still.
• Flavor:
• Mild sulphur character is also present in the flavor.  Some apple character comes through in the finish but it's not quite pronounced enough to overwhelm the sulphur.  Swirling the glass seems to reduce the sulphur flavor - like maybe it's dissipating.  No alcohol flavor cuts through.
• Mouthfeel:
• Very dry.  Has the same astringent bite that the sweetened portion has.  The finish is much crisper for this version so it is a bit easier drinking.
• Overall:
• The sulphur is disappointing.  The cider tasted really clean going into the bottles.  I assume that the yeast doing the bottle conditioning threw out this sulphur - I probably should have added more nutrient.  It does seem like the sulphur flavor has faded a lot over the last couple months so these could improve and the swirling trick seems to work pretty well.  This would drink sort of like a white wine if not for the off flavor.

Belgian Witbier

I have been considering trying a Belgian Witbier for the last year and a half.  This is a wheat beer with, as you would expect, a characterful Belgian yeast and added spices.  These typically include Coriander and Orange Peel.  They are often referred to a "White ale" in the US.  Per style, they are very cloudy due to a grainbill of ~50% wheat.  They tend to be fairly low alcohol which, in combination with the spicing, make for a refreshing beer.  I have hesitated to brew one of these up until now as they are pretty complicated to make (as you'll see below) and, with so many flavors in the mix, getting the right balance in the beer seems quite challenging.

I have chosen to brew up a beer based on an article on allaboutbeer.com.  This recipe calls for a grainbill of roughly half pilsner malt and half unmalted wheat which is traditional for the style (with 0.5 lb of oats thrown in for good measure as they are also traditional).  The unmalted wheat requires a cereal mash to allow for good conversion.  I have been doing what I have been calling a cereal mash with some of my sour beers with the goal of extracting starches without getting any conversion.  The cereal mash used for this beer is the real deal in that I need good conversion from these grains.  This will include an initial protein rest at 122 F for 15 min, 15 more min at 150 F to start some conversion, and then a 15 min boil to get the starches into solution.  The main mash will run in parallel with this activity at it's own 122 F protein rest.  The addition of the cereal mash will then raise the temperature of the main mash up to the low 150s for 60 more minutes of mashing.

The beer will be hopped at 60 min and then at 10 min with some low AA% Saaz hops.  Per style, this hopping should provide some hop character, but not so much that it overwhelms any of the other flavorings, and low to moderate bittering. 

I will be using 0.75 oz of Coriander (purchased from a local Indian supermarket) that I will crush (as I don't have a spice grinder).  It has a nice spicy citrus aroma (rather than a celery or hotdog smell which I have read is possible).  I will also be using the zest from two navel oranges in the beer.  An alternate is bitter orange peel which was a bit more expensive and maybe (per opinions on the internet) not as good.  These spices will be added with 5 min left in the boil.

Finally, I will be using Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier at 70 to 72 F to ferment this out.  I am hoping to get a good level of esters out of the yeast at this temp range but not so much that they overwhelm the spices.  I have heard that this yeast may be a bit of a slow worker so if it's now down in the low teens as expected after my normal 4 weeks of fermentation I may decide to give it some more time.

This looks like a really well thought out recipe.  I am confident that the beer will turn out well if I am able to get the complicated brewday reasonably smoothly.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• Main Mash:
• 5 lb Pilsner
• 8 oz Flaked Oats
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Cereal Mash:
• 4 lb Unmalted Wheat
• 1 lb Pilsner Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.6% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Saaz (Pellet, 3.6% AA) at 10 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1.5 oz Orange Zest from 2 Navel Oranges at 5 min
• 0.75 oz Crushed Coriander Seed at 5 min
• 1 lb of rice hulls in mash

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.75 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Main Mash:
• Step 1:  130 F for 45 min(Target 122 F for 60 min)
• Step 2:  153 F for 60 min (Target 153 F for 60 min)
• Cereal Mash:
• Step 1:  122 F for 15 min (Target 122 F for 15 min)
• Step 2:  150 F for 20 min (Target 150 F for 15 min)
• Step 3:  Boil for 15 min (Target Boil for 15 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 70 to 72 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.046 (Target 1.048)
• Efficiency:
• 69% (Target 75%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 78% (Target 79%)
• ABV:
• 4.73% (Target 4.99%)

Brewing Notes:

• 2/5/16 - Made a DME based starter using 8 oz of extract and 1.5 L of tap water.  Added 1/8th tsp of yeast nutrient.  Boiled in a flask.  Chilled to 60s and added an expired package of yeast.  Set up on a stir plate.
• 2/6/16 - had reached high krausen by this afternoon
• 2/7/16 - Brewday - 9:30 AM to 2:50 PM - including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water to 125 F
• Had to double mill my raw wheat to get a good crush
• Transferred 10 qt of water to a separate pot for the cereal mash
• Added the grain and stirred in.  The mash settled down to 119 F so I heated a bit more to get to the target of 122 F.  Let sit for 15 min at this temp.

• Continued to heat the kettle through all this.  Was up to 145 F by the time I started transferring to the mash tun
• Ended up with 2 gal of water above the false bottom
• Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
• Added the rice hulls
• Added the grain and stirred in.  This only brought the mash temp down to about 130 F which was a bit high.  I let it go without taking action.  Let sit at this temp while the cereal mash progressed.
• Heated the cereal mash up to 150 F stirring frequently to avoid scorching.  Let it sit at this temp for another 15 min
• Brought the cereal mash to a boil for 15 min.  Stirred most of the time.  The cereal mash wasn't sticky like the corn based ones I've been doing for the Flanders Reds.  The 15 min rest at 150 F must be responsible for this.  I am going to try this technique for cereal mashing next time.
• Added the cereal mash to the main mash.  Added slowly and stirred in as I went to avoid overheating.  Ended up raising the mash to the high 140s and low 150s.
• Setup the RIMS to cycle at ~2 qt per min with the heat set to 155 F
• Mashed for 60 min
• Heated 7 gal of sparge water to 190 F
• At the end of the mash I transferred all the wort from the grant back to the mash tun and then added a couple more inches of sparge water on top of the grain bed
• Sparged slowly (~1 gal every 5 min)

• Started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal.  It was at a boil after collecting about 7 gal
• Gravity at the grant after collecting 3 gal was 9.6 brix (1.038)
• Collected 8 gal total - gravity at the grant was 2.5 brix (1.010) at the end of the mash
• Added the 60 min hops after the hot break cleared
• Crushed the Coriander seed with a beer bottle used like a rolling pin.
• Zested the two oranges and got quite a bit of orange zest (1.5 oz) decided to just use all of it
• With about 10 min left I added the flavoring hops
• With 5 min left I added the orange zest and coriander
• Added the chiller just prior to flameout to sanitize
• Chilled down to 70 F
• Transferred to the fermenter by letting the beer fall a foot or so to aerate

• Ended up collecting about 5.75 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.046.  The sample didn't have as strong of an orange or coriander aroma as would have expected.  It seemed like most of the spice got left behind in the kettle with the hops.  I wonder if that was how it was expected to work
• Moved the fermenter down to the temperature controlled fermentation chamber and pitched the yeast
• 2/8/16 - The airlock was filled with yeast from a very vigorous fermentation by this morning.  Cleaned it out this afternoon.  The orange aroma seemed much more prominent today than it did in the sample yesterday.  Very nice.
• 2/14/16 - Cleaned up the lid which had accumulated a lot of yeast trub as well as the airlock.

• 3/5/16 - Bottled this batch today.  Primed with 5.5 oz of table sugar.  Measured the FG of the beer as 1.011.  The beer was relatively clear and was a really nice light straw color.  Aroma was of Belgian yeast with the coriander and orange faded into the background a bit.  Same with the flavor at this point.  Captured about 6 gal of beer which netted me 58 bottles.  I'll give the beer a couple weeks to bottle condition before giving it a try.
• 6/18/16 - Tasting Notes - This is a light and easy drinking beer that packs a lot of flavor.  The malt balances the yeast character nicely and the spicing is restrained but comes through enough to add another complimentary dimension to the beer.  I wasn't able to pin-point anything I could confidently say was a flavor contribution from the unmalted wheat but it likely was a big contributor to the smooth body of the beer.

Lessons Learned:

1. This cereal mash technique really led to a smoother brewday than I have been experiencing with the corn for my Flanders Reds.  I am going to try this method next time.  I will still ramp up the mash temp prior to adding it to the main mash to prevent conversion.

Flanders Red 3.1.1

I have decided to make yet another Flanders Red Ale. 

Back in November I was amazed to see that a local brewpub had gotten ahold of some Rodenbach Foederbier which is unfiltered and unpasteurized Flanders Red.  I figured I would have to go to Belgium to ever try it.  It was very good.  Maybe a bit less sour than the Grand Cru but probably a bit more complex.

Normal Rodenbach is filtered so harvesting their dregs is a no go.  Having access to this unfiltered Foederbier provided a rare opportunity to potentially get ahold of Rodenbach's real microbes (Roeselare is an attempt to recreate Rodenbach's culture).  I brought along a small Gatorade bottle filled with DME based wort and managed to transfer ~4 oz of Foederbier into it for transit back home.  I then transferred this whole thing into a flask with about 1.6 litres of wort and let it age at 70 F.  After a couple weeks it started to develop a thin stringy pellicle:

I have now been aging this culture for almost two months.  I haven't tasted it yet but it smells very nice (fruity and very tart).  It is high time to give it more to eat (this time in the form of a rich starchy batch of beer).

I will brew up another 12 gal batch of this beer following the same basic process and same grainbill I did last time.  I will be aging half of the beer in a glass carboy (version A) and the other half in a bucket (version B).

I've debated with myself on this but I have decided to throw in some of the oak cubes that have been aging with the Roeselare blend.  I am thinking 5 cubes per 6 gal .  This will likely reduce the contribution from the Rodenbach microbes a bit, which is an argument against this action, but I'm a little worried that the relatively small number of microbes I have available to me might not get the job done.  The oak will give me a bit of biodiversity and ensure that there is some known good culture in the mix.

This will be the first batch to have its souring performed by a relatively small portions of microbes.  With my previous batches (excluding Flanders Red 1.1.1) I have gotten large gravity drops in the first three months with the souring microbes.  I've wondered if this quick drop might not be giving all the microbes a chance to proliferate and still have food supply.  As I continue to pitch onto the same yeast cakes it could be that I am causing the balance of microbes to shift more and more in a certain direction.  With this relatively small number of microbes (compared with pitching onto a yeast cake) I would expect the pace of the fermentation to slow down and that I might get some different flavors than I have been achieving with my Flanders 1.x.x beers.

Ultimately, I would like to get to a cycle where I am topping off existing good beers with more fresh beer and allowing those good microbes to stay well fed and happy.  This seems like it could give me more control over the results than I currently have (assuming that the beer topped up on a good batch will continue to display those pleasing characteristics).  More and more, pitching onto the same cake repeatedly seems like a bit of a crap shoot (not that any of the results have been bad so far).  This beer, with the oak based microbes, seems like the first step down the path of getting a better handle on the process.

Some minor process changes: 

I brewed up a 12 gal batch of this beer last week (Flanders Red 1.6.1) and the 6 hr brewday killed me.  I decided to try to shorten it by adding a couple pounds of base malt and skipping the normal fly sparge - basically doing a full volume mash.  This was a rough estimate without my normal efficiency calculations to guide me.

To try to avoid the full kettle/hot break problem I decided to collect less volume of wort and then top off up to 12 gal once the boil completed.  I didn't do any calculation for grain absorption so this was going to be a bit of a guessing game.

So, in essence, I decided I didn't really care about the gravity numbers for this batch and would just let it ride.

We had a ferocious snowstorm the day before the brewday and I was strongly debating waiting until next week as I had a lot of shoveling to do (and some football to watch) but my excitement at the chance of using the Rodenbach dregs compelled me to press on with it.  I may need a few weeks off from brewing after this.  We will see.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 10 lb Maris Otter
• 6 lb Munich
• 1 lb 8 oz CaraMunich II
• 1 lb 8 oz Aromatic Malt
• 1 lb 8 oz Special B
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb 8 oz Maltodextrine (Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• 3 lb Corn Grits (Cereal Mashed - Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (Fourth Pitch)
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Seventh Pitch)
• Rodenbach Culture
• Oak Cubes with Roeselare Culture
• Water:
• 11 gal Spring Water
• 4 gal melted snow
• 5 gal tap water
• 2 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 2 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 lb rice hulls

Batch Details:

• Batch Size:
• 12.5 gal (Target 12 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  165 F for 45 min (Target 160 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramped up to 175 F in 15 min (Target Ramp up to 175 F in 45 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Primary:  70 F
• Secondary:  60 to 70 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Yeast:  4 weeks
• Lacto Portion:  2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• TBD (18 to 36 months)

Results:

• OG:
• 1.045 (Target 1.045) - with 5 points from Maltodextrine
• Efficiency:
• 66% (Target 62%)
• FG:
• TBD (1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• Rodenbach Culture:
• 11/21/15 - Captured 4 oz of Rodenbach Foederbier in 1.6 litres of DME based wort and added to a temperature controlled fermentation chamber set to 70 F
• 12/4/15 - The culture was mostly still for a while but it has now developed a very thin pellicle
• 1/2/16 - The pellicle has thickened up significantly and has a stringy appearance.  The beer has developed a very nice fruity and tart aroma.  Switched from a foil cover to a stopper and airlock.  I have moved it out of the temp controlled fermentation chamber.
• 1/23/16 - The pellicle has developed some big bubbles over time and started to break up a little bit.
• 2/14/16 - The pellicle has thinned a bit and now has some big bubbles.  I tasted a tiny bit.  It was very tart and seemed a bit viscus like it might be going through the ropy phase due to the pedio (something I haven't experienced so far).  May have also had a bit of buttery diacetyl flavor.

• 1/24/16 - Brewday - 8:20 AM to 1:00 PM - Including setup and partial cleanup
• Brought 5 gal of spring water and 4 gal of melted snow based water to a boil
• Added all 9 gal to the mash tun - ended up with 5.5 gal above the false bottom
• Added the rice hulls, CaCl and Gypsum
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls - it was a very thick mash
• Set the RIMS at 165 F and circulated at about 2 qt per minute
• Added 3 lb of corn grits to about 4 gal of tap water and brought to a boil for the cereal mash.  Stirred frequently but still managed to scorch the corn onto the bottom of the pot.  Once it reached a boil I put the lid on and let sit until the end of the mash
• Brought another 8 gal of spring water up to around a boil
• After 45 min I added 3 more gal of near boiling spring water to the mash and then upped the RIMS temp to 185 F in order to raise the mash to 175 F.  The boiling spring water helped a lot - got up to 175 in about 15 min this time.
• Added the cereal mash.  Had to do it in stages as I drained the mash as it was on the verge of overflowing
• Drained to the boil kettle quickly - did not end up fly sparging as I normally would
• Started heating the kettle during the drain.  With the corn grits the mash turned to cement on me again (even with the lb of rice hulls).  Had to stir a few times to free it up.  Was just about to a boil once I'd finished collecting wort
• The gravity at the grant was 9 brix (1.035) so there was likely a lot of sugar left in the mash
• Collected about 12 gal of pre-boil volume.
• Boiled for 60 min.  Got a few minor boil overs during this period

• With 5 min left I added the Maltodextrine.  Had a pretty vicious boil over after this.
• Ended up with about 10 gal post boil.  Added 2 more gal of near boiling spring water to get back to the target volume.  Overshot and ended up with 12.5 gal
• Added the wort chiller at flameout to sanitize
• Pulled off some yeast cake from my Flanders 1.6.1 batches with an auto siphon

• Chilled down to 90 F before pulling off a couple gal for the lacto to sour.  Wrapped these in a towel down in the basement to maintain their temps.
• Chilled down to 80 F before transferring onto the yeast cakes.  Transferred a little bit a time into each fermentor to try to get equivalent amounts of trub.

• Measured the gravity as 1.045
• Moved the fermenters to a 70 F to ferment out.
• 1/25/16 - Had good activity from both the main fermenters as well as the lacto portions by the next morning.
• 2/7/16 - Moved this beer out of the fermentation chamber into ambient basement temps
• 2/10/16 - Transferred the lacto souring gals of beer into the bucket fermenters.  The beer in one of the bucket fermenters had started to form a pellicle.  Both had slightly sour aromas.
• 2/19/16 - Transferred half the batch to a glass carboy with a vented silicon stopper - this is the "A" portion.  Measured the gravity as 1.020.  The beer had a bubbly pellicle.  It is a muddy brown and very cloudy.  The sample is really sour.  Added 5 oak cubes from Flanders 1.5.1 and about 0.8 litres of my Rodenbach culture to the glass carboy.

• 2/20/16 - Transferred the other half of the batch (portion "B") into a bucket fermenter with the airlock hole drilled out to hold a vented silicone stopper.  The gravity of this half was also at 1.020.  This half smells and tastes very sour like the other half.  This beer is already a bit too sour to bottle by itself but I'm hoping that it can eventually be put to good use in a blend.  I added 5 oak cubes from Flanders 1.5.2 to this batch as well as the remaining 0.8 L of Rodenbach culture.  I am going to let this go a full year before sampling to try to limit the oxygen exposure as much as possible.

• 2/23/16 - The lid of the bucket portion is bulging so significantly that I'm worried it might burst.  I'm going to find out whether the vents on the bug release pressure at a higher or lower level than the lid itself is capable of handling - hopefully this turns out okay.
• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Part A:
• Funky and earthy aroma.  Dark fruit mixed in as well
• Orangish red and cloudy
• Light sourness with an interesting Brett funk (band aid like)
• Mild flavor with a fair bit of complexity
• Part B:
• Funky and earthy aroma
• Redish orange and cloudy
• Light sourness.  Light bready funk with a bit of malt character
• Mild flavor and not terribly complex
• 12/17/17 - Used 2.5 gal of the "A" Portion of the beer in a Raspberry Flanders Red blend along with Flanders Red 1.6.1.B.  I transferred the remainder of the beer into the 1.6.1.B fermenter.  I made sure to take quite a bit of the yeast cake with the beer during the transfer to allow the resulting blend to be a good mix of both yeasts.

Lessons Learned:

1. The no-sparge approach with extra grain actually worked out pretty nicely.  I felt a little bad for having terrible efficiency but it probably saved me an hour off the brewday and likely a bit of fuel as well.  Not sure I'll make this an every brew day thing but maybe for larger batches like this one it will make sense.
2. I need to re-think my cereal mash approach.  Adding the corn to the mash tun is causing too many sparge problems.  I'm thinking of trying to separate the corn from the liquid using a mesh bag or something next time and then just adding that to the boil.
3. The winging it approach used for this brewday worked out okay from a numbers perspective but I was a bit troubled throughout the process by the uncertainty.  Didn't help that I was attempting to also shovel a huge amount of snow in parallel to the whole thing.  I ended up not having enough time to do a good cleanup and so I left the mash tun with the grain over night.  Had a stinking mess on my hands the next day which was even stickier and more difficult to cleanup than normal.  Note to self:  Never do that again!

Robust Porter - Tasting

I brewed up a Robust Porter back in October and I've been drinking it for the last month and a half or so.  It is rated as one of the top recipes on homebrewtalk.com.  After drinking about a case of it I think that is warranted.  I would recommend this recipe pretty highly.

This is a style that I hadn't tried before.  Per the BJCP, a Robust Porter "may be distinguished from Stout as lacking a strong roasted barley character."  So, the difference comes down to how "strong" the roast barley character is.  Quite a bit of wiggle room there which sort of implies that there's not really any clear cut difference between a Porter and Stout.  Either way, I think this beer, while it is roasty, is roasty in a fairly restrained way such that other characteristics of the malt to come through.  It makes for a fairly easy drinking beer with a good level of complexity.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Roast along with dark chocolate and gram cracker.  Has a subtle fruit character mixed in as it warms.  Maybe a bit of grassy hops but it is way in the background.  The aroma is fairly strong and overall pretty pleasant.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a two finger head.  Foam lasts for several minutes before settling down to a thin layer on the top of the beer.  The beer is a very deep brown.  From the light coming through the edges it looks like it is pretty clear.
• Flavor:
• Roast malt flavor dominates but there is a good bit of dark chocolate and a caramel flavor.  There is a sweetness to the beer and the malt flavor meld together nicely.  There is a slight bitterness to the finish but the balance is strongly towards the roast malt.  There is a bit of alcohol in the flavor along with some subtle fruity yeast character.
• Mouthfeel:
• The beer is medium bodied.  Has some light astringency.  The carbonation is low.
• Overall:
• The beer has some fairly bold flavors and a nice level of complexity.  The level of roast character is pleasant - it dominates but doesn't completely overshadow the other aspects of the beer.  Credit goes to the author of this recipe for striking a good balance.  From a technical perspective, I think the beer is a product of a well handled fermentation and packaging effort  with the nice yeast character and nice carbonation levels (which have been hit and miss for me).

Flanders Red 1.6.1

With this batch of Flanders Red I will be trying a few new changes:

1. Brewing a 12 gal batch.  This will be pushing my 15 gal kettles to their limits but I think they should be able to fit it if I can boil off a good bit of the hot break during the sparge and if I'm not too aggressive with the boil.  As I progress with getting some beers completed, and starting to blend, being able to do some larger batches in one brewday to have a new batch and also top up other batches will come in handy.
2. Long term aging in bucket fermenters.  The Belgian Flanders Red brewers age their beer in large wooden barrels (Foeders).  These, like all barrels, allow some exposure of the beer to oxygen.  This small amount of oxygen that is allowed to get to the beer seems like it could have significant impact on the microbes in the beer which could drive them to produce different flavors.  It would stand to reason that these flavor impact are likely part of the signature of the classic Flanders Red (seems like a reasonable theory to me at the time of this brewing).  I have been aging my beer in glass carboys which, to their credit, keep oxygen exposure to a minimum.  Fermentation buckets, on the other hand, allow small amounts of oxygen to permeate into the beer over time.  Some on the internet have calculated that the amount of oxygen exposure in bucket fermenters is quite similar to the levels the Belgain's barrels experience with their Foeders (not sure I've ever seen more than second hand claims of this so I don't have a real reference link).  I am interested to see if fermentation in a bucket could allow me to achieve some of the classic Flanders Red flavors that I'm not getting from the glass carboy batches.  Of course, oxygen exposure can also lead to excessive vinegar formation or even acetate flavors developing so this experiment could end badly.  The bucket lid seems like a potentially major liability as removing it could allow for a lot of oxygen exposure.  To avoid this I plan on drilling out the airlock hole in the lid and using a silicone bung.  This will give me a nice big hole to sample through so I don't have to take off the lid.  I really like the idea.  We will see how it goes.
3. Long term aging on the yeast cake.  With this batch I will be using the yeast cakes from Flanders 1.5.1 and 1.5.2.  I will give half the batch (Version A) the normal 3 months on the Roeselare yeast cake before transferring it to a new bucket.  The other half (Version B) will stay on the yeast cake for the entire aging period.  The Belgian Lambic producers allow their beers to age on the yeast cake which, in theory, gives the Brett a bit more food and, in turn, creates a funkier product.  It will be interesting to see if this is how it works out for me.  This will lock up this yeast cake and end my 1.X.2 versions of these beers for the near term.

The remainder of the batch is pretty much the same as my last couple of these (Primary first with clean yeast, separate souring with lacto, corn grits and Maltodextrine in the mash).  I have made one maltbill change to go with CaraMunich II rather than III in the hopes of getting the beer to be a bit redder.  From a process perspective I will be using a stand to hold up the false bottom rather than the bottles I'd used previously.  The bottles were just more trouble than they are likely worth.  This stand will eat up less deadspace under the false bottom so I'll have to use more water.  I kind of doubt that this will have much (if any) impact but we will see.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 8 lbs Maris Otter
• 6 lbs Munich
• 1 lb 8 oz CaraMunich II
• 1 lb 8 oz Aromatic
• 1 lb 8 oz Special B
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb 8 oz Maltodextrine (Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• 3 lb Corn Grits (Cereal Mashed - Not factored into efficiency calculations)
• Hops:
• None
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (Third Pitch)
• WLP 672 Lactobacillus Brevis (Sixth Pitch)
• Wyeast 3763 Roeselare Ale Blend (Sixth Pitch)
• Water:
• 13 gal spring water
• 9 gal tap water
• 2 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 2 tsp Gypsum
• Extras:
• 1 oz fresh medium toast oak cubes
• TBD oz of oak cubes from previous batches

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 12 gal (Target 12 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  160 F for 45 min (Target 160 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramped up to 175 F in 30 min (Target Ramp up to 175 F in 45 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• Primary:  70 F
• Secondary:  60 to 70 F (Ambient Basement Temps)
• Primary Duration:
• With Yeast:  4 weeks
• Lacto Portion:  1 week
• Secondary Duration:
• Version A:
• 3 months with Roeselare
• 18-36 months long term aging
• Version B:
• 18-36 months with Roeselare

Results:

• OG:
• 1.045 (Target 1.045) - with 5 points from Maltodextrine
• Efficiency:
• 73% (Target 73%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.004)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• 1/15/16 - Brewday - 9:00 AM to 3:15 PM Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 13 gal of spring water in my HLT and cycled through the Mash Tun, Grant, and RIMS until the system was at 165 F
• Ended up with 5.5 gal above the false bottom and 9 gal in the system total
• Set to cycle at ~ 2 qt per min at 165 F
• Added CaCl and Gypsum
• Added grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls
• Checked the mash temp after 10 min - temp was 160 F
• Added the corn grits to ~2 gal of hot water in another pot for a cereal mash
• Heated the cereal mash to a boil and then stopped the flame - let it sit
• The corn absorbed all the free water and took on the consistency of very thick oatmeal.  Added another gal of water to thin it up a bit.  Brought back to a boil and then let sit again.

• After mashing the main mash for 45 min I upped the RIMS temp to 185 F to ramp the mash up to 175 F - ended up taking 30 min to hit that target
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the remaining 4 gal in the HLT and brought up to 185 F for the sparge
• Brought the cereal mash up to a boil again
• Added the cereal mash to the main mash once it had hit a boil.  Cycled the mash for 5 more min
• Fly sparged - sparged very slowly in the hopes of limiting the amount of hot break I'd have once the kettle got close to full.  Started heating the kettle after collecting a couple gal.  It was at a boil once I'd collected 5 gal.  Sparge ended up taking 1 hr.  It was a very sticky mash with the corn grits - started to clog the false bottom several times.  I had to stir the mash multiple times to keep things flowing.
• Ended up collecting 14 gal of wort.  Gravity at the grant was at 3.8 brix (1.015)
• Boiled down to 12 gal which took about 60 min (probably boiled close to 2 hrs if you count the time in parallel with the sparge).
• Removed two jars of the yeast from the fridge to warm to room temperature.  Decanted off the spent beer and swirled the yeast back into suspension.

• Added the wort chiller at flameout and then chilled
• Once the beer got down to 90 F I pulled off two gal into jugs to sour with lacto

•  Once the beer was down to 70 F I transferred into two bucket fermenters.  Drained off a gal at a time to try to get even mixing between the two fermenters.
• Ended up collecting 12 gal of wort.  Measured the gravity as 1.040.
• Realized after chilling that I'd forgotten to add the Maltodextrine.  Dissolved it in a separate pot on the kitchen stove and then added that to the kettle prior to draining to the fermenters.
• Pitched the yeast into the fermenters and then moved them down to the 70 F fermentation chamber for primary
• 1/16/16 - Both the main batches and lacto portions were bubbling vigorously the next morning.  Storing that yeast for 3 months in the fridge doesn't seem to have had much impact on it's health - good news for my continued use of the culture.
• 1/24/16 - Pulled off yeast to add to three new starters in mason jars half filled with DME based wort.  Also pulled off some yeast for my next Flanders Batch (Flanders 3.1.1).  Tasted a sample of the beer - it was fruity and had developed quite a bit of sourness.  Some bacteria must have crept into my pure culture (or it's managing to survive in the bucket fermenters).  Very surprising but not unpleasant.  None of the cultures had displayed any signs of infection prior to this as far as I can recall.  Also needed the lacto for the next batch so I transferred the contents of the two gal jugs to the main batch (had planned on giving them 2 weeks but one was enough time to let them get very sour it turned out).

• 2/19/16 - Transferred half the batch (portion "A") onto the yeast cake from Flanders Red 1.5.1.  Measured the gravity as 1.018.  It is a muddy brown color - may be reddish brown if it clears during aging.  It is very sour.  It is a citrusy kind of sourness which is very nice.  I will let this age on the cake for 3 months before transferring into a separate bucket fermenter.

• 2/20/16 - Transferred the other half of the batch (portion "B") onto the yeast cake from Flanders Red 1.5.2.  Sampled the beer as about 1.020.  It's very similar in flavor and appearance to portion "A" - muddy brown, cloudy, and very sour.  This half will sit on the yeast cake for it's entire aging period.  This will initially be aged with a 3 piece airlock.  After 3 months I will check the gravity and flavor and switch to a lid with a vented silicone stopper.
• 7/23/17 - Status Report:
• Part A:
• Fruity aroma up front - reminds me of lemon.  Some Brett funk in the background
• Orange/red and a bit cloudy
• Medium sourness.  There is a citrus fruitiness to it.  Finish has a bit of earthy funk
• Bold flavors and an interesting fruit component (from lacto?).  Not terribly complex
• Part B:
• Earthy funk and a bit of fruit in the aroma.  Rich.
• Orange/red and a bit cloudy
• Light sourness.  Earthy funk with a little fruitiness.  Finish has some bready malt.
• Nice full flavor with a fair bit of complexity
• 12/17/17 - Blended 2.5 gal of Part B with 2.5 gal of Flanders Red 3.1.1.A along with 10 lbs of raspberries to make a Raspberry Flanders Red.  I moved the remainder of 3.1.1.A into the 1.6.1.B fermenter.  I added a stick (~1 oz) of oak that I had toasted myself at 360 degrees in the oven and then soaked for a month in Cabernet Sauvignon.

Lessons Learned:

1. 12 gal of beer in 6 hr saves quite a few hours compared with my normal 6 gal brewdays but it seemed like a lot more work than normal.  I was exhausted by the end.  Was really happy when it was over.  Not sure if I'll ever try that again
2. Was very annoyed to still be getting sticky mash without the BIAB.  I guess I'm going to have to use rice hulls next time (and probably a lot of them).
3. Between the false bottom, grant, and RIMS the system had about 3.5 gal of "deadspace".  With such a big grainbill this wasn't that big of a deal.  I wonder how this will work with a smaller recipe.  Probably not much different than a full volume mash.  I'm going to give it a try for my next batch.

Amber Ale

I have decided to try out my first Amber Ale which is sort of a maltier brother to a pale ale.  I found this recipe, which looks pretty interesting, on homebrewtalk.com: All-Grain - Caramel Amber Ale.

It calls for the use of a dark Candi Syrup to add some caramel notes.  I have purchased Candi Syrup for a few beers before but this recipe includes instructions on making it at home.  Candi Syrup isn't cheap so, if this seems easy enough, I may have to leverage this new knowledge for my future batches.  The recipe calls for 1 pound of Dark Candi Syrup which I will prepare prior to the brew day.  This should get me ~0.008 gravity points in an 6 gal batch.  I will not factor this into my efficiency calculations.

The rest of the recipe is pretty straight forward.  It's just two malts:  Pale (which I will sub Maris Otter for) and Crystal 80L which will give the beer the Amber Color and some more malt character.  I found that the specified amount of base grain (7 lbs) looks okay for my targeted 6 gal batch and assuming an 80% brewhouse Efficiency.  I'll be mashing without a brewbag again so the actual efficiency of the system is a bit of a guess at this point (got 83% last time).

The recipe calls for Safale US-05 which is the American Ale Yeast.  I accidently picked up Safale S-04 which is the English Ale Yeast.  I have decided to just go with the English Ale Yeast fermented in the high 60s to avoid getting too much in the way of esters.  I don't expect that this will be a problem with my ability to warm the fermentation chamber with my reptile heater.

I'll give this one a full 4 weeks to ferment out and clean up.  If I hit all my numbers it should finish around 5% ABV.  Will be nice to have another fairly easy drinking beer on hand.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 7 lbs Maris Otter
• 1 lb 8 oz Crystal 80L
• 1.5 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb Dark Candi Syrup (Not factored into efficiency calculations - should get me 0.008 points)
• 1 lb Sugar
• 0.5 cup Tap Water
• 1.25 tsp Diammonium Phosphate
• Hops:
• 1 oz Chinook (Pellet, 13.1% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Chinook (Pellet, 13.1% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz Willamette (Pellet, 7.8% AA) at 0 min
• Yeast:
• Safale S-04 English Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• Step 1:  150 F for 45 min (Target 150 F for 45 min)
• Step 2:  Ramped up to 170 F in 30 min (Target - ramp up to 170 F in 25 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 66 F
• Primary Duration:
• 4 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.048 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 76%  (Target 80%) - does not include Candi Syrup
• FG:
• 1.011 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 76% (Target 79%)
• ABV:
• 4.86% (Target 5.25%)

Brewing Notes:

• 1/3/16 - Brewday - 9:45 AM to 1200 PM and then, after a lunch break, 1:15 PM to 3:00 PM Including Setup and Cleanup (not including time spent making the Candi Syrup)
• Candi Syrup Notes (Took ~30 min to prepare):
• Put sugar, water, and DAP into a small sauce pan and heated at medium on the stovetop
• Took 10 min to get to a boil
• Boiled until it got to 290 F which took ~12 min.  I didn't stir while boiling
• Once it got to 290 F I removed the pan from the heat and added half a cup of cold water and stirred in.  This got the mixture down to 240 F.
• It had a really nice reddish brown color and some nice caramel and fruity flavors

• I let it cool down over the next several hours while I brewed the beer
• Milled the grain at a fairly fine setting
• Heated 10 gal of spring water in the HLT.  Cycled this through the Mash Tun, Grant, and RIMS until the systems were at 155 F
• Ended up with 3.5 gal above the false bottom and 7 gal in the system
• Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the Mash Tun
• Poured in the grain.  Stirred well to eliminate doughballs - Took 45 min to get to this point

• With the grain there were 4 gal above the false bottom
• Set RIMS to cycle at ~2 qt per min at 153 F
• Temps seemed to be holding well at 150 F based on the mash tun thermometer
• After 45 min of mashing I raised the RIMS temp to 180 F - Took 30 min to raise the mash temp to 170 F
• Added 5 gal of tap water to the HLT and heated 8 gal of strike water to 185 F
• Measured gravity towards the end of the mash as 9.8 brix which is 1.039 - right in the ballpark
• At the end of the mash I transferred 1 gal of strike water to the tun prior to draining to form a layer of water above the grain.  This raised the liquid level to 5 gal above the false bottom.  Focused on maintaining this liquid level rather than on maintaining any specific sparge rate 
• Sparge ended up taking 20 min.  I had 4 of the bottles used to support the grant blow their bottle caps off during the hot sparge.
• Collected 8 gal of wort
• Measured the gravity at the grant as 2.5 brix at the end of the sparge.  This is 1.010 which is the stopping point I was looking for.
• Took a lunch break at this point
• After lunch I heated the kettle (which had gone down to 140 F) - Took 20 min to get to a boil
• Added the bittering hops after the hot break cleared
• With ~20 min left in the boil I added the Irish Moss
• Heated the candi syrup back up to a boil on the stove top to make it a bit easier to pour with about 15 min left
• Added the candi syrup with about 5 min left in the boil.  Some of it had crystalized during the cool down.  I poured some boiling wort into the sauce pan to loosen it up.  Got most of it.
• Added the 0 min hops right before flameout
• Added the wort chiller and let the wort get back to a boil prior to killing the flame
• Chilled down to 65 F
• Collected the targeted 6 gal.  Measured the gravity as 1.048.  I'm not really sure about the gravity expectations for the candi sugar - 1 lb of regular sugar is 0.008 but it's possible that the darkening reduces the gravity a bit.  Either way, 1.048 is plenty close.

• Transferred the fermenter down to the fermentation chamber set to 66 F
• Rehydrated the dry yeast in a glass of 95 F tap water.  Poured the yeast on top and then stirred in after about 10 min.  Moved it down to the fermentation chamber to get a bit closer to the wort temps prior to pitching
• Pitched the yeast
• 1/15/16 - Moved this beer out of the fermentation chamber into 60 F basement.
• 1/31/16 - Bottled 5.5 gal with 3 oz of priming sugar.  Collected 54 12 oz bottles of beer.  The FG was measured as 1.011
• 5/18/16 - Tasting Notes - Hop forward beer.  Slightly more malt character than a pale ale.  Really nice hop and malt flavors.

Lessons Learned:

1. Making the candi syrup was easier than I had expected.  It had a really nice flavor.  I am really satisfied with it compared with the LHBS stuff  (a lot cheaper too).  I think I'll likely just make this for myself going forward.
2. This is the second brewday where I have not used the grain sack with the mash tun.  I think cleanup is actually easier with this new method as I can accept that some grain will get under the false bottom.  I am having some issues with the bottles used to fill the deadspace and am not sure they are worth the trouble.  A bit more water in the mash tun likely wouldn't be that much of a problem given that I am constantly recycling.  I think I might try my next batch without the bottles.