Tuesday, August 4, 2009

20090804 - Time to catch up

I've not posted anything lately. It just means I've been having fun brewing and drinking the beer instead of writing about it. I did get to attend the National Homebrewer's Conference in Oakland. Many good beers, lots of things learned. I think the most worthwhile one for me was a session on cleaning and sanitizing. It's a subject that I needed to learn more about.

I've had a run of three batches that didn't turn out as expected. First, an Abita TurboDog clone came out with a touch of green-apple-y flavor. I've decided to try to save it by taking that sourness and boosting it to lambic-ness. I've dumped in tart cherries and we'll see what that does. Next, I had a Kolsch that got phenolics in it - the antiseptic or plastic flavor. I *know* it can't be from chloramines or chlorine. I took a mix of R/O and filtered water and treated it with potassium metabisulphate. My phenolics must have been produced by the fermentation. Instead of the normal fermentation in the 72-74F closet, I tried controlling the temp by sticking the fermenter in a water bath and throwing in ice every so often. I did achieve lower temps but the variance went from 65F to 70F. Last, my friend Dave brought over a Flander's Brown recipe for us to brew together. This one got green-apple-y again and I suspect that I used the same secondary as the TurboDog. Well, green apple indicates acetaldehyde which is a precursor to ethanol - the yeast didn't finish before I racked away. This one got a new starter of yeast back into it to see if they could fix the problem.

I have had some successes though. I've mixed a too-bitter Czech Pilsner with a too-sweet one to come up with my 6040 and 4060 Czech Pilsners. One is a touch more bitter and the other is a touch more sweet/malty. I go back and forth on which I like better.

I've brewed my Holiday Spiced ale in prep for the Halloween/holiday season. The house smells like gingerbread for a few days. I really have to say that PBW works wonders. I soaked the primary for a bit and it come out spotless with no other scrubbing. (Yes, you shouldn't scrub your plastic buckets, but I've been scrubbing them long before I knew better. I'll just keep scrubbing until I replace the buckets.)

On the cleaning side, I've been working through the entire list of equipment with a PBW soak, a rinse-rinse-rinse, and a sanitize. I should be able to kill off anything wild and get down to producing the clean beers like normal.

Austin Zealot Inquisition picnic is coming up on Saturday Aug. 8. Woohoo!!!

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