August 17th: Pliny the Elder
So, yeah, this brew session went pretty smoothly. There were a few hiccups, but nothing even close to a brew-day disaster… I hope.
Let’s see, first, I forgot to add the Cascade whole hops to the mash. I didn’t realize this until I was waiting on the grain basket to drain and pulling the hops from the keezer where I’d stored them. As soon as I read the label on the bag, I was like, “Shit!, oh well… I guess I’ll add them to the wort while I wait for the boil.” If the flavor is off again, I may have to do this kit a third time.
Another thing was I got my water from Quality Water of Aptos, which means it was… uh, quality water. It’s reverse osmosis–RO–water, and the guide on the Anvil Foundry manual says to add gypsum (calcium sulfate) and calcium chloride. I did, but I calculated my additions based on the boil volume, not the total volume of water used, so they’ll be off by a little.
Finally (as far as I know anyway), I calibrated my pH meter using 6.85 solution, instead of 7. I’m hoping that might actually mean I was closer to 5.2 than I thought, since I measured 5.46.
Original Gravity was a little low. The target is 1.077, but I only hit 1.072. I was expecting around 68% for mash efficiency; measured efficiency, according to BrewSmith though, was about 63%. I should probably do a one-gallon batch sparge in the future to see if I can eek out a few more percentage points, especially with kit recipes since I may not have the extra fermentables to compensate.
Here’s the recipe on the Recipes page.
August 18th: Blueberry Cascade 2.0
Brew-day #2 went really well.
Mom gave me a bunch of frozen blueberries that she’d grown. I decided to use half of them, about 5 pounds, to make a blueberry pale ale (my daughters want to make blueberry syrup and a pie with the other half). I’m not a huge fruit-beer fan, but I really enjoyed the Blueberry Ale from the Jack Russell Farm Brewery at Apple Hill (Camino, CA) when I visited them a while back. I’m hoping I can recreate something close to their beer.
This is version 2.0, because I tried to brew a similar recipe a long time ago using an artificial blueberry extract. It was not good. The flavor was blueberryish, but pretty fake tasting. Also, I learned that they used to make artificial blueberry extract from beaver anal gland secretions (castoreum). Not likely that the extract I used was made from beaver butt juice, but the idea that it might be was enough for me to dump the beer.
I’m using a simple recipe for this beer. It’s not quite a SMaSH, because I added a little crystal malt (20L) to give the beer some color. I think the citrus and pine notes from the Cascade hops will pair nicely with the blueberry effervescence (I’m so fancy). I’m not going to add this to the Recipes page, because it’s more of an experiment, but I’ll add it here:
4.75 Gallon / No Sparge / :60 Boil
Anvil Foundry 10.5 All-In-One System
Estimated Brewhouse Efficiency: 62% (you’ll need to adjust based on your brewhouse efficiency)
OG: 1.050
IBUs: 48.5
- 7.50 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash)
- 3.75 g Calcium Chloride (Mash)
- 1.00 tbsp PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash)
- 9 lbs 8.5 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US
- 1 lbs 2.3 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt – 20L
- 1.00 oz Cascade [7.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min
- 0.50 oz Cascade [7.00 %] – Boil 30.0 min
- 0.50 oz Cascade [7.00 %] – Boil 10.0 min
- 0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 5.0 mins)
- 1.00 oz Cascade [7.00 %] – Boil 5.0 min
- 1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml]
- 8 lbs 12.0 oz Fruit – Blueberry [Secondary]
Measured OG was 1.057, but my final volume was about a gallon less than I was expecting, and I still only got about 63% mash efficiency. I think I’m losing more water in the boil at 240V than I allotted for in the recipe. There’s also a very good chance that my understandings of brewhouse efficiency and water volume calculations are way off. The MelloMooseMedia Legal Team is fond of reminding me of how dumb I am every time they have to renew our liability insurance.
Once the wort is fully fermented, I’ll blend up the frozen blueberries and pasteurize them. I’m thinking about using my Instant Pot Ace Plus 10-in-1 Smoothie and Soup Blender* so I can mash and pasteurize at the same time. I’ll rack the un-carbonated beer onto the blueberry purée in a secondary fermenter. We don’t really want any further fermentation happening, but I do want maybe a little more yeast activity to purge any oxygen that might sneak in during the transfers. I may add some potassium sorbate to kill off any remaining yeast in the keg though. We won’t need them since we’re force carbonating the beer in the keg and I want to hold onto a little bit of the sweetness that the berries impart.
*I signed up for the Amazon Associates program, so if you follow one of my links to Amazon and buy the thing, I’ll get some money. Just a heads-up.