I'm brewing a very traditional bavarian weizen today. 6 lbs. wheat malt, 4lbs. german pils malt, 1.5 oz. hallertau hops (approx. 2.7%AA), and bavarian weizen yeast from white labs.

I have never made a bad hefe weizen, except one that spoiled.

I went up to the beer store with what i was going to call Platinum Blonde Ale. The recipe was 9 pounds of german pils malt and half a pound of carapils, mashed for 60 minutes at 151 in purified drinking water, with saaz or similar hops to acheive 25 IBU and gentle hop aroma and flavor, fermented with california v ale yeast from white labs. I was looking for the lightest possible ale, near kolsch, soft, mild fruitiness, gentle hops, balanced bitterness.

I scooped four pounds of german pils malt in the scale at my beer store and then went to add the half pound of carapils. (The scale won't hold the full ten pounds, so I usually do half the recipe, mill it, and then the other half.) I was chatting with the guy at the store about my plans. Right on top of the pils malt, I scooped half a bound of victory in by mistake.

Scratch all that. I have no idea what I'm doing now and I don't care. I grabbed 3.75 pounds of american two row, .25 lbs. of carapils, .5 lbs. of 60L british crystal and a pounds of munich and milled it all together. 1 oz sterling (6.2% AA for 60), .5 oz each mt. hood and libtery (4.0 and 3.6% AA for 30) and .5 oz each mt. hood and libtery for 2. Fermented with white labs Belgian Ale Yeast.

We'll see what the results are.

Shake it up?

I read somewhere that int he 19th century brewers would agitate their casks of barleywine in order to get more fermentation going. The old ale never really showed the level of active fermentation that one would expect from a beer that size; it has fermented but didn't really seem to have fermented enough to me. So I bunged it up with a solid bung and shook the heck out of it today. What do you know: bubbles in the airlock (once I replaced the solid bung.) I'm not sure that this activity will persists, but I hope so. Anyway, the theory behind all this seems like a reasonable one to me: yeast that would be fermenting can floculate prematurely because of yeast in the neighborhood that are at the floculation stage. Shaking releases some of this healthy yeast.

I'll let you know whether the airlock starts moving at a renewed rate or not.

I got round to kegging the IPA this morning. It's delicious. Remember the previous report on the gravity? Well, it was off. I only got about 75% attenuation according to today's measurements. This seems weird to me, so I'll hit it with a hydrometer to see double check it. (I'm pretty skeptical that a 149 degree, 75 minutes mash would give me only 75% AA with WLP001...)

Here's a picture of my alt bier. I really need a better camera (camera phones are a lot more phone than camera...) This beer is gorgously clear and the color of rubies.

I brewed my Old Ale today. I ended with a gravity of 66 and it should attenuate well--6.5%+ abv. That's exactly what I was shooting for, which is great. I should bottle it around the end of the month.

I was kicking my self this evening for not having the sense to transfer my IPA from a month ago into a keg to keep it in waiting for when one of my beers in the cooler blows--so as soon as I can I can get it in and start chilling it for carbonation. I decided that I will do that tomorrow, and checked the keg to see whether it needed an over night treatment. It looked good. I went to the oatmeal stout, to pour myself a beer. Half a glass--pop, foam, the keg blew.