Awhile back I made a beer that was ladden with DMS after primary fermentation. DMS is a sulfur product, I was told, and yeast can metabolize sulfur compounds, so don't throw it out yet.
The good news is that they were right, and this beer is perfectly drinkable now. There's a lingering, subtle DMS component, but I think that in a week it too will be gone. This beer won't be one of my outstanding successes, but it will pass.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Brewing is not like bicycle ridding; you can't just pick it back up and feel like you never took a break. The hot summer weather, busy schedule and vacations kept me out of the brewery for much of the summer. But fall is approaching and I want to have beer to drink when my birthday and gift of tap handles arrives.
A quick hydrometer read after I'd extracted four gallons caused me to draw the conclusion that my efficiency had been terrible. I decided for some reason that the solution was to stir up the mash and re-circulate again. WTF did I decide that for? I can't even remember except that I had this very bad thought earlier that stirring a mash would improve efficiency. This thought does not, upon reflection, make any sense to me and I'm sure I would have summarily rejected it had I been brewing lately.
The problem, also a lapse brought on by the hiatus, was that I didn't stir the extract before taking the reading. Duh.
By the way, I made a beer on the cusp of norther english brown and london porter. It would have been a pure brown except I accidentally mixed a 1/4 pound of black patent malt into the grist. So now it's on the verge of porter. He's the recipe:
6.25 lbs. of Maris Otter
1.5 lbs. cargill 2-row
1 lb. brown malt
1 lb. 60L british crystal
.25 lb. black patent malt
1 oz. target
White Labs Burton Ale Yeast
Mash the grains at 154 for 60 minutes. Boil hops for 60 minutes.
A quick hydrometer read after I'd extracted four gallons caused me to draw the conclusion that my efficiency had been terrible. I decided for some reason that the solution was to stir up the mash and re-circulate again. WTF did I decide that for? I can't even remember except that I had this very bad thought earlier that stirring a mash would improve efficiency. This thought does not, upon reflection, make any sense to me and I'm sure I would have summarily rejected it had I been brewing lately.
The problem, also a lapse brought on by the hiatus, was that I didn't stir the extract before taking the reading. Duh.
By the way, I made a beer on the cusp of norther english brown and london porter. It would have been a pure brown except I accidentally mixed a 1/4 pound of black patent malt into the grist. So now it's on the verge of porter. He's the recipe:
6.25 lbs. of Maris Otter
1.5 lbs. cargill 2-row
1 lb. brown malt
1 lb. 60L british crystal
.25 lb. black patent malt
1 oz. target
White Labs Burton Ale Yeast
Mash the grains at 154 for 60 minutes. Boil hops for 60 minutes.
Monday, August 20, 2007
That quasi-experiment with no control group on the subject of first wort hopping has been filling glasses for almost a week now.
I got moderately high bitterness in this beer, which means, I think, that bitterness from FWH is moderately high. I've read somewhere that one should approximate FWH at 2/3 the bitterness provided by a 60 minute boil; while I can hardly claim to be so precise from my tasting of just one FHW beer, I will say that I think this is probably a good estimator.
I got moderately high bitterness in this beer, which means, I think, that bitterness from FWH is moderately high. I've read somewhere that one should approximate FWH at 2/3 the bitterness provided by a 60 minute boil; while I can hardly claim to be so precise from my tasting of just one FHW beer, I will say that I think this is probably a good estimator.
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