Thursday, April 25, 2013

Beer 5 - Dotybrew ESB

Mash bill:
5 1/2 lbs Pale Malt (2 row)
8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt
4 oz Amber (crisp) Malt
2.1 oz Aromatic Malt

Mash in at 162.1 F with 7.97 qt of water
Fly sparge with 5.25 gal water at 168.0 F

Add water to achieve boil volume of 6.48 gal
Estimated pre-boil gravity: 1.048 (I was just about spot on)

Boil additions:
3 lb 4 oz LME
5 oz corn sugar (dextrose)
1.25 oz Kent Golding hops - 60 min
0.5 oz Northern Brewer hops - 10 min
0.25 oz Kent Golding hops - 1 min

Post boil volume: 5.73 gal
OG: 1.057

Recipe called for 4 days primary fermentation. I gave it three weeks.

Secondary/dry hop:
0.25 Kent Golding hops - I am using 0.5 oz to finish up the bag. I'm dry hopping in the keg.

Age for 30 days at 65 F

Expected FG: 1.016

I'll post the results in a month!

Monday, April 8, 2013

Brock's Homebrew Supply

I expect that my readership is in the low single digits to zero, but I wanted to give a shout out to my local homebrew supply store. Brock's Homebrew is a new store here in Melbourne. It's on East Ave, just off of Ellis near Downtown Produce. Brock and his employees are fantastic. For the Oktoberfest, I went in knowing that I wanted a partial mash Oktoberfest. Brock came up with the recipt (based on "Kip's Lager" marzen) and walked me through the steps. He also gave me a really good deal on an empty keg and the proper fittings. As much as I like dealing with Austin Homebrew online, I've switched to Brock's for all of me brewing needs. If you're in the Melbourne area, I highly recommend them!

Beer 4 - Oktoberfest 2012

This post is well overdue. Last summer I made my first lager, an Oktoberfest. It was easily the best beer I've made yet. The recipe is:
5 lbs Munich I (Weyermann) grain (7.1 SRM)
1 lb Vienna Malt (Briess) grain (3.5 SRM)
12.0 oz Caramunich I (Weyermann) (51.0 SRM)

Mash in at 162.1 F with 8.44 qt of water
Step temperature 150.0 F for 75 minutes
Fly sparge with 2.70 gal water at 160.8 F

Add water to achieve boil volume of 4.0 gal
Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.079 SG

3 lbs 4.8 oz LME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM)
1.0 oz Hallentauer hops - 60 minutes
0.5 oz Tettnang hops - 30 minutes
0.5 oz Tettnang hops - 15 minutes

Estimated post boil volume: 3.25 gal and est post boil gravity: 1.058 SG

I fermented with Wyeast Octoberfest Lager yeast at 55 F for 3 weeks. After three weeks, the SG wasn't down to the final 1.014, rather it was around 0.022. It was sweeter than the recipe called for but I thought it tasted good. At this point I lagered it for two months, kegged it, and tapped in mid October. It came out great! As expected, it was on the sweet side but the flavor was otherwise crisp, clean, and malty, exactly as an Octoberfest should be. This was my first lager, my first partial mash beer, and I was very pleased with the results.