Brews and Blues Beer and Smokin’ Blues

Roktoberfest

So, another brew day is in the books and five gallons of Oktoberfest is in the fermenter. Lots of folks asked why I was brewing an Oktoberfest in March, which is a good question.  Wikipedia's HISTORY entry here will explain.  Oktoberfest, as a beer style is really a Märzen.  Maybe that will explain a little better...

Brew day went fine with no hitches to speak of.  I didn't forget any ingredients or components today.  The right hops went in at the right times.  I'm still sorting out some issues with the new 10-gallon brew kettle.  I'm not having a lot of luck dialing in the boil-off volume for consistency purposes.  My volume into the brew kettle was supposed to be 7.05 gallons, and I was just a tad shy of that at 6.9 gallons.  My gravity into the kettle was supposed to be 1.049 and I was just a bit under at 1.045.  Those variances are, in my opinion, insignificant.  I was a little off base after the boil though, and I'm not sure why.  My target post boil volume was 5.5 gallons with a gravity of 1.063.  I ended up with 4.9 gallons (significant difference) at 1.065.  The gravity was on target so I'm not so worried about the volume difference, but I'd still like to know where it went.  I have the evaporation rate on the kettle set to 15% per hour.  I changed that from 17% on my last boil because I didn't boil off enough on my last two batches.  With a 75 minute boil, I should have boiled off about 1.3 gallons from the 6.9, leaving me at approximately 5.6 gallons.  I'm not sure how I ended up with only 4.9 gallons.  Anyway....

The beer smelled fantastic and I can't wait to taste it.  I'll be fermenting for 14 days (approximately) in primary and then 21 to 28 days in secondary before bottling this beer.  I have a lot of weekend work coming up at the hospital (3 out of the next 4 weekends) so my brewing schedule is going to be a little strange... My next brew will probably be on a weekday in the middle of the week sometime in the next two weeks...

Brew Day – Dark Warrior Imperial Stout

I have been looking forward to this brew day for a while now. I have been wanting to make an imperial stout for a while, so I got up this morning and milled about 21 pounds of grain and set off to brew this beast.  Today was not the optimal day to brew.  It was cold and windy.  Wind is not a good thing when you are trying to boil 7 or 8 gallons of liquid on a propane burner outside.  My new Hurricane Burner could not get the job done.  I might have eventually boiled my wort, but I had to switch back to my old burner which is more powerful to get the job done today. 

I learned something new today.  It's actually something I wondered about, but now I know.  When you are brewing a specific quantity of beer, your brewhouse efficiency decreases as the weight of the grain bill increases.  I'm not sure if there is a formula to estimate this, but my MLT that normally produces efficiencies of 80% only kicked out 70% today with a 21-pound grain bill.  There is nothing wrong with that, but I had formulated the recipe for 80% efficiency which means my original gravity was off the mark.  I was hoping to get 1.110 and ended up with 1.097 instead.  This is still a big beer... it's just not where I had hoped it would be...

A 24-ounce mug of my Vienna Blonde made me not worry so much about my original gravity... 

Next up in my homebrewing arena is probably gonna be an American Brown Ale.  It's either gonna be that or a full batch attempt at a Helles Bock... We'll see what happens...

Brew Day and Upgrades

Today was brew day... finally! I have been sidetracked from getting this brew done since Christmas. I have had all sorts of roadblocks pop up that have kept me from getting this "Rusty Nut Red Ale" made. Some of the delays were my fault. I actually wanted to wait until some of my equipment upgrades arrived before making this recipe. In the above photo, you can see my new 10-gallon stainless steel brew kettle. It's also sitting on my new Hurricane Burner (pictured below) as well. The Hurricane Burner is whisper quiet, puts out up to 60k BTU, and runs on no more than 1 psi. I'm hoping it will extend the life of a regular propane cylinder.

I had another unexpected turn of events today that forced me to use another new piece of gear. I had disassembled my 5-gallon mash tun to fix a minor problem with it. I didn't bother to check it for leaks when I put it back together, and sure enough, it was leaking. I switched over to my 10-gallon version that I had never used before. Luckily it worked out well and produced 80% efficiency, so I'm quite happy with that. The 10-gallon MLT wasn't scheduled to go into production until my next beer, which will be a big imperial stout. The ingredients for that will be here later this week and I'm not sure when I'll brew that one just yet, but it will be soon.  I mashed inside today because it was a bit chilly outside around noon today. 

When the Man Cave was getting the recent remodel job, Tonya bought this Hoosier Cabinet for me to use as storage for brewery stuff, and I think I have finally figured out how to best put it to use. I'm going to use it to store speciatly and base malts. This project will help me keep enough stuff on hand so I can brew about anything I want on short notice if I choose to do so.  The three base malts in the bottom left cabinet are Munich, Vienna, and Pilsner.  I have a 15-gallon container in another location that is full of regular 2-row that won't fit in this cabinet.  The specialty malts I intend to keep on hand are carapils, flaked oats, victory, biscuit, crystal 10, crystal 20, crystal 40, crystal 60, crystal 80, crystal 120, chocolate, roasted barley, black patent, and a few others that I'm not sure about yet. 

I hate brewing on weekdays. I'd much rather brew on a weekend when I have a better potential of getting friends to stop by. The next brew will be on a Saturday or Sunday for sure...