Citrus Ale Brew Day/Step by step

Hi everyone,

I am starting a new thread since I have made a substantial diversion from my original post about a lime ale.

This will be my weekend project this weekend. I want to try and give as much detail as possible so (if this actually comes out ok) others can follow along exactly.

Partial Mash I guess this is technically a partial mash but leaning closer to all grain. I will start on the stove in a 5gal brew pot and transfer to 5 gallon cooler and grain bag to rest and sparge. Depending on how much good wort I am getting from the sparges I may end up doing a split boil.

Mash procedure Thanks to glutarded-chris as I am basing my process off of what he has been using with success for a while. I made a few adjustments to work with what I have (5gal brew pot, and only partial mash):

I will treat all the water with gypsum

I just finished milling my grains. I mixed all of the grains listed below and milled at the same time. I milled tight enough to fully crack the millet but not to flour (as I saw people having problems going that fine). Since I am using a cheap Corona Clone mill there is some variation in the grind.

-9qts water at 125f with enzymes mixed in
-add grains (assumed drop to 115f)
-add ~1 qt boiling water to raise back to 125F
-Rest at 125F for 30 mins

-add ~3qts boiling water and heat to get to 160*f
-transfer to 5 gallon cooler (it has not had the spout replaced so that is going to be fun draining haha) lined with grain bag. I think i will also use a finer grain/hop bag an extra liner to filter, i will lay it between the main bag and the spout.
-rest for 2 hours

-3 separate sparges with 2-3 qt each time (155f i think)

I expect to get a little over 4.25 gallons but if I am getting good gravity I will keep pulling liquid an boil down

Grain: (note: after grinding grains my weight was a bit lower than 10lbs total but i didn't weight all of the grains before using, just went by the bag weight)
5# Pale Millet Malt
2# Buckwheat Malt
3# Pale Rice Malt

Extracts/Other:
1.65# Sorghum Extract (60min)
4oz Maltodextrin (60min)
1oz NZ Wakatu Hops (60min)

1# Golden Candi Syrup (15min)
0.5 oz Cascade (15min)
1 tablet Whirlflock

1oz Dry Lime peel (5min)
0.5oz Dry Sweet Orange Peel (5min)
0.25 Dry Lemon Peel (5min)

0.5oz Cascade (0min)

Windsor Yeast (I may dry pitch since I had good luck with this yeast pitching into the wort at the rehydration temp on my kit beer but we will see)

I am expecting to start with 5.5 gallon in the fermentor:
OG 1.052-1.058 (depending on my efficiency)
FG 1.010-1.014
ABV 5.25-6%
IBU Low 20s

If I am getting lower then desired citrus notes I will probably add some more citrus peels into the fermentor/secondary. Hopefully I can develop this into a solid Spring/Summer Ale recipe before May or so.

If all goes well I will repeat this with a variation for the darker Ley Lime Pie Ale I was originally talking about in my other thread.

I will try to get a bunch of pictures during the whole process.

Well had a problem at work so had to go in today. So this gets pushed to tomorrow hopefully.

And we're off!

I started out with 2.5 gal water, treated with gypsum.

The 125*f rest was very easy to achieve, i am using an electric stove (flat top) and after the water got up to temp i poured the grains in and just cut the heat. It actually crept up to 130 over the 30 mins, and i even added a little cold water because the mash was a bit thick.

I added 1 gallon boiling water (treated with gypsum) but that really did not get the mash up very hot so i had to add some heat from the stove. I did end up with 2 tiny burned patches on the bottom of the kettle but I think it was pretty minor and should be ok.

Transfered to the 'mash tun' and temp came out to 163 so I should be good to go... now just time to wait for the next 2 hours before sparging.

Pictures later today!

Looks like its going well!

Got about 30 mins left in the mash rest. I was curious and pulled a sample to so starch tests with at 1 hour and 30 min left, both failed so I hope it kicks it up. The wort does taste sweet though so I know it is working.

I know there is some hate for the coleman 5 gal coolers because of their spigot being too big to use normal conversions to a ball valve but this thing has lost all of 1*f in 90 mins and the lid is not even tight since I have my temp probe and grain bag keeping it from screwing down (I did throw a towel over it but still, not shabby).

And it is in there fermentor!

It turned out very very veer cloudy even after whirl pooling but i guess it will settle out.

I got over 4.5 gal from the sparging (probably closer to 5 gal). I had a little over 4 in my main kettle and then boiled the remainder on the side and added this to the main kettle right before whirl pooling

But something seems a bit weird, after adding water to get to 5.5 gal my OG reading is 1.066 If this is true I am very happy BUT I am skeptical because that would mean I would have had to have perfect efficiency with the grain... yeah... right...

I did move the maltodextrin addition to 15 mins instead of 60 and I ended up adding a touch extra sorghum syrup than i intended (1.72# instead of 1.65#)

Now time to clean up and get some food cooking. I will try to get some of the pics up from today... realized i didn't take as many good ones as I wanted to but I at least have some.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the starch test. I have never passed one and some of mine finish as low as 1.008 so I don't think the amount of starch after a long final rest has a negative effect. My theory is that the buckwheat just has tenacious starch that even in low amounts fails the test.

If I did the numbers correctly, I calculate that you got 26 ppg on your mash which is pretty darn good. Well done!

glutarded-chris said:

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the starch test. I have never passed one and some of mine finish as low as 1.008 so I don't think the amount of starch after a long final rest has a negative effect. My theory is that the buckwheat just has tenacious starch that even in low amounts fails the test.

If I did the numbers correctly, I calculate that you got 26 ppg on your mash which is pretty darn good. Well done!

Click to expand...

I wonder if the extra long mash time helped that (probably about 2:40 total) and i soaked each of 3 sparges for 15 mins... Not sure how I got that many points because the OG was taken after a full gallon of water was added and I had left about 0.5 gallon of trub in the boil pot... but hey if my first attempt to brew with grain ends up as a 7.25% ABV I am going to be ecstatic!!!!!

My math says the theoretical limit would be 26.6 ppg for my grain bill, or did I mess up the math?

It is bubbling away like crazy already almost non stop bubbling in the air lock. I am cautiously optimistic about dry pitching Windsor yeast into rehydration temp wort as a normal practice.

The worst part was that if I had a bigger pot I would have sparged again because i was still getting pretty good gravity (1.020s if I remember). Next time I am going to plan for reclaiming additional wort and may even try and save some to use for a GF Braggot.

When you say your are pitching the yeast at hydration temperature, does that mean you are pitching as you are cooling the wart, so pitching when it reaches 100F and then continuing on to cool below 80F?

I am not sure what the theoretical limit is on the grains. I brew mostly pale ales and I usually get around 22 or 23 ppg. I had one batch that went to around 30ppg but that was an extreme outlier. Never figured out why but it made me suspect that there is some variability in the malt we are getting. I usually plan on about 22 ppg and then adjust as needed once I see what I actually get.

My first all grain batch nearly blew out the airlock with violent fermentation at room temp and nearly made a huge mess. I never had anything close to violent fermentation with sorghum syrup base batches. I now use a blowoff tube. something to consider.

The long final rest definitely helps with conversion. I never considered lengthening the time in the sparge water. By that time I am tired of waiting and just want to get to the boil .

People talk about extracting off flavors from the husks with long rests etc. I suspect this is not a big issue with millet because there is not much of a husk. With more and more roasted rice being used, that may become an issue so keep that in mind also. There is a sweet spot in there.

Looks like a solid recipe so let us know how it turns out at serving time!

I pitch the yeast when the wort is with int eh temp range specified on the package, this batch I think it was 88*f which is the low end. After that I mix and let it cool naturally. It started fermenting very quickly and was taking off like a rocket with in 12 hours (almost no stop in the bubble coming out this morning). It has drastically slowed at this point but the last time with the kit I did it slowed pretty quickly too. The gas coming out of the air lock already smells alcoholic so it must be working fast.

I do use a bucket for the primary so it has about 1 gallon of head space, if i were to ferment in a carboy I would surely use a blow off.

I was surprised how the citrus peels smelled when dry, I got notes of lemon-lime gatorade and sweetgrass but when i tasted the wort I think it was more citrusy tasting, hard to tell with the fresh hop boil, warmth, and sweetness.

I will say the raw grains had a less than appetizing smell, the only way I could describe it was like home made dog biscuits my mom used to make... but i figure through fermentation that should work out.

Now last night I started thinking about hard soda (i saw an ad for a new hard soda on the market and am 99% sure it is malted), I am going to have to look around and see what I come up with because I think that gives A LOT of possibilities and probably will be a bit faster of a brew day process (and I like mixed drinks too so why not make it premixed haha).

Now I just need to find a good kegerator, I think I am going to treat my self for my birthday in June... faster bottling day, the satisfaction of pouring beer on tap at home, and a lot less bottles I have to deal with

Ok so i just checked gravity. ~1.016 WOW that was fast. It probably was about that low last night since the air lock complete dropped when i got home from work yesterday.

I took a small sample out to taste (super early but hey why not). I am pretty sure I am tasting the rice malt but not in a good way. Granted it has only had 2 days so that very well may drop out. I couldn't really get the citrus notes as an 'in your face' flavor but I think i was getting some citrusy notes. I will take another sample at racking and fully chill it to clear up more and give it a taste to see if I want more citrus in the secondary.

I think I am going to keep it int he primary until saturday morning and then rack off for about a week before bottling.

Just racked it... HOLY SEDIMENT BATMAN! I lost close to a gallon full of sediment and yeast and it was pretty well concentrated down.

It has a very nice golden color to it.

The citrus taste is not really coming through. I think it may have been better to put the citrus peel right into he primary instead of trying to get flavors off of it for 5 mins in the boil.

After racking I added:
0.12 oz lemon peel
0.25 oz sweet orange peel
0.25 oz lime peel

Gravity is still around 1.016 but i am starting to get bubbles in the secondary so I figure it will drop a few more points while it clears over the next week.

At first taste I was getting some weird grain notes but that went away as i ket taking small sips to taste it. At this point the hops really just over power any of the other notes.

I also cracked open the Brewers Best GF Ale kit that i bottled 2 weeks ago, nothing to write home about but it is at least drinkable, similar to redbridge but better for sure, absolutely no head.

My next problem to tacked is that gluten free brewing is out of buckwheat malt, i have 2 lbs of it but that is for the other batch next weekend... hope that gets back in stock soon so I can stock up on a bunch of grains and other ingredients to do maybe 5 or so batches.

And one more update to end the weekend.

I got curious and took a whiff of the secondary, MUCH stronger citrus aroma... almost too far, but I know this ~should~ mellow out (right?) during carbing and some aging.

I ordered about 40 more pounds of grains (once GFHB is back in stock on buckwheat I will order 10lbs of that and another 5 of vienna millet malt since they only had 5 lbs when I went to order).

I have decided that I am going to try and start a batch every week for a month to get some variety in the pipe line and give me something to do (plus give me new things to drink so I don't drink batches up before I can see their full potential with some bottle aging). Depending on when I can get my hands on some more buckwheat malt I will either try and make a recipe with out it or just wait an extra week until it gets back in stock...

i was going to bottle the batch this weekend but it is still really cloudy and I see some very fine bubbles still coming out of it which i think is keeping it cloudy. I will give it another week in the secondary and probably call it good. Not sure if the citrus peels I tossed in gave something for the co2 to concentrate on or just if the yeast want to play just a little more (too lazy to take another gravity reading as I assume there is probably negligible change since I had stable gravity for about 4 days before racking.

I had that issue with windsor and nottingham. Suspect it was when i fermented lower than 72F. I had to let sit in secondary for a week or so extra and still kegged a little cloudy. Cleared up just fine in the keg. You just may have to be careful on the pour
I am sure it will come out great.

Bottled this today. The gravity ready very low, 1.006... I am wondering if my OG reading was skewed due to all the trub in the wort or if the citrus peels gave the yeast some extra nutrients to take it lower. I think this one may need a while in the bottle to taste good, the citrus notes and dryness are making this a bit bitter instead of the sweeter citrus notes I expected. Time will tell. It is just as cloudy as it was a week ago so I probably could have bottled last weekend.

I am also wondering if I really did top this off to 5.5 gal when I put it into the primary. My notes say I did and I thought I did but I had just over 4 gallons in the secondary so maybe i went to the wrong line.

I started an Oatmeal Pub Ale yesterday and hopefully i can bottle it in 2 weeks, efficiency was about 82% so not bad and it came out a lot clearer (I think lower buckwheat and rice helped as well as skimming the foam preboil, I also wanted to get more out of the kettle so i ran the trub slury into a super fine grain bag and got some rather clear wort out of it so I think i will use this method in the future). I think it should end up in the mid 5% range for ABV, its only about 21-22 IBU so it should be malty and sweet.

I also tried some of my Brewers Best GF Ale kit that i had left at room temp and am surprised how much it seems to have improved with an additional 2 weeks, still nothing to write home about but better.

I need to get a lot more pale millet malt but I am trying to see if GFHB gets their buckwheat in stock so I can order all at once.

Well first pour. Figured it is only right to drink beer i made out of a glass i made.

Head was pretty good, fast rising large bubbles but dropped very fast.

Taste: hmmmmm I think between the cascade hops and all the citrus peels i used it may not be what i was expecting. I got much more of a bitter citrus than a sweet citrus I was looking for.

Honestly to drink this first glass i tossed half of a blood orange into it after the first sip. Hopefully it will settle out and the bitterness will drop out because i am not happy with it. I probably tried to go a little to far in complexity on my first from scratch recipe.

edit- and idk why it keeps putting the file sideways since it is straight when i look at the image solo.

edit2- on a positive note this brew is pretty strong so i guess it won't matter if it is bitter after a couple