Brewing California Common Beer

It seems as if California Common or Steam Beer is not often brewed by home brewers in South Africa... So I need a bit of advice...

We've tried it three times so far.

1. A small beer using second runnings from a mash using Saflager yeast
2. A normal AG batch using Saflager yeast
3. A normal AG batch using Wyeast 2112 Californa Lager yeast

The first two were rather successful.
The second was disastrous:
(1) fermentation went wrong and the beer had a strange pineapple taste
(2) fermentation was delayed and the bottle pressures seem to be excessive [one bottle exploded in my hand this weekend]

My questions are:

1. Have you brewed or do you regularly brew Cali Common?
2. Are there any tricks with the fermentation? Do you use primary & secondary fermentation or simply primary and then bottle condition?
3. What yeast strain[/font] do you use?

With California Lager yeast you need to keep it cool. 58-60F would be ideal for me. I use primary only, 10 days to 30 days depending on beer, yeast and if I dry hop. Although I use Safale yeast on many ales, I really don't like the results I had with the lager yeasts so I would stick with White Labs or Wyeast California Lager. As for bottling, I just keg so the only help I can offer is that you need to be checking final gravity to make sure the beer is done fermenting. It should be stable for a few days before bottling, if you still have bottle bombs, then you might have infection issues.

Thanks samc,

I think for this last one we have an infection issue.

Would love to stick to Wyeast or White Labs liquid yeasts but they are hard to find and rather expensive down here in South Africa.
Have you managed to harvest these yeast from the fermenter to create slants for reuse in starters?

Schalk79 said:

My questions are:

1. Have you brewed or do you regularly brew Cali Common?
2. Are there any tricks with the fermentation? Do you use primary & secondary fermentation or simply primary and then bottle condition?
3. What yeast strain[/font] do you use?

Click to expand...

1.) The last batch I bottled was my first Cal Common, and personally, I think it came out great. I certainly plan on making it again, and will make no changes to my fermentation technique.

2.+3.) As mentioned already, there is a hook to fermentation for this beer. I used WLP810 (SF Lager) and I have heard from White Labs that it is a true lager strain. I say that, because some of the other "hybrid strains" are actually ale yeast fermented at lager temp, where as SF Lager is a lager yeast fermented closer to ale temps. I think that is important to note, because it has a big effect on your fermentation timeline and pitch rate.

The "trick" I used was pitching cool (58F), and the next morning, raising the temp to 60F. The following morning, (now 36 hours after pitching) I bumped the temp one last time, to 62F, where it remained for 3 weeks.

My typical house strain is WLP007 Dry English, and I have seen it finish in about 3 days. The WLP810 was still fermenting actively about 6 or 7 days after pitching, so I think that could have been the source for one of your issues. I like to let the beer condition for a couple weeks, and I'd imagine that the longer fermentation would also translate into a longer conditioning period. I do not think you could go wrong leaving this beer on the yeast for 3 weeks. Between the cool temps, moderate gravity, and slow-fermenting/conditioning nature of lager yeast, I can see how rushing this beer would lead to bombs.

My advice would boil down to pitching a large quantity of yeast (I used 2 vials in a 1.5L starter pitched from a stir plate), pitch about 4 degrees below where you want active fermentation to take place, and finally, keep things very stable so the yeast has time to work. I appreciate that availability of WL/ Wyeast is limited where you are, but despite your past results, this is a beer that really benefits from the appropriate strain.

Good luck on your next try,
Joe

2112 is definitely slow, I used a whole cake on a 1099 beer and after ~1 week it was only down to 1040. But I warmed it up from 60 to 65-ish and after another week it was down to 1022.

Since cal commons are normally lower in gravity, you could re use the yeast a lot before worrying about problems. Just use 1/3 of the previous cake for the next batch and you could extrapolate that out to a lot of batches using 1 'pitch' for 4 batches (you'll get at least 12 if your brewing often)

I've used Wyeast Bohemian Lager for Cal Common beers with great results - you might try Saflager W34/70 - purportedly the same strain. As JFowler said, keep it cooler, and give it some time (hard to be patient, I know). Works great for me! I've got one going right now...

Thanks for the help guys...
We have clearly been way too impatient

Re use that yeast too! Subsequent pitches are better and you'll save a ton of money

I just kegged 12 gallons of Cal Common and used WLP810. I let it go 2 weeks and after checking for 3 straight days the FG stayed the same so I kegged it. I fermented it at 62 degrees and made a huge starter, on Sunday I made 12 gallons of and Octoberfest and dumped 6 gallons on top of the yeast cake from the Cal Common and it took off within 1 hour.

Here's my recipe/clone. Made last and it was real good. I have 5 gallons that should be ready in a couple weeks. I can't wait.

Recipe: Californa Dreamin'
Style: California Common Beer
TYPE: All Grain


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.84 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 6.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 32.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
7 lbs 12.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 91.72 %
11.2 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 8.28 %
0.90 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 26.7 IBU
0.40 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] (15 min) Hops 5.9 IBU
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma HHops -
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs California Lager (Wyeast Labs #2112) [StarYeast-Lager


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 8.45 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 11.50 qt of water 154.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 4.00 qt of water 168.0 F

I'm from JHB so I suffer with the same ingredient shortage that you do. Here's my take on it:

I've made it quite a few times before, only once with a lager yeast (before I was actually set up for lagering, so I can't really use that as a quality comparison).

I've settled on using two packs of properly re-hydrated US-05, oxygenated and fermenting at 16C. I found using 1 pack or not rehydrating properly, or not oxygenating or fermenting slightly warmer gave me too many esters for the style (heading towards almost mango like).

A lager yeast probably wouldnt have these issues but you'd need more lager yeast (dry lager yeast has less viability than dry ale yeast).

I never secondary anymore. My typical fermenation process for this beer looks like:
16C for 1 week.
Raise temp by 2C per day until temp is at 23C (1C morning, 1C evening).
Hold at 23C for 4 days.
Crash cool to 0C
Hold at 0C for a week.
Keg.
Serve at 10C.

The only way I can see bottle bombs happening is from unfermented sugars remaining. You can prevent this by raising the temp slowly as fermentation slows down. This also helps with diacetyl.

By far the best improvement I had was fermentation temperature. The downside of fermenting ales so low is that it takes a really long time to finish.

Thanks for the tips... We still have some yeast left from a small sample... will experiment with it first. Would prefer to stick to a Cali Lager yeast