Rasenmäher Kölsch. Nicht reinheitsgebot.

It's past time for me to have brewed a good lawnmower beer. The summer heat is arriving.

Initially i was thinking a cream ale, and my grain bill reflects that, but i got talked into making a kölsch, and then bought the appropriate yeast.

I'm using some of the leftover hops in my freezer, which should explain why i have selected all aroma type hops for a kölsch. The 10L caramel is also taking up space in my freezer. I have some cara-pils in there too but I'm told that head retention is not a kölsch characteristic.

Thoughts? Brewday is potentially tomorrow.

Rasenmäher - Kölsch
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Batch Size: 5.494 gal
Boil Size: 6.805 gal
Boil Time: 90.000 min
Efficiency: 70%%
OG: 1.047
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.6%%
Bitterness: 22.4 IBUs (Tinseth)
Color: 4 SRM (Morey)

Fermentables
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Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) US Grain 4.000 lb Yes No 79%% 2 L
Pale Malt (6 Row) US Grain 3.000 lb Yes No 76%% 2 L
Brown Basmati Rice, Cooked Grain 3.000 lb Yes No 70%% 1 L
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L Grain 10.500 oz Yes No 75%% 10 L
Total grain: 10.656 lb

Hops
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Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Sterling 7.6%% 0.400 oz Boil 60.000 min Pellet 10.2
Perle 9.3%% 0.100 oz Boil 30.000 min Pellet 2.4
Styrian Goldings 1.9%% 2.000 oz Boil 30.000 min Pellet 9.8

Yeast
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Name Type Form Amount Stage
Wyeast - Kolsch Ale Liquid 0.528 cup Primary

Mash
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Name Type Amount Temp Target Time
1st Infusion 6.250 gal 165.000 F 154.000 F 60.000 min
2nd Infusion 2.000 gal 160.000 F 154.000 F 20.000 min

Alright, brewed this today. Or tonight rather. I need to hang a lamp from a branch of the tree i brew under if I am going to be doing this in the dark real often.

Since rice is close to 30% of the brew, I made some changes to my plan.

First, I pressure cooked the rice with too much water, so it was mushy.

Then i combined the cooked rice with a gallon and a half of water and heated that parallel to four and a half gallons of strike water, both to about 165. In retrospect i should have shot for 170 because after everything went into the mash tun it was at 153.

I decided that the initial mash should be 90 minutes followed by 30 minutes 2nd infusion. The 2nd infusion ended up being 170ish because i overshot the temperature.

I did not break out the refractometer and read brix for 1st or 2nd runnings.

Also one of the 1oz packets of styrian goldings i have turned out to be 4.9AA, so i just used that and not the other packet at 1.9AA. Brewtarget thinks this increased my IBU very slightly - still well within style.

After 90 minute boil i seem to have perhaps slightly more than 5.5g (hard to tell, i only put 1g marks on my 6g carboys) with an OG (by hydrometer) of about 1.050. So i seem to have overshot the predicted OG.

As with my H1B Brown Ale experiment, mashing with pressure cooked brown basmati has resulted in a lot of flecks of some sort of protein or fiber that sort of settle to the bottom of the fermenter after an hour or so but never really join the sediment cake. Racking to secondary seems to help get rid of this stuff. I may try fining with gelatin in the keg.

Pitched straight from the smack pack, then inoculated 6 slants. Because paying $7 for a smackpack is nuts.

It's been an interesting week. Clumps of yeast raft the size of peas churning like a snow globe. Blowoff vessel clogged with pudding-like sediment. Odd ricey aromas.

Hydro sample tasted good. Well balanced, good mouth feel. Damn near invisible.

I need to keg the brown that is in my other 6g carboy so that i can rack this over some gelatin to clarify it.

Racked into secondary. Almost 5 gallons exactly after trub losses. Shame i don't have 5 gallon carboys yet (just 6g and 4.75g - 5 gallons really doesn't fit in the 4.75 either).

Been almost 4 weeks lagering at 40f, fined with half a packet knox gelatin bloomed in about 3/4 cup of water early yesterday morning, and attempted to force carb.

First pours last night. 1st and 2nd pints had a lot of sediment, 3rd was pretty clear. Under-carbed but it certainly tastes like a kolsch - I'm not sure i can taste the basmati. Will require further research, hopefully at proper carb levels.

A couple more pints in, and I'm ready to just come out and say it:

This is a bastard beverage that should be nothing like a kolsch, except it seems that if you use kolsch yeast in something, it tastes like a kolsch.

Which is what it tastes like. I'm not sure i can detect the rice at all. It's possible that i should have crushed the rice, and the next time i brew with rice I will crack it a bit before the cereal mash. And I'll run the cereal mash longer.

I may try this again, except with pilsner and munich as the base, and maybe 20% brown basmati. And even lower ibus, because the yeast adds plenty of flavor by itself.