Graduation Kolsch

[wowzers]

In honor of finally finishing school I decided to brew a batch for my graduation party. I went with the Austin Hombrew Kolsch kit with a White Labs 029 yeast. After doing a little more reading I am a little concerned if it will be ready by May 13th. I plan to brew in the next day or so, so that give me a little over five weeks to ferment and condition it. I will be kegging it so forced carbing is an option.

My concern comes after reading a few threads on here regarding Kolsch and how long they need to condition. Also from what I read, I should be shooting for a primary fermentation temp of the low 60's. What temp should I be looking for for secondary, or is secondary even necessary?

Additionally I wanted to try a late extract addition in order to keep the beer lighter in color. Should I be worried about over utilization of the hops with the three ounces (Kent, Perle, Vangaurd)? If it is too much, could I just save one of the bittering hops?

Thanks for the help.

 

[vinyl_key]

IMO that's mostly a clarity thing. A few days ago I had some of my buddy's Kolsch that he brewed 2-3 weeks prior and it tasted fantastic. Was still a bit cloudy, but great flavor.

 

[wonderbread23]

Do 7-10 days in primary and then crash down to 32 to carbonate and lager. Your timing will be okay (I like to lager my Kolsch beers for 6 weeks). Kolsch yeast is a pour floculator, so you might want to fine it on the cold side to get the proper look for a Kolsch.

 

[wowzers]

So I brewed the beer on April 9th and fermented in the primary til the 21st. Then I racked to a secondary and managed to convince my girlfriend it was necessary to take out a fridge shelf so I could cold crash it. Cold crashed for a week with a gelatin finning two days from the end. The beer as been sitting in the keg since last Friday on CO2. My spare bedroom averages 45 degrees so I set the gas at 16psi. Pulled a couple of samples the last couple days to check the carbing and it has a weird tasting twang. It is isn't undrinkable but I'm not really happy with it. Any hope that this will mellow out in the next week and a half? There isn't much room to hide in kolsch. One bonus is the beer is crystal clear.

 

[TTB-J]

Well, "weird tasting twang," is kind of what all german ales taste like to me! Just about everything mellows with time, so all you can do at this point is hope for the best.

Congrats on graduation!

 

[wowzers]

Thank you.

 

[eastoak]

My first two beers were extract and I immediately realized that the all grain "evangelists" were right and I went to the altar, repented and have never looked back.

 

[wowzers]

Yeah I hate to jump on the bandwagon but most of the extracts I have brewed have this taste so this was the nudge I need to build my MLT and take the plunge.