Hey guys,
Sorry about the delayed response. I brewed the above beer and noted most (I may have missed small details....) of the day on
Kaiser's log book pages.
I used 100% charcoal filtered tap water, >100ppm total hardness and ~100ppm alkalinity (based on my fish test kits).
Ingredients:
3.3 lb pilsner LME
1.5 lb flaked maize
1.0 lb flaked barley
1.0 lb US 2-row pale malt
1.0 lb Gold DME
0.5 lb Crystal 40L
mini-mashed the grains at 2 qt/lb and 155ºF on an electric element stove for 60min. (actual average over the 60 minutes was 152ºF)
Hop schedule:
0.50 oz Cascade(AA-7.4%) 60min
0.25 oz Cascade(AA-7.4%) 30min
0.25 oz Cascade(AA-7.4%) 5min
My pre-boil volume was 4gal and lost 0.7gal. IBU was calculated at 21.1IBU for an average boil volume of 3.75. After flameout (1hr 45min after ignition), the wort was chilled to 72ºF in 13min and dumped in to a 6.5gal bucket and brought to 5 gal with filtered tap water. The wort was aerated by the 'knee-rocking' method, and afterward the O.G. reading was 1.052 at 68.3ºF.
A yeast starter was made two days prior to brewing using 1/3cup light DME boiled 10min in 800mL filtered tap water. One vial of White Labs cream ale (WLP080) was pitched to the started and allowed to ferment for 36 hr. After cold-crashing in the refrigerator at 37.5ºF for several hours, a 150mL slurry was left after decanting off the top portion. This slurry was pitched into the 68.3ºF wort at 11:27am and fermentation was confirmed via the blow-off tube bubbling away at 8:51pm. Fermentation activity was noticeably reduced three days later.
After 19d in the primary, I had some
issues with gravity measurements....and a "few more days" turned into leaving the beer in the bucket for ~7wks total. I didn't write down bottling dates or anything (that I can find, and yes I know that Kaiser has a section for ages and comments and such), but it fermented out to 1.010 and I bottled with one package of priming sugar.
The beer turned out good and it only lasted a few weeks (mostly my fault,
), but it was not exactly Spotted Cow. I did a side-by-side about 2 months ago with my last bottle of the clone and a Spotted Cow that I saved since late March (next to each other). The Spotted Cow had a little more mouth feel than mine, but overall they were very close with similar creamy smooth finishes. Colors were also very close, with the Spotted Cow being just a bit more clear, but dead even on shade. The hops were definitely different and mine had more flavor/aroma hops coming through, but not much more in bitterness. Surprising because my version was estimated at 21.1 IBU, and Spotted Cow I figured would be way less. I am thinking that the long primary and 4 month bottle conditioning may have mellowed out the hops a bit.
Overall, this was a very decent beer. Everyone that drank one said it was good (maybe they were being nice), but I found myself soon wanting a third every time I cracked one open. My next batch will probably be AG, and I will do my damnedest to get a closer hop replica and try a Kölsch yeast at around 60ºF.
Let me know if you have any questions,
MT
p.s. - sorry for all the details, but some might find it useful.