Morbster's Brew Log

[morbster]

Just keeping a log of my different brewing sessions and any relevant notes I captured.

Motor Oil
Extremely Dark Wheat Beer
5.4% AVB
33.2 IBUs
49.6 SRM

1.5kg Briess Pale Ale Malt
1.5kg Briess White Wheat Malt
0.5kg Briess Midnight Wheat Malt
0.4kg Cara-Pils

Target mash temp = 68C
Actual mash temp = 66C

Target OG = 1.055
Actual OG = 1.055

60 minute boil
1oz Fuggle (4.5% AA) at 0min
0.5oz Tettnang (4% AA) at 30min
0.5oz Tettnang (4% AA) at 45min

Yeast = Safale US-05

Primary for 14 days at 17-19C (ambient, not fluid)
Forgot to keep track of how much priming sugar I used

Lessons learned
Strike temperature is critical for achieving correct mash temp
Only sparged for 14 minutes. Should have been more patient and waited until 20 or so.

Results
Overall, this first brew attempt was a pretty solid disaster all around, but it was a fantastic learning experience. Even though I screwed a bunch of things up, it still came out to be a decent beer. The initial flavor is very dark and bitter, but it mellows out with strong chocolate and caramel flavors. I'm pretty sure the only reason I enjoy it is because it's my creation. My SWMBO is also a fan of it, but likely for the same reason.

In the future, I would need to heavily modify this recipe if I ever wanted to make a second version of this beer.

 

[morbster]

#2 - Split Batch - Centennial Blonde & Strawberry Blonde

For my second attempt, I decided to follow a recipe from an experienced brewer. I chose BM's Centennial Blonde Ale and opted to split my batch to try a couple new techniques. For one batch, I dry hopped with 0.25oz of cascade and 0.25oz of centennial for 7 days. In the other, I racked the 2.5ish gallons over 3lbs of frozen, sliced strawberries (thoroughly sprayed with starsan). I also tried cold crashing both of these batches to see what effect this would have on clarity.

Results
OG came out about 6 points high, so I topped up with some RO water until I reached the target OG.

Centennial Blonde - turned out great. It's simple enough for non-craft beer drinkers to enjoy, but interesting enough to be enjoyable for me as well. I'll definitely re-brew this in the future and tweak it to be more like my own recipe.

Strawberry Blonde - my beer was racked over strawberries for about two weeks before cold crashing, and it came out with a very strong strawberry aroma. However, the flavor is incredibly tart and not enjoyable to drink in its current state. It probably doesn't help that I primed to 3.0 volumes CO2, which increases the perceived tartness. I've let it set for about a month now, and it's mellowed a little. Maybe this will be drinkable by fall.

Lessons Learned
Consider whirlpooling to minimize trub delivered to fermenter.
Need to be more patient with the boil for the hot break to occur.