Returning after a long break with some old ingredients

[stz]

Hello!
I haven't posted here since 2013 because I stupidly bought a very old house and haven't had a life outside of trying to get it watertight, structurally sound and less lethal/sane to live within.

At the tail end of last year I decided to start gathering materials for another home brewery as my previous setup was all electric and demanded a 32A radial mains supply which this ancient place certainly lacks for now.

The new system is pretty typical stainless 50L HTL, insulated coolbox mash/launter tun with manifold, 50L stainless copper with filter screen fired with 8kW propane burner, 24V transfer pumps with in-line Y filters and plate chiller. Fermentation is in a STC-100 controlled freezer containing 25L plastic buckets. It is designed to mimic the commercial process were I work where possible as it will get use as a pilot kit for product development.

Anyway, finally had the chance to use it for the first time this weekend. This was a chance to play around and at no cost except time and gas because what might interest members is that my ingredients have been in storage since 2013/2014. Grains were sealed in plastic bins with desiccant, hops were vacuum sealed and kept in a freezer, mixture of 2013-2014 harvest.

So based on what I had went on hand went for a black imperial IPA.

55% pale
15% wheat
15% dextrine
6% rye
3% melanoidin
3% chocolate
3% carafa special III

Water treatment emphasis on calcium sulphite, moderate chloride.
Mashed 60m @ 67C
Fly sparged @ 80C
Measured efficiency vs estimated was down 6% which might answer 'how long does crushed grain remain viable for?' for some.

SG going in to the 60m boil was 1.078.
SG coming out was 1.082.

Made some major assumptions about hop degradation. IBU's at my level never seem an exact science and recently reading American Sour Beers by Michael Tonsmeire of a study by Asahi where hops artificially aged with heat and tested for AA loss still produced beer against control with statistically similar IBU's. Either way I went with the 'all of the ones I have' approach.

Williamette est 3.5%AA 60m
Styrian Goldings est 4% AA 60m
Tettnang est 2.85%AA 10m
Perle est 6.1%AA 10m
Amarillo est 7.5%AA 10m
Chinook est 8%AA 10m
The estimates are based a calculator. All times are from knock out.

Cascade 5.5% AA KO
Centennial 10% AA KO
These were fresh 2016 harvest as I'm able to get what I need from work and I didn't want to gamble the aroma addition. 30m stand before starting transfer.

105IBU's according to the calculator. Lost 9.9L of wort to leaf/trub.
Dry hop will be 8g/L cascade, centennial, mosaic and nelson sauvin, all fresh T90's. Copper fining was 2g protafloc granules.

3L yeast starter prepared day ahead using 15g of US-05 with magnetic stirring. Fermentation profile is 21C for 24h, 22C for 48hr, hopefully at 1.011-1.013 by then, dry hop in the morning of day 4 set to chill in the evening.

Anyway, sorry about the diary entry, but somebody might find this useful, I will update it as the beer progresses. I'm especially interested in how bitter it ends up being as the IBU estimation seems like pure guesswork.

 

[disconap]

I think they will turn out fine. I've been working with some milled 2-row and malted rye I had forgotten about for a little less but still a while (may 2015). Stored in those Petco vittle vaults. First batch turned out pretty great, got another going right now!

 

[stz]

I got immediate activity on the fermentation, pretty much while cleaning up from pitching. Krausen by the following morning (18h), blow off by that evening (30hr). Slowed activity throughout the next evening (54hr) and dead stop the following day (72h).

Would have anticipated this based on pitch rate, tbh, but because this is home brewing decided to rouse the yeast by swirling the fermenter at that point. No further activity to speak of.

Gravity 1.020. Decided to repitch with some yeast slurry to see if it'll go any lower, but that might be it.

 

[stz]

Gravity 1.018 now. I've dry hopped after hydrating my pellets in roughly 1.6L of water so should end up 8%abv. I plan to dry hop for only 24 hours then chill for bottling.

 

[stz]

Just as an update I split the fermentation. Half was dry hopped for 24 hours before 24 hours chilling and bottled. The rest remained chilled for 3 days before bottling because I had some stuff come up. The batch that got 24 hours has a slightly rawer hop character, definitely more hop aroma, but maybe not the better beer for it. The second one is a little more subdued and less raw, but maybe a more balanced pleasant flavour for it. The one that spent 3 days chilling has not carbonated as well, I assume due to less viable yeast in suspension. The beer is sweeter and heavier than I would like and if I was to make this again (I wouldn't as it really was a chance to test a new rig with some old and free ingredients) I would mash lower and drop the melanoidin and a portion of the carafa. It is big and complex, there is a lot going on.

 

[stz]

24 days from bottling now and it is quite a nice beer. I've sampled quite a few other BIPA's and BIIPA's as well since and my beer while lacking the balance and clean flavours of some of the very best actually stacks fairly well against some of the average. What did I learn? Correctly stored grain might as well last forever and less is most likely more if you want to coax some of the more fruity, floral aroma out of hops. Go easy on those roasted malts, even debittered ones (though I prefer the roast character compared to ones I've had which simply throw it in for colour) and melanoidins are not always welcome.