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- Feb 10, 2016
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Hello fellow beer-makers,
Some of you may have seen this post I made back in July chronicling the brewing of a quart of beer. This did really happen, and the beer was perfectly adequate, but upon telling my brother of my triumphant micro exploits, he responded with a sigh, a roll of the eyes, and a fateful jeer: "what's next, a shot of beer?"
Yes, that's what's next. I took his acerbic words as a challenge and, as I'd just tested a method of mitigating the heat loss of small batch brewing, namely using a sous vide water heater, I had all the pieces I needed - a 50 mL graduated cylinder and a PET bottle with a CarbCap® were all that was needed to cook up this Frankenstein's monster of a beer
Technically speaking, the process was seamless: salt a gallon of water (see recipe below), crush some grain with a hammer, add that and hops to a sealed sous vide bag, mash at ~152˚, isomerize at ~180˚ (17% efficiency), run the tiny pouch under cold water to cool, strain into the "fermenter," place in a temp-controlled wine fridge at ~65˚, wait, cold crash, rack to PET bottle, carbonate, and enjoy. Surprisingly straightforward
As for the big question, the taste, I recorded the following notes: "Malty, round, yeasty, just a touch thin, no real off flavors besides light astringency possibly due to high temp mash, warm due to carbing method, would consider brewing a gallon of" [a gallon being my default size - stay tuned for a post on my all-electric HERMS & thermowell'd gallon setup]
Here's the recipe, and leave your hate mail below:
45 mL of Pale Kellerbier:
- 15 g Munich malt, DME to correct gravity if necessary
- 1.15 g 4% AA hops
- for the water: .6 so4, .5 cl per gal (make one gallon, divy)
- since 1 mL per g grain absorbed, use 75 mL water for mash
- mash w hops, 152˚ -> 180˚
- chill, rack to 50 mL graduated cylinder
- add .1-.2 g dry ale yeast, ferment at 65˚
- yield will be ~45 mL beer, 15 mL sediment
- carbonate at ~15 psi, 38˚, in a chilled PET bottle (the beer will, as it did for me, absorb a ton of heat and be raised into the high 50s/low 60s if you don't do this)
Some of you may have seen this post I made back in July chronicling the brewing of a quart of beer. This did really happen, and the beer was perfectly adequate, but upon telling my brother of my triumphant micro exploits, he responded with a sigh, a roll of the eyes, and a fateful jeer: "what's next, a shot of beer?"
Yes, that's what's next. I took his acerbic words as a challenge and, as I'd just tested a method of mitigating the heat loss of small batch brewing, namely using a sous vide water heater, I had all the pieces I needed - a 50 mL graduated cylinder and a PET bottle with a CarbCap® were all that was needed to cook up this Frankenstein's monster of a beer
Technically speaking, the process was seamless: salt a gallon of water (see recipe below), crush some grain with a hammer, add that and hops to a sealed sous vide bag, mash at ~152˚, isomerize at ~180˚ (17% efficiency), run the tiny pouch under cold water to cool, strain into the "fermenter," place in a temp-controlled wine fridge at ~65˚, wait, cold crash, rack to PET bottle, carbonate, and enjoy. Surprisingly straightforward
As for the big question, the taste, I recorded the following notes: "Malty, round, yeasty, just a touch thin, no real off flavors besides light astringency possibly due to high temp mash, warm due to carbing method, would consider brewing a gallon of" [a gallon being my default size - stay tuned for a post on my all-electric HERMS & thermowell'd gallon setup]
Here's the recipe, and leave your hate mail below:
45 mL of Pale Kellerbier:
- 15 g Munich malt, DME to correct gravity if necessary
- 1.15 g 4% AA hops
- for the water: .6 so4, .5 cl per gal (make one gallon, divy)
- since 1 mL per g grain absorbed, use 75 mL water for mash
- mash w hops, 152˚ -> 180˚
- chill, rack to 50 mL graduated cylinder
- add .1-.2 g dry ale yeast, ferment at 65˚
- yield will be ~45 mL beer, 15 mL sediment
- carbonate at ~15 psi, 38˚, in a chilled PET bottle (the beer will, as it did for me, absorb a ton of heat and be raised into the high 50s/low 60s if you don't do this)
