Vienna/Northern Brewer/California Common SMaSH

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

I'm brewing the following recipe on Sunday.

10.5 lbs. Vienna malt (whatever they have at the LHBS--probably American)
0.75 oz. Northern Brewer @ 60 min.
0.5 oz. Northern Brewer @ 20 min.
0.75 oz. Northern Brewer @ 5 min.
Imperial Organics Cablecar (the Anchor Steam Beer strain)
Ferment @ 60, ramp up to 62, and primary for 4 weeks. No lagering.

Any advice as to what would make this a great or better beer? I was thinking of mashing for 60 minutes at 150. I've heard maybe one should do a protein rest with American Vienna? If so, maybe I'll figure out how to do that.

Other ideas/suggestions? I'm open to recipe tweaks as well.

 

[kh54s10]

I'm not familiar with the yeast. Lager yeast at ale temperatures? If so it's a little low.

It looks like a pretty simple recipe. It should be ready at about 2 weeks.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

I'm not familiar with the yeast. Lager yeast at ale temperatures? If so it's a little low.

Pretty sure it's the same as Wyeast 2112 or WLP 810. I could start at 62, I suppose. The temp range on the Imperial Organics product is 55-65, I think, and for Wyeast 2112 it's 58-68.

They've had this yeast in the store every time I've gone for the past month or so. On the off chance they don't have it when next I go, I might use Mangrove Jack's M54 California Lager. I know they carry that.

RE: 4 weeks instead of 2, I just want to occupy my fermenter for a while, and I thought, this technically being a lager, it might benefit from aging a little longer.

 

[mongoose33]

I have a california common in the fermentation chamber as I write this. My recipe, from CatDaddy66, has

8# of 2-row
1.5# Munich
1# 60L

.75 oz Northern Brewer (9.6% Alpha Acids) 60 min
1.25 oz Northern Brewer (9.6%4.9% AA) 10 min
1 oz Northern Brewer (4.9% AA) Flameout
15 min Whirlfloc

Wyeast 2112 w/ starter. Ferment at 64 until Krausen falls and fermentation slows, ramp to 71 degrees for 48 hours, then back to 64 for...a couple weeks maybe three weeks. Then keg and force carb.

I'm not familiar w/ the yeast you're using so I can't comment there. But there's nothing there that would suggest a problem. Vienna will be more flavorful than my 2-row, but I make up for that w/ the Munich and 60L.

BTW: the new Northern Brewer hops available to me are much lower in Alpha Acids than the previous lots--I still had an ounce of NB left from last year, 9.6% Alpha. The new stuff I can get is only 4.9. Next time I'm going to have to double the bittering additions. LHBS owners said lower Alphas are everywhere in what he's getting now. He doesn't know why.

They're also not reporting Beta either.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

BTW: the new Northern Brewer hops available to me are much lower in Alpha Acids than the previous lots--I still had an ounce of NB left from last year, 9.6% Alpha. The new stuff I can get is only 4.9. Next time I'm going to have to double the bittering additions. LHBS owners said lower Alphas are everywhere in what he's getting now. He doesn't know why.

They're also not reporting Beta either.

View attachment 396498

Yeah, I might have to bump the hops up depending on the alpha. I hate doing this without a calculator at the store.

I've noticed lower alphas on English hops--Fuggle and EKGs. I don't recall this being the case with American hops, but I also don't have much of a sample size.

 

[Morrey]

I have a california common in the fermentation chamber as I write this. My recipe, from CatDaddy66, has

8# of 2-row
1.5# Munich
1# 60L

.75 oz Northern Brewer (9.6% Alpha Acids) 60 min
1.25 oz Northern Brewer (9.6%4.9% AA) 10 min
1 oz Northern Brewer (4.9% AA) Flameout
15 min Whirlfloc

Wyeast 2112 w/ starter. Ferment at 64 until Krausen falls and fermentation slows, ramp to 71 degrees for 48 hours, then back to 64 for...a couple weeks maybe three weeks. Then keg and force carb.

I'm not familiar w/ the yeast you're using so I can't comment there. But there's nothing there that would suggest a problem. Vienna will be more flavorful than my 2-row, but I make up for that w/ the Munich and 60L.

BTW: the new Northern Brewer hops available to me are much lower in Alpha Acids than the previous lots--I still had an ounce of NB left from last year, 9.6% Alpha. The new stuff I can get is only 4.9. Next time I'm going to have to double the bittering additions. LHBS owners said lower Alphas are everywhere in what he's getting now. He doesn't know why.

They're also not reporting Beta either.

View attachment 396498

I saw the AA% of the last pound of Hallertau I bought go from 4.6 down to 2.6. Mighty low meaning we use much more to hit the IBU goal.

Do you have an IBU goal for this beer since the AA% of hops is all over the place?

 

[mongoose33]

I saw the AA% of the last pound of Hallertau I bought go from 4.6 down to 2.6. Mighty low meaning we use much more to hit the IBU goal.

Do you have an IBU goal for this beer since the AA% of hops is all over the place?

No, I don't. I'm just going to try to match the AA%. Next time, for instance, I'll have to use twice the amount of these hops instead of just one as a bittering addition.

 

[dzlater]

I brewed something similar that turned out really well.
10 lb vienna
1/2 lb crystal 45
.6 oz magnum @60
1 oz N. Brewer @20
1 oz N. Brewer @0

BRY-97 yeast

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Subscribed. I'm interested to hear how these come out. I've been working on an imperial dry hopped "cali common" recipe for about 3 months. It's a hefty break from a true cali common and really only has the lager yeast at ale temps in common I guess. I keep chickening out and changing the recipe.

 

[mattech]

I brewed something similar that turned out really well.
10 lb vienna
1/2 lb crystal 45
.6 oz magnum @60
1 oz N. Brewer @20
1 oz N. Brewer @0

BRY-97 yeast

I'm glad I read this. I couldn't find anyone who had brewed a common with BRY-97 before. Mine will be ready to bottle next week.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

OP here. I brewed this on Sunday. My recipe ended up being:
11 lbs Vienna
1 oz of Northern Brewer (4.9% AA) at 90
1 oz of Northern Brewer (4.9% AA) at 30
1 oz of Northern Brewer (4.9% AA) at 5

I did a 15 minute protein rest at 130, a 90 minute mash at 148, and a 20 minute sparge at 163.

Forgot the whirfloc. But I plan to let it sit for a month, so maybe it'll be OK.

The Imperial Organic yeast exploded on me when I opened it. Must have had a lot of pressure in the can. Most of it got in the fermenter, though.

There was a short lag phase. I thought it would last longer and I had not fully cooled below 70. It inched up to 70 in the top of the fermenter, but the fermometer in the bottom was in the low 60s. (I use frozen water bottles in a Cool Brewing bag, so the bottom of the fermenter is usually substantially cooler than the top.) There was krausen by that point, but it had not started fermenting vigorously. I dumped some ice in and got the whole thing below the 65 degree mark within an hour or so. Hope there wasn't a lot of damage done.

Also, I don't believe my refractometer. It said that the gravity was about 1.068 (doing some adjustments for boil volume versus fermenter volume). That's way over the numbers I punched in on recipe builders. Maybe it was calibrated incorrectly. I hope this beer won't be too big or too cloying.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

I did a gravity sample this morning to see whether I'm close to my finishing gravity (to know whether or not to start on a diacetyl rest). It's under 1.015, and since this yeast doesn't attenuate that much, I'm sure I didn't have a frickin' 1.068 OG. Something must've gone wrong measuring it. No off flavors that I could detect, but it was hard to tell because the sample was pretty cloudy even though the krausen had already fallen.

So a rest, and then we wait. Until the second week in May or so. I need to work through some of the beer I've already brewed before I bottle this one.

 

[dzlater]

I'm glad I read this. I couldn't find anyone who had brewed a common with BRY-97 before. Mine will be ready to bottle next week.

I'm not sure how it would score in a competition as a "common". (and I don't really care"
but as I said the I really enjoyed the beer.
I know folks use clean fermenting ale yeasts for the style, to me BRY-97 seemed to fit the bill.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

OP here. I just bottled the recipe on the first post. 1.010. Looked pretty clear in the line. I primed it up with 5 oz. of sugar, which is a little high for me (5.2 gallons in the bottling bucket, though). Tastes good, but has an odd flavor I can't quite place. Interested to see how it turns out.

 

[tiredofbuyingbeer]

I tried one after it had only carbed for 11 days and sat in the fridge for 2. It tastes great. Very lagery, with just a little bit of distinctive ester from the yeast. It is, however, disappointingly cloudy. I'm hoping that this is partly the effect of not sitting in the fridge very long and partly the effect of it perhaps not being fully done processing the carbing sugar.

I'm going out of town before I try one again, so it should have plenty of time to develop. Then we'll see.

 

[universalfrost]

I'm brewing the following recipe on Sunday.

10.5 lbs. Vienna malt (whatever they have at the LHBS--probably American)
0.75 oz. Northern Brewer @ 60 min.
0.5 oz. Northern Brewer @ 20 min.
0.75 oz. Northern Brewer @ 5 min.
Imperial Organics Cablecar (the Anchor Steam Beer strain)
Ferment @ 60, ramp up to 62, and primary for 4 weeks. No lagering.

Any advice as to what would make this a great or better beer? I was thinking of mashing for 60 minutes at 150. I've heard maybe one should do a protein rest with American Vienna? If so, maybe I'll figure out how to do that.

Other ideas/suggestions? I'm open to recipe tweaks as well.

Tagging and will try this with some mangrove jack m54