NYC ESB - A Resounding Success!

I suppose I need not have worried, but nonetheless I am very pleased to report that the ESB has matured to the point where it is quite drinkable. It has been conditioning in the bottle for twelve days now, and I believe it will become better still. At this point I cannot taste any residual sweetness that I interpreted as leftover priming sugar when I tasted it last weekend. The flavor has become more bitter (in a good way), more full and complex (both fruit and nuts), and a pleasant finish with no aftertaste. It is also a bit more carbonated.

A few archived BYO articles I read recently:

• brewing at high temperatures
• specific gravity

The specific gravity one in particular helped me understand one possible cause for the low OG. I measured after adding yeast. While I would be surprised if that accounted for all of the discrepancy, it could be a factor. Either way, I can guarantee that the new batch has good alcohol content!

I take my hat off...

...to this fellow's work. Super photos as well.

Interesting Knews Hound article on beer making from Monday as well.

Young beer

Well, Lissa and I tried a taste of the ESB today, only one week after bottling, just to see what it would be like. A couple things I noted:

• It tasted a little sweet, like there was still some priming sugar in there unfermented
• Very soft, light carbonation
  
• I think I detected a bit of the green apple tartness (aldehydes, alcohol precursor) that indicate it needs further conditioning.

I guess the question I have is whether somehow the beer wasn't conditioned enough in the fermenter (which would surprise me - two weeks should be sufficient), or if it just needs more time to age in the bottle. Since I don't have much choice, I am going to age it a bit more (try it next week), and see what I have.

My kit's recipe was:

• 6.6 lbs. Muntons Light Malt Extract
• 1/2 lb. Munton & Fison Crystal Malt 60º L
• 1/2 lb. Briess Toasted
  
• 1 1/2 oz. Northern Brewer Hops (Bittering)
• 1 oz. Fuggles Hops (Finishing)
• Wyeast #1275XL Thames Valley Ale Yeast
  

The interesting thing is that recipes vary quite a bit. ESB recipes from other sources follow:

• John Palmer (page down a bit to find recipe)
• Stout Billy's
• Steve Murphrey
• Gambrinus' Mug Evergreen ESB
• Skotrat
• Tasty Brew
• Beertown.org (choose from drop-down)
  

Given all the variation above (hops, malt, grains, procedure), I am having a little trouble putting my finger on what the unique characteristics of ESB are exactly. Strong hops finish could be part of it. Palmer mentions a butterscotch flavor - which I did not observe in drinking this one, but frankly, I didn't know to look for it.

Have to check for that in a week when I try it again!

Ropey Beer (bad) - secondary fermenter good!

May we never experience this:

Certainly it is justification for keeping everything really clean. I have the Home Brewers' Journal to thank for reminding me of that article in BYO.

I just bought a secondary fermenter today. Keystone is sending me a new PET plastic carboy tomorrow. The IPA should get brewed tomorrow, and I figure I will rack it to the second fermenter in a week. Should make it a crisper brew because none of the break proteins will be there in the secondary. I might even harvest the yeast for the German Altbier.

Whole new world... :-)

Hydrometer measurements

I have been wondering about the low original gravity (OG) for the ESB - 1.035. I did not have a specific figure in the recipe for the OG , but given that the wort had six pounds of malt syrup in there, I expected an OG something more like 1.045-1.050 - based on insight from reading backed up by expertise from Karps and Keystone. They said the final gravity (FG) of 1.010 sounded about right. From my reading, 1.015-1.005 is normal for a medium strength beer.

Allan at Karps suggested that the OG measurement might have been thrown off if the sample was well-aerated (which it was). All the bubbles in the solution could have lightened the reading. More to consider for the future - letting the sample settle before taking the OG.

John Palmer's How to Brew has a good appendix on using hydrometers that I will re-read before the next time, but there isn't much troubleshooting info there. Bodensatz has some good hydrometer info in one of their FAQs as well.

Bottling the ESB!

The bottle-washer is the best invention ever! $9.95 attachment to a faucet (plus $1 hose to kitchen faucet adapter), and you eliminate the effort cleaning bottles. Love it.

And the whole process start to finish took about 3.5 hours. This included 45 minutes for heat sanitizing the bottles. I can credit a few factors for the relatively short time expenditure this second effort:

• As always, a great brew-buddy - this time Lissa
• Bottles de-labeled in advance - much less exhausting
• Better organization, more familiarity with procedure
• Bottle washer! (deserves second mention)

I had a little scare with this batch. As with the first, I sanitized everything with C-Brite, according to instructions. When chatting with Keystone, erroneously I mentioned B-Brite, and they said, that is a cleaner, not a sanitizer - and I thought I had not sanitized at all!

That would have been bad. But if it were true, why did the first batch work? The answer is, that I had done it fine after all, but I was scared for a moment that I would open up the ESB to find a massive bacterial infection. Nope, it looked great.

Final Gravity: 1.010 - so alcohol 3.5% - less than expected, but it should be yummy anyway. One week to find out!

Akkadian Beer

My parents sent me an article from Archaeology Today that includes an ancient beer recipe. Scholars reproduced the brew with fine results!

Good overview on fermentation of alcoholic beverages in Mesopotamia here.

Bodensatz FAQ & BYO 20 Tips for Better Brewing

Following links from the Homebrewer's Journal, I came across Bodensatz Brewing whose comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions would benefit any beginner brewer.

Brew Your Own magazine's featured article, 20 Tips for Better Brewing has great info as well.

Removing commercial bottle labels

I have Tony to thank for the following hint to getting bottle labels off: some glues melt better soaked in hot water, and some better in cold. Bottle labels from Dogfish Head, Brooklyn Brewery, and Sam Adams come off fairly easily after soaking for an hour in cold water.

And if anything is really stubborn, a Goo Gone product should do the trick.

Great Homebrew Livejournal

Found this Home Brewer's Journal during a random search. Very creative and knowledgeable community. Worth a read!

A little about fermentation

I spoke a bit with Judy from the Keystone Homebrew Supply and she recommended that I leave the ESB in the fermenter for two weeks, and bottle-condition for a minimum of two more weeks.

That surprised me, since with my first batch the pale ale recipe suggested one week in the fermenter and 3-4 weeks of bottle conditioning. So I checked Palmer, and I'm going to go with two weeks in the fermenter this time. In fact, I recommend that anyone extract brewing for the first, second, or hundreth time who has questions on hows and whys, have a look at Palmer Section 1. Once I get around to all-grain brewing, I will likely recommend all the other sections as well.

Palmer's chapter on fermentation (linked above) gives a very clear description of the three phases of fermentation: To make clear the reasons for fermenting for at least two weeks rather than just one, I will summarize the phases briefly here:

1. Lagtime/Adaptive: In the first 12-24 hrs, yeast will multiply rapidly in an aerobic reaction (aerate your wort well! but only when it is cool!). 24hrs with no activity? Pitch new yeast.
   
2. Primary/Attenuative: Once the oxygen is used up, the yeast will anaerobically metabolize sugars to alcohol. This phase lasts 2-6 days for ales, and longer for lagers. In addition to making ethanol the yeast creates several byproducts including carbon dioxide (bubbling in the airlock), acetaldehyde, esters, amino acids, ketones, dimethyl sulfide, fusel alcohols (hangover material) as well as precipitate of wort protein, hop resins, and dead yeast.
   
3. Secondary/Conditioning: 1-2 weeks more. Now the yeast converts the remaining sugars and also metabolizes byproducts that could give off smells/flavors (e.g. acetaldehyde - green apple); or cause the beer to go stale quickly (diacetyl and pentanedione - buttery and honey flavors). Fusel alcohols are converted to esters (fruity flavors). Yeast flocculates out, and the beer clears. Time to bottle!

Note: One can choose to rack the wort to a secondary fermenter in the conditioning stage - away from the trub, the exudate in the bottom of the primary (full discussion in Palmer - I'm not doing this yet).

So bottling after only a week means missing out on all the benefits of the conditioning phase. However, do not to leave the wort in the primary fermenter more than three weeks at the outside because the yeast will undergo autolysis. This means the yeast cells themselves break down and release their innards into your beer, ruining it. Very potent rotten egg or burnt rubber smell when you open the fermenter.

I may look into secondary fermenters before I put in my IPA. Certainly the German Altbier kit I have requires it, so I could get some practice!

Belgian

In NYC at the Chelsea Art Museum on Friday, March 24, 2006 from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. will be the Ultimate Belgian Tasting! Belgian beers are fascinating. A few facts:

• Belgian Wit, for example, derives part of its unusual character from dried Curacua orange peel and coriander.
• Belgian ale yeast has low flocculation, meaning that yeast tends to stay more in solution; and it has high attenuation (~75%), meaning that relatively more of the fermentable sugars will be converted to alcohol.
  
• Belgian ale yeast is characterized by cherry and banana flavors (esters), and some clove-like tartness (phenols). Fermentation ideally should be at relatively cool ale fermentation temperatures (66-72 degF) with plenty of aeration (or it may taste like bubblegum!).
• One unusual Belgian kilned malt, Special B, can add a sweet, roasted nut flavor to beer. More than a 1/2 pound in five gallons can make the beer taste of plum.
• Brewing Belgian Lambics requires the unusual step of introducing two strains of carefully cultured lacto-bacteria in the brew. The author on the linked site is clearly quite experienced (and technically proficient) on the subject of yeast culture.
  
• There are many, many varieties of Belgian yeast and beer, so this description really only scratches the surface!

A new general fact I learned recently - you can culture yeast from commercial beer! It is a good way to acquire difficult-to-find yeast strains. My understanding of it is you need three or so bottles, and once drunk (the bottles or you - your choice), sanitize the top of the bottles, extract the yeast sediment (by swirling with water) and pour it into a yeast starter. Voila, you have your Trappist Ale yeast! More info on that when I try it!

Almost forgot to add, here is a great article on Trappist Breweries in the Ale Street News.

Beer can be good for you!

Check out Scriptorium Scientifica on 3/6/06 to read good news for beer fans! Actually, check it out in general because it is a well-written, informative blog.

ESB brewing lessons learned

Well, since the ESB's fermentation has been going for over 48 hours now, I know now that there will be beer. Sweet.

Most of my lessons learned have to do with timing. The job took about eight hours, when it should take about half the time or less.

1. Prepare the water in advance - boiling and cooling take time, but not much baby-sitting.
   
2. Activate the yeast at beginning of the brew (or earlier).
3. Use more ice! I used two 10-lb bags for both brew and water.
4. Always employ brew buddies! Lissa and Annette made a long job much shorter!
5. RTFM! Read the directions often! If I had, then I would have remembered the activation bit. It also keeps you from forgetting ingredients. It didn't happen this time, but it might have.

I am surprised at how quickly the beer goes away. No, I didn't drink it all myself - many friends helped. Only twelve bottles left, though. Therefore, I am planning to put in the IPA almost immediately after bottling the ESB. And in 4-5 weeks, there's going to be a lot of beer around here!

ESB - the fermenter is bubbling!

I have to admit that I was a little worried that the yeast might not have been alive enough to work. The night I bought the ingredients in Bethlehem, I left them overnight in the car (no fridge in the room). If the yeast had frozen, game over. However, the packaging claims 100 billion active cells, so I guess enough of them lived. It took about 5-6 hours, but now the fermenter is happily bubbling away at 75 deg F.

Time to define some terms that I glossed over last night:

Hot break: proteins that clump up and precipitate out of solution during the boil (that foaming the first time the wort comes to a boil)
Cold break: proteins that clump up and precipitate out of solution when the wort is rapidly cooled.

Besides being milestones (i.e. they are supposed to happen), these breaks are the outward signs of chemical changes that are good for the brew. Part of the reason you boil the brew uncovered is to allow this escape of sulfur compounds released in the boil. These compounds (dimethyl sulfides) can lead to off-flavors like cabbage or eggs. The hot break is an indication that some of the bad stuff is boiling out of your beer-to-be.

The cold break is the result of the thermal shock of rapidly cooling the wort from 212 degF to below 80. Slow cooling will not cause the same phenomenon. If the proteins remain in solution, this can lead to "chill haze," (fog when you chill bottled beer). No affect on the flavor, but the cold-break proteins continued presence in solution means the beer may go stale more quickly.

Observing break formation is a good sign because these proteins will eventually settle out of the solution before you bottle, giving a clearer beer.

Technical measurements on the ESB

Ok I remembered to take initial measurements with the hydrometer this time:

Original Gravity: 1.037 (1.035 @76 degF)
Potential alcohol by volume: 5%
Sugar by weight (balling): 10%

The hydrometer is calibrated for 60 degrees Farenheit, so we add 0.002 according to the chart.

I will have to take a measurement at the end of fermentation, subtract that from this measurement to get the final alcohol percentage. I don't have expected figures in this recipe. So we'll see.

One other thing I am doing differently this time is using vodka for the airlock rather than water. More protection from impurities.

Of course, I forgot to activate the yeast...

Not a big deal, but I could have saved some time by following the directions in the recipe and activating the yeast at the beginning of this process.

The liquid yeast package has an activator inside the package. You feel around the package to find the activator (a lump within the yeast pack), place a hand over it and smack it to make it break (you will no longer feel a lump). Shake up the yeast to mix in the activator.

In the next 1-3 (or more) hours, the package will swell if the yeast is alive. Cut a corner of the package and pour it into the cooled water waiting in the fermenter. Then pour in the cooled wort ("aggressively" is the advice) to mix.

This is the only time it is good to aerate the beer. Helps the yeast distribute. You could even pour a bit of the wort back into the brew pot and repeat the process (I did).

NYC ESB - The Second Batch!

It is official! The second batch is in. This batch is an ESB (Extra Special Bitter) and, as I mentioned in previous posts, differs in several respects from the first batch. The recipe contains light malt extract, crystal malt, Briess Toasted malt, Northern Brewer hops for bittering, and Fuggles hops for finishing, plus the requisite water and yeast.

Ingredient differences from the last batch:

• Malt syrup only - no malt powder
• Crystal and Briess grains were cracked rather than whole
• Hops were fresh (whole or plugs), not pellets
  
• Two types of hops, bittering (boiled a long time), and finishing (boiled briefly)
• Liquid yeast culture (Wyeast ale yeast)
  
• NYC tap water (filtered, boiled, then cooled) instead of Poland Spring

The brewing methods differed a bit as well. For example, I used twice the steeping bags for grains and hops. Since the ingredients expand a bit, it is better not to crowd them - that means more surface area available to the boiling brew so more flavor can diffuse into solution.

Also, the grains were in the brew for longer this time. Rather than adding the grains once the water had boiled, I added them to the cold water and heated the grain tea slowly to a boil. It took about 45 minutes (the recipe recommended 20-30 minutes).

The finishing hops are a new beast. I am guessing that they are MUCH stronger that the bittering hops, given how little time they spent in the brew pot. Actually, I tasted a little of the liquid that drained from the Fuggles bag and it was a little astringent.

Unlike the first batch, this time I iced the brewpot immediately before adding it to the water in the fermenter. The idea is to minimize the possibility of introducing impurities. The shorter the time between the end of the brew and the beginning of fermentation, the better. I got two bags of ice, but that may not have been enough!

Once the wort is cool enough (less than 78 deg F), I will sanitize the yeast bag and add the yeast.

I think I see the "break" in the wort as the brewpot cools in the ice bath. I remember that there is a hot break and a cold break, and I think that this is the cold break, meaning that there is some precipitation. This is meant to be a good thing, but I don't know why as yet. More later once the fermentation begins.