I’ve been trying to sneak some brewing into the schedule the last few weeks – it’s something I wholly enjoy doing, and while I was able to get a pretty decent batch out while I was repainting the kitchen just before Thanksgiving, I figured now was a good time with the weather shift we’ve had. With the new Kegarator, I’m excited to not have to spend a couple of hours bottling and hoping that it comes out well, or that I don’t wind up with a case of bottle-bombs making a mess of the basement. I can move the beer over to a corny keg, throw it under pressure, wait a few days, and give it a try! This last weekend I also got my new electric kettle – I was pouring through online looking for which way to go and decided on a Brewers Edge Mash and Boil 2.0 because of its flexibility, mobility, and I was able to get it for a reasonable price off a small, online brew shop.
The reason for upgrading to an electric kettle was actually cost related – I’ve burned through a few nylon grain bags to date, and they’re not cheap, hovering around $10-15 each, and I contemplated going to a stainless insert, however those run around $100. For the cost, I started looking into what electric systems run, and figured it was pretty cost effective to try an electric system out. Not to mention I can stop taking over the whole stove, and just relegate myself to a corner of the kitchen and one sink bay.
For my first batch in it, I was looking to try a Dunkles Bock, but what I wound up with was more along the lines of a Porter/Baltic Porter. This wound up with a lower starting gravity than I was targeting – 1.060 vs. 1.069, which means it’ll likely wind up hitting a lower ABV, not a bad thing though as it’ll still likely be a 6.5% beer. This mistake was likely due to slightly over-sparging. This could have been corrected by some additional boil time which would have also slightly increased the bitterness, but I was running short on time unfortunately, so decided to roll with it.
Grain Bill was as follows, mashed at about 153 degrees for 60 minutes:
12.6 Lbs Total
7.65lbs 2-Row Pale Malt
3lbs Rye Malt
1.2lbs Cara 60
.25lbs Chocolate Malt
.5lbs Melanoidn Malt
Hops – I went for neutral, low AA varieties that work well with balancing malts, ones that are traditionally used for English Ales
1oz East Kent Goldings (Bittering) @ 60 mins
2oz Fuggle (Aromatics) 1oz @ 30 mins, and 1oz @ 10 mins
Yeast – While Labs WLP-004 Irish Ale Yeast; This wasn’t a conscious decision, it just happened to be the yeast I had on hand as I was originally playing around with other recipe ideas and had previously ordered it. I also decided to give a can of Proper Starter a try in all of this, as I was originally targeting a pretty high OG, I figured a starter would be a good idea.
I don’t own a chiller, so in the few years I’ve done this I’ve always done No-Chill. Up until last year I trusted just the lid, and this worked well, but for added measure in recent months I’ve taken to wrapping the meeting point of the lid and pot tightly in a few wraps of saran wrap. The Brewers Edge system, however, has a silicone gasket and clamps to keep it airtight, so I just locked those down and let it cool. It took about 25 hours to get from boiling temperature down to 80 degrees, at which point I transferred to my fermentation vessel (a conical plastic fermenter) aerating well to help drop it down a bit further for safe yeast pitching. Once it was mostly full, I dumped the yeast starter into the batch and closed it up!
The next morning the airlock was showing crazy activity, so I think we’re in good shape! I’ve always had struggles with White Labs yeasts, but a lot of people swear by them, so I figured I’d give it one more go.. Excited to see how this turns out with so many changed variables to hopefully improve the flavors I get – extra temperature control over the mash, quality aeration going into the fermenter, something that I don’t always do, and the yeast starter to boost and encourage healthy activity.
Through the magic of scheduled posting, we’ll check back next week to see how it fermented out!
Roving On 