Aqua Vitae

Tags: malting

Zymurgy Magazine Special Issue 1985 All-Grain

The Homebrewer’s Garden, which has some good info on malting, lead me to Zymurgy’s 1985 issue on all grain, which has a pretty good description of a home-made steeper and kiln.

The mid-80’s haircuts and clothing are pretty interesting, too…

Tags: malt, malting

My second attempt at the Golden Bitter has been very successful so far. It’s the first batch which I’ve brewed utilizing the many new additions to the brewhouse (BeerAlchemy, magnetic stir plate, cooler mash tun w/ false bottom, pH meter, refractometer, pump aeration system).

• Starting mash temp was exact after calculating the Thermal Mass of the tun
• pH was very close to target (target 5.2, actual 5.28)
• Efficiency was right on target (75%)
• Preboil Gravity was perfect (1.041)

All the tools made things go pretty smoothly. Mashing in the cooler was easy (only had to bring the temp up a few degrees @45min) and the refractometer makes taking reading really quick. BeerAlchemy is super helpful, I love the step by step instructions that you can print after entering your batch info. I only wish it included notes of when to take readings, instead I made a little form to print out and take notes on.

The batch is now happily fermenting in a water bath in the basement and is holding 70º perfectly. I’m monitoring the internal temp with the new thermowell and thermostat (only being used to tell the internal temp, no apparatus hooked up) and am not seeing any major rises in temp. The water bath was just a precaution, the basement right now is a consistent 70º, a little disappointing since I hadn’t ever seen it above 60º and thought it would have been great for long term conditioning, but at least it’s perfect for primary fermenting.

Tags: Golden Bitter

I’ve bottle the second 3 gal batch of cider—the non-oaked 1/2 of the cultured yeast batch. I’m priming it for 3.75 Vols C02  (the approx. carbonation of wheat beer) or 1.48oz cane sugar/gal.

Calculated Thermal Mass: 1lb 8oz

Total water: 4 Gal
Strike temp: 170º
Room temp: 75º
Rest time: 5 min
Final temp: 166º

1. In BeerAlchemy open Calculators > Mash Calcs
2. In Strike Temperature:
   1. Tun T/M: 0
   2. Grist Weigh: 0
   3. Liquor Vol: 4 gal
   4. Room Temp: 75º
   5. Mash Temp: 166º
3. Tun T/M to get Strike Temp = 170º: 1lb 80z

adapted from this post

Tags: Golden Bitter