Kolsch

Leaving aside particular styles of beers I want to drink, there are a number of other considerations that go into homebrewing. Some of those things are experimentation and cost. If I can save a few dollars when brewing, I will try to do so. But I also like to try new things and experiment. So this is where yeast culturing comes in. 

I like Kolsch but honestly haven't had a lot of it over the years. And when I buy yeast, I typically try to brew with it multiple times, so it never seemed to make sense - at least to my cheapskate self - to purchase a Kolsch yeast and only use it once, since I wouldn't generally be making multiple Kolsch batches.

After purchasing a four-pack of Riggs Kolsch back in the spring and noticing the beer was quite hazy, I decided to see if I could culture the yeast from a can. It worked well. The yeast took off, and I contacted the brewery to ask about the strain. They replied that they use BSI-29. There is not much information about this particular yeast on the internet, but according to BSI, it is similar to WLP029. 

I continued feeding the yeast until I had enough to pitch as a starter, in May 2023. The night of the brew, I recall that the starter had an apple-y aroma. I was nervous about that but decided to take the risk. And what a big risk. I've been burned by bad yeast so many times in the past. Anyhow, everything was fine. The fermentation was fairly slow and did not form a big krausen. 

Despite the smell of the starter, the beer turned out great. It cleared nicely over time, even though I did not use gelatin. It had a very nice grainy flavor and no yeast off flavors. Not a lot of hop flavor as I recall. This was a well-balanced beer and a recipe that I would love to brew again.

Recipe for 5 gallons (inspired by beerandbrewing.com):

7.5 lbs German pilsner

1 lb Carapils

Targeting about 24 IBU

1 oz Tettnanger (3.9 AA) 60 minutes 

.5 oz Tettnanger 15 minutes

.5 oz Tettnanger 10 minutes

BSI 29 yeast

FG was around 1.008-09

English bitter

Second brew of 2023. Simple English bitter-style ale with Maris Otter and crystal 80. EKG and Fuggles hops. This was a crisp, drinkable beer but I think I just don’t really love the flavor of S04. I often thought the esters were very cherry-like which clashed with some of the ingredients, particularly the first beer I made, Caribou Slobber. One thing I appreciated about this beer is that the malt, bitterness, and ho​p flavor were very balanced. I’ve made beers, such as the Schlafly pale ale clone, in which the malt was completely covered by hop flavor, so it was nice to achieve a balance with this beer.

Recipe for 5 gallons:
7 lb maris otter
.5 lb crystal 80

1 oz ekg 60 minutes
1 oz fuggles 15 minutes

Caribou Slobber

First beer of 2023. Northern Brewer’s Caribou S kit, though I purchased the ingredients on my own and just got the recipe from their web site. This was an ok beer. Nothing wrong with it per se, but the S04 esters clash with the dark malts. This is the second time I’ve made this beer. The first time, in 2014, I used Windsor yeast. I recall the flavor being closer to Moose Drool. So maybe Windsor is a less estery yeast? Regardless, if I make this again, I’ll use a cleaner English or American ale yea​st. 

Sierra Nevada Tumbler clone attempt

Tumbler is a beer that used to appear regularly but now does so only occasionally. It's a great beer and so I wanted to brew a beer that's similar though maybe not an exact clone. Sierra Nevada posts a few details on their website, which I used to developed the recipe. 

This beer is long gone, as I brewed it in the fall of 2022. I recall thinking that the smoke seemed heavy at times, though I think that seemed to disappear the more I drank it. The beer also appeared darker than the real thing. It also had a pronounced char/astringent character from the chocolate malt, so I'd probably dial that back. All in all a tasty beer though.

Recipe for 5 gallons:

8.25 lb 2-row

.5 lb chocolate malt

2 oz smoked malt (Weyermann)

.5 lb Caramel/Crystal 80

1.051 OG

Estimated FG 1.010

SRM 20.65

US-05 yeast

.75 oz Chalenger 60 minutes (8.1 AA)

.5 oz Challenger 15 minutes (8.1 AA)

.25 Willamette 15 minutes (4.2 AA)

36.92 IBU

cascade pale ale

This was beer #3 in a series of late summer beers, brewed using the US-05 yeast cake from the Nelson and Golden Hop/Idaho 7 beers. This beer turned out great. Excellent balance between malt sweetness and citrusy flavor and bitterness. As with the previous beers, this beer also was made with some old ingredients, including two pounds of Avangard pale malt that I've had since 2015 when I bought a 55-pound bag (uncrushed). The leaf cascade hops are from the 2017 crop. I obtained them from the 2018 AB hop giveaway in St. Louis. They were vacuumed sealed this whole time and no worse for wear. Still great citrus/grapefruit flavor. And no stale flavors from the old malt. 

Recipe:

5 gallons

US-05

7 lbs 2-row

2 lbs Avangard pale ale

.5 lb Crystal 60 

.5 oz 8.9 AA Cascade 60 minutes

.5 oz 30 minutes

1 oz 5 minutes

1 oz 1 minute

Golden Hop / Idaho 7 IPA

As mentioned in the previous post, following the Nelson beer I made another IPA using the hops in the title. I'm not sure I had tried these hops before in a commercial beer, and I certainly hadn't in a homebrew. These hops, too, were very old. I bought them in 2015 but never used them. However, the vacuum seal remained intact this time, and that made a big difference. This was a rare evening brew, and on a weeknight at that. I was up very late brewing. 

The hop flavor is sort of dank, maybe kind of white wine-like, melon. It's very bright and fresh. I'm impressed that they held up as well as they did, and some homebrew club members who tried it also seemed impressed.

Very clean fermentation. No issues with the expired US-05. It's a tad bitter for a northeast-style IPA, and it's cleared up a lot too, despite the oats. Still, not a bad beer overall, especially considering the age of the hops. 

Nelson Sauvin IPA

I think old hops will stay flavorful and fresh for a long time, but they need to be sealed and not exposed to oxygen. That’s my conclusion from brewing an ipa using a bunch of old ingredients, including nelson hops from 2015, some 2 row malt (crushed) of unknown age, and expired yeast (March 2022). I based the recipe on an amazing all galaxy "hazy" ipa from 2015. 

But the malt and yeast are not the problem. There are no yeast off flavors, no stale taste from old grain. It’s the hops that ultimately did in this beer, and what a shame. 

So why did I put off using these? Since they’re expensive and maybe rare, or at least they are at the time I bought them, I wanted to save them for the right time. Or a special occasion. Sort of like saving that special bottle of wine. 

Unfortunately over time somehow the vacuum sealed bag they were contained in somehow developed a small hole. I couldn’t actually see it, but the vacuum seal had obviously failed. So of course that meant exposure to oxygen. I don’t know exactly when this happened, but I know I discovered it some time last year, maybe a year ago. 

Finally in August 2022 with some empty kegs I decided I’d use them. They didn’t look bad, but the aroma was definitely not fresh. ​I used to brew ipas all the time, but in the last 5-6 years I’ve focused a lot on lagers and lower alcohol and more balanced beers. Having taken a break for awhile, it sounded nice to make one again. Post fermentation, the flavor was pretty good. A fruitiness that I did think was in the realm of white wine, a typical descriptor for this hop. 

Dry hopping really changed things. It made the beer overly bitter. Dry hopping shouldn’t impart bitterness, so maybe it was all in my mind. It definitely had a harshness. That harshness has subsided thankfully but now the beer just tastes old. Like an ipa sitting in the back of your fridge for a year or two. 

So the lesson here, which all brewers already know and I did too, is to use hops and while they’re fresh. If you don’t, then you’re bound to be drinking old-tasting beer. That said, I still think hops can stay “pretty good” for a long time if properly stored. Around the same time I bought these, I also got some “007 golden hop” hops from Yakima valley. I think they’re rebranded as Idaho 7 now. Anyhow, these too languished in my freezer for years, but the seal remained intact and the finished beer is much tastier. 

Recipe:

5 gallons

10 lbs 2 row

1 lb flaked oats

US-05

All Nelson hops:

.5 oz 20 minutes

.5 oz 15 minutes

.5 oz 12 minutes

.5 oz 7 minutes

.5 oz 6 minutes

.5 oz 1 minutes

.5 oz 0 minutes

Dry hop 2 oz

Homegrown hop pale ale

My first attempt at a homegrown hop pale ale in September 2021 was an unfortunate failure. I had harvested a lot of what I believe to be Centennial hops but unfortunately the yeast I had, Wyeast 1318 a day short of being expired, had very few viable cells left as it took a day or two to take off and then took a clovey, bubblegum flavor. I had just moved into my current home, which had established hop plants. I spent a lot of time harvesting the cones and was excited to use them. So it was a real shame to feed the grass with that beer. However, I still had a lot of cones leftover, so I froze them.

Those hops were put into beer three this spring, immediately following the mild and fermented with the same yeast cake. One thing I noticed upon removing them from the vacuum sealed package in the freezer was that they were ever so slightly damp, indicating they weren't completely dry when I packaged them. I'm not sure that had any effect on the finished beer.

It might have, though, or it might just be because these are homegrown hops, but anyhow the finished beer didn't seem to have grapefruit or citrus flavors. People in my homebrew club described it as piney, and I think I would agree, or earthy. 

The beer was excellently balanced between malt sweetness, bitterness, and hop flavor, so I was very pleased with that. A problem I often have with brewing is achieving balance. But this one worked out well.

Sadly this year's crop achieved peak growth in late June or July, right when we were in the thick of a terrible drought along with 100 degree heat. The plants began to look sickly and the cones turned brown. The lupulin powder in the cones still smells good, but the cones themselves definitely are not visually attractive and I'd be hesitant to try them in a beer.

Dark Mild

This mild was beer number two this year, brewed in April, following the Schlafly pale ale recipe. I pitched on the same yeast cake, Mangrove Jacks M36 Liberty Bell, a pretty good yeast. It ferments well and cleanly.

This mild is based on the SS Minnow Mild kit from Northern Brewer. It made a great beer and I am very pleased with it. It's hard to go wrong with tried and true recipes. Great dark malt flavor without being overly alcoholic or watery. Definitely worth brewing this recipe again.

Schlafly pale ale clone

First brew of the year. I’d been kicking around the idea of brewing an English bitter for awhile and settled on a Schlafly pale ale clone. Beer & Brewing had a post on the beer, but it had two different recipes. The original put out by the actual brewery would’ve put me way under the gravity I can achieve with my system. They anticipate 85% efficiency, 10 percentage points above what I get. 

Beer and brewing recommended more grain, so I did increase the malt to achieve the ideal gravity, but they also substantially increased the amount of hops too. More than would’ve been proportional to the amount of extra grain. Unfortunately I didn’t recognize this issue and in fact went above even the modified hop schedule. B&B advised about 2.5 Oz of hops but I had three since I bought three one ounce bags. I didn’t want to have a half ounce left over so I used it all. 

So the result is what I call a sort of hop saturation issue. It’s not overly bitter. It’s just that there’s a lot of hop flavor and not enough residual sweetness in this low gravity beer to support the amount of hops. In the end it leaves the beer tasting very dry, almost astringent. There’s really not any detectable malt flavor. 

Yet it’s a clean beer, no yeast defects. Pretty drinkable. If I were to make this again, I would substantially decrease the amount of hops. I also had to make substitutions based on hops that were available, so if I were able to find the specified varieties that would probably make it taste more like the real thing.

A bunch of helles

In summer 2021, I went to Bierstadt in Denver, which sort of triggered that itch to brew and drink German lagers again. I made a lot of helles. At least four different batches. I modeled the recipe off of information I found online. Based on that information, I used acidulated malt, which I had never used before. Overall, these beers turned out pretty good. I was turning these beers around in a week though. Counting a failed batch of ale with homegrown hops, I think I brewed 7 weekends in a row in fall 2021.

That first batch of helles was good, but I remember that toward the end it seemed to turn bland. I think that my have been a sensory issue though, as subsequent batches have been pretty flavorful.

My second helles batch, and I think third or fourth lager in this group of beers, was interesting. First, I think I forgot to install the manifold before mashing in, so I had to pour everything out into my kettle and put it all back. Then, I had to run an errand for something important, and the mash was extended. I think that manifold issue and the extended mash led to a lower mash temp and extra fermentability, as that particular beer ended at 1.007. I love to "daisy chain" beers together, brewing and then reusing the yeast as many times as I can until I fill my kegs. So given that particular gravity issue, I was nervous about using the yeast again, but I went for it without any glaring issues. 

But the beers following that initial helles batch seemed to taste a little off on occasion, like some noticeable alcohol here and there. I think that actually cleared up over time though. Even the 1.007 beer turned out to be pretty drinkable. 

Lately, I've been brewing ales, and I needed keg space, so I've been drinking the heck out of the next to last beer, a helles made with Weyermann pils malt. This beer had occasional noticeable alcohol, but overall it was pretty clean. However, the acidulated malt seemed to contribute some modestly unpleasant tanginess, to the extent that I've reconsidered whether I want to continue using that malt, or at least in the amount I did for this beer. This keg just kicked today, April 30, just in time for my homegrown centennial hop ale I brewed last weekend. Overall, not a bad beer, had that Weyermann's pilsner malt flavor, sort of grainy/corny, but I didn't love this one. 

The Avangard version I've had here and there. It was never a favorite. I didn't use gelatin so it stayed pretty cloudy for a long time. Recently it's cleared up pretty well. I think I prefer Weyermann pils malt, as this doesn't have the bready, corny flavor I associate with Weyermann, but this has rounded out pretty nicely to a pretty solidly drinkable lager. 

Recipe for 5 gallons:

8 lbs Pilsner

.75 lb Vienna

.4 lb Acid malt

1 oz Hallertau 60 minutes