Tiny Helles tasting

Kegged just two weeks ago, this beer is really hitting its stride. It's crisp and super clear with the aid of gelatin. I've been drinking it steadily and sadly the keg is about empty. That's sort of the downside of 5-gallon batches; by the time the beer is really drinking good, it's nearly gone. I suppose I could wait a little bit longer before drinking it, but I can never resist sampling after kegging a new beer. And it tastes pretty good, I'll just start drinking it, like I did with this one. 

When it was brand new, it had a much stronger grainy, bready flavor. But as it's cleared up, the bready/grainy character is more of a background flavor. No apparent hop flavor, so it's all German pilsner malt. This beer finished at 1.010-12, so based on a 1.040 OG, it's under 4% ABV, perhaps substantially so. The great thing is that you can drink a lot of these and not get overly tipsy. The beer has a fairly moderate body, despite being such a small beer. It's not thin and there are no weird flavors from the touch of chiller discharge water that ended up in the kettle. Aroma is somewhat low, but there are hints of that bready graininess. Overall, this is a great beer and served as a great warmup for the yeast, which has been used in additional beers. Speaking of the yeast, 2633 Oktoberfest, I'm not sure I pick up anything unique about it compared to other lager yeasts I've used. 

Tiny smash Helles

Right before the lockdown hit my community, I rushed to the homebrew store to buy some grain. I intended to try making a Kolsch-like beer with US-05 yeast, but unfortunately I never got around to brewing it. Since then, my kegs have emptied and with plans to make an Oktoberfest beer, I decided I would use this grain to make a small Helles-like lager. 

I went to two different shops looking for a German lager strain, and the only one I could find is Wyeast 2633 Oktoberfest. I had intended to use Wyeast 2308 as I had good luck with it two years ago. I would have settled for 2124 as well, but both were out of stock. I've never used 2633 before and could not find a lot of information about it, but some posts I read on forums indicated it works well.

This is the first beer in my new house and the first non-Pickwick beer I've ever made. Overall, things went pretty smoothly, but I did have a few mishaps. The output end of my wort chiller somehow got in the wort for a second, so that increased the volume. I think I ended up with 5.5 gallons and an OG of 1.040 instead of 1.043. My wort chiller also came apart after one of the clamps evidently loosened. So I had to take it out and put it back together. 

In the end, this beer is a warmup for some Oktoberfest beers I'll be brewing in the coming weeks. Wort tastes pretty good. A little thin. But a good grainy, bready flavor. 

Recipe:

7.5 lbs Weyermann Pils

1 oz Hersbrucker at 60 minutes

2633 Oktoberfest yeast

Brulosophy Tiny Bottom Pale Ale

I rarely brew other people's recipes as I like the feeling of creativity and anticipation I feel when I write and brew my own. However, sometimes it pays to follow something tried and true, as sometimes things don't work out as intended. I scaled down my recipe manually one Saturday afternoon while sitting outside the homebrew shop. I didn't want to make it too complex with weird amounts, so I ballparked it. It's pretty close to the original. I got the ingredients at the brew shop in ozark one Saturday afternoon and tried to quickly scale the recipe out in the parking lot using the brewers friend app. I tried to manually scale the recipe to 5 gallons as best I could while also trying not to make it too complicated for the employee selecting, weighing, and crushing the grains for me. I have some old Fuggles on hand, but decided it’d be best to purchase fresh hops. So I got an ounce of Fuggles and Perle, a hop I’ve never used before. 

I read about this beer a pretty long time ago and somehow it got back on my radar earlier tis year. It sounded like an easy drinking pale ale, which is what I've been wanting to drink lately. Don’t really remember how I decided to add this one to the rotation. I’ve been watching a lot of homebrewing videos lately though, and one channel I subscribe to, clawhammer supply, made this beer. And I had read about it on brulosophy’s site. Anyway, here we are. 

It's the fourth in a series of beers I brewed this past winter, all using a single sachet of US-05. The original recipe calls for a different strain - San Diego Super yeast or something - but I was already using US-05, and it has never let me down.

Routine brew day, although I mixed up some hop additions. I substituted galena for magnum. And the original recipe calls for 1.5 oz or so total, but I had purchased two 1 oz hops packets and didn't feel like keeping around just .5 oz, so I put it all in.

Appearance: Golden, amber. Pretty clear without use of gelatin, just time. Off white, foamy head.

Aroma: Malt. No discernible hops. Bready?

Flavor: moderate body, good balance. Light bitterness. It had some earthy, herbal, noble hop flavor early on but those seem to have faded. It's mostly malt now, with maybe a hint of that herbal flavor in the background. Vienna malt is pretty prominent.

Overall: Very solid beer. I'm glad I brewed it. I like beers that I can drink without being overwhelmed with sweetness, bitterness, or alcohol. This strikes the perfect balance of all three.

Brew date: 2/1/2020

Keg date: 2/16/2020

OG 1.049-50

FG 1.010

~5.25 gallons

US-05