It is not normal when I don’t look forward to a brew day. So I have to thank my homebrew club’s Iron Brewer competition for ruining this brew day for me. Iron Brewer works similarly to its namesake. Three brewers are given two ingredients or rules for their beer. Everything else is up to the brewer. For this brew, we were given no ingredients. Only restrictions. We could only use fermentables of 3L or lower and the finished beer had to be 17SRM or higher.

So where does that leave us? Clearly any highly kilned or roasted grain is out. Fruit is a fermentable so anything that would provide color can’t be used. Highly toasted oak isn’t technically a fermentable, but the challenge only gives us two months so there is a risk that the wood character wouldn’t meld properly. I’m probably leaving out some options, but I didn’t have much time to get this beer put together.

So what I landed on after a week of debate then changing my mind last second at the homebrew shop is a take on a dunkelweizen. I can’t use the traditional Munich malt for the style so I need to make up for that somehow. My method for getting some additional malt character and color is decoction and a long boil. Now you can see why I was not looking forward to this brew day.

The Decoction

A decoction mash is a more intensive process than a standard single infusion mash. In essence, it is a step mash that has you remove a portion of the bash, boil it and return it to the mash to raise the temperature. Doing a decoction is supposed to give you some color and flavor impact, but a quick internet search will lead you to the debate over whether the flavor impact is meaningful. Decoction can be done as a single, double or triple, which essentially dictates how many steps you will do.

I decided to do a triple decoction. Whatever color change I can wring out of this process I need to get. This is the part of the day that I was not looking forward to at all. The portion of the mash you pull for the decoction is intended to be thick. You want to leave as much fluid as possible in the mash tun. Boiling a thick portion of the mash leaves you at risk for scorching the grain and being left with a burnt flavor in the beer. So you need to keep stirring the decoction to keep that from happening. That can lead to a tiring brew day!

Adding to my tiring day is the fact that my brew system is in the garage and my brew kettle can’t boil anything less than 4.5 gallons. So that means I have to take my mash up and down the stairs to the kitchen for each decoction step. A rather unfortunate setup, but it is part of the limitation of my electric system.

By my third decoction (picture above), I was getting some brown color. I was pulling at most 1.75 gallons from my 4.5 gallon mash, so the overall effect was less than the picture above because it was diluted each time I added it back to the mash.

The Boil

I planned for a two hour boil. Since I have to keep at least 4.5 gallons in the kettle during the boil I couldn’t just boil until I got the color I wanted. Adding water would thin out the beer and actually lighten the beer.

The image on the left is the preboil wort. The right is after one hour. The wort is already darkening substantially. If I had this to do over again, I would tone down how hard the wort was boiling. After doing the brew day, I read that the maillard reaction that darkens the beer really only needs to be above 190 degrees F. So I could have kept it to more of a simmer and kept it going longer to slow my evaporation rate. Going into the day I assumed I needed to boil hard to get the most color.

In the end this brew day took my almost 12 hours. That is more than double my normal brew day. I won’t be doing this sort of brew again anytime soon, but I can at least say I’ve done a decoction. They are tough, but the stirring wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting.

I ended up getting quite a bit of color in this beer. I pitched dry hefeweizen yeast that has it looking a milky, light brown. Definitely does not look like a beer you’d want to drink at the moment, but we’ll see how it looks at the end of fermentation. I figured a hefeweizen yeast could help with the perception of dark color by making the beer hazy. The judging for this competition won’t be until mid March so I won’t have an update on the results for awhile.

It was three weeks in the making. A 10-gallon batch of vanilla stout, my wife’s favorite, had been pushed back and pushed back due to life getting in the way. Kids getting sick, unexpected out-of-town guests and otherwise shifting priorities conspired to push this brew day further on the calendar. Then it happened. My work schedule lined up to allow me to work a half day on Opening Day. My Cincinnati Reds were hosting the Pirates and I was able to get the broadcast at home. My wife agreed to take charge of the kids so I could squeeze in the brew (it didn’t hurt that I was brewing her beer). A glorious day of baseball and beer was ahead of me.

Everything finally lining up probably should have been a warning. Nothing ever works out that nicely. Problems started innocently enough. I had a small spot of yeast stuck on the side of my plastic fermenter. No big deal. I can’t use a brush since that would scratch the plastic, but I can spin a wet washcloth inside to wipe it off. This particular gunk was stubborn. It took more than 4 innings to get the speck completely off of the fermenter. But the Reds were up 2-0 at that point and my water was heated and ready for the mash.

I moved the water I needed for the mash into the mash tun at the next commercial break. A rain delay gave me the window I needed to crush my grain and get the mash started. After ensuring the HERMs system was working properly, I returned to the game to watch the Reds blow the lead then retake the lead in the 8th. A quick 9th inning secured the win for the Reds and I went to the garage for the remainder of the brew day. Or so I thought.

Near the end of the mash I heard my wife calling for me. I head back into the house and look out the window to see that our street has been barricaded by police and have their rifles trained on a neighbor’s house. I send the family back to the rear of the house in case something goes down and return to the garage. Because beer.

The rest of the mash and during the mash out I am keeping one eye on the situation out front and one eye on the brew system. I start the long sparge and continue to check on the street. Nothing seems to be happening. I get my hops together for the boil and settle in watching my pre-boil volume slowly rise.

The situation outside seems to have diffused. Police just milling around in the street and the barricade gradually disappears. We appear to be in the clear and my wife throws together a late dinner. The boil proceeds smoothly except for a minor boil-over. After quickly eating my dinner I start prepping my fermenters and setting up the hoses for the chiller. With 5 minutes left in the boil I see it. My hop screen and stainless elbow to reach the bottom of the boil kettle are sitting on a chair by the brew stand. F@*#!

With all of the distractions of the day I had forgotten to reassemble to interior of the boil kettle after doing a clean. Now I had 11 gallons of boiling wort and my normal routine of getting the wort chilled and in the fermenter can’t happen. I grab my immersion chiller and throw it into my sanitizer bucket. It is really only built for 5 gallon batches, but it will have to do. I rearranged my hoses to accommodate the immersion chiller and toss it into the boil kettle.

One problem down. Now I need to figure out how to get the wort out. The kettle plus wort is easily over 100 pounds so I won’t be lifting it to just pour it into the fermenters. That is usually my go-to method when something goes wrong. I ran into the house to get my auto-siphon and put that into the sanitizer bucket.

Now it was a waiting game for the immersion chiller to slowly cool the wort. It is only a 25 foot coil, so it is built for 5 gallons at most. Add to that that the out hose for the water is not very long so I had to direct it into a 5 gallon bucket. This kept me busy shuffling a couple 5 gallon buckets in and out of the garage. When the wort hit about 110 degrees Fahrenheit, I called it. I would take advantage of the cold night air and my fermentation fridge to cool it down the rest of the way.

I got the siphon started into the first fermenter and started cleaning the mash tun. It was a little nerve racking constantly looking up to the fermenter to make sure I stopped it in time and put the hose into the 2nd fermenter. I made the swap with no issues and went back to cleaning the mash tun. Of course I nearly miss the 2nd fermenter filling up but managed to stop it in time.

I cleaned out the boil kettle and got the hoses and pumps run clean with hot water. I did a quick check on the fermenters just by putting my hand on the side of it and was pleased with how it was cooling down. Now is when it hit me that I had not prepped the yeast. My Wyeast smack packs were still sitting in the fridge. Sigh. At this point what more could I expect. I smacked the yeast and called it a day with my brew. I’ll pitch in the morning to make sure everything was at the right temperature.

This brew day went sideways worse than when I’ve drank one too many during the day. I had only had one beer, but I was so distracted I was missing critical (and simple!) details throughout the day. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Who really considers needing yeast to brew beer?

Oh and did I mention I woke up with a bad cold the next day?

Beer puns are pretty awful, but I’m working on my terrible dad jokes so I am going with it.  On Labor Day I brewed the newest rendition of my Russian imperial stout.  This brew day I was joined by my brother-in-law and I was just hoping that things would go more smoothly than my last brew.  An easy brew day would be just the thing to cap off the holiday weekend.

The day started out with only a minor hiccup.  I left the valve of the mash tun open and poured some water on my shoes.  Thankfully that is an easy remedy and doesn’t effect the end product.  The mash lagged a little low on temperature getting started.  It could make the stout dry out a little so I will have to keep an eye on that.  The sparge of the mash went well until I checked the pre-boil gravity and it was again low by 0.010.  The good news is that I still had some extract left over from correcting the Belgian dark strong ale.  The bad news is I can no longer blame this on Denny.  I need to figure out what is going wrong.

The boil went well until I started trying to chill.  Once again the system stopped draining after transferring about 3 gallons of wort.  I have a couple ideas on dealing with this issue.  First I am going to try increasing the height differential between the kettles and the pumps.  I can lower the pumps another notch on the stand and I think I can raise the kettles a notch and still do everything comfortably.  If that doesn’t work then I will need to investigate replacing the hop stopper I use with something that won’t clog as easily.

To finish the day I decided to just dump the remaining wort into the fermenter and let it chill to the proper temperature in the fermentation fridge.  I was frustrated and did not feel like fussing with the pumps and hoses for an hour to get the last couple gallons out of the kettle.  The starting gravity was correct after the addition of extract.

Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 6.72 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.72 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal   
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.091 SG
Estimated Color: 63.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 104.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 85.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt                   Name                                                    %/IBU         
12 lbs 12.0 oz        Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)                          73.9 %        
1 lbs 12.0 oz         Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)                              10.1 %        
1 lbs 12.0 oz         Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)                              10.1 %        
1 lbs                 Extra Special (Briess) (130.0 SRM)                      5.8 %         
1.50 oz               Columbus (Tomahawk) [16.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min           100.5 IBUs    
0.50 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min                    4.0 IBUs      
0.50 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min                     0.0 IBUs      
1.0 pkg               British Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1098) [2 liter starter]

----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 7.19 gal of water at 160.7 F        152.0 F       60 min        
Mash Out          Heat to 168.0 F over 2 min              168.0 F       10 min        

Sparge: Fly sparge with 2.32 gal water at 168.0 F

Recently, I mentioned I was going to be changing this stout recipe despite winning the stout category in my club’s competition.  I want to give the malt profile more depth.  To do this I added a pound of extra special malt.  I also wanted to maintain the malt-bitterness balance so I increased the bittering hop slightly.

Recently I was visited by my good friend Denny and one day we got together to brew a beer.  Based on his recent experience with Gulden Draak, Denny wanted to brew a Belgian Dark Strong Ale.  I have never brewed a Belgian style beer so I consulted one of my favorite brewing books, Brewing Classic Styles.  The recipe we used is very close to what is provided in the book so out of respect for the authors and as part of my belief that this is a must own book I won’t be providing the recipe in this post.

The day began with the ritual I demand of all new initiates that brew on my system: hand cranking the mill.  Due to the large amount of grain in this recipe I showed mercy and offered that we skip straight to using the drill to turn the mill, but Denny rose to the challenge in an effort to get ‘the full experience.’  After a couple false starts with the handle not gripping the crank shaft, Denny started powering through almost half of the 17.5 pounds of grain we were using for the beer.

Denny Stirring the Mash

While Denny was toiling with the mill, I prepared the water for the mash.  I poured the grain into the mash tun while Denny stirred the mash to breakup any dough balls.  Initially we had some false alarms because some grain had clogged the sight glass causing it to show a lower volume than expected.  About 20 minutes into the mash the pumps that recirculate the mash and the hot liquor tank overheated and stopped working.  Denny had the idea of hooking up a fan to keep the fans cooled.  Both pumps finally started working again with about three minutes left in the mash.

We started sparging the mash and calibrated the refractometer.  When we finished sparging and took a pre-boil gravity reading we found the biggest issue with the brew day so far: the gravity was way too low.  There was light cursing and we took a couple more readings trying to convince ourselves that the first one was wrong.  It wasn’t.  The boil kettle element was turned off and the kettle was covered.  We jumped in the car and went to the local homebrew shop to pick up some dry malt extract to increase the gravity where we needed it.

We returned to the garage following a brief pit stop for lunch.  We were ready to continue the brew day.  A final pre-boil measurement was taken to confirm the amount of extract we needed to add to the wort.  We used amber malt extract which should not significantly alter the flavor of the beer.  The rest of our ninety minute boil went well. Only having one hop addition allowed us to recoup after a hectic morning.

Near the end of the boil we sanitized the chiller and hooked the water hoses up.  The fermenter was sanitized and waiting for the cooled wort.  The start of the chilling process was smooth.  When the fermenter had about 3 gallons of wort in it everything changed.  Suddenly the wort would not drain out of the kettle fast enough to keep up with the pump. Thus began our dance of lifting and dropping hoses and trying to force gravity and the pumps to help us out.  In the end we only ended up with a little over 4 gallons in the fermenter before we gave up fighting the hoses.

The ground water we were chilling with was rather warm due to the hot weather we’ve had recently.  We couldn’t pitch so we stuck the fermenter in the fermentation fridge and went to have a beer while it cooled down. After a couple hours we went to check the beer and it was still too warm to pitch the yeast, but we took a sample to record our original gravity.  The gravity was slightly high, but the unfermented sample tasted good.  You could already pick out the different malt layers.  Denny got the full experience of homebrewing that day. We fought through quite a few issues, and in the end we were rewarded with some good tasting wort.