10/24/09:
A freeze dried packet of Safbrew S-33 (specialty yeast: belgian wheat/trappist.
http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Safbrew_S-33_HB.pdf) was added to a, first boiled, then cooled mixture consisting of ~500mL water, some malt syrup, and a few plugs of hops. This will be allowed to sit and ferment for a day, until pitching in a larger volume tomorrow.
10/25/09:
Added room temperature grain to ~3.5 gallons of water at 171dF in a room temp mash tun for a mash temp of 150-151dF.
10# american 2 row
2# munich
1# crystal (39L)
1/2# special roast (~50L)
1/2# caramunich (~50L)
After a mash of 2.5 hours, sparged with 4-5 gallons of water at 170-175dF.
Boiled wort, with hop additions at times T-60min (1/2 portion), T-30min (1/4 portion), and T-15min (1/4 portion),
where the total hops consisted of a mix of
1 oz ahtanum (substitute for cascarde) 4.5%aa
0.7 oz NZ green bullet 12.8%aa
Wort chiller used, then starter culture from yesterday was pitched to room temperature wort.
initial gravity = 1.079 (temp corrected)
initial volume = 4.5 gallons
initial temp = 84dF
Notes to self: Looks like the mash is still coming out at quite a high gravity, around 1.055, with additions of hot water. I was able to take a liter out, which I will store in the freezer for the next time I need to make a starter. In the future, with a mash this size (14#) it looks like there is plenty of extra sugar to go past five gallons. I also need a bigger brew pot, as this one (5 gallons) seems to top out at 3.5-4 gallons after leaving some space for a boil over and the wort chiller.
10/28/09:
Bubbling spontaneously. Added in a couple liters I got out of the mash by sparging some more, after boiling and chilling the aliquot. Volume is a bit over 5 gallons now. Temperature is around 72-74dF now.
11/29/09:
Bottled today. FG was 1.020. Added 3/4 cup sugar to 5 gallons, yielding 55 bottles. Over the last few weeks it was lazilly bubbling away with a shake now and then, but it looks like it still could have fermented a bit, maybe with some more shaking, despite really slowing down after the first couple weeks. A little bit sweet, but hopefully that will mellow out with some time in the bottle. Malty and nutty, too, with a balanced amount of bitterness--overall quite promising.
12/11/09:
This batch came out rather sweet before I bottled it, with a rather low apparent attentuation of around 73% (see
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Understanding_Attenuation for a discussion of attenuation). A couple things could have happened here. First could be a poor fermentation, because the yeast floculated too quickly and did not get a chance to ferment all the available sugars. This is most probable. One thing I should have realized, though, is the addition of Crystal and Cara-whatever malts add unfermentable sugars that increase body and sweetness, but contribute little to alcohol levels.
1/25/10:
Whoa is me, for this beer is pain in the ass. I ended up saving yeast from this batch in the fridge, in a reused screw top 300mL juice container. About a week ago I noticed some sludge on the fridge bottom, but it took me a while to realize the yeast had expanded and burst the container from the continued fermentation. After figuring out it was still fermenting and could go down in sugars, I ended up putting a few beers worth into a 2L fermenter as a trial, and will likely pop all the bottles and ferment them to completion. A lot of work, but the beer is way too sweet right now. Moral of the story: don't bottle your beer until it is done. Nothing too bad can really happen to a beer in the fermenter.