Phriendly Phil’s Velociraptor Pharm n’ Pettin’ Zoo

The refractometer arrived today, so I played with it a bit, checking the specific gravity of my oil experiment. I also checked them with a hydrometer as a cross-check.

Both halves of the batch were the same gravity: 4.8 Plato apparent, 1.006 measured SG, 1.007 calculated SG.

Both were copper colored, and very cloudy. Both had a really nice hop aroma.

Both tasted very similar — aggressively bitter, with a little sweetness from the caramel malt, but otherwise very dry. A sort of fruity-hoppy flavor comes next. The major difference betwen the two is that A8B (the oiled one) may have a faint phenolic taste in the beginning.

Overall, the flavor is excellent to my palate. I might try lowering the bittering alpha acids about 25% next time.

Not I just need to wait for it to clear, keg it, and try to find a victim to taste this thing.

Oh, and the cyser-pyment-melomel is at 8.8 apparent Plato, with a calculated SG of 0.993. It is thin, slightly tart, and alcoholically very hot.

The kräusen has fallen in the oil-dosed batch. I haven’t checked the SG yet — I figure I’ll wait for my refractometer to arrive. The aerated batch still has a head of kräusen and braune hefe, but I imagine that will fall by the weekend. This represents the first unequivocal difference between the two batches.

A week after pitching, both halves of the batch appear to have settled down quite a bit. Both have a thick head of kräusen with braune Hefe on top. Both are still fermenting slowly (4 bubbles / min) and both are hovering at around 56 degrees F as measured by the stick-on liquid crystal thermometers.

So far, they are indistinguishable.

In an effort to test the efficacy of vegetable oils for replacing aeration of beer wort, I brewed eleven gallons to the following recipe:

• 6.6 pounds Briess Pilsen malt syrup
• 4 pounds clover honey
• 2 pounds Briess 80L crystal
• 1 ounce Yakima Magnum pellets, α = 12.5, 60 minutes
• 2 oz Mount Hood pellets, α = 5.2, 15 minutes
• 2 oz Mount Hood pellets, α = 5.2, 2 minutes

The batch was split 5/5.5 gallons (I didn’t try to make them completely equal.) A 3-quart starter of White Labs WLP-001 was decanted to 1 quart, and split into two sanitized pint containers. One pint was dosed with 0.5 ml of flax oil and pitched into the 5-gallon batch, and the other was pitched into the 5.5-gallon batch, which was aerated by 1 minute of vigorous shaking (this is a departure from plan, as I could not find the hose that goes from my oxygen cylinder to my diffusion stone.)

Five hours after pitching, here’s what it looks like (the foam on the right is not kräusen; it is left over from the agitation of aeration):

So far, so meh, as I have been saying.

Update 2/19/2008 22:00

It looks like there is a little airlock pressure in the aerated batch. No such from the oiled batch, but it is showing signs of yeast activity. Photos after the break…

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That mead with the Montrachet yeast is in the front hall closet right now, bubbling away.

It’s making the house smell like someone needs to lay off the chili.

• 9 pounds Trader Joe’s brand mesquite honey
• 10 quarts organic apple juice
• 1 quart Trader Joe’s triple-berry juice blend
• 1 quart Trader Joe’s Concord grape juice
• water to bring total volume to 5 gallons
• Red Star Montrachet wine yeast

OG: 1.104.

I got my water analyzed by Ward Labs, to see what I’m dealing with when I try all-grain brewing again. Not surprisingly, given the amount of minerals encrusted on the fixtures, it’s incredibly hard, but I am surprised that the carbonate content is low.

It’s actually not a bad approximation of Dublin’s water. Stout anyone?

The tale of the tape below the break.
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Ordinary Bitter (10 gallons, OG 1.040)

9.9 pounds Briess Pilsen liquid malt extract
1 Pound 40L Crystal Malt
1 ounce Columbus pellet hops (13.5% α, 60 min)
1/2 ounce East Kent Goldings whole hops (6.3% α, 15 minutes)
1/2 ounce East Kent Goldings whole hops (6.3% α, steep 15 minutes)

Safale S-04 yeast / Safale US-05 yeast (split batch)

Had some trouble brewing this one — two boilovers in a half-barrel boiler (!) left hops from both boiled additions sticking to the sides and lid.

Also, my damned digital thermometer began lying to me, so I ended up chilling this way below pitching temperature — the S-04 had about 24 hours lag, and the US-05 still hadn’t fired up.  I didn’t aerate the wort much, but with the large amount of yeast from the dried yeasts, that shouldn’t matter much.

Black Death 3 still remains to be brewed, although it might be postponed indefinitely for something more in the Trappist vein.

I was at the company party, which was at an upscale downtown bowling alley. One of my co-workers was drinking a Bud Light in one of those bowling-pin-shaped bottles, but the way he was holding it, I could see neither the label nor the bulge at the top. I thought he had an Orval, and when it was clear he did not, I mentioned that I was about to ask him if they really had Orval there.

I don’t think he knew what the fvck I was talking about, although my pronouncing it “Orville” probably didn’t help any.

This was my ninth batch ever of beer. I’ve tweaked it a bit, and will be brewing it on December 2 soon:

• 6 pounds Briess Pilsen dried malt extract
• 3 pounds Trader Joe’s mesquite honey
• 0.5 pound 40 L crystal malt
• 0.5 pound chocolate malt
• 1 ounce Columbus pellet hops (13.5% α, 60 min)
• 0.5 ounce Cascade pellet hops (5.9% α, 15 min)
• 0.5 ounce Cascade pellet hops (5.9% α, 15 min steep)
• Safale US 05 ale yeast

Projected OG 1.077, 46.3 IBU

EDIT: I am considering dialing back the hops and using Safbrew T-58 for more of an abbey ale (trappistoid?) style.