I needed a 12 pack of brew while my Koelsch is in secondary so I picked up a 12 pack of Warsteiner beer. I’ve had it before at a couple of parties but really only grabbed one because they were serving Macro Swill alongside it. The beer pours nice and golden in color with little to no hope aroma. It’s a German Pilsner beer but doesn’t necessarily have anything that makes it stand out. It’s not very bitter, but does have a bit of a sour note to it in the aftertaste. It goes down easily and is fairly lightweight on the alcohol, weighing in at under 5% ABV. If I had a choice between this and Sam Adams I think I would go with Warsteiner. If it’s Warsteiner vs. Macro Swill, it wins again. I’d rate it a 6.5/10 on the beer scale. I’d buyt it again if nothing else really sticks out and I just need a decent 12 pack.

Wednesday night I was able to finally rack the Koelsch to secondary and get it off that yeast cake. I racked it over to a Better Bottle so I could hopefully see it clarify over the next few weeks. As soon as the lid came off te fermenter I took a whiff and had somwhat of an alcoholy nose hit me. If you recall the OG of this beer was mugh higher due to really good extraction of the grains. While good extraction is usually never a bad thing, it can take you out of style if you are close to the upper end of your original gravity. I was off on this one with a SG of 1.061. I took a brix reading and it was around 5.8 which just didn’t seem right but I checked a bunch of times and even calibrated the refractometer with water. That would put my final gravity somewhere near 1.00 which is lower than I have ever seen and doesn’t seem quite right. The yeast attenuates fairly well but not that well. That would put this beer around a 6.8% brew which is a lot higher than expected or desired.

The next thing to do was to taste the beer and see if it was too warm or had a high alcohol taste. The nose while the beer was warm and uncarbonated was pleasant in a smaller quantity. It didn’t smell of alcohol as bad as the fermenter did. The initial taste was dry with a very light hint of hops but I could taste a little alcohol warmth coming through which is not characteristic of this beer at all. I’m perplexed as to why it was so high in OG and so low in FG. My mash temps were right on, and I only milled the grains once through the barley crusher. The yeast had a perfect environment to work though with 66-68 degree temps the entire 3 weeks of fermentation. Who knows, maybe everything was just optimal for this batch overall. Once the beer is bottled, chilled, and carbonated, the true taste test will begin. If it turns out a little strong I will decrease my pilsner malt down by a pound or two to make that OG come down some especially if I hit the same extraction ratio. I should make this again as my next bath so I can compare it and see the difference in the malt weight.

Well all in all today was a great brew day. The only thing that I forgot about slightly was heating up my sparge water. I mashed out with some water which allowed me to run off 3 gallons out of the first round. I then realized as I was staring at 3 gallons that I needed another 3.5, so I heated more water up to boiling and started my sparge. I ran off exactly 6.5 gallons (I use a wate calc spreadsheet which is always dead on) into the kettle and began to boil. I used 1.5oz German Spalt hops at the start of the boil and then the remaining .50oz around 15 minutes left for some flavoring.

I learned something today that will help in future brews. I have an immersion chiller that I built a couple years ago but never thought it did a very good job at cooling the wort down to pitching levels. Best I could usually do was 80 degrees, sometimes 79. I got distracted by college lacrosse while the wort was cooling and when I went out there and checked the temps, the wort was down to 67! Normally, I give up after about 15 minutes and expect the wort to be chilled by then but maybe that’s just not long enough. Leaving the chiller in there for 25-30 minutes might just be the ticket. Usually brewers want to get the wort cooled as quickly as possible after boil because chances of infection can start to come in plus hot side aeration. In the future I’ll be leaving the wort for a good 25-30 minutes from now on and making sure I get below 70 to pitch.

Since this beer was a German Koelsch beer, I used the White Labs yeast manufactured to make that type of beer. I had a vial from last summer that was a year expired but I pitched that along with a new vial. I figure even if I had some cells that were active it would help fermentation along. I checked the Specific Gravity with my Refractometer and I hit exactly 15 Brix which calculates to approx 1.061 SG. I was shooting for 1.052 so not sure how exact that reading will end up being. If it attenuates well, I could have a nice alcoholy brew. Not normally to style for a Koelsch but will still work out. Of note, I only sent the grains through the mill once this batch. Usually I run them through twice to get a really good crush but after looking at the first round it looked really well crushed and powdery and since this had wheat in it I didn’t want to take chances with a stuck sparge.

Turned out to be a gorgeous day today, and the smell of fresh wort really made it a great day. I’ll be trying to sneak in another batch here within the next couple of weeks. Not sure which recipe yet, possibly a brand new one. I’d like to make another attempt at a Brown Ale as my last attempt failed miserably with a bad yeast cake and a stuck fermentation and weird flavors. I might just do that Vanilla Porter though as that is such a great recipe. Check back soon for more beer reviews and progress on the Koelsch.

Pics from the rest of the day:

Some early pictures of some of my gear and setup. It’s 9:55am and the mash just started. I used 164 degree stike water but only hit 150 degrees and not the desired 151 but it will work just fine at that range. The mash seemed really thick for some reason, not sure if it was the rice hulls or what but I had a lot of dough balls I had to stir out. I used 13.8 quarts of water which is what was used in the last batch and I don’t have any notes about the mash being so thick. More once I start boiling.

I’m looking to get to 165 degrees in my strike water as the grain temps are around 70 right now (maybe slightly warmer being outside). Everything is set, gorgeous day outside, the tunes are rolling. I’ll try to upload some pics while the mash is going.

that’s right, it’s finally brew day in the Trompeter Brewery today. After a long hiatus we’re digging up one of the old recipes and firing everything up today. Today I’m brewing the ever-so-popular German Koelsch that I talk a lot about. Th grain bill is really simple – 10 pounds of German Pilsner Malt and 1 pound of Wheat Malt. I’ll be using rice hulls in the mash tun so I don’t get a stuck sparge but I’ve used them before and never had a problem with anything getting stuck. Hopping will be with Spalt hops as usual with a 60 minute addition and if I recall correctly a 15 minute addition. Time to get my water calculations together and get started. Check back for progress and pictures/videos of the brew.

Last weekend the brewery was very prepared to make a batch of beer but Mother Nature threw a curveball and decided it wasn’t the right time. We had rains on Saturday early and all day Sunday. I stopped at the Thirsty Brewer(Thanks Tom) on the way home Friday and picked up a new vial of White Labs 0029 Kolsch yeast. I have a vial of this already in the fridge but it is far past the expiration date. Normally I would make a starter and if it were good I would just use the yeast and not worry but timing didn’t work out so I bought the new vial. Since there was no brewing last weekend and there should be this weekend a start will be made tonight possibly in 2 separate batches. If both starters take off and seem to be viable then I’ll pitch both of those into the wort on Saturday when I make the beer. If only one is viable then I will just pitch the one in as it will have plenty of cells to ferment this beer out cleanly.

We may be dusting off the brew gear this weekend and lighting up the kettles to brew a batch of beer for the little guy’s First Birthday party. We could see a return of the (in)famous Kaiser Kolsch beer this weekend or maybe a batch of Millennium Pale Ale. A double batch is a possibility but would be harder to accomplish with other activities going on. Recipe will be posted on the Brew Log Page once we decide on what’s brewing and notes on the batch, possibly some video also will be posted while we brew. Thinking of maybe streaming the brew live on qik.com too. Check back soon to see what’s upcoming in the brewery.

Wow, that’s quite a mouthful huh? This beer comes from Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward California. You can check out their site Here. I’ve always heard of people using honey in their beers but never had much occasion to realy try one. A lot of people use honey just to boost the alcohol percentage by adding honey to the boil. It adds sugars to the wort and helps bump up the alcohol without having to mash more grain. From the look of the website it appears this is the only beer they currently bottle and sell outside of the restaurant.

Tasting Notes:
The first time I had this beer my first impression was “ouch, what is that bite?” It’s an Orange Blossom Honey Cream Ale so it obviously uses Orange Blossom honey in the brew. It has a more acidic bite though that seems to come from some sort of citrus additive, either coriander or some other orange spice. This tends to overpower the beer and give it a harshness not commonly found in Cream Ales. Cream Ales are really a light brew, crisp and refreshing, little to no hop bitterness. This beer was nothing like that, I’d have a hard time classifying it as a Cream Ale at all. This doesn’t mean my overall impression of the beer is bad but the beer is a lot different than any others out there. Some people really like spice and fruit and I think this beer would cater to those. I’d love to have the same beer minus the weird spice flavor so it’s just the light orange blossom honey coming through. I’d give it a 6/10 overall with points deducted for the weird spice flavor and not really sticking to a Cream Ale style. It almost tasted more like a sparkling wine than a beer.

After posting this, I found a somewhat amusing youtube video of someone else “reviewing” this beer.

Orange Blossom Youtube Review

I’ve always been a fan of new beers and although I’ve had this beer a couple of times in the past I figure it’s time to write something about it because I keep going back to it when I am in the beer store. The name sort of says it all. Backdraft Brown. This beer pours with a rich caramel color and a nice frothy head. Brown Ales are not typically hoppy but Hook and Ladder chose to use one of the “C” hops in this beer, Cascade. Cascades are found in many Pale Ales but I haven’t come across a lot of Brown Ales that biter with it. The beer itself has a slight residual sweetness to it and little malty flavor to it. Pick up a sixer and decide for yourself but this makes it to my fridge seemingly once a month.