Strapping Numpty

I asked for a recipe review on HomebrewTalk for my Special/Best Bitter (an English Pale Ale) and posted the recipe I had been using.  I got a few comments, but there are some brewers on that list that just know their stuff.  Through my vague description of not being able to pick out any real flaw, but that I wasn’t happy with the results, they were able to determine that I had too much “variety” in my recipe.  I was using too many types of grain and the resulting beer was “muddy”, meaning all the flavors were at the same levels and nothing “stood out”.

Realizing I had fallen into the common home-brewing mistake of “more is better”, I was going for layered complexity and got bland beer instead.  Taking their advice, I simplified my recipe greatly.  Instead of using 6 different grains, I mashed 2. 

Quick sidebar:  Mashing is where the complex carbohydrates are broken down by the naturally occurring enzymes in the grain.  The best visual image I can give you is from John Palmer who likened it to cutting large limbs off a tree and breaking them down into small enough pieces to fit in the the trash can.  This happens naturally if the brewer provides a couple of things.  First, the grains must be cracked.  Not made into flour, just cracked open.  Second, just enough water to make a cereal gruel must be added.  Not too much, but enough to cover the grain.  This gruel needs to be a just the right temperature for the enzymes to work on those carbs.  This just takes some time now, up to an hour to break down all those carbs into simple sugars that yeast like.  Drain out the sugary water and rinse the grains with some more hot water.  That sugar water is soon to be beer. 

Given that my municipal water sucks and has way too much sodium in it, I have to “make my own” water.  I collect water from the RO unit and store it in three 5 gallon water bottles.  Since this water has no minerals in it, I have to add some back, or the water will taste bland, the grain will change the pH of the water too much and the enzymes will have a hard time with those carbohydrates.  The minerals I generally add are Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Sulfate (gypsum), and magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt).  These are similar minerals to what Primo adds to their brand of bottled water.  Some are for taste, some act as buffers, preventing the grain from changing the pH too much.  Today, I have added Lactic acid to my water to set my pH at optimum which is around 5.2.  This allowed me to add fewer minerals.

This was also the first time I have brewed using the silicone tubing rather than the copper labyrinth I had first built.  Another first was using nylon hop bags for my hop additions.  A major frustration for me was not being able to whirlpool at the end of the boil because the hop material kept clogging everything up.  I tied these small nylon bags up with the measured amount of hops in them and tossed them in the kettle at the prescribed time.  One last change was that I switched from Irish Moss to Whirfloc tablets as kettle finings.  All these changes made a huge difference in the stress level and ease of my brew day.  I wasn’t fooling around with pumps that wouldn’t prime or air in the lines.  I wasn't trying to unplug the kettle drain to start the whirlpool and get out of the danger zone (wort, or unfermented beer, is very susceptible to contamination after the boil and before being cooled to below 140F.).

As a result of all this I exceeded all of my yield targets.  I was calculating for a Starting Gravity of 1.054 and hit 1.060 and not by lowering my volume either.  My target volume was 20L and I hit 22.7L + some I had to dump out because the fermenter was completely full.  Using the Whirlfloc tablet, I got cold break like I’ve never had before and the new whirlpool arm I built had my wort down below 80F in 10 minutes.  I run out of the boil kettle, through the plate chiller and back into the boil kettle, but at an angle so that the wort in the kettle gets stirred around and all of it ends up getting cooled.  This is supposed to allow the cold break to form and avoid dumping it in the fermenter.  I guess I should turn off the pump and let it rest for a few minutes after it’s cooled.  Since all the cold break wound up in my fermenter, I’ll rack to another carboy tomorrow before pitching the yeast.  The color is perfect and this simplified recipe came out amazing so far.  This is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed the taste of the wort before it was fermented.  I can’t wait for the first batch of Strapping Numpty to be done!  What’s a Numpty you say?  Let Wikipedia be your guide.