English Pedigree

Saturday, November 13th, Shawn and I made English Pedigree Porter.  I chose this recipe so we could re-pitch the yeast from the Strapping Numpty.  In hindsight, I did this backwards since the gravity of English Pedigree is lower than Strapping Numpty.  I should have started with the “smallest” beer and worked up to Strapping Numpty which is the “biggest” beer.  Biggest would be the beer that is the most malty, highest alcohol beer.  Purposely, several of my beers use the same yeast so I can re-pitch without having to buy new yeast packs (or tubes).

Shawn helped me mill the grain and dough in the English Pedigree while we racked 5 gallons of Strapping Numpty into a sanitized keg.  I racked the last gallon into a 1 gallon glass carboy to be bottled later.  Both got loaded into the Keezer (a chest freezer with a refrigerator thermostat that one stores kegs in) at 4 degrees C (39F) to chill down.  I put the keg under 12 psi of CO2, then lowered that to 4 psi in the morning.  Using the Brew Tools software I wrote, (which you can get for free by clicking the link) the calculations for the keg pressure say <1 psi.  I didn’t believe it so I put the same parameters into Beer Smith.  I got the same results.

Coincidentally, this was an English Pedigree weekend given that I helped my friend to digitize his coat of arms.  This is the real deal, created by and listed in the registry of the College of Arms in London, listing Russell’s English pedigree.  His father was Knighted and now goes by Sir. George.  Russ explained what all the colors and images mean, but the only one I recall is the shooting stars refer to Information Technology.  This is a reduced version of the image I cleaned up.

Meanwhile, the mash water is heated, we added some minerals to the mash (gypsum, Epsom salt and Calcium Sulfate) to adjust the pH. I tried to use my new Milwaukee pH56 pH/Temp Meter but it became obvious to both of us that this was more complicated and required a re-reading of the instructions.  I added 2 tsp. of lactic acid to reduce the pH and “guessed” that it would be enough.  We quit messing with the pH at this point.

We take a sample for the refractometer and since for the first time I actually had to explain what I was doing, I realized that I was not getting the sugar density that I expected.  So the question of “why” entertained us for a number of minutes until we figured out that this is an older model refractometer and doesn’t automatically adjust for temperature.  It is only accurate at 20C (68F) which is a long way from 200+F that that wort was at as we neared our boil.  In reading about that further today, I realize that I’m supposed to calibrate the meter at ambient temperature and then let the sample cool to “ambient” temperature before taking a reading.  Simple, once you understand that. 

Mash-out and a couple of hop additions to the boil later and we’re whirl-pooling and chilling the wort.  Our target gravity is 10.51 and the hydrometer reads 1.056 (I know how to correct that reading for temperature).  Since switching from the copper hard-line to the silicone hose, my efficiency has gone from (a very poor) 65% to 70-73%.  Meaning that of the available sugars in the grain, I’m getting 70+% of them out.  We get the wort cooled down from 212F to 72F in about 20 minutes.  Once the 6 gallon carboy (23L) was full we still had some in the kettle that we fed to the snails (dumped on the driveway.  No actual snails were fed).  That’s when it struck me that something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what.  We put the carboy in the fermentation chamber and pitched the washed yeast into the Pedigree Porter.  Cleanup takes another hour and everything is put away.

The next morning I go and check on the fermentation and the yeast are going to town.  It’s a good thing I’m using a blow off tube because an airlock would have been clogged full of yeasty foam.  This is dangerous because the fementer starts building up pressure and it’s nasty because mold and bacteria can now migrate through the foam to the beer.  A blow-off tube prevents this by running a piece of tubing to a secondary container where the end of the tubing is submerged in water.  I had to put the second container inside of a third pan because it was blowing foam (or Krausen) out of the top.  Messy.  That’s about the time I realize that what was missing yesterday in the whirlpool was the Whirlfloc or Irish Moss.  That explains why we didn’t get much of a cold-break in the kettle.  I’ve since modified all of my recipes to include Whirlfloc when there’s 10 minutes left in the boil.  No more forgetting that magic ingredient.

I’m sampling some of the St. Bernard Christmas Ale I brewed in February as I write this.  It did finally develop some carbonation in the bottle and the 12oz pour formed a thick, off-white head.  I’ve been sipping on this for some time now as I’ve been writing, editing pictures, helping the offspring with “How to Train Your Dragon” on the Wii and it’s definite “winter warmer” at over 10% ABV.  6oz. would be enough for a single serving.  After that it just makes you silly.  Good thing it’s cold outside and I’ve nowhere to go.

I know I said I wouldn’t change my equipment or my recipes until I improved the process of brewing but…  while cleaning the kettle I realized that my whirlpool arm could be at a better angle and while I thought that reducing the diameter from 3/8” to 1/4” would increase the velocity, the pump just deals with the added backpressure and reduces the volume (the velocity stays the same).  Also, if I figure out how to form cold-break in the kettle, I need to move the pickup point of the kettle drain so that it stays in the kettle and out of the fermenter.