Cascadian Ancestral

First Stateside beer! It turned out to be quite the adventure today. Though I began the process around 10am, I didn’t get any fire lit until about 2pm. A lot of unexpected things happened, and a lot of improvisation occurred. Thankfully, the next beer will be much easier thanks to the pioneering that was performed today.

The ingredients  

The day started off with coffee and cleaning. The first thing on my list was to clean the brew equipment I got while I was home visiting over the holidays. It seemed that during the move to the new home, some of the yard maintenance guys decided my brewing buckets would work really well for transporting excess weeds and dirt. Put simply, I spent a lot more time getting things prepped for brewing than I originally anticipated.

British and Russian hops, with American soil. Tastes like Liberty 

The cleaning done, it was onto heating up some mash water. I had a bit of trouble lighting the burner, and quickly realized that the valve on the extension hose wasn’t open. The burner has a piping input, not a propane input. After some panic I hopped in the car and drove to find something to open the valve, and free the gas for the burner. Success? No such luck. I got nothing but strange looks when I presented the dilemma, so I thought I’d run to the local brew shop.

Turns out, I ended up buying a backyard turkey fryer. I used the pot that was included to heat up sparge water later on in the day, but the point of the purchase was a good burner. It ended up working really well, came with a solid stand that provided good flame ventilation. It gives off great heat, but it chars the bottom of the pot. I spent a good portion of time wiping black soot off of damn near every surface of the back porch later in the day.

Not bad for a Wal-Mart $30 

The beer was a mash of about 6 kilo of grain in 20litres of water. I held it at a (at least) solid 58C. The thermometers I had were pretty old fashioned, and not the most accurate of instruments. I could have mashed a bit hotter, and next batch I definitely will be doing so. The beer was mashed for an hour holding that temperature, and then I moved the equipment outside where the weather was gorgeous.

Since I was using the 37L pot as both a mash tun AND kettle, I had to sparge into a cooler, rinse the kettle, remove the stainless threaded filter, then transfer the wort back into the kettle. It was a bit easier than I thought it would be, and was much more surprised to find that my mash almost stuck. I did a beer with 100% wheat malt and it went flawlessly, yet a pilsner/caramalt mash nearly sticks. The grain may have been a bit too finely crushed, and I do remember seeing some of it be nearly powder-like. I’m thinking a grain mill might not be too bad of an investment soon.

Speaking of that 100% wheat malt beer, it’s worth noting that accidently diluted that beer during the sparge. I sparged too fast, and the gravity was pitiful. Since then I’ve been incredibly paranoid about my sparging, and today, I believe I tested the gravity every few minutes. The pre-boil gravity was decent, 16L at 1.056. I didn’t get 18/20 L because of the last gravity test from the mash tun dropping down to 1.052. In retrospect, I probably could have gotten another 2 litres without much effect on the overall product, but again, I was paranoid after the last experience.

The boil is what I know. It’s pretty hard to mess up as long as you keep an eye on the clock. The Fuggles was my bittering, and starting at 40 minutes I did a Dogfish-esque continual hopping of Serebrianka. Adding a bit at a time of the leaf hops gave it a gorgeous smell, and I’m pretty excited to find out how this hop works within the beer. In total, the hop count came to 350g. They’re both pretty low alpha hops, so I plan on dropping a few more Serebrianka for dry hopping. Beersmith is claiming the IBU’s are going to be a bit high, but I’m mildly skeptical since it also claimed the same of the beer I did with Greg, and that wasn’t hoppy enough.

Around the final addition of Serebrianka 

And if the final gravity is correctly measured, it should be fine. I measured it at 1.076. I did a second measurement because that was just too good for me. After getting the same result, I began checking other things, and soon came across the realization that I was at a volume of 10 liters. I boiled off nearly 6 liters, which made things a lot more believable. Since I was using leaf hops, they may have absorbed some of the liquid as well. Either way, I’m currently sitting 10ish liters of beer in a fermenter. I even got some bubbling starting already.

As for potential issues that may arise, the airlock on the fermenter keeps dropping in liquid level. It plateaus eventually, but it’s below the ‘fill line.’ It may be cracked but there should be enough water to do the job right. I also dropped the thermometer in the kettle after the boil. Most of it was sanitized, but not the top, so there is potential for contamination there. The pre-boil gravity was below the Beersmith prediction, but the OG was slightly over the prediction. I’m still a bit wary of the OG, though. I feel it may be too good to be true, but we’ll see.

Overall, while it’s a bit less in volume than I usually like, I’m pretty satisfied so far with this as a first beer. Considering all the damn trouble I had to go through, it definitely worked out well. Lesson learned from today: Test the shit BEFORE brew day. 

Improvising with anti-buoyancy, and rain to cool down the beer

'Cascadian Ancestral' (Parent Hops to US Cascade)
Pilsner, 20L Caramel
UK Fuggles, RU Serebrianka
US-05