Sweet Festbier
This Month's Motto: I'm just a lazy brewer trying to take the easy, simplest way possible.
Brew Date: 8-4-16 (late getting this entry out)
Goal: Brew a sweet beer as mentioned by Randy Mosher's - 1 quart per 1 pound of malt (brewed 2 quarts with 2 pounds)
Real Objective: See how sweet the batch becomes
Malt: Realized 1 pound batch wouldn't make much at all for the test. Went to the brew shop again to get a total 2 lbs American Pale Ale, 2 oz Light Munich and 2 oz Carapils
Brew Water: 1/16 ounce Baking Soda, 1/16 ounce Calcium Carbonate, 1/16 ounce Calcium Chloride added to 25% RO water and 75% Brita filtered city water (to reduce chloramines, Lansing normally has pH of 9) Brew water poured over grains while I got my brew utensils ready. pH measured when pouring over grains: 6.0. Later, 5.5 was recorded when starting to heat up brew pot 1.5 hours later
Mash [Protein Rest: 120 - 128 F for about 20 minutes, Protease & FAN Producer: 115 - 140 F for about 20 minutes, Saccarification Rest: 150 - 157 F for 30 minutes as directed by author Mosher]
My rests no longer will be attempting to hover at a specific temp as I get it to the high end of the range, take it off the burner, put a lid on it and I go sit in a chair with a beer - the lazy way to enjoy Frankenmuth Brewery's "the Hef" Hefeweizen style beer
Mash Out: 169 F for about 10 minutes
Before the boil, the 2 gallon pot was way less than 1/2 filled after the mashing step - I added enough to get it back to filling 1/2 the pot. It would have been ridiculous to do such a small batch for 1 1/2 bottles as the batch was started with so little water
Hops: YCH Hops Cluster 1 pinch at beginning 60 minute boil, and German Perle, 1 1/2 pinches 15 minutes before end of boil
Yeast: Saflager S-23 Dry Lager Yeast
Fermented: 64 F in basement closet
Bottled Date: 8-13-16
Conditioned: 64 F in same basement closet
Lagering: Mini-fridge on 8-16-16, warmest setting 46 degrees for 4 days, dialed down 1 notch on the refrigerator every 2 days afterwards until I get it to 32 F for 4 weeks.
Failure: Lansing, Michigan, Board of Water and Light lost power again for our block - unknown time for power outage makes true lagering difficult (last month they lost power 3 times - looks like I need German caves for my beer!)