This one has been at the back of my mind for a while. My inspiration came from a visit to the Euston Tap about this time last year when I was doing a little work in that there London. I'd had a long day in the city and on arrival at the bar they had four kegs of the Brewdog 'IPA is Dead' series on. It would have been rude not to have 'em all. They were all excellent. Bramling cross stood out to me as the most unexpected beer and I thought the herbal note and blackcurrant leaf flavour were pretty stark. I was very impressed. So, it stuck in my mind and I thought something malty and spicy could be a good mix with that flavour profile. Took me a year to get around to it. So many beers, so little time!
I've proportionately dialled down the IBUs and ABV from the Brewdog beer. 50IBUs and 6.3% is about the same kind of ratio though but should be easier drinking. I went for all Vienna as my base malt, a low mash temp for fermentables, roast rye for spice and colour and dark crystal for body and colour
This means nothing to me (American IPA)
Original Gravity (OG): 1.064 (°P): 15.7
Final Gravity (FG): 1.016 (°P): 4.1
Alcohol (ABV): 6.29 %
Colour (EBC): 29.3
Bitterness (IBU): 49.1 (Tinseth)
85.7% Vienna from Soufflet - EBC 8
6.86% Wheat Malt - EBC 4
5.14% English Crystal - EBC 120
2.3% Rye - Dark roasted coffee flavour - EBC 400
1.5 g/L Pacific Gem (13.7% Alpha) @ 75 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Pacific Gem (13.7% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
1 g/L Bramling Cross (5.1% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
1 g/L Bramling Cross (5.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) - added after chilling to 85c
1 g/L Bramling Cross (5.1% Alpha) added to secondary after for 14 days dry hopping after primary.
Single step Infusion at 62°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 75 Minutes. Added 6g of Gypsum.
Fermented at 19°C with the Bellefois strain.
Vienna Rye PA by adrianfoden, on Flickr
Now, the yeast? Bit of an unknown quantity here as I'd harvested it from a commercial beer. On first capture I did a small test batch to prove the viability and test for off flavours etc. It was pretty amazing, lots of the original light grapefruit and tropical notes of the source wort came through so it's a clean fermenting strain. No idea about the attenuation but it came from a 5.6% beer so we'll see. Time will tell. I'll call it the 'Bellefois' strain after the source brewery.
the bellefois strain by adrianfoden, on Flickr
Brewday mares. Outside tap frozen. All hosework frozen. Hard to hand cart my water about. Groundwater was exceptionally cold and had a fair amount of chlorine smell. I treated with sodium metabisulphate and left it overnight. That shifted it. Next up for me this spring. I'm going to buy a RO unit. I know loads of pro brewers use them and as the water I use is 95% of my beer then I'm going to improve that a *lot*.
My sturdy €4 Chinese made digital temp probe packed in when the cold and metal fatigue saw one of the battery terminals snap off. Managed to solder up a fly lead on the circuit board and effect a repair during the mash stage. Got it fixed in time to find my mash at 61.6 at the end of the sach rest. Happy with that. Had to recalibrate my refractometer. Stopped sparging when I had 28l for my my preboil volume even though I was drawing lots of good sweet wort at that stage. Some days the chickens benefit from the mash efficiency and not me. I was beyond cold at this point.
Vienna Rye first runnings by adrianfoden, on Flickr
Nearly 9% non Barley and I got a slightly murky run off. It's to be expected but I'm normally much happier when my mash runs clearer than that. Didn't pump re-circ this as frankly - I was keen to minimise my time outdoors and was wary of a stuck sparge. I used my neighbours industrial grain smasher so had a lot of flour - bad combination for this grain bill.
A slower runoff towards the end and it cleared well with fly sparging...
Vienna Rye clearing up a little by adrianfoden, on Flickr
Boil and hop additions went well. Uber satisfying oil slick in the kettle with lots of late additions. My Propane tank froze to the floor. Nice.
With no running water I used my wort pump to recycle my cooling water in a bin full of ice. I'd left an old grain bin out to soak labels off champagne bottles. The bottles survived the big freeze and gave me a big 35 Kg chunk of ice to chill my wort. This worked really well and I got a TON of cold break from this beer. Downside was no in-kettle whirlpool like I normally use so I'll have to think about that. I'd really like a second pump to circulate ice water through my IC at the same time as I'm running a whirlpool. That'll give me maximum aroma uptake and the quickest chilling. The next item on the agenda for my 2012 brew year.
vienna rye IC feed from ice bin by adrianfoden, on Flickr
It's in the FV now, off and running. A big 18 hour lag after pitching, whopping Krausen All good signs. As a matter of routine I normally let all the spent hops (mountains of 'em!) and the cold break settle out after the xfer to the FV and keep back a litre or two for starters. This is showing a really good red hue from the crystal and the rye. I'll let it clear for a day and then take a shot of what that looks like. The brewmate EBC calculator is about right for density but the shade is looking beautiful. More pics as it progresses. Questions, observations comments atc... all gladly received!
