Eureka Steamboat Ale

[adm]

Today's brew was a bit of a hybrid one... No real reason for the recipe other than using up some lager malt, a liquid yeast and an open pack of Cascade. Here's the recipe:

Eureka Steamboat Ale
(The Eureka is the oldest surviving wooden hulled steamboat in the US and is moored in San Francisco)

Brewlength 23L
3Kg Maris Otter
2Kg Lager Malt
500g CaraVienna
150g Wheat Malt

Target OG: 1051

40g Boadicea First Wort Hops 7.6% AA
45g Cascade 15 min 7.3% AA
25g Cascade Flame Out 7.3% AA
Target 46 IBU

Yeast WhiteLabs WLP810 California Lager Yeast 2L starter
(This is meant to ferment cleanly at from 14-18C and is the yeast used for Anchor Steam)

1 off Protafloc 15 mins

Water Treatment
30ml CRS added to 46l water. Original Alkalinity 134mg/l, residual alkalinity 15mg/l
DLS:
4g Gypsum
4g Calcium Chloride
1.2g Epsom Salts
Calculated for 23l brew length, "Dry Pale Ale", all added to boil.

Here's the brewday pics:

Grain Bill

Mashed in at 64.6C

First wort hops - 40g Boadicea. These smelled gorgeous and were really sticky and resiny

First runnings going into kettle

Coming up to the boil

A nice rolling boil

More hops. Cascade this time at 15 mins.
I took the pre-boil hydro reading. It was 1038, against my target of 1041. Last batch, I had ended up with too little (but too strong) wort in the FV due to the ferocity of my burner, so this time I had upped the evaporation percentage calculation from 10% per hour to 15% to compensate, which in turn drove me to add additional water This was obviously too much...so to compensate, I extended the boil from 90 mins to 105 mins. I think a happy medium for the future will be around 12%

Even more hops....25g Cascade for flame out

Running off into FV

OG 1052. Almost exactly on target in the end. Collected 23.5l against the 23l target.

And finally, yeast pitched, aerated and ready to put away to do it's stuff.

All in all, a nice smooth brewday despite the extra wort at too low a pre-boil gravity. Easily fixed by extra boil time - although I think I do need a refractometer as taking samples and cooling them for the hydrometer is a bit of a faff around. Maybe that's something for the Christmas list.

[paulcav]

Looks like you had a great brewday adm, with a lovely colour wort to boot! Did you use a starter with that yeast?


Paul

[adm]

Looks like you had a great brewday adm, with a lovely colour wort to boot! Did you use a starter with that yeast?

Yup. I used a 2 litre starter. I learned my lesson on always making starters for liquid yeasts last week when I pitched a "directly pitchable" Wyeast Activator pack. It did nothing and I had to repitch with SO4

[paulcav]

Thanks for the heads up. I was planning to get some 'Activators' but it looks like they don't do what it says on the tin.


Paul

[adm]

This seems to have taken off nicely - let's hope it's not underpitched......Mr. Malty said a 2.13l starter, and it got about 2.2l.

Fermentation temp for this yeast says 14-18C, it's sitting at about 17C now with a lovely Krausen forming:

[pantsmachine]

Yup. I used a 2 litre starter. I learned my lesson on always making starters for liquid yeasts last week when I pitched a "directly pitchable" Wyeast Activator pack. It did nothing and I had to repitch with SO4

I always make a starter now liquid or dry yeast, if for no other reason than to prove the yeast is working before pitching into the full volume of wort, generally a sugar/ DME/water mix around the 1/2 ltr mark prior to starting the brewday. By the time i'm ready to pitch its went off like a rocket so i know its live. A good looking brew and a set of scales that are on my list to Santa, ho ho ho.

That is a VERY clear wort you have there, nicely done. Are the wyyeast packs around the 5 pound mark same as white labs? That is a serious pisser if its dead.
Another reason why i will split my Belgian WL liquid yeast when i get back home. Apart from tightness it'll prove it works.

[adm]

Yup. I used a 2 litre starter. I learned my lesson on always making starters for liquid yeasts last week when I pitched a "directly pitchable" Wyeast Activator pack. It did nothing and I had to repitch with SO4

I always make a starter now liquid or dry yeast, if for no other reason than to prove the yeast is working before pitching into the full volume of wort, generally a sugar/ DME/water mix around the 1/2 ltr mark prior to starting the brewday. By the time i'm ready to pitch its went off like a rocket so i know its live. A good looking brew and a set of scales that are on my list to Santa, ho ho ho.

That is a VERY clear wort you have there, nicely done. Are the wyyeast packs around the 5 pound mark same as white labs? That is a serious pisser if its dead.
Another reason why i will split my Belgian WL liquid yeast when i get back home. Apart from tightness it'll prove it works.

They're almost exactly the same price. Although the last three liquid yeasts I have used, I hand carried back from the US in October, so they were about half that price!

I need to start thinking in advance enough to split these things and stick them in the fridge to save a few quid per brew. With this one though, assuming it ferments out properly with no problems or infections, I think I will pitch an Imperial IPA straight onto the yeast cake. That should do the trick....

The digi scales were only about a fiver off eBay and work great. They go up to 5Kg so are useful for the grain as well. Of course, now I've started treating my water i've discovered I need a higher resolution, so I've just bought a small set of digi scales from eBay that go down to 1/100th of a gramme. £3.99 - can't beat that!

[pantsmachine]

Good idea for the IPA straight in on top. I like the price of the scales, wouldn't worry about them getting damaged. After getting over my shock from my last attempt at an IRS i am tempted to have another go at an IRS, we'll see. Off to look up detail on Imperial IPA

[adm]

This beer is now down at 1016. According to White Labs website, the WLP810 will attenuate from 65% to 70%, so full attenuation should be 1.0156. Should be done tomorrow.

I want to pitch another beer on top of the yeast cake from this one and was thinking of a really big "imperial" type IPA using Boadicea for bittering and NZ Cascade plus the rest of my first packet of Galaxy for flavour and aroma. Dry hopped of course! Maris Otter, Vienna and Caramalt grist perhaps (i've slo got some melanoidin malt and Special B that I could play with), plus some sugar or golden syrup to up the ABV to around 8.5% ??

I've never pitched on top of an existing yeast, so is there anything I should know?

Also - if I put the FV out in the garage for the weekend to let it flocculate out as much as possible, the temp will be pretty low - probably around 6-7C or so. Is it OK to just siphon the beer out into the keg and bottles, then pitch my 20C wort from the new beer straight onto it? Or will the temperature difference be likely to kill the yeast?

Any thoughts?

[ChrisG]

Really excellent pics.

Looks a good one!

[adm]

Thanks,

It's tasting nice too.......although I just broke my bloody trial jar which is a real pain in the arse. That's the second one in two months!

I'm going to work on my IIPA recipe this weekend and hopefully get it done on Sunday or Monday.

[edit1now]

Bring the FV back into the house to let the house to let it warm up a bit (after kegging/bottling in the cold) then if the yeast wanted to get upset about things you're not giving it any excuse. If you're really paranoid then you could acid-wash it, and run the new wort into the (newly-sanitised) FV before pitching. This would avoid any funny flavours from the "ring-round-the-bath" from the old batch in the FV.

My trial jar is a 100ml polypropylene measuring cylinder - I have two glass ones in a cupboard

[adm]

Thanks Mike,

It's in the garage now, was down to 1014 this evening, so I think it's about time to keg. Also looks like my "liquid yeast, stuck ferment at 1020" problems are over....

I'll leave it a day or two in the cold to drop as much yeast out as possible (although this yeast is pretty damn flocculant), then siphon carefully into the corny and bottles. I'll do this as I have another brew going on, then I'm going to try and wipe out most of the bath ring crud with a sanitised, but rinsed cloth, move the FV inside to get up to around 20C, then pitch the new batch on top and see how it goes.

Intergalactic IPA here we come......I'm going to do a REALLY big one this time.....I've got LOTS of yeast in the bottom of the FV to pitch onto.

I should also have my first temperature controlled fermentation chamber pretty much finished off tomorrow - I'm just waiting for the heaters to be delivered on Monday to plug in.

Tastes really nice so far. The hoppage is surprisingly smooth for 51 IBU...tastes really well balanced (about 1:1 BU:GU) and is the first hoppy pale I've done with water treatment so I have high hopes for this one. Maybe some Cascade dry hop in the corny a bit nearer ot serving time.

On the trial jars, i my head I know that plastic would be much easier, but my heart just likes the look of glass ones for my photo records. I've ordered two so I have a spare...just in case


One question......after the big IPA is done, will the yeast be worth washing and keeping for future brews, or will the high alcohol screw it up a bit? (I can't be arsed learning how to acid wash it before the next brew, but I might be able to while that is fermenting)

[edit1now]

I'm still in the early stages of re-using yeast. I have half a small demijohn of Danstar Munich wheat beer yeast which came out of the Dunkel Hefeweizen. That finished at 6.6% ABV so I don't know if it counts as high alcohol or not really. I grew it up a bit on the stir plate, and it seemed to start fermenting again, so I think it's OK, and I'm going to try another Hefeweizen once I've got my new HLT together (14-gallon stainless cask - just waiting for fittings from BES).

The Saflager S-23 which I used in the Munich Dunkel went into the Schwarzbier OK, and I've got a couple of litres of sludge waiting for another brew. Both of were about 4.5% when I racked them, but they're still lagering in FVs.

[adm]

I've put this beer on tap now as I ran out of the other 2 pale-ish beers I was drinking. It's come out very nice, although it either still needs some more settling time, or it's got a chill haze (6C in the keg fridge right now - must add a heater to it). Anyway - doesn't bother me right now as it tastes great.

The lager/pale grist has come out well - nice and crisp with a bit more body than a lager. Maybe a bit too much on the CaraVienna as it's slightly sweet in taste (although the wife likes it), so i'd drop it to 250g if I do it again. Nice head, good head retention. Golden straw colour.

It almost has a slight peach/elderflower taste and would be a beautiful summer ale. For 46 IBU and at only 16 days old, the hops are really, really smooth - I don't see any reason to condition this one any longer apart from the haze. I didn't use any finings on it though, so maybe next time I'll do the gelatine thing and see if I can have an American Pale beer ready in 2 weeks.

I'm not sure if it's the first wort hop technique that has made it so smooth and well balanced, but if it is, it's certainly worked wonders. I had thought this would need 4-6 weeks to be ready.

Also - the water treatment has definitely helped, it's another beer that's noticably better than before i started treating the water.

It's all good. Just a shame it's not a nice warm summer evening!