No pictures because most of the technology was the same as last time.
2.26kg Wheat malt
2.26kg pale malt
500g torrified wheat
300g porridge oats
Using HERMS system -
Mash schedule:
½ hour @ 50 ̊C
1 hour @ 67 ÌŠC
Started with 20L mash liquor
heated to about 78 ÌŠC for sugar solubility before sparging with 78 ÌŠC water down to 2ÌŠ Brix. About 30 litres used to sparge.
NB mash liquor had 1tsp and sparge liquor had 2tsp metabisulphite added to kill chloramine and try to reduce possible oxidation.
1st runnings were 18.6ÌŠ Brix = 1077
Collected into small boiler to get heated-up faster. Collected about 33l of wort less what had boiled-off while collecting - say 3l so total would have been 36l.
Pumped up to big boiler, using pipe into boiler to avoid dreaded hot-side aeration problem from splashing hot wort.
Stirred wort in big boiler about 1044 at start of boil.
The boil mostly smelled of porridge
Boiled 11/4 hours, with 20g Fuggles and 28g 2008 home-grown Hallertau hops.
Boiled further 10 minutes while heating the convoluted immersion chiller to sanitise and starting recirculation with a tube down to the chiller to avoid aeration (also to sanitise the pump and pipework).
Boiled further 5 minutes with 20g of dried Curacao orange peel and 15 of coriander seed, both ground in the coffee grinding attachment (Protz & Wheeler suggested a pestle and mortar, but while that cracked the coriander OK it had no effect on the dried orange peel).
Chilled with recirculation- about 22'30" to go from 92 ÌŠC to 23 ÌŠC. I think this is roughly half the time my old plain chiller took for a similar volume of wort, so some of this must be down to the recirculation (bringing fresh hot wort onto the chiller) and the rest down to the convolutions chilling more efficiently.
OG 1058 @ 22.3 ÌŠC = 1059.2 @ 15.5 ÌŠC (collected about 25l)
I thought I'd split the wort between two bins again - I might get away with 25l in one bin, but what about two different yeasts? The Hefeweizen made with WB-06 was being quite clove-y when I tested it on Friday, and I'm not sure that's what I want in my Belgian Wit. I had a sachet of S-33 in the fridge (Fermentis's PDF says "produces superb flavour profiles and is used for the production of a varied range of top fermented special beers (Belgian type wheat beers, Trappist, etc.)") so I thought I'd try half of each.
Rehydrated 1 sachet of Safbrew S-33 yeast in 250ml boiled, cooled water with 2 tsp of gran. Frothed up beautifully and got left on the radiator shelf for about two hours.
Rehydrated 1 sachet of Safbrew WB-06 Dry Wheat Beer yeast in 250ml boiled, cooled water with 2 tsp of gran. Frothed up beautifully and got left on the radiator shelf for about an hour.
Ran off into two fermenting bins pitched WB-06 in one bin and S-33 in the other, and placed in front room.
15/3/2009
Aerated the WB-06 bin for a couple of hours, and the S-33 bin for about 5 1/2 hours by accident, using the 9l/h peristaltic pump, HEPA filter and stainless stone on the end of a former syphon cane with the end cut off. The second bin got 5 1/2 hours at 9l/hr because we went out, and I had to leave it going. Quite a strong smell of sulphur when I came back, but I'm not panicking because I've noticed this before. The first bin (WB-06) has a good yeast crust seven hours after its aeration. See what it's like in a week...
