Bavarian Brewing

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Saturday was my third session of all-grain brewing. As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to "throw a wrench" in the process this time. My first two beers were infusion mashes -- just like making 5 gallons of oatmeal except instead of Quaker oats, it's malted barley. Just add hot water, stir, and wait. This time I mixed things up by
a) brewing a wheat beer
b) adding an additional temperature rest

BREWING A WHEAT BEER
Making a wheat beer is often clouded with difficulty. Wheat kernels have no outer husk and are loaded with protein. These two characteristics cause much trouble when crushed and mixed with hot water. The crushed wheat kernels become gummy and can act like a muddy mortar in your grain bed and if there is one thing you can't do, it's filter water through a brick. I wanted to see if I could brew a wheat beer without getting the dreaded "stuck sparge" -- when nothing is flowing from my mash tun into my boil kettle.

ADDING AN ADDITIONAL TEMPERATURE REST
Instead of mixing in a batch of hot water with grain once, i add it twice. The first step is at 111 degrees and the second step is 152 degrees. Now my mash tun only holds so much water, so the first step had to be pretty thick -- 3/4 quart of water per pound of grain. That's twice as thick as my first two batches. To get to the second step, I need to add boiling water to bring it to 1.5 quart of water per pound. So this new attempt at two steps of mashing challenges my ability to hit a desired temperature twice.


And So It Begins...

Chris -- my special brewer's assistant of the day -- arrived in the early afternoon with mash paddle in hand. He purchased this all-grain staple in honor of the day's brewing event. Shortly after he arrived we got started.

I overshot my 111 temperature by a few degrees, but saved it by adding some cold water. The mash was really thick this time -- twice what I've been used to so far, but my brewing assistant dug in and mixed it around nicely. Because I overshot the mash in, I chickened out and didn't at all 2 gallons of boiling water for the next step, so i had a impromptu 10 minute protein rest at 136 while I reheated the remaining quarts of water. I should've trusted Beer Tools, because when I added the rest of the water, I got to 152 exactly.



Sparging was a bitch. I calmed myself down and having Chris there to help out was a boon. I vorlaufed as usual and was pleased to see I didn't have a stuck sparge. However, as soon as I started collecting wort in the kettle, it all stopped. Crap! I opened my ball valve all the way -- nothing. I tried not to panic and let the voice of John Palmer run through my head -- "a stuck sparge is usually just a nuisance". Not usually a game ender. So I did what I learned to do. Blow on the hose leading from the mash tun into the kettle. So, I did it. Something did dislodge but still no flow. Are we talking about beer here? Wait. Anyway, I should mention here that I put a metal perforated pizza pan on top of the mash tun to help distribute the sparge water more evenly on the grain bed. Worked great by the way. Ok, back to the stuck sparge. I made another attempt to dislodge the stuck wheaty crud at the bottom of the mash tun. I swear my face was going red from trying to dislodge the blockage. That's when Chris said...uh Dan... shouldn't you open the valve? Dumbass!! Attempt number three: I really blew hard...damn that sounds wrong... like a trumpeter...yeah, like Miles Davis. Hard enough that the pizza tray bumped a little and a few bits of grain made their way through the holes in the tray! Glug glug glug glug...all of the sudden a milky white sludge starts moving through the tube into the kettle. The smart thing to do would be vorlauf (did you look that word up yet) this shit, but panicky me, I did not. I was just happy to get something going. Yes! Success! We were going again!

A gallon later, trouble returns. Oh, okay. It's going to be like this then, eh? F.U. wheat beer. Chris and I take a look at the top of the mash tun and there's about three inches of water above the grain bed. Clear water. Hmm. Chris takes my metal stirring spoon and pokes at the grain bed. Uh, Dan...it's like a rock! I take a poke at it and that shit is solid. Compacted grain bed! I don't know if this goes against "the rules", but I dug in there and mixed that crap around so that the grain was suspended in the water again. I opened up the valve again, and another slow-moving white wheat turd goes sliding through the tubing into the kettle. Again, I should've recirculated, but now I know. For the rest of the sparge, I had no problems and got the six gallons I wanted.

The boil was pretty crazy. Only because I've never had hot break like I did that day. I'm talking sheets of break material the size of half dollars floating around like grafted skin. Chris made an obscure Darkman reference about 90 minutes until the skin wears off. Throw the hops in there and it's all green and flaky and kinda nasty looking!

I whirlpooled the wort really good after it cooled and had an awesome siphoning. I left all that flaky crap behind. It had all settled and clumped in the middle and I was able to carefully remove the good stuff. Chris did the honors of pitching the yeast and we both shook the hell out of the fermentor to get all that necessary O2 for yeastfest 2009.

Photos Of The Great Hefeweizen Adventure