Brew Day Review 4/8/12- Honey Rye Ale

Name: Pale Ryeder

Style: Honey Rye Ale

Gallons: 10 split

Yeast: Wyeast Kolsch & Wyeast Northwest Ale

Grain Bill: American 2-row, Rye malt, Unmalted wheat, Honey Malt, Vienna, Flaked Oats

Hops: Perle, Cascade, Hersbrucker

Additions: Local Honey

The Plan

The idea is to create a medium body rye beer that would accentuate the local honey. I want a lot of good honey aroma and taste to be featured at the end of this beer, therefore the hop profile is quite subdued with just a hint of hop aroma. I think the copious amounts of honey added at the end of the boil will balance the spice of the rye malt, giving it a clean, refreshing taste as well as a complexity to this beer. I did a 10 gallon split batch, using two different yeasts in order to compare and contrast.

The Roadhouse Brew stand. Named after the brilliant Patrick Swayze movie. Why you ask? Because "you thought it would be bigger."

The Good

The initial prep went well. Got everything lined out according to time tables. This sure makes everything easier and less of a chance of forgetting a step or ingredient. Mash in went smooth and I was right on with my protein rest temp. For whatever reason, my water temp does not seem to drop as much as the books tend to estimate. So I generally heat the water to within a degree or two of target temp, mash in and slowly bring back up to temp. The mash out and sparge was effortless and lasted a good hour and 20 minutes. Color looked great. The boil went smoothly. Considering I had to bring almost 16 gallons of wort to a boil, this system really shines, getting it to a rolling boil in a little over 10 minutes. Cool down went fast. I never really liked those counter flow wort chillers, so I cleaned and rigged up a radiator/refrigerant unit to recycle my hot wort through. This bad boy will bring ten plus gallons of boiling hot wort down to 68 degree in less than 10 minutes. I also got a therminator hooked up to my brew rig, but as of yet haven’t used it. I’m sort of tempted to run the hot wort through it first, then into the radiator/refrigerant unit and see what kind of time I could get then. Wonder if I could get it around the five minute mark?



Where the magic happens



The Bad

Found a slight propane leak due to a loose fitting connection. Got it tightened down and going again. Had a bit of trouble with my temperature during the saccharification rest. I’ve found that my digital temp gauge which controls the heating element that maintains water temp (the sensor is situated in the middle of the grain bed), can vary considerable, sometimes up to 10 degrees lower than the dial thermometer that is situated within the recycling HERMS like system. It is almost as if the middle of the grain bed is at the optimum temp but that the exterior part of the grain bed is running much warmer. I believe this is occurring because the kettle section closer to the heat source is heating to quickly and is not dispersing throughout the grain bed as well as it should. I think to even this out more I need to reduce the heat being applied to the kettle, thus bringing the water temp up more slowly and consistently. 



The Dalton aka the Cooler

The Ugly

At least once during the brewing process I managed to forget to turn the ball valve to off when switching a hose, usually burning some portion of body. This held true this day as well. Boiling hot wort to the groin region is not advised. Probably the biggest pain in the ass I’ve found with the system is that if there is a lot of hop residue it tends to gunk up the cooling unit during clean out. With the help of an air compressor and hose it can be flushed out quickly and efficiently. The problem lies in that the wort is pushed through the main system in ½ ID hoses but when it goes through the radiator and refrigerant units, the piping cuts down to 3/8 or smaller and hop residue likes to gunk up as it stops flowing and has a chance to cool down. I’ve found that using nylon bags to contain the hops works very well in reducing this problem. Also using whole hops as opposed to pellets really works the best with the bags. In this case, I did neither and spent a lot more of my time cleaning up than I should have. Also thinking of adding a inline filter to reduce hop residue from entering the cooling system. Somewhere along the line I managed to singe my running pants. I must have gotten to close and the synthetic fibers melted. I never felt anything burning, and I didn’t lose any leg hair, so I chalk that up to a very lucky accident.

Honey Pale Ryeder

All and all a good brew day. As with any brew day, there is always things to improve upon and become more efficient at. I also managed to get my hop rhizomes planted out in the field. In a surprise bit of thoughtful insight I decided to plant them alphabetically so that I don’t forget what is where. Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Columbus, Nugget, Willamette. Now I just have to remember which end I started from. Just need to get some mulch down and get some 20 ft poles for the trellis system for them to climb up. 

 

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The Ne’er-Do-Ale