Short & Heavy "Special" APA

WLP090 - Pitch +87hrs

Brewed 40 liters of APA yesterday.  I've been trying to use up stock and therefore I'm running light on malt; however, the freezer is well stocked with hops.  To borrow a term from British brewers, with respect to gravity or strength of ale, this is going to be a "Special" strength American Pale Ale.

Base was a mix of Domestic 2-row and Pils combined with a decent portion of Vienna.  Weyermann CaraFoam and some CaraMunich for colour and body.  The **CaraMunich was added late in the mash, during the mash-out, one of a few changes I made to my brew process.  The idea here is to introduce less variables to the mash and thus stabilize the pH resulting in a more predictable wort.

Rather than treating the mash with salts, I simply treated the entire volume of brewing liquor with Lactic Acid to a pH of ~ 5.50 as calculated with the sparge water acidification tool in Bru'n Water.  I then added Calcium Chloride and Calcium Sulfate to the boil for a desired flavour profile and calcium content.

Since I was brewing 40 liters, a decent water to grain ratio can quickly fill my 36qt MLT.  This meant that I was not able to add all my sparge water at once as I normally would with smaller batches. What I decided was to begin draining the second running, then when the water level had dropped slightly, add the remaining sparge water.  A cross between batch and fly sparging.  Didn't seem to impact my mash efficiency at all.

Beyond the tight working conditions of my MLT, the only other issues encountered were a slightly low temperature on the sparge water (got caught making dinner).  The mash and mash-out were a perfect though, 152/168F.  I had two minor boil overs, once before the first hop addition, the second just after the 20 minute addition.  These stops and starts reduced my anticipated boil off and dropped the *OG a point or two.  Finally, during the last 15 minutes of the boil, while recirculating boiling wort through my pump and lines to sanitize everything, I guess some thermo protection switch kicked in and the pump stopped working.  Once the wort had chilled considerably, the pump resumed function.  I feel the risk of infection is minimal since it did get about 10 minutes of contact time with boiling wort.

I've started using Yeastex, a nutrient.  Not sure if it does anything but I figured it's cheap insurance since I tend to re-pitch yeast often.  For this particular beer, I did a split batch, one half receiving 250ml of 3rd gen, BRY-97 - American West Coast Ale Yeast.  This was harvested from a Blonde Ale the previous day.  The other half received a fresh 1L starter of WLP090 -San Diego Super Yeast.   As of pitch +7.5hrs, the BRY-97 had a light krausen covering the surface.  No action on the WLP090.

Here's the recipe...

Short & Heavy Special APA

OG 1.047*/ IBU 40/ SRM 5/ 40L
BRY-97 West Coast Ale Yeast/WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast

42% Domestic 2-Row
33% Pilsner Malt
16% Vienna
5% CaraFoam
4% **CaraMunich I (38L)

15g (13 IBU) Columbus @ 60m
40/20g Centennial/Simcoe @ 20m
40/20g Simcoe/Amarillo, 1/2 @ 5m, 1/2 @ 1m

Dryhop (Keg)
***40/15/5g Centennial/Simcoe/Amarillo

***Amount specified is per keg/19L

Update - Pitch +20hrs

BRY-97 was quick out the gates, the krausen continues to slowly build.  WLP090 was slower off the get go but has exploded filling the entire 4L headspace with krausen.

Update - Pitch +32hrs

BRY-97 krausen now stands at ~2".  From what I've seen in the past, this is pretty much high krausen.  The San Diego Super WLP090 krausen has started to fall slightly.  Very quick!  Wort temperatures holding steady @ 20c

Update - Pitch +63hrs

Both krausens have fallen to a light layer covering the surface of each fermenter.

Update - Pitch +72hrs

Krausen on WLP090 has completely fallen, STC controller set to 22c.

Update - Pitch +87hrs

Sample pulled from each fermenter, BRY-97 @ 1.012, WLP090 @ 1.011.  WLP090 sample very clear already!

Update - Pitch +13 days

Move BRY-97 to ambient and WLP090 to the keg.  Added Dry hops to the WLP090.  Will DH @ ambient for 3 days before moving keg to serving fridge.

Update - Pitch +16 days

Moved WLP090 to the serving fridge.  Set pressure to 30psi.