Progress has been made.  Both batches of hops have come in along with the hop (coir) twine.  Joanna’s cousin was able to get the poles in the ground.  Hopefully it will all be in the ground shortly.

Finally got a carboy/keg washer after several carboys and a keg or two stacked up in the cleaning queue.  This thing works great I should have picked one up a while ago.

I made a new dip tube for my mash tun which reduced the dead space to 2qt/.5 gallons.

I was inspired by an article in Craft Beer & Brewing and the need for a stout on tap to brew a irish dry stout and build a faux nitro setup.  I will follow up with a post about the faux nitro build.  It will be running a stout faucet with some valving that allows for 25-30psi pouring pressure and 3-6psi resting pressure, using only CO2 no nitro or beer gas.

I need something to pour out of it and for that a low ABV Irish dry stout was selected.  I used Ó Flannagáin Standard from homebrewtalk.  The only modification I made was to double it for an 11 gallon batch and when I saw how low the IBU’s were I added an extra ounce of challenger I had sitting in my fridge.  I mashed high at 155° for 60 minutes. OG came in at 1.048, ABV should be 4.5% to 4.7% depending on where it finishes.

Update: Finished product with creamy stout head.  The fake nitro setup works but I need to figure out the right balance of holding pressure and serving pressure.  As of now the initial pour is very frothy and you must wait for it to settle out.  You still get the cascading you would with nitro but it is slower so instead of a minute or two its more like four of five before it settles out nicely.

Heating strike water.

Milling.

Crush @ .045″.

Dark grains seperate to be added during mash-out.

Campden tablet and gypsum for HLT.

Chalk for the mash to get closer to Dublin water. 

Mashing.

HLT during mash.

Panel near end of mash.

Starting boil.

Almost there.

Boil achieved.

Cooling.

Cooled, letting whirlpool settle.

Ten gallons waiting for oxygen and yeast.  WLP004 starter still finishing up.

Update:  Fermentation underway

My father is coming to town this week, we will be brewing together.  I ran out of my pale ale and rye IPA a few weeks ago so we are going to brew  something to replace them.  I am using Yooper’s house pale ale recipe from HBT.  I am going to adjust the gravity and bitterness to somewhere between American pale ale and  India pale ale.  I am also going to use this as a yeast experiment.  Half the batch will get US-05 dry yeast and half will get White Labs WLP001 California ale yeast.  This will confirm my thought of sticking to dry yeast for generic strains and using liquid only if necessary.  Why deal with the hassle of starters if it does not improve my beer.

IPAish style with British and Germain grain bill and American hops and yeast.

Using 90% efficiency – OG 1.060 / FG 1.014 / IBU 51.5 / SRM 9.1 / ABV 6%

9# (45%) Maris Otter Malt
5# 6oz (27%) Germain Vienna Malt
3# 8oz (18%) Germain Munich Malt
1# (5%) Crystal 60°
1# (5%) Crystal 20°
First wort hops – 2oz Cascade (7.1% AA)
30 minute hops – 1.5oz Cascade
10 minute hops  – 2oz Cascade
5 minute  hops – 1oz Cascade
0 minute hops – 1oz Cascade
Dry hops – 2oz Cascade 7 days
2 Packs of US-05 dry yeast rehydrated in one carboy
1.3L starter of WLP-001 in the other carboy

Batch size – 12 Gallons
Water profile – Ca=110, Mg=18, Na=16, Cl=50, S04=275, HCO=70
Mash – 1.25qt/lb – 60 minutes @ 154°
Boil time – 60 minute

My schwarz-bier  brew day went well.  My only issue was a poor lauder.  This was caused by some channeling down the side of my MLT.  I have switched my MLT return hose to a longer length and will make sure a keep a few inches of water above the grain bed.  I still hit the mid 80’s so I only missed my OG by a few points.  I cooled the wort to 75° and transferred to two carboys.  They were placed in my fermentation chamber and cooled to 45° overnight.  I aerated the wort with pure oxygen then pitched half the starter into each.  Here is where things get interesting, or not interesting depending on how you look at it.  Nothing happened.  There is normally more lag time with a lager but this was crazy.  Five days in and still nothing.  I shook up the carboys over the next few days and started to get solid fermentation activity after a week.  I did pitch a good amount of yeast, around 1.7M cells / mL / °P with a two step starter (1.5L & 4L).  A few days ago I checked by gravity and had hit 1.014 so the temperature has been increased slowly to 62° for a diacetyl rest and to finish fermentation.  The sample tasted good with little noticeable diacetyl.   I think what occurred was the starter was cooled down too low while the wort was cooled from 75 to 45°.  It was in the same fermentation chamber as the wort.  I do not think it froze but cooled enough for the yeast to go dormant and the initial pitch at 45° was not enough to wake them up.  Once the fermentation started it took off very quickly and was vigorous enough to need a blow off tube.  It should be ready to start lagering in a few days.