Cujo Ale - Wednesday, November 9, 2016
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| Young Cujo |
I wanted to make a darker beer so as to just go from the carboys to the keg/bottles. Day before brewday, I noticed I was short of RO water. I already decided to go with well water, but still needed some RO water to balance out my calcium and too high of alkaline water. I got lazy and went with 50/50 in the mash and 100% well in the sparge tank. The colour was around 13, so that was good. The wort was really cloying. A little like a mild soy sauce. I have gone through this before when I used too much crystal malt with well water. This time I used Caramunich III @ only 2%. It was still cloying, so I guess the problem is not crystal malt. Water? Hell, I don't know. Wait and see. One time my IPA wort tasted great, was very clear and tasted like shit after it was fermented. This still may be okay, so I will wait and see.
20 lbs. OiO
2 lbs. Toasted Wheat Flakes
1 lb. Special Roast Malt
8 ozs. Caramunich III
4 ozs. Chocolate Malt
4 ozs. Carafa Special III
28.35 g Magnum - 13.20% AA at 60 min.
56.70 g Hallertauer - 2.5% AA at 30 min.
Nottingham yeast
I think I will add some Polyclar on kegging day. Maybe it will absorb the tannins, or whatever I am getting from these style of beers. I made beer like this for years using just well water and it always turned out great. I made bitters, blonde ales, stouts and porters with success. Now, the only beers that turn out are Pilsners and Blonde Ales. I use 50% to 75% RO water in them, so maybe I should stop using RO water in any dark beer. This seems to be fine. No cloying or rubber hose like taste like the one I made 2 years ago. I still can't figure out what the hell happened to that beer. I added 2 tsp of Polyclar when I kegged it. I only kegged one carboy so far.
Final Tastings
This turned out to be a real nice beer. No tannins or cloying taste at all. Must be the polyclar. I didn't transfer the kegs, just tapped them as they were. I am going to make this again, but changed the recipe. No special roast and more chocolate malt. I am surprised this turned out okay. I was expecting a mess of a beer using all of that well water.
O.G. - 1.050
F.G. - 1.011
% - 5.13
SRM - 13.6
BU - 26
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