Maggie Helles- Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Ball is cancelled today because it's been raining for 2 months now. The bloody season may be cancelled as it just keeps on raining and raining...
This was supposed to be a Cavan Uncommon but don't have enough specialty malts, but I can brew a Helles. Thinking back I should not of used the Carahell and lowered the amount of Munich to .75 lbs. Too malty for the style. My next Helles will be the final recipe, but am working on the hop BU. May go to 25 BU.

Ingredients

11 lbs. Pils Malt
1 lb. Munich Malt
8 ozs. Carahell Malt
56.70 g Tettnang - 3.2% AA at 60 min.
WLP810 San Fran Lager Yeast
Water Profile - Helles/Kolsch

CA - 50
S04 - 70
CI - 70
PH - 5.30

Not sure how the 810 yeast will do for a Helles, but it is a lager yeast, at 64 F. Will see.

O.G. - 1.052
F.G. -  1.012
% -      5.2
SRM - 4.2
BU - 21

                                                                   Brew Day

Normal brew day, no issues. Yeast pitched C@ 11:30 am.

Next Day - Going good next morning. Actually it was going good late last night when I checked it and found beer all over the floor from my stupid beer tap. A big mess to clean up. Didn't drain the keg as I had the gas off and it stopped. I think I may have the inside part of the tap backwards. Have to take it apart to see what is what before I hook it up again.

Day 3 - Still active.
Day 4 - Same, but sulphur is evident which is normal. D rest at 64F? Not sure. Keg sometime in
             late May.
Day 12 - Still bubbling away. I want to use this yeast, but this thing just keeps on going and going.

                                                                 Kegged on May 31

Taste is good but too mallty. Lose the Carahell and lower the Munich malt to 5%. Done. Other than that, it does taste good. No Pils malt taste however.

                                                                      Taste After Carbing Up

Tastes just like the Kolsch I dry hopped. Not sure why though as I only did a 60 min hop addition. Maybe it is the gelatin that is not working keeping the hops in suspension near the bottom of the keg. Not clear and too much of a hop aroma/taste. Christ, I hope my Kolsch is normal.

                                                                       UPDATE

June 26 now. Cleared up a lot and of course not much left in the keg. It took almost a month to clear. This is too malty of a beer. A nice, Pils malt taste but should of deleted the Carahell malt and lowered the Munich malt too. Corrected all future brews. It does taste pretty good, but the malt taste has crowded out the hop BU a bit. That is a small fault though, as this is a real nice beer. 3 stars. Almost gone now and yes, this is a real nice beer. I am still going with 2 row and 5% Munich I in the recipe. I will take a good comparison to see which yeast I want to use because I can ferment them both at 62F. WLP810 or  Kolsch, which one tastes better is the one I will use. Whatever I decide to use, kolsch/lager is going to be 50% of my brewing. I sure wish that I could get German Noble hops at a cheap price in bulk.