Maggie Blonde Ale - Wednesday, September 30, 2020

 Robobrew

This hopefully is my regular beer for now on. I am having trouble brewing my other beers for some reason, so I switched to this style which I brewed on a regular basis 20 years ago and quit brewing. Todays brew tasted fine, just what I want. So, I am giving it a go.

Ingredients

12.5 lbs. Floor Malted Pils

56.70 g Saaz at 60 min. ( 3.2% AA )

US-05 - Pitched directly in the carboy. ( 15 g )

Water Profile - Yellow Full

PH - 5.40

O.G. - 1.040 - (65% Efficiency ) Working on getting it higher.

F.G. -  1.006

% -     4.46

SRM - 3.4

BU - 21

I didn't use any epsom salts in this low mineral water profile. Just around 2 g a piece using gypsum and calcium chloride. Hope it turns out, the wort tasted fine.

Oct. 3 - Slow and steady. Yea, kind of slow, but the gravity was only 1.040. Using less mash water

             and more sparge water MAY result in a better efficiency. I adjusted my water and will take a

             gravity reading before I sparge. I may have to add a bit of corn sugar to get around 4.5% to 5%.

Oct, 4 - Same.

Oct. 5 - Slowed down a bit.

Oct. 6 - Same. Letting it sit at this temp. Sampled a smidgen. Taste is what I remember many years

             ago when I made this style a lot.

Oct. 12 - Still has some activity and I am busy so this will have to wait. This water profile and recipe

               is my go to beer recipe for the remainder of this year and moving forward to next year. I want

               to have lots in stock and maybe, just maybe get a basement full of drinkable beer for a change.

               Moving toward brewing Kolsch beer next year on a regular basis using Imperial Kolsch yeast.

                                            SAMPLED ON OCT 12

Took a gravity reading today. 1.006. Now that is a surprise. Taste is good for a blonde ale. Slightly sweet malt taste with low hop bitterness and aroma. I will add a flameout addition of hops in my Kolsch, but I do have time to clear this and sample along the way until I get my bulk grains in 20 days from now. I may not add any hops, I will wait and see. Hopefully this beer will not go south and will get better and better so I can use this same water profile for my Kolsch beers. It does have a slight cloying after taste which most of my beers have lately. No idea why. Just this beer, my IPA is fine, so it is the Robobrew and not my big system. May sell it.

                                                       Kegged on Oct. 13

Not happy so far with this beer. Low efficiency and an odd taste. Pils malt and Saaz, that is it. I need to clean the valve on the Robobrew and make sure everything else is clean and give it another try. Done trying this style. I have to clean the laundry room and beer room with javex. Trying to get the mold gone too, this may of got in my beer somehow I guess, but I don't think it caused my off flavours that much.

                                                  FILTERED WITH MY BIN VON WINE FILTER ON OCT. 19.

If this doesn't help, this too will go in the swamp along with the 3 other kegs of shit. Clean, clean and more clean, like every time... Well, if it didn't help the flavour, it certainly cleared it up. Bright beer. It did help, but still there. I don't think it was mold or something like that. It has that Saaz flavour that Pilsner Urkell has which I have never liked. Just a bigger taste. I am switching these hops to Hallertauer or Tettnanger, which is available at TB when I pick up my grains on Oct. 31st. No cardboard taste which is nice. Contact time with my filter conditioning minerals was exactly 1 minute.

                                             THIS BEER ABSOLUTELY SUCKED

 Slowly starting to lose the smoky taste after filtering. Also starting to lose the minerals I used to condition the filter by not rinsing the filters with distilled water. Next time use at least a gallon of distilled water to rinse them before I use them. All in all, a course filter made this a bright beer which kind of surprised me. Now to see how it filters a Kolsch that will be more hazy because of using no PH control using 75/25 water. I still cannot figure out why this beer was a dumper and my Kolsch from November tastes pretty good. It has to be the water, although this profile is in the water software I have been using for quite awhile. Okay, only dark beers will go with Bru'n Water software and all other lite beers will use 75/25 ro/spring. Don't know why, but you gotta do what works. 75/25 RO/Spring water is the answer to this style of beer. No more water salts for this beer.