Lockdown Lager - Monday, April 19, 2021

Mr. Conical

Brewing in the laundry room. Lots of steam, but window open, fan on etc.

Ingredients

22 lbs. CMC

2 lbs. Munich I

8 ozs. Acid Malt

154 g Hallertauer at 60 min.

Escarpment Labs Isar Lager

75% RO water

25% Well water

Using 2 pacs of lager yeast. 44 days old now. 3.5 L starter to a 4.5 L starter to get an over build of 200 B cells in a one litre mason jar for my next brew. I am making my own LME as the one store here charges way too much and the other so called HB store in Lindsay has none. I asked him last summer if he is getting some and still nothing on his useless website. I think he is letting his stock go down to nothing and closing up shop as he is getting out of just about everything. Not much of a business man in my opinion. No ads, no promotions, no nothing. No wonder he is going under.

O.G. - 1.048

F.G. -

% -

SRM - 3.7

BU - 25

HOME MADE STARTER

I got a bit of grain from the old mash tun into the pot. Should of used a filter bag but will next step. I hope it didn't do anything, but should not since there was not a lot. The starter took off fast which is great. Waiting for it to clear so I can step up to a 4.5 L starter. Done. I used the small grain bag to filter the small grain bits out only in the second step, duh... Lots of trub also, but using it anyway. Yes, looks like a lot of yeast at the bottom of the 1 gallon jug, but I assume there is some trub mixed in also. I am going to make a bigger home made starter next time, not in yeast cells but in volume.

SMARC ball is canceled for the second year in a row now. Getting on my bike is a necessity now more than ever and of course I will have more time to brew beer. Brewing in my big mouth fermenter as soon as I keg it. Finally brewing a CPA. Got the hops so use them up.

                                                                  BREW DAY NOTES

Made a mistake or two but not critical. I haven't used this bigger system in a few months. Hope to brew in the garage after this is done. Will take my stuff in the garage or not use it. Too small of an area to clean stuff. The new beer fridge is just too big to walk around when brewing.

                                                   Fermentation Notes

Woke up to activity! Excellent. Fast Ferment would put the ramp up to Tuesday.  Hope I can get it up to 65 F at least in the laundry room. Snow on the ground today, but is going to warm up after that. Still, the basement doesn't warm up that fast in this weather, wall heater will help.

I brought down my small heater that has no thermostat. It got too hot in the laundry room and I left it too long. Got to 74F. Turned fridge back on to get it down to 66F. Hope it didn't bring all sorts of nasty flavours out. No idea what this did.

Sunday, May 2 - Cooling slowly now. I may be a little quick to do this, but the bubbling has gone

                            down to almost none with the D rest at 66 F. Now it is 56 F. 

Monday, May 3 - 54 F. Leaving it there because it is still bubbling the odd time, so I want to keep it

                             active until I keg it. Cooling to 3 C doesn't do anything from what I have read. I

                             filter anyway.

                                           KEGGED ON SUNDAY, MAY 9

Okay beer. A slight off taste but now is not the time to change anything. Cool, filter and carb up, then see. Takes 3 weeks to get some sort of taste that will not really change even with more again. Making another one cause I have the yeast ready to go.

                                                           FILTERED ON MAY 11

Has a strong hop taste like rubber. That is either a fermentation fault ( me ) or too much hops at 60 min. 

                                                       UPDATE ON JUNE 12

It is now 34 days old and I tried a glass out of boredom. Incredible, at least the one keg that was of course almost empty. I think it kicked. Not sure how much is in the other one. If this is true, how can a beer change so much in just a few days. I haven't checked to see how much is in the other keg, but will not serve it unless we have guests. It's empty too, shit.