Maggie Kolsch - Wednesday, March 26 - Mr. Robobrew
If my Kolsch seems fine, go ahead and make another one to keep the yeast slurry active and not
too old. You have 25 B cells. Make a 2.75 L hybrid yeast starter and put 2.5 L of starter in your flask. I am keeping the same water profile I used before and adding some Vienna malt. Hopefully,
the new hops I got work better than my old 1.8% AA no flavour hops. Turning up my mill a bit
to get slightly better efficiency.
Your over build yeast starter is in your 500 ml flask.
Use 263 grams of DME in a 2.75 L starter. Boil off should get you to 2.5 L of starter wort.
As of March 21st, I am not getting a lot of slurry on the bottom of my 500 ml flask. Too
early? Not sure, but this is where my 50 ml flask comes in handy. I will use a sharpie to
mark levels in it so I can figure out an approx of slurry for future starters. I do have over
3 weeks to make another one, so let it settle out in the fridge.
The last Kolsch was very clean so this should be the same. More malt and more hops were
needed so this recipe I think is better than just Rahr malt. Premium Pils Malt? Yea, right. Not
from Germany so nope.
Water Profile - David Heath and 4 Dog Brewery
Ingredients
11 lbs. Rahr Pilsner Malt
9.25 ozs. ( 262 grams ) Vienna Malt
8.50 grams CaraFa Special III ( colour adjustment )
50 grams Hallertauer - ( 4.1% AA maybe )
Escarpment Labs Kolsch
6 grams yeast nutrient in the starter. I made a mistake on the amount or even using it all. Hope
it doesn't screw the beer up too much. Only use this for a stuck fermentation in wine.
Mash Volume - 5.50 gallons
Sparge Volume - 5 gallons
MASH
Gyp - 1.5 grams
CC - 1.2 grams
Eps - 1.5 grams
Lactic Acid - 2 ml
Boil
Gyp - 1.4 grams
CC - 1.1 grams
Eps - 1.4 grams
Sparge
.2 ml Lactic Acid
CA - 37
MG - 7
S04 - 70
CI - 35
PH - 5.32
O.G. - 1.040
F.G. -
% -
SRM - 4
BU - 23
Since my Helles starter did nothing, I am going to see if my Kolsch slurry will work. I will make
this one on March 18. Checked for activity around midnight and yes, foam!! So it was the lager
yeast that was not viable. Going to tell TB. I told them and got no answer. Hmmm.
I added too much yeast nutrient in my starter. 6 grams!! Not sure where I got that amount from. I am going with what I used to use which was nothing. If I can get a replacement for the dead
lager yeast, I will dump this and start with new Kolsch yeast.
FOR NOW ON I AM GOING TO USE SPRING WATER WHEN MAKING STARTERS
Moved starter to flask on Thursday, March 20.
As usual I can't make beer for a few days because of a stupid social schedule. Hopefully I
can get back on track to stock pile some kegs of Kolsch for the end of May.
BREW DAY
An uneventful brew day so far. Chiller in at 8:30 and just finishing up to get ready to pitch
the yeast later on.
Pitched yeast @ 11 am.
My efficiency is only 69%. Far cry from my usual 80%. It has been in decline for 2 years
now. No idea why. Same recipes. I can add more grain but will only do that when I use
my Conical because it has no problem handling the extra grain. Besides, 4% is fine since
I am an old fart now.
FERMENTATION NOTES
Day 1 - Going real good the next morning. No surprise since I think I got more yeast in
the main yeast flask than I did in the over build. At least by looking at the 500 ml
flask and I don't see much.
Day 2 - Going well. If this keeps up this will finish early.
Day 3 - Turned off the fridge yesterday. 60F. Looks like it is done. I may move it into the
bench but that will be mute if the hydro goes off which it may since the worst of
the ice storm is today, tonight and over night.
Day 4 - Power off. Will take a gravity reading when or if the power comes back on.
Day 8 - Power on. 4 days without power. Another round of freezing rain coming as
soon as we got our power back on. I need a Generac or something like that.
MOVING IT ONTO THE BENCH
Since it was 58F for a few days I guess I need to toss this on the bench and turn on the
wall heater to see if it will do something or not. A gravity check is in order too. My
over build of Kolsch in the flask was at around 60F during the power outage. I had
not even thought about it so by the looks of it I should toss it since there seems to be
only 5 or 10 ml of yeast. Tossing this yeast out. Bought a new one. Since it was quite
cold in the basement when the power was out, I am just waiting for activity to stop
on the bench and rack it to a keg from there. Bought a new Kolsch pack, so I think
I can brew on the 3rd week of April. This is the only beer I am brewing for now. I
want lots of Kolsch beers ahead before I brew my Stout.
KEGGED ON APRIL 7
Added gelatin on April 9. Buy C02 on April 18 which is not what I wanted but will have
to settle for. I do have 2 pop bottles to carb up if I want to. I don't want to tap this keg
since this is for the end of May. However, I am still not confident that this beer is going
to be good enough considering I added way too much yeast energizer to the original
starter. Stupid thing to do. That is why I tossed the over build and bought new yeast.
Will know more when I taste this in a few days after the Gelatin has had a chance to work.
Will know more when I taste this in a few days after the Gelatin has had a chance to work.
TASTE AFTER ADDING GELATIN FOR 5 DAYS
Okay for now. I think I am going to filter this for now on. Still tasting the affect of Gelatin.
Takes around 10 days or so. This beer will be carbed and tossed up in the fridge in the Pub
room when the time comes. No need to turn on the fridge now as you have room in the
beer room fridge. If this ankle is really broken or fractured, I guess I will not have a lot of
beer for guests in May or even June. Wait and see.
TAKING ANOTHER SAMPLE AFTER GELATIN - 10 DAYS
Not very good at this stage. I didn't think it would be considering what I did to the yeast
starter. New yeast now and new process. This beer needs aging and may still be okay.
Another sample from the 2 L pop bottles. Very low on C02. Hope they have some when I
finally go to get it. Still green beer though. Better change with age or I am in deep do do.
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