Expired Pils/A Little Bit 'O Lightning

Style: German Pils

Batch Size: 8 Gal

Born: 2017-01-28

Bottled: 2017-03-12/2017-03-13

Batch #: 091/092

ABV: 4.2%/4.9%

IBUS: 31

Calories: 146/143

Pre-boil SG: 1.061

Pre-boil Gal: 6.0

Post-boil SG: 1.072

Post-boil Gal: 5.5

Volume into Fermenter: 9.5

Finish Gal (into bottling bucket): 4.5/4

Target OG: 1.042

OG: ~1.044

FG: 1.012/1.007

Mash Target: ? gals, ??? deg for 60 min

Initial Mash Temp: ??

Mash Temp at 45 min: ??, heated to ??

Mash Temp at 30 min: ??, heated to ??

Mash Temp at 15 min: ??, heated to ??

Final Mash Temp: ??

Boil Length: 60 min

Efficiency: ??%

Water: Tap

Fermentables:

10.5 lb Avangard Pilsner Malt

1.5 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt

12 oz Melanoiden

8 oz Briess Carapils

8 oz flaked oats

Hops:

.6 oz Centennial 12.38% FWH

2 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 2% 30 min

2 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 2% 15 min

.5 oz Willamette 5% 15 min

2 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 2% 5 min

Spices/Other:

1 Whirlfloc 10 min

Yeast: Frankenlager/Saflager S-23

Fermentation Temp: ???

Bottling:

Vols: ???

Priming: 3.55 oz table sugar/

Bottle/keg: 20 shortnecks /w white caps, kegged rest into keg 4/18 shortnecks /w green caps, legged rest into keg 2

Tasting Notes:

Date: ??? Taster: ???

Aroma ?/12: Comment on malt, hops, esters and other aromatics

Appearance ?/3: Comment on color, clarity and head (retention, color and texture)

Flavor ?/20: Comment on malt, hops, fermentation characteristics, balance, finish/aftertaste and other flavor characteristics

Mouthfeel ?/5: Comment on body, carbonation, warmth, creaminess, astringency and other palate sensations

Overall Impression ?/10: Comment on overall drinking pleasure associate with entry, give suggestions for improvement

Total: ???/50

Notes: Hallertauer hops came from Rommie at Kitzingen. He was throwing out like 35 lbs since he’d had them a while, and the homebrew club were happy to take them and split them up. Their AA is roughly estimated based on their original AA, their age, and how they were stored. It’s actually kind of a crap shoot. Mash went a little long, probably 70 minutes total. I was cooking (Crack Slaw) at the time. As per usual, I forgot about the first wort hop until the wort was already up to 177. Should be close enough though. Added 4 gallons top up water to make 9.5 gal. Put ~1 gallon of wort into a 2 gallon bucket and put in the basement fridge. I will attempt to make a starter with my homegrown yeast and pitch it in there in a couple days. While I was pouring my Frankenyeast III starter into one of the buckets, I noticed that it smelled a little sour. I stopped, poured a little of the starter into a glass and tried it. It did taste a little sour. Like cleanly sour. I figured the batch was probably already ruined, so no harm in letting it ride out and dumped the rest of the starter into that bucket. I had two packets of Saflager S-23, so I put those in the other non-contaminated fermenter. So, now this batch is going to be split up with three different yeasts. Woo woo. With all my worrying about the yeast, I think I forgot to take my final OG. I'm just going to use 1.044, as it's probably pretty close with the adjustments.

2017-02-01 - I think both of my house yeasts are dead. I put the 1 gal of wort that was in the fridge in with the S-23 fermenter. I racked it to avoid oxygen, although I’m not sure how much that matters.

2017-02-20 - Noticed that the temp probes on my BrewPi have been acting wonky for a few days and not reading temps. That’s kind of sucky. I messed around with it and disconnected/reconnected the probes at the RJ-45 connectors and it didn’t seem to do anything. I ordered some more probes off Amazon, hopefully that’s all the issue is.

2017-02-21 - I forgot I had the single stage controller I use for sous vide. I hooked that up and set the temp to 34, so I don't overshoot. I'll lower it down to 30 later. Temp was at 46.4 when I connected it.

2017-03-02 - Added gelatin for fining. I forgot this was really two different beers. The Frankenlager one had yeast rafts and no pellicle, didn't smell off either. I think the yeast did work just fine, and it wasn't infected. The Saflager had no yeast rafts.

2017-03-04 - Removed from fermentation chamber for Mango Habanero IPA, and didn't have energy to bottle.

2017-03-12 - Pils Popper sample tasted fine. The hops taste a little dull, but that may be my expectations or the fact it's warm and flat. Definitely not bad. Crap. A Little Bit ‘O Lightning has some pellicle. I never touched the smaller starter I made to save the yeast though, and it still doesn’t have any, so it wasn’t infected from the beginning, like I initially thought. The beer tastes great though. There is just a hint of sourness/tartness, but it all tastes good. I’m going to attempt to save this one, like I did with the Kentucky Dawn. Hopefully this will go better though. Since I’m doing it right away, I have higher hopes. I’m racking it into a kettle, which I’m flushing with CO2 then bringing it up to about 155* on the stove. Again, I used this priming sugar calculator, which estimates I have 0.73 volumes of residual CO2 (at 80*) that I am flushing out by raising the temp, so I then put I wanted to carb at 3.25, which gives me 5.14 oz of table sugar for 4 gallons. Immediately after I noticed the beer was above 150* (~152), I racked it into a keg, purged it with CO2 several times and then put it outside in the garage to cool down. I brought it back inside before going to bed.

2017-03-13 - I opened the keg and sprinkled in a packet of D47 yeast on top. I then waited about 30-60 minutes, stirred it up a bit with my plastic mash paddle, and bottled off keg as normal.