Like a good day skiing...

...my Pine Tar Porter requires a pair...of yeasts? Named for the sticky malt extract like substance I use to recondition my wooden skis for the first snow of winter, my porter has been given another yeast; a lager yeast this time. I've been bitten by this lagering bug, and I've just read the book Brew Like a Monk. Those Belgian beers often use more than one yeast, so I feel like I'm in good company. After transferring my dunkel, I swirled the protein/yeast sludge and poured about a cup of it into my keg with my porter, which I've decided (and confirmed) is too sweet. I've rigged up a blow off tube from the CO2-in peg into a Scotch bottle with sanitizer solution added (I recommend single malt scotch bottles for experiments such as these, it's well worth the investment). The dunkel's Brix has dropped to 8.6 and still fermenting well after the transfer. We shall see about the porter/dark lager.

2008 Batch #3 recipe: Avuncular Dunkel

I brewed another lager this weekend. This time I'm trying a dunkel which I've named for a good friend of mine who is currently in South Korea. I have to admit, I don't know a lot about these German brews and I'm really enjoying brewing something new. I transfered my pils and used the yeast sediment with a bit of beer left over to pour into this new batch. The Mystery Pils tastes great: like a field of flowers. I hope it keeps that character through the fermentation. Here is the recipe for my current batch:

This is basically "Jump be Nimble... dunkel" recipe from Papazian's Home Brewer's Companion with a few modifications.

• 5.5 lbs Vienna malt
• 2 lbs dark Munich malt
• 0.5 lbs Belgian aromatic malt
• 0.5 lbs crystal malt (lvb 49-69)
• 0.33 lbs chocolate malt
• 0.125 lbs black patent malt
• .75 oz Norther Brewer
  
• 1 oz Willemette

MASH

This was suppose to be a protein step mash beginning at 122 deg, however I was at 127 which is where I let it rest for 30 min. I achieved this by adding the grain to 2.5 G of 130 deg H2O. I then added 1.25 G Boiling H2O to bring the temp up to 155 deg I needed to add a little heat to achieve this. After 30 minutes the mash pasted the iodine test (see below) and I mashed out at 170 deg, transfered to the lauter tun and sparged with 4 G of 170 deg H2O.

Iodine test after 30 minutes at 127 deg...

after another 30 min at 155 deg (the orange near the top is the iodine, the dark spots are black malts).

THE BOIL

When the worth was boiling I added 0.5 oz of Northern Brewer hops. After 15 minutes I added anther .25 oz of NB. At 45 minutes I added .75 oz of Willemette and 1 tsp of Irish Moss. At 60 minutes I shut off the heat and added .25 oz of Willemette, let it rest for 2 minutes and began chilling with my immersion chiller. When it was below 85 deg I transfered to a clean primary and poured in the sludge form my Mystery pils primary. Brix = 12.2. It was bubbling by midnight. In the morning I moved the primary to the basement where the temperature is about 60 degrees. After 4 or 5 days I'll transfer to the secondary and move the fermentation to my lagering cellar which is currently at 42 degrees.