Time flies but turkeys don’t! What a year I had in homebrewing. Looking back 2017, it’s definitely a year of several highlights. For me, 2017 for Salty Daddy homebrewing is the year of:
- Sigmund’s Voss Kveik
- One Mash Two Beer
- Pilsners and Lagers
- Zweimaishverfahren
Sigmund’s Voss Kveik
Thanks to this super yeast, I churned out more beer than I could ever imagine. Chill beer to 100 deg F, pitch and let it roll above 90 deg F reaching final gravity in 3 or 4 days. The fermentation is so clean that I have used it to brew imperial stout, Irish stout, Czech dark lager, Vienna lager, and kolsch! Using brulosophy’s yeast harvesting method, I was able to use one vial for generations. Currently I’m on my 5th generation of yeast, and each generation of yeast I reused the yeast cake for 3 or 4 times. That’s a lot of beer. I was trying to purchase a new vial in September but they were out of stock. I just checked today and it’s in stock again, so I purchased a new vial for 2018 brewing!
One Mash Two Beer
I love brewing 10 gal batches, as it takes roughly the same amount of time as a 5 gal batch. Instead of having 10 gallons of the same beer, I have been making split batches of different beer! Most split batches I did were pale and dark beer, for example, a pilsner and a schwarzbier. I cold steep the dark grains in room temperature water, then split 5 gallons of the wort at the end of boil during whirlpool to another pot and pitch the cold steeped wort to sanitize, while the other half received whirlpool hops. In another split batch brew, I used different yeast, half of the wort using Voss kveik, and the other using WY3724. I also did a split batch kolsch to compare Voss kveik to WLP029.
Pilsners and Lagers
Despite the recent craze for hazy IPAs and juice bombs, I can hardly drink more than a pint of it at a time. I’m a big fan of Czech/German pils and helles. Summer in New Orleans is stifling, so I want something that will quench my thirst and go well with my light salad. Since autumn comes later than Oktoberfest, I’ll drink a Vienna lager or Marzen waiting for that first crisp dry air from the North. When the temperature drops below 50 deg F, I prefer dark lagers to stout/porters. As I don’t need my fermentation chamber for ales (thanks Voss kveik!), I have space for my bottom fermenting house “pets” (W34/70 and WLP800). They are happy all year long eating maltose in ~50 deg F environment. This year at Nola on Tap, I had folks coming to our booth appreciating us serving Festbier and Vienna lager, so they could take a break from the hops/juice bombs and roasty stout in a balmy 90+ deg F with 90+% humidity! As of lately, I have been using Weyermann’s Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt, thanks to Brewstock for putting in special orders for me. This malt is tasty! Note: this malt is fully modified. Apart from the spec sheet data that indicates full modification, I cut the malt in half and the ascrospire growth is almost the full length of the kernel.
Zweimaischverfahren
To tell you the truth, I can hardly taste the difference between infusion vs decoction mashed beer. However, the process is super fun and since this is a hobby, I don’t mind spending time doing it! The opposite would be like making roux for gumbo. Since I don’t like making roux, I buy roux from Rouses, and people can’t taste the difference! That’s a pretty crappy analogy, but you get the idea. However, I do notice that decoction leads to a clearer beer with better head retention (don’t do protein rest as you can hardly find malt that is under modified). I like to do the enhanced double decoction recommended by Kai Troester. It skips the protein rest all together. Since the floor malted bopils malt is fully modified, that’s the method I choose for decoction. Also, reading both Brewing Lager Beer and New Brewing Lager Beer by Gregory Noonan helped me a lot in the details of decoction mashing.
Looking back 2017 of homebrewing definitely has me grinning from beer to beer. I’m looking forward to another great beer of homebrewing in 2018. I wish y’all a happy new beer! Prost!
Salty Daddy Brewing 