Saturday, April 2, 2011

Dithyrambic


Brewed up a recipe from Papazian's manual which is described as being 'wild and boisterous.' He titled it as a Dithyrambic Roasted Brown Ale which is "A frenzied, impassioned choric hymn and dance of ancient Greece in honor of Dionysus." One can only hope, mmmkay. An extract kit with roasted barley and a touch of black patent malt. This recipe is an attempt at creating a brown ale similar to Newcastle brown but with much more happening body and nose wise. Nothing out of the ordinary with this kit, other than my new approach to yeast. I have started paying less attention to the strain called for by the recipe and much more attention towards keeping a healthy batch on hand. This not only promotes frequent brewing but also conserving a house batch that needs less preparation than a smack pack and is cutting down on ingredient costs.

This shot above is something that I hadn't noticed before about the wonder of yeast, but, basically they get finicky by the temperatures they interact with, and in this instance the top of the wort was too warm for them whereas the bottom was more suitable so they flocked down there and created a layer to fortify themselves in until the temperature evened out. Curious little fellers. Pitching the yeast into too warm of wort may not kill the yeast, but they can often excrete some off flavors in disgust at your hasty actions, be careful.

The yeast strain began as a London Ale III yeast from wyeast. On brewday, if keeping up with a 5-7 day primary fermentation cycle, the young batch is racked off its sediment and a few jars worth of the sludge is saved. The jars not used on the day were kept in the fridge to be reactivated and used for a later batch. Keeping a jar full at room temperature during the brewing of the new batch, the yeast is still viable and ready to pitch as soon as the wort has been cooled. A few considerations to keep in mind when tasting the finished beer: the sediment brought over from batch to batch not only includes the yeast but also hops and grain sediment. The small amount of these things should not overpower any characteristics of the new batch but may become what would be called a 'house character' to the beer. IF all these beers end up tasting the same, I will make some changes to how i separate the sediment from the yeast, but until then, healthy yeast is always preferred to a smack pack that has been carried over distances and possibly out dated. One of the great qualities of doing this yeast method is the amazingly rapid activation. Within 3 hours bubbles start to occur in the blow-off bucket as compared to the 10-12 hours from a half cup of yeast in the smack pack. More yeast means more activity means better sugar conversion. Some of the downsides is that cleanup is far more intensive as the blow-off hose is definitely required with this much yeast going in. Eruptions and purging as can be seen in that bucket! Also when racking the beer, alot more sediment comes over in the siphon, however this is not a bad thing as the occasional batch is under-yeasted if anything by the time it gets to the bottle. Cheers to boisterousness.

*UPDATE* Boisterous indeed, this beer garnered 1st prize at the BIY-Fest in June of 2011.

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