Split Batch US-04, US-05 Tasting

I wrote about my first attempt at full water adjust in the article "Utilizing Phophoric Acid for Water pH Adjustment". I also noted that I split that batch up and used two different yeast to ferment, US-04 and US-05.

I tasted these beers this weekend and I was extremely disappointed. I expected a slightly dry, vibrant beer out of the US-05 strain that finished at 1.009. Instead I have a sour tasting beer. with no hop aroma or flavor. It's beer but it's not good. I don't know if I used too mush acid but from what I've read 55 ml in 9 gallons should not be too much and I tasted the water after adding the acid and didn't notice any off flavors. This beer did ferment very strangely, the yeast cake stayed on top of the beer for 10 days and never dropped off. The yeast in the beer flocculated but the 1.5 inches of yeast cake on top stayed. I collected this yeast thinking it was something special in a good way, now I'm thinking I just got a bad batch of US-05 that soured my beer.

The US-04 was definitely better. It had the esters I would expect from that strain. Fruity and very English tasting to me. There was no hop taste in this beer either but I had read that this yeast strain, because if flocculates so well, can take the hop flavors with it.

I bought five packets of the US-05 together of which this packet was one.  I have one of those packets left but now I'm a little worried about using it even though the other three were fine. I'm happy I only have to dump 2.5 gallons rather than 5 but it's still a sad

Cider Making Update

This past weekend I had a few brewing related projects to make progress on. I had to do a taste testing on my split batch US-04 and US-05 yeast experiment. I also needed to keg a batch of Rye IPA and lastly move my fermented cider to a secondary to clarify.

I followed the steps I outline in the post "The Hard Cider Making Process, As I Understand it" to ferment the cider. My O.G. was 1.050 and had been fermenting for 10 days. It was done in about 6 days but I usually wait for a weekend when I have lots of time to deal with anything that might come up. Checking the F.G. as I moved the cider to the secondary I had a reading of .999 which is what I was looking for.

The English cider yeast I used was WLP775 and it flocculated out in large clumps very unlike any ale yeast I've ever used. I was left with a pretty clear cider after only a week, something I've read can take up to two months. I'm still going to allow it to sit and see if it will clarify anymore. My wife and I tasted the cider and it was pretty good the way it was, very drinkable. To me it came across as dry like a champagne but with a slightly sweet lightly apple taste. I can't wait to sweeten this cider up and put it on tap.

The Hard Cider Making Process, As I Understand it

My wife took me to a brewpub last week for my 38^th birthday. We had never been there before so I sampled a flight of beers and found a brown ale that was quite good.  My wife is a wine drinker but being a brewery they didn't serve wine. They did have a cider however which was her first and she enjoyed that just as much. So guess what I’m brewing next? You guessed it, a cider.

This will be my first cider so I did a little reading and watched a couple videos and here is what I came up with as the process.

Prepare for Fermentation

1. Since It’s not the right time of the year for fresh cider and I don’t know if I can get any locally I went ahead and purchased several gallons of Musslem’s 100% Apple Cider for the musk which is apparently what you call cider you’re going to ferment.
2. Check the Original Gravity of the cider with my hydrometer.
3. Add ¼ teaspoon of Potassium Metabisulfite or 1 Campden tablet for 5 gallons of unpasteurized cider. This kills wild yeast introduced from the skins of the apples and some bacteria. Let sit 24 hours. (Using pasteurized)  
4. Add Pectic Enzyme to help clarify the cider 12 hours after adding the Campden tablet.
5. Add 5tsp LD Carlson yeast nutrient because cider does not provide the amount of nutrients that wort does for yeast.
6. Add yeast and ferment for 5-10 days.

Rack to Secondary

1. Check Final Gravity, it should be 0.999
2. Rack into secondary and let condition and clarify for 1-4 weeks tasting along the way until you’re happy with the taste and clarity.

Prepare for Kegging or Bottling

1. Add 2.5tsp/5gal of Potassium Sorbate to prevent further fermentation if you’re not naturally carbonating and you want to add sugars for sweeteners. Otherwise use un-fermentable sugars like xylitol for sweetening.  Let sit 24 hours. 

Sweeten Sample to Taste 

1. Draw a measured sample of cider
2. Add apple taste with concentrated apple cider (frozen and dripped into mason jar) or Organic Apple Concentrate
3. Sweeten with Wine conditioner or other sugars / artificial sweeteners
4. Take a hydrometer reading  (maybe 1.01 or there bouts)

(I ended up adding all the concentrate from 1 gallon of frozen cider and 1 500ml bottle of wine conditioner for my 5 gallon batch)

Sweeten 5 Gallons to Taste

1. Scale up concentrate and wine conditioner for full 5 gallons from sample , add to keg or bottling bucket
2. Take a hydrometer reading to check against sample hydrometer reading

The ingredients are being shipped to me as I write this so I haven’t tested this out but I’ll write a follow up after I've started fermentation. Wish me luck and if you have any advice please leave it in the comments.

Utilizing Phophoric Acid for Water pH Adjustment

Yesterday was another brew day. I'm trying to dial in my water adjustments for pale beers, specifically IPAs, so that is what I brewed once again. I focused on adjusting all my water and watching my pH for sparge and mash.

I started out by collecting 9 gallons of water early in the morning, adding 1/2 of a campden tablet and checking the starting pH. My meter was spot on at 7.7 with my last water analysis from less then a month ago. 

I used the Bru'n Water spreadsheet to calculate the amount of phosphoric acid I would need to bring my water down to a pH of 5.5. The spreadsheet indicated to add around 130 ml which I thought was a bit high. Thankfully for once I had the common sense (and soberness) not to just blindly trust the figure on the page.

I initially added 30 ml of a 10% solution of phosphoric acid to the 9 gallons of water I collected. I waited 15 minutes then checked my pH again and I was down to 6.5.  I repeated this step again except that I only added 15 ml then next time around. The result was a pH of 5.9. I added another 15 ml and the result was a pH of 5.3 which I should have known considering the changes the pH had taken in the last two rounds. To fix the over adjustment I added tap water at 4 cup increments and re-measured between each addition until I reached my 5.5 pH target after 12 cups.

So at that point I had 9.75 gallons of water adjusted with phosphoric acid to a pH of 5.5. I Collected 4.6 gallons into my mash tun for a 0.4 thickness mash with 11.5lbs of grain. After doughing in I waited 15 minutes then checked my pH which nailed my target mash pH at 5.2. The last time I brewed this IPA, I brewed it without the acid adjustment and simply added 10 grams of gypsum to gain a Burton on Trent like water profile. That time my pH was 5.8 so this is the first pale beer I have brewed where the mash pH landed in the commonly targeted 5.2-5.5 range. 

I checked my pH twice more throughout the mash and it held steady at 5.2. There are arguments both ways that you should/should not acidify your water to bring the mash pH into a target range, I simply decided to try it for myself and record the results here.

This beer is now fermenting in two buckets, in one I pitched a typical American ale use Safale US-05 and in the other I pitched an English ale yeast Safale US-04. This was just for fun so I could compare how the exact same wort would taste pitching two yeasts that I use frequently. Although I usually save the US-04 for my stouts so this should be interesting.

I will post again with the comparison of acid adjusted and non-adjusted water and another for the comparison in yeast strains. I’ll probably also eek another post out of this batch because I only added 7 grams of gypsum this time because the 10 grams in the last batch came out a tad salty and also 7 grams puts me in the 1:3 ratio of chloride to sulfate.

First Water Adjusment Beer Results

Yesterday I bottled the first beer where I adjusted my brewing water. It's and Amercian IPA single hopped with Citra. Due to the low sulfate and 5x the chloride I added 10 grams of gypsum to this batch of beer. I knew this was borderline too much salt based on all the reading I've done. When I tasted the wort before fermentation I noticed a very strong salty tasty at the end. I was worried I might have to dump this batch of beer but when I bottled yesterday the salt taste was there but significantly reduced. From what I could tell before carbonation this beer has the dryness and hop pop I was going for. I've never been able to achieve that dryness in any of my previous pale beers so water adjustment is the key. Now I need to dial in the amount of gypsum and phosphoric acid to get the beer I want without that slight salt taste at the end.