Brewbirds' Free Wort Project

[Brewbirds]

Okay so I posted about getting some free wort from one of the local craft breweries in another thread and thought that BB2 and I would share our adventure with the .

So first up, we have a home brew club that we follow on Yahoo Groups and here is what I saw posted on Tuesday AM:

" All,

We just made a big stout at Adelbert's Brewery and saved the second
runnings from the multiple passes. The second runnings were strong enough
so that we decided to save 500 gallons of wort to play with and give away.
It is 1.058 OG and is in our bright tank at 1 C. Swing by tomorrow the
4th starting at 3:00 pm with clean and sanitized fermentors.

Grain bill has Pilsner, Flaked Oats, Biscuit, Crystal, Chocolate and
Debittered Black. 25 IBU. "

I already had a trip to town planned so I sterilized two pails I had and headed out early. I got to Austin Home Brew to pick up supplies for three recipes we had already planned (boy something strange is going on there, a lot of shelves were empty and none of the regular employees were there. I think they did a radical upgrade to their software and it worked ala you know who )

Anyway the brewery is right around the corner so I got there about an hour and a half early ( first in line ).

Once 3PM rolled around folks started showing up and by about 4 people were coming in droves. By 4:30 someone had posted that they counted 90 fermenters in the line and it looked like a fermenter sellers convention, there were all types of vessels there.

Here's some pics of us all waiting:

Great Wort Giveaway1.jpg (25.29 KiB) Viewed 811 times

Great Wort Giveaway2.jpg (18.96 KiB) Viewed 811 times

The line was shaped like an L so one pic is the long side looking towards the short side and the other, with the guy leaning out, is from the end of the short side.

When they started filling all of our fermenters they hooked up a T-bar to a big hose so that two of the guys could fill our containers at the same time and they weren't measuring or filling to the top just filling almost full.

So I got home with my two pails full...

Free Beer 001.JPG (33.67 KiB) Viewed 811 times

...and now we had to determine just how much wort we scored and decide what to do with it.
I got out the autosiphon and 2 slimlines, sterilized them and filled the slimlines to the 2 gallon mark which emptied the taller of the pails.
And we decided to trust the markings on the AHS Ale Pail which showed slightly ove four gallons so we got 8 gallons +/- of free wort.

I put the two slimlines in the fridge and the AHS pail in a cooler with frozen water bottles and wrapped it with a couple of windshield sun blockers.

Whew!! by then it was almost six and I had to start supper.


Part two coming up in a minute; I'm brewing with some of this as I type this.

[mtsoxfan]

Such a generous offer. And 1.058 from second runnings? What were they brewing?

[Brewbirds]

Okay so next we needed to decide what we wanted to do with all this wort.
The easy thing would have been to just pith some yeast on them and let her rip... but that would be easy so we didn't do that.
One thing is that I had never used the tall pail, I'd gotten it off Craig's List with a bunch of other brew gear and it's been sitting around and I used the AHS pail once over a year ago.
So I knew that I wanted to pasturize the wort before we turned it into anything else just to be safe.
The other thing was that since it was second runnings the next morning I took a refractometer reading and we tasted it; it was at 1.057, the color was a little light (for a stout) and it was a tad bit thin so we needed to get creative.
Since we had purchased ingredients for three recipes not related to this wort, and AHS now has a minimum of 4 ounces on their specialty grains, and we had an extra Munich LME in inventory and BB2 wanted to use some of the wort with pureed blackberries (ended up with raspberries because AHS had four cans of fruit on the shelf ) here is what we came up with:

Raspberry IPA 2.67 gallons

American Stout 2.67 gallons

Texas Y'all tweaked 2.67 gallons

and the remaining wort will be brewed straight up as what ever batch size we end up with.

I'm doing the Raspberry one right now (a hop steep in progress) and I will put all the recipe info in later for each one; the info is on BB2's puter.

[Brewbirds]

Such a generous offer. And 1.058 from second runnings? What were they brewing?

I think they wanted a little monster Imperial Stout and ended up with a giant.

[Beer-lord]

Nice score. 1.058 by itself would make a nice stout alone.
Keep us posted on this!

[philm00x]

Raspberry IPA sounds tasty. I do like the fruit beers. Hell of a score on the wort!

[Inkleg]

Thanks for the follow up on your free fun wort day. Can't wait to hear how they turn out.

[Kealia]

You had me at "free wort".

[Brewbirds]

Sorry this is so late in coming but I brewed them four days in a row, then the dentist and had to bottle the Clusterbomb IPA. Some things have changed since the previous posts.

First off, using the info provided: grain types, gravity, IBUs and SRM BB2 built a recipe to match as closely as possible which we then used as an HME to create four new recipes.
We pasteurized the free wort/HME for each of the four batches just to be safe. We were also trying to use open/extra ingredients we had on hand to mix it up a bit.

I want say now that because of the nature of this project any reference to STYLE in the names has to be taken in context to the fact that we are experimenting so we just shopped BS to get us close to something (we aren't going to enter them for judging )

First up is called "NOT a Raspberry IPA"

Our thinking was to use the raspberry puree and some Polaris (minty) hops we had opened to play with the chocolate in the free wort so here is what we did:

Pasteurized 1.5 gal. of free wort @155-160F for 20-30 min.; cool in ice bath;

Add 1 lb. jar of Munich LME to 1 gal. water and bring to boil;

Add 8 grams Polaris hops, 21 AAU, for 40 min. boil;

Whirfloc and yeast nutrients @ T5;

Hopstand 15 grams Polaris below 140F during ice bath;

Add free wort to Brew Demon Conical @ 72F

Add .63 gal. from hop boil to fermenter;

pitch 2.5 cups of yeast slurry (from our Clusterbomb IPA) into 8.5 qts. @72F with OG of 1.056

This is the quick wash I did on the Clusterbomb yeast we pitched:

Raspberry Yeast Quick Wash.JPG (57.65 KiB) Viewed 729 times

Here's the two worts SXS

2 wort Raspberry IPA 001.JPG (57.97 KiB) Viewed 729 times

Up to this point the recipe was assuming the addition of the raspberry puree after primary fermentation had settled down BUT...

not having experience with fruit beers I did some reading and found that adding fruit to an IPA is NOT done (tart and hop bitterness don't mix).

That meant we had the wort hopped beyond reason for it as is so we needed to make some adjustments.

We added 1 lb. Munich and 1 lb. Amber LME pasteurized in .5 gal. of water and cooled to the fermenter three after pitching.

So now I guess we are making a chocolate mint IPA.

I spent the next day and a half switching out airlocks on the conical.



Here is BeerSmith's take on this batch:

Est. OG: 1.073

IBUs: 68.2

SRM: 15.3

This is what BS thinks it will look like:

Raspberry IPA Color BS.JPG (10.67 KiB) Viewed 729 times

Est. ABV: 7.4

BU:GU: .937


I'm going to hit submit now and add pics as an edit because of problems last time I tried to update this thread.

Edit to add Revsion info:

Est. OG (after LME addition to fermenter) 1.089
IBU 69 BU:GU .78
SRM 23 (that's better)
Calculated ABV 8.9
Measured FG 1.015
Bottled 27 12oz. 3/20/14

[Beer-lord]

Sounds good. I love the name "Free Wort Project". Sounds X-file-ish!
And FYI, I know Leigh has been a bit busy but I've not forgotten about your site problems. I just don't have any info on why it's happening to you or how to fix it.

[Brewbirds]

Next up was an American Robust Porter (according to BB2 or the BeerSmith style guide).

For this one we mashed 12.3 oz of Munich, 3 oz. carapils, 3 oz. boiled quick oats and 2 oz. Black Patent, again stuff we had on hand, 60 min., 2.25 qts. water @155F and dunk sparged in 3 qts. water.

Measured pre-boil vol. 1.017, measured pre-boil gravity 1.028

FWH and 45 minute boil 8 grams Willamette and 25 minutes 8 grams Cascade

Whirfloc and yeast nutrient at T5

Post boil vol. .625 gal. and post boil gravity 1.054

Steeped 10 grams of Willamette below 140F during ice bath and added to fermenter with 2 gal. of pasteurized free wort.

Pitched 11 grams of Nottingham @ 72F with measured OG of 1.056

Dry hop with 8 grams each of Willamette and Cascade.

There was no visible activity in the fermenter after abuot 24 to 30 hours so I was getting worried as the others were all spewing away happily. So when I cleaned the lid of another fermenter I stole a bit of krausen with a sanitized spoon and fed it to this one to see if anything happened (did we get a bad packette of yeast?)

Took a refractometer reading on 3/11 and it was down to 1.013 and when I checked it the next day there was some krausen on the surface.

I'll take another reading when that settles a bit.

Here's BeerSmith's take on color

Free Wort Porter.JPG (10.92 KiB) Viewed 711 times

It looked a bit darker when I transfered it to the fermenter so we'll see.

Free Wort Porter.JPG (10.92 KiB) Viewed 711 times

BeerSmith's numbers:
Est. OG 1.056
IBUs 44.8
SRM 22.3
ABV 5.5
BU:GU .802

Edit to add revision:

Est. OG 1.056
IBU 40 BU:GU .71
SRM 30
ABV 5.6
Measured FG 1.013
Bottled 24 12oz. 3/20/14

Let's see if I can get a pic of the revised color:

American Porter color revised.JPG (10.85 KiB) Viewed 655 times

[Brewbirds]

Oh Look I can add an extra picture by accident but not on purpose.

[BeerRust]

Citrus Fruit IPAs could work. Or you cold go with adding some wheat or pils DME, and get a very nice fruit beer.

[Brewbirds]

BREAKING NEWS: BB2 just found a flaw in BeerSmith for the Extract/Free Wort recipe he built so some or all of the numbers I've listed may change when he figures it out.

Back to our original programming: Batch number 3: Texas Y'all tweaked.

We had some Crystal and a smidge of other grains that were going to be left over and some pecans so we decided to tweak this recipe a bit.

On the first batch I felt like there was an extract like twang and/or I should not have added all the bourbon I soaked the vanilla bean and late addition pecans in. The pecans were just not as out front as would have liked either so I ran them through the food processor to get them finer than last time. They were roasted on a sheet of parchment paper, to absorb excess oils, at 350F until they were nicely browned.

I guess this is technically a mash but there was very little base grain; 2.6 oz. Marris Otter, 1.3 oz. pale malt, 7.5 oz. C-60, 1.2 oz. c-40, 3 oz. carapils, 3.05 oz. Special B and 12 oz. pecans in 2.5 qts. @ 148F for 45 minutes, dunk sparge 3 qts.

Measured Pre-boil Volume 1.16 gal. Measured Pre-boil Gravity 1.018 Boil for hot break, no hop additions, whirfloc, yeast nutrient and 8 oz. brown sugar for 5 minutes.

Measured post boil vol. 1.05 gal. Measured post-boil gravity @1.044

Ice bath but no hop stand addition.
Added cooled "mash" to 1.625 gal. of pasteurized and cooled free wort in fermenter.

Here's the two worts SXS:

Texas Y'All 2.1.JPG (49.72 KiB) Viewed 685 times

Pitched 11 grams Nottingham @ 72F OG 1.051

Will dry seed with 4 oz. pecans and vanilla bean pasteurized in bourbon but not the bourbon.

Note: previous batched was pitched with S-04 English Ale Yeast.

BeerSmith's Take:

Est OG: 1.057
IBU 20.5
SRM 22.1
ABV 6.2
BU:GU .358

Texas Y' All Color.JPG (11.11 KiB) Viewed 685 times

Edit to add revision:
Est. OG 1.054
IBU 15.5 BU:GU .28
SRM 28
ABV 5.5
Measured FG 1.013
Bottled 26 12oz 3/21/14

Here's the new color: (also better)

Texas Y'All color revised.JPG (10.64 KiB) Viewed 655 times

[BB2]

I want to jump in here and support my sis while logged in to rant about beer chemistry. Mainly to admit that I nearly screwed up the project but everything is fine now. She was wondering why the SRM were looking odd. Digging deeper I learned something about Beermith we ought to share.

What I did, originally is make an extract ingredient for the free wort, thinking I could steep or mash the ingredients we added and use this a late addition in the project recipes (which is exactly what was done operationally). Say you wish to sour a beer with a stale one or blend beers. You can do this but BEWARE. Beersmith will let you nbut it doesn't really understand. (As a side note, if you ever want to do this, you will adjust the yield parameter to force the 'potential' to equate to your worts gravity ... even if you plug in a yield above 100% and get a red error-looking response thats okay).

Gotta run. More details later.