Screwy's California Steamin' Common Ale

[ScrewyBrewer]

Bronze!

Nice job Steve!

[Dawg LB Steve]

The Mather Steamship Cali-Common
5.65 gallons

8.25 lb 2 Row Brewers Malt
1 lb C40L
1 lb Munich Light
.5 lb Victory
2 oz Fawcett Pale Chocolate for color adj.

.75 oz Northern Brewer @ 60
1 oz Northern Brewer @ 15
.75 oz Northern Brewer @ 5

1.2L Starter of WLP810

[Beer-lord]

I've been thinking of using this lager yeast but am curious do you still do a normal D-rest?

[Dawg LB Steve]

Fermented this at 62-63 for 17 days no D-Rest, then kegged, (was kegging it the night my hot water tank let loose) I actually forgot that this is a lager yeast, but this was the thing with this yeast you can ferment at the low side of ale temps without off flavors.

[ScrewyBrewer]

I've been thinking of using this lager yeast but am curious do you still do a normal D-rest?

For a 10 gallon batch I fermented mine at 65F for five days, then let the temperature rise to 68F over the next three days. The pitching rate I used was a four liter starter, made from two vials of WLP810, which I then split to pitch into two 5 gallon batches.

I have another four liter starter on the stirplate right now as I am planning to brew another 10 gallon batch of California Steamin' on Saturday.

[Beer-lord]

Thanks Vince. One more question about the yeast......if you do use the lower temperature to ferment with that yeast, do you do a true D-rest and if not, is there any taste differences between fermenting with this yeast at 53-55 compared to 65-68?

[Kealia]

The higher range should produce more fruity esters while the lower range should be much cleaner and lager-like. But, I find that I don't get a lot of esters from this regardless of the temp.

Right now I'm fermenting my RCE Wheat Steam beer with it at 62. After active fermentation slows down I'll bump it to 65 or 66 just to finish it off but I've never really done a true D-rest with it - nor needed to.

[Beer-lord]

Got it. Its on my radar.

[ScrewyBrewer]

Thanks Vince. One more question about the yeast......if you do use the lower temperature to ferment with that yeast, do you do a true D-rest and if not, is there any taste differences between fermenting with this yeast at 53-55 compared to 65-68?

Paul let me try to answer your questions.

I'll first start off by saying that I have never fermented wlp810 at temperatures lower than 65F.

I don't know if my Diacetyl Rest qualifies as a "true D-rest" or not but I repeat the same process for all of my beers, irregardless of the type of yeast, Ale (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or Lager (Saccharomyces uvarum).

Regarding fermentation, my goal has always been to allow the yeast time to soak up flavor precursors before they go dormant. With California Steamin' the primary fermentation completes in about 4 days at 65 degrees. At that point I let the fermentation temperature rise to 68 degrees. Which translates into raising the fermentation temperature 3 degrees over the next 3 days, starting once airlock activity slows down.

I hope that I've understood your question correctly and provided you with a good enough answer.

[Beer-lord]

Works for me Vince!
Due to temps here, I don't lager but with a freezer, it's something I want to do so but obviously, I would use a true lager yeast which requires a D-rest.
This one looks like it's much easier to deal with.

[Dawg LB Steve]

Got to say these are very close despite the difference in the grain bill. Screwy's seems a bit drier malt presence with a little more hop bitterness, where mine is somewhat sweeter malt presence with a tendency toward hop flavor over the hop bitter. Color spot on to each other, head retention persists better in Vince's. Both fine example of the style!

[ScrewyBrewer]

Got to say these are very close despite the difference in the grain bill. Screwy's seems a bit drier malt presence with a little more hop bitterness, where mine is somewhat sweeter malt presence with a tendency toward hop flavor over the hop bitter. Color spot on to each other, head retention persists better in Vince's. Both fine example of the style!

Thanks Dawg, I agree. When you see and taste both beers, you wouldn't believe they were brewed with completely different grain bills. Can we attribute the drier malt presence to my use of 90% Pilsner, maybe I think.

I'm brewing another 10 gallons tomorrow, this time using 95% Pilsner and 5% Crystal 90L. The color will still be within 1 SRM of the first batch, but I increased the IBU from 38 to 52 this time too. Just to see how IPA-like a little extra bitterness works with the style. I think someone posted earlier that he remembered Anchor Steam having a little harsher flavor.

common-starter-sml.jpg (35.89 KiB) Viewed 982 times

I have a 4 liter starter, made from 2 vials of WLP810 yeast, cold crashing now for tomorrow. Instead of mashing at 154F this time I'm mashing lower at 153F. The BU:GU is 1.000, which is .200 higher than the prior batch. I don't know what I'm more excited about right now drinking the new recipe or getting to brew it tomorrow.

[mashani]

That was probably me - what I remember about Anchor (unless I'm nuts) is that it has a bit more esters - fruity with hints of bubblegum even - and a bit more woodiness (from the hops I am assuming?) and some mineral vibe like salt and sulfur, which could be yeast related or water related or a mix of both. All of this stuff in low amounts, it's not "in your face". But there. Harsh isn't the right word, it's not harsh, it's still smooth - but not as smooth as Dawgs beer was, which was very much lager like. "rougher edged" I think is how I described it.

I don't know if the yeast flavor perception difference is due to temperature, or pitch rate, or different levels of O2 added to the wort. Anchor has some funky hot side aeration device they use. (yes they aerate the wort hot!). It might be carbonated a bit higher too, and that changes perceptions as well.

Don't get me wrong, I love Steve's beer. I think I like it better then what I remember Anchor being. I'm just throwing out "perceptions". I haven't had an actual Anchor in a while. It's not a beer that "calls to me" from the shelf.

[ScrewyBrewer]

That was probably me - what I remember about Anchor (unless I'm nuts) is that it has a bit more esters - fruity with hints of bubblegum even - and a bit more woodiness (from the hops I am assuming?) and some mineral vibe like salt and sulfur, which could be yeast related or water related or a mix of both. All of this stuff in low amounts, it's not "in your face". But there. Harsh isn't the right word, it's not harsh, it's still smooth - but not as smooth as Dawgs beer was, which was very much lager like. "rougher edged" I think is how I described it.

I don't know if the yeast flavor perception difference is due to temperature, or pitch rate, or different levels of O2 added to the wort. Anchor has some funky hot side aeration device they use. (yes they aerate the wort hot!). It might be carbonated a bit higher too, and that changes perceptions as well.

Don't get me wrong, I love Steve's beer. I think I like it better then what I remember Anchor being. I'm just throwing out "perceptions". I haven't had an actual Anchor in a while. It's not a beer that "calls to me" from the shelf.

Honestly as I'm typing this I can see two cases of empty Anchor Steam bottles left over from the "research" that I did last month. I still can't recall every nuance of their taste, that's something I'm trying to work on, but I can remember what I like about the style overall. I did carbonate mine a little bit higher (12-14 psi) than most of my other beers, but not much higher. The description I found on the BJCP site read something like this.....

"This unique strain of Lager yeast has the ability to ferment at temperatures as high as 65F while still producing a Lager like fermentation. The recipe produces a beer with a grainy malt flavor and a light toast background and should be carbonated within a range of 2.4 to 2.8 volumes of Co2. Finishing at 5% alcohol the recipe produces a beer that has a medium light mouth feel with a bitter and dry finish."

Well the RO water is ready and it's time to make up my water profile and then heat up the mash, off to an early start today. These are the water properties I'm using to brew today's batch, they're nearly identical to the previous batch using 1 ml more of Lactic acid this time to adjust for less Crystal 90L.

-- Mash water profile 15.0 gallons --
06.00 g - Gypsum (calcium sulfate)
16.00 g - Calcium Chloride
03.00 g - Epsom Salt (magnesium sulfate)
05.00 g - Baking Soda
06.00 ml Lactic Acid

pH - 5.41 calculated - chloride/sulfate ratio 1.71 - residual alkalinity -147
pH - 5.47 actual
101 ppm - calcium
005 ppm - magnesium
024 ppm - sodium
136 ppm - chloride
80 ppm - sulfate

[ScrewyBrewer]

Just in time for the Holidays, a nice warming 7% alcohol Imperial California Common Beer. This 10 gallon batch used the same grain bill as before, the only difference being a pound of pure cane sugar added to the last 10 minutes of the boil to increase the alcohol content.

2015-12-10 - cali steamin-a-sml.jpg (63.82 KiB) Viewed 952 times

Imperial California Common Beer

The grain bill for the recipe is pretty straightforward, it uses 95% Pilsener (German) and 5% Crystal 90L Malt. The BU:GU Ratio used was 50 / 64 = 0.78125 and that really worked well with the beer carbonated to 14 psi. The hop bill was simple too it used 6 ounces of Northern Brewer (Germany) pellet hops divided equally and added at 60, 30 minutes and at flameout. A 4 liter starter made from 2 vials of White Labs WLP810 - San Francisco Lager Yeast™ was decanted, pitched and left to ferment at 65F.