BeerTools Discussion Forum

Just discovered that you can keep dragging the percentage sliders to the left to arrive at negative numbers for grains and hops. (I assume other ingredients would be the same.)

You can also type in a negative number.

Gasekory wrote:This content is useful and good information.

Hi Gasekory! Welcome to the forum. Could you explain what you mean? Perhaps I'm being dense, but I am missing your point on how negative numbers for recipe ingredients can be useful.

It's clearly robo-spam.

Dang, they got me! I'm usually smarter than that.

Unfortunately, that one is out of my reach. Jeff will probably get to it after the holiday weekend.

You guys brewing this weekend? I'm about to start the boil on a Porter.

No, no beer this weekend. Every year I make a mead on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, for the following year's Thanksgiving supper. Yesterday I made a blackberry melomel (Vintner's Harvest blackberry wine base, plus water and honey to 24ºP, 10g of Cote de Blanc yeast). Just got done w/ the second degassing of the day (I degass 3 times per day, 4 if I can swing it, with staggered nutrient additions every other day).

bpylant wrote:No, no beer this weekend. Every year I make a mead on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, for the following year's Thanksgiving supper. Yesterday I made a blackberry melomel (Vintner's Harvest blackberry wine base, plus water and honey to 24ºP, 10g of Cote de Blanc yeast). Just got done w/ the second degassing of the day (I degass 3 times per day, 4 if I can swing it, with staggered nutrient additions every other day).

Great tradition!

I primarily make small beers, so I rarely make anything that I would expect to improve over the course of a year. The porter should be on tap by Christmas and gone before Valentine's Day.

When it comes to beer I tend to brew smaller / session beers, so I'm right there with you.

My task this last year was to try to perfect my Vienna Lager... still working on it. Mostly dealing with the water now.

bpylant wrote:When it comes to beer I tend to brew smaller / session beers, so I'm right there with you.

My task this last year was to try to perfect my Vienna Lager... still working on it. Mostly dealing with the water now.

I'd be very interested to hear the details of your experiences with the Vienna, since I'd like to make one this Winter. You should start a thread about it.

No brewing for me this weekend either. I have a good supply right now, so I probably won't brew again until after the first of the year. I currently have a Porter that is carbonating/cold conditioning. I've been toying with the idea of spiking it with some spiced rum and serving it for Christmas. I also have a rye IPA that is in the dry hop phase.

slothrob wrote:

bpylant wrote:When it comes to beer I tend to brew smaller / session beers, so I'm right there with you.

My task this last year was to try to perfect my Vienna Lager... still working on it. Mostly dealing with the water now.

I'd be very interested to hear the details of your experiences with the Vienna, since I'd like to make one this Winter. You should start a thread about it.

Sorry, I set this aside to answer and forgot about it.

Here's the recipe I have right now, including water targets. I'm shooting for something more along the lines of Great Lakes Elliot Ness in terms of bitterness, so for a more traditional Vienna Lager you'll want to dial the IBUs back a bit. This one hasn't fully finished lagering yet, but I think the flavor is just slightly sharp so I'll likely dial back the gypsum just a bit on the next go-round and I might increase the % of Vienna bit (perhaps 55%, and dial back the Pilsner accordingly) to get a bit more toastiness. Still, I really like where I've gotten with this recipe -- it's come a long way from the original batch last year!

Size: 6.0 gal
Efficiency: 76%
Attenuation: 77%

Original Gravity: 14.56 °P (11.9 - 13.55)
Terminal Gravity: 3.48 °P (2.56 - 3.57)
Color: 14.63 SRM (9.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 5.99% (4.7% - 5.5%)
Bitterness: 43.2 (18.0 - 30.0)

Ingredients:
25.5% Munich 10L Malt - added during mash
29.1% Pilsner Malt - added during mash
43.7% Vienna Malt - added during mash
2 oz British Black Patent - added during mash

1 oz (33.3%) Liberty (4.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
1 oz (33.3%) Czech Saaz (3.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
1 oz (33.3%) Mt. Hood (6.1%) - added during boil, boiled 45 m
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 10 m
1 tsp Wyeast Nutrient - added during boil, boiled 10 m
1 ea ClarityFerm - added during boil, boiled 10 m
1 ea Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager

MASH WATER TARGETS
Ca 50 ppm
Mg 3 ppm
Na 8 ppm
SO4 58 ppm
Cl 62 ppm
HCO3 19 ppm
SO4/Cl Ratio 0.9

Target Mash pH: 5.40


:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
FERMENTATION
Target cell count: 422B
Starter 1: 2l / 200g (333B cells)
Starter 2: 1.5l / 151g (463B cells)

Pitch: 10ºC / 50ºF
Day 5: 20ºC / 68ºF (5ºF every 12 hours)
Day 14: start dropping to 45ºF / 7.22ºC


:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
GELATIN FINING
0.5 tsp. Knox unflavored gelatin
0.25 cup cool water
microwave in 7 sec. bursts until it reaches 145-150ºF
add to fermenter

Sounds good! There's a Vienna around here, from the Von Trapp Brewery, that I quite like. It tastes like it is most all Vienna, with a touch of Munich; very toasty. I also liked the couple Viennas that I tracked down in Prague, which seemed to be a mix of Pilsner and Munich.

One of the reasons I love Vienna Lagers is the toasty malt flavor and dry finish, so that's always my prime focus. GL's Eliot Ness has the increased bitterness which I think compliments the style very well, although I don't target as high an ABV as theirs.

Drinking one of these now; after a few weeks in the kegerator @ 40ºF it's come together quite nicely. (I did not actually lager this batch, I wanted to have it on tap for Thanksgiving.) It still has a slight sharpness in the flavor that I think is water chemistry, I plan to modify my mash water targets slightly for the next batch but I'm still very very happy with where this is.

Definitely a recipe I brew regularly and often have on tap.

bpylant wrote:It still has a slight sharpness in the flavor that I think is water chemistry, I plan to modify my mash water targets slightly for the next batch but I'm still very very happy with where this is.

Backing off the sulfate, perhaps replacing it with CaCl2, could be the last tweak you need.

Exactly what I'm thinking... also, I've been using Bru'n Water for my pH prediction (in addition to the calculations), and hopefully by the time I brew this again I'll have a pH meter. Been dragging my feet on buying one, trying to decide between the Hach PocketPro+, Milwaukee 102 or the Thermoworks.