First Brewday, New Place

Kolsch, to me, is one of those styles which always seem to be overlooked when considering one's brewing docket. It either doesn't seem to be the right time of year to brew one, or I am too impatient to wait the additional time it takes to lager it, or I want to brew something intensely malty, or...well, you get the idea. This lack of initiative on my part is odd, considering the first time I truly enjoyed a lager-type beer was Goose Island's Summertime, a Kolsch-style beer. In fact, I believe I first drank it on Brother Thelonious' patio at his (old) Damen apartment, after an afternoon spent watching a Sox/Twins game and grilling hot dogs. Well, things have changed since then: I no longer drink Summertime; my hot dog consumption has been reduced significantly since switching over to only meat which I know from where it came, and how it was produced; and the Sox and Twins both are not nearly as good this season as they were in 2006.

For my first brew in the new place, I wanted to create a beer which would take advantage of the cooler temperatures in my basement, my new *gasp* temperature control system, convert some of my Wisconsin friends to craft beer, and also be a good quaffer for those hot summer days just over the horizon, threatening, ever threatening. Kolsch seemed an excellent fit for those parameters. Done well, I think the style has a balance to it which appeals to the craft beer drinker and macro beer drinker alike: subtle enough to appreciate the balance and craftsmanship for the former; and subtle enough so as to make it approachable to the latter.

I brewed the beer this past Sunday (4/29), after dragging out all of my equipment, cleaning it up, and stressing out over the best-by date on my package of yeast (April 9th). For this beer, I wanted to try out WLP862, better known as Cry Havoc, Charlie P's house strain of yeast and marketed to be good for lagers and ales. Given that it was past its best-by date and (in some camps) purported to be a slow starter, I made a 2-liter starter to compensate. Thankfully, it was chugging away by the morning of my brewday, less than 16 hours after I made it.

Next up to stress out about, of course was the temperature controller, my Johnson A419, coupled with a FermWrap to keep things warm in the cool basement.

The instructions, unfortunately, were very technical (for me), and I was in the middle of the mash and had very little time to decipher them as fully as I liked. I eventually determined I needed to shift some of the jumpers over from an open position to a close position on the internal circuitry to reflect what I wanted to accomplish, which was overriding a heating element, and instructing it to cut out (shut off) when it reached a certain temperature.

The rest of the brewday was uneventful, thankfully, given the new place and unfamiliar (and steep!) steps down to the basement. My wort chiller hooked up to the outside hose properly, chilled it down within 15 minutes, and was hustled inside before the coming storms could conspire to dump bacteria-laden water into my beer.

Above is my setup, which seems to be working well. Four days into the fermentation and it is still fermenting nicely, holding steady at 60F. Ambient temperature as of two hours ago was just around 56F. Below, the recipe specifications:

Ted's Kolsch
Batch size: 5.25 gallons
Pre-boil gravity: 1.039
Efficiency: 70.8%
Original gravity: 1.050
SRM: 4
IBU: 31
Mash: 90 minutes at 149F, for maximum conversion
Boil: 90 minutes, to drive off DMS precursors

Grains
95.4%- 10.3 lbs Pilsner malt
4.6%- .50 lbs Vienna malt

Hops
2.0 oz Hallertau (4.3% AA) (60 min)

Yeast
2 Liter starter of WLP862 (Cry Havoc)
5 tsp. yeast nutrient

Fermented at 60F

~Br. Abelard