Kolsch and All Grain

Another new brew is bubbling away in the fermentor today after brewing yesterday. The beer is an as-of-yet-unnamed German-style Kolsch, a very pale, straw-colored beer that is the ale's response to your typical, run of the mill lager (but better). The result is something like your favorite high-quality pilsener, like Corona or Red Stripe, but with a slightly more pronounced hop flavor and some subtle fruity character from the special German yeast strain. In other words, something most beer drinkers should enjoy, but complex enough to not fall in the category of "cheap beer."

Yesterday marked a pretty important milestone in my brewing timeline, as the Kolsch was my first all grain beer, which means that instead of partially using malt extract, the beer was made completely from straight barley grain. The difference between extract and straight grain is basically the difference between getting orange juice concentrate instead of getting fresh oranges and squeezing your own; for one, fresh all grain beers taste better, but require more equipment and much more effort. Things like water quality, pH, and mineral content come into play where they hadn't mattered much before, because it's the brewer's job to get the sugars out of the grains, rather than the producers of the malt extract.

It was a decent brew day, but my effiency on my all grain system was disappointing. Good brewers get 75-80% of the grains' sugars out of them for brewing purposes, while 70% is acceptable. My efficiency was just under 60%, while I had expected 70%. That means my beer suffered about a 15% decrease in alcohol and body for the same amount of base grain, which is still acceptable for the style (this Kolsch will end up being quite light at about 4.5% alcohol by volume, which is on the low range of the average content for the style). Practice will make perfect, though, as I still need to study some water chemistry information and buy a few more ingredients (including buffer salts that keep the water pH at a perfect 5.2) to really jump head first into all grain. But overall, not a failure of a brew day. The beer should turn out just fine, after all.

Eva, the 10-Malt Brown Ale, got bottled while I simultanously brewed the Kolsch, and should be ready in under two weeks. I thought it might need more time to mature, but the alcohol content on her being lower than expected as well (she should fall at a normal 6.0% or so) meant that she was plenty ready in just a few weeks. Preliminary tastings are promising.

That's all for now. Not sure what is on deck, but I'll post after I've gotten back to the books, bought my needed ingredients, and I feel like I've perfected the all grain procedure. Hopefully weather improves as well, as I'd like the next brew to be an outdoor one with my new burner hooked up to a propane tank, sitting in the lawn chair and soaking up the sun. Until then....

Sam