Haiku Beer #4

Haiku #4 was a recipe from beertools.com for a Light Hybrid Beer.  My desire was to brew something light.  Called Azorean Brewer's Kolsch (5.0% ABV, not verified) it was made with the following ingredients (this recipe really just served as a basis as I had some left over hops I needed to use and of course all of the ingredients weren't available):

1) 1.20 lbs Germen Pilsen

2) 0.60 lbs German Vienna

3) 0.20 lbs Belgium Pilsner (change)

4) 0.05 lbs White Wheat (change)

5) 0.4 oz Willamette Pellet Hops (4.5%AA) [change]

6) White Labs WLP029 German Ale Kolsch Yeast (Liquid) [change]

Used StarSan sanitizer.

The Mash

Heated 2.5 quarts (10 cups) of water (refrigerator water which is carbon filtered) to 130 deg F.  Add grain and mixed.  Cooked for 20 minutes at 132 deg F and stirred fairly frequently and then cooked additional 45 minutes at 154-160 deg F.  

The Sparge

Heated additional 4 quarts of water (refrigerator water) to boiling then transferred to gallon fermentation jug.  Set up the strainer over the second pot and added the hot grain mash.  Then poured the heated water from the jug over the grains and into the second pot.  Once done recirculated the wort back through the grain once more into the original pot.

The Boil

Heated the wort until it began to boil at approximately 210 deg F.  This was done with just the middle heat on the inside burner on my stove.  Boil lasted 60 minutes with 0.2 oz of Willamette Hops at the start of the boil then added 0.1 oz at 15 minutes and then 0.1 oz with 1 minutes to go.  Tasted the wort and it was very sweet.

The Fermentation

Placed the brew pot into the sink with ice allowing the temperature to decrease to 70 deg F.  Allowed the mix to settle this time.  When pouring into the fermentor it was strained into a larger pot then transferred to the fermentor.  After the fermentor is full, the yeast was added and throughly mixed to aerate the liquid.  Note:  Liquid yeast is designed for 5 gallon batches.  This time did not shake the yeast but opened slowly and mixed with a tooth pick.  Still difficult to determine exact amount of yeast was added.

The yeast began fermentation and a fairly consistent burp began.  Primary fermentation lasted for about 36 hours.  Transferred beer to the basement and put in the airlock.  Allowed to sit for 3 weeks.

The Bottling

Used bottling sugar and dissolved this in 1/4 cup of water, I siphoned the beer into a pot and then bottled into 4 x bomber bottles (~650 mL).  Allowed to sit for another 2 weeks.

The Tasting

Opened and tried on 2/1/12. Great big bubble carbonation.  See photo.  Good light beer flavor with some backbone.  First time I used the bottle caps and based on the secondary fermentation this is the way to go.  

A light hybrid beer

Brew again in the Summer 

Refreshing cool taste