Tafelbier - Low Gravity Brewing

If you follow anything related to homebrewing you will quickly realise that there is definite tendency for homebrewers to brew high ABV beers. Big beers create big impressions and when you want your beers to get noticed, this is often the easiest way to do it - particularly in competition. However, I think brewing big is also a way for mediocre brewers to disguise flaws in their beers and can quite often be a marker for lazy, unadventurous recipe formulation. Who cares about the correct yeast pitching rate, or eliminating off flavours, when you mask it with a couple of dry hop additions?! Sure it might be enjoyable to drink, but are you actually becoming a better brewer?

So as a bit of fun recently, one of the homebrew clubs I'm a member of (Bristol Craft Brewers) lay down a challenge to everyone to brew a low gravity beer for the August meeting. Quite a few people weren't all that interested in taking part, which is fair enough. Another problem with homebrewing is finding the time to do it and brewing an extra low abv beer just doesn't fit in with a lot of peoples' schedules, but hopefully there will be a few examples to try out.

The thing that I find so appealing about brewing a low abv beer is that it's a real challenge to get right. There's going to be a small grain bill so every bit counts. You also need to find a way of increasing the body so it doesn't taste watery. Hop bitterness will be overpowering in a light beer, so you can't just throw hops at it as you might a high gravity IPA. There is also the appealing factor that pretty much any colour/style of beer has the potential to be made into a low abv version. There are so many ways of building body in a beer - higher mash temperature, dextrin malts, crystal malts, yeast choice and so on - that you can choose whichever way suits the style best.

For my effort I took inspiration from a Belgian Tafelbier that was brewed to replace fizzy drinks in school! Yes, those crazy Belgians gave beer to school kids as a response to child obesity. So this is a very light beer brewed with some belgian yeast character, aiming to be refreshing and easy to drink (without getting drunk). Due to time constraints I only had a limited window to brew this between festivals this summer, and I was unable to order in any specific ingredients. This meant the only yeast I could get hold of was Safale T-58, a dry yeast that I haven't used before, and the specialty grains were led by what I already had. Having said that, I was happy with the recipe that I put together, I would've liked to have got hold of a more expressive and less attenuative yeast.

Ingredients

Amt Name %/IBU 1.700 kg Pilsner (2 Row) UK (7.0 EBC) 73.3 % 0.250 kg Vienna Malt (7.0 EBC) 10.8 % 0.150 kg Caramunich I (Weyermann) (100.5 EBC) 6.5 % 0.120 kg Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC) 5.2 % 0.100 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (3.9 EBC) 4.3 % 5.00 g Magnum [14.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min 9.3 IBUs 0.50 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) - 3.00 g Peppercorns (Boil 5.0 mins) - 1.0 pkg SafBrew T-58 -

Brew Day - 20/07/2014
O.G. 1.027

I mashed at 69C to increase the amount of unfermentable sugars in the wort for extra body. The first gallon of runnings was boiled for an hour to reduce it to just over half of it's previous volume. This was intended to increase the caramel impression of the beer. The gravity numbers were a little higher than predicted, but I decided not to adjust it as the abv will be so low anyway.

Unfortunately, brewing on one of the hottest days of the year means that an immersion chiller isn't all that effective. The temp dropped quite well initially, but then stayed at around 23C. A check of the mains water temperature (20C) made up my mind that it wasn't going to drop too much more like that, so I ran it off into the fermenter and put that in my new brew fridge! I've set that for 17C, so hopefully it will be able to bring the wort down to a more realistic pitching temperature for the yeast.

The fridge took a few hours but got the wort down to a pitchable temperature of 17.9C by the end of the day. I was a bit concerned that the rehydrated yeast would've been at around 22C (ambient temp) when I pitched it, but there was not a lot I could do about that!

Summer IPA

I haven't brewed for a couple of weeks and I've got some free time this Sunday, thanks to there being no Six Nations to watch, so I've put together something hoppy. Kind of a pancake day brew this one. I wanted to use some Summer hops that I've had in the freezer for a while, so I put this recipe together to be a moderate alcohol IPA. I've not found much information about Summer hops other than they're supposed to give an apricot aroma and are suited to dry hopping. Apart from that I've heard that they aren't a very dominant flavour hop and can get a bit lost in the mix.

Today's hops.

 What I've decided to do is go for a simple grain bill of mostly Pilsner malt with a bit of light Crystal and a bit of Munich to add a bit of sweetness and biscuity flavour. This will hopefully give a reasonably neutral base to the beer without being bland.

For the hops I've gone with a relatively neutral bittering addition of Northern Brewer. I'm going to add Summer at all stages to get that flavour throughout the beer too. Other hop additions will be at 5mins, 0mins and dry hop. I was going to use just Summer and Cascade for these thinking that the citrus, grapefruit character of the Cascade would go well with the apricot. I then thought that it might be a bit too similar so I decided on a reasonably small addition of Amarillo at 5mins to give the beer an element of juicy fruit sweetness. So here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Amt Name Type # %/IBU 5.000 kg Pilsner (2 Row) UK (7.0 EBC) Grain 1 90.9 % 0.250 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (78.8 EBC) Grain 2 4.5 % 0.250 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 3 4.5 % 36.00 g Northern Brewer 2012 [9.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 35.7 IBUs 10.00 g Summer [6.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 6.4 IBUs 20.00 g Amarillo [8.70 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 6 3.5 IBUs 20.00 g Cascade 2013 [8.40 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 7 3.4 IBUs 10.00 g Summer [6.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 1.3 IBUs 20.00 g Cascade 2012 [7.50 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 10.0 min Hop 9 2.8 IBUs 20.00 g Summer [6.30 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 10.0 min Hop 10 2.3 IBUs 50.00 g Summer [6.30 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs

I will be using my new hop filter for the brew too. I bought this ages ago from Mr Lard (who I can absolutely recommend for homebrew kit), but it was too big for my boiler. Yesterday I finally got around to taking it apart and remaking it at half the size. Hopefully this is the end of standing over the kettle at the end of a brew day, sweeping hops away from the hop filter with my mash paddle, while the beer trickles out. Seriously, this has added an extra hour onto my last few brew days so if I can put a stop to it it'll be a big step forward!

New hop filter ready to go!

The water treatment will be nice and simple today with some acid to bring the mash pH down and some gypsum to bring out the hops:
Lactic acid: 5ml to mash
Gypsum: 2g to mash, 2g to sparge

Predicted mash pH 5.45. I use an adapted version of the EZ Water spreadsheet and I find it fantastic! I actually found a pot of pH test strips that I bought ages ago today. So I got to test the pH for real today. Although they're not the easiest thing to get an accurate value from, I measured it as being between 5.0 and 5.4. This is a bit lower than I was aiming for, but should be absolutely fine. Good to know the spreadsheet is pretty reliable.

Now that's how rehydrating yeast should end up!

 The brew day all went according to plan and was pretty stress free. I'm pleased to report that the hop filter worked like a charm and didn't get blocked up at all. Well worth the money. So I'm writing this at 4:30pm with a cup of coffee having brewed beer, tidied up, and cleaned the mash tun and kettle! I love it when a plan comes together!

Legendary Wit

05/08/2013
O.G. 1.046

Water Treatment
Lactic acid: 7ml to Mash water (17l)
CaCl: 4g to Mash, 4g to Sparge.
Epsom salts: 4g to Mash, 4g to Sparge.

Ingredients

Amt Name Type # %/IBU 2.36 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 48.6 % 2.00 kg Wheat, Flaked (3.2 EBC) Grain 2 41.2 % 0.49 kg Oats, Flaked (2.0 EBC) Grain 3 10.1 % 200.00 g Oat Husks (Mash 0.0 mins) Other 4 - 10.00 g Tettnang [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 6.5 IBUs 20.00 g Saaz (2012) [3.10 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 2.7 IBUs 15.00 g Saaz [4.15 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 7 1.6 IBUs 40.00 g Orange zest (Boil 5.0 mins) Herb 8 - 4.00 g Chammomile (Boil 5.0 mins) Herb 9 - 10.00 g Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 10 - 10.00 g Saaz (2012) [3.10 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 11 0.0   IBUs 1.0 pkg Belgian Wit Ale (White Labs #WLP400) Yeast 12 -

Mash
This was the first go at a non-standard mash for me. Previously, all my beers have been the product of a single infusion mash, occasionally cold steeping dark grains when I feel adventurous! This time, however, I went all out crazy for the complicated mash!
The simple bit first, most of the Pilsner and Munich malts went into the mash tun as usual with around 7 litres of water. The water was heated to result in a mash rest at 50C. I put the lid on and left it there to do what it does while I dealt with the next few steps.
Most of the Wheat and Oats were put into two 5 litre pots on the hob - it would've been all of the wheat and oats but my pots aren't big enough! Some Pilsner malt was mixed in too, to add some diastatic power. Unmalted wheat and oats have no enzymes, so won't convert on their own. I then added water to each of these mini-mashes at a rate of (behold the inconvenience of imperial - metric conversions) 9.222L water : 2.56kg grain!
With my mini-mashes perilously close to the tops of the pots I followed (as best I could) this schedule:
50C for 15 mins
65C for 15 mins
Boil for 15 mins
I'd love to say this went off without a hitch, but one pot heated up much quicker than the other, and unfortunately I was measuring the temperature in the other on at the time! So one mini mash overshot the first rest quite a bit and then had to drop back down to 50C, but hey ho!


After following this schedule and miraculously avoiding any boil overs, the mini-mashes were dumped into the main mash. This magically brought the main mash temp up to approximately 70C (plus or minus a couple of degrees) where it was left to complete the mash for 30mins.
Just to add a bit more variety amd margin for error in the brewday, I also decided to batch sparge this one! This was surprisingly easy I thought, though I have zero experience. I think it was a bit quicker, which was great as the uber-complex mash had extended the brew day somewhat (not to mention the hangover I had), But it did mean I had to stand by the mash tun. I has a hose coming from the HLT which I ran liquor through slowly and sprinkled over the grain bed. Maybe not textbook techniques, and certainly no automation involved, but I'm winging it here! Did I say I had a hangover?!
The rest of the day was fairly run of the mill and much more like a standard brew day. The 40g of Orange zest that I added was the weight of zest from six navel oranges. The coriander seeds I weighed out into a plastic bag and then whacked with the back of a spoon to 'crush' them. And the chammomile was the equivalent of the contents of two tea bags.
The 'curse' of our surprisingly good summer here in Bristol meant that cooling the brew post-boil was a pain in the arse! I got it down to around 37ish and then just ran it off into a sanitised fermenting bin and sealed it up. I sat it in a cold water bath and left it to cool down overnight. With the heat of the cold water coming out of the tap that was running through the immersion chiller, I reckon I could've dropped the temperature to 20C. But the quantity of water that would've used, and for the amount of time it would take, it just wasn't worth it.

This is actually from 20/08/13, but you get the idea.

After pitching the yeast there was a little lag for it to get going, but then it formed a big fluffy krausen in the fermenter and seems to be going about its business quite happily. I have no real means of cooling the ferment so it's just been left to rise with the weather. But I think an average temp of 23 is realistic.
----------------------------------------------------
20/08/13 (day 15)
S.G. 1012

Close, but not quite there yet...

I had thought the ferment would be done by now, but apparently not. Having used this yeast before I'm sure that the gravity will drop further than this. I haven't been taking regular readings, so I don't know what the profile of the ferment has been. That might be interesting to do in future, to see whether it slows or stalls a bit. But I gues this carries a risk of infection when brewing on such a small scale.
Anyway, I can't bottle it yet so I'm leaving it for another week while I go to a festival! Hopefully it'll be done by the time I get back.
As a side note, I think the average temperatures have dropped and it looks like it's fermenting more in the range of 18-21C, which may explain the slower ferment but is also more in the range I wanted.
---------------------------------------------------
31/08/13
F.G. 1.005

A surprisingly low final gravity, probably 4-5 points lower than I was expecting. The beer tastes great though! Good body despite the low gravity, and a nice dry finish. The fruit and spices have mellowed in the brew and combined really well. There is a great aroma of bananas too, which I am really pleased about. This is probably from the drop in temperature allowing a cooler ferment.

Will bottle today with 100g of sugar.
Quite prematurely I have already entered this into the National Homebrew Competition! Luckily I think it's turned out quite well, so it'll be great to get some proper feedback on it. Now I just need it to bottle condition beautifully over the next two weeks before judging. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute!
------------------------------------------------------