The Beautiful Disaster - My first attempt at a Kölsch.
"Drunk by 1 Kölsch"
Kölsch is my favorite everyday drinking beer. It was shown to me years earlier when I just started homebrewing. I never even heard of it and I remember brewers saying "Kölsch-style" because it has its noble roots. A brewer friend of mine made a homebrew version and it wasn't like anything I had before. It was smooth, crisp and had a noble hop bite along with this nice fruity/slight ester thing going on. After that, I was on a mission!
This Blog is a little different as I rushed myself and wasn't thinking of the first thing I should have been, The BEER!
- First Wort Thoughts -
So, What's the issue?
I used an incorrect profile setup in Beersmith because I rushed the recipe and didn't double check my numbers. Since I got my wort to pitching temp so quickly, I just transferred the wort to the fermenter and pitched the yeast. I pitched a full yeast pack into 3 gallons of wort and then I questioned my numbers.
The beer fermented out fine, I lagered it for about 4 weeks, the most painful 6 weeks of my life (2 weeks of cold conditioning/carbing)
We ended up having people over and killed the keg way too fast. It was good, I only got one picture of it but not many numbers or any official tasting notes. I didn't plan on drinking it all, but it was a hot day and just went down too smooth!
Usually, I talk about my thoughts of what I want the beer to be and all that jazz. This one was no different at first but quickly shifted and I lost focus. So because I didn't take tasting notes and I don't remember much about the beer this is more of a lesson about water ratios. I don't know what I wanted out of this beer more than to test my system honestly and to have a nice refreshing Kölsch on tap with some Strawberry notes.
Recipe:
Beersmith: XML (These are updated to my system and but it's a rough idea, but with better water ratios)
Below is just my notes from the day/beer:
6.5 gallons of water total needed for Mash. 2.5 mash, 4 gallons sparge. (The problem right here)
Added 7 grams of Calcium Chloride - To water
Added 7 Grams of Epsom Salt - To water
Added 4 grams of Gypsum to Mash.
Mash P.H came in at 5.4
Fermentation:
Yeast pitched at 2:30pm on Saturday, May 5, 2018. Actively the following day.
Thursday, May 10, 2018 - Fifth day of Fermentation, activity is slow, but moving.
May 15, 2018 - 1.020 (Reading was off here, it was more like 1.016) That was still a little too low
Added dryhops in on the 17th with actively still going which might have been the issue with the haziness but I doubt it. It was only an oz of Huell Melon and not at peak. Upon further reading, Kölsch yeast does tend to take time to drop out like I stated above.
- Final Thoughts -
When I do recipe design for a beer, I have a few steps, besides getting inspired by other versions I had, I will look up various levels of recipes, from homebrewed to professional. I will look at the BJCP style guide as well as read up on historical practices, techniques and ultimately build from there. I will evaluate what I want out of the beer and take all my research and design the beer. I didn't do this for this recipe: I spent less than a few hours thinking about it until just went - Let's try this yeast and this simple grain build with these hops. The beer turned out well and because I have a process and understand recipe percentages, I sort of pulled it out of my ass: Note the Recipe above is fixed! I adjusted everything to achieve a similar number, so if you download it, you'll notice the water is updated.
This recipe was rushed on my want for a Kölsch. So much so that I was even trying to rush the fermentation and lager times before I even brewed this beer. I remember hating the idea of waiting for a 4-6 weeks lager time and just wanted to drink it. It wasn't a bad beer which is one thing I love about brewing beer the correct* way, you will at least get something drinkable. I've redone this after more research but also I learned a lot from this Disaster.
Now, Why did I even post this? Two reasons, transparency, and the future. I plan on brewing a lot of different Kölsch ideas and I want to revisit this beer at a later date, I want to rethink this beer completely and fully workout what I want out of my Kölsch. The aroma and flavors I was searching for were sort of present.
This beer taught me a lot and really put me in check! Since this brew I've brew two lagers and lagered them out, so my patience has become a lot better. In fact, I'm planning a lot more lagers than ales these days, I can't wait to brew my next Kölsch.
*fresh ingredients, fresh hops, fresh yeast, reasonable fermentation temperatures, Cleanliness which is the most important - you'll make something drinkable if you're reasonable. Don't put 10oz's of dryhops in 5 gallons of beer. It don't match!
Go Brew and don't worry too much, you can still impress your friends with a clean drinking beer!
Learn more about the beer know as "Kölsch"
