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Well, it’s getting close to winter here in North Carolina so I decided I’d brew up a winter ale.  If I’ve timed it right, it should be ready to go the week before Christmas this year.  This batch is a Belgian Winter White Ale.  You know, come to think of it; I don’t know if I remember having a Belgian Winter White Ale before.  So, I decided to brew a batch of it.  I found this recipe from BrewersFriend.com and they describe it like this:

This ale is light in body, light in color and just plain refreshing. It is spiced with coriander and bitter orange peel (a famous combination), but also receives some of its spicy nature from the Wyeast 3944 and its phenolic character.

Now, onto my session…  Let’s set the stage a little bit:
Outdoor Temp:  37 degrees
Experience brewing in cooler weather:  NONE
Number of ‘working’ digital thermometers:  NONE

So, I guess we should start from the moment I smacked the Wyeast Smack Pack.  I popped it around 1:30pm / 2:00pm the day before my brew day.  This was pretty simple, I found the little bubble thing inside the yeast pack and busted it open by… you guessed it… smacking the main yeast pack.  The yeast is contained in a small pocket inside the foil Wyeast pack.  Popping it releases the yeast into a little bit of wort (I think) so they can start propagating.  They make, say it with me now with your pinkie finger to your mouth, ONE HUNDRED BILLION yeast cells.  At 5:00pm, nothing, the pack was still deflated…  I shook the pack up a bit to make sure I had popped the packet and introduced all of the yeast cells to the wort.  Finally, at 10:00 pm the pack had swollen up.  I put it in the fridge so it would be ready for the next day’s session.

This yeast pack is all swole-up :

It’s 8:45am and time to start getting things setup.  I have managed to carve off some time of my brew day by setting up the brew station and sanitizing at the same time.  After doing all of the ‘prep work’, I heated up 2.75 gallons of my strike water to 170 degrees.  I was actually aiming for 165, but missed it a touch.  Here’s a note to self… When it’s cold, it may be best to leave the grain inside the house where it’s warm.  BUT, I brought the grain out when I started setting things up so it was nice and cold when it came time to add it to the mash tun.  I poured the strike water in the tun and waited a few minutes for it to heat up a bit.  Once I doughed in my grain the temp took a nosedive from 165 down to 140.  I was aiming for 155 degrees, 15 degrees short, what the heck…  Oh yeah, it’s cool outside and I poured in cold grain…  Duh!!!  To fix the temp problem, I decided to heated up a little bit of water till it boiled an poured it in carefully till the temp reached 155 degrees.  I probably had to add a half gallon of water.  So, what would have happened if I mashed at 140?  I’m told it would have been a little drier brew and possibly more alcoholic (because some of the enzymes, maybe???, convert at that temp). BTW, mashing at a higher temp can increase the beer’s body.

After 90 minutes of mashing, it was time to collect the first runnings and recirculate them into the mash.  I went a little slower than normal, hoping to improve on my efficiency a little.  I guess I should also note that I had the brew shop run my grain through their mill twice.  At this time, I was able to use my new refractometer.  Read all about the tool here.  I took Brix readings multiple times during the mash tun drain & sparging processes.  Below are my readings:

• First runnings:  22
• Initial mash tun drain:  20
• Sparge:  8
• Going into brew kettle:  12

If my calculations are correct, I was at 1.048 going into the kettle.  Also, if BeerSmith is correct I had a 78% efficiency from the tun.  I guess that’s good. Is there an efficiency rating that’s ‘too’ efficient?  I’ve seen some posts on the web about it…

I have to siphon my wort from the fermenting bucket to the kettle (since, at this time, I only have one kettle):

I only collected five gallons for the boil, whoops… misjudged the sparge a little.  From the 3.25′ish gallons of strike water, I collected 2 gallons from the tun’s initial drain.  So, I added a little more than three gallons of batch sparge water.  I had figured the initial drain would net more than 2 gallons.  Next time, I’ll heat up more sparge water so I’ll have more boil volume.

Nonetheless, the boil was on and it was time to add the hops.  I have modified my HSS (Hop Suspension System) a bit since its first use.  I had to come up with something new since I burnt myself a little trying to untie the hop bag on my last brew…  I had a spare (unused, cleaned, and sanitized) toilet flange.  I flipped it upside down and attached it to two pieces of Oak.  Why Oak… well I needed to dress up the gadget a touch.  Now, it’s a breeze to ad the hops and all; I just drop them in.  No more untying the bag and getting burnt.  Here it is in action, note the super sophisticated green twist ties:

With five minutes remaining in the boil, I added freshly ground orange peel and some coriander seed (along with the last hop addition).  I put these into the HSS, but later wondered if I would have achieved more aroma if they were put into the boil outside of the HSS…  One thing is I would have risked clogging the counter-flow chiller.

After the boil was over, I used my aerator again.  This time, I stuck it in the grommet in the top of  the fermenter’s lid.  This worked pretty well; I didn’t need to use a clamp and have the wort exposed to all of the elements.

Once we were done with the transfer, I had collected a total of four gallons.  This was a little disappointing, but expected with my lack of pre-boil volume.  Next, I added the yeast pack which was still swollen and it was at a ‘normal’ room temperature.  I sanitized the pack and snipped the end and poured it in.  I was shocked at the lack of yeast in the pack.  There wasn’t as much as I would have thought.

Time to seal it up and put it in the fermenting closet for three weeks.  Should be ready about a week before Santa’s arrival.  The day turned out to be nice and fairly warm.  I don’t think I’d rank the session in my top two or three, but I did learn from my small issues.  I also forgot, once again, to add the whirlfloc tablet.  The beer will be a little cloudy but should still be fine to drink.

If you’re interested, here is the recipe:

4 lbs	Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM)
3 lbs	Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM)
12.0 oz	Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM)
8.0 oz	Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
8.0 oz	Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)
0.50 oz	Crystal [3.50 %] (60 min)
0.50 oz	Hallertauer [4.80 %] (60 min)
0.50 oz	Hallertauer [4.80 %] (5 min)
0.50 oz	Crystal [3.50 %] (5 min)
1.00 items	Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)
1.50 oz	Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min)
2.00 oz	Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 min
1 Pkgs	Belgian Wit (Wyeast 3944)

Tags: burner, counterflow chiller, mash tun, refractometer, yeast