Aug 8, 2021 3 min read brew-17

Brew # 17 - Kolsch

I was going to brew a stronger American Lager, but I can't get the yeast. I could get Kolsch yeast so...Kolsch it is.

This recipe is based an all extract brew for a American lager that is a step up (in flavour an alcoholic content) from the Lite American Lager I brewed in February. That turned out to be a really nice, easy drink, as intended.

The plan was to go for something a bit heavier, but I can't get liquid lager yeast (of any variety) at the moment, so I've swapped to a Kolsch yeast instead.

The good news is that it means fermenting at a higher temperature, and things should be ready sooner, too.

Start date: 08 AUG 2021

Equipment

19 litre stainless steel stockpot w/ lid
Induction cooktop
Fermentasaurus ("Fermus") w/ pressure kit
Standard HDPE fermenting bin
Sanitiser in spray bottle
Long handle spoon
Small grain sock
Funnel (no strainer)
Paint strainer

Ingredients

3kg light dry malt extract
700g rice malt syrup (half of this was crystalised)
32g Hallertau Mittelfruh hop pellets (3% AA)
4 x White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch Yeast‌

Cleaning/Sanitising

Sprayed a HDPE fermenting bin with Iodophor solution. Left for a few minutes before rinsing with boiling water.

Soaked the Fermus in Sodium Percarbonate for a few hours (or days). Emptied and rinsed with cold tap water, and allowed to drip dry before spraying with Iodophor (iodine) to sanitise. Rinsed with cooled boiled water after ~5 mins.

Brew Day

There are no grains to steep for this recipe, so it's a case of bringing the water required to boiling point as quickly as possible. This is a partial boil, so we need 11.5 litres in the stock pot to start with, plus half the DME and half the rice syrup to give us the correct SG.

Start time: 12:15

Boiled kettle and added filtered water repeatedly until I had ~11 litres of hot water in the brew pot
Placed the stock pot on induction cooktop (set to 'Fry') and started to heat
Added half (1.5kg) light DME and half the rice syrup to the stock pot, stirring continuously
Continued to heat the wort to boiling point (NO BOIL OVERS!)
In the meantime, added ~11 litres of cold filtered water to fermenting bin and placed this in a freezer (I don't want this to freeze, but I want to add the boiling wort straight into the fermenter rather than use the ice bath so I want to make this as cold as possible)
Once the wort was boiling, placed the Hallertau hop pellets into the grain sock and added to the boil (13:14)‌
Boil for 45 minutes

Fermenting bin with filtered water and the wort with hops in grain sock

I forgot to add the Irish moss 10 minutes before end of the boil...oops!
After 60 minutes boiling, I turned the cooktop off (14:15) and removed the grain sock with the hops
Added remaining (1.5kg) DME and rice syrup, stirring continuously
Because the rice syrup was crystalised I added some of the boiling wort to soften and dissolve - seemed okay
I threw the paint strainer in to the wort, too, to pasteurise
Everything stood for 15 minutes
Then I removed the chilled water from the freezer - the lid was frozen in place so it took a couple of minutes to release
Drained the paint strainer and placed it over the top of the fermenting bin
Dropped the funnel into that
Poured the wort into the fermenting bin via the funnel with paint strainer filter underneath (Note: it is only possible to pour the boiling wort straight in because I'm using the HDPE bin - the Fermus doesn't cope with temps > 50C - do NOT do this with a Fermus)
Placed the fermenting bin in the fridge with temp controller set to 18C
Added yeast packets to the fridge to stabilised temperatures