NHC 2015 Cat 1 1st (Heinrich Helles Better that BIAB) & 3rd (Pedro's Helles)

[pob]

To Helles and Back
or
How to kill a beer with a million paper cuts

Dreamt & discussed over a coffee with John/Ciderhead, was how this epic journey & emotional roller coaster was born. My HERMS is better than your BIAB*, nah nah, nana, nah, it went; gauntlet thrown down and duly accepted, The Big Pils Off Brewday was planned.

Picking the style and recipe took a few attempts, at least 3 false starts before a Helles was chosen (could have been something to do with HBC having the yeast available on special order).

Next, how do we work out a recipe - off to the book-shelf or Kindle at least, and to the section on Light Lager in Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles: 80 Winning Recipes Anyone Can Brew.

As they say, why bother fixing something that ain't broke, so the MÜNCHEN GROßES BIER was picked;

"A clean, malt-focused German lager with a gentle, bready malt character. This is a smooth, easy-drinking beer often consumed by the litre."

and the ingredients entered into BeerSmith to tweak for both our equipment and rounding for metric weights & volumes.


Recipe: John's HERMS - Heinrich Helles Better that BIAB (21L into FV), Alc 5.0% ABV
Soft Wickla Well Spring water

   4.550 kg Floor Malted Pilsner (3.9 EBC)     91.2 %
   0.320 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC)                  6.4 %
   0.120 kg Melanoidin Malt (39.4 EBC)            2.4 %

   48 g Hallertauer [4.00 %]   60 min          19.5 IBUs

   1 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 15 mins

   3L Starter of Munich Helles Yeast (White Labs WLP860)



Recipe: Pob's BIAB - Pedro's Helles (21L into FV), Alc 5.0% ABV
Soft Wickla Well Spring water

   5.000 kg Floor Malted Pilsner (3.9 EBC)       91.3 %
   0.350 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC)                   6.4 %
   0.125 kg Melanoidin Malt (39.4 EBC)             2.3 %

   50 g Hallertauer [4.00 %]   60 min          20.8 IBUs

   1 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 15 mins

   3L Starter of Munich Helles Yeast (White Labs WLP860)


This was a Single Infusion mash for 90 mins at 66°C and wort brought to boil for 90 mins. Wort was then to be oxygenated with Pure O₂ for 20 sec.

This was then fermented at 10°C in a BrewPi controlled larder fridge, with a Lager profile (a 3 day Diacetyl rest after 15 days & then reduced down to lagering temps (2°C) for a further 4 weeks).

So how did the The Big Pils Off Brewday progress, well luck was on our side and it was a fantastic sunny mid (8th) August day, although still a good 10°C cooler in the Alpine regions of Wickla. I brought my two boys down, so the kids were playing with each other, out in the fresh air, having fun & wearing each other out, (although there might have been Minecraft & an Xbox involved at some stage).

My grain-bill was slightly more than John's as he claimed his HERMS was running at 8888% efficiency and actually produced sugars from thin air without the need of grain at all. I decided for conservative sake, to go with a 75% efficiency, which I'm happy with. It normally is in the high 70's, so now I need to underhit.

What was obvious was, how portable my keggle BIAB system is, compared to a 3V HERMS setup. Whereas mine consists of a converted 2 kettle element, 50L keggle & a polyester bag, it was completely overwhelmed by:

• a 30L HLT Bucket (in fairness, John did preheat my water in this to speed up the day, before he started)
• a 34L Cooler Box mash tun
• a mini-Burco HERMS unit
• PID unit controlling HERMS
• a 50L keggle/kettle
• a Chugger pump
• a couple of metres of silicon tubing & disconnects
• 5 or 6 power extension leads, all precariously draped or placed strategically on the ground, beside the hose, in the splash areas, and over a couple of cornies, benchtops, tool boxes in between (nervous, me never, this is why John wears rubber boots).
• Toaster
• Cuddly toy

Just minor observations, so I assemble (fill with one lot of 35L water, fit bag, velcro wrap in insulation foam & plug in my two elements) and mashing in I go. This was a single infusion mash for 90 mins at 66°C.

Meanwhile, John is plugging all the bits together, a few false starts on the chugger and he's nearly reading to mash in, once 2nd bucket of Strike water is up to temp.

Anyway, so Round 1 goes to John for using less grain, or so it seemed until I hit my 'normal' figures and overshoot my gravity.  Grain bag was removed and wort brought to boil for 90 mins.

Meanwhile, John get's his water up to Strike Temp, the HERMS starts to react to temp in the mash tun, occasionally going over at the beginning, causing a few palpitations/fecks until it settles down (or gets temporarily unplugged - once or twice) at 64.4°C and then stayed there.

Once boil is over, I begin to cool, with cold spring water (pre-meter days) and a mega immersion cooler (John's) I was down to 15°C within 20 mins - major jealousy there alright.

Meanwhile, John is finished mashing, hitting all the right gravities and starts to sparge, with more water from the HLT bucket (3rd time in use this morning/lunchtime).

Eventually, John's starts the 90 min boil, think we started feeding the kid's at this stage, I might even have been cleaning up around now.

Boil now over, beer is chilled down to 15°C and transferred into glass carboys. Wort was then oxygenated with Pure O₂ for 20 sec. A 6L starter had been built up over 6 days at ferment temperature, this was then split into two 3L flasks for pitching.

My whirlpool wasn't too successful, so it had a lot of trub transferred into the carboy, so much, that after the oxygenation it looked like a latte. To make sure there were no sabotage, I was given the choice of which yeast to pitch, I trusted John but he was having none of it, didn't want it coming back as an excuse. Both carboys were then put into a tall larder fridge with heating tubes to maintain fermentation temperature.

The BrewPi, with a lager profile, then took over for about 3 weeks. When wired up correctly this will control your fermentation temperature to within 0.05°C. A stainless steel thermowell is held in place with an airlock bung on one of the the carboys.

Fermentation took off nicely and was quick to get going, due to the big healthy starter. It was left at 10°C for 20 days before a D-Rest up to 16°C for 3 days. The temperature was then dropped back to 10°C for a couple of days, then the lagering phase began.

The two carboys were racked into clean carboys, airlocks fitted and the BrewPi was allowed to drop the temperature gradually down to 2°C over 24 days. It was then left at that temperature for over a month to condition.

It was then further racked into kegs and kept lagered in John's Keezer until we could bottle. John of course maintained some sampling, for quality control purposes, at all times to make sure it was as good as we hoped. John's photos of a perfectly poured cool Helles, taken on different warm evenings showed how good this beer is.

-
Sidenote: John was very proud of the conversion he did on his chest freezer into a Keezer. He built a wooden collar out of sturdy 2x4s, couple of coats of varnish and drilled for 3 taps, all very smart and neat. Temperature control was provided by a STC-1000 with the probe in at the back of the Keezer.
-

One evening a week or so later, John went out to pour himself a nice cool hoppy Pale Ale, went to the tap and ... nothing. 'Bother' he said (may have been something else), no gas. Gas bottled checked, fine?  Checked disconnects, nothing??  Checked tap, nothing???  Pours another beer, nothing!!!  ARGHHHH, clap, billix, fruck was heard in the hills of Wickla that night.  WTF.  Those 6 cornies of lovely beer, now 6 18L ICEPOPS, frozen solid. Remember that STC-1000 with the probe, well it was measuring the temperature at the top of the Keezer, not the temperature where the Keezer was working at best, from the bottom up. Lesson learned, probe now repositioned & works fine, now.

A sheepish phone call to me followed, bit of ROFLing and a 'relax man' approach by me, sense of not-quite-panic from John. Unfrozen & cloudy as feck, John decided to add a secret magical clarifying agent, from Hop Bomb, to offset any damage done by freezing it. I said leave mine, it'll be grand. Anyway, more lagering pursued as we let the clarifier do it's thing and another date was planned for bottling.

Both samples look very similar after clarifier added to one, other left to own devices.

We intended to bottle the beer on 10th October, but due to low CO2 pressure / flat beer, another urgent text followed and it was postponed for another week.

Finally, when we did get to bottle (a week or two later than planned) and while many hands do make light work, it's a complete PITA when we decided to bottle gun 4 kegs worth of beer; 2 Helles, a Dubbel and a barrel Porter. You will note now, that after counting up the weeks of fermenting, lagering, delays, delays it is no longer August. Well, it's a bracing mid November morning with an easterly breeze rolling over the nearby hills, IT'S F**KING FREEZIN'; great fun when handling wet, cold bottles (I'm not denying I'm a big girl's blouse when it comes to the cold), but flippin' Freezin'.

So how big is a corny you ask, I'd say about 18L or 19L. So we were 23 500ml bottles into the beergunning of my corny when, pzzzz, splutter, ... none left, huh?? It transpires all the quality control was done on my corny and the angels share in Wickla is mighty, lots of pisstaking & laughter insued. Grovelling and apologies followed, to be dismissed as the best brew we've both done.

A few months later, we both bring some down to the Garden County Brewers tasting meetup, to let the other members try it. Apart from the usual 'I don't really get/like lagers', mine went down well. John's on the other hand, well, eh ... it didn't, soapy, fairy liquid, urghh

So, I won, BIAB is better than any fancy, schmancy HERMS.


P.S.
The Nationals come around, I enter mine hoping to do OK, considering the abuse it went through.

John found his last few bottles and entered them as well.

So did the judges still think his stank, did they what ... 1st place Gold in Light Lager & 2nd place Best in Show awarded to a beer called "Heinrich Helles Better that BIAB".

Sure what do I know.

As for the Cider category, now that's another story.


Congrats to John & a fun brewday.



* Brew in a Bag, Boil in a Bag, Brew in a Sock, Brew in a Bath, ... , or any other variation John comes up with 

[Bubbles]

Epic post!

[Qs]

Great write up.

[Will_D]

Really enjoyed that Peter. Many thanks!!

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

I can still taste soap!!!

[Shanna]

In the interest of education & for those of us looking to produce largers in the future why would the helles have a soapy aftertaste?

Shanna

PS: Great post by the way

[brenmurph]

wel dun lads on the beer and the write up Fantastic
Delighted to finish 2nd    to the 2nd beer overall with our Dortmunder Delight and experiment and first for us. As the original of the species club relating to promoting Lagers we are very proud to be silver medalist in this section and can only say that comon lads and lassies again I emphasise get into lager brewing and enjoy the delights of a real lager on tap at home!

wel dun POB & CH ..............get ye next year

[pob]

In the interest of education & for those of us looking to produce largers in the future why would the helles have a soapy aftertaste?

Shanna

PS: Great post by the way

Don't think it was lager specific.
From John Palmer:
"Soapy flavors can caused by not washing your glass very well, but they can also be produced by the fermentation conditions. If you leave the beer in the primary fermentor for a relatively long period of time after primary fermentation is over ("long" depends on the style and other fermentation factors), soapy flavors can result from the breakdown of fatty acids in the trub. Soap is, by definition, the salt of a fatty acid; so you are literally tasting soap."

Think it may have been a side effect of clarifying agent & the beer stratifying into different layers as it froze. When it was BeerGun'ed the soapy bottle may have been from bottom of corny. Only conjecture, we don't actually know

Glad everyone enjoyed the read.

[pob]

wel dun lads on the beer and the write up Fantastic
Delighted to finish 2nd    to the 2nd beer overall with our Dortmunder Delight and experiment and first for us. As the original of the species club relating to promoting Lagers we are very proud to be silver medalist in this section and can only say that comon lads and lassies again I emphasise get into lager brewing and enjoy the delights of a real lager on tap at home!

wel dun POB & CH ..............get ye next year

It was great fun doing it.

You'll have to up your game Bren, as I want to beat CH first

The lager categories will benefit from the effort put in by everyone trying harder & more importantly we'll have something nice & tasty to drink as a result.

[Hop Bomb]

Nice one lads! Congrats on the medals.

Id bet 50e the soapy finish is from finings (i get it on every beer I use biofine on)

[biertourist]

Great story!

I haven't thought much about the soapy flavors yet, but for what it's worth the Weyermann Floor-malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt was literally created as an old-style undermodified malt that "requires" / benefits from a decoction.

We regularly hear that "modern malts don't require decoction" -and while that's OVERWHELMINGLY so and a couple of years ago may have even been universally true, this particular malts is one of the exceptions to the rule.  It should be multi-step infusion mashed or decoction mashed to get the best out of it; it is literally made with this process in mind.

-Clearly you guys rocked it anyway, but just image what it could have been if decocted.
http://www.weyermann.de/downloads/pdf/Voigt_Poster_Trends%20in%20Brewing%20Ghent%202010.pdf


Adam

[biertourist]

Also for what it's worth on the soapy flavors: the amount of fatty acids in the finished beer is largely based upon the lautering techniques and the amount of trub passed to the fermenter.


I just read a brewing journal article that compared the modern wort separation systems and techniques and compared the fatty acid content and fermentation performance resulting from each system / technique and these were listed as the primary drivers.  Recirculated, slow running lauter tuns (limited mixing) resulted in the least amount of fatty acids present but also the slowest fermentation -the beers that had more fatty acids passed into the fermenter tasted better initially -highly trained sensory panel tasting- but under long term storage the results started to switch.


Adam

[biertourist]

Practical application: To avoid soapy flavors recirculation/"vorlauf" your wort until clear, and either leave trub behind in the kettle or leave it to settle in your fermenter and then siphon off of it into another fermenter (use the first fermenter as a "settling tank").


Adam