A local brewing house is having a brewing competition for our local homebrew club. Members of the club can brew any beer they wish using an extensive list of malts and hops and then inoculating with one of their 3 house strains. I want to compete. I want to put my brews up against my comrades and see how they fair.
My zwickel batches are a convenient way to build up my yeast culture for my Oktoberfest brew session (happening in a couple weeks) but if truth were to be told I get as excited for the zwickel as I do for any of my other beers throughout the year. Anyways....
My Zweet Zweet Zwickel recipe is essentially unchanged from last year:
16# German Pils
2# Crystal 20L (Carahell)
1# Carapils (Carafoam)
60 minute addition of Hallertau to 20 IBU
15 minute addition of Hallertau to 3.5 IBU (essentially 1/3 of the 60 minute addition by weight assuming the same AA of hops)
Mash at 128F for 20 minutes, 149F for 30 minutes, 158 for 30 minutes and then 170F for 20 minutes. I didn't hit my 158 or 170 steps and I don't know why. Some weird thermal phenomenon with the mash tun.
Chilled to 55F pretty easily with the ground water temps being in the 40s.
OG: 1.050
5.5 gallons got hit with a 2 liter starter of WLP833 German Bock Lager Yeast
2.5 gallons got hit with WY1007 German Ale yeast from Apple Blossom Brewing Company
2.5 gallons got hit with WY3522 Belgian Ardennes yeast from Apple Blossom Brewing Company
I will have a taste-off between the two 2.5 gallon batches to see if either are worthy of the competition (in late-April). I think the German Ale will have some Zwickel character and the Belgian will turn this recipe into a classic Belgian pale ale.
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| Every good brew day should involve previous brew days' beers. This is some of the last of the mild I made for Christmas 2014 and had to drink by myself. |
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| These hallertau hops were smelling really legit. |
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| The ying and the yang. Hops getting to know the malt juice. |
