Lagerhead Turtle Mishap

So I haven't posted in a while, however there's a reason for that... We haven't made any beer!! I feel like quite a slacker. The last beer we did make was the Lagerhead Turtle. However the fermentation didn't exactly go as planned.

I first would like to point out a lesson learned... "NEVER USE EXPIRED YEAST". Well I shouldn't say never, but if you do, make sure you create a large starter. I however should have taken my own advice. The yeast was only out of date a few weeks. I figured it would still be okay, however it wasn't.

After 4 days of no fermentation, I declared the yeast dead. Even a gravity reading indicated that no sugar to alchohol conversion had been accomplished. Luckily, I had some dried Nottingham yeast sitting around from a previous kit. I dumped it in without rehydrating... Yeah I know...probably not a good idea. However fermentation kicked in within 24 hours. Since there were so many fermentation problems, I decided not to go with the honey.

So now I should probably call this beer Alehead Turtle... From the rackings I tasted on the secondary transfer, it tasted quite good. We shall see. Sometimes it's better to be lucky then good.

Prost!!

Jeremy

Lagerhead Turtle Recipe

So I put together the Lagerhead Turtle recipe a few days ago, and brewed it last night. Here's the basic recipe:

5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 46.51 %
4.00 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 37.21 %
1.00 lb Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 9.30 %
0.25 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 2.33 %

60 min 1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %]
7 min 1.00 oz Tettnang [4.50 %]
0 min 0.50 cup Lemon Balm

Add pastuerized honey at high krausen

Primary fermentation (14 days at 50.0 F)
Diacetyl rest (3 days at 60.0 F)
Secondary fermentation (14 days at 52.0 F)
Lager (60 days at 35.0 F)

Full Recipe

My father-in-law, David Roche, helped out with brewing this beer. (It was a great bonding experience! :-) ) We ended up a few points short of the pre-boil gravity. I have a feeling, I didn't get my sparge hot enough, and may have been a bit too warm on my mash temps.

There are conflicting ideas on how to pitch the yeast for a lager. Some say that cooling the wort to fermentation temp then pitch work best, while others prefer to pitch near ale temps, then cool down slowly to fermentation temp. For simplicity sake, I chose the latter. However, doing this will produce enhanced diacetyl (buttery tones) to the beer, so we'll be doing a diacetyl rest at the end of the primary fermentation to allow the yeast to clean up the diacetyl produced.

This will also be my first beer with honey, and herbs. We added the lemon balm at flameout, and will add local honey to the primary during high krausen. I'm not quite sure how this will turn out yet, but I'm excited to try. I don't want to get too strong of a lemon flavor in there, but if I can't discern any after primary fermentation, I may dry hop some more lemon balm in the secondary.

Prost!

Jeremy

Lagerhead Turtle

So since the weather down here is starting to get really hot, I've gotten the urge to make a good lawnmower beer (A light refreshing beer for hot sunny days). Yesterday at work, I came up with the idea for "Lagerhead Turtle". (Thank you Scott for sparking the idea!)

A Loggerhead Sea Turtle

Loggerhead sea turtles are on the endangered species list, and are found all over the NC coast when it comes time to lay eggs. When Duder and I went out fishing on the Capt Stacy head boat, we were able to see 2 giant Loggerheads eating off the side of the boat! It was quite a site to see!

So for the next week, I'll be working on coming up with this recipe. This will be my first lager! I'm excited to try another new aspect of the brewing process. I will post when I have the recipe completed

In other brew news, Leah and I are going to be leaving next weekend to go to Katie and Nereus' wedding near the Twin Cities. While there, we'll be spending the first few days at my sister's house near Chippewa Falls, WI. And of course NO trip to Chippewa Falls can be complete without the trip to the Leinenkugel's Brewery!! This will be our third time taking the tour, however, I'm sure now with the brewing knowledge I've gained, I'll be able to learn so much more!!

While in the cities, we'll be staying at the luxurious Radisson Plaza Hotel in downtown Minneapolis! It's an extremely nice hotel, and thanks to Hotwire, it only cost us $59 a night!! The best part about the hotel....within walking distance to the local Rock Bottom brewpub! There was many a happy hour spent at the Rock Bottom in Bethesda when I worked in DC. While this won't be the same, I still can't wait to have a Big Horn Nut Brown or perhaps some of their banana El Hefe!