Going to California

This post was started back in April, before I moved across the country. It's now October and I'm finally finishing and posting it.

"Spent my days with a woman I love, 

Smoked no stuff and drank all the beer.... 
Made up my mind to take a new job, 

Going To California with an aching... and some fear."

That is a parody of the opening lines to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." As I've mentioned before, I'm moving to the Bay Area for a research position, so I wanted to open this post with a little something that spoke to moving out west, changing the lyrics a bit for my situation. When I prepared to brew this batch I didn't have a recipe ready so I thumbed through my recipe books and found this one: a California Commons, called "Spring Lager" in the recipe book. Also known as Steam Beer, this style is a lager brewed at the low end of ale temperatures, about 64°F. It was invented in San Francisco, CA during the Gold Rush when Central Europeans came out west to make their fortune. To capitalize on the new immigrants, beer makers attempted to make a draught the miners were familiar with, lagered pilsners, but without the ability to cold ferment and cold store the beer, the drink was fermented warm with lager yeast and Steam Beer was born!

Very basic brew, no fancy additions.

I was drawn to brew this one as a challenge as I've never done anything with lager yeast. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to maintain the temperature consistently, that the yeast would produce all kinds of off esters and the overall brew would taste weird, or at worst taste bad, and that I would have wasted money on something undrinkable. Nothing in the brewing was difficult, so I hoped the final product would turn out good. My friend Otfried, who was wanting to get into brewing on his own, accompanied me for this brewday and this easy brew was a nice teaching tool.

First and second runnings.

Heat brake!

Hoppity hops: All Northern Brewer.

Being such an easy brew there's nothing to say about the mash, boil, or hop additions. When it came time to hydrate the yeast I had to cool the sanitized water to 70ish°F instead of the usually 90ish°F for ale yeasts, and the wort had to be cooled into the 50s°F since the fermentation temperature aim was 64°F. The wort was successfully cooled that low in the ice bath and poured into the fermenter with a hydrometer sample taken along the way.

Didn't have the lager yeast the recipe called for, but this one worked great!

Wort in fermenter ready for weeks of "warm" lagering.

OG: 1.050

It took a few days for the primary fermentation to start due to the longer lag time of lager yeast, and when it finally did start it wasn't nearly as active as I'm used to ale yeast being. But ferment it did and I kept it at 64°F for three weeks, sitting the carboy in a shallow water bath in the cooler covered with a doubled-over towel and changing out a frozen water bottle every morning and evening. As can be seen below the yeast formed a nicely thick krausen layer that eventually settled into the fermenting beer, showing good yeast performance. Surprisingly, the fermometer on the carboy showed 64°F for three weeks solid, and when the outside temperature warmed enough so that the building's boiler turned off, I didn't even have to change out the water bottles, the bath maintained the lower temperature!

Lag time… lager yeast takes a while to start.

Still not started...

Look at that crazy foam! This yeast fermented slowly for nearly a week!

This beer is about to going into bottles.

After a few weeks I bottled the batch. I only got 16 equivalent bottles, and at the time of this brewing I was still playing with the sparge water amount. I've since started using this water calculator with numbers from my own brewing setup, bumping up it's suggestions about a quart for good measure. The 1.009 FG gave an ABV of 5.5%, making this a pleasantly alcoholic brew that didn't overpower. I eventually named it "Herr Doktor's Western Elixir" to honor brewing it with a German cardiologist friend, the origin of the style (San Francisco, CA), and taking a suggestion from my PhD advisor when he asked, "have you used the word 'elixir' in your beer names?"

All them bottles are ready for cappin'!

FG: 1.009

Labeled and waiting to be drunk.

After a few weeks conditioning in the bottles this beer was amazing! Medium-bodied but lightly crisp, like a lagered beer, and hoppy enough to give it an ale vibe. You can check out the entire gallery of photographs here. And now the recipe:

Herr Doktor's Western Elixir

Grain Bill:

3.25 lb 2-Row Pale Malt

0.4 lb Caramel/Crystal 10L Malt

0.4 lb Caramel/Crystal 40L Malt

Strike 6.1 qt H2O at 162°F.  Mash for 1 hour at 152°F.  Sparge with 7.5 qt H2O at 170°F.

60-min Boil:

0.33 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 60 min
0.33 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 45 min

0.33 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 30 min

0.33 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 15 min

1/2 tsp irish moss @ 15 min

0.33 oz Northern Brewer hops @ 5 min
0.33 oz Northern Brewer hops @ flameout

Cool to 55°F in ice bath.  Hydrate and pitch 1 packet Safbrew-34/70 yeast. Bottle with 1.5 oz priming sugar for 2.2 vol CO2.

And there you have it! A wonderful first brew with lager yeast and a delicious final product that pleasantly surprised me with how well it turned out and how much my friends enjoyed it. To paraphrase my buddy Thomas who doesn't care for IPAs because they irritate his stomach: "It's like an IPA where the hop fairy came and removed the hoppiness."

You can see the rest of the photo gallery from this brew here.

What brew pleasantly surprised you, either personal homebrew or commercial beer?

Until next time friends, happy brewing!