Emerald: Recipe

RETRO: Post written on November 13, 2014, but set to publish on the date of the original brew session to maintain order within the blog.

This was originally designed as a Munich Helles with New Zealand hops, and it ended up going on tap that way.  At the time, I had 5-6 beers on tap, and I ended up with about half a keg that had lost it's hop presence and was too tame for my palate.  Based on this, I decided to sour the remaining portion and add kiwi, which seemed an appropriate fruit based on the New Zealand-based ingredients that I had already used.

The recipe for the full batch is as follows:

Batch Number: 36
Brew Date: April 21, 2012
Keg Date: April 1, 2012
Batch Size: 5 Gallon
OG: 1.051 (estimate)
FG: 1.002 (estimate)
Fermentation Temperature: 65-70*F (room temperature throughout)
IBU: 28.6
ABV: 6.7%
SRM: 4.0 (not accounting for fruit)

Mash: Single infusion at 148*F for 60 minutes

Boil: 90 minute

Fermentables

9lb 0oz Pilsner Malt
0lb 8oz Cara-Pils
0lb 8oz Munich

Salts & Water

At this point I wasn't doing anything besides filtering the water and adding 5.2 buffer, so that's probably it.

Hops

1.0oz Nelson Sauvin (pellet, 12.0 AAU) at 20 minutes

1.0oz Nelson Sauvin (pellet, 12.0 AAU) at flameout

Other

Whirlfloc

Yeast Nutrient
Kiwi

Yeast

White Labs German Bock Lager (2 vials) (WLP833)
Brett and bacteria, as identified below

Notes

04.21.2012 - Brewday began at 7:45 AM. Milled the grain and got the hot liquor going. Used 14 quarts of 168 F water, aiming for 153 F. The initial shot was too high, so I added a bit of filtered water out of the hose to bring it down to 153 F. Set the time to 60 minutes and let the mash sit. Sparged with 6 gallons of 180 F water. The final collection was 7.8 gallons of 1.034 runnings.

Did a starter with each of the two vials. Let ferment for 5 days.

05.01.2012 - Gravity down to 1.018. Put chest freezer temperature up to 60 F for a diacetyl rest.

05.04.2012 - Gravity down to 1.012.

05.07.2012 - Transferred to keg to begin lagering.

08.28.2012 - Not sure why I don't have notes on this until now, but didn't really enjoy the character of this beer after the hops faded, so decided to make a sour lager. While this was originally known as "German Nelson," at some point around the Fourth of July, I added 2lb of kiwi per gallon along with a few lambic oak cubes and some lambic dregs. On 08.28, I transferred to a keg. The beer is now known as "Emerald."