The fifth and final mini-competition of the 2014-2015 season of BJCP study group will be held April 16, 2015. The competition will tentatively cover Category 1 (Light Lager), Category 8 (English Pale Ale), Category 14 (India Pale Ale), and Category 19 (Strong Ale). If you are interested in competing, please contact Mark Keck to arrange dropping off entries. Entry is free (but limited to members of the club or BJCP study group). Entries must be received no later than Tuesday, April 14, 2015.
Category Archives: Education
Decoction Mashing
Contributed by Mark Keck.
With the Master’s Championship of Amateur Brewing calendar year 2014 championship coming up, I had to re-brew a lager that I competed with in the Fall of 2014 that qualified for entry into the competition. The original beer was a Munich Dunkel that I brewed in August 2014 for which I conducted a double decoction mash. Due to the club’s recent desire to have more educational resources available, I decided to record my brew day via photo and post my process here. I would first like to say that I used Kai’s decoction mashing tutorial and his video on YouTube, and read Greg Noonan’s “New Brewing Lager Beer” as my resources to teach myself this process, and I would definitely suggest looking those up to get more/better information than what you’ll get from this single post.
Continue reading Decoction Mashing
BJCP Study Group: Mini-competition #4
The fourth mini-competition of the 2014-2015 season of BJCP study group will be held March 12, 2015. The competition will tentatively cover Category 3 (European Amber Lager), Category 5 (Bock), Category 6 (Light Hybrid Beer), Category 15 (German Wheat and Rye Beer), and Category 18 (Belgian Strong Ale). If you are interested in competing, please contact Mark Keck. Entry is free (but limited to members of the club or BJCP study group). Entries must be received no later than Tuesday, March 10, 2015.
Belgian Blond Yeast Experiment
To help learn how different yeast can change a beer, brewers all made the same Belgian Blond but each chose a different yeast to ferment with.
Blond (5G)
1.065 OG, 25 IBUs
8# Pils
1# Munich (10L)
1# White Wheat
1# Sucrose (@KO)
1.5oz Hallertau @60
1L stir plate starter of yeast (or equivalent)
mash @151F
Wy3787 –
Wy3739 –
WLP585 –
Wy3538 –
Wy3822
WLP570 –
WLP380 –
WLP550 –
Wy3944 –
Wy3724 –
Marzen Yeast Experiment
To see if using different lager strains made a significant change, brewers all made the same Marzen but each chose a different yeast. Some ale strains were also chosen to see if the difference was noticeable. Brewers also had the option whether to use a single infusion or decoction mash, and whether to use melanoidin malt or not. Base malt was provided by the club
Marzen (5.5G)
1.054OG, 24 IBUs
3.25# Pils
3.25# Vienna
3.25# Munich (10L)
0.5# Caramunich III
0.5# Melanoidin (optional)
1.5oz Hallertau @60
0.5oz Hallertau @20
2.5L Stirplate starter of lager yeast (or equivalent)
mash @152F (or 122F->152F->168F if decocting)
WLP820 –
WLP860 –
WLP830 –
WLP833 –
WLP838 –
Wy2633 –
Wy2124 –
Wy2206 –
Wy2007 –
Fermentis W34/70 –
Wy1007 –
WLP029 –