Mu: Catharsis

It's been a few months since I last updated on the Kolsh beer project (or have posted at all, busy summer...) At this point I think the project can be classified as a failure.

Over the last few months, the beer had been mostly aging in secondary. As stated in previous updates, fermentation had continued slowly beyond the initial primary. I allowed this to continue for almost a month before putting the beer into the fridge to lager.

Just racked into secondary, the gravity is a bit high. The taste is a bit sweet too, but not quite so much as the gravity implies. Could it be that some of this is a result of using so much un-malted barely? I'll give it another week in secondary, and see how it goes. Perhaps I'll pitch additional yeast.

The last Kolsch attempt was pretty good. This brew attempts to build on it. The following objectives: - Make the color lighter - To that end, test some process changes -- namely not boiling the DME/LME for very long ~ 10 minutes before (add just before flavor hop. - Add slightly more, and different flavor hopping. - Find out if the fourth pitch of my White Labs Kolsch yeast is still good - Make so damn beer :)

A brief update. This beer seems to have been a total success! It's been sitting in secondary at fridge temperatures for a little longer than four weeks. This is more than I normally allow for, but I had a bit of a bottle-neck, since one of my kegs had failed to hold pressure due to a bad seal. However this extended period of bulk aging seems to have done the beer good. The flavor is almost exactly as I wanted the ester profile balanced nicely with the malt. The yeast I used for this beer is now building volume for the next project. I may also need to get another keg...