Two Beers, Two Weeks..

[krausenhaus]

Okay, so we're hosting a mate's birthday party in a couple of weeks and hope to have all four taps on the keezer going.

One of the beers (American wheat) turned out to be a complete failure due to an accident with Brewbrite that I'd rather not talk about, which is documented in another thread.

One of the others was an American amber that two weeks ago tasted like heaven and tonight tastes dodgy. I just did a sensory training night through WA Beer Week, but after trying so many crap samples all I can tell is that it's dominant in one of the flavours but can't remember which one.

Okay, so - we need to whip up a wheat and an amber this weekend and have them ready in two weeks. Please bear in mind that we're only on our ninth or tenth AG brew and still working things out, and any input is very much appreciated.

For the wheat:

I'm thinking 60/40 pale/wheat malt with a touch of carahells. Hopped with motueka flowers and cascade pellets, keeping the hops lighter than we've done in the past as there's no time for them to settle down. Tony's LCBA hop schedule seems pretty safe, but would happily receive advice. OG 1.046-1.048.

The amber:

The last amber we did was one of my favourite malt bills we've done, basically 70% pale, 24% munich, and 3% each caraaroma and medium crystal. I'd like to keep that. For hops, I'm thinking all Citra or Citra & Cascade. OG 1.050.

We also have Simcoe, Amarillo, Falconer's Flight, Centennial, and Magnum.

We'll be using US-05 for both and will pitch more than usual if necessary. Fermentation is temperature controlled. Will force carb.


I would love some input on malt/hop bills, pitching rates/ferment temps, or any other tips that will get us a good couple of beers on tap in a fortnight.

Cheers.

Edit: OGs.

 

[Jace89]

If I was you I woul ditch the amber ale and just make another wheat beer. Although 2 weeks might just be enough to time for a amber ale it certainly benefit from more aging. Wheat beers are best fresh thought especially using a wheat beer yeast strain.

Your recipes look fine to me though if you wanted to brew those beers. As for pitching amount, pitch the same as you normally would. Pitching more yeast will speed up things a little but it will/could have an effect on the flavor of the finihed beer.

I'm not saying don't do it, you could just get away with doing it....just. I certainly would just be making another wheat beer if I was in the situation you were in.

 

[vortex]

You should aerate the wort prior to pitching properly hydrated yeast (which is what you should normally do, nothing special about this time), i'm not familiar with dry yeast, but assuming you're making a single batch at the OG's listed, then from memory the pitching rate should be close enough; but you could check on a site like mrmalty.com to see if they are. It's easier to under pitch than over pitch, and under pitching means the yeast will probably be stressed, potentially causing off flavours. Edit: 4 taps, assuming corneys, sounds like you're doing double batches. Two packs of dry yeast per batch, minimum.

If the wort is properly aerated at pitching time (Pure 02 preferred) and the proper pitching rate is used, FG can be hit in around 3 days but the beer will benefit from a full week at least on the yeast to allow it to clean up byproducts and floc out. I suggest raising the ferment temp to 20c on about day 3 to keep the yeast active and promote them cleaning up their byproducts (even though it's an ale, with a fairly clean strain of yeast), though you could probably skip this step and not notice any issues.