SPAb3 + bringing yeast back from the frosty grave

Brewed Stonington Pale Ale, Batch #3 yesterday.

Though I have 2 cases of the stuff from the October brew session, I can always use more bottles of this beer for gifts, parties, requests, etc. In the interest of CIP intended to incrementally improve the beer, I took the opportunity to tweak the grain bill just a little, using crystal 40 instead of 60, as 60L is usually above the higher threshold for pale ales nowadays. I also upped the crystal addition to 1lb instead of 1/2 lb...the beer is very dry, and perhaps could benefit from just a little more crystal sweetness/body. I also upped the flaked wheat to 11oz (not 12, because that's all that was left...I must have shorted myself at the LHBS).

Aside from that, the grain bill, hopping schedule and yeast remained the same.

Well, except that I pinned my hopes on the fermentation ability of what was to be the first reanimation from the frost-free depths of the frozen yeast bank. If you've been reading along, you'll remember that I started stashing away 25% glycerine saturated 50ml samples in my household, non 80C below bottom rack Kenmore freezer with the hopes of suspending my little wort hungry fungi friends for (much) later use. If you haven't been reading along, then take a look HERE.

Now, when I made the 1056 aliquots, I fully messed up, and didn't decant nearly enough of the resultant beer from the 1000ml starter to end up with a properly thick slurry that is recommended for frozen yeast aliquots. I placed the starter in the fridge for 2 days after signs of fermentation had ceased. The american ale yeast dropped out of suspension pretty well, but since 1056 is such a poor flocculator, as soon as I tilted the Erlenmeyer back to check the flow out of the neck, the yeast had fallen off of the bottom of the flask and immediately resuspended back in to the beer.

Dammit.

And I can't just stick it back in the fridge, and wait another day, as I was leaving the country for a week. So, I figured this relatively low cell count would be the ultimate test for the ability of the yeast to withstand the freezing (and thaw/freeze cycles purported to go on in a household freezer). I suspected the high % of water in this solution could only be detrimental to the possible ice crystal-preventing cryoprotective nature of the glycerine, but I had to press on. I don't know how 'thin' this slurry ended up being, other than to say, I wouldn't normally have otherwise even call it slurry. Working fast to avoid raising their temperature, I stuck the 5 vials in to the freezer, hoping for the best.

Now, these vials have only been in the freezer for a short while, but I figured this would be a good first test to see if there were any viable cells that survived the freezing process, albeit at this low concentration. From this AHA presentation, I gathered that if I get somewhere between 20-37% viability, I would count myself lucky. I took out the sample and let it thaw in the fridge overnight. I made up a 1/4 teaspoon wyeast nutrient+ 100 gram DME/1000ml water starter (likely somewhat large for the quantity of yeast I'd ultimately get from the vial). I thawed the tube upright, so the yeast settled to the bottom of the vial. Huh. Less than 5 mls. that's even worse than I thought it'd be.

I looked over to the smugly full vials of white labs commercial yeast resting comfortably in the fridge door, and I could swear I heard them snickering at my feeble yeast ranching attempt.

Not to be dissuaded, I decanted about 80% of the glycerine/beer liquid diluent, recapped, shook the slurry in to suspension, and pitched it in to the cooled starter. I put it on the new stir plate, and hoped for the best. The stirring action pulled a nice vortex, and was clearly creating an ideal home for this probably frost bitten/hopefully not dead yeast. If this yeast was going to grow, it was going to be in this starter.

Now, I probably looked at the starter every 15 minutes for the next 5 hours, until I went to bed that night. Took a big sniff before I went to bed to see if I could sense any hint of fermentation going on.

Nope. Nothing. And how completely non-turbid that thing looked.

I did, however, wake up to the first gurgles of primordial life asserting itself in this nutrient rich broth. Yahtzee!

Knowing that I started with a really low cell count, I stepped it up by adding another 600ml of 1.040 wort, and another pinch of nutrient. We left the house for a few days to arrive home to a starter busting at the seams. And it smells just like 1056 greedily fermenting starter wort in to beer. I stood there both fists raised in the air. Y'know, like a total loser would do. Well, I'm sorry, but you'll just have to excuse me, as these things make me happy...

So, this past Sunday, I brewed up that SPAb3, using the very healthy and likely large population of reanimated 1056 and the burgeoning and seemingly bottomless bags of hops from my inadequate freezer. I'm still amazed at the pungent aromatics of these 2009 leaf hops from hopsdirect.

The SPAb3 was brewed up without a hitch, and the yeast is happily fermenting her (him?) away now in my undersized fermenter, whose nicely fitting threaded caps were tossed with the rest of the busted 50L Pyrex. Oops.

Boston to Burton (sort of)

As you can see from the October 2009 water report, Boston city water is incredibly soft, meaning it is relatively low in dissolved minerals and ions. The softness is due to the fact that Boston city water is derived mainly from the ~39 square mile Quabbin reservoir, a man-made body of water mainly fed by the Swift River. Where there are seasonal vagaries in the water profile, reading several reports tells me the water profile stays generally within a fairly tight (and very soft) range.

Without going in to any detail about the history behind the damming and relocating of 4 towns to create the reservoir, lets get down to its relative importance to brewing beer in my Brookline condo...as I mentioned, the take home message here: there's hardly any dissolved minerals.

For those unfamiliar with the ug/L vs. ppm units, simply divide the ug/L by 1000 to arrive at ppm.

For example, in the October report, there are 4190 ug/L of Calcium ions present.

That means ~4.2ppm Ca+.

The sulfate content is represented in mg/L, which are actually equivalent to ppm, so make sure you are paying attention to the units in your particular water report.

That's reading at 6.4 ppm SO4.

Historic and storied breweries achieved success and notoriety and defined their particular brewing styles around not only their ability to source quality ingredients, develop brewing techniques and engineering, but also largely based on their indigenous water supplies. For example, over history, Burton breweries featured beers with crisp, snappy dry and hoppy bitterness and near-rocky/minerally backbone. That's the short version of the story...the extended version includes additional practices that takes their too-hard water down a few notches.

We can take the two previously mentioned Boston city water ion concentration readings and compare it to the notably mineral laden (and brewing historically relevant) water from Burton on Trent in the UK.

That water rings in at 295ppm Ca+ and 725ppm SO4.

I won't go in to the impact of mineral content in the mash or the flavor and mouthfeel in the finished beer, other than to say it is incredibly important and often overlooked. After reading a bit about water chemistry/mineral ion impact on beer, I find it a common theme for homebrewers to shrug their shoulders and say 'well, if your water is good to drink, then its good to brew with' This is mostly true for most water sources in the US, in that they are generally much more mineral ion rich than Boston's. There's also major concerns of OD'ing if you start blindly adding salts to your brewing liquor, possibly taking an otherwise perfectly good beer to a salty or harshly astringent mess.

Lets jump back to what this has to do with brewing my beer at home...essentially, I'm starting with a near blank water-slate. While its not quite distilled water (which is created by heating water in to a gaseous state, which leaves dissolved minerals behind, then condensing vapor back in to a liquid phase water free of any of those dissolved minerals), Boston water is just about as soft as any municipal water supply out there.

So, if I want to create a crisp and hoppy american pale ale or double IPA, I knew I'd have to get some of those minerals in to the water. Thankfully, the brewing software I use has a water profile tool that helps me to accurately achieve just that.

You start by entering your current water supply, called 'Base Water' in to the system, and setting the target water profile. I used a recent Boston water report to set my Base Water values awhile back, and you'll notice they don't match up exactly with the October report. Doesn't matter much, as these seasonal differences aren't very large from an absolute sense, and since I'm not trying to engineer a perfect match to a target profile, I'm not too concerned about exact figures. Plus, the October report is already old news if I'm going to be brewing in November. This reality may be vastly different in your city, so please do a review of a relatively large sampling of water reports to see what your seasonal variances look like.

Anyway, Beersmith comes preloaded with several historic water profiles, including Burton on Trent. The software automatically calculates the impact of the addition of common brewing salts (ie. gypsum, calcium choride, sodium bicarbonate, etc.) on a specific volume of water, allowing you to quickly understand the impact of those additions. I gather from reading others' experiences that the BOT water actually tends to be almost excessively hard, so I stayed well below the target profiles during my first full-on brewing water tinkering when I brewed Leon.

I actually just bottled Leon last night, and my initial impressions of the beer are downright amazing. It would be very informative to have a non-amended water beer with the same recipe to sample side by side, but I feel confident in my ability to perceive if the flavor and mouthfeel are where I would like it to be.

Full tasting notes + pictures around the holidays, when Leon should really be hitting his stride. That reminds me, I'll have to get cranking on pig-themed label too.