Homebrew Competitions

When I first started brewing I was very hesitant to enter homebrew competitions.  I finally summoned up the courage to enter a local competition with a few extract brews that I thought were decent.  The beers scored well, not award winning by any stretch, but respectable.  I was much more focused on the overall score than the comments.  As my brewing knowledge expanded, the reverse has now occurred.  I am much more interested in the comments than the overall score.

That first score sheet had so many technical terms that it all went over my head.  Now that I know what the judges are talking about, the comments are extremely helpful.  Thankfully, I have kept all of my score sheets over the years and it is really interesting to go back and see flaws in your beer that you can now correct with better process.  I try to enter at least one competition a year.  BJCP judges are very good critics, much more so than your friends who come over and don't want to offend you by telling you your beer isn't that great.








I entered my Dale's Pale Ale, Chocolate Stout and English Cider into the 30th Annual Kansas City Bier Meisters Competition and all scored well, with the English Cider taking 2nd place in the cider category.  I am still awaiting the score sheets so I am anxious to see the comments.  The beers were the best beers I have produced, in my humble opinion.  The 2nd place cider award is "my" first winner.  I put "my" in quotes because the history of the cider is somewhat comical.  My sister actually brewed this batch back on December 30, 2011.  I racked it after a month and put it in the secondary as usual.  However, we ended up selling our house and moving a month later so I had to decide whether to throw it out or throw it in a keg.  I chose to put it in a keg and that keg ended up sitting in a storage locker for 6 months.  A few months later I decided to put the keg in my kegerator and carb it up, not expecting it to be any good.  Much to my surprise, the cider was excellent.  So after almost 14 months of ageing, I entered the cider into the competition and took that 2nd place award.  Funny how things turn out.

Segmented Brewing - Citra Amarillo Wheat

This brew was part of my segmented brewing experiment.  I used my single kettle e-BIAB setup with a full volume continuous recirculation run off my Johnson Controls A419 temperature controller.  I created a make-shift thermowell out of thermoplastic tubing and brass barbed connections and snaked the probe through the top of the kettle barbed fitting.  It worked well in testing and during the mash.  I then ran off the wort into a bucket to hold until the sparge was complete on the sister brew that was going through my HERMS system.  Once the mash was complete over there I dumped the wort into the HERMS kettle, sanitized and waited for the next night to boil.  66.8% efficiency, which wasn't that bad considering it was no sparge and the grain had been around a while.  Again, souring is the main enemy of segmented brewing and this one did smell a bit funky when I opened up the kettle before the boil.  There was a lot of foam on top of the wort.  I boiled off an extra 10 minutes before adding my first hop addition to drive it all off.  It smelled fine going into the fermenter so only time will tell.  This was an interesting brewing experience.  Here is my time breakdown:

First night:
Measure water into kettles, measure and crush grain, test and prime pumps = 1hr

Second night:
Heat strike water, mash, mash out, sparge, clean mash tun = 3 hrs

Wednesday night:
Boil, chill, pitch and cleanup = 3 1/2 hrs

Total time was 7 1/2 hours.  I really enjoyed splitting the time over several days so I did not feel rushed or that I was taking time away from the family.  The bonus of two beers in one session is really appealing. 

Grains:

5# 2-row                     6.4 at 1040

5# wheat                     5.4 at 1047

Mash at 149               66.8% Efficiency

Additions:

60 min boil

0.7 oz Citra First sign of boil, around 70 min mark

.65 oz Citra at 20 min
.65 oz Citra at 15 min

1 oz Amarillo at 10 min

1 oz Amarillo at 0 min

1 oz Amarillo Dry Hop 10 days

Notty at 65-68

OG 1047

Water Adjustments (tsp)

.6 Epsom Salt

.102 Chalk

Ca=36

SO4=61

Mg=17

Na=27

Cl=70

Carb=67

Hard=162

Alk=59

Segmented Brewing - All Simcoe IPA

This brew was part of my segmented brewing experiment.  It has become increasingly more difficult to find 6+ hours to brew so I have been reading about splitting the brew day into a mash on one day and a boil the next.  I have also been trying to come up with a plan to brew two separate beers out of my 3 vessel system at the same time.  I recently purchased a third pump and that sealed the deal.  I mashed this all Simcoe IPA in my HERMS system and mashed a sister beer in the boil kettle as an e-Biab mash.  I mashed out both beers for 10 mins at 170 to pasteurize the wort.  I ran off the sister beer wort from the boil kettle into a sanitized bucket, rinsed the boil kettle, sanitized it, and then sparged the IPA as usual.  Once the sparge water was used up I dumped the sister beer from the bucket into the HERMS kettle, sanitized it, and covered it for the night.  This beer sparged as usual into the boil kettle and then I sanitized it and covered it for the night.  Efficiency was 80%, down a tad probably because I rushed the sparge and perhaps some older grain.  The next night I cranked up the boil and added my hops as usual.  Souring is the main enemy in a segmented brew so I will be interested to see if 20 hours is too long to wait between mash and boil.  Some brewers use this method with no issues and some report souring of the beer because lacto gets in the wort as it sits overnight.  We will see.   

10 lbs 2 row                         7.25 at 1.049
1 lb flaked oats                    6.25 at 1.056
.5 lb crystal 60                     80% Efficiency
.5 lb cara-pils

Hop schedule (All Simcoe Hops)
.75 oz @ 60
1 oz @ 20
1 oz @ 10
2 oz @ 1
2 oz Dry Hop for 7-14 days

OG 1.056
Mash at 152

US-05                                  

Vista, CA Water Profile
Water Adjustments (tsp)	Ca=57
.854 Epsom Salt	SO4=136
.825 Baking Soda	Mg=22
.155 Canning Salt	Na=71
1.254 Gypsum	Cl=88
	Carb=147
	Hard=233
	Alk=122