The Chronicles of SNB Brewing: Costa del Sol v2: Split Batch

10 gallons of pale beer a brewing

Finally after another 6 week forced brewing hiatus I was able to get back in the lab and make some beer. I have a schedule semi-mapped out for the next couple of brews including the next batch of BIG IPL with WLP940 Mexican Lager Yeast, a Funky Brother Brett rebrew and a string of sours. I also need to pick up the Beast from Shawn and build the barrel stand. To do this I plan on taking down a old pass through garage door to expand the brewery. Many I have a lot of brewing related projects/posts on the horizon.

For my return to brewing I did a beer my lovey wife Bonnie has been asking for for almost a year now, a return to Costa del Sol. I posted up the history of this beer awhile ago in which I crafted a Mexican Style Light Lager for my wife's birthday. It came out very well and ended up winning second at the 2011 OC Fair in the 601 Light Lagers category. At the time the driving yeast, WLP940, was a once a year platinum series yeast. Well it returned to being a mainstay at the beginning of the year. If I had more time I'd work to make the beer year round as well.

For the second batch/revisit I decided to transition the beer to all grain (minus the rice dme). Last year I used Falconer's Flight (shortly after I said I would never use it), so this year I decided to another new hop blend Zythos.

A proprietary blend of hops from HopUnion, designed for complex flavor in IPAs and similar hoppy American styles. Zythos is strongly aromatic, with tangerine, lemon, grapefruit, and pine notes. Try it in place of Amarillo, Sorachi Ace, or Simcoe.

That sounds like a hop blend I'd like to try. I also decided that given it's aroma potential I'd make a 100% Zythos beer subbing out the original Cascade and Summit dry hops. Unfortunately the shop was out of Plisner malt so I subbed in some UK Pale malt from my original plan.

I decided that given how small the beer was I'd step it up to a 10 gallon batch. With the large brewing hiatuses I'd been having and blowing through 3 kegs of beer at the SCHF I'm getting pretty low at home. Therefore I decided to speed up half of the batch by throwing some WLP007 at 5 gallons to make a quick pale ale - a style I'd yet to brew, we'll call this half Coast of the Sun. Given how much hops I'm using (8oz total for 10) it should be a nicely hoppy aromatic beer.

This brew also pointed out the limits of my system in cranking out 10 gallon batches. In the past I've always had an extra piece of borrowed equipment (usually a 7-15 gallon pot) to assist in the heating of sparge water. Without it I was forced to change my sparge schedule with some forced breaks while getting the water to temperature. It's clearly time to build my second kettle.

Capturing the chilling water
to water my lawn

I also blew away my previous efficiency ratings by miles. I've double checked my measurements via a refractometer and a hydrometer with both coming in at an OG of 1.048 - 0.010 over my targeted 1.038. This unfortunately means that this version will not be a session beer at a potential abv of 5.1. I'm glad I up my hops slightly during the brew. I really have no idea how this happened. I'm very interested in how this one turns out.

The other cool thing I did during this brewday is make some modifications to my cooling system to capture the water. My friend Angelo had challenged me to come up with a solution to brew that wasn't so wasteful with water. For awhile I was carrying buckets of runoff water to my back yard to water it. I came up with a better solution and put it into action. After cutting my big hose in half and adding some fittings I was able to connect a hose from the front of the chiller and then to a hose running into the backyard hooked up to a sprinkler. I can now water my yard during cooling capturing 99% of my cooling water!

Cheers

-SNB

Costa Del Sol v2 and Coast of the Sun v1
Premium American Lager
Type: All Grain
Date: 6/3/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 10.00 gal
Brewer: Scott Bennett
Boil Size: 12.48 gal
Boil Time: 75 min
Equipment: SNB Brewhouse (Keggle and Cooler)
End of Boil Volume 10.92 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 95.00 % !

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.038
SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.048 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.1 %
Bitterness: 37.8 IBUs
Est Color: 5.3 SRM

Ingredients

Grain
11.25 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Rice DME (7.0 SRM)

Hops
0.70 oz Zythos [10.90 %] - First Wort 75.0 min
1.30 oz Zythos [10.90 %] - Boil 20.0 min
2.00 oz Zythos [10.90 %] - Boil 2.0 min

Other
2.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)
2.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 mins)

Yeast
1.0 pkg Mexican Lager (White Labs #WLP940)
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007)

Dry Hops
4.00 oz Zythos [10.90 %] (2.00 oz to each)

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge Total Grain Weight: 14.00 lb
Sparge Water: 10.17 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 4.00 gal of water at 158.4 F 148.0 F 60 min

Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 2 steps (4.93gal, 4.93gal) of 168.0 F water

Pictures