Kölsch I Told You So

Very early in this blog's life, I said that there were no appelations in beer as there are in wine. Turns out, I was wrong. The folks in Köln, Germany, want us to stop using the name Kölsch for our beers. Only beers made in Cologne can be called Kölsch. (If you get fed up with the umlaut, it can also be spelled Koelsch.

Fuck 'em.

Here's my recipe for Kölsch I Said So: 10.5# German Pilsner .5# Cara-Pils .5# Vienna Malt 2 oz Hallertauer 2.7%/60 Min. WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

I brewed this on March 16. I was expecting an OG of 1.051 and got 1.044. And thereby hangs a tale:

I hit my pre-boil mash numbers, and started boiling. I knew I was running close on propane and ran out with 10 minutes left in the boil. "Macht's Nicht!" I cried, using my brewing mantra. My gravity would be a little low because I didn't get good evaporation but, I can live with that. I even remembered to sanitize the counterflow chiller this time! I was rocking! Then I went to get the hose to attach to the chiller. Since every hose we own must placed near the garden by the house, I had to hunt down the sprinkler, Screwed it to the end of one hose, and took the other ends to the chiller and connected them. Only after filling the fermenter did I notice that I connected the ends of the same fucking hose to the chiller! Excuse me.

Fuck!

Sorry. So, I made room in the fridge, and put the hot wort into the fridge to cool. Excuse me.

Fuck!

Ahem! So, by 5 pm the beer was cool enough to pitch my 1.5 liter starter, and the airlock was kicking by the next morning.

How did your brew day go?

Sorry for the language.