Oberon Clone

With the passing of another year in my life leaving me to embrace my 30's, there was only a handful of things that could feel young. Beer is in that handful. Being 30 isn;t that bad, not being in your twenties is what drags you down. Oh well. Recently I have had the pleasure to complete a couple brews. The most recent was an Oberon clone. It is a simple recipe made up of about 505 malted wheat, one hop addition of Saaz, and some Coriander. I mashed with three gallons to about 10lbs of grain at 152°. I didn't use my blanket wrap method on the mash tun and in doing so, lost what appeared to be close to 10° in an hour, which is not acceptable. This cooler was good for a starter, but quickly needs replacing. In the end, I collected six gallons to boil. Boiling consisted of one hour and went pretty well. On a side note, I am really excited to upgrade my equipment to include a stainless steel pot...or keg. My concerns and curiosities are how much, if any, aluminum contributes to off flavors. I believe I have searched this curiosity before on some home brewing forums and the conclusions were mixed, some believe so, some believe not. I may need to re investigate When chilling the wort, I went with a new direction I picked up from fellow home brew Nick over the weekend. I usually use my wort chiller, coupled with an ice bath or cold water. I would cut the chiller short when the water was warm to the touch. My thought here was that I wanted to conserve water. Usually my patience would run thin on the amount of time it took to chill. This time I said screw the bath and just let the wort chiller do its thing full blast on the driveway. Being over conservative with water consumption went by the wayside. Perhaps I used just as much water with the chiller as I would with a bath and cutting the chiller short. I even used the water to clean the mash tun, and could easily make it more efficient next time, adding some soap in the beginning so I have a nice hot tun of cleaning water. Surprisingly, it chilled to 80° or so in about 15 minutes. That's just right. I transferred to the carboy and added a cup of yeast slurry from my boy Matt's carboy. He brewed an Oberon clone last week, and was ready to keg. I thought it interesting for me to brew one as well and compare notes and such. the starting gravity was 1.032. I don't know if that was too low. I am still contemplating my cooler / mashing efficiencies, I always feel like I miss my starting gravity. I guess I have to wait and see what it finishes out at. Next up on brew day, a honey wheat!