Kolsch

With summer pretty much here in FL, I wanted a lighter beer I could drink with the heat.  I settled on a German Kolsch, aiming for a tasty, but crushable ~5% beer.

For a 2 gallon batch:

3.5 lb Pilsner

0.25 Vienna

0.5 oz Hallertau FWH

White Labs Kolsch yeast

Added ~0.25 tsp of calcium to my bottled water.

Mashed 4.69 qt at 149F for 60 minutes and "sparged" with 2.01 gallons at 170F.  Fermented colder around 64 and cold crashed before bottling.

I was aiming for OG 1.045 but I tried something new this time and squeezed my grains as they were dripping and I think that got a lot more sugars out for an OG of 1.057.  Either that or my boil is too vigorous.  Anyways, this is bottled up and I had one last night, but it was a little undercarbed.  The taste is OK, but something is a little off.  Maybe too many salts added?  Hopefully it'll clear up in time.

I just finished souring another batch of berliner for 8 days at room temp. Gravity dropped from 1.039-1.013 in that time and from what I've read I haven't gotten much alcohol if any from that so this beer might weigh in around 1-2%.  I have big plans for splitting this batch onto watermelon or cherry for part, toasted coconut for part and cucumber for another part. I have some new techniques for fruit that I want to try out.