Munich Melon Hülles Lager

Nelson Version

I took a bit of a break from brewing (and even more of a break from blogging) but got back to it in January with a hoppy lager that is partially inspired by a line from Scott Janish's great book The New IPA. Specifically there's a note that Hüll Melon (sometimes written Huell Melon) is high in the 2MIB (2-methylbutyl isobutyrate) thiol which gives an apricot-like character, and can be enhanced even more with a lager fermentation. Some of these ideas are explored in this blog post by Scott. A fruity, (especialy apricot-y and melon-y) Munich Helles might not be classic but the subtle malt sweetness and graininess should lend balance and space for the hops to shine, without this coming out as a hazy IPA (or IPL). Searching around the internet it seems that a Helles with Hüll Melon has been done before by several breweries, including one of my favorite East Bay brewers, Original Pattern, with their Hella Hüll Helles Lager. I'll have to track down a can to compare with my version.



1/20/2020 Brew Day
Made a vitality starter of 8 oz DME, 1g Fermaid-k, 1800 mL water, 2 moderately old packs of Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager and a blend of lager yeast saved from my SMaSH Pils.

After several recent batches came out with a strange, harsh character I decided to not treat the water for this batch at all. While I'm not sure water chemicals are the cause of my recent issues I've narrowed it down to a few possible factors and this seemed like the easiest one to test. If this batch experiences the same issues I'll try adjusting my mill settings and do a full inspection of my equipment and review of my processes to see if there's another possible culprit. I'm including extra notes on this batch here to be able to pinpoint the cause of the issue if it happens as well too

Measured and milled 7.25 pounds Weyermann Pilsner malt and 9 oz Briess Goldpils Vienna. I planned to use Carahell but forgot I was out, should come out a little crisper and maltier with the Vienna but with a similar color.

Hit 152 on the direct infusion (a few degrees cooler than expected but close enough). Added half an ounce of hops to the first wort and began heating while batch sparging. Hit a combined pre-boil gravity of 1.039, about what was expected for the target 1.047 OG. Boiled for 1 hour then rapidly cooled with immersion chiller (added 45 minutes into boil) to 160. Added the 1.5 ounces of whirlpool hops then continued chilling for about 15 minutes to 68F (room temp). Ran off to plastic carboy through silicon tubing and moved carboy to chest freezer set to 50F. Pitched yeast a few hours later.

1/24/2020
Fermentation still going moderately with a medium sized krausen. Plan to move out of chest freezer to ~65F room temp for a few days once fermentation begins to drop. Smell from fermentation is strong with sulfur stink, hopefully that's being pushed out and won't carry to the final beer.

1/25/2020
Left in chest freezer but adjusted temperature up to 65F. Will likely take a few days to warm that high.

1/31/2020
No noticeable diacetyl on tasting and gravity down to 1.014. Set chest freezer to 32F for quick lagering.

2/6/2020
Split between 2 separate 2.5 gallon kegs, one plain one with an ounce of Nelson Sauvin hops.

2/19/2020

Plain Version

This one has been on tap for a couple of weeks and is a pretty enjoyable helles at this point. While there was a decent amount of fruitiness from the hops in the non-dry hopped version originally that has largely faded into a bready malt forward easy drinking lager. The dry hopped version was terrific early on, then seemed to experience some hop creep and had diacetyl, it was removed from the chest freezer for a few days and seemed to clear up but the hop character mostly faded as well.

3/28/20
Nelson half kicked, it was a really nice easy drinker with just enough fruity hop character to keep it interesting. The un-dryhopped version is much more straight forward, it's extremely easy to drink but is arguably too clean and many craft beer lovers would probably find it boring.