Baritone Bitter V2

Hot on the heels of the Landlord I made over the weekend, I diving straight into a hopefully improved version of my recent baritone bitter. This was a beer inspired by cask bass, with a heavy dose of Northern Brewer hops. Besides being far too bitter, I felt that there were a few other areas ripe for tweaking.

First, I'll say what's not changing. The water treatment, a 'burtonizing', and the yeast, WY1028 will stay the same. These were two of the more successful elements of my first version. The malt bill is only slightly modified, going to 6% simpsons medium crystal, up 1% from the last version.

In the hopping schedule I'm dropping the early hopping back to 10g of Northern Brewer, from 15g previously. This beer is no-chilled, and the flameout additions are 20g of Northern Brewer and 20g Williamette. I'm calculating the flameout additions as a 20min addition because of the no-chill, and altogether this brings my total IBUs to 26ish, from 34ish in the previous version. In fact I think I somehow ended up nearer to 40ish in the previous version. The williamette should also help to flavour the hop palate a bit. This was quite pleasant but a little monotone last time round.


Recipe:

Bass

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         4.21
Anticipated OG:          1.044    Plato:             10.95
Anticipated SRM:          13.2
Anticipated IBU:          25.9
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin   Potential SRM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 93.0     3.91 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)       UK        1.038      3
  5.9     0.25 kg.  Crystal 80L                   USA       1.033     80
  1.1     0.05 kg.  Roasted Barley (Simpson's)    UK        1.029    685

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                         Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 10.00 g.     Northern Brewer              Pellet   9.00  13.2  60 min.
 20.00 g.     Northern Brewer              Pellet   9.00   8.9  20 min.
 20.00 g.     Willamette                   Whole    4.30   3.8  20 min.


Yeast
-----

WY1028 London 

Water Treatment

---------------

0.75tsp CaCl2  2.5tsp CaSO4  1tsp MgSO4 

Landlord (Again!)

Back to my favourite beer, Landlord. Since I got the hand pump a few months back I've been looking forward to pouring the first pale golden pint of styrian infused perfection. I held off brewing this again because I was waiting for a pound of styrian goldings to arrive from the US. Now they're here, and there's no excuse, a big starter of WY1469 has been on the stirplate, and we're ready to go.

The malt bill is exactly the same as last time round, but I've upped the late hops, quite a bit in the case of the styrians. Water treatement is more or less the same, but with an extra quarter teaspoon of gypsum. I also added 1.5ml of Lactic Acid to the mash to bring the Ph to where I wanted it (around 5.5).

Recipe:

Landlord

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         4.36
Anticipated OG:          1.045    Plato:             11.14
Anticipated SRM:           5.3
Anticipated IBU:          31.3
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin   Potential SRM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 96.4     4.20 kg.  Pale Malt (Golden Promise)    UK        1.037      2
  3.6     0.16 kg.  Crystal 60L                   UK        1.035     60

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                         Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 42.00 g.     Willamette                   Pellet   4.30  26.4  60 min.
 25.00 g.     Goldings - E.K.              Pellet   5.00   4.9  15 min.
 50.00 g.     Styrian Goldings              Pellet   5.25   0.0  0 min.


Yeast
-----

WY1469 Yorkshire

Rebel Rising V2

A few months back I made a pleasant red ale loosely based on the Franciscan Well's Rebel Red, a staple of my beer drinking diet when I lived in Cork. I felt there were a few aspects of my version that could be improved upon, so on Saturday I went about doing just that.

The grain bill for this beer changed a little to reflect what I perceived as  a flaw in the last version - too much rummy raisiny flavour from the heavy dose of dark crystal. I dropped the total crystal bill by a small amount, and subbed half of that total for Simpsons Light Crystal. Another change was a lighter dose of early hops and a heavier dose of late hops. Since the beer is no chilled, even the late hops have a significant effect on bitterness, so pushing more of the hops to later on should give more hop character without changing the bitterness level.

I also changed the yeast, though I didn't really have a very good reason to do that, the yeast character in the previous version was actually a highlight. However I had a vial of White Labs Bedford Ale yeast platinum that I was really keen to use, so I decided to try it out on this beer. All but 15ml of the vial was pitched to a 1L starter and pitched at high krausen to the main batch.

Rebel Red V2

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50
Total Grain (kg):         4.06
Anticipated OG:          1.045    Plato:             11.11
Anticipated SRM:          15.5
Anticipated IBU:          27.3
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts
----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour
Pre-Boil Wort Size:   26.47    L
Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.038    SG          9.50  Plato


Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                     Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 82.8     3.36 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)  UK     1.038      3
  3.4     0.14 kg.  Crystal 120L             UK     1.033    120
  3.4     0.14 kg.  Crystal 40L              USA    1.034     40
  1.7     0.07 kg.  Roasted Barley (Simpson's)UK    1.029    685
  8.6     0.35 kg.  Cane Sugar              Generic 1.046      0

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                 Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 15.00 g.     East Kent Goldings   Pellet   4.30   9.4  60 min.
 15.00 g.     Willamette           Pellet   4.00   8.8  60 min.
 20.00 g.     East Kent Goldings   Pellet   4.30   4.2  20 min.
 20.00 g.     Willamette           Pellet   5.00   4.9  20 min.


Yeast
-----

White Labs WLP006 Bedford British Ale


Water Profile
-------------

Profile:           Pale Ale
Profile known for:

Calcium(Ca):          71.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg):        10.0 ppm
Sodium(Na):           13.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4):        116.0 ppm
Chloride(Cl):         79.0 ppm
biCarbonate(HCO3):    30.0 ppm

pH: 7.30

Note that the hop times were actually 45mins and 0mins, and the batch was no-chilled. Also the 0.35kg Cane sugar was actually homemade Invert No.2. Water treatment was 1tsp CaCl2, 1tsp CaSO4, 0.5tsp MgSO4 into very soft Melbourne water.

Baritone Bitter tasting

A few weeks back I wrote about the Bass inspired beer I brewed using all Northern Brewer hops. I've decided to call it Baritone Bitter, as it's not a clone at all really, just has a few things in common with cask Bass.

Apart from a few Sierra Nevada clones where I used it as a sub for Perle in a mid boil addition, I hadn't really experimented much with Northern Brewer. The results are quite surprising. There's a total absence of fruity hop aromas/flavours, some floral, but a huge amount of that earthy almost root vegetable aroma - it reminds me of a beetroot chocolate cake I made a while back. This is a really interesting beer, with flaws, but certainly something to build on for the future.

The flaws - it's too bitter. I no-chilled this batch, and usually when I no-chill the late hops are relatively low in AA%. My Northern Brewer were 9%, and I think the late hops have had a huge contribution to the bitterness. I think I'm up at or over 40IBUs, and this could stand to drop by about 10 or so. In saying that, now that it's fully matured in the keg, the malty notes are coming through more and are masking the bitterness well. Obviously the bitterness is dropping back a little with time too. Early on the bitterness was overpowering. For such a poorly balanced beer, it managed an 87 in a recent comp (where it was still a week or two away from proper condition), so I'm quite happy with it. The water treatment has had a huge effect. It's hard to put it in words, but the hop character is transformed into a huge multi-layered effect, and brings me right back to pints of Marston's Pedigree I've had before. The yeast is spot on, with definite 'English' character that is dry and minerally without being at all harsh.

This is another recipe to build on and improve. I will probably scale back the bitterness about 5-10IBUs next time, and bump up the crystal slightly, to 6 or 7%. I will also add another late hop, probably East Kent Goldings, or maybe Styrians. While the hop character is really interesting, it could be a little broader, and a bigger floral dimension would really add to the character of the beer.

Overall a very worthwhile experiment!

Síofra Red Ale

organised chaos

In a radical departure to my usual beer interests, this weekend I brewed a version of Jamil Zainasheff's Evil Twin. This is the beer he wrote about several years ago in the American Homebrewer's Association "Zymurgy" magazine, reprinted here on his own website. It introduces the concept of hop bursting - forgoing an early hop addition in favour of pushing all hop additions to the last 20 minutes. I've been intrigued by this ever since I first read about it, but I held off trying it out until I got to try a Heretic Evil Twin last week. A local distributor is now cold shipping several American beers to Australia, Evil twin being one. The hop character is incredibly complex, and is beautifully balanced by a heavy malt backbone. I've read here that Heretic is using a different malt bill and hop bill for their Evil Twin compared to the version on Jamil's website, though the principle remains the same.

I'll be trying to get close to the Heretic Evil Twin. If I could criticize anything about Jamil's recipes, it's that his malt bills seem far too busy to me, with the Zymurgy Evil Twin being a good example. The Heretic Evil Twin malt bill he describes in the link above is much more to my liking, with a simple pale ale background providing a platform for a huge amount of good quality medium crystal malt. A little roasted barley is added for colour. Jamil suggest a half sack of RB in a 30bbl batch, which seems to come out at about 80g for a 22.5 litre batch. Actually this ends up being quite dark according to ProMash, so I'll scale it back to around 40g.

I am a little worried to be using 12% crystal, but I guess with that level of hopping you need to go a little crazy. The hopping itself consists of very generous amounts of citra and columbus. I got about 250g of citra in a mucked up hop order about a year back, and they have been carefully stored since then awaiting a suitable brew, so I'm glad to be able to use a hundred or so grams at long last. I also got some columbus in that order, but I decided that they are past their best so I bought an 80g packet from my LHBS - you will notice that I use all 80g in this brew. A small charge is added at 20mins, then a big one at 10 and at flameout. Jamil says that Heretic Evil Twin is dry hopped, and I'm planning to dry hop mine too. I'll wait until fermentation is complete and then I'll do a taste test to determine the actual amounts, but the recipe below has what I'm expecting to use.

I mentioned a huge old keg I got a while back from Ebay, well recently I swapped it for a regular 50L keg. I decided that I'm unlikely to want to do double batches for a while yet, and the 50L keg is a bit more realistic in size for my operation.

For this brew I moved away from 'brew in a bag' and actually mashed into about 17L of liqour, and fly sparged another 17 or so to get to my pre-boil volume. The mash itself was multi-step, 65C for 40 minutes, 72C for 20, and finally a mash out at 78 for 10 minutes before sparging with 78 degree water. I collected about 27 litres and boiled down to 23.5 (allowing a little extra wort to account for extra loss to hop debris). I'll write more on the system in another month or two when I get it dialed in right, this brew was a bit of an experiment.

I pitched the yeast from a big stirred starter of Pacman - recovered from the Beamish clone I recently did. It's at 17C in the fermenting fridge, and fermentation is extremely vigorous. This morning it was bursting out the top and the hop aroma was pretty incredible, which can only be a good sign for the finished product.

Here's the recipe:

Siofra Red Ale

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L):          23.50    Wort Size (L):     23.50
Total Grain (kg):         6.43
Anticipated OG:          1.063    Plato:             15.39
Anticipated EBC:          33.6
Anticipated IBU:          28.5
Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                   Origin   Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 87.6     5.63 kg.  Pale Ale Malt (2-row)  Australia  1.037     5
 11.8     0.76 kg.  Crystal 77L                   UK  1.035   148
  0.6     0.04 kg.  Roasted Barley (Simpson's)    UK  1.029  1350

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
---------------------------------------------------------------
  9.00 g.     Citra                 Pellet  13.40   5.1  20 min.
  8.00 g.     Columbus              Pellet  15.20   5.4  20 min.
 25.00 g.     Citra                 Pellet  13.40   8.5  10 min.
 24.00 g.     Columbus              Pellet  15.20   9.6  10 min.
 28.00 g.     Citra                 Pellet  13.40   0.0  0 min.
 25.00 g.     Columbus              Pellet  15.20   0.0  0 min.
 28.00 g.     Citra                 Pellet  13.40   0.0  Dry Hop
 23.00 g.     Columbus              Pellet  15.20   0.0  Dry Hop


Yeast
-----

WYeast 1764 Rogue PacMan (VSS)


Water Profile
-------------

Profile:           Pale Ale
Profile known for:

Calcium(Ca):          71.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg):        10.0 ppm
Sodium(Na):           13.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4):        116.0 ppm
Chloride(Cl):         79.0 ppm
biCarbonate(HCO3):    30.0 ppm

pH: 7.30


Mash Schedule
-------------

Saccharification Rest Temp :  65  Time:  40
Mash-out Rest Temp :          72  Time:  20
Sparge Temp :                 78  Time:  10

All temperature measurements are degrees Celsius.

Beamish clone reflections

First let's recap what was different about this compared to the last Beamish clone I tried:

1. I used Simpsons Maris Otter as the base malt instead of Crisp Ale malt
2. I used Pacman yeast instead of US-05
3. I added a level teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate to the water treatment
4. I served it on my new handpump

And the reasons:

1. My LHBS didn't have Crisp Ale, and I use Simpsons Maris Otter for most ales, so thought I would stick with it.
2. I had wanted to use Pacman the first time round, but couldn't get my hands on it.
3. I did notice a slightly unpleasant acidity at low temperatures with the previous version, and some reading up on water treatment told me that carbonates can help to cover this up when using lots of dark malts/roasted barley.
4. I didn't have a handpump the first time round.

I've been lucky with this recipe, it was given to me by Will from perfectpint.blogspot.com, and he had obviously put a bit of time and effort into it's creation. The first version was excellent, but had a little room for improvement. This version is an improvement on it. I think that each of the four changes I made had a detectable impact on the final product.

The Maris Otter gave it's usual biscuity background. I thought this might get lost among the chocolate and roasty notes, but it's definitely there. The Pacman yeast has contributed an amazing mouthfeel to the beer, and is probably the single biggest improvement. There's a slight but restrained fruity note too, which is probably coming from the yeast.

I couldn't detect any unpleasant acidic flavours, and my mash ph was spot on, so I have to conclude that it was worth adding the sodium bicarbonate - certainly it did no harm.

Finally the handpump adds a bit of magic as well as increased body and mouthfeel to the beer. I didn't 'cask condition' this as such. I just carbonated it to about 1.5vols of CO2, and then pulled it through the line, giving a small amount of CO2 whenever it was needed. The results were really satisfying.

What I have ended up with is a relatively low alcohol session beer, with loads of flavour from the chocolate malt and roasted barley, a pleasant and assertive bitterness, and incredible body and mouthfeel. It's not a dead on clone, but rather a reimagining of Beamish as a sort of premium stout - the stout equivalent of a Best Bitter perhaps.

Needless to say, I'll be brewing this again, and soon. 

Kolsch Rebrew

This is a rebrew of the Kolsch I brewed several weeks back and ended up pouring down the drain. I documented the reasons in my last post, but my reasons for dumping essentially boiled down to stressed yeast and a sluggish fermentation (at a best guess). Hence my first step this time around was to put half of a WLP029 vial in a 1L starter on my stir plate. This finished last Sunday and has been in the keezer since. I drew off a 2.5L starter at the end of the brew day and pitched the yeast from the 1L stirred starter into this.

The main batch was no chilled so this big starter got a day to bump up cell counts before I pitched it. I was then pitching at a rate of around 14million cells/ml, which really is overpitching, but I'm taking no chances this time round. Fermentation temp is 16C.

The recipe remains unchanged. It's a very slightly modified version of Jamil's 'JZ Fruh' Kolsch from 'Brewing Classic Styles'. Getting hold of the White labs Kolsch yeast was not that straightforward as I mentioned before, but for me it's by far the best yeast for a Kolsch, and gives me the flavour profile I expect and enjoy. It should be mentioned that it's Kolsch yeast that makes Kolsch unique, trying this recipe with any other yeast would yield dramatically different results.

Instead of the local malts I used the last time round, I used Bestmalz for this brew. Actually I think it's the first time I've ever used German Malt. I noticed that there was a huge amount of hot break, I'm guessing from the extra protein in this malt.

Here's the recipe:

Recipe Specifics

----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.5

Total Grain (kg):         4.90

Anticipated OG:          1.050

Anticipated SRM:           2.8

Anticipated IBU:          26.4

Brewhouse Efficiency:       75 %

Wort Boil Time:             90    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   29.03    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.036    SG          9.12  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name

-------------------------------------------------

 95.4     4.67 kg.  BestMalz Pilsener

  4.6     0.23 kg.   BestMalz Vienna Malt             

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

---------------------------------------------------------------

 45.00 g.     Mt. Hood                          Pellet   3.90  26.4  90 min.

Yeast

-----

White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

Water Treatment:

2 tsp CaCl2

2ml Lactic Acid 88%

A minor tragedy

The kolsch I recently brewed (see here), has been cold conditioning for a week, though I should really have just thrown it down the drain.

I have made this before, and I used White Labs WLP029 yeast which gave me a beautiful delicate kolsch. Unfortunately White Labs yeast is not available in Melbourne and so I had to order it from a New South Wales home brew shop. This had put me off brewing the kolsch again, but I recently found six bottles of last years version hidden away in my house. I decided to culture up the dregs from these bottles, and did so without undue difficulty. The first 200ml starter seemed to behave normally, as did the 500ml and 2L starters I then pitched to. The fun stopped when the main batch was innoculated. A very long lag time and a very slow fermentation got me worried. From my notes I could see that the fermentation was way behind schedule after a week, and so I took the dramatic step of making another starter and re-pitching to the main batch.

This helped things along a lot, but I think it may have been too little too late. From the first hydrometer samples I could detect phenolics, clove especially. This should always set alarm bells ringing, and it did, but I was hopeful that these volatiles might dissipate with time. When it came time to cold condition I could still taste and smell the phenolics, and a week in it's as bad as ever.

We know that some yeasts produce these compounds in a normal fermentation, particularly wheat beer yeasts, and wild yeast. I hadn't thought that WLP029 would produce them, and had put this problem down to a wild yeast infection. Now I'm not so sure. Firstly, the beer is completely clear, its appearance is actually picture perfect, exactly what I expected. Secondly it finished at exactly the same gravity as my first batch. Thirdly, there are several reports from home brew forums of this problem with this yeast. See here and here

Here's my theory:

The yeast I procured from the old bottles had very low viability. I tried to culture this up in a 200ml starter, and it did fire up, but it's possible that having started with such a small amount even a doubling of the cell count resulted in very little yeast. This problem then followed me through the other two starters, and I ended up underpitching this batch quite severely, a low fermentation temperature exacerbating the problem. The yeast, susceptible to these issues, in far from optimal conditions, was extremely stressed and secreted these unpleasant phenolics during replication/fermentation in the initial stages. After a sluggish start I pitched another starter and got things moving a bit, but the damage had been done.

The lesson:

Watch your pitching amounts, especially where you are using old yeast in cool conditions.

The plan:

I'll rebrew as soon as possible. I've already ordered a vial of WLP029 from another NSW homebrew shop, along with a vial of WLP006 Bedford Ale which constantly gets great reviews over at perfectpint.blogspot.com. I'll be making a big stirred starter and looking for a quick clean ferment.

The result:

About $18 of ingredients and 3-4 hours of my brewing time, plus minutes here and there to look after it, have been lost. I say lost and not wasted because once again I've learned more from this bad brew than I would from ten good ones. As long as I can explain problems I'm not overly worried about them.

Next Step:

A rebrew, I will have my Kolsch come hell or high water!

Bass

Irish people know Bass as a weak, tasteless red kegged/canned beer. This was certainly my experience of it. Our infamous taoiseach Bertie was a big fan, but was alone in his Bass preference from what I could see. When I first got interested in beer, around the time of that trip to Newcastle Upon Tyne (see the Landlord entry for more on that), I began to realise that Bass meant different things to the English than to us. The Bass available in Ireland was usually in a can and brewed in Belfast. When I ended up in a cosy roadside inn outside of Newcastle the day after my first cask ale (Landlord), it was Bass that mine host had put on the handpump.

 The difference was quite remarkable. This Bass had depth of flavour, many interweaving aromas and esters, with a dry finish. I'm still grateful to whatever hand was guiding me around my first 'Real Ales', as both the Landlord and the Bass were unforgettable brews, and my memory of the taste of each is as keen now as then.

I haven't before tried to brew it, and really this brew is more of a Bass inspired beer than a clone. I'm using Wyeast 1028, which is called 'London Ale', but is allegedly the Worthington White Shield yeast. This was pointed out to me by Will over at perfectpint.blogspot.com. I was going to try to get my hands on White Labs 'Burton Ale', but it may be the case that this is not from Burton at all, but rather Henley on Thames, and is in fact the same as WY1275, which I have had a patchy relationship with. Anyhow, if 1028 really is the white shield yeast, it should work really well for this beer.

For hops I'll be using Northern Brewer. I think they should give this beer a really unique hop presence, woody and earthy, and should be reminiscent of the Northdown/Challenger hops which I believe are the actual Bass hops. The third defining aspect of this beer will be the water profile. I'll be bumping up the sulphates quite a bit. The profile will be loosely based on Randy Mosher's Ideal Pale Ale profile, with the sulphates dialled back slightly from that. I'm aiming for about 110ppm of Ca, 280 SO4, and around 50 Cl.

Maltwise, I'm going for a 95% Maris Otter, 5% Medium Crystal bill. I'll add a little roasted barley for colour, as I want this to be a darkish orange heading for red. Why do I want this? I dunno, just do. This will be the second beer put on my new handpump, after the Beamish, so it's got about 3-4 weeks to mature if we go easy on the Beamish.

We won't go easy on the Beamish though.

The recipe is a mix of the Wheeler "Brew your own real ale at home" recipe, a "Brew your own" magazine recipe, and some adjustments by me based on experience.

Recipe:

3.91Kg     Simpsons Maris Otter
0.21Kg     Simpsons Crystal Medium
0.05Kg     Simpsons Roasted Barley

15g    Northern Brewer   9%AA     @60mins
30g    Northern Brewer   9%AA     @Flameout

yeast nutrient and koppafloc @ 10mins

No-Chill

Target OG 1.043

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I brewed this last night, having set the timer on my pot to have my water up to strike temp when I got home from work. Everything went quite smoothly until it was time to transfer to my cube - part of the no-chill process. I was using my oldest cube, and while sealing it up I felt a distinct warm sensation on my left foot. The cube had cracked about half way up one of the sides and wort was squirting out onto my shoe.

I've been brewing a lot lately and all of my other cubes were full. I made a snap decision to keg the Beamish I brewed last week and use its cube for the Bass. This made sense as the Beamish had finished fermenting within three days and is to be served as a 'real ale' on my handpump. I was aiming to turn the Beamish around quickly, though not as quickly as it ended up.

Having cleaned and sanitised the Beamish cube, I transferred the Bass clone from the leaking cube with the loss of about a litre or so of wort, not too bad and I should still be able to fill a keg with a little left over.

Fermentation for this one is:

0.5 packet of WY1028 London Ale into 500ml of wort
When finished transfer into 1.5L of wort
When at high krausen transfer to main batch.

I lost quite a bit of efficiency here, and my Ph was a bit low (5.3 at room temp). I suspect a relationship between those two things. I may need to adjust Ph up a bit when using so much sulphate in future. I still hit all of my numbers by judicious use of my refractometer.

Ah, Beamish!

I've got a significant birthday coming up soon, and it's tax back time in Australia, so I've gotten myself an early birthday present.

It's a beauty, an Angram CO, 1/2 pint jacketed beer engine. Something needs to be done about the Scrumpy jack clip, but otherwise it's in perfect working order and ready for action.

The first beer I'll be dispensing through this is a Beamish clone. I've brewed this before but there are some subtle changes this time round. First off I'm using Maris Otter as the base malt. I don't think Beamish is brewed using anything as fancy, so mine will be a sort of upmarket version. Also this time I'm using 'Pacman' yeast (Wyeast 1764). I wanted to use this last time but couldn't get my hands on it, so I'm looking forward to trying it out. The fermentation plan for this is: half pack of Pacman yeast in a 500ml starter (just to wake it up), followed by a 1.5L starter, then pitch to the main batch. I'll ferment at 17C, which is what a lot of homebrewers on homebrewtalk.com use for Pacman. I'm hoping to turn this around pretty quick, but that will depend on how it's tasting. Here's the recipe:

3.5kg Simpsons Ale - Maris Otter
0.25kg Simpsons Roast Barley
0.13kg Simpsons Chocolate
0.35kg Joe White/Maltcraft Malted Wheat


47g East Kent Goldings at 50mins

No chilled (poured into a water container and sealed, allowed to cool slowly)

In addition to my usual water treatment, I added a level teaspoon of baking soda to up the carbonate content a little (remember I'm on very soft water here). I did notice a certain harshness to the last batch of this I did, so I think this may help to soften it a bit.

I read a recent post on aussiehomebrewer.com where somebody reported better attenuation when using yeast nutrient. This would seem to be due to increased yeast health. I picked some up at the home brew shop and used it on this batch. The dose is a half teaspoon dissolved in hot water 10 minutes from the end of the boil. Apparently the Pacman is quite the attenuator, so I have to be careful not to over attenuate this one. I'll be keeping an eye on the mash temp (66C).

I found this beauty on youtube, "sound man Brendan!"

Next up is mounting the hand pump, should be fun!

Fullers ESB, and another element failure

I'm a regular listener to the brewing network's "Can you brew it" show with Jamil Zainasheff. I have a lot of time for Jamil, mostly because of his book "Brewing Classic Styles". Everything I've brewed from that book has been a complete success, and I've learned a hell of a lot just working through the recipes. "Can you brew it" provided the recipe for the Black Sheep Riggwelter I brewed quite a while back. This wasn't a complete success, mainly due to under-attenuating yeast which left me with a sickly sweet 1.018 FG. Still I could see that the recipe had the potential to be really good.

My next "Can you brew it" recipe is Fuller's ESB. There were actually a series of shows on Fuller's beers, and one conclusion the guys came to was that you need to do a parti-gyle brew, and stick to a somewhat anarchic fermentation schedule in order to accurately nail this beer.  I'm not going to go quite that far, although the "Brew in a bag" system is essentially a no-sparge technique, meaning that my wort will be similar to the first runnings from a parti-gyle. I have adjusted the numbers from the show a little, as I wanted a slightly lower OG - though increased efficiency means I ended up two points higher than I was aiming anyway. I have subbed some of the hops too, magnum for target for the bittering addition I don't think will hurt much. Subbing extra EKGs for challenger for the final hop addition will undoubtedly change the character of the beer, though I think the dry hopping will probably dominate over any potential changes from this.

I brewed this yesterday, and about 5 minutes after mashing out I had more element woes. No harm done but I how have a plug in RCD which is completely shot. I won't go into detail about this, but it meant I had to rip the insulation from my pot and carry it inside to my cook top. Luckily for me the big burner on our cook top is well able to get a rolling boil going with 26ish litres of wort, so the beer should turn out ok. 

Here's the recipe:

Recipe Specifics

----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50

Total Grain (kg):         5.70

Anticipated OG:          1.056    Plato:             13.77

Anticipated EBC:          29.5

Anticipated IBU:          37.1

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   26.47    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.047    SG          11.79  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential EBC

------------------------------------------------------------

 95.0     5.41 kg.  Pale Malt (Maris Otter)       UK             1.038      8

  5.0     0.29 kg.  Crystal 120L                  UK             1.033    317

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

----------------------------------------------------------------

 20.00 g.     Magnum                Pellet  11.00  31.2  60 min.

 15.00 g.     Wye Northdown         Pellet   9.60   3.0  3 min.

 25.00 g.     East Kent Goldings    Pellet   4.3    2.8  3 min.

 21.00 g.     East Kent Goldings    Pellet   4.3    0.0  Dry Hop

Yeast

-----

WY1968 London ESB

Chilled to 20 degrees and pitched with a generous quantity of washed yeast from the Rebel rising brew (WY1968 London ESB). As mentioned before this ended up at 1.058 OG, meaning efficiency was really more like 73%. As I have been doing for other high OG beers, I did a mash out for 15mins at 75C. Mash temp was 64C to get the desired attenuation from the WY1968 yeast.

It's now in the fermenting fridge at 18C. I'll step this up to 20 over the next day or two and send it back down to 18 later on in the fermentation, somewhat mimicking the Fullers fermentation schedule.

Yesterday was meant to be a double brew day, with a Beamish clone being the second brew. The element blowing meant that this didn't happen so if I can get it fixed soon I'll be brewing up some Beamish later this week.

Kolsch fermentation

I've had some trouble with the Kolsch fermentation. It looks like I dramatically underpitched the recultured WLP029 yeast, resulting in an extremely slow ferment. A week after pitching the gravity was at 1.034, compared to 1.020 for the same timepoint on my last Kolsch (same recipe).

To see what I'm dealing with here I took 200ml from the fermenter and put it on a stir plate for a fast ferment test. While this was running I cultured up some more of this yeast, this time a stirred 500ml starter and pitched this. The fast ferment ended up at 1.009 after about 2.5 days. The main fermentation has now speeded up quite a bit, dropping from 1.032 to 1.020 in 2 days. Hydrometer samples are not tasting very good at the moment. This beer will be lagered for a month after fermentation, so it may clean up a bit during that time. I'm hopeful about this beer, though not very confident.

Rebel Rising Tasting

Rebel Rising Red

Update: 31-Aug
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is almost gone, only a pint or two remaining. Over the past two weeks those strong dark flavours have started to mellow, and are now allowing a little of the spicy hop aroma through. It's finished up a wonderful brew, and as usual I'll be very sad to see the end of the keg. The changes I suggested will probably still be implemented next time round, just to compare and contrast, but this was by no means a 'miss'. In fact it's one of the beers I'm proudest of, having come up with the recipe myself.



Original Post
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So we're nearly four weeks in with this beer, and once again I haven't been able to leave it alone. I kegged this about 10 days ago and have been tasting every day since. I always find it fascinating to taste the dramatic flavour changes in my beer as it transitions through the conditioning phase. This one was severely lacking in mouthfeel and maltiness at first, but now has bucketloads of both. It's almost fun to start worrying about what looks like a bad beer, only for it to turn the corner to malty heaven.

My aim with this recipe was to have a go at creating a beer of my own, loosely based on the irish red ale style. I chose some of my favourite malts and hops, my favourite yeast, and put them together with some invert sugar to see what I could come up with. I gave the grist in weight in a previous post, but here it is in percentages:

Simpsons Maris Otter      83.1%
Simpsons Dark Crystal      7.1%
Simpsons Roast Barley      1.7%
Invert No. 2                        8.1%

I wish I had looked at this a bit more carefully before I started! Really I shouldn't have gone past 5% dark crystal. It's a malt I really love but it's flavours are quite intense (rum, raisin etc.), and it takes away from the sessionability of the beer. The invert no.2 is also adding flavours like this, and so some of the malt flavours become overpowering by pint number three.

Pints number one and two, however, are inspiring. This drinks really well, with a full mouthfeel and some interesting yeast derived flavours. The WY1968 has done a fantastic job here, and I will certainly stick with it for future versions. In the end it's the heavy dose of dark crystal which stops your session, which is a shame as making a really sessionable beer was one of the key aspirations for this brew. I'm relatively happy though, for a first go it's really good, and promising.

I think the following would make a good version 2:

Simpsons Maris Otter       84.7%
Simpsons Dark Crystal        3.5%
Simpsons Light Crystal        2.4%
Simpsons Roast Barley        1.2%
Invert No. 2                          8.2%

I have dialed back the roast barley a little. This is a colour consideration. Currently the colour is a deep ruby red, beautiful in it's own way but perhaps a tad darker than I was aiming for. Cutting back a little on the roast barley and dark crystal will cut about 10 EBCs and should result in a nice bright red.

On the hop front, I'm happy with the bitterness level, but I think I could aim a little higher with the aroma level (currently almost non-existent). I may consider trying cube hopping again with this one. Again I'm probably heading out of style, but who cares?

I'll be having another double brew day next Sunday, which will be a "Can you brew it" Fuller's ESB, and a Beamish. I've got a nice washed WY1968 yeastcake from this red ale for the ESB, and a recently procured packet of Pacman yeast for the Beamish.

The Path Is Clear

A few months back I mentioned that I was planning to start brewing lager. Even though I still haven't gotten around to doing it, the decision to start has actually been quite beneficial to my brewing knowledge. It has resulted in some experimentation which has greatly increased my knowledge of the finer points of the brewing process. The main aspects of brewing I have been studying up on recently are water chemistry and mash ph, which are of course very closely linked. My main sources of knowledge have been the braukeiser wiki and the "Key Concepts in Water Treatment" document by Tony Wheeler, available from here. I also purchased a Hanna pH meter, and have learned to calibrate it correctly (it helps that I work with lab people). Here are some key concepts i have come to terms with (all based on Melbourne water supply - largely lacking in all ions important to brewing, with addition of about 75ppm Calcium plus some other ions):

1. Mash pH varies quite considerably with grist composition - darker grists produce lower ph mashes
2.  Very light grists produce mashes with pH (far?) above the desirable range of 5.2-5.4 (My recent Kolsch)
3.  Average grists producing copper coloured mashes just about hit the pH 5.4 mark. (My recent APA)
4.  Not adding gypsum as part of calcuim addition negatively affects hop character in medium to highly hopped beers. (Harsh hop character in my Brakspear Special with no gypsum addition, did not seem to affect hop character of my Rebel Rising Red, which had moderate hop levels and also received no gypsum)

Extrapolating from 2&3 above, it's possible that very dark grists may cause the pH to drop below 5.2. Wheeler claims it's better to be too low than too high, so we'll have to wait and see if this is an issue or not. I've got a Beamish clone coming up soon that will test this out.

Based on these findings, this is what I aim to change from now on.

1.  Measure pH with well calibrated meter FOR ALL BREWS.
2.  Add lactic acid to mash water for lighter coloured grists to get pH level in desirable range.
3.  Add gypsum to bring SO4 ion level into the 100-150ppm range for all hoppy beers. I just did this with my American Pale Ale and I'm keen to see how it affects the hop character. I may push even higher for the sake of experiment later on.

I should explain that I have always treated my water with about 1.5tsp of Calcium Chloride and 1tsp gypsum, but never really tried to understand why I should do this. I had a vague (and correct) idea that I definitely needed to add Calcium to my water, but didn't know any more than that. In the end I convinced myself that gypsum probably wasn't that important, but the first hoppy beer of my production line where it wasn't used had a very noticeable harsh hop character. Perhaps from something else, but I will experiment to see if it is from lack of gypsum.

A Big Day

I decided to do two brews today, something I have done in the past but not lately. As a good Melbourne citizen I hate to waste water, and so once I decided to do a beer that requires chilling (a hoppy american pale ale), it made sense to use the hot waste water from the chiller to start another mash.

Both brews are from the book "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer. This is a great recipe book and I have really enjoyed the beers I have brewed from it. These beers tend to be real crowd pleasers too, which can be both a good and a bad thing, I love to have people taste my beer but I hate seeing it disappear in a night or two.

Anyhow, the first beer is the American Pale Ale from "Brewing Classic Styles". This is a big beer, with an OG of 1.056, and should end up at about 5.7% abv. It's hoppy too, with 60 grams of hops in the last 10 minutes. There's no crystal malt in this one, with Munich and Victory providing a biscuity background. I also changed my water treatment a bit, based on a suggested bitter ale profile from perfectpint . 1tsp Gypsum, 1tsp Calcium Chloride, and a half tsp Epsom salts. Here's the recipe I used (slightly modified from the original):

Recipe Specifics

----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     22.50

Total Grain (kg):         5.98

Anticipated OG:          1.057    Plato:             14.11

Anticipated SRM:           6.8

Anticipated IBU:          40.6

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   26.47    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.049    SG          12.08  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin       --------------------------------------------------------------

 84.8     5.07 kg. Joe White Pale Ale Malt (2-row)        

  3.8     0.23 kg.  Joe White Wheat Malt                   

  5.7     0.34 kg.  Breiss Victory Malt                           

  5.7     0.34 kg.  Joe White Munich Malt I                

Hops

   Amount     Name                   Form    Alpha  IBU  BoilTime

------------------------------------------------------------------

 20.00 g.     Magnum                 Pellet  12.10  34.1  60 min.

 14.18 g.     Cascade                Pellet   5.75   2.3  10 min.

 14.18 g.     Centennial             Pellet  10.50   4.2  10 min.

 14.18 g.     Cascade                Pellet   5.75   0.0  0 min.

 14.18 g.     Centennial             Pellet  10.50   0.0  0 min.

Yeast

-----

WYeast 1272 American Ale II

I hit all the numbers on this one, which I was really happy about because it can be difficult to get consistent efficiency with bigger beers with the brew in a bag system. To aid me in this I did a mash out at 75, which I wouldn't usually do. I tested the PH with my now properly calibrated ph tester, and the mash ph was 5.4.

My pH tester, used in anger for the first time

I chilled after a 10 minute whirlpool and pitched a starter of WY1272. I've got the fermenting fridge set to 18.


The second beer of the day was the Kolsch from "Brewing Classic Styles". I brewed this last year and really liked it. At that time I had managed to get my hands on some White Labs WLP029 Kolsch yeast, which I really  like. White Labs yeast is hard to get here in Melbourne, with Wyeast being dominant. When cleaning out some old bottles last week I found six bottles of last years Kolsch, which to be honest didn't taste great, but had a good layer of yeast in the bottom. I got this fired up in a weak starter and I've been stepping it up.



Here's the Kolsch recipe:

Recipe Specifics

----------------

Batch Size (L):          22.50    Wort Size (L):     19.00

Total Grain (kg):         4.90

Anticipated OG:          1.047    Plato:             11.67

Anticipated SRM:           2.8

Anticipated IBU:          23.8

Brewhouse Efficiency:       70 %

Wort Boil Time:             90    Minutes

Pre-Boil Amounts

----------------

Evaporation Rate:      15.00    Percent Per Hour

Pre-Boil Wort Size:   29.03    L

Pre-Boil Gravity:      1.036    SG          9.12  Plato

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                         ------------------------------------------------------

 95.4     4.67 kg.  Joe White Pilsener

  4.6     0.23 kg.   Joe White Vienna Malt                  

Hops

   Amount     Name                  Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time

--------------------------------------------------------------

 43.00 g.     Mt. Hood              Pellet   3.90  23.8  60 min.

Yeast

-----

White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch

Brakspear Special Tasting

Final Update 10.08.12:

I finished this keg last night. Things I have learned:

1. I need to give my beers more time, 2 weeks from yeast pitch is not realistic for 4.5%abv beers. This beer got much better towards the end (finished keg after 30days from yeast pitch)
2. I need more than 113g of specialty malts when using highly attenuating yeast like WY1275, this beer ended up very dry with little 'maltiness'
3. Following from 2 above; underattenuation, something that's cursed my brewing since day one, is actually a lot easier to deal with than overattenuation, and underattenuated beer tastes a lot better than overattenuated. 
3. Attempts at fancy ways of capturing late hop character in no-chill beers have been largely unsuccessful. Better to stick to the obvious - a slightly increased dose of hops at flameout, whirlpool, then leave them behind in the kettle.
4. Invert no. 1 is highly fermentable, if you use it don't depend on it to impart much flavour.
5. Don't neglect gypsum. I had convinced myself it was having little impact on my beers, and didn't use it here. The result was quite a harsh hop character. Gypsum seems to help soften the hop bitterness.

So there you go. I learned a hell of a lot on this beer. It is far from the best beer I've ever made (in fact it may have been the worst), but it was well worth any effort and will make me a much better brewer I am sure.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 6.08.10:

I'm writing this another week on, so the beer is almost 4 weeks since yeast pitching old. The unpleasant yeast character I mentioned last week has completely disappeared, though there is still the faintest hint of acetaldehyde. This beer has really improved, and I think it will continue to improve if I can stop drinking it. One thing I would consider changing is the bittering level, it is quite unbalanced in my opinion, and I would drop the IBUs by at least 5 or maybe up to 10. I may be tempted to give the WY1275 another chance if something suitable comes up.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Original post:

I've had this on tap for nearly a week, but a slight acetaldehyde issue prevented me from giving it a proper test until now.

It pours quite clear, with a straw gold colour. The first thing you notice here is the hop character, both the overall bitterness and the pleasant styrian goldings aroma. It is quite bitter at 42IBUs, much more so than any English style bitter I've made before.

Unfortunately this beer has what I call the 's-04 tang'. This is a kind of faint peppery yoghurt aftertaste which a lot of people notice when using Safale S-04 dry ale yeast. I had this issue with the session bitter I brewed a while back with this same yeast (WY1275 Thames Valley), so along with S-04, WY1098 and WY1099, I'll be adding WY1275 to the list of yeasts I will no longer use. I have read that certain fermentation regimes can increase or decrease this yeast characteristic, but I'm not prepared to look into it any further, as I can't see any characteristics that this yeast brings that is worth striving for. Here's a mention of it at perfectpint. Will seems to think it might be from underpitching or too warm a fermentation, but I don't think either of those were an issue for me this time around.

Aside from the 'S-04 tang', there is a distinct mineral character which interplays with the bitterness. As with the session bitter I find that this works quite well with food, but less well when drunk on it's own.

Overall this is a drinkable beer, but far from memorable.

Next up is my rebel red, currently at 1.016 and dropping. Fermenter samples are quite promising, though I think I may be well off the mark in terms of cloning rebel red. That wasn't really what I was aiming for this time, so it doesn't really matter. The reason for this is of course the yeast - WY1968. I'm quickly finding that the English yeasts I have used over the past year all seem to dominate the flavour profile of the beers they ferment.

I'm tempted to think that it is likely that two beers made from completely different worts, but fermented with the same English yeast, would in some ways have more in common than two beers from the same wort fermented with different English yeasts. Perhaps an experiment is due!

Rebel Rising

My first real exposure to craft beer was way back in 2001 when I first visited the Franciscan Well brewery in Cork. Microbreweries were very new to Ireland at that time, and a completely new experience for me. Having grown up in a pub (My grandmother was a publican), I was used to the usual suspects in the beer lineup; Guinness, Murphys, Smithwicks, Heineken, Budweiser, Bulmer's Cider, and maybe Beamish, Harp and one or two more in the bigger establishments.

The whole idea of a smaller craft brewery was intriguing. It helped that the Franciscan Well produces pleasant easy drinking beers - a light fruity Kolsch, an interpretation of the Irish Red Ale, and a stout (plus a few others). I suppose you could call these "gateway" beers - they help open up the palate to possibility, without overwhelming with unfamiliar flavours and aromas. Quickly I developed a keen thirst for Rebel Red, their "Irish red ale". The whole Irish red ale thing is a bit of a mystery to me, I have no idea where it comes from. Smithwicks, the only widely available Irish beer even approaching the "Irish Red Ale" idea, would not qualify as one under the BJCP guidelines. Anyhow doubts about the origins of the style never stopped me enjoying Rebel Red, and I'm out to recreate it, well sort of anyway.

Rebel Red clocks in at about 4.3%, and from memory I think that they use fuggles and goldings hops. Hop aroma is fairly muted, but it is there. It is subject to some variation in sweetness, ranging from very dry to moderately sweet. I'm really guessing here, but I would estimate an O.G. of around 1.045ish, finishing at 1.012ish. IBUs around 25 or so. I would guess that they use a neutral ale yeast of some sort as there is no obvious yeast character, and also the founder is an American microbrewer.

I'm going to change this up a little, I'm interested in making a version of Rebel Red to suit my tastes, which involves a little bit of yeast character. I'll use WY1968, the Fuller's strain, and I will again use a little invert sugar to help get down to my desired finishing gravity - 1.012. I have had trouble with this yeast not attenuating as much as I would like, and I'm hoping the invert will help. Rebel red also has a slight caramel character, possibly diaceytl, though maybe something else. Invert no.2 should help to develop this character.

Anyhow, here's my recipe.

3.6kg Simpsons Maris Otter
310grams Simpsons Dark Crystal
   75grams Simpsons Roasted Barley
300grams Invert no 2 (well 300g raw sugar inverted)

50/50 mix of Williamette and E.K. Goldings to 25IBU at 60mins
10g Williamette, 10g E.K. Goldings at 15mins

Wyeast 1968, pitched at 18C

I'll be brewing tonight after work - my first weekday brew! I will no chill this one, so hop additions are at 45mins and at flameout.

Hot Break - You can see the ruby red colour

Brakspear Bitter

In choosing my latest recipe I had two criteria, that it came from my new book "Brew your own Real Ale" by Graham Wheeler, and that it would have a quick turn around. I'm all out of beer at the moment, and those kegs won't fill themselves. I chose to try the Brakspear Bitter recipe from BYORA because I had a good quantity of washed WY1275 Slurry from a previous brew. Also I've been keen to try using some invert sugar in my recipes, based on the experiences of mine host at perfectpint.blogspot.com. Invert is a traditional ingredient in British Ales, and it would appear that it has the dual benefit of adding flavour and decreasing the turn around time for the beer.

The BYORA book lists white sugar as an ingredient where the actual brewery uses invert, in the belief (stated in the introduction) that it adds no flavour to the beer. Several influential brewing bloggers dispute this, and claim that it does indeed add flavour and other characteristics to beer that white sugar can't provide. See http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com.au for lots of information on this.

To make my invert, I took 400ml of tap water to the boil, removed from the heat and slowly mixed in 350g of raw sugar. I also added a heaped tablespoon of glucose to help prevent crystals. To this I added a quarter teaspoon of citric acid and then put the mixture back on the heat. Once it was boiling I waited 20 minutes and then removed it from the heat and allowed it to cool. I ended up with something quite reminiscent of Lyle's Golden syrup, but less viscous.  It certainly has more flavour than a simple white sugar syrup, with some tannic notes.

This is the invert ready to use

I kept things pretty simple equipment wise for this brew, and I've gone back to no-chill just for convenience. As my yeast slurry was getting sort of old, I decided to take around 2.5L of wort into a conical flask to serve as a starter. I also added the finishing hops to this starter since it was going to cool a lot quicker than the bulk of the wort. Hopefully this will preserve most of the finishing hop aroma.

The malt bill is pretty simple, Maris Otter with a little Dark Crystal (all Simpsons malt). I added the invert with the irish moss addition approximately 15 minutes from the end of the boil. My equipment stood up to the job really well, and I think I have a pretty reliable boiler now. I'm toying with the idea of turning my big keg into a double batch BIAB rig using a gas burner. This would mean I could do a single batch on the electric rig and a double batch on the gas, 3 kegs from one brew day - nice! We'll see how that idea develops.

Mash in Progress

My starter was a little slow to take off, about 30 hours, so I'm really glad I decided to use a starter. That has now been pitched to the main batch and things have kicked off with a rocky head appearing after about 12 hours.

Here's the recipe:

3.86kg Simpsons Maris Otter
0.13kg Simpsons Dark Crystal
0.35kg white sugar - I substituted invert as per instructions above

54g Target (I subbed 45g Challenger) at 60mins
11g Styrian Goldings at flameout

"Dry hop with a few cones of Goldings" is the final instruction, whatever that means.