tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38922256097663611552024-03-15T01:43:17.646+11:00Ag Déanamh LeannA running commentary on my brewing and brewing related projects.sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-81888600607083306422015-03-05T11:56:00.004+11:002015-03-05T16:18:51.972+11:00Firstone Walker Union Jack CloneBack to <a href="http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/656">the brewing network's "Can You Brew It"</a>. I love this show. I managed to get some fresh Union Jack when I was in San Francisco back in October. I remember thinking it was pretty awesome, though I can't remember anything specific about now. I just decided it's time I did a west coast IPA style beer and this recipe looks the goods.<br />
<br />
I'm still working on the new setup. Efficiency (63%) was quite poor once again. I think this is coming from two places:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>My blichman autosparge is returning wort via a silicon hose, which is causing a whirlpooling effect. This is causing an obvious channelling problem. I need to rethink how to return wort and sparge. </li>
<li>I'm collecting wort far too quickly in the sparging process. </li>
</ol>
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<br />
I've removed the stainless braid from my kettle output. As I mentioned in the last post it was getting hopelessly clogged with a medium hop bill, it wouldn't have any chance with this hop bill. Also it was interfering with whirlpooling by effectively drawing wort from the whole of the outside rim. Now I've just got a simple pickup tube with no filter of any kind. It worked quite well, with a decent trub cone developing through simple whirlpooling and I was able to drain all but about 2.5L from the kettle without getting a lot of hop debris in the chiller.<br />
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So even though my mash efficiency was the same as the last brew, my brewhouse efficiency was way up. I'm half way there I guess. I ended up with an OG of 1.063, 7 points off the CYBI recipe, but only 3 off the recipe in Mitch Steele's IPA book, so I'm hopeful I'll still end up with something pretty good.<br />
<br />
I'm a little worried about my starter. It was a 2.5L stirred starter of WLP007. The starter beer had a very slight sour edge, and I was sorely tempted to throw the whole thing out. Then I found this post on <a href="http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/starter-wort-tastes-sour-should-i-still-use-194230/">homebrewtalk.com</a>, and decided it was probably ok. Now I'm not so sure. I guess we'll find out. <br />
<br />
Despite the slight disappointment with mash efficiency, and being another night time brew, the whole thing went really smoothly. I think this was due in large part to creating a job list before hand. I hadn't done this before, but it really helped keep any panic at bay. Here it is: <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDVcDBVlqychzsIcrWxaMl0pEcBvIe5yx8RSd4CvFiAhTTEQ4If2SoBTvX4j6qEJMAU4tMXLKwKVxaqMcmHElNZBP5r4yju7QMoQa0i1bIMMwH2ediwbSh0T0MHFU87BzasBPFpuol3U/s1600/schedule.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDVcDBVlqychzsIcrWxaMl0pEcBvIe5yx8RSd4CvFiAhTTEQ4If2SoBTvX4j6qEJMAU4tMXLKwKVxaqMcmHElNZBP5r4yju7QMoQa0i1bIMMwH2ediwbSh0T0MHFU87BzasBPFpuol3U/s1600/schedule.jpg" height="320" width="311" /></a></div>
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<br />
Recipe:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Firestone Union Jack<br /><br /><br /><br />Grain/Extract/Sugar<br /><br /> % Amount Name Origin Potential SRM<br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> 82.0 6.30 kg. Pale Ale Malt (2-row) Australia 1.037 2<br /> 11.7 0.90 kg. Munich Malt I Germany 1.037 6<br /> 4.9 0.38 kg. CaraPils Germany 1.033 2<br /> 1.3 0.10 kg. CaraMalt UK 1.035 34<br /><br />Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.<br /><br /><br />Hops<br /><br /> Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time<br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> 29.00 g. Warrior Pellet 14.70 55.5 60 min.<br /> 16.00 g. Cascade Pellet 7.90 8.4 30 min.<br /> 21.00 g. Centennial Pellet 9.00 12.5 30 min.<br /> 52.00 g. Cascade Pellet 7.00 0.0 0 min.<br /> 52.00 g. Centennial Pellet 10.50 0.0 0 min.<br /> 44.00 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 0.0 Dry Hop<br /> 44.00 g. Centennial Pellet 10.50 0.0 Dry Hop<br /> 30.00 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 0.0 Dry Hop<br /> 30.00 g. Centennial Whole 10.50 0.0 Dry Hop<br /> 14.00 g. Amarillo Gold Pellet 10.00 0.0 Dry Hop<br /> 14.00 g. Simcoe Pellet 13.00 0.0 Dry Hop<br /><br /><br />Yeast<br />-----<br /><br />WLP007 <br /><br /><br />Mash Schedule<br />-------------<br /><br />Mash Type: Multi Step<br /><br /><br />Saccharification Rest Temp : 63 Time: 60<br />Mash-out Rest Temp : 68 Time: 10<br />Sparge Temp : 78 Time: 30<br /><br /><br />All temperature measurements are degrees Celsius.</span></span>sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-68749971508821599442015-03-01T17:25:00.000+11:002015-03-01T17:25:43.721+11:00American Pale AleSo it's back to brewing classic styles for the first beer through my new mash tun. I've dispensed with the bag for now and I'm close to finishing the 3 vessel system I've been building for the last few months.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwFOd_nqzK-4X3Vil5LYIvPeEavkMrTmRC9L7l_sTUAmWyFdklU_FZa8VhTLLsFsyTpw8D0ds-DQVQIJfVCEGq33IZqL4t-63mB7OR8uxnqJCDXyXxDvPBIJc92Q36HDPxMsMhEHwKnA/s1600/20150225_133219.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwFOd_nqzK-4X3Vil5LYIvPeEavkMrTmRC9L7l_sTUAmWyFdklU_FZa8VhTLLsFsyTpw8D0ds-DQVQIJfVCEGq33IZqL4t-63mB7OR8uxnqJCDXyXxDvPBIJc92Q36HDPxMsMhEHwKnA/s1600/20150225_133219.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Progress</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The recipe is one I've done several times before, though I've played with the hops a little. The brewday itself was besieged with issues from the off:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>I connected my heat exchanger backwards during the initial mash, and the wort ended up hitting 69C through the HEX for a short time before I spotted the error and dropped it back to 66C.</li>
<li>I ran my sparge water through the HEX to ensure it was at the correct temperature, but once again I connected it backwards and may possibly have heated some sparge water way above an acceptable temperature, also the water in the HEX boiled for a moment which is not good. </li>
<li>I didn't heat enough sparge water and ended up topping up the kettle with around 3.5L of water to hit the pre-boil volume. </li>
<li>My hop filter using a stainless braid got completely clogged with pellet hops and I left around 5L of wort in the kettle at the end of the brewday.</li>
<li>Efficiency was poor, around 63%, a combination of mill gap and running out of sparge water.</li>
<li>The final insult - I messed up setting the temperature on the fermenting fridge and 12 hours after pitching the yeast it was sitting at 12.5C.</li>
</ol>
<br />
I'm still hopeful it's not a complete disaster, but I'll be lucky to pull some decent beer from this brewday, and in any event I'll be very short on volume. <br />
<br />
One nice result from the whole experience was the clarity of the wort at the end. It's unlike anything I've seen before from any other brew setup I've used. Hopefully it translates into clearer beer, though I'm not so sure about that.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRj-HeeATk86rJjJEFN1GWtDCet7zn-NNTEhfKwCJE2QjfU2CZ28TVSGy52JrAmAkvupUGhxehU0OI8DOlmuUESfJBsPLxe7LQao6ajiDtcrxWlt-ZHsO8DMbShNX7M-YnRxlR7k_MDCU/s1600/20150225_171958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRj-HeeATk86rJjJEFN1GWtDCet7zn-NNTEhfKwCJE2QjfU2CZ28TVSGy52JrAmAkvupUGhxehU0OI8DOlmuUESfJBsPLxe7LQao6ajiDtcrxWlt-ZHsO8DMbShNX7M-YnRxlR7k_MDCU/s1600/20150225_171958.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv6P50RKaG5G_LO2mXXtDmoWT8MRwWPskYgAMOrANJYSrlg5b-8roydvt2lJslddGjKHxeKvmuxbWJsn17ZmaASzflepfGatKal0Oi6wJcQq_1h4U-WxYAjzu9h_icCdQaRIxMV5WB_K0/s1600/20150225_172029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRj-HeeATk86rJjJEFN1GWtDCet7zn-NNTEhfKwCJE2QjfU2CZ28TVSGy52JrAmAkvupUGhxehU0OI8DOlmuUESfJBsPLxe7LQao6ajiDtcrxWlt-ZHsO8DMbShNX7M-YnRxlR7k_MDCU/s1600/20150225_171958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsQBYq_6e_ChAKA82mLZ_QQfVVC6j-nYckO1tOzOVoORF8Qk1imCq6iRUTKYPPkLxCm4gx_05QHzloBrl9oc0EG1bdmxje9GJyX06beBd4Pl-QzbxaLTh_e_cBVddYAAgambTE7ssNhyphenhyphen4/s1600/20150225_172029_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsQBYq_6e_ChAKA82mLZ_QQfVVC6j-nYckO1tOzOVoORF8Qk1imCq6iRUTKYPPkLxCm4gx_05QHzloBrl9oc0EG1bdmxje9GJyX06beBd4Pl-QzbxaLTh_e_cBVddYAAgambTE7ssNhyphenhyphen4/s1600/20150225_172029_small.jpg" height="207" width="320" /></a></div>
Anyhow, that's the first and hopefully the most painful brew on the new system. You can plan these systems out all you like but you don't really get an idea how it all works together until you fire it up. I now know where I need to concentrate my efforts to get this running smoothly. I need to:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Sort out draining of the kettle to the plate chiller. Some ideas below</li>
<li>I need to heat more sparge water than seems necessary, better to have too much rather than too little. I was still getting 1.024 from the last runnings out of the mash tun so missed out on a lot of sugar here.</li>
<li>I need to tune the mill gap a little. I had no issues with sparging so there seems to be some room for adjustment.</li>
<li>I need rules about HEX connections. It matters which way it's connected.</li>
<li>I need to mount the controller properly. At the moment it's just sitting on the edge of the stand. </li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
For the kettle draining, I'm going to have to abandon the sparge braid as a hop filter. It just isn't up to the job and it's also having a dramatic effect on my ability to create a whirlpool in the kettle. Because I'm effectively draining the kettle from the whole of the outer rim, the whirlpool has no chance to gain any momentum.<br />
<br />
My plan is to replace the braid with a simple side facing pickup tube and simply depend on an effective whirlpool stage to concentrate hop debris away from the pickup tube. I'll need to throttle back the outlet to avoid upsetting the resulting cone of hop debris. Also this means I can't really use the boiling wort towards the end of the boil to sanitise my chiller, so the chiller will have to be sanitised separately. Maybe I'll figure out a clever way to do this, but I can't think of one right now.<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
5.1Kg Barrett Burston Ale Malt<br />
0.34Kg Weyermann Munich I<br />
0.34Kg Joe White Wheat<br />
0.23Kg Breiss Victory<br />
<br />
Water treatment: 2.5tsp CaSO4, 1tsp CaCl2, 1tsp MgSO4, 0.25tsp lactic acid<br />
<br />
18g Magnum 14.7% @60<br />
20g Cascade 7.9% @ 10<br />
20g Centennial 9% @10 <br />
20g Cascade 7.9% @ 0<br />
20g Centennial 9% @0<br />
<br />
Pitched 200ml slurry of WLP001. Fridge set to 19C (or so I thought, dipped to 12.5C but quickly corrected back to 19) sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-8265073771417938422015-02-11T20:14:00.002+11:002015-02-12T10:31:52.482+11:00My Continuing Landlord Obsession So here we go again, Wyeast Yorkshire Ale yeast, Styrian Goldings, Golden Promise, and just a hint of Simpsons Heritage Crystal.<br />
<br />
Looks like Timothy Taylor have done quite a bit of updating of their website recently. There are some really good videos with head brewer <span class="st">Peter Eells narrating <a href="http://timothytaylor.co.uk/brewery">here</a>. </span><br />
<br />
I particularly like the fermenting vessels - basically they convert from open to closed after the main part of fermentation is finished.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://timothytaylor.co.uk/img/beers/handpull_landlord.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://timothytaylor.co.uk/img/beers/handpull_landlord.png" height="320" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mmmmmmmm</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
Recipe:<br />
<br />
4.20 Kg Thomas Fawcell Floor Malted Golden Promise<br />
0.175Kg Simpsons Heritage Crystal<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
34g Fuggles 5% @ 60</div>
23g EKG 5.7% @15<br />
50g Styrian Goldings 2.5% @ 0<br />
<br />
Salts: 1tsp CaCls, 1.5tsp CaSO4, 1tsp MgSO4 (also 1/4 tsp of Lactic)<br />
<br />
Mash: In at 55C for 5, 66C for 40, 72C for 10, 78C for 10<br />
<br />
Mashing in at 55 seems to have had a dramatic effect on the Amber Ale I brewed last time - hydrometer samples maintained a dense fluffy head for about an hour!<br />
<br />
The new system build is still ongoing, and my lack of familiarity with it caused a big cock up last night. I mashed into about 36L of liquor instead of 32. I don't have numbers on the keggle, just marks and I got mixed up. That will need to be fixed.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWCtGQTP1LmpAZ3g5bB_yZshPFKE-nKc5gr-pKiiMQfNt4ovdeLmwEwA3reJ7p-f2G-Mbp48xh-vJVlevLP-hUsgS6rUWEk06FH4Ta7Z428wyQppclVu8gXnqBBIkSKPwCYEXZoGlnCs/s1600/20150210_193819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWCtGQTP1LmpAZ3g5bB_yZshPFKE-nKc5gr-pKiiMQfNt4ovdeLmwEwA3reJ7p-f2G-Mbp48xh-vJVlevLP-hUsgS6rUWEk06FH4Ta7Z428wyQppclVu8gXnqBBIkSKPwCYEXZoGlnCs/s1600/20150210_193819.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mid-mash</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This meant that nearly an hour
into what became a 2 hour boil I still had over 30L of weak wort and I
decided that it was getting too late to do a very extended boil so I
chucked in the bittering hops. One hour later I still had around 27L of
wort, which is usually my pre-boil volume. At that stage I cut the heat,
whirlpooled and added the styrians, and finished with an OG of 1.040.
This means efficiency was at around 80%, without changing the crush,
which shows you how much more efficient lower gravity brewing is in a
brew in a bag system.</span><br />
<br />
I ended up collecting about 23L of wort and could have collected a lot more, but I didn't have the headspace in my fermenter (a Brewtech stainless bucket). I'm planning to aggressively top crop this batch, at 24 hours skim off and throw away, then at 48hr collect a batch of yeast for another brew. For now it just has a cling film lid, which will be replaced when activity reduces a little with the usual stainless lid.<br />
<br />
I chilled to groundwater temp (25C), and pitched and aerated straight away as it was getting too late for messing about. Yeast is of course WY1469, and aeration was 60sec O2. The fermenting fridge was set to 17C and I'm allowing it to free rise to 19. <br />
<br />
<br />
Target OG was 1.045, and this will also affect the IBUs on this beer. Wheeler lists Landlord OG as 1.042, so I'm there or thereabouts. Overall it was only a minor disaster, caused by two factors; night time brewing and lack of keggle number markings/familiarity with the system. On the plus side the extended boil does seem to have darkened the wort a little, which is appropriate for a Landlord clone.<br />
<br />
This should still be a decent beer, and I'll put it 'on cask' (Low CO2 through hand pump, ~10C).<br />
<br />
Lessons learned: Sort out the keggle markings, no more night time brewing until I've got the system dialled in.<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-82355794832837953772015-02-02T11:19:00.000+11:002015-02-04T15:30:50.770+11:00American Amber Ale On New BreweryI visited the <a href="http://brightbrewery.com/">Bright Brewery</a> at Christmas. I tried quite a few of their beers but for me the 'Hellfire Amber Ale' stood out. It has a magnificent malty backbone with just a little spicy hop character over the top. From the notes I read at the brewery it's fermented with 'Yorkshire Ale Yeast' and finished with English hops - I assume this means WY1469 and EKGs.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, this got me thinking about brewing something along the same lines, but with a bit of American hop character, just because I'm in the mood for some C hops. I've turned to my trusty copy of 'Brewing Classic Styles' and pulled out the American Amber Ale recipe from that.<br />
<br />
I've been busy building myself a new brew rig over the last few months. To begin with I've built up the stand with a mounting point for my chiller, burner and HEX, which already represents a huge improvement over the improvised mountings on my old rig. Also I've put this on castors, which I can tell you already is by far the biggest improvement over the old rig. Here's what it looked like last week before getting tested over the weekend.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTdYTc4PSkt3XfCqh64CjYk0ggUYB3U4P2CbwjDdXF5Bj7wUnfkTzh9Jnn8qX3YRl68ugtkOPui9w8I1uMqiylHRBh1hxnhTZSOYDzx3t-GYrWzwL-_CkujXjFmMHzliZeuGESPqLGmzU/s1600/20150125_151308.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTdYTc4PSkt3XfCqh64CjYk0ggUYB3U4P2CbwjDdXF5Bj7wUnfkTzh9Jnn8qX3YRl68ugtkOPui9w8I1uMqiylHRBh1hxnhTZSOYDzx3t-GYrWzwL-_CkujXjFmMHzliZeuGESPqLGmzU/s1600/20150125_151308.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The New Rig</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For the first brew (and probably the second) on this rig I'm using BIAB with HERMS similar to the previous system. One change on the new rig is a plumbed whirlpool fitting. Eventually this will morph into a full 3V HERMS system, but it might take me a month or more to get fully there.<br />
<br />
Another change is that I've now started buying ingredients in bulk. I've gotten myself a monster mill and 75Kgs of base malt, as well as a few kilos of hops. These are being stored appropriately and already I'm enjoying the feeling of being able to brew whenever I want, whatever I want.<br />
<br />
For this brew I set the mill gap to ~1mm. My efficiency ended up at 69%, and this was something I was able to measure accurately for once, as I've calibrated the new keggle. I'll adjust the mill gap down a little to try and get to about 75% which is I think a good place to be efficiency wise.<br />
<br />
Mash schedule was: Mash in at 55, raise to 66 for 50 mins, 72 for 20 mins, then mash out at 78 for 20mins. I'm testing out some theories I've read on head retention and low mash in temps. I'll report on this later on. <br />
<br />
I was left with 2.5l of wort/trub in the keggle at the end of the brew and I should be able to get this down a little more with some adjustment. I got 20L into the fermenter (also a new SS brew bucket), and this got 60 secs of O2 aeration at pitching time. Yeast was WLP001 from a 1.5L stirred starter.<br />
<br />
Recipe:<br />
<br />
Water: 2tsp Gypsum, 1tsp CaCl2, 1tsp MgSO4 into 32L very soft Melbourne water. <br />
<br />
4.19Kg Barrett Burston Ale Malt<br />
0.45Kg Weyermann Munich Malt<br />
0.34Kg Simpsons Crystal Light<br />
0.23Kg Simpsons Cyrstal Dark<br />
0.23Kg Breiss Victory Malt<br />
<br />
Pre-boil: 26L at 1.043<br />
<br />
After-boil: 22.5 at 1.051<br />
<br />
Hops:<br />
<br />
24g Centennial 9.0%AA at 60 mins<br />
7g Centennial 9.0%AA at 10 mins<br />
7g Cascade 7.9%AA at 10 mins <br />
7g Centennial 9.0%AA at 0 mins<br />
7g Cascade 7.9%AA at 0 mins <br />
<br />
Whirlpool through chiller from 5 mins before end boil to 5 mins post boil. Chilled to ~75C via whirlpool then to 25C into fermenter. Chilled to 21 in fridge before pitching. Fermentation set at 20C<br />
<br />
OG: 1.051sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-66153762456406429562015-01-20T15:55:00.000+11:002015-01-20T15:55:01.483+11:00Some tasting<u><b>Kolsch II</b></u><br />
<br />
I tasted this just after a Flensburger Pilsner, so it's interesting to pull out some of the contrasting tastes between a very clean pilsner and a relatively clean tasting kolsch.<br />
<br />
Pours with a generous creamy white head, which dissipates and leaves no lacing. Pale coloured, though not quite as pale as the pilsner. Good level of carbonation for the style. Some very slight green apple (possibly acetaldehyde but slightly different I think). Other noticable 'white wine' type flavours. Little to no hop aroma on this one. Bitterness is clean and at an appropriate level for the style. Dry finish.<br />
<br />
A good beer, reasonably well brewed. I am very sensitive to acetaldehyde and I think I can possibly detect it here, but only a very tiny amount. I've gotten this with both Kolsch yeasts I've used (WLP029 and WY2568), but with other yeasts any acetaldehyde tends to disappear with time.<br />
<br />
I would like to see a better head and lacing on this and some of my other beers. I wonder if no-chilling influences this. I think I've noticed a correlation here, but I need to keep track of things a little better to know for sure.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UjAryMivfKNtlnSqhlfAaB5l7Jltdbn0tLPmZ0UrLHKanCqEDIloHO5gsemavL7JrtrpP9p77k_G-zhSwELGiLzSHNqCqXkwM__0JzAhuuFu18nmib9wIooIsXMG59NhuPiHxC_oUKU/s1600/20150118_185721.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UjAryMivfKNtlnSqhlfAaB5l7Jltdbn0tLPmZ0UrLHKanCqEDIloHO5gsemavL7JrtrpP9p77k_G-zhSwELGiLzSHNqCqXkwM__0JzAhuuFu18nmib9wIooIsXMG59NhuPiHxC_oUKU/s1600/20150118_185721.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kolsch II</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<u><b><br /></b></u>
<u><b>Brunswick Pride</b></u><br />
<br />
This beer is almost simultaneously a triumph and a disaster. With eyes closed it is a really fine example of a drinkable, sessionable english bitter ale. However with eyes open it's a mess. It has a serious haze problem, which cold conditioning has had no effect on.<br />
<br />
If you can recall the brewing notes on this one, the grain had been sitting in my garage crushed for 9 months before I got around to using it. A taste test seemed to confirm it was in reasonable condition, but I think it's extremely likely that it's the cause of this haze. I have found a few examples on homebrew forums where brewers found the same haze problem with very old grain. I don't know how to explain this scientifically, but empirically there does appear to be a strong connection.<br />
<br />
This is a shame, as usually any beers I ferment with WY1968 are extremely bright. Also I place a lot of importance on having my beer reasonably bright, and this haze is annoying me. Still, it's a really nice beer to drink, so not a total mess.<br />
<br />
Got down to an FG of 1.012 on this, so I think the O2 injection at yeast pitching time is having the desired effect. Also this beer was ready to drink (tastewise) a little quicker than I would have expected. I think I'm sold on O2 for aeration. <br />
<u><b><br /></b></u>
<u><b>Dead Guy Clone</b></u><br />
<br />
This beer had me very confused for a while. Kegged after 3 weeks, I tasted it quite regularly over the following three weeks. It began with some harsh phenolic type notes, little to no hop character, poured with no head, and displayed a slight haze. This changed slowly at first and then rapidly to a beer with beautiful toasty, buiscuity notes and a spicy hop character. The rapid change seemed to coincide with the haze disappearing, so I think perhaps some of the particulate in suspension was causing the phenolic type tastes.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRl7ou6VD5xDNxyTcQvGQ_qH9Payqk1uvgBQafB_12c8XM7CYxr5ppMYFlHhuEBBGBpGya3vW2RgmmvAaNZulMK2U70oevIoqsMGnwWI2AuzVIYnXL4w5aRZlNvC0vsZFjT6OMbW-8IGs/s1600/20150106_221610.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRl7ou6VD5xDNxyTcQvGQ_qH9Payqk1uvgBQafB_12c8XM7CYxr5ppMYFlHhuEBBGBpGya3vW2RgmmvAaNZulMK2U70oevIoqsMGnwWI2AuzVIYnXL4w5aRZlNvC0vsZFjT6OMbW-8IGs/s1600/20150106_221610.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dead Guy Clone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiN2xnpegGBcvmRw5DxqACu_JuE6yx-IlSSezOfuWIs2QEcnqgv-D8IzBSoU7I-qKSF_rVDBVRq3pyzww6P7RsZgBJhV5Lg21dmXgKp_x5SeW6VjV3ay336o-mWq9L7EJuXp4i25Fbwnw/s1600/20150107_214015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiN2xnpegGBcvmRw5DxqACu_JuE6yx-IlSSezOfuWIs2QEcnqgv-D8IzBSoU7I-qKSF_rVDBVRq3pyzww6P7RsZgBJhV5Lg21dmXgKp_x5SeW6VjV3ay336o-mWq9L7EJuXp4i25Fbwnw/s1600/20150107_214015.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dead Guy Clone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the balance of this beer was off by a little, missing perhaps 10 IBUs of bitterness. Also it would have benefited from a little more late hop character. I can't blame the recipe for this, as the hops I used were lacking in AA% and my attempts to make up for this on the day with some high AA% hops I had stored were unsuccessful. This was probably due to the age of the high AA% hops.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-51784092422935294622014-12-11T16:39:00.001+11:002014-12-11T16:40:03.314+11:00Kolsch (again)I saved the yeast from <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com/2014/11/kolsch.html">my last batch of Kolsch</a>, and given the time of year I though I'd get another one on asap to deal with visitors. This is a beer I don't mind drinking, but not a favourite by any means. All the same, it requires a certain amount of skill to come up with a very pale, clean tasting beer, with no-where to hide in terms of fermentation issues etc.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYISWuQk9tCjRzL70rEggawrfxpL4pO2z6lunTXh_4k7HOjkZVXSA4v9peve1RS8nNZak743tewPB90SWeb8MeV9B7nLINgzX7lu9RQcUW_ONZSQIn_FflK68kWomdKk0sAmnPRepi8IE/s1600/20141210_191025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYISWuQk9tCjRzL70rEggawrfxpL4pO2z6lunTXh_4k7HOjkZVXSA4v9peve1RS8nNZak743tewPB90SWeb8MeV9B7nLINgzX7lu9RQcUW_ONZSQIn_FflK68kWomdKk0sAmnPRepi8IE/s1600/20141210_191025.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early tasting of the previous batch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
I decided to change the recipe a little, based on a Jamil recipe from a Kolsch article of his in a 2009 issue of BYO magazine. This is just Pilsner malt and wheat malt in a 95/5 ratio. I had planned to go with Hallertau hops, but my brew shop was all out, so I went with Spalt. This is a hop which many people report as having quite an odd flavour profile. I'm interested to see what it's like in the finished beer.<br />
<br />
Mashing was at 65 for 50 mins (recirculated through HEX), then mash out at 75 for 10. I no-chilled this beer. One unusual thing about my brewing setup is that I never measure volumes, just guess based on experience how much water/wort I've got at each point. This has never let me down before, but on this brew I ended up with 22.5L of 1.044 wort instead of 20L of 1.049 (after trub losses). This is actually quite a mess up, and is a bit of a wake up call for me, I need to sort out my volume measurements.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
4.72KG Joe White Pilsner Malt<br />
0.25KG Joe White Wheat Malt<br />
<br />
30g 4.75%AA Spalt hops @50<br />
10g 4.75%AA Spalt hops @10<br />
<br />
whirlpooled for 20, then no-chilled.<br />
<br />
This will stay in the no-chill cube until the London Pride clone is done fermenting, then I'll pitch some WY2565 slurry to this and ferment at 16 (one degree lower than the last batch). I'll also give it a blast of O2 and try to dry it out a little. The previous batch is not quite dry enough based on early tastings.<br />
<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-19664551451136889252014-12-11T16:25:00.000+11:002014-12-11T16:25:23.219+11:00Brunswick PrideI've had a bag of grain ready for brewing for several months, and a smack pack of yeast in the fridge for over a year. Yesterday I decided to put both to work to see if good quality beer can result in such old ingredients.<br />
<br />
First off, I had a mix of 95% Simpsons Maris Otter, 5% Simpsons Dark Crystal which was supposed to go into a Fullers ESB type beer. The yeast is a WYeast 1026PC cask ale, manufactured June 2013!<br />
<br />
Chewing on the grains I discovered that they still had plenty of crunch with no discernible musty notes. The yeast I smacked and waited about 8 hours until I could see that the pack was beginning to swell. At this point I decided to bank this yeast in glycol stocks. <a href="http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/84052-freezing-yeast/">I made a quick post on aussiehomebrewer.com about this.</a><br />
<br />
I was still not too sure about the actual viability of the yeast, so the wort was no-chilled to ensure that it can wait until I either propogate or buy some healthy yeast.<br />
<br />
Given the yeast issues, I dumped about 800g of my grains to come up with the following grain bill:<br />
<br />
4.67Kg Simpsons Maris Otter<br />
0.25Kg Simpsons Dark Crystal<br />
<br />
then very loosely based on a Can You Brew It Fuller's London Pride recipe, the hop bill is as follows:<br />
<br />
12g Northdown @60mins<br />
22g East Kent Goldings @60mins<br />
<br />
18g Northdown @ 0mins<br />
25g East Kent Goldings @ 0mins<br />
<br />
I took 250ml, 700ml and 2L wort samples for stepped starters, and no chilled the rest. The mash was recirculated at 65.5 for 50mins, mash out at 78 for 10. I got pretty good efficiency here - OG of 1.051 for 75%, a little more than I expected.<br />
<br />
My yeast adventures began with pitching the 100ml remaining in the 18 month old WYeast pack into 250ml of wort. I watched this for two days but there was no discernible activity. Despite this there was a slight drop in gravity so I decided to pitch this to the 700ml wort flask. After another day or so I had lots of activity in this flask, but this failed to pass the sniff inspection (never mind the taste inspection). It had serious medicinal/phenolic aromas. Either the yeast has mutated severely, or most likely I've got some Brett or something in there. I will try to streak out a few colonies from the frozen stocks to see what I come up with, but this won't be done in time to ferment this batch.<br />
<br />
The solution is a fresh smack pack of WY1968 london esb ale yeast. This will be pitched to my 2L starter tonight, followed by pitching to the main batch tomorrow. Fermentation will be at 18C rising to 20 towards the end.<br />
<br />
Had I known for sure that the WY1026 was a no-go, I would have mashed a little lower to achieve better attenuation. However, I have just gotten myself a little pure oxygen aeration kit, so 60secs of Oxygen may help to boost yeast health and numbers and achieve a dryer finish. Updates on this fermentation will follow.sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-42723495074898301852014-11-24T11:33:00.001+11:002014-11-24T12:10:46.211+11:00Rogue Dead Guy (Can You Brew It)I recently spent a week in San Francisco where I drank some incredibly good beer. Best of all was Rogue Dead Guy on draught at the Rogue pub.<br />
<br />
I had tried some rogue beers here in oz several years ago, but had not been impressed. Like many imported american beers at the time, they had been badly treated and didn't give a realistic impression of the quality of the beer. The situation has improved considerably since then, with chilled shipping being the most important factor.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, I just had to have a go at this beer, and I'm trying the 'Can you brew it' recipe. We're looking for quite a high OG here. Not a big deal in a multi-vessel set up, but with brew in a bag this can be tricky. A slightly high mash temperature will also reduce our potential raw wort gravity.<br />
<br />
I recirculated this mash for 75 minutes at 67C, then did a mash out at 75C for 20 minutes. A small additional step was to rinse the grains with about 3L of ~75C water after removing the grain bag from the mash vessel. During the boil I kept an eye on the refractometer readings and ended the boil when I got a reading of 17.25ish. This translates to and SG of 1.067 and my hydrometer later confirmed this.<br />
<br />
This was chilled and immediately had 22g of rehydrated Safale US-05 pitched to it. Tried to get Pacman, it's my favourite yeast for lots of brews, so it would have been nice to be able to use it for a Rogue clone. Unfortunately there was none to be found. Fermentation is quite vigorous and is taking place at 17C. Can't wait to get this one on tap.<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe, I've subbed Saaz for Sterling and added a little nugget to bump up the IBUs to my desired level (~45):<br />
<br />
Grain/Extract/Sugar<br />
<br />
% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
67.4 5.14 kg. Pale Ale Malt (2-row) Australia 1.037 2<br />
22.8 1.74 kg. Munich Malt (Bolander) USA 1.036 10<br />
9.8 0.75 kg. Simpsons Crystal Pale UK 1.035 34<br />
<br />
Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.<br />
<br />
<br />
Hops<br />
<br />
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
5.00 g. Nugget Whole 13.00 8.2 75 min.<br />
40.00 g. Perle Pellet 6.30 34.8 75 min.<br />
40.00 g. Saaz Pellet 3.00 0.0 0 min.<br />
<br />
2 x packets of Safale US-05sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-39162614779307318972014-11-24T11:18:00.000+11:002014-11-28T14:07:07.322+11:00KolschI have been brewing lately, but not blogging about it. I'll try to keep this a little more up to date. <br />
<br />
Decided to brew something light and inoffensive for Christmas, as I have family visiting who are not especially in love with big hoppy brews. This is from Brewing Classic Styles and I've brewed it twice before, though I used the White Labs yeast both times, here I'm using WY2565. Wyeast is very easy for me to get, but white labs is a pain to get hold of. My former source in New South Wales is now out of business and I don't think I'll bother finding a new one.<br />
<br />
The grain bill and hop schedule are both very simple. Unfortunately I only realised when I got home from the brew shop that my Hersbrucker hops were 1.8% AA. This was about half what I expected so I threw in a small amount of nugget to bump up the IBUs to something reasonable.<br />
<br />
I recirculated this mash at 65C for 60 minutes, then did a rest at 72C for 20 minutes. I no-chilled this and took a 2L starter to which I pitched a full packet of WY2565. About 18 hours later I pitched this into the full batch at 17C. 12 hours later (this morning) I had noticeable activity.<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
<br />
Grain/Extract/Sugar<br />
<br />
% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
95.4 4.67 kg. Pilsener Germany 1.037 1<br />
4.6 0.23 kg. Vienna Malt Germany 1.036 4<br />
<br />
Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.<br />
<br />
<br />
Hops<br />
<br />
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
40.00 g. Hersbrucker Pellet 1.80 10.6 70 min.<br />
6.00 g. Nugget Pellet 13.00 11.5 70 min.<br />
<br />
<br />
WYeast WY2565 <span class="st">Kölsch</span>sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-58957377498004045932014-03-06T15:04:00.003+11:002014-03-06T15:04:22.088+11:00SNPA . . . againI'm back. Just lost interest in brewing for a while - but I think it's back again.<br />
<br />
To ease my way back into things I've brewed yet another version of this excellent <a href="http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=15532">Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone</a>. I've used safale us-05 to keep things simple, and also no-chilled to make it probably the simplest brew day I've had in a long long time.<br />
<br />
Recipe for a 23L batch:<br />
<br />
Grain/Extract/Sugar<br /><br /> % Amount Name Origin Potential SRM<br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> 92.2 4.70 kg. Pale Ale Malt (2-row) Australia 1.037 2<br /> 7.8 0.40 kg. Crystal 105L UK 1.033 105<br /><br />Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.<br /><br /><br />Hops<br /><br /> Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time<br />-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> 20.00 g. Nugget Pellet 13.60 29.5 50 min.<br /> 20.00 g. Perle Pellet 7.70 8.5 20 min.<br /> 80.00 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 0.0 0 min.<br /> <br />
<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-86159814663578933852013-08-28T10:20:00.000+10:002013-08-28T10:20:47.935+10:00Marble Red AleOne of the best beers I've ever brewed was my version of Jamil Zainasheff's Evil Twin (<a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/siofra-red-ale.html">blog post here</a>). There's something magical about so much malt and hop character coming together. I was toying with the idea of re-brewing it, but just for fun I decided instead to try my first recipe from the recent book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/For-The-Love-Hops-Bitterness/dp/1938469011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377648712&sr=8-1&keywords=hops">"For the love of hops" by Stan Hieronymus.</a><br />
<br />
The recipe is for "Marble Red Ale". I should mention that I have never tried a Marble brewery beer, nor heard of them outside of this book, but the recipe would seem to add up to a pretty awesome beer, so I had to try it out.<br />
<br />
If you look through my older posts you will see that I have a few different possible brewing configurations, from pretty simple pot on a heat source BIAB with no chilling, right up to recirculating automated step mashing, sparging and full chilling. Generally the higher the OG, the more complex my setup, so for this 1.065 monster I sparged and chilled. I also upped my volume a little to 24L to account for extra losses to hop material.<br />
<br />
For yeast, I cultured up a large stirred starter of WYeast PACMAN, which I kept from a smack pack from late last year. Pacman is now my favourite yeast for American ales. I feel that it gives a really nice mouthfeel that I don't get from other american ale yeasts. Also it really is a beast and gets through high OG worts very quickly. <br />
<br />
Here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
Grain/Extract/Sugar<br />
<br />
% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
75.0 5.14 kg. Pale Ale Malt (2-row) Australia 1.037 2<br />
10.0 0.69 kg. Vienna Malt Germany 1.036 4<br />
10.0 0.69 kg. Crystal 77L UK 1.035 75<br />
5.0 0.34 kg. Crystal 120L UK 1.033 120<br />
<br />
Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.<br />
<br />
<br />
Hops<br />
<br />
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
20.27 g. Columbus Pellet 15.00 38.7 60 min.<br />
11.73 g. Citra Pellet 11.50 3.4 10 min.<br />
11.73 g. Simcoe Pellet 13.00 3.9 10 min.<br />
23.47 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 3.4 10 min.<br />
48.00 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 0.0 0 min.<br />
90.67 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 0.0 Dry Hop<br />
13.87 g. Simcoe Pellet 13.00 0.0 Dry Hop<br />
13.87 g. Citra Pellet 11.50 0.0 Dry Hop<br />
<br />
<br />
Yeast<br />
-----<br />
<br />
Pacman<br />
<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-44253290376253884932013-07-23T14:18:00.002+10:002013-07-23T14:26:25.564+10:00Brewer's GoldWow, it's been quite a delay between my last post and this one. I've moved house, which means that I now have a garage, and hence somewhere to brew indoors so I'm not so vulnerable to the weather and lack of daylight. Also I can have the brewery set up permanently, which saves me an hour or so of assembly and disassembly every brew day. Unfortunately the move led to a long hiatus in my brewing, and I've had no beer on tap for nearly three months now - far too long!!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnS6aU9aFRUa2KEBjAJzZn_i0SyHi_sf2F-QBjUftKFlD7SvoUtuvTt7f-dt6yM4ocf4rI8xMvHrszOex_9P-n9LYtM5OOhFupSrGL44SnnVlLoyESYj4DTLdynsmulCbsiCoutP62cm8/s1600/20130703_204523.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnS6aU9aFRUa2KEBjAJzZn_i0SyHi_sf2F-QBjUftKFlD7SvoUtuvTt7f-dt6yM4ocf4rI8xMvHrszOex_9P-n9LYtM5OOhFupSrGL44SnnVlLoyESYj4DTLdynsmulCbsiCoutP62cm8/s320/20130703_204523.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Beginnings of a Permanent Installation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
I've got a few brews lined up, but this is the first: a clone of Crouch Vale Brewer's Gold. I was actually at 'The Great British Beer Festival" one year when the original won champion beer, and a fine drop it was too.<br />
<br />
The plan is to do a no-chill, with a huge dose of brewer's gold hops just before flame out. This should provide a good deal of bitterness and hop aroma/flavour, while a very small charge at the start of the boil will keep things under control and add some IBUs.<br />
<br />
This is really a summer brew, but I've had the hops on hand since April and have been planning to have a go at it since long before then. It's a chance to get to know another hop variety, and should be an easy drinking ale on the handpump in a short period of time.<br />
<br />
I'd like to be drinking this in three weeks, so I'll be taking a large starter to innoculate with WLP006, and I'll get the fermentation happening within a few days.<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
Grain/Extract/Sugar<br />
<br />
% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
100.0 3.91 kg. Lager Malt(2-row) UK 1.037 1<br />
<br />
Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.<br />
<br />
<br />
Hops<br />
<br />
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time<br />
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
5.00 g. Brewer's Gold Pellet 7.00 5.1 60 min.<br />
95.00 g. Brewer's Gold Pellet 7.00 25.9 15 min.<br />
<br />
<br />
Yeast<br />
-----<br />
WLP006<br />
<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-66618589770093838892013-02-18T16:27:00.002+11:002013-02-18T16:27:51.219+11:00Hopped up American Pale AleThe weather here has been pretty unforgiving over the past two weeks, with little sign of relief. We've hit 35C most days, but it's the warm nights that are hardest to take, with temperatures often up at 30C at 11pm.<br />
<br />
At times like these the only beer that seems to sate my thirst is a hoppy american pale. I've found myself craving it a lot, so I decided to brew one on Saturday. Of course by the time it's ready it'll probably be 10C and rainy.<br />
<br />
Back last year I made the first American Pale Ale from Jamil Zainasheff's "Brewing Classic Styles" book. That proved to be quite a good beer, but was probably lacking a little in the late hopping for my tastes. The grain bill here is exactly the same as for my first attempt, the late hops have been bumped up quite a bit, doubled in the case of the flame out addition.<br />
<br />
The most exciting thing about the brew day was my new gas burner. It's what the aussie's call an "Italian Spiral", and I bought a high pressure regulator with it. My strike water was up to mash temperature within about 10 minutes, and later on I got from mash out to boil in about 10 minutes too. The power of this thing is quite incredible, and it should shave about an hour off my brew day. The only issue is trying to keep the boil under control. Also I came pretty close to a boil over despite plenty of headspace.<br />
<br />
I decided to change the mash schedule for this beer, just for fun really. I did the following:<br />
<br />
55C for 10 minutes<br />
65C for 45 minutes<br />
72C for 15 minutes<br />
78C for 15 minutes.<br />
<br />
I can ramp up slightly faster than 1C per minute. Here's a picture of the mashing setup, organised chaos again I'm afraid:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-2V3s7skqfyrbXrVbKcH70zydFBZeWdvyZK4n7Lks_YTwVoNUl9A7r78Osoi5-Ri1T31CpIN1KdCUB4gf3mn4p_W-iBlENIWLB8bd2NF8Xq0gjbHMCS6ZUHKdQeLnOiuFhIfVtD2xCU/s1600/20130216_145956.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-2V3s7skqfyrbXrVbKcH70zydFBZeWdvyZK4n7Lks_YTwVoNUl9A7r78Osoi5-Ri1T31CpIN1KdCUB4gf3mn4p_W-iBlENIWLB8bd2NF8Xq0gjbHMCS6ZUHKdQeLnOiuFhIfVtD2xCU/s320/20130216_145956.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I have to say I had a lot of fun brewing on Saturday. I managed to have pretty much the whole day free so was quite relaxed. I was so relaxed that I forgot to close the tap on my fermenting vessel when filling it from the chiller and lost about 2 litres of wort down the drain. I'll be at least a litre short when it comes time to fill a keg with this.<br />
<br />
For yeast I chose Wyeast Pacman. I had a split from a pack I opened in September, so I carefully stepped it up and pitched the yeast from a stirred 1L starter to this batch, also saving a small sample for a future batch. SG was 1.055, and the fermenting chamber is set to 18C. My efficiency to fermenter wasn't great here. I lost 2 litres down the drain, and at least 4L to trub. I really need to have a think about how to deal with trub when there's a big hop bill. It might be as simple as bumping up the final volume to account for it, but the engineer in me rejects that idea. I'll figure something out.<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Recipe Specifics</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
----------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Batch Size (L): 22.50 Wort Size (L): 22.50</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Total Grain (kg): 5.98</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Anticipated OG: 1.057 Plato: 14.11</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Anticipated SRM: 6.8</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Anticipated IBU: 41.0</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Pre-Boil Amounts</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
----------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Evaporation Rate: 15.00 Percent Per Hour</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Pre-Boil Wort Size: 26.47 L</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.049 SG 12.08 Plato</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Grain/Extract/Sugar</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
% Amount Name Origin --------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
84.8 5.07 kg. Joe White Pale Ale Malt (2-row) </div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
3.8 0.23 kg. Joe White Wheat Malt </div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
5.7 0.34 kg. Breiss Victory Malt </div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
5.7 0.34 kg. Joe White Munich Malt I </div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Hops</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU BoilTime</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
------------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
20.00 g. Nugget Pellet 12.10 34.1 60 min.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
20.00 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 3.4 10 min.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
20.00 g. Centennial Pellet 10.50 5.0 10 min.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
30.00 g. Cascade Pellet 5.75 0.0 0 min.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
30.00 g. Centennial Pellet 10.50 0.0 0 min.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Yeast</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
-----</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
WYeast PACMAN</div>
sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-24007938053911984762013-02-12T16:35:00.001+11:002013-02-12T16:36:08.723+11:00A Special BitterMy first brew of 2013 proved to be a disaster, with my element blowing at the first hop addition. The situation was rescued (again), by ripping off the insulation and bringing the pot inside onto our cook top, which luckily has a high powered gas ring.<br />
<br />
This is the third time I've blown one of these elements, and I'm done with them. I'll be purchasing a gas burner as soon as I can get my hands on one. I'm finding it harder and harder to find the time to brew, so anything which interrupts a brew session really hurts.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the recipe is a new one, though familiar looking in some ways. It's a special bitter from <a href="http://perfectpint.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/brew-day-special-bitter.html">perfectpint.blogspot.com</a> . Apart from a sub of Willamette for Fuggles, my recipe is identical, yeast included. To get the hard water profile required I needed 2.5tsp gypsum, 1tsp Epsom salts and 0.75tsp Calcium chloride.<br />
<br />
I had planned to chill this one on the plate chiller, but having to bring the pot inside was quite enough lugging around for one day, so I didn't lug it back out to do the chilling, I just no-chilled in a cube after the 15 minute hop addition (which became a flame out addition). I saved 2L of wort in an Erlenmyer flask and when pitching the yeast 2 days later (a 1L starter of WLP006), I boiled this 2L, turned off the flame and steeped the Styrians in it for 10 minutes before adding it to the main batch. This is a method from <a href="http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/">AussieHomeBrewer</a> that I've <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/special-bitter.html">tried before</a> with limited success, but I was a bit stuck for ideas on Saturday so I'm trying again. <br />
<br />
With the decision to change to gas comes another decision - do I double up on batch volume? I haven't decided yet about this. I'm usually quite sorry to see the end of a batch, and there are a lot of people about who drink my beer (I actually didn't get to taste a recent batch it disappeared so quickly). At the moment I'm inclined to do it, but that could change.sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-6374608976141410982013-01-29T10:43:00.002+11:002013-01-29T10:43:52.064+11:00I'm backI'm finally back in Melbourne from an extended trip back home to Ireland. I'm happy to report that the craft beer scene in Ireland has finally awoken. Existing microbrewers are expanding and new ones emerging, and most off-license premises seem to have a selection of some sort.<br />
<br />
I'm planning to brew this Saturday, my first of 2013. It will be something in the 4.5% abv region, as I want to turn it around in the minimum possible time (I find about 4 weeks is the best you can do). It will be something English, probably with either the Wyeast West Yorkshire strain or the Fullers strain. I'll leave the final decision until Friday.sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-34826883164664432422012-10-31T15:48:00.000+11:002012-10-31T15:48:36.313+11:00Baritone Bitter V2Hot on the heels of the Landlord I made over the weekend, I diving straight into a hopefully improved version of my recent <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/bass.html">baritone bitter.</a> 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<br />
Recipe:<br />
<br />
<pre>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
-----</pre>
<pre>WY1028 London </pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>Water Treatment</pre>
<pre>---------------</pre>
<pre>0.75tsp CaCl2 2.5tsp CaSO4 1tsp MgSO4 </pre>
sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-24450798542585316972012-10-30T16:46:00.001+11:002012-10-31T15:49:44.023+11:00Landlord (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.<br />
<br />
The malt bill is exactly the same as <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Landlord">last time round</a>, 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). <br />
<br />
Recipe:<br />
<br />
<pre>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
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-----</span></pre>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">WY1469 Yorkshire</span></span><br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-63445706987902601242012-10-23T15:19:00.000+11:002012-10-23T15:48:13.658+11:00Rebel Rising V2A 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Rebel Red V2</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">A ProMash Recipe Report</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Recipe Specifics</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">----------------</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Batch Size (L): 22.50 Wort Size (L): 22.50</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Total Grain (kg): 4.06</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Anticipated OG: 1.045 Plato: 11.11</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Anticipated SRM: 15.5</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Anticipated IBU: 27.3</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Pre-Boil Amounts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">----------------</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Evaporation Rate: 15.00 Percent Per Hour</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Pre-Boil Wort Size: 26.47 L</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.038 SG 9.50 Plato</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Grain/Extract/Sugar</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> % Amount Name Origin Potential SRM</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-----------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 82.8 3.36 kg. Pale Malt (Maris Otter) UK 1.038 3</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 3.4 0.14 kg. Crystal 120L UK 1.033 120</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 3.4 0.14 kg. Crystal 40L USA 1.034 40</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 1.7 0.07 kg. Roasted Barley (Simpson's)UK 1.029 685</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 8.6 0.35 kg. Cane Sugar Generic 1.046 0</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Hops</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-----------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 15.00 g. East Kent Goldings Pellet 4.30 9.4 60 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 15.00 g. Willamette Pellet 4.00 8.8 60 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 20.00 g. East Kent Goldings Pellet 4.30 4.2 20 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 20.00 g. Willamette Pellet 5.00 4.9 20 min.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Yeast</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-----</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">White Labs WLP006 Bedford British Ale</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Water Profile</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-------------</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Profile: Pale Ale</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Profile known for:</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Calcium(Ca): 71.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Magnesium(Mg): 10.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Sodium(Na): 13.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Sulfate(SO4): 116.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Chloride(Cl): 79.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">biCarbonate(HCO3): 30.0 ppm</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">pH: 7.30</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span><br />
<br />
sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-60804819951338169092012-10-16T11:34:00.002+11:002012-10-20T18:17:58.946+11:00Baritone Bitter tastingA few weeks back I wrote about the <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com/2012/09/bass.html">Bass inspired beer</a> 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.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8QTty0PBhPq4fM7FgwbRv_li2C1lGNQnJzKZ8Fzv5pOd4KpN_ZxjRlYGvlm9ESXASyqk5Ip0_LRkJ6hOoXZE5q_0nv1n-hgDLr4bWwwu4O56kqkWGG8DjfEjLnZotQRl9e9h33Qj_oM/s1600/P1000770.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8QTty0PBhPq4fM7FgwbRv_li2C1lGNQnJzKZ8Fzv5pOd4KpN_ZxjRlYGvlm9ESXASyqk5Ip0_LRkJ6hOoXZE5q_0nv1n-hgDLr4bWwwu4O56kqkWGG8DjfEjLnZotQRl9e9h33Qj_oM/s320/P1000770.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
Overall a very worthwhile experiment!<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-54302531397986540902012-10-08T11:03:00.000+11:002012-10-08T20:45:04.169+11:00Síofra Red Ale<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTE0Dzzcvzzl_j-obsCNNxgP2oqhBBLdjM0u6U2WosgerKfvaGtg6j98C2mqivA88u9pwqwi5gJXnu_N2yplu7xbooLA3vL5Ny8zAst1Ayp3YBSNfZTvLRQNdZ2N9qq_Askuw-M5ZEiU4/s1600/p1000755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTE0Dzzcvzzl_j-obsCNNxgP2oqhBBLdjM0u6U2WosgerKfvaGtg6j98C2mqivA88u9pwqwi5gJXnu_N2yplu7xbooLA3vL5Ny8zAst1Ayp3YBSNfZTvLRQNdZ2N9qq_Askuw-M5ZEiU4/s320/p1000755.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">organised chaos</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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 <a href="http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.php">here</a> 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 <a href="http://canyoubrewit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26997">here</a> 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.<br />
<br />
I'll be trying to get close to the <i>Heretic</i> 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Siofra Red Ale</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">A ProMash Recipe Report</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Recipe Specifics</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">----------------</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Batch Size (L): 23.50 Wort Size (L): 23.50</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Total Grain (kg): 6.43</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Anticipated OG: 1.063 Plato: 15.39</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Anticipated EBC: 33.6</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Anticipated IBU: 28.5</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Grain/Extract/Sugar</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> % Amount Name Origin Potential EBC</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-----------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 87.6 5.63 kg. Pale Ale Malt (2-row) Australia 1.037 5</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 11.8 0.76 kg. Crystal 77L UK 1.035 148</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 0.6 0.04 kg. Roasted Barley (Simpson's) UK 1.029 1350</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Hops</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">---------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 9.00 g. Citra Pellet 13.40 5.1 20 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 8.00 g. Columbus Pellet 15.20 5.4 20 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 25.00 g. Citra Pellet 13.40 8.5 10 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 24.00 g. Columbus Pellet 15.20 9.6 10 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 28.00 g. Citra Pellet 13.40 0.0 0 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 25.00 g. Columbus Pellet 15.20 0.0 0 min.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 28.00 g. Citra Pellet 13.40 0.0 Dry Hop</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> 23.00 g. Columbus Pellet 15.20 0.0 Dry Hop</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Yeast</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-----</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">WYeast 1764 Rogue PacMan (VSS)</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Water Profile</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-------------</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Profile: Pale Ale</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Profile known for: </span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Calcium(Ca): 71.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Magnesium(Mg): 10.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Sodium(Na): 13.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Sulfate(SO4): 116.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Chloride(Cl): 79.0 ppm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">biCarbonate(HCO3): 30.0 ppm</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">pH: 7.30</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Mash Schedule</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">-------------</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Saccharification Rest Temp : 65 Time: 40</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Mash-out Rest Temp : 72 Time: 20</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Sparge Temp : 78 Time: 10</span><br />
<br style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">All temperature measurements are degrees Celsius.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-13003970136746178602012-10-03T22:06:00.001+10:002012-10-03T22:06:40.232+10:00Beamish clone reflectionsFirst let's recap what was different about this compared to the last Beamish clone I tried:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>I used Simpsons Maris Otter as the base malt instead of Crisp Ale malt</li>
<li>I used Pacman yeast instead of US-05</li>
<li>I added a level teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate to the water treatment</li>
<li>I served it on my new handpump </li>
</ol>
And the reasons: <br />
<ol>
<li>My LHBS didn't have Crisp Ale, and I use Simpsons Maris Otter for most ales, so thought I would stick with it.</li>
<li>I had wanted to use Pacman the first time round, but couldn't get my hands on it.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>I didn't have a handpump the first time round. </li>
</ol>
I've been lucky with this recipe, it was given to me by Will from <a href="http://perfectpint.blogspot.com/">perfectpint.blogspot.com</a>, 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.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNvmbjbbe7CGuyqmPg0aI2bllny6rEpn6odPVWbWkeVBaZISAcjUK_x6h-5ik3K7ZscJBH6QSp6AY8C8hZfmM1sn8lUbh6jgWTPUvr4I7Mb62E5QLIWIGV6b0mC1NX-tU_Rfc5C6h1zA/s1600/P1000749.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoNvmbjbbe7CGuyqmPg0aI2bllny6rEpn6odPVWbWkeVBaZISAcjUK_x6h-5ik3K7ZscJBH6QSp6AY8C8hZfmM1sn8lUbh6jgWTPUvr4I7Mb62E5QLIWIGV6b0mC1NX-tU_Rfc5C6h1zA/s320/P1000749.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, I'll be brewing this again, and soon. <br />
<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-16838448488310434922012-09-24T10:22:00.004+10:002012-10-08T11:04:37.434+11:00Kolsch RebrewThis 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
The recipe remains unchanged. It's a very slightly modified version of Jamil's 'JZ Fruh' Kolsch from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Classic-Styles-Winning-Recipes/dp/0937381926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348207993&sr=8-1&keywords=brewing+classic+styles">'Brewing Classic Styles'</a>. 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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
Here's the recipe:<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Recipe Specifics</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
----------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Batch Size (L): 22.50 Wort Size (L): 22.5</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Total Grain (kg): 4.90</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Anticipated OG: 1.050 </div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Anticipated SRM: 2.8</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Anticipated IBU: 26.4</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Pre-Boil Amounts</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
----------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Evaporation Rate: 15.00 Percent Per Hour</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Pre-Boil Wort Size: 29.03 L</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.036 SG 9.12 Plato</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Grain/Extract/Sugar</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
% Amount Name</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
-------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
95.4 4.67 kg. BestMalz Pilsener</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
4.6 0.23 kg. BestMalz Vienna Malt </div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Hops</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
---------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
45.00 g. Mt. Hood Pellet 3.90 26.4 90 min.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Yeast</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
-----</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
White Labs WLP029 German Ale/Kolsch</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
Water Treatment:</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
2 tsp CaCl2</div>
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
2ml Lactic Acid 88% </div>
sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-39877099055733917332012-09-14T10:43:00.000+10:002012-09-14T10:43:25.818+10:00A minor tragedyThe kolsch I recently brewed (see <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/a-big-day.html">here</a>), has been cold conditioning for a week, though I should really have just thrown it down the drain.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <a href="http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=67247&p=617239&hilit=phenolic+plastic#p617239">here</a> and <a href="http://hbd.org/discus/messages/43688/43674.html?1198552110">here</a><br />
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Here's my theory:<br />
<br />
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. <br />
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The lesson:<br />
<br />
Watch your pitching amounts, especially where you are using old yeast in cool conditions.<br />
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The plan:<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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The result:<br />
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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.<br />
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Next Step:<br />
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A rebrew, I will have my Kolsch come hell or high water! sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-31674958876234399822012-09-12T10:26:00.002+10:002012-09-13T13:57:39.820+10:00BassIrish 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 <a href="http://agdeanamhleann.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/landlord.html">Landlord</a> 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <a href="http://perfectpint.blogspot.com/">perfectpint.blogspot.com</a>. 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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We won't go easy on the Beamish though.<br />
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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. <br />
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Recipe:<br />
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3.91Kg Simpsons Maris Otter <br />
0.21Kg Simpsons Crystal Medium<br />
0.05Kg Simpsons Roasted Barley<br />
<br />
15g Northern Brewer 9%AA @60mins<br />
30g Northern Brewer 9%AA @Flameout<br />
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yeast nutrient and koppafloc @ 10mins<br />
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No-Chill<br />
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Target OG 1.043 <br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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Fermentation for this one is:<br />
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0.5 packet of WY1028 London Ale into 500ml of wort<br />
When finished transfer into 1.5L of wort<br />
When at high krausen transfer to main batch.<br />
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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.<br />
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<br />sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3892225609766361155.post-14849889485611311332012-09-04T10:25:00.000+10:002012-09-26T09:57:36.162+10:00Ah, 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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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 <a href="http://www.homebrewtalk.com/">homebrewtalk.com </a>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:<br />
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3.5kg Simpsons Ale - Maris Otter<br />
0.25kg Simpsons Roast Barley <br />
0.13kg Simpsons Chocolate<br />
0.35kg Joe White/Maltcraft Malted Wheat <br />
<br />
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47g East Kent Goldings at 50mins<br />
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No chilled (poured into a water container and sealed, allowed to cool slowly)<br />
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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. <br />
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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).<br />
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I found this beauty on youtube, "sound man Brendan!" <br />
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Next up is mounting the hand pump, should be fun!sean_0http://www.blogger.com/profile/17981350759177891027noreply@blogger.com0