AG#72 – Toasted Oatmeal Stout
Posted by: pdtnc on: January 21, 2012
Toasted Oatmeal Stout – Its about time I made a Roasted Barley based Stout so the other week I toasted some oats in the oven, checking every 5 mins and turning them, they just began to catch so I stopped at this point (Slight oven-smell to them, hope this doesn’t come through to the finished beer).
Nice solid bittering from Northdown and a little Challenger thrown in at the end too. The Malt bill is just an altered Guinness recipe splitting the 20% Flaked barley between Caramalt & Flaked Oats (should be better than Guinness).
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70%
Flaked Oats, Toasted – 10%
Roasted Barley – 10%
Caramalt – 10%
Hops:
Northdown – 6.2 % @ 60 mins – 42g (FWH)
Northdown – 6.2 % @ 30 mins – 42g
Northdown – 6.2 % @ 0 mins – 15g (15min Steep at 100c)
Challenger – 7.6 % @ 0 mins – 15g (15min Steep at 100c)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.015
Alcohol Content: 4% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.2 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 45 EBU
Colour: 211 EBC
Mash: 67°c for over 2 hours as I had stuff to do.
Yeast: Safale US-05
The malts, this actually dropped to 10°c, the Oatmeal is at the top so you can see the colour:
Copper filling onto First Wort Northdown hops:
I managed the protafloc all by my self:
Flameout hops going in:
Malt Recycling, she turns it into poo amazingly well:
One division in the meniscus, 1046 on the nail at 20°c:
Pretty slow but no fuss brewday, left the copper to clean later, in the fridge set at 19.5°c
According to BeerEngine I just topped 90% Mash efficiency on this brew, I shall put this down to the Oatmeal which simply disintegrated in the mash and the extended mash rest.
AG#71 – Abyss Imperial Stout
Posted by: pdtnc on: January 1, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Abyss Imperial Stout – The big brew! New years Day 2012, a beer to brew-bottle-and-leave until New years Eve (or as long as you can wait! 6 months +) 
Brewing today was the idea of @Leedsbrew and a number of us Homebrew Forum and Twitter users are having an Imperial Stout Brew-a-long, the results should be interesting if we get to taste each others fully matured beers in a years time.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 69%
Munich Malt I (Weyermann) – 7.2%
Sugar, Date Molasses – 4.9%
Cara Aroma (Weyermann) – 4.5%
Roasted Wheat (Simpsons / Barley Bottom) – 4.5%
Sugar, Molasses (Blackstrap) – 3.8%
Roasted Rye Malt – 2.7%
Chocolate Wheat Malt – 1.8%
Carafa Special III – 1.8%
Hops:
Target – 10.2 % @ 60 mins – 83g
Bobek – 5.2 % @ 60 mins – 37g
Centennial – 11.5 % @ 60 mins – 10g
Challenger – 7.6 % @ 30 mins – 35g
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 0 mins – 21g (20-30mins steep)
Hersbrucker – 3.0 % @ 0 mins – 20g (20-30mins steep)
Fuggle – 4.9 % @ 0 mins – 19g (20-30mins steep)
Stella – 15.6% @ 0 mins – 19g (20-30mins steep)
Final Volume: 20 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.096
Final Gravity: 1.022
Alcohol Content: 9.9% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 21.2 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 65 % (reduced from a regular 75-80%)
Bitterness: 154 EBU
Colour: 625 EBC
The Malts, 8.455kg of them:
The Sugars, Date Syrup & Blackstrap Molasses:
The day so far:
The mash was on last night at 00:50 and the temp was 66°c, at 9am this morning it had dropped to 59°c.
I did 1 sparge at 80°c with an hour’s Mash-out and collected my pre-boil volume in the copper, as I had expected this was lower than the predicted pre-boil gravity (10 points too low).
I did a second sparge at 80°c with a 30min Mash-out of 12 Litres while boiling the first run-off hard, ran off about half the mash then boiled down some more before running off the rest of the mash. I also added the sugars at this point, and continued boiling down until I reached 1086/7 when the bittering hops went in which will hopefully put me in the 1096 area for the end of the boil.
7 Degree drop over about 8 hours:
Pretty full mash tun with the sparge liquor added:
Today’s hops:
The Molasses going in:
Flameout steep hops, I threw in a 19g sample pack of Stella too (very nice smelling hop):
Dirty Copper, break material forming as the wort cools:
173g Safale US-05 yeast skimmed from previous brew and kept in the fridge for a week at 4°c, I’ll pitch the lot at 18°c:
OG: 1095 Temp corrected (Brix 23.8 with Refractometer = 1096):
Running to FV:
Pretty much hit my predicted OG, yeast pitched (still smelling of Nelson Sauvin hops from AG#70, if it wasn’t that I’ve just ruined an entire brew!) **Update, the beer in my Glass is Ta Moko, it smells just like the yeast, beer is fine)**
Copper is being very slow to run off, must be the thick sticky wort.
Its almost time for a beer, a Chilled very-early taster of Ta Moko just to see how its doing
I think I’ll be buying some more Basra Date Syrup as it tastes very good and would lend its self very well to a Belgian Ale.
Other peoples NYD Imperial Stout brewdays: (I’ll add more as they are posted)
Spikesdad’s Imperial Stout
Barney’s Imperial Stout
Leedsbrew’s Titan Imperial Stout Parti-Gyle brewday
Lugsy’s Super Massive Black Hole Imperial Stout
Jimp2003′s Event Horizon RIS (Slightly Belated)
Tom Dobson’s Old Black Imperial Stout
*3rd Jan ’12 – Gravity is currently 1064-ish, Tastes good, some of the hopping coming through and some Fruity stuff which might be the Date Syrup.
*4th Jan ’12 – 1050
*Bottled 18th Jan ’12 – with 60g of White Sugar, filled 50-off 330ml bottles.
Blog: 2011 in review (Apparently, according to WordPress)
Posted by: pdtnc on: December 31, 2011
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
AG#70 – Ta Moko
Posted by: pdtnc on: December 18, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Ta Moko – This is a tweaked re-brew of AG#16 Once Were Warriors The hopping is just about identical but I’ve changed the malts a little and dropped the ABV to 4% for a nice easy drinker.
The original was very tasty with a chalky bitterness, I’m hoping for the same again.
Some may have to forgive my beer naming, Wikipedia tells me there is a more acceptable term for Maori designed Tattoo which is Kirituhi meaning “Drawn Skin”. I have my own piece of ‘Drawn Skin’ on my thigh which was done in Auckland at www.mokoink.com
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 80%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 10%
Wheat Malt – 8%
Cara Munich Type III – 2%
Hops:
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 60 mins – 15g (FWH)
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 15 mins – 10g
Nelson Sauvin – 12.6 % @ 10 mins- 50g
Nelson Sauvin – 12.6 % @ 0 mins – 50g (80°c for 20-30mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.040
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 3.9% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 9.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 52 EBU (25% Hop Utilisation)
Colour: 8 EBC
Yeast: Safale US-05
Mash: 67°c for 60mins (I got 85% Mash efficiency)
Weighing out the Calcium Chloride & Magnesium Sulphate:
Malt was at 9°c this morning:
Mash temp 67°c:
Pacific Gem and lots of Nelson Sauvin hops:
Sparge running into copper:
The 10 min Nelson Sauvin addition, hops all sticky and smelling lovely:
Break material forming while cooling with the Copper Immersion Cooler:
OG: 1040 will do me, my neighbour just gave me a longer (hence hopefully more accurate) hydrometer:
All done and in the fermentation fridge at 19.5°c
*Bottled 28th Dec ’11 – with 70g white sugar, tasting good enough to drink from the FV, very clean and bags of Nelson Sauvin Flavour, this will be spot on once its carbonated up
*1st Jan ’12 – Very very early taster, Cat-Piss, Grapes, Muskiness, little bit of Kiwi maybe, classic Nelson Sauvin.
The Brew-History Review 2009-2011
Posted by: pdtnc on: December 17, 2011
The Brew-History Review 2009-2011, Turned out nice again din’t it!
AG #68 – Trashy Black
My best Black IPA to date, a work-up of the Trashy Blonde recipe.
AG #66 – Centennial Blonde
Just an easy drinking tasty beer trying to emulate Mallinsons Centennial.
AG #64 – Mild Ale II
To brew again with a better yeast than Windsor, Windsor sucked Donkey wanger big time!
AG #63 – London Porterish II
This was a tweaked re-brew, brilliant fresh, tailed off for a few weeks then came back on form as the dark malts settle down and meld together.
AG #60 – Nelson Weizen
To brew again with better fermenter temperature control and a bigger yeast pitch, possibly a different Whitelabs strain.
AG #59 – Schwarz IPA
A bit of a mad experiment that might not be everyones cup of tea, German hops pretty much all the way, in my opinion it worked, a break from the American hops, Das Hopfen alles zusammen.
AG #56 – C.N.S Hops²
Bloody good beer, maybe brew it again with a bit less crystal / cara malts but I know this added to the juicy fruit of the hops.
AG #55 – Imperial Smoked Porter
Bag-ends and odds ‘n sods, tastes great, would add more smoke if done again, Drink fairly fresh while the smoke is still smouldering.
AG #54 – C.C.A.N
Bloody fantastic dry hopped loveliness, Chinook worked its magic.
AG #53 – Kölsch Wit
Totally marvellous Lager-a-like beer with Tettnang hops, a definite re-brew.
AG #52 – Half Wit
Nice beer, just needs the Coriander cutting in Half with some proper Whitelabs Wit yeast.
AG #51 – Double Oat Pale
The beer that made £65 for Charity at the NCB meet at Saltaire Brewery.
AG #46 – Phlegm
Nasty name but nice Belgian strong ale.
AG #45 – Trashy Blonde
A tweak on Sara Carter’s Trashy Blonde recipe, very good beer.
AG #44 – Liquorice & Treacle Stout
Dump or Double the Treacle, this beer have a lovely tight head, very tasty.
AG #41 – London Porterish
Re-brewed with tweaks to try and emulate the Fullers London Porter in ‘London Porterish II’.
AG #39 – Mild Ale
Very easy drinking Mild with fruity English hopping.
AG #38 – Stateside Torpedo IPA
A mad-for it brew that really hit the spot!
AG #37 – Nelson Brucker
Tasty beer but took a while for maturity to play its part.
AG #36 – Imperial Amarillo Wheat
Mad beer, about half a kilo of Amarillo went into it, Brewdog-esque while fresh.
AG #34 – ORBY v1.2
Strong Ales category winner at the 2010 NCB Comp in Skipton. Excellent beer if I do say so myself.
AG #29 – Naked Imperial Stout
I only have one bottle left (17th Dec 2011) its a beer worth waiting for 6-12 months to drink.
AG #26 – Northern Blue
Classy English bitter based on the Coniston Bluebird theme.
AG #25 – May Day
This beer while fresh had a lovely floral note from the Mittlefruh hops.
AG #17 – Over-run by Yanks
Re-brewed with tweaks for the 2010 NCB comp, very nice as it is.
AG #16 – Once Were Warriors
Nelson Sauvin hops, can it be wrong? Of course not…
AG #14 – Black Promise
Black malt, smoothness and very drinkable.
AG #10 – Yorkshire Trappist Red
My first Belgian, it hit the spot.
AG #7 – Munich Blauer Vogel
Úber Bluebird, yet again a Coniston Bluebird kinda-clone.
AG #6 – Otter Dark Stout mkII
My re-brew of an Extract Stout I made, a solid tasty stout.
AG #3 – Fuggles Bitter
I’ll brew this again or something like it, you need a bit of Fuggles in your life from time to time.
Extract #6 – T’old Blotchy Duck
An odd mix that worked, I’m sure an All-Grain recipe would do it justice.
Extract #5 – Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby
Classy, not like the real-deal but very nice for an out-of-book recipe.
Extract #2 – Bramling Cross IPA
This really did have smooth bitterness and Blackcurrant, confusing and brilliant!
Extract #1 – Hop Back Entire Stout
Oh just brew a Hop Back Entire Stout, you’ll love it… Though I’m sure being about 6% helps 
Many thanks to the occasional drunken brew-monkey who helped out on a brewday
My first Saltaire Brewery recipe, Brewed
Posted by: pdtnc on: December 16, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
Thursday (15th Dec) saw my first recipe brewed for work, a Rye Pale Ale.
The recipe consists of Pale Malt, Rye Malt, Vienna Malt, Crystal Rye Malt, and Torrefied Wheat. Hopped with Centennial and Nelson Sauvin to bitter then healthily hopped with Cascade & Nelson Sauvin to finish.
Let me know what you think if you find it on somewhere, it should start going out to trade at the end of next week (23rd Dec), and hopefully we’ll keep some back for the January Beer Club. Remember January is still a Ticket Only event so get ‘em soon they sell like hot cakes (Whatever Hot cakes are?).
Really good of Tony to say, “Do a recipe!” from my initial idea, cheers.
(I need to work on him some more to encourage pellet dry hopping in the FV’s during the cooling phase)
**Beer Club Update: the buggers have sold it all! Apparently it sold out in 5 working days with lots of repeat orders, possibly a chance its going to be at the Ilkley Beer Festival though.
But, yeah! Don’t expect to see it at Beer Club later this month!
AG#69 – Northdown IPA
Posted by: pdtnc on: December 3, 2011
Northdown IPA – hopefully this will be a well bittered beer, I’m going easy on the late hops as I want the flavour to be balanced with the bitterness, the dry hopping will hopefully add some lighter flavour and aroma too.
My 69th All Grain brewday, ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’….
This brew is part of my research into brewing a good English IPA for the forthcoming NCB meeting / Competition at Saltaire Brewery in March next year, I may or may not enter the competition but either way I’ll be brewing for charity for the bar.
The Malt bill is a little off piste as I’m using Lager Malt as the base with some Munich to add back some maltiness to create a Faux-Pale-Malt with a touch of Dark Crystal for colour. I’ve currently got more Lager Malt, hence the reason for using it over Pale Malt.
It seems I have a mouse in the garage who has been nibbling the corner of my malt sack so its now been sealed up safely away from it in my usual blue HDPE bins.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 4620g – 75%
Munich Malt – 920g – 15%
Wheat Malt – 490g – 8%
Crystal Malt, Extra Dark – 120g – 2%
Hops:
First Gold – 7.9 % @ 60 mins – 55g (FWH)
First Gold – 7.9 % @ 30 mins – 55g
Northdown – 7.5 % @ 15 mins – 20g
Northdown – 7.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g (20-30min steep)
Dry Hops:
Northdown – 50g after initial fermentation has settled down and the beer is being cooled to 17°c
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.060
Final Gravity: 1.014
Alcohol Content: 6% ABV
Total Liquor: 34.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 14.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 83 EBU
Colour: 26 EBC
I’m not taking any photos today, they are bound to look identical to a lot of other brewdays.
Post brew:
I mashed for 60 minutes at 66°c, sparge liquor at 77°c with 2 batches each time recirculating between 4-6 litres to attain a nice clear wort flow into the copper. Apparently I got 72% Mash efficiency, Bairds malt seems to be getting consistently worse at work so it follows that it will at home too (Maybe when I’ve got some spare cash I’ll buy a sack from another Maltster).
Boiled for 60 minutes with hop charges as First Wort, 30mins, 15mins and Flameout steep hops for 28mins.
Cooled to 20°c and let stand for 20 minutes for the hops and trub to settle before recirculating about 1 litre to get a nice clear wort. Wort looking a good fairly deep colour.
Actually got about 1058 so probably missed out on the 6% mark slightly depending on how the yeast ferments out.
Pitched Safale US-05.
OK, just a couple of photos of the FV in the Fermentation fridge:
Temperature sensor taped on with a piece of insulating foam:
I’ve set the fridge to 20°c and will raise it 1 degree each day to no higher than 23°c
*9th Dec ’11 Dry Hopped with 49g Northdown, OG 1014-1016-ish, this should give me a good idea what the hop is like dry
*13th Dec ’11 – Northdown Dry hopping is currently tasting rather bland, I may well add a similar amount of First Gold.
*14th Dec ’11 – More dry hopping done, First Gold 49g + East Kent Goldings 46g
*Bottled 24th Dec ’11 with 70g White Sugar – and having a bit of a taste…
Its not bad, the dry hopping has worked and although not as in-yer-face as US/NZ hops its still very present, it has the grassy notes that a German Dry-hopped beer would have and I know will settle down in a couple of weeks.
I’m sure the Northdown didn’t contribute much to the dry hopping so its the First Gold and EKGs that have added the mouth-coating hoppiness. This might be a good beer, which has surprised me after the initial Northdown hopping.
Note to self: Pellet dry hops would probably add to the intensity (Skim yeast and dry hop bit by bit for a week while cooled?).
*4th Jan ’12 – Taster bottle, carbonation is right, Bitterness is nice and smooth, flavour & aroma remind me of Bobek / Styrian and what-dry-sawdust might taste like, I’m bot a huge Bobek fan, not my best effort. For the amount of dry hops I had thrown at this I would have expected much more intensity, some grassiness is just there, alcohol is fairly noticable in the finish, it gets better as you go down the glass and your taste buds realign, I’m going to need an expert second opinion on this… who knows it might improve with a couple more weeks or a month.
UK National Homebrew Competition 2011
Posted by: pdtnc on: November 19, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 5 Comments
Just a quick (slightly belated) blow of my own trumpet, here are my 2nd, 3rd and ‘Honourable Mention’ certificates from the UK National Homebrew Competition 2011, Full Results PDF here.
It was really impressive to see recognisable list of winning brewers from around the UK internet forums and Twitter, roll on next year
Here’s some further reading from Phil Lowry of BeerMerchants.wordpress.com
My results:
2nd was Schwarz IPA
3rd was C.N.S Hops²
HM was Imperial Smoked Porter
