Archive for the ‘Brewing’ Category
AG#100 – Altitudinous Cable
Posted on: May 18, 2013
Altitudinous Cable – I’m hoping for a ‘MagicRockBrewing Highwire / PartizanBrewing Columbus Chinook Cascade IPA‘ type of thing, bags of flavour and seriously dry hopped.
My 100th All-Grain Brewday was supposed to be an all-Fuggle Double IPA with a great big Fuggle Dry Hop, have beery mates round and cook food / drink beer / forget the Protafloc etc We’ll have to plan that for another time as I wanted something that will be distinctly hoppy with in-yer-face dry hopping, so what beer to try imitate than MagicRock’s Highwire, a beauty of a beer at only 5.5%.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 82.5%
Caramalt – 8%
Vienna Malt – 5%
Munich Type I (Weyermann) – 4.5%
Hops:
Magnum – 12.7 % @ 60 mins – 27g (FWH)
Magnum – 12.7 % @ 30 mins – 27g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 43g (30min Steep)
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 43g (30min Steep)
Columbus – 16.5 % @ 0 mins – 43g (30min Steep)
Dry Hops:
Chinook Pellets
Cascade Pellets
Columbus Pellets
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol Content: 5.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 55 EBU
Colour: 10 EBC
Mash: 69c for 60mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
The malts, and a Teaspoon of Calcium Chloride (rough arse stylee):
First Wort Hops:
A healthy amount of flameout hops:
The OG before liquoring back to 1055:
Easy brewday, did a bit of a Garage tidy while I was at it.
I only gave the mash 1 Tsp of Calcium Chloride as I’ve had some comment on the dryness of my homebrew, so no other liquor salts for this brew just as an experiment.
The Double IPA, Hmmm
Posted on: May 5, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 8 Comments
I’m a little confused over the matter of brewing Big IPA’s, in regard to getting bitterness and some dryness into these high strength Imperial or Double IPA.
Consider my AG#92 Klaatu Verata Nictu its an all malt DIPA but the residual sweetness after fermentation is far too high, time in bottle is s-l-o-w-l-y drying it out and its a nice beer, but much more of an American Barleywine than displaying the bitterness characteristics I was aiming for… It would seem that my predicted 200 IBU could have been doubled to 400 IBU to help cut through the sweetness.
This is theoretically where a Sugar addition comes into play to help dry the beer out…
Now consider this AG#85 HopZilla IPA which did have a sugar addition for the purpose of drying the beer out, yet I still got an annoyingly high level of residual sweetness after fermentation, this did eventually dry up and display its proper character in bottle but it took blooming ages! I think I have 1 bottle of this left which I assume will be the dogs bollocks by the time I crack into it.
There is nothing wrong with either of the above beers apart from me not getting what I was aiming for, for my next experiment I will be trying a 10% addition of Dextrose, and a long cool Mash with less malts that could be adding Dextrins to the wort.
The following questions arise:
- Mash Temp?
- Liquor to Malt Ratio?
- Mash Duration?
- Amount & Type of Copper Sugars?
- Malt selection?
- Liquor Treatment additions?
I feel a MASSIVE dry hop is needed on these higher gravity beers, done in two stages.. i.e. Once in the FV, then transfer to Conditioning/Secondary for a while before doing a Second or even Third Heavy dry hop.
We brewed Kala BIPA, 6.2% @SaltaireBrewery a short time ago, I know the ABV is considerably different but we used a sugar addition of almost 10% to great effect in this beer making an amazingly easy drinking beer that went down like a 4% session ale.
Its all fun 
I’d be really interested in how other homebrewers / brewers get their level of bitterness & Dryness in their DIPAs.
Cheers
Northern Craft Brewers American Pale Ale Competition at Saltaire Brewery
Saturday 13th April
The day started before 10.30 with a few jobs and setting up to do in the brewery, around 11am people started arriving the sun was shining and the pints were starting to be pulled. By 1pm all the competition beers had been signed in and entry fees paid so judging could start, our panel of 6 judges was pretty similar to last year with Zak & Rob beer-writer & beer-blogger a couple of CAMRA judges, a National Guild judge and of course Tony the Head Brewer and owner of Saltaire Brewery.
We had around 44 (42 turned up on the day) beers entered into the competition, thats no mean feat for a single style homebrew comp, entries from as far afield as the far North East to the South Coast & Plymouth… this year really has drawn together a great group of like-minded homebrewers, its been good to meet new people, put names to faces , catch up with old friends & swap and taste a few exceptional homebrewed beers.
This year we had 9 Handpump beers across two of the bars in the brewery, each handpull having a beer donated by a homebrewer… Now we’re not certain, but does any other homebrew event in the UK offer 2 fully stocked bars like this, we’d like to think not and we’d like to thank all of our brewers for brewing and getting their beers to us for the day… Fantastic Work!
Each brewer using American Hops in a range of beer styles from light to dark and 3.5 – 5.5% ABV.
All the beers were given for a donation, we suggested £2 a pint inline with what the Brewery normally charge on its BeerClub nights, we raised a massive £640 for the charities below:
- The Alzheimers Society
- Water Aid
- Yorkshire Donkey Sanctuary
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- Cancer Research UK
- Make-a-Dream
- Beagle Welfare
- Yorkshire Cat Rescue
The Hop Talk
While judging was underway we had lined up Andrew Whalley of Charles Faram Ltd to come along and keep us entertained with an interesting talk about hops. These are exciting times for hops and hop growing and Andrew had brought along a variety of hop samples, needless to say we made a big mess of rubbed hops all over the floor and got sticky hop hands
Andrew started out at York brewery so knows a thing or two about brewing. Thanks for the talk, I know a lot of us are keen to try the new English varieties in the Farams Hop Development program, Cheers
CharlesFarams on Twitter
@BritishHops
After much deliberation the results were announced for the American Pale Ale:
Kevin Bagshaw from Doncaster took first place:
2nd – Andy Black from Leeds
3rd – Steve Syson from Derby
4th – Giles Strother from Oxford
Louis Cowdroy from Harrogate got the Highly Commended
42 Beers entered Judges stated all were of a very high standard & they found it very hard to split 1st and 2nd place.
The Best Cask results, voted for with a show of hands:
‘Pray for Mojo’ by Matt Darcy from Harrogate took first place:
2nd Neil Gardener from Guisley
3rd Zak Avery from Leeds
Louis Cowdroy got the Honorable Mention
Sincere thanks to all who took part, brewed beer, entered the competition, turned up to drink beer and talk brewing… we have done our 8 charities proud, well done
Major thinks also go to Tony Gartland for yet again letting me organise a ‘Piss-up in a Brewery’, Shane Swindells for sorting all the competition entries, our excellent team of Judges, the brewery staff, our Barmen Dave & Neil (Even if Neil didn’t have the power of speech by the end of it!), and my wife Emma for running the upstairs Bar, Thanks for a cracking event and here’s to next year! Cheers
The full photo gallery is here…
Northern Craft Brewers APA Comp Saltaire Brewery 2013, a set on Flickr.
I’m still editing and updating this post… so hold yer horses, let me know what I did wrong 
AG#99 – Boomstick
Posted on: April 20, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
BoomStick – I’m brewing this for NCB member Paul Bromley who runs a back-garden charity event, he asked me if I’d brew something pale for it, so here it is, its an evolution from my Chinook Blonde recipe, using some of the same hops (but more of them) and adding some Weyermann Munich Type I, and mashing at 69°c, fermenting with Safale us-05.
This time the name again comes from a line Ash says in Army of Darkness “This… is my Boomstick!”
Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This… is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart’s top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70%
Munich Type I (Weyermann) – 20%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Hops:
UK Cascade – 5.7 % @ 60 mins – 21g (FWH)
UK Cascade – 5.7 % @ 30 mins – 21g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 49g (94c Steep for 25mins)
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 49g (94c Steep for 25mins)
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.037
Final Gravity: 1.009
Alcohol Content: 3.7% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 33 EBU
Colour: 9 EBC
Mash: 69°c for 70mins
Boil: 60mins
The malts, all pretty pale:
The hops:
Second batch sparge liquor going in at 78°c:
In go the Cascade & Chinook for the flameout steep:
I decided to rehydrate my yeast today to try and get things underway faster, I want a speedy ferment with time to put this beer in cask to condition before Paul’s event:
The money shot, I got 1044 and liquored back to 1037 with 4 litres giving me a total volume of 25.7 Litres, a goodly amount for filling a plastic pin cask:
No messing, done and dusted.
*25th Apr ’13 – Steady gravity reached, exactly as predicted FG, chilling down before casking this beer.
*Casked 27th Apr ’13 – with 20g white sugar and Allkleer finings, got a few 500ml bottles from it too which I give 3/4 Tsp white sugar each.
I’m going to give the cask a couple of days of warm then chill it down to cellar temps.
*1st May ’13 – Had a cheeky bottle of this, and its bloody good, plenty of juicy hops with a nice balance between the Cascade & Chinook, Chinook not overpowering just nice
A Brewday with Matt at Truefitt Brewing
It was last June during our wedding anniversary week in Whitby that me and Emma paid Matt a visit in his new Brewery, less than a year later Matt was coming up to his 100th brewed Gyle and had plans for brewing that beer the day I was there. He was not working full time last year, but now having stopped working for The Lions Den and taken on his first employee, he is out on his own.
Best laid plans! The day before our brewday a fused spur had blown and Matt had to cancel a brew doe to lack of hot liquor, so our brewday was Gyle #99 though I suppose in spirit it was still #100, it was to be a big 7%+ IPA hopped with recently released Mandarina Bavaria Hops from Germany.
I was on holiday, it felt wrong getting up this early but I got to Truefitt for 7.30am and found Matt had just started mashing in:
Run-off starts from the Mash Tun via the converted Keg Underback:
He said he was attaching the hop filter!:
The Copper Stand, this is where the last or late hops get to steep in the hot wort giving them time for the hop oils and flavours to infuse into the wort:
He aerates the wort via a sprayball while transferring to the fermenting vessel:
Matt is currently contract brewing for the one for the last breweries he worked at so was going some back-fills for us at Saltaire:
The Beer was named ‘Trembler’ after a previous and differently hopped brew of the same strength, its 7.4% and a Double IPA… I’m hoping to get my hands on some of this in bottle so I can add some tasting notes to the blog.
I had a good day with Matt and his new apprentice Jack, I hope to see Matt down at Saltaire sometime.
The last thing to note is that a Sausage & Tomato butty in Middlesbrough is at least 40p cheaper than in Shipley!!
You also can catch Matt on:
@TruefittBeers
Facebook/TruefittBeers
Some of his regular beers are:
All Bottle-Conditioned, Matt has chosen to hand bottle his beers to keep the full flavour, I’ve also got some other bottles from Truefitt Brewing to try soon
Click the Pics below to see what i thought of the beers
AG#98 – Robust Wheat Porter
Posted on: March 24, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 8 Comments
Robust Wheat Porter – The Pancake Day of Homebrews! I’m using up a load of bag-ends, so my base malts (Lager & Wheat) are now totally depleted.
I’m not too fussed if its something odd-ball, it should hopefully be entertaining and I can start from fresh malts for subsequent brews.
Fermentables:
Wheat Malt – 44.9%
Lager Malt – 26.6%
Munich Malt – 5.9%
Jaggery (Cane) – 5.5%
Brown Malt – 3.7%
Chocolate Malt – 3.7%
Rauch Malt (Weyermann) – 3.2%
Amber Malt – 2.6%
Peat Smoked Medium – 1.8%
Munich Type II (Weyermann) – 1.4%
Roasted Barley – 0.7%
Oat Husks – 3% (This works out at 103%, added after calculating recipe)
Hops:
Bobek – 4.5 % @ 60 mins – 408g
Saaz – 4.15 % @ 0 mins – 48g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.077
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 8.1% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 70 %
Bitterness: 181 EBU – (This is going to be bogus, the hops are old and like confetti)
Colour: 148 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 67°c
Yeast: Safale US-05 skimmed from last weeks brew before I dry hopped it
Liquor Treatment: General Purpose copied from AG#55
The Malts, I added a few Oat Husks as a precaution:
408g of Bobek Hops in the copper:
Recirculating the first few jugs from the mash tun until it runs clear:
Jaggery Goor, or Unrefined Cane sugar:
In go the late Saaz hops:
Quite a lot of spent hops left in the copper:
I ended up with 1079 so liquored back 0.54L to 1077, I feel a few things worked in my favor to get the right OG and 21.46Litres:
- Predicted Mash efficiency be set low.
- The 3.7L bellow the Mash Tun’s false bottom which I usually deduct from the first sparge.
- 80c second (technically first) sparge, I normally go for 78°c, and 15min rest before running off.
All cleaned up and yeast pitched, I expect it to kick off quite soon and spew all over the kitchen floor, the fermentation fridge is still full of Brown Ceas which I just dry hopped.
*25th Mar ’13 – The fresh yeast has taken off well, still in the bucket… just!
*31st Mar ’13 – Gravity at 1018 so this has been pretty fast at fermenting, and it tastes rather good with quite a bit of smoke and the Brown/Amber/Choc malts definitely playing their parts, bitterness is coming through but not overly
*7th Apr ’13 – Gravity at 1018 still so chilling it down before bottling sometime next week.
*Bottled 10th Apr ’13 – with 76g White Sugar, tastes bloody good too
AG#97 – Brown Ceas
Posted on: March 17, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
Brown Ceas – This is my NCB / Saltaire Brewery brew for the bar, an American Style Brown Ale, loosely based on my previous ‘Steaming, Brown & Sticky‘ of last year, this is going to be a little lighter in colour as the other version was almost black, or at least a very dark brown.
‘Brown Ceas’ its like the 3-Cs Cascade, Columbus, Chinook and its brown! Bittering will hopefully be nice & spicy from the Aramis & Saaz, and I’ll have a Hop-freezer rummage for American Pellets and give it some dry in the fermenter.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 72%
Wheat Malt – 10%
Crystal Malt – 5%
Caramalt – 5%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 2%
Chocolate Malt – 1%
Hops:
Aramis – 8.9 % @ 65 mins – 36g
Saaz – 3.95 % @ 35 mins – 40g
Columbus (Tomahawk) – 16.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 30g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 60g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.3% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 77 % (Its too late now, I punched in 77 rather than 75%!!!)
Bitterness: 45 EBU
Colour: 46 EBC
Mash: 68°c for 60-90mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
The Malts:
First Wort Aramis Hops:
Recirculating the Mash for Clarity:
The Hops all weighed out and ready:
85°c Steep Hops in for 30mins:
Top-Down view of the copper running off to FV, I got 1052 Gravity:
The spent hops in the copper, they soaked up a good couple of litres:
Bit of a late start but all done and dusted, liquored back just short of 3L from 1052 to 1045 getting a 21.92 Litre yield so only 1L short of target volume.
I almost forgot to add the Protafloc ‘cos I was messing about on Twitter too much, extended boil by 5 mins to account for lack of concentration!
I may dry hop this with Cascade Pellets, we shall see…
*24th Mar ’13 – Dry Hopped with 20g each of Cascade & Amarillo, so approx 2g/litre, Gravity at 1011. I also skimmed the yeast to use in my Robust Wheat Porter.
*Racked to Box 31st Mar ’13 with just 20g White sugar primings, Alkleer Finings also added as this is to be served from Handpull on the bar at work. Smells nicely dry hopped
AG#96 – Bravo+Apollo=Citra?
Posted on: March 2, 2013
Bravo+Apollo=Citra? – An experimental brewday with added Brew-Monkey! Its something I heard Stan Hieronymus say on a Brewery Network podcast (1H.27mins in) about the Bravo+Apollo=Citra so thought I’d give it a go, so ordered some Bravo to go with the Apollo I already had. If its any good I’ll maybe enter it into the Northern Craft Brewers & Saltaire Brewery Competition.
Thats experiment No.1, experiment No.2 was for SimpleOne on JBK (@Beehaveeor on Twitter) who wanted 5 beers marking for a hopping experiment he’s conducting, this second experiment also involved Dave @broadfordbrewer who came over to eat our food and drink our beer… and most welcome he was too.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 45%
Wheat Malt – 33%
Munich Type I (Weyermann) – 15%
Caramalt – 5%
Cara Munich III (Weyermann) – 2%
Hops:
Magnum – 12.7 % @ 60 mins – 25g (FWH)
Magnum – 12.7 % @ 30 mins – 25g
Bravo – 17.3 % @ 0 mins – 40g (80c Steep for 30mins)
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 0 mins – 40g (80c Steep for 30mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol Content: 5.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 55 EBU
Colour: 17 EBC
Yeast: Safale us-05 (I’d actually meant to skim off last weeks brew but totally forgot)
Mash: 60mins minimum, as we had beers to drink!
Liquor treated to Pale Ale via THBF calculator
The Malts:
Dave Mashing in:
The part of the brewday where we had to be diligent:
Running into the copper:
The 80c Steep hops:
The wort was certainly smelling very good, hope the yeast works its magic and makes it taste like Citra, in any case the Bravo hops were smelling good too, though the Apollo just smell like Dank Onions
Did a 2.5 Litre Liquorback to get OG 1055, so less than 1 Litre short on predicted brew length.
*8th Mar ’13 – Gravity at 1020 and tastes rather nice, its definitely not Citra but its certainly good beer Might Dry Hop with a few grams of Bravo & Apollo.
*Bottled 16th Mar ’13 – with 110g of white sugar to about 20 Litres, tasting good, pretty Peach / Mellon type Uber-Cascade-Amarillo thing going on.
