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Archive for May 2010

To my surprise everything was pretty well received, the ‘May Day’ was held in great esteem and my ‘Rye Stout’ @ 3.6% was said to punch well above its weight, even my Bitter as hell ‘Munich 5000 IPA’ got a fair few bottles trashed with some repeat business! Even my ‘Builders Lager’ went down well even if I don’t much care for it myselfΒ  πŸ™‚

I had the following beers ready after several weeks of brewing:

  • #25 – May Day *Bottled 16th May ’10
  • #24 – Hemp Bitter *Bottled 3rd May ’10
  • #23 – CNC 2.8 *Bottled 3rd May ’10
  • #22 – Bramling XB *Bottled 25th Apr ’10
  • #21 – Rye Stout mkII *Bottled 17th Apr ’10
  • #20 – Úber Bluebird mkII *Bottled 16th Feb ’10
  • #19 – Munich 5000 IPA *Bottled 10th Feb ’10
  • #18 – Builders Lager *Cornie + Bottled 31st Jan β€˜10

Youtube vid of the range with descriptions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pbZBn7YVl8

just misses off the Bramling XB which is a Brown Ale

Please visit www.ragus.co.uk for your sugary needs πŸ˜‰

Product
Code
Composition
Colour
Applications
Liquid Refined Sugar
LS01
Sucrose water solution
Clear Syrup
Fermenting
Priming
Organic White Liquid Sugar
OR05
Sucrose water solution
Clear Syrup
Fermenting
Priming
Liquid Cane Raw Sugar
LS03
Sucrose water solution
40-50 EBC
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Liquid Organic Raw Sugar
OR06
Sucrose water solution
40-50 EBC approx
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Liquid Dark Muscovado Syrup
LS13
Sucrose / molasses water solution
500-625 EBC
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Invert Sugar L78
IN03
Partial invert
Clear Syrup
Priming
Organic Invert L78
OR10
Partial invert
Clear Syrup
Priming
Invert Sugar OL78
IN04
Full invert
Clear syrup
Fermenting
Priming
Organic Invert OL78
OR08
Full invert
Clear syrup
Fermenting
Priming
Brewers Candy Block
BR14
Crystalline block
White to pale straw
Priming
Golden Syrup
GO01
Partial invert
25-35 EBC
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Organic Golden Syrup
OR01
Partial invert
35-60 EBC approx
Priming
Colour
Flavour
DBS Priming Sugar
CS04
Partial invert
60-75 EBC
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Organic Cane Syrup
OR04
Partial invert
60-75 EBC
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Liquid Brewers Invert No.1
BR22
Full invert
25-35 EBC
Fermenting
Flavour
Liquid Brewers Invert No.2
BR23
Full invert
60-70 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Liquid Brewers Invert No.3
BR24
Full invert
120-140 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Priming R
BR11
Full invert / caramel
550-650 EBC
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Brewers Sugar No.1
BR01
Crystalline block
25-35 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Brewers Sugar No.2
BR02
Crystalline block
60-70 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Brewers Sugar No.3
BR03
Crystalline block
120-140 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Brewers Sugar No.4
BR04
Crystalline block / caramel
550-650 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Brublock No.1
BR08
Crystalline block / glucose
25-35 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Brublock No.2
BR09
Crystalline block / glucose
55-65 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Brublock No.3
BR10
Crystalline block / glucose
120-140 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Glucose Chip Block
BR12
Crystalline block / glucose
20 EBC typically
Priming
Colour
Brewers Black Invert
BR21
Crystalline block / caramel
325-375 EBC
Fermenting
Colour
Flavour
Orchard Fermenting Sugar
GL16
Glucose syrup
Clear to pale straw
Fermenting
Honey Flavour Syrup
OM05
Partial invert / natural honey flavour
25-35 EBC
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Caramel (E150)
OM18
Black viscous liquid
40000-44000 EBC
Colour
Flavour
Black Treacle
TM05
Partial invert / molasses
1125-1875 EBC
Colour
Flavour
Cane Treacle No.3
TM07
Viscous syrup
Dark brown / black
Colour
Flavour
Organic Molasses (Blackstrap)
OR11
Viscous syrup
Dark brown / black
Colour
Flavour
Cane Demerara Sugar
SI03
Coarse grain
30-65 EBC
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Cane Fermenting Sugar
SI06
Coarse grain
20-45 EBC
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Organic Raw Sugar
OR02
Coarse grain
Beige crystalline colour
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Light Muscovado Sugar
BL04
Fine grain
212-262 EBC
Fermenting
Priming
Colour
Flavour
Refined Granulated Sugar
ME01
Coarse grain
32 ICU max
Fermenting
Priming

ο»Ώ

My first Wheat Beer and a bit of a user-upper too πŸ™‚Β  I’m only doing 19L as the recipe is tailored around the 2kg of Wheat Malt I had left, with the Crystal Wheat & Chocolate Wheat it takes the Wheat percentage to just over 50% of the entire malt bill.
Hops are the end of a bag of Perle, pre-dry hopped Mittlefruh kept in the Freezer, and the end of a bag of Hersbrucker.
The yeast needed using up too πŸ˜‰
No intentions of using any water treatments other than to kill the Chlorine and not going to be using protafloc as I want to keep this beer cloudy.

Dark Wheat WB06

Fermentables:
Wheat Malt 2000g 45.4%
Maris Otter 2000g 45.4%
Crystal Wheat Malt 200g 4.6%
Carafa Special III 100g 2.3%
Chocolate Wheat Malt 100g 2.3%

Hops:
Perle @ 60 mins 26g
Hallertauer Mittlefruh @ 20 mins 20g
Hallertauer Hersbrucker @ 10 mins 34g

Final Volume: 19 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.014
Alcohol Content: 5% ABV
Total Liquor: 28.3 Litres
Mash Liquor: 11 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 36 EBU
Colour: 96 EBC

Mash for 90mins, Boil for 60mins, pitch and attempt to keep as cool as possible in the garage (I’m going to need a fermenting fridge sometime!)

The Malts; 50:50 Maris Otter & Wheat Malt, Carafa Special 3, Chocolate Wheat malt, Crystal Wheat malt, NO Gypsum or other water treatments today:
Image
Mash at 67c, which is probably 66c on my thermometer:
Image
FWH:
Image
Coming to a boil, even so it was only a 19L brew it was close to boil over, a full 23L would have needed a bit of stirring etc:
Image
1052:
Image
Muddy water:
Image
Safbrew WB-06 dry sprinkled:
Image

Another no fuss brewday, kind of had a bit of a break in the middle before starting the boil but still finished up for about 1pm πŸ™‚
Weird not using Protafloc (or other copper finings) the total lack of any cold break material and instead just muddy looking wort, all in the sake of Cloudiness.

*Bottled 3rd Jun ’10 with 100g Sugar priming.

I started out with the Coniston Bluebird recipe but I’ve not got enough Challenger in the Freezer, so Northdown will be taking the place of most of the Challenger and there’s going to be some late Fuggles also as I want to finish a bag off.
The Malts are a bit like this too and I’ve moved away a little from the original, I had a bag of Wheat malt that I have a plan for 2kg’s of (Wheat Beer with WB-06) so the remainder of that Wheat is going in this along with a part bag of Crystal Malt which is near as damn it right for a Bluebird clone πŸ˜‰
Additions to the above are Crystal Rye & Crystal Wheat.

Malts:
Maris Otter 3450g 84.8%
Wheat Malt 264g 6.5%
Crystal Malt 154g 3.8%
Crystal Rye Malt 100g 2.5%
Crystal Wheat Malt 100g 2.5%

The Malts are weighed out and ready with 1 Tsp of Gypsum for the mash:
Image
Hops are liable to change as I only roughly weighed what hops I’ll be using so anything over these weights will be thrown in at the end of boil.
Hops:
Northdown – 60 mins 25g (FWH)
Northdown – 30 mins 8g
Northdown – 20 mins 15g
Challenger – 0 mins 19g
Fuggle – 0 mins 28g

Mash on @ 7.45am for maybe 60 or 90 mins:
Image
Pretty much hit my choice of Mash temperatures but found I have about a 1.5C variance across my three thermometers, 2 digital and 1 spirit:
Image
Today’s hops all weighed out:
Image

Beer profile:
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.040
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 3.8% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 10.2 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 34 EBU
Colour: 21 EBC

I’ll be using some Thick Edinburgh Ale Yeast I skimmed off my fermenter the other day, should be raring to go πŸ™‚

Filling the Tun with the 1st batch sparge:
Image
Top-down view of the FWH+Gypsum in thw Copper, Mash Tun and Underback:
Image
Chiller already been in the copper for 15mins to sanitise, Flame Out hops in for a 20 or 30min steep:
Image
Lovely thick skimmed Edinburgh Ale yeast from my last brew:
Image
OG 1042, 2 points more than needed but near enough:
Image
A good colour and very clear wort, tasted pretty good too:
Image
Updates are on my T.watter page as I remember http://twitter.com/pdtnc πŸ™‚

A No Fuss Brewday πŸ™‚

Yeast Action Update, it was off like a rocket!
Image
Image

*Bottled 20th May ’10 with 75g Sugar, dropped to FG 1010 / 1012 tastes to have lots of body and a full robust flavour from the hops.

The making of my Hot Liquor Tank (HLT), this is going to be the upper-most stage of my gravity-fed garage brewery, holding up-to 50 Litres with 2 heating elements, sight tube and ball-valve tap. This will eventually be Insulated and temperature controlled.

This first shot shows the first Element, a budget Kettle Element from Curry’s:
HLT construction
The Inside with element and other side of the Ball-Valve Tank connector with soldered-in copper pipe:
HLT construction
Both elements now fitted and doing a leak / heating up test:
HLT construction
The Polycarbonate sight glass tube fixed at the bottom with a Compression fitting and another Tank Connector, clipped on higher up with a 15mm Plastic pipe clip drilled and tapped out to screw onto a length of M10 Stainless studding (including nuts and washers):
HLT construction
I cut two holes in the lid, one for filling and another for sticking a spoon through to give it a stir. I decided I’d heat / Boil with the lid in place as it keeps the barrel’s shape better along with keeping the heat in, I shall eventually insulate the sides with Foil-backed Camping mats or something:
HLT construction
Element splash shrouds (and good for keeping fingers away) made from used Silicone Sealant tubes, I Just need to ‘seal’ them round with something.. maybe Silicone Sealant!:
HLT construction

The parts for this are as follows:
The Mango Chutney Barrels came from http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Smiths-of-the-Forest-of-Dean-Ltd__W0QQ_armrsZ1 I bought 2 as I’m sure I’ll find a use for the other even if its just storing malt.
I got the Polycarbonate tube from – http://www.theonestopplasticsshop.co.uk I have about 1.5m left over which I suppose I could sell but might just hang onto for a while in case I find any other uses.
The little white Pipe clip and Tank connectors was from ebay.
The Stainless nuts, stud and washers came from – http://www.a2stainless.co.uk
The Compression Elbow was from – http://www.tradingdepot.co.uk as it seemed to be the cheapest place.
πŸ™‚ I Just had to bend a little bit of copper pipe to join from the Tank connector to the Elbow πŸ™‚
Copper pipe from the Local Plumbers merchants.
Temperature Controller on order from Hong Kong, so I can control 1 element and keep the liquor at a constant 80Β°C ideal for Mash & Sparge:
I got a couple of long ‘Hot Condition’ Kettle leads and a Temp Sensor from RS:
461-159Β Β  NTCH Liquid Probe. SS. Silicon Cable
406-219Β Β  Hot condition straight plug w/cordset,2m

OK, so this isn’t just going to be my little garage brewery, we’ll be living here… in fact we are πŸ™‚
The plan was to think ahead for what I was going to need in the garage for my hobby of All Grain Brewing…
It started like this:
Image
And this is me, stood in the brewery πŸ˜‰
Image
Approx predicted location of 3 tier brewery:
Image
One of the builders floating out my brewery floor:
Image
Walls up:
Image
More progress on the garage area,Β  we moved in end of March πŸ™‚
Image
Image
Now I’m starting to do the plumbing (below) ready for when I build the stand for the brewing gear, we had the basics all plumbed in to the garage to start with of Hot and Cold water, Natural Gas, Lots of Electric with room for expansion and a drain outlet should I decide to use it:

Next is to build the Brewery Stand out of timber, screwing some 2″x3″ to the walls for the back support and then building up some front legs to form a good sturdy support in case I ever want to brew a bit longer length to what I do at present. I need to finish painting the walls and ceiling, and seal the floor with floor paint before I start the timber work.
The brewery, if a name is in order, will be named after my grandad’s old trade as a Cobbler, quite fitting as we are now living in his old house and still have some of his old Cobbling equipment.
Image
The first few brews have already been done, the above Rye Stout being the first πŸ™‚
During building work its been a busy time, I’ve gone from Engineering and building Escalators to being made redundant and on the dole for two months… and now… I’m working for a Brewery “Living the Dream” so to speak – www.saltairebrewery.co.uk which has much more promise than staying in Engineering these days πŸ™‚

*Update*
Not a lot has happened lately…
Just finished paining the Brewery area, the floor paint is supposed to be ‘Chocolate’ looks like a lighter shade of Black to me!:
Image
πŸ™‚ Should have bought grey! I haven’t bothered with the recommended concrete primer, there’s only so much I’ll spend on painting a garage floor!

*Another Update!*
Altered pipework, replaced the plastic JG ball valves with metal ones, hot feed on the Quick disconnect with hose for cleaning down. Cold feed plumbed around the big grey down pipe to a ball valve to feed the IC via a JG Pushfit-to-1/2″ tail to fit a bit of silicone hose:
Image

Finally the basic of my 3 tier (4 with the FV) brewery stand, all my malts under the stand (I’ll get the sacks into containers soon), one or two storage shelves to fix under the main stand for bits ‘n bobs. Just the HLT to calibrate and I’ll be good to brew:
Image

The other aspect of the garage, next to build is a short bench next to the boiler for doing the prep stuff on brewdays, which should use up most of the remaining timber:
Image

I had plans of doing some Hop gardening today, I got as far as screwing some Rawl Eye Bolts into the house then it started to rain and hail.
Paul over at BarleyBottom mentioned it was National Home Brew Day or something… so what the heck! Its a Mayday brew πŸ™‚
I’m using mostly Lager hops, Perle & Saaz with a small addition of Cascade in the final Flame out steep, I had a bag of Mild Ale malt that I thought I’d find a use for with a couple of small additions of Crystal-malt-esque things and a tad of wheat malt for head retention.

May Day

Fermentables:
Golden Promise 4000g 74.1%
Mild Ale Malt 1000g 18.5%
Wheat Malt 200g 3.7%
Cara Red 100g 1.9%
Aromatic Malt 100g 1.9%

Hops:
Perle 60 mins 50g (split 50:50 between FWH & Start of Boil)
Saaz 15 mins 50g
Saaz 0 mins 50g (20min steep)
Cascade 0 mins 10g (20min steep)

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.7 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 48 EBU
Colour: 12 EBC

Mashing for 1 hour, Boiling for 1 hour. Good healthy Teaspoon of Gypsum to the Mash.
Yeast to be Whitelabs Edinburgh Ale yeast which might be nice πŸ™‚

Mashing:
Image
Mash Temp at start:
Image
Hops all weighed and ready:
Image
Did a pH just to see if I still don’t need to bother:
Image
Sparge:
Image
FWH, I split the bittering addition between FWH and Start of boil:
Image
Start of boil hops:
Image
Predicted 1052, maybe a little over:
Image

Really tasty wort, pitched a couple of splits of a Whitelabs Edinburgh Ale yeast
πŸ™‚ Will clean my copper tomorrow.

Dry Hopping with 20g of Mittlefruh 10th May ’10 for 3 days.

*Bottled 16th May ’10 with 70g Sugar priming, tasting very good with a nice floral edge πŸ™‚


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