Archive for November 2011
- In: Brewing
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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
AG#68 – Trashy Black
Posted on: November 13, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Trashy Black – This is kind of an Up-scaled tweak on AG#45 Trashy Blonde for the #BlackIPAoff with @Broadfordbrewer @BrotherLogic @MrFoleys
AG#45 was a pretty classy 4% beer so fingers crossed when this one is dry-hopped it will be nice and tasty.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 77%
Munich Malt – 10%
Caramalt – 5%
Wheat Malt – 5%
Carafa Special III – 3%
Hops:
Simcoe – 12.2 % @ 60 mins – 10g
NZ Cascade – 10.2 % @ 60 mins – 10g
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 60 mins – 10g
Simcoe – 12.2 % @ 10 mins – 21g
NZ Cascade – 10.2 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Simcoe – 12.2 % @ 0 mins – 18g
NZ Cascade – 10.2 % @ 0 mins – 18g
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 0 mins – 18g
Final Volume: 20 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.064
Final Gravity: 1.017
Alcohol Content: 6.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 30.7 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 75 EBU (Hop Utilization set to 25%)
Colour: 93 EBC
Mash: 66c for 60mins
Yeast: Safale US-05
Liquor: General Purpose Treatment
The Malts:
Today’s Brewday is brought to you by Simcoe, Motueka & NZ Cascade hops:
First Wort Hops and tiny common salt addition:
The Mash at 66c:
Running from mash tun into copper:
The gorgeous smelling 80c steep hops, apparently the house was smelling extra Hoppy today:
Break material clumping as the Wort cools, the wort was tasty and already displaying a good bitterness:
Bit of a lazy start to the day then for some reason the hop-stopper decided to block and required some ‘Spatulation’ with the plastic paddle.
Yeast Pitched, in the fridge at 20c. I’ll be dry hopping this with the same combo of hops after fermentation.
*18th Nov ’11 – Dry hopped with 10g Simcoe, 20g Motueka, 20g NZ Cascade
*20th Nov ’11 – Dry hopped with 10g Motueka, 10g NZ Cascade
*Bottled 27th Nov ’11 – with 71g of sugar, I’m drinking the last pint out of the bottling bucket as it tastes too good to throw away. Tastes smooth 🙂
Think it could have stood to be a bit more black, it might be a Trashy Brown!
*25th Jan ’12 Hopzine review of Trashy Black, thanks Rob much appreciated
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Posted on: November 11, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
One of Huddersfield’s newest breweries is Magic Rock , Rich is the boss who you might already know of from myBrewerytap, Stu is Head Brewer (Famed for eating Pork Pies on Youtube), recent addition is Scott the Drayman.
I’m not going to waffle on about Magic Rock too much when there is a great article in the Independent by Will Hawkes.
Needless to say, Magic Rock are brewing some stunningly excellent beers with my current personal favourite being ‘Highwire’ a thoroughly hop-forward & dry-hopped mouth coating loveliness of a beer.
The brewery was built and installed by www.malrexfabrication.co.uk who, as you can see from the following photos, have done a very professional job.
Its a bugger of a job making a Glass & Bottle look good with a torch in the kitchen!
From Left to right and anti-clockwise, Mash Tun, Bottom of Copper, Hopback:
I’m sure on the inside there is a sticker that says ‘Caution – Hop Surface’:
Bottoms of two conical fermenters:
The long-legged gas-fired Copper boiler:
Wort flow sight-glass and pipework, wort from the mash tun is re-circulated for clarity before being pumped to the copper:
Stu & Scott preparing the ‘Curious NZ’ hops for the Hopback:
Top of the copper:
Fermenter top hatch:
Another angle of the copper, through the plastic flaps is the Malt Loft; you can just see the grist case which is above the mash tun downstairs:
Filling the Hopback with lots of lovely whole-leaf hops:
Obligatory Sight Glass shot:
Two of the other fermenters, front filled with tasty Imperial Stout and the back has RockStar (the MagicRock & DarkStar collaboration brew):
Check them out on Twitter…
@MagicRockBrewCo @MagicRockRich @MagicRockStu @MagicRockScott @MagicRockJonny
Thanks for talking the time out of your day to let me take photos and talk beer ‘n brewing, it was good to hear Stu’s alternate views on yeast. I’m sure I learned a few things from you all 🙂
AG#67 – Amber Motueka
Posted on: November 6, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Amber Motueka – I should really be brewing for a Twitter #BlackIPAoff beer swap with @Broadfordbrewer & @BrotherLogic but I decided to use up the end of a sack of Lager Malt and use some of the wonderful Motueka hops I have stashed in the Hop-Freezer. Motueka works rather well as a dry-hop so I’ll be using up the remainder of the bag once initial fermentation has died down.
This will ‘hopefully’ be a nice Amber coloured Hoppy IPA-like beer with a nice malt presence and a firm smooth bitterness. 🙂
Fermentables:
Vienna Malt (Weyermann) – 40%
Lager Malt – 37.2%
Wheat Malt – 16%
Cara Aroma (Weyermann) – 3.7%
Cara Munich Type III (Wey – 3%
Hops:
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 60 mins – 20g (FWH)
Magnum – 14.5 % @ 60 mins – 10g (FWH)
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 15 mins – 20g
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 0 mins – 40g
Dry Hops:
Motueka (B Saaz) – 20g (or whatever is left from the 100g packet)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.049
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.8% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.3 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 55 EBU (Utilisation set to 25%)
Colour: 39 EBC
Mash: 60mins @ 66c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale US-05
Liquor Treatment: Burton Pale Ale using the Graham Wheeler treatment calculator
HLT temperature:
Some of the malts:
Gypsum (Calcium Sulphate) being weighed out:
First Wort Hops and a small Sodium Chloride (Salt) addition in the Copper:
Flameout hops and half a Protafloc tab, it ran off pretty clear so 1/2 is all you really need for 5 gallons:
Hops steeped for 20-30mins with an occasional stir:
Target of 1049, near enough:
Wort dropping from copper into fermenting vessel, given a good thrash with a paddle and dry sprinkled the yeast:
A wide shot of running to fermenter, the all important clock in the background:
A no fuss brewday, everything works, hit gravity, yeast pitched, put to bed in the fermentation fridge for the first time!
Safale us-05 has a temperature range of 15-24c so I’ve set the cooling to come on at 24c and left the heating turned off so it can increase in temperature naturally.
*12 Nov ’11 FGÂ 1012 reached, loose Dry Hopped with 20g of Motueka and set the fermentation fridge to cool to 17c.
*Bottled 18th Nov ’11 with 75g white sugar, tasting nice, nothing over-powering just nice.
*23rd Nov ’11 – About 1 week bottled taster, fruity with sweet malty bits, good mid-to-light-amber colour (Just been eating chocolate so maybe not the best pallet cleanser), maybe not the IPA-esque beer I was after but tasty, bitterness is smooth and pallet-coating. This beer would make a very nice Belgian ale with the appropriate yeast.
*1st Dec ’11 – now its had a bit more time in the bottle its drying out and the bitterness is coming through, its a lovely smooth bitterness. I’m happy with the results.
*17th Jan ’12 – This is a bloody good beer now 🙂
Probably Due To Network Congestion 