Archive for December 2011
AG#70 – Ta Moko
Posted on: December 18, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 10 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.
Thanks again to Rob at Hopzine for another glowing review:
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 🙂
- 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 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.
*31st Mar ’12 – This just took 3rd place in the Northern Craft Brewers / Saltaire Brewery English IPA competition.
We had a busy but brilliant day of running the bar and tasting some excellent home-brewed beer both from Cask on the bar and bottle tastings. It was great to see some familiar faces and lots of new faces from Twitter & the home brewing forums. We had almost 40 entries to the English IPA competition and it took the beer judges a great deal of deliberation to pick the top three and further Highly Commended beers.
*12th Jun ’12 – This is ‘Smooth as’ and chilled from the fridge is really hitting the mark, I dare say I’ll brew a big English IPA again, with even more dry Hops 😉
Probably Due To Network Congestion 