AG#83 – Ring of Fire

Posted by: pdtnc on: July 1, 2012

• In: Brewing
• 4 Comments

Ring of Fire – This is a brew using two New Zealand hops I’ve never tried, ‘Pacifica’ and ‘Pacific Jade’ the latter smells like a cross between Citra & Nelson Sauvin to me…
The name is taken from the the hops / Pacific Ocean / volcanic “Ring of Fire”, part of which passes through New Zealand giving them Geothermal activity and Earthquakes.
A fairly sensible malt bill with German Munich Malt for some maltiness and Cara-Pils & Cara-Belge for some body & Sweetness, I’m going fairly restrained on the early bittering and quite light on the 5 minute hops as I want to leave the Dry Hopping to do the talking which will be the remainder of the two 100g packs of hops, should be around 50g of each.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 75%
Munich Malt I (Weyermann) – 10%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Cara Belge (Weyermann) – 5%

Hops:
NZ Pacifica – 6.1 % @ 60 mins – 10g (FWH)
Pacific Jade – 15.1 % @ 60 mins – 10g (FWH)
NZ Pacifica – 6.1 % @ 30 mins – 10g
Pacific Jade – 15.1 % @ 30 mins – 10g
Pacific Jade – 15.1 % @ 5 mins – 30g (with 20min Steep)
NZ Pacifica – 6.1 % @ 5 mins – 30g (with 20min Steep)

Dry Hops: (These will be added near the end of fermentation before cooling)
Pacific Jade – 50g
NZ Pacifica – 50g

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.049 – I got 1053 so liquored-back 1.7 Litres
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.8% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 % – I actually hit over 83%
Bitterness: 50 EBU (I still have the BeerEngine software set to 25% Hop Utilisation)
Colour: 9 EBC
Mash: 67°c for 60-90mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
Liquor Treatment: General setting via www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/water.php

Malts & Temp:

First Wort Hops and liquor Salts for the boil:

The 5 min Hops & 1 Protafloc tablet:

Recirculating about 6 litres to get rid of the Turbid wort before running to the copper:

5min Hops going in:

Break material forming during cooling:

OG:1053, I liquored back to correct 1049 gravity in FV:

Pretty straight forward brewday, bleached a couple of crates of bottles thoroughly in amongst brewing to prepare to bottle AG#82 on Tuesday-ish 🙂

Liquoring back:
Its pretty easy to use a Smart Phone based app to help you calculate your liquoring back volume, but probably just as easy to use a calculator, it goes a like this.

Wort OG x Volume = (Litre Degrees)
Litre Degrees / Target OG = Volume to make up to with Liquor-Back
(We drop the leading 10 from the 1053 giving us 53)

Its important to read your Hydrometer/Saccharometer correctly and adjusting for sample temperature and know an accurate volume for the wort that you’ve collected.

*Bottled 15th Jul ’12 – with 90g sugar to 20.5 Litres of beer, tastes pretty green / grassy / zingy / catty, will probably take 2 or 3 weeks to settle down in the bottle.

*18th Jul ’12 – Cheeky taster, Orange zest and smooth, slight musky edge… bet would work well as an IPA or just a lovely refreshing summer pint.

Tags: AG#83, beer, Brewing, carabelge, Carapils, flaked oats, garage brewer, homebrew, homebrewing, hops, lager malt, liquor, malt, munich malt, new zealand, NZ, Pacific Jade, Pacifica, pale ale, Ring of Fire, safale us-05, water, yeast