Posts Tagged ‘Bluebird’
AG#26 – Northern Blue
Posted on: May 8, 2010
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
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 😉
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:
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:
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:
Today’s hops all weighed out:
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 🙂
Filling the Tun with the 1st batch sparge:
Top-down view of the FWH+Gypsum in thw Copper, Mash Tun and Underback:
Chiller already been in the copper for 15mins to sanitise, Flame Out hops in for a 20 or 30min steep:
Lovely thick skimmed Edinburgh Ale yeast from my last brew:
OG 1042, 2 points more than needed but near enough:
A good colour and very clear wort, tasted pretty good too:
Updates are on my T.watter page as I remember http://twitter.com/pdtnc 🙂
A No Fuss Brewday 🙂
Yeast Action Update, it was off like a rocket!
*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.
AG#20 – Uber Bluebird mkII
Posted on: February 6, 2010
This is a tweaked re-brew of my ‘Munich Blauer Vogel‘ which was based around the Coniston Bluebird recipe which drunk very well and I plan to try and keep it in stock as a House Bitter.
This time I’ve done it at a slightly lower ABV and also dropping the bitterness a bit with something I learned at work about blending hops to smooth out any inaccuracies, hence the addition of Bramling Cross for half of the bittering. Adding a bit of Wheat Malt for head retention.
I had some nice fresh acid-washed yeast from work which I will probably have to rouse from time to time as it works well with some added oxygen.
Uber Bluebird mkII
Fermentables:
Maris Otter 3100g – 77.5%
Munich Malt 500g – 12.5%
Wheat Malt 200g – 5%
Crystal Malt 200g – 5%
Hops:
Challenger @ 60 mins 21g (FWH)
Bramling Cross @ 60 mins 21g (FWH)
Challenger @ 20 mins 20g
Challenger @ 0 mins 20g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.039
Final Gravity: 1.009
Alcohol Content: 3.9% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.3 Litres
Mash Liquor: 10 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 36 EBU
Colour: 16 EBC
There aren’t many photos as I had a busy morning, the Mash was on at 8.45am and I had to go out so it is going to be a longer than 90min mash.
Mashing at a planned 66c which turned out to be 66.6c so near enough.
The malts and Gypsum:
Hops:
Leftovers:
Saltaire Brewery Yeast:
FWH:
OG pretty damn close to 1039 predicted:
Trub and cooler with last bit of wort running off:
The FV was looking a little full so I jugged out a few litres into a plastic demijohn, thought it best as I’m expecting a frothy creamy explosion, I pitched approx 75g of Saltaire yeast:
I would have been done ages ago if I hadn’t had things to do this morning. Wort tastes good, lots of fizzy challenger bitterness 🙂 I was going to do a yeast comparrison with Nottingham but I really couldn’t be bothered, I’ll do a basic pale with Fuggles & Goldings with 5% crystal for a yeast comparrison… and besides I fancy and nice wholesome earthy F&G hopped ale 🙂
**update for yeast activity, within 4 hours I had good signs of life, this morning I have a deep frothy head 🙂
Yeast head after approx 24 hours from pitching:
*Bottled 16th Feb ’10
AG#7 – Munich Blauer Vogel
Posted on: September 26, 2009
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
This is basically a Coniston Bluebird Bitter with 500g of Munich Malt (and about 80g too much Crystal as it seemed a shame to leave such a small bag full!) and a little extra hopping. I’ll be pitching a split Whitelabs Edinburgh Ale yeast.
Fermentables:
Maris Otter 3600g
Munich Malt 500g
Crystal Malt 170g
Hops:
Boadicea 60 mins 27g (FWH)
Challenger 30 mins 30g
Challenger 20 mins 21g
Challenger 0 mins 10g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.042
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.1% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.6 Litres
Mash Liquor: 10.7 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 48 EBU
Colour: 15 EBC
The Grain; Maris Otter, Munich Malt, Crystal Malt:
Mashing, thanks to my honey for the photo 😉 :
Mashed in a little high:
pH of Mash looks somewhere near:
Boiler warming Sparge water and Mash tucked up under a coat:
Hops and brew Sheet:
No sparging photos as its stuck like a B’stard again!! Not happy, even with more and larger saw cuts in the copper manifold (Using the Thermos coolbox), it might have to be net curtain time next brew.
I’m finding the grain bed is going really solid, could this be the problem, could it maybe be my stirring technique after adding the batch sparge water etc?
Boadicea and 5g Gypsom FWH:
Challenger 30 min Hops:
OG:1040 couple of points out, though it was 27 Deg C so that about right, and I collected a few litres more than I should have:
Action Shot:
Cold Break:
Aeration and hop debris catching:
Pitched yeast at 26C-ish which had half an hour or so with some Fresh cooled wort added to it after decanting the ‘beer’ off the top of the yeast split bottle.
Fingers crossed for an Úber-Bluebird;)
**Bottled Tuesday 6th October 2009 with 100g sugar
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Things went quite well, though I could have done with adding a few more litres during the boil as I only collected about half what i was supposed to, so I had to let it down with more water once in the FV. Kept running upstairs and using this www.collectionsoft.com/mybrewcollection/hc0.html until I got the Gravity to just above what it should have been.
It sat in the bath cooling off, next step has to be a immersion cooler as soon as I start making longer brew lengths.
Pitching Safale s-04 yeast.
Bulldog Blend Maris Otter Extract – 1490 grams
Crystal Malt – 96 grams
Challenger – 60 mins 14 grams
Challenger – 30 mins 17 grams
Challenger – 20 mins 11 grams
Final Volume: 13 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.036
Final Gravity: 1.008
Alcohol Content: 3.6% ABV
Bitterness: 38 EBU
Colour: 26 EBC
No pictures as it would have looked almost exactly like my last brew.
Please check out www.conistonbrewery.com for a damn fine pint!
Made Friday May 8th 2009.
Probably Due To Network Congestion 