Posts Tagged ‘challenger’
AG#125 – 2013 Homegrown Hops
Posted on: August 24, 2014
2013 Homegrown Hops – A British hopped pale ale, Yorkshire Homegrown hops from last years crop, I used the alpha acids that were last used in BeerEngine for the calculations but who knows what the bitterness will be like.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 89%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 11%
Hops:
Challenger – 60 mins – 9g
Fuggle – 60 mins – 9g
Challenger – 5 mins – 145g
Fuggle – 5 mins – 120g
Dry Hops:
Whitbread Golding 200g for 2-4 days
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.053
Final Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol Content: 5.1% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 42 EBU
Colour: 9 EBC
Mash: 60mins @ 69°c
Yeast: Safale us-05
Malts n Salts:
Lots of Hops:
First sparge wort going onto the FWH:
Quite a Hop charge at 5mins left to boil:
I’d liquored back with 2L during the boil as my volume in the copper was looking low, this later meant that I actually missed hitting my target OG of 1053 and got 1051. Weirdly the wort smells as if its been Wet-hopped even after drying and vac-packing my homegrown hops last September and kept in the freezer until now.
*28th Aug ’14 – Gravity at 1013.5 so dry hopped with 200g homegrown WGV, the beer was tasting good as it was so this may have been a mistake! Stirring them in has probably just oxidized the beer!
*Bottled 6th Sep ’14 – with 66g of white sugar in just over 20L so the hops and yeast accounted for about 5L of losses! Tasting pretty good, big orangy taste from the dry hops.
AG#112 – Challenger Bitter
Posted on: January 5, 2014
Challenger Bitter – An English hopped Bitter hopefully with a massively malty presence. I’ve been wanting to do a 50% of each Munich+Vienna malts for a while, ideally as an IPA but I thought this would work quite nicely as I’m planning to serve it through a BeerEngine from either Cask or Bag-in-Box.
Fermentables:
Munich Malt – 43%
Vienna Malt – 43%
Caramalt – 9%
Crystal Rye Malt – 5%
Hops:
Cascade (UK) – 5.7 % @ 60 mins – 53g
Challenger – 7.6 % @ 0 mins – 100g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 30 EBU
Colour: 32 EBC
Mash: 67c for 90mins
Yeast: Safale us-05 repitched from last brew
The usual and predictable photo of the malts:
Here’s a shot of the Galcium Chloride flakes, using the Mild water profile from THBF calc:
Lovely colour, it was a deep chestnut red:
Just about to drop a half protafloc:
Nice fulsome 100g late steep of Challenger:
Not the best start to the day, I found I hadn’t cleaned out the hops from the copper from the last brew so dug them out and gave the IC and ball-valve some extra TLC Boiling it while the mash was on.
*8th Jan ’14 – just got this in the brew-fridge, it is at 1017 but had got quite cool at 16.6°c, now set to warm up to 20°c so should finish fermenting in a day or two. Its amazing the difference in fermentation speed when re-pitching yeast skimmed of a previous brew, its made it easier to do this while I’ve been brewing every week. It wastes alright too 😉
*Racked to Bag-in-Box 11th Jan ’14 with 15g priming sugar and Allkleer Isinglass Finings.
- In: Brewing | Random
- 3 Comments
My Challenger & Fuggles plants were starting to get some brown bits on some of the hops so I diecded to pick them the other day, I plan to do a Gree-hopped beer so I vac-packed and froze them.
Some of the brown bits:
The red-tinge on the tops of the cones is not the brown you see above but the colouring of the Challenger hops:
Hops picked, me and the wife picked thru these again to remove any twigs and leaves:
All packed up and ready for the freezer:
I got 1.1kg of a mixture of Fuggles & Challenger, all the bines were entangled so I just picked the lot, so I’ll brew an English Homegrown green-hop bitter in a few weeks time.
I’ve still got a WGV plant to pick but I’m not too fussed about what WGV brings to a beer!
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
I shall be abstaining from brewdays for a while, normal service will resume once I’ve got through some of the beer!
This weekend I bottled my last two brews, Ta Moko II & Chinook Blonde and I’m still warm conditioning my Double IPA HopZilla IPA… so thats *6 crates of beer sat in our office/study/room/thing 🙂 *Crates hold 20 bottles of 500ml or 24 x 330ml
Garage beer stocks are pretty high with lots more full crates stashed in there too… the Temperature control on the fermentation fridge has been turned off and the HLT is empty! (Hop Freezer is Full!)
There are Whitelabs yeasts in the fridge to brew with once I get going again:
- Brett WLP650 (Something with Flaked Oats and Wheat malt, lots of Cara/Crystal malts)
- Belgian Blend (Might get some more Date Molasses)
- Hefeweizen (I’ll go the whole decoction hog but hop with Amarillo & Nelson Sauvin +dry)
- Kólsch (Ideas for an IPA, a Malty Smoke beer, and maybe a Red Rye)
- San Diego Super (I’m sure I’ll have plenty of options for this one… US Brown re-brew with tweaks?)
- Edinburgh Ale (Something British, might do a Fuggle IPA and a Coniston Bluebird-esqe bitter)
Malts are pretty plentiful too:
Pale Malt, Lager Malt, Caramalt, Choc Malt, Choc Wheat, Crystal, Extra Dark Crystal, Flaked Barley, Flaked Oats, Pale Crystal, Carahell, Roast Barley, Carapils, Cara-munich Type III, Carafa Special III, Special B, CaraAmber, Medium Peat Smoked, Roasted Wheat, Black Malt, Brown Malt, Roasted Rye, Crystal Rye, Cara Vienna, Pale Oat Malt, Melanoidin, Flaked Wheat, Muinch Type I, Munich Type II, Amber Malt, Rye Malt, Rauch Malt, Flaked Maize.
Bulging Hop Freezer:
UK Cascade, Columbus, Challenger, Fuggle, Bobek, Goldings, Magnum, Summit, Willamette, Apollo, Chinook, Hersbrucker, Simcoe, NZ Cascade, Tettnang, Green Bullet, Aramis, Junga, Mount Hood, Spalter Select, Marynka, Cluster, Amarillo, Lubelski, Centennial, Riwaka, Citra, Northern Brewer, Galaxy, Super Alpha, Summer, Stella, NZ Hallertau Aroma, Pacific Gem, Warrior, Delta, Topaz, Nelson Sauvin, Pacific Jade, Pacifica, Wai-iti, Kohatu, Wakatu, Motueka, East Kent Golding, Sticklebract.
I wonder how long I can go without firing up the HLT? 🙂 AG#88 will be a….????
Hop Growing 2012
Posted on: May 7, 2012
- In: Brewing | Random
- 4 Comments
From memory I think from front to back its Challenger-Fuggle-WGV 🙂 Last year my pathetic piece of string I used between the house & the pole just snapped in the strong winds we had so down came the hops! This year I’ve borrowed the neighbour’s ladders and fixed a strong Rawl Bolt Eye-bolt in the house wall and strung a securely clamped steel cable between pole & house.
I may change tack another year and move these plants round the side of the house into very large planters and attach some more cables from house down to fence so when they hops grow they will form a nice looking covering over the yard at the side and also have a lot of support from strong winds. If I do this I shall probably but a Bramling Cross / Saaz or Hallertau / Cascade in the original spot.
You can just see the wire top right, now firmly anchored to an eye bolt in the house wall:
I’ll leave these a week or so as they are to see which of the new growth starts climbing best before weeding out to keep maybe 4 or 5 strong shoots:
Coir twine, AKA ‘Bean String’ a nice biodegradable climbing frame for hops, hopefully it will be strong enough to support them until they get to the top wire:
Rather than cutting and clamping off the cable at the height of the upstairs windows I’ve taken the cable down the wall to knee-height and looped it over another eye-bolt so I can un-hook and lower the cable down when it comes to harvesting or cutting back the hops:
AG#72 – Toasted Oatmeal Stout
Posted on: January 21, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 7 Comments
Toasted Oatmeal Stout – Its about time I made a Roasted Barley based Stout so the other week I toasted some oats in the oven, checking every 5 mins and turning them, they just began to catch so I stopped at this point (Slight oven-smell to them, hope this doesn’t come through to the finished beer).
Nice solid bittering from Northdown and a little Challenger thrown in at the end too. The Malt bill is just an altered Guinness recipe splitting the 20% Flaked barley between Caramalt & Flaked Oats (should be better than Guinness).
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70%
Flaked Oats, Toasted – 10%
Roasted Barley – 10%
Caramalt – 10%
Hops:
Northdown – 6.2 % @ 60 mins – 42g (FWH)
Northdown – 6.2 % @ 30 mins – 42g
Northdown – 6.2 % @ 0 mins – 15g (15min Steep at 100c)
Challenger – 7.6 % @ 0 mins – 15g (15min Steep at 100c)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.015
Alcohol Content: 4% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 12.2 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 45 EBU
Colour: 211 EBC
Mash: 67°c for over 2 hours as I had stuff to do.
Yeast: Safale US-05
The malts, this actually dropped to 10°c, the Oatmeal is at the top so you can see the colour:
Copper filling onto First Wort Northdown hops:
I managed the protafloc all by my self:
Flameout hops going in:
Malt Recycling, she turns it into poo amazingly well:
One division in the meniscus, 1046 on the nail at 20°c:
Pretty slow but no fuss brewday, left the copper to clean later, in the fridge set at 19.5°c
According to BeerEngine I just topped 90% Mash efficiency on this brew, I shall put this down to the Oatmeal which simply disintegrated in the mash and the extended mash rest.
*Bottled 5th Feb ’12 with 60g White Sugar.
TT Landlord mkII – I really wasn’t going to brew today… but I smacked the Wyeast 1469 yesterday with thoughts of building a bit bigger starter, then thought sod it as the pack states its a Pitchings worth, the pack is well swollen now.
I wanted to use Fuggles in the finish with Bobek but don’t have any to hand so Challenger it is!
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 81%
Munich Malt – 10.4%
Crystal Malt – 6.2%
Flaked Oats – 2.4%
Hops:
Bobek @ 60 mins – 33g
Challenger @ 60 mins – 23g
East Kent Golding @ 10 mins – 26g
Bobek @ 0 mins – 21g
Challenger @ 0 mins – 22g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.043
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 10.4 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 80 %
Bitterness: 36 EBU
Colour: 20 EBC
Updates & Photos on Twitter and a duplicate of the pics here from my phone.
The Malts:
Mash @ 68c for 1 hour:
Hops weighed out:
First Wort Hops:
Just less than 10mins to boil:
The West Yorkshire yeast:
1045 or there abouts:
🙂 No fuss brewday, yeast pitched at 21-22c
*Bottled 5th Feb ’11 with 1/2 Tsp sugar per bottle, no priming for the Cornie just hit with 30psi
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.
Probably Due To Network Congestion 
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