Posts Tagged ‘challenger’
AG#22 – Bramling XB
Posted on: April 18, 2010
The Plan… to make a solid wholesome malty pint with English hops and a fruity Blackcurrant flavour & Aroma from Bramling Cross hops 🙂
I’m starting this brew off and getting all my liquor from my hot & cold feeds in the garage today, probably try and tidy up a little while the mash is on too. (Note to self B&Q Pushfits are crap, can’t get the buggers back off, glad I only bought one of them)
Bramling XB – (Bramling Cross Bitter)
Fermentables:
Maris Otter 2700 grams 60.8%
Flaked Barley 500 grams 11.3%
Brown Malt 500 grams 11.3% (Bag end from work which will hopefully balance the Blackcurrant of the Bramlings)
Munich Malt 500 grams 11.3%
Caramalt 200 grams 4.5%
Chocolate Malt 40 grams 0.9% (Just to add a little deeper colour)
Hops:
Challenger 20g @ 60mins (FWH)
Fuggle 30g @ 30mins
Bramling Cross 20g @ 15mins
Bramling Cross 20g @ 0mins for 80c steep
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.042
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.1% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.7 Litres
Mash Liquor: 11.1 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 33 EBU
Colour: 46 EBC
Mash Temp aimed at 67c to keep some body
Yeast Safale s-04
1 Tsp Gypsum to Mash + 1 to boil
Mash on at 8.50am
Twittered some pics as I went https://twitter.com/pdtnc
The Malt bill:
Mash Start temp, not far off my aim of 67c:
Hops all weighed out:
First batch sparge just sitting before running off, and it ran off beautifully:
First Wort Hops (FWH) just going in on the first spargings:
80c Steep hops left for 30mins before cooling to 23c:
Dropped from a good height caused a heck of a lot of foam:
Aiming for 1042, so this is near enough for me:
Brewday seemed to go really easy, very relaxed, it seems having a dedicated area for brewing is going to smooth things out considerably… and I’m far from organised at the moment! 🙂
The wort was tasting pretty nice, though there were lots of roasted and biscuit aromas while the boil was on, will be interested how this one turns out, its a nice deep tawny copper/brown by the looks of it too :)
Bottled 25th Apr ’10 with 60g Sugar priming
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#8 – JBK Anniversary Brew 09
Posted on: October 2, 2009
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
The instructions:
Jim wrote:I would look for something around a maximum of 55 OG, with crystal malt to give it body and a bit of darkness from roast barley and good old English hops – plenty of fuggle with a bit of golding for aroma and around 45 to 50 IBUs.
So this is what I’ve come up with:
Fermentables:
Maris Otter 1880g
Dark Crystal Malt 205g (no mention of which crystal, so this gives me a chance to try out some Dark Crystal)
Torrefied Wheat 78g
Roasted Barley 26g
Hops:
Challenger – 60 mins 19g
Progress – 30 mins 16g
First Gold – 5 mins 11g
Final Volume: 12 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.041
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 3.9% ABV
Bitterness: 48 EBU
Colour: 64 EBC
The Grain weighed out, 2 Tsp of Chalk and Gysum for the Mash:
The Intended Yeast slurry from a previous brew which is coming back to life and releasing some bubbles, will decant off the beer and pitch some of this:
The new manifold in my 15L tun, note the support sleeving to support my warm floppy pipe. I may need to make this a rigid arrangement in future:
Grist Temp:
The Mash Tun:
Mashed in @ 67C, leaving for 90 mins:
Mash pH looks near enough:
Hops, Generous weighing as I know the Burton Ale yeast will subdue them:
End mash temp:
First Runnings being recycles, sparging went brilliantly, no sticking and pretty clear wort:
First Wort Hops going in with first batch spargings:
Leftovers:
Bacon butty:
5 min hops addition with cooler already in:
Sanitising with Starsan:
Pretty clear hitting the FV and a good deep colour:
Pitching Whitelabs Burton Ale yeast Slurry @ 24C:
Well Aerated:
Hops and Trub:
My exceedingly happy brewing cupboard, FV1 is JBK, FV2 is Blauer Vogel, in the back the Top crate is full of TTL, underneath and to the left there is my Otter Dark Stout:
Just a bit of clearing up to do, hit OG1042 @ 24C so that’ll do me 🙂
Happy Anniversary JBK, Live long and prosper and all that 🙂
Hope this will be a good one, I needed a darker ale under my belt 🙂
Bottling Update FG hit 1010/1012 ish
Full Crate:
Sun shining through then bottle, lots of Burton Ale yeast in suspension, should take a few weeks for it to settle out:
2 weeks of warm followed by 2 weeks of cool and these should be ready.
Something for the JBK Anniversary bottles 🙂
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
Little Hop Update
Posted on: July 7, 2009
A Little Hop update 🙂
From Left to right…
Fuggles cuttings still alive!
WGV cutting doing well 🙂
Replacement WGV from aplus hops 🙂 Doing well as the first one just died.
The Challenger plant is now making its way onto the strings I’ve strung across the yard.
The Fuggle is really going for it!!!!!
Bit of hop repotting
Posted on: June 21, 2009
Fuggle put into a big planter with enough room to give it a pile of mulch on top for winter.
Challenger is a bit more spindly but growing well, also in a large planter, the bit of wood screwed to the wall behind is my ‘Heath Robinson’ hop climbing frame and has strings attached stretching across the yard for the hops to grow on.
Left hand plastic bottle is a couple of broken off Fuggle cuttings and the right hand pot is the WGV cutting, which was kindly given to me, is coming on nicely now.
Extract#006 – T’old Blotchy Duck
Posted on: June 17, 2009
Kind of ‘Morland – Old Speckled Hen’ meets ‘St.Austell – Admiral’s Ale’ or at least thats what I’m trying for!! 😀
T’old Blotchy Duck
Fermentables:
- Coopers Light Malt Extract   1500 grams
- Caramalt   200 grams
- Crystal Wheat Malt   190 grams
- Sugar, Household White   150 grams
- Crystal Malt   30 grams
- Roasted Barley   26 grams
Hops:
- Challenger      60 mins   13 grams (FWH)
- Cascade   60 mins   11 grams (FWH)
- Cascade   15 mins   8 grams
- Bobek   15 mins   8 grams
- Challenger   15 mins   8 grams
The Ingredients, just missing the tin of Light Coopers LME:
Getting the Gervin English Ale yeast ready, I seem to have run out of s-04:
Grains and First Wort Hops going in at about 40 C:
Final Volume:Â Â Â 13Â Â Â Litres
Original Gravity:Â Â Â 1.046
Final Gravity:Â Â Â 1.009
Alcohol Content:Â Â Â 4.8%Â Â Â ABV
Bitterness:Â Â Â 42Â Â Â EBU
Colour:Â Â Â 43Â Â Â EBC (I dare say its going to be a bit darker than planned due to the coopers Light LME)
Not a bad little brewday 🙂 I only had to add 1 Litre to dilute to get the correct OG 🙂
Probably Due To Network Congestion 
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