Posts Tagged ‘craft brewing’
AG#74 – Is it cos I is Black?
Posted on: February 26, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 6 Comments
Is it cos I is Black – A Black IPA to be served from Cask at the forthcoming NCB Competition meet at Saltaire Brewery. Ali-G reference 🙂 init! This wall be heavily dry hopped in two stages, first in the FV with Pellet hops, and secondly in the cask with whole hop cones.
I’m managing to use up a few bag ends too, Flaked Wheat, Munich Malt, NZ Cascade & Motueka 🙂
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70.7%
Flaked Wheat – 8.7%
Munich Malt – 7.9%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5.9%
Carafa Special III – 2.4%
Black Malt – 2.4%
Cara Aroma (Weyermann) – 1.9%
Hops:
Magnum – 14.5 % @ 60 mins – 20g – First Wort Hop
Columbus (Tomahawk) – 16 % @ 60 mins – 20g – First Wort Hop
Simcoe – 12.2 % @ 0 mins – 30g – 80c Steep
Chinook – 11.5 % @ 0 mins – 20g – 80c Steep
Nelson Sauvin – 13.0 % @ 0 mins – 20g – 80c Steep
Citra – 13.8 % @ 0 mins – 30g – 80c Steep
Summit – 14.3 % @ 0 mins – 30g – 80c Steep
Motueka (B Saaz) – 13.8 % @ 0 mins – 13g – 80c Steep
NZ Cascade – 10.2 % @ 0 mins – 11g – 80c Steep
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.015
Alcohol Content: 5.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 34 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 60 EBU
Colour: 129 EBC
Yeast: Safale us-05
Mash for 90mins, Boil for 60mins
Liquor Treatment: General Purpose with the Graham Wheeler Calculator
Malts, malt temp & Salt additions:
Recirculating the first 4-5 litres, first Wort hops in the copper:
154g of 80c steep hops:
Should have been 1055, I got 1050, will do for me:
Pump Clip Design:
Mash efficiency was 83%, I added an extra litre in the sparge to compensate for extra hop-losses in the copper.
Another easy brewday followed by some messing around in Photoshop 🙂
I’ll update this post when I settle on which Dry Hops I’m going to use.
*4th March ’12 – Dry Hopped in FV with 20g of each of the following Pellets; Summit, Nelson Sauvin, Chinook & Cascade. Further whole hop dry-hopping in cask in about a weeks time.
*9th Mar ’12 – Racked this to cask and dry hopped with a further 25g Nelson Sauvin & 38g Simcoe (last of two bags), Allkleer Finings & 25g priming sugar used.
Bit of an pain having a homebrew FV fully dry hopped with Pellets, my Tea-ball syphon worked pretty well until the last couple of litres (critical litres to fill the cask) when it turned into a furry-pellet-blob and stopped flowing, the last little bit I had to jug a little murky beer into the cask.
So that is a Note-to-Self, don’t fully dry-hop the FV with pellets! I feel a mix of pellets & flowers would have not blocked up and a fully dry-hopped FV with flowers has no trouble at all syphoning.
I’d expect that if I had a chill-able Conical FV I could avoid most of this and draw-off the beer above the pellet sludge of rack-off the pellet debris first a day or so earlier.
*31st Mar ’12 – The first cask ale to run-off at the Northern Craft Brewers English IPA Competition at Saltaire Brewery
AG#66 – Centennial Blonde
Posted on: October 9, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Centennial Blonde – A blonde ale made with mostly lager malt, hopefully I’ll get somewhere close to www.drinkmallinsons.co.uk ‘Centennial’, at least hop Flavour-wise.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 79.1%
Wheat Malt – 7.9%
Oat Malt – 7.8% (using up a part bag, should add some fake body)
CaraHell (Weyermann) – 5.3%
Hops:
Centennial Whole 11.5 % @ 60 mins – 25g – (FWH)
Centennial Whole 11.5 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Centennial Whole 11.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g – (20 minute Copper Stand with the boil just cooled a little)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.036 (I actually got about 1038-1040)
Final Gravity: 1.009
Alcohol Content: 3.5% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.1 Litres
Mash Liquor: 9.1 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 36 EBU – I’ve set the hop utilisation in BeerEngine to 25% for this to see if things turn out a bit more realistic.
Colour: 5 EBC
Liquor Treatment: Gypsum 6.3g, Calcium Choride 6.3g, Epsom Salts 3.3g
Blended malts:
The garage brewery Corner, I thought I’d add a bit of an overview of my setup:
A few Centennial Hops, bag-ends from work are handy though this will last me for ages:
The Mash, lost 2°c over about 70mins:
Another view of the Brewery Corner, the other side of the garage is rather less tidy:
First sparge running into the copper onto the First Wort Hops, Just over 77% Mash efficiency:
Flameout hops going in:
The Money shot, hydrometer says a bit above what the Refractometer said:
All done and cleaned up in about 5 hours, Mashed in at 8.30am for 60mins, Batch Sparged, boiled for 60mins, Hop steep for 20mins, cooled, stood for 20mins then ran to fermenter and pitched Safale us-05 at 20°c
*Bottled 22nd Oct ’11 with 75g White Sugar – FG 1008 @ 18°c, tasting pretty good.
*Early taster was very nice last night, 27th Oct ’11, bitterness is much more believable with the 25% Hop utilisation figure and could maybe be set to 30% for subsequent brews. Though maybe one more brew at 25% with different hops and a higher IBU to double check.
AG#59 – Schwarz IPA
Posted on: July 10, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Schwarz IPA – My first Black IPA, at 4% ABV with a healthy bitterness of 62 EBU, not quite a Hop-bomb but 150g of 80c steep hops should be enough following the bittering addition at 35mins (25mins after boil start).
My recipe takes a few things into account; some pre-weighed and mixed Pacific Gem & Magnum; the end of a sack of Pale malt; Part bags of Carafa Spesh III & Cara Aroma; Open bags of Hops.
A screwed up beer, its a German Hopped Black India Pale Ale… Nice 🙂
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 60.5%
Pale Malt – 19.5%
Carafa Special III – 5%
Wheat Malt – 5%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Cara Aroma (Weyermann) – 5%
Hops:
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 35 mins – 24g
Magnum – 14.5 % @ 35 mins – 24g
Hallertauer Mittlefruh – 4.2 % @ 0 mins – 53g (80c Steep for 30mins)
Magnum – 14.5 % @ 0 mins – 48g (80c Steep for 30mins)
Hallertauer Hersbrucker – 3.0 % @ 0 mins – 49g (80c Steep for 30mins)
Dry Hops:
Tettnang – 50g
Crystal hops – 50g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.042
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4% ABV
Total Liquor: 31.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 10 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 80 %
Bitterness: 62 EBU
Colour: 119 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 68c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale US-05
Liquor Treatment: GW Calc ‘Lager’
The malts and temp:
Today’s hopping, Bittering from Pacific Gem & Magnum, 80c Steep from Hersbrucker; Magnum & Mittlefruh:
I recircuated about 6 litres to get a good clear flow of wort:
Boiling away nicely:
Bittering hops going in:
150g of 80c Steep hops:
Got 89% Mash Efficiency, hit a few points over my target OG after the boil and liquored back to 1042 with Hydrometer reading (1039 with Refractometer) I’m not sure which I trust.
I’m starting to get a better feel for the new mash tun and can cope with having to add 2.5 Litres of cooled boiled liquor after the boil 🙂
*16th July ’11 Gravity @ 1010 and looks like its done. Tasting interesting, bitterness coming through and roasty finish. I’ve decided on dry Hopping with 50g Tettnang & 50g Crystal hops, moving away slightly from the German theme with the Crystal but it does have some German Mittlefruh parentage.
*Bottled 24th Jul ’11 with 70g White Sugar, dry hopping probably kept hold of 1-2 Litres of beer, tastes a bit grassy for my liking maybe it will take a few weeks to settle down.
AG#55 – Imperial Smoked Porter
Posted on: May 15, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Imperial Smoked Porter – This is serving a couple of purposes; First is a Trial run of a big beer in my newly finished False bottom Mash tun; Second is using up some odd bags of malt and some older hops I had in the freezer and some other part bags of hops.
I’m not expecting the stated bitterness from my hops – http://www.wellhopped.co.uk/Product.htm so I’m going semi-worst case scenario and adjusting AA for age and storage.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70.2%
Caramalt – 8.2%
Peat Smoked Malt, medium – 4.2%
Amber Malt – 3.9%
Oat Malt – 3.5%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 2.3%
Crystal Wheat Malt – 2.4%
Chocolate Wheat Malt – 1.8%
Flaked Wheat – 1.6%
Chocolate Malt – 1.5%
Flaked Rye 0 EBC – 0.5%
Hops:
Bobek – 3.7 % @ 75 mins – 124g (FWH)
Admiral – 12 % @ 75 mins – 19g (FWH)
Herkules – 15.8 % @ 75 mins – 35g (FWH)
Brewers Gold – 9.1 % @ 10 mins – 68g
Cascade – 5.5 % @ 0 mins – 29g (Flame-out Steep for 20mins)
Saaz – 3.8 % @ 0 mins – 33g (Flame-out Steep for 20mins)
Simcoe – 12.9 % @ 0 mins – 20g (Flame-out Steep for 20mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.076
Final Gravity: 1.021
Alcohol Content: 7.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 36.8 Litres
Mash Liquor: 20.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (I collected 32L @ 1055 so hit efficiency but had too much liquor)
Bitterness: 121 EBU (I’m not expecting this as the bittering hops were fairly old so subtracting 30% from the AA will be more like 90EBU)
Colour: 140 EBC
Mashed for 90mins @ 66c
Boil for 75mins
Liquor treatment as per GW calc for General Purpose
Bigger bucket than normal with 8.5kg of malts:
New mash tun full of hot liquor:
Initial Mash a little high, cooled with cold liquor to 66c:
Tidy brewsheet (version 3, other two are scibbly works in progress) along with late hops:
Quite a heap of first Wort Hops in the copper along with the common salt addition:
What lies beneath, mash leftovers under the mash screen:
10 min hops going in:
Break material clumping in the copper:
Looks near as damn it to me (Showing 72 +2 divisions in the meniscus = 1076), not bad for a first outing of the new Mash Tun:
I had 3.7 Litres in the new mash tun to just cover the false bottom, the first sparge top-up was a little over 3 litres so I didn’t top-up and subtracted the difference from the Second batch sparge. This was to take into account the liquor under the screen, I ended up with 32 Litres in the copper which i thought too much but by the end of the 75min boil I was at my predicted gravity so I must have worked things out right!
Thoughts on the False bottom:
The mash ran off very well and after a few jugs of recirculating it was also very clear.
After stirring the second sparge and running off I came back to the mash tun to find it had run a load of malt particles into the copper as the last of the mash drained out. I’ll have to keep an eye on it next time to stop this just as it starts to show bits coming through, or have a go a Fly sparging so as to not actually disturb the Mash bed and hopefully limit the amount of malt particles coming through.
New cleaning game, poking bits of malt out of the perforated stainless!
16th May ’11
The usual, Stout+S-04 ferment 🙂 :
*Bottled 25th May ’11 with 71g of White sugar and a tiny sprinkle of Nottingham yeast into each bottle as a bit of a safety precaution as it had dropped very bright. Finished at 1016-1018 so about 7.7% ABV.
*4th JUne ’11 Taster bottle, tasting good the Peat Smoked malt works well with the Strength of this beer, Bitterness just right so I’m glad I adjusted the hop Alpha acids for my older hops.
Our dog in Zymurgy Magazine
Posted on: May 9, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Many thanks to Allison from Zymurgy Magazine / Homebrewers Association for sending me out a copy of the mag with our dog in it. Spook has now been in beer-related print 3 times that we know of… cool 🙂
The article is about uses for spent grain, dogs like spent.
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
C.C.A.N – Todays little hop-bomb. This actually started out as being an all Chinook idea as I’ve not done a single hop Chinook yet. I think this will be better though bittering comes from 2 additions of Chinook then a big Aroma Steep of Chinook, Citra, Amarillo & Nelson Sauvin.
This is also my National Homebrew Day (a day late ‘cos I had to work n stuff)
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 84%
Wheat Malt – 10%
Caramalt – 4%
Crystal Malt, Extra Dark – 2%
Copper Hops:
Chinook – 12.7 % @ 60 mins – 27g (First Wort Hop)
Chinook – 12.7 % @ 30 mins – 27g
Chinook – 12.7 % @ 0 mins – 30g (80c Steep 30mins)
Citra – 13.8 % @ 0 mins – 34g (80c Steep 30mins)
Amarillo – 9.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g (80c Steep 30mins)
Nelson Sauvin – 11.7 % @ 0 mins – 34g (80c Steep 30mins)
Dry Hops:
Motueka: 28g (pellets, what I had left)
Amarillo: 30g
Chinook: 18g (what was left in the packet)
Citra: 10g (just a touch of Citra, I wasn’t impressed with them dry)
Nelson Sauvin: 30g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.051
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5.1% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.2 Litres
Mash Liquor: 11.8 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 80 %
Bitterness: 60 EBU
Colour: 23 EBC
Liquor: Burton Pale Ale profile in GW Calc (should help accentuate the hops and the bitterness)
Mash: 67c for 60mins
Sparge Liquor: 76c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale US-05
Malt Temp, with Liquor treatments added to the malts before mashing:
A collection of hops from ThriftyShopper, BarleyBotton, GrimsbyHomebrew and WorcesterHopsShop, Motueka dry hops are from CraftBrewer in Australia:
Some weighed out hops etc:
Late 80c Steep hops in for 30min soak:
Brewsheet notes and Yeast:
Suppose to be 1051, near enough eh:
Bit of a cock up, I was recycling my cooling water back to my HLT, watching a mark on my sight glass rather than the water level, showered water all over and wet a socket (eek!) Hopefully no damage done. Other than that a fairly lazy brewday, rehydrated my yeast for the first time in ages (reminded or guilted into it by others on Twitter, I should be nice to my yeast more often rather than the usual Dry Sprinkle on the wort).
*13th May ’11 Dry Hopped with 116g of Hops 
*Bottled 21st May ’11 with 75g White Sugar primings, I filled 20x 500ml bottles and 1x 330ml, there must have been a good litre or so soaked into the Dry hops.
*Taster 28th May ’11 – Mmmmm Dry Hopped lovliness. Tasting this good this early probably means that in a couple of weeks it will be amazing 🙂
*Reviewed 20th Aug ’11 at www.davelozman.co.uk/beer/ag-54/ Dave had the oldest and very last bottle of this Hoppy brew, many thanks for the kind review.
AG#53 – Kölsch Wit
Posted on: April 24, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 6 Comments
Kolsch Wit – Almost the malt bill of a Belgian Wit combined with Tettnang Hops and the Whitelabs Kölsch yeast. Should be very light, maybe cloudy, clean & Lager-esque.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 55%
Flaked Wheat- 30%
Flaked Rye – 10%
Munich Malt- 5%
Hops:
Tettnang – 4.2 % @ 60 mins – 50g (FWH)
Tettnang – 4.2 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Tettnang – 4.2 % @ 0 mins – 30g (20min Steep with the sting just knocked out of the boil with the IC)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.040
Final Gravity: 1.009
Alcohol Content: 4% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.9 Litres
Mash Liquor: 11.4 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (Reduced from my usual 80% due to having a lot of Flaked Adjuncts)
Bitterness: 26 EBU
Colour: 3 EBC
Whtelabs Kölsch yeast starter:
Scoop of Lager malt:
Flaked Wheat:
Flaked Rye:
Malt Temp:
The usual FWH and first batch spargings:
I cooled to 16c before running to FV and pitching the yeast:
A little above my target of 1040:
The refractometer read 10.5 Brix (OG: 1040)
I Mashed for 2h 15mins and got 72% Mash efficiency, I pitched the Kölsch yeast while running to the fermenter at 16c, I shall be doing my best to keep the temperature under control in the garage. It might be time for some wet towels!
*Bottled 4th May ’11 with 70g White Sugar, tasting good, yeast practically dropped bright in the FV.
*9th May: Yet another very early taster, Very very lager-esque, bottles clear as a bell & even the bit of yeast that got in the glass was clumping, hopefully the carbonation will build a little more over the next week.
If brewed again I’d be a little more liberal with the priming sugars.
AG#52 – Half Wit
Posted on: April 3, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Half Wit – A Belgian Style Wit beer.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 3000g – 51.5%
Flaked Wheat – 1500g – 25.8%
Flaked Spelt – 500g – 8.6%
Wheat Malt – 500g – 8.6%
Torrefied Wheat – 320g – 5.5%
Hops:
Golding – 4.2 % @ 60 mins – 10g
Saaz – 3.8 % @ 60 mins – 10g
Golding – 4.2 % @ 30 mins – 8g
Saaz – 3.8 % @ 30 mins – 8g
Saaz – 3.8 % @ 10 mins – 40g
Spices etc:
Crushed Coriander Seed – 12-15g – Last 5mins of boil
Grated Orange Zest – 3-4 Oranges – Last 5mins of boil
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 34.1 Litres
Mash Liquor: 14.6 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % – I’m being cautious as I’ve got a large amount of un-malted adjuncts
Bitterness: 18 EBU
Colour: 3 EBC
Mash: 67c for 90mins
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safbrew T-58
Lots of un-malted wheaty adjuncts:
FWH & the most pale first runnings I have ever had 
:
Coriander seed well done in with a Pestle & Mortar:
Orange Zest:
Safbrew T-58 & stuff:
The money shot, near as damn it where it should be:
Smells very orangey!
I got some Tincture of Iodine from the local chemist (£1.10 vs Tincture_of_Iodine_30ml), after just less than an hour I have lots of Starch left. I gave the mash a good stir and decided to extend my mash period.
It has been a little bit scary knowing more than I knew before, the Iodine test… starch conversion complete after 1 hour 50 mins, quite reassuring and handy to know when mashing bigger beers.
Collected 28.5L at 12 brix making my Mash efficiency 77% so I was probably wise to be cautious with my Software setting of 70% and longer Mash until fully converted.
Wort tasting plenty Orangey! Hope that dies back a bit after fermentation.
I went with the Zest of 4 oranges and 15g Coriander.
*Three days Later*
Fermenting at 18c on the Garage Floor, yeast giving off loads of sulphurous aromas and flavours. Orange has died down thankfully. Hydrometer says about 1020.
I am really loving the paleness of this beer though, hope it keeps its cloudiness 🙂
*Bottled 21st Apr 2011 with 75g of priming sugar for a good bit of fizz.
*8th May ’11 – Bottles have dropped pretty clear! Still has sulphur but it goes down pretty well chilled from the fridge.
*10 May ’11 – Another taster later, chilled in the fridge for a few days. I like this but…
If I was to use this yeast again I would ignore advice to ferment cool, I’d let it go for it at a minimum of 20c and let it ferment the heck out of it, this should gas-off the sulphourous stuff with the C02. I think my cool 18c ferment has made it retain the odours, I’d also cut out any Sulphates in the liquor treatment sticking to Calcium Chloride which would have the added bonus of some perceived mouth-feel.
Oh, I will use this yeast again as I think I can get better out of it.
Probably Due To Network Congestion 
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