Posts Tagged ‘liquor’
AG#126 – IPA
Posted on: September 7, 2014
Just two brewday snaps and a hop growing update really…
Going for 1057 to finish at 1014, mashed at 68c for 60mins, sparged at 78c, boiled for 60mins, fermenting with 2 packs of Safale us-05 to get an ABV of 5.6%, will be heavily dry hopping with a blend of three hops.
Malts & Salts:
Tiny amount of FWH:
The rest of the Hops were going in at 5mins before the end.
And the hops outside:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pdtnc/sets/72157647318338112/
*Bottled 17th Sep ’14
AG#102 – Gods of War
Posted on: August 18, 2013
Gods of War – An impromptu brewday and a half-baked earlier idea to use Warrior & Zeus hops for the first time, I’m going all out with the Cara/Crystal with some Melanoidin Malt to make up for me not having any Munich which was substituted by Dark Wheat Malt.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 69%
Crystal Malt – 8%
Caramalt – 8%
Wheat Malt Dark (Weyermann) – 8%
Melanoidin (Weyermann) – 5%
Chocolate Malt, Pale – 2%
Hops:
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 60 mins – 30g (FWH)
Zeus – 16.7 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Warrior – 17 % @ 10 mins – 20g
Warrior – 17 % @ 0 mins – 30g (5-10mins Steep at 90c)
Zeus – 16.7 % @ 0 mins – 30g (5-10mins Steep at 90c)
Apollo – 19.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g (5-10mins Steep at 90c)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.058
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 5.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 91 EBU (55 EBU if you discount the 10min additions)
Colour: 60 EBC
Mash: 67°c for 60mins
Yeast: The Malt Miller’s West Coast Style yeast
The malts:
The Apollo hops really made the garage stink:
I’ve not used this yeast before, I’d be interested to hear others findings:
First batch sparge running into the copper:
A good rolling boil and the 10min hops go in:
Flameout hops go in at 90°c for a 5-10min steep after which I turned the Immersion cooler on:
Yeast was rehydrated in cooled boiled water as instructed, it will be fermenting at the ambient temp of the garage to start with as last weeks brew is still in the brew-fridge.
*24th Aug ’13 – Dry Hopped today with 30g of each hop, Apollo, Warrior & Zeus (almost 4.3g per litre) Hopefully bottle mid week.
*Bottled 29th Aug ’13 – with 80g white sugar, tastes sort of like a weird liquorice, unsure of this hop combo so far, maybe it will improve with some time in bottle.
*8th Sep ’13 – Taster bottle, this is coming along quite nicely, the colour is good and it has just enough dry hop presence, it could use a little more body but otherwise a pretty easy drinker. The hop flavours I was unsure about have gone and its light “Pithy” character (*Pithy used courtesy of @hopzine).
AG#101 – SCAN
Posted on: August 11, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
SCAN (Summer, Citra, Amarillo & Nelson Sauvin) I’ve not brewed since the 18th of May due to being busy with a lean-to construction on the house so this is a quick crowd pleaser, nothing too strong or too bitter but bags of flavour.
I’ll try not leave it as long before I brew again, Sorry about that if you are a regular reader 😉 Thats 85 non-homebrewing days!
Fermentables
Lager Malt – 50%
Pale Malt – 40%
Caragold – 5%
Cara Hell – 5%
Hops
Summer – 6.5 % @ 60 mins – 50g (FWH)
Citra – 15.0 % @ 0 mins – 40g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 0 mins – 40g
Nelson Sauvin – 12.1 % @ 0 mins – 40g (All 0mins hops 30min steep)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.040
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 3.9% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 32 EBU
Colour: 7 EBC
Mash: 69°c for 60mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
The Malts, I added a rough 1 Tsp Calcium Chloride to the mash:
First Wort Summer Hops:
A nice healthy Flame-out steep:
FV and bits had some extra love today, a nice soak with a chlorine based cleaner-sanitiser, good rinse then a final StarSan:
1042.5, liquored back to 1040:
All went fine apart from the PSU on my solar pump decided to pack in so swapped for spare pump/psu so i could stir my HLT. The ground water is pretty warm at the moment so cooling took an age and I gave up at 21°c before liquoring back and pitching the yeast.
*15th Aug ’13 – Gravity at 1010, tasting good, might dry hop it tomorrow.
*16th Aug ’13 – Dry Hopped ‘subtly’ with:
Nelson Sauvin – 20g
Amarillo – 10g
Citra – 10g
Summer – 10g
Just over 2g/Litre with whole hops, they are going to need a good stir in once they have soaked properly.
*Bottled 21st Aug ’13 with 110g white sugar, tasting good.
*28th Aug ’13 – 1 week in the bottle and tasting very good, light and refreshing with oodles of flavour and nose 🙂
AG#98 – Robust Wheat Porter
Posted on: March 24, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 9 Comments
Robust Wheat Porter – The Pancake Day of Homebrews! I’m using up a load of bag-ends, so my base malts (Lager & Wheat) are now totally depleted.
I’m not too fussed if its something odd-ball, it should hopefully be entertaining and I can start from fresh malts for subsequent brews.
Fermentables:
Wheat Malt – 44.9%
Lager Malt – 26.6%
Munich Malt – 5.9%
Jaggery (Cane) – 5.5%
Brown Malt – 3.7%
Chocolate Malt – 3.7%
Rauch Malt (Weyermann) – 3.2%
Amber Malt – 2.6%
Peat Smoked Medium – 1.8%
Munich Type II (Weyermann) – 1.4%
Roasted Barley – 0.7%
Oat Husks – 3% (This works out at 103%, added after calculating recipe)
Hops:
Bobek – 4.5 % @ 60 mins – 408g
Saaz – 4.15 % @ 0 mins – 48g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.077
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 8.1% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 70 %
Bitterness: 181 EBU – (This is going to be bogus, the hops are old and like confetti)
Colour: 148 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 67°c
Yeast: Safale US-05 skimmed from last weeks brew before I dry hopped it
Liquor Treatment: General Purpose copied from AG#55
The Malts, I added a few Oat Husks as a precaution:
408g of Bobek Hops in the copper:
Recirculating the first few jugs from the mash tun until it runs clear:
Jaggery Goor, or Unrefined Cane sugar:
In go the late Saaz hops:
Quite a lot of spent hops left in the copper:
I ended up with 1079 so liquored back 0.54L to 1077, I feel a few things worked in my favor to get the right OG and 21.46Litres:
- Predicted Mash efficiency be set low.
- The 3.7L bellow the Mash Tun’s false bottom which I usually deduct from the first sparge.
- 80c second (technically first) sparge, I normally go for 78°c, and 15min rest before running off.
All cleaned up and yeast pitched, I expect it to kick off quite soon and spew all over the kitchen floor, the fermentation fridge is still full of Brown Ceas which I just dry hopped.
*25th Mar ’13 – The fresh yeast has taken off well, still in the bucket… just!
*31st Mar ’13 – Gravity at 1018 so this has been pretty fast at fermenting, and it tastes rather good with quite a bit of smoke and the Brown/Amber/Choc malts definitely playing their parts, bitterness is coming through but not overly 🙂
*7th Apr ’13 – Gravity at 1018 still so chilling it down before bottling sometime next week.
*Bottled 10th Apr ’13 – with 76g White Sugar, tastes bloody good too 🙂
AG#85 – HopZilla IPA
Posted on: July 22, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 20 Comments
HopZilla IPA – Fingers crossed this is going to be a Double or Imperial IPA, 9.2% heavily bittered and mentally dry hopped, I’m quite happy it not being ready to drink for a while but I think the Dry Hopping might mean I’ll have to drink it pretty fresh so its at its height. Hopefully I’ll keep some to age too.
The bittering is mainly from German Perle hops with the late hops being a fairly classic mix of Amarillo & Cascade with Riwaka thrown in too to add some spiciness with it being of Saaz lineage. Its the dry hops that I’m not holding back on, I shall split the 200g (thats 11.1g of Hop Pellets per Litre of beer) of pellet hops in two and add to the fermenter at different times, close to or at Final Gravity in the cooling phase. For an excellent guide to Dry Hopping go to Gregs Blog.
This is the first time I’ve used Belgian Special B malt, I could smell it in the mash and while sparging, I’m hoping it might add something a little different with the Crystal Rye. Instead of just throwing a load of White Sugar in the boil I decided to make some Candy Syrup while the Mash was on.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 77.1%
Sugar,Belgian Candy Light – 9.3%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5.4%
Wheat Malt – 4.5%
Special B – 1.8%
Crystal Rye Malt – 1.8%
Hops:
Perle Whole 8.2 % @ 60 mins – 50g
UK Cascade Whole 5.7 % @ 60 mins – 22g
Perle Whole 8.2 % @ 30 mins – 50g
Amarillo Whole 10 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Cascade Whole 7.9 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Riwaka (D Saaz) Whole 5.9 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Dry Hops:
Chinook Pellet – 50g
Summit Pellet – 50g
Nelson Sauvin Pellet – 50g
Motueka (B Saaz) Pellet – 50g
Final Volume: 18 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.084
Final Gravity: 1.015
Alcohol Content: 9.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 28.6 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 125 EBU
Colour: 28 EBC
Yeast: Safale us-05 x 2 packs
Mash: 60-90mins @ 66°c
Boil: 60mins
Liquor Treatment: Pale Ale thanks to THBF water treatment calculator
The usual malts shot:
Gypsum for the Mash being weighed out:
First Wort Hops and Salts for the Boil:
I cooked up some Cane sugar with a good pinch of Citric Acid to make Candy Sugar, I cooked it down until a light amber colour then added water back to it to keep it a syrup rather than going to the Hard Crack stage:
FWHs and Mash run-off, I did a decoction to take the mash upto Mashout temperatures before roughly fly-sparging with a jug at 80°c:
Rather steamy, the late hops go in:
Hefty looking break material in the copper as the wort cools, I used a 1/2 Protafloc tablet into approx 18 litres of wort in the last 5 mins of boil:
Aiming for 1084, I got 1088 @ 20°c, weighed the fermenter (subtracting the weight of the bucket) and calculated my liquor-back volume 820ml added from HLT, giving me a final volume of 18.15 litres in the FV:
Pretty smooth brewday, yeast pitched and FV in the fermentation fridge at 20°c 🙂
*28th Jul ’12 – Gravity at 1017, soon I’ll add the first dry hops, already tasting very good 🙂
*30th Jul ’12 – Dry hopped with 25g of each pellet hop at current 21.5°c temp.
*2nd Aug ’12 – Dry hopped again 25g of each pellet hop at current 21.9°c temp, will lower temp tomorrow to 17°c then 11°c and finally 4°c.
*Bottled 11th Aug ’12 – with 50g White sugar, tastes pretty full on, a couple of weeks in the bottle should see it smooth and mellow a little.
*17th Aug ’12 – Early taster bottle… the flavours in this are very much that which I’ve had in some bought beers and I’m very happy with the hopping flavour and maltiness, it has bags of body, some alcohol on the nose but only the warming in the throat after drinking, a fair amount of sweetness goes with the body. If I were to tweak the recipe I’d throw out the Carapils, Mash a little cooler, increase the bitterness by 10-20 IBU’s (the strength of the wort obviously makes its harder for the hops to be isomerised), I think with a little more carbonation it would lift the sweet body and present the hops better. Very close, deserves a re-brew.
*5th Sep ’12 – This has dried out, the carbonation is spot on, the bitterness is coming thru, the dry hops are still a touch on the raw side, a little more time and this will be there! 🙂
*10th Sep ’12 – Maybe a week or two more, I think with the mad amount of dry hops and the strength things are taking longer than I’d expected to settle down and meld with one-another. This leads me to believe that my 17th Aug comment was far too preemptive and all that was really needed was some time and maturation in bottle. More time will tell 😉
AG#83 – Ring of Fire
Posted 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.
AG#82 – Hop Sap IPA
Posted on: June 17, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 9 Comments
Hop Sap IPA – I was planning to do a Liquorice stout but thought stuff it I want some in-yer-face hops, I’ll dry hop this in the FV for about a week.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 82%
Cara Belge (Weyermann) – 8.7%
Wheat Malt – 4.8%
Flaked Barley – 3.5%
Amber Malt – 1%
Hops:
Willamette – 6.4 % @ 60 mins – 63g
Magnum – 14.5 % @ 30 mins – 27g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g (80c steep for 20-30mins)
Citra – 13.8 % @ 0 mins – 30g (80c steep for 20-30mins)
NZ Cascade – 10.2 % @ 0 mins – 30g (80c steep for 20-30mins)
Dry Hops:
Magnum – 5g
Chinook – 50g
Citra – 28g
NZ Cascade – 35g
Columbus – 20g
Simcoe – 60g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol Content: 5.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.9 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.4 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 % (actually hit 85.5%)
Bitterness: 70 EBU
Colour: 12 EBC
Yeast: Safale US-05
Copper Finings: 1/2 Protafloc Tablet
Bucket of malts, 5.584kg:
Mash on at 66c:
Gypsum, Epsom, Salt, I used THBF Liquor Treatment calculator for Pale Ale:
Hops for the copper, I’ll probably dry hop too:
Fairly tidy view of my brew area:
My Brewday Record Sheet:
In go the start of boil Willamette hops:
I made a thing while i was in the garage, the thinking was for somewhere to put all my brewing books in the garage, It looked a lot better than this in my head!:
Almost finished running off from the copper to the FV, I was using the Immersion Cooler today:
I forgot to that a hydro shot, though in any case I hit the nail on the head… if I hadn’t started trying to be creative with wood it would have been a easy day! 😀
*21st Jun ’12 – Dry hopped today at 20°c with about 200g of Blitzed up hops, the food processor didn’t like it! I’ll drop the temp tomorrow once I’ve double checked the gravity is steady at 1013.
*30th Jun ’12 – chilling to 4c for a couple of days before bottling to drop some hop debris out. Tastes bloody good, just what I was after 🙂
*Bottled 3rd Jul ’12 with 78g white sugar, tastes pretty good bit sharper with stirring up the hops which retained about 3-4 litres of perfectly good beer!! I’ll make sure I blitz them for longer in the food processor next time so hopefully they will settle out to a thinner layer of mush rather than loads of still whole hops!
*7th Jul ’12 – Early taster, while out with the Leeds Homebrewers at Ilkley Brewery, Bloody fantastic 🙂 very pleased just need a little more time to carbonate up properly 🙂
*15th Jul ’12 – Tastes blooming good 🙂
AG#70 – Ta Moko
Posted on: December 18, 2011
- In: Brewing
- 10 Comments
Ta Moko – This is a tweaked re-brew of AG#16 Once Were Warriors The hopping is just about identical but I’ve changed the malts a little and dropped the ABV to 4% for a nice easy drinker.
The original was very tasty with a chalky bitterness, I’m hoping for the same again.
Some may have to forgive my beer naming, Wikipedia tells me there is a more acceptable term for Maori designed Tattoo which is Kirituhi meaning “Drawn Skin”. I have my own piece of ‘Drawn Skin’ on my thigh which was done in Auckland at www.mokoink.com
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 80%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 10%
Wheat Malt – 8%
Cara Munich Type III – 2%
Hops:
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 60 mins – 15g (FWH)
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 15 mins – 10g
Nelson Sauvin – 12.6 % @ 10 mins- 50g
Nelson Sauvin – 12.6 % @ 0 mins – 50g (80°c for 20-30mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.040
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 3.9% ABV
Total Liquor: 32.4 Litres
Mash Liquor: 9.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 52 EBU (25% Hop Utilisation)
Colour: 8 EBC
Yeast: Safale US-05
Mash: 67°c for 60mins (I got 85% Mash efficiency)
Weighing out the Calcium Chloride & Magnesium Sulphate:
Malt was at 9°c this morning:
Mash temp 67°c:
Pacific Gem and lots of Nelson Sauvin hops:
Sparge running into copper:
The 10 min Nelson Sauvin addition, hops all sticky and smelling lovely:
Break material forming while cooling with the Copper Immersion Cooler:
OG: 1040 will do me, my neighbour just gave me a longer (hence hopefully more accurate) hydrometer:
All done and in the fermentation fridge at 19.5°c
*Bottled 28th Dec ’11 – with 70g white sugar, tasting good enough to drink from the FV, very clean and bags of Nelson Sauvin Flavour, this will be spot on once its carbonated up 🙂
*1st Jan ’12 – Very very early taster, Cat-Piss, Grapes, Muskiness, little bit of Kiwi maybe, classic Nelson Sauvin.
Thanks again to Rob at Hopzine for another glowing review:
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