Posts Tagged ‘pale ale’
AG#128 – Belgian Hop Burst
Posted on: September 21, 2014
Belgian Hop Burst – I wasn’t going to brew today I was going to trim the hedges, I decided to skim the yeast from the Belgian Extra Blonde in the fermenter so I could experiment more with WLP575. The yeast had thrown off a lot of sulphur while fermenting I’d guess for one of two reasons; 1/ its just a yeast that does that sort of thing, 2/ the liquor treatment I used had too much in the way of sulphates in it so it made the yeast express this with co2 as it fermented. The FV had been left on the garage floor and the thermometer strip on the side said it was at a pretty steady 22c, if that thermometer was actually a bit wrong the beer could have fermented too cool and the lack of vigorous fermentation may have stopped enough of the sulphurous odors from gassing off, though its not like I’m saying the yeast didn’t ferment vigorously as it went off like a rocket spewing out all over the garage floor 🙂
So yeah, the hedges are still in need of trimming but I have made wort! I am aiming for a fruity, malty & sweet sort of beer, this recipes lack of sugar will hopefully be compensated for by the lower mash temp than that of AG#127… we shall see.
The yeast flavour is actually quite clean so the double edged sword of a warmer more controlled ferment coupled with no added sulphates, just a simple Tsp of CaCl, will hopefully bring out more of a Belgian character and gas-off any volatile sulphur compounds.
Recipe Specs
Batch Size (L): 20.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.166
Total Hops (g): 90.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.048 (°P): 11.9
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010 (°P): 2.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.03 %
Colour (SRM): 11.3 (EBC): 22.3
Bitterness (IBU): 27.2 (Rager)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Malts:
3.334 kg Pale Malt (80%)
0.208 kg CaraGold (5%)
0.208 kg Dark Crystal 340 ebc (5%)
0.208 kg Munich I (5%)
0.208 kg Vienna (5%)
Single step Infusion at 65°C for 60 Minutes.
Hops:
2.0 g Willamette Leaf (6.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (First Wort) (0.1 g/L)
44.0 g Ahtanum Leaf (4.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Flameout Stand) (2.2 g/L) (Software calculated as 5min boil)
44.0 g Columbus Leaf (16.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Flameout Stand) (2.2 g/L) (Software calculated as 5min boil)
My yeast was raring to do with just a little wort added to it at the start of transfer so I’ll probably end up making a yeasty mess of the fermentation fridge… which is set to 24c
Malts and Calcium Chloride:
A massive 2g of First Wort Hops!
Liquored back to 1048:
*22 Sep ’14 – Gravity at 1014.5 thats fair ripped through the fermentation since pitching yesterday and no sulphurous odors and flavour is still quite clean, hop flavours tasting good.
*Bottled 4th Oct ’14 – with 70g of sugar in just short of 20L, tastes good, has more character with the warmer ferment, could use a touch more Dark Crystal to boost the colour a bit and hit a deeper red.
*15th Oct ’14 – This is tasting rather good, it has a nice slick mouth coating body, I could go a touch heavier on the hops but otherwise has good depth.
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#116 – Blueberry PA/Saison
Posted on: March 16, 2014
Blueberry PA / Saison – I’ve never used fruit in a beer so the NCB/Saltaire Competition on the 12th April is as good of an excuse as any… (Don’t forget Entries close on the 31st March so get your entry emails into Shane competitions@northerncraftbrewers.co.uk as there is still plenty of time to brew).
I’m going to stew up the Blueberries in a pan to kill any wild yeasts or nasties and add them during fermentation, I’m splitting the wort into two FVs and using good old us-05 in one and Belle Saison yeast in the other, I’ll enter whichever beer turns out the best.
The malts in the recipe are a bit of a mish-mash but the hopping is straight Mosaic, for its Blueberry notes, and I may pellet Dry-Hop one or both of these.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70.3%
Flaked Wheat – 10.6%
Caragold – 7.7%
Wheat Malt – 6.7%
Crystal Rye Malt – 4.6%
Hops:
Mosaic – 11.8 % @ 60 mins – 20g
Mosaic – 11.8 % @ 0 mins – 40g (Flameout steep for 25mins)
Dry Hops & Fruit:
Blueberries – a Punnet or two split between the FVs
Mosaic Pellet – 50g (25g per FV)
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.056
Final Gravity: 1.014
Alcohol Content: 5.4% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 21 EBU (I’m keeping the bitterness low to balance any acidity from the fruit and work with the dryness of the Saison yeast)
Colour: 19 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 66c
Boil: 60mins
The malts all blended together:
Mosaic Hops smelling good:
Flameout hops:
1060.5 going for 1056:
400g per 12.5 litres Frozen Blueberries:
Microwaved and Mushed up (Added 18th Mar ’14):
*20th Mar ’14 – Gravities: Belle Saison at 1011.5 vs US-05 at 1017.5, the Saison is up at a higher temp to the us-05 just a subtle pink hue to the beer from the Blueberries, think I need more!
*22nd Mar ’14 – Dry Hopped with 25g Mosaic per FV:
Just pass me a spoon and some whipped cream 🙂
*Bottled 29th Mar ’14 – Primed with 37g sugar in the PA and 55g in the Saison
AG#111 – SAC IPA
Posted on: January 1, 2014
SAC IPA – You might see some similarities with this brew and my ‘Summit 73 E366‘ brew mainly the amounts and times of the late hops, I’m using up the last of my Pale & Lager malts along with the Cara/Crystal and some Dark Wheat.
I think this is the third year that a bunch of homebrewers have made the effort to brew on New Years Day, but its my fifth NYD brew in 5 years.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 44.3%
Munich Malt – 20.3% (some of this was English Munich and some was German)
Pale Malt – 19.5%
Wheat Malt Dark (Weyermann) – 6%
Flaked Wheat – 3.6%
Crystal Malt – 3.4%
Cara Hell – 3%
Hops:
Cluster Pellet – 7.9 % @ 60 mins – 40g (First Wort Hop)
Summit Whole – 17.5 % @ 15 mins – 15g
Apollo Whole – 19.5 % @ 15 mins – 15g
Cascade Whole – 7.9 % @ 15 mins – 15g
Summit Whole – 17.5 % @ 0 mins – 85g (20min steep)
Apollo Whole – 19.5 % @ 0 mins – 40g (20min steep)
Cascade Whole – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 45g (20min steep)
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.057
Final Gravity: 1.014
Alcohol Content: 5.6% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 59 EBU
Colour: 24 EBC
Mash: 67°c for an inordinate amount of time
Yeast: Safale us-05 re-pitched from last gyle
Malts & Temp:
First batch sparge running off:
Big fat hit of flamout hops:
Skimmed straight off the FV of Ring of Fire IPA, mixed with a little fresh wort and pitched at 20c:
Maybe a touch darker than style, though beating it with a paddle it was smelling really good:
It was a bit of a drawn out brewday as i was supposed to be viewing a second hand car or two but one sold and the seller of the other was a bit shit at replying to txt messages.
*Bottled & Casked 8th Jan ’14 – with 15g sugar to the cask and half a Tsp to each of 6 bottles, also the cask was dry hopped with a 60g blend of Summit, Apollo & Cascade. I think it tastes good, my smell and taste are a bit buggered at the moment thanks to a cold.
AG#110 – Ring of Fire IPA
Posted on: December 27, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Ring of Fire IPA – if you recall sometime last year I did a brew called ‘Ring of Fire‘ which had some big orange notes to it from hopping, this is the IPA version with added Nelson Sauvin, the NS should add a good muskiness.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70%
Flaked Wheat – 13%
Munich Malt I (Weyermann) – 10%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 4%
Cara Hell (Weyermann) – 3%
Hops:
NZ Pacifica – 6.1 % @ 60 mins – 40g
Pacific Jade – 15.1 % @ 60 mins – 23g
Pacific Jade – 15.1 % @ 5 mins – 30g
NZ Pacifica – 6.1 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Nelson Sauvin – 13.0 % @ 5 mins – 30g
Dry Hops:
Pacific Jade – 35g
NZ Pacifica – 35g
Nelson Sauvin – 35g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol Content: 5.5% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 78 EBU
Colour: 11 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 67c
Yeast: Safale us-05 x2
The Malts, it was actually 11c once it had settled down:
The First Wort Hops:
Recirculating the first runnings:
Sparge number 1:
Break material after cooling, just half a Protafloc Tab:
Running off to FV, 2 packs of yeast used rather than 1 pack which would be slightly under-pitching:
Bit of a late start, my day didn’t go to plan, but the wort tasted great and the hops smelled just right 🙂
*29th Dec ’13 – Gravity at 1023.5 and tasting all woody and musky, very nice, smells ace 🙂
*2nd Jan ’14 – Tasting really good before dry hopping so I’ve decided to leave it as it is, from experience the main hop character from dry hopping would have been the Nelson Sauvin.
*Bottled 11th Jan ’14 with 129g White sugar, tasting good.
*22 Jan ’14 – Tasting good, a nice blend of all three hops with nothing over powering, maybe a touch more bitterness would be nice.
AG#107 – iFuggle
Posted on: November 9, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
iFuggle – I’ve been threatening doing this for a while, a big-ass Fuggle IPA, its an experiment and I may not like it but thats no reason not to try! And its a while since I made a British IPA.
The Dextrose will go in with the Protafloc in the last 10 minutes so as not to effect the hop utilisation, I’m using a couple of @MagicRockStu’s tips too.
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 80%
Dextrose – 12.4%
Vienna Malt – 5.5%
Amber Malt – 2%
Hops:
Cluster Pellet – 7.9 % @ 75 mins – 150g (Start of boil)
Fuggle Whole – 5.1 % @ 5 mins – 150g
Fuggle Pellet – 4.3 % @ 0 mins – 100g (Dry Hop in FV)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.083
Final Gravity: 1.019
Alcohol Content: 8.4% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 137 EBU
Colour: 15 EBC
Mash: 60-90mins @ 63°c (I actually hit 64°c)
Boil: 75mins
Yeast: Safale us-05 – 2 packs
The malts, a fairly full bucket with just over 7kg:
150g Cluster T90 pellets:
Second batch sparge running in:
In go the pellets at the start of boil:
The late whole fuggles go in at 5mins left:
I liquored back from 1085.5 to 1083, and ended up with 22.3L in the FV:
Yeast pitched at 20°c, in the fermenting fridge set to 20°c too, cleaned up, no fuss as usual 🙂
*16th Nov ’13 – Gravity at 1021, tasting rather sweet, could that 1°c higher than my planned 63°c mash temp be to blame? I was hoping for nearer to 1010 by now. I have dry hopped with with 100g Fuggles pellets and given it a good rouse, hopefully it will drop a few more points.
*18th Nov ’13 – Gravity at 1013 this is more like it, a couple more points and I’ll be happy.
*20th Nov ’13 – Gravity at 1008! Makes this 10% which is quite a big beer and about 2% stronger than planned 😀
*Bottled 30th Nov ’13 – with about 75g white sugar, my scales were messing me around, tastes strong and traditional, good dark straw colour. It actually finished fermenting at 1006.5 making it 10.2%!
AG#99 – Boomstick
Posted on: April 20, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
BoomStick – I’m brewing this for NCB member Paul Bromley who runs a back-garden charity event, he asked me if I’d brew something pale for it, so here it is, its an evolution from my Chinook Blonde recipe, using some of the same hops (but more of them) and adding some Weyermann Munich Type I, and mashing at 69°c, fermenting with Safale us-05.
This time the name again comes from a line Ash says in Army of Darkness “This… is my Boomstick!”
Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This… is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart’s top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70%
Munich Type I (Weyermann) – 20%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Hops:
UK Cascade – 5.7 % @ 60 mins – 21g (FWH)
UK Cascade – 5.7 % @ 30 mins – 21g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 49g (94c Steep for 25mins)
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 49g (94c Steep for 25mins)
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.037
Final Gravity: 1.009
Alcohol Content: 3.7% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 33 EBU
Colour: 9 EBC
Mash: 69°c for 70mins
Boil: 60mins
The malts, all pretty pale:
The hops:
Second batch sparge liquor going in at 78°c:
In go the Cascade & Chinook for the flameout steep:
I decided to rehydrate my yeast today to try and get things underway faster, I want a speedy ferment with time to put this beer in cask to condition before Paul’s event:
The money shot, I got 1044 and liquored back to 1037 with 4 litres giving me a total volume of 25.7 Litres, a goodly amount for filling a plastic pin cask:
No messing, done and dusted.
*25th Apr ’13 – Steady gravity reached, exactly as predicted FG, chilling down before casking this beer.
*Casked 27th Apr ’13 – with 20g white sugar and Allkleer finings, got a few 500ml bottles from it too which I give 3/4 Tsp white sugar each.
I’m going to give the cask a couple of days of warm then chill it down to cellar temps.
*1st May ’13 – Had a cheeky bottle of this, and its bloody good, plenty of juicy hops with a nice balance between the Cascade & Chinook, Chinook not overpowering just nice 🙂
AG#95 – WheatArillo
Posted on: February 23, 2013
WheatArillo – With 5kg of fresh Amarillo in the garage I’d be silly not to, I’ve also got a fair bit of Wheat Malt that I could do with using up too… 😉
I’d have preferred to brew a big bad Amarillo Wheat like I did back in AG#36 but I figure this could be my entry into the NCB/Saltaire Comp on 13th April, I’ll be brewing again next week so I’ll pick the better of the two to enter.
**Won’t be dry hopping, ferment-out & bottle as soon as possible.
Fermentables:
Wheat Malt – 69%
Lager Malt – 23%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 8%
Oat Husks – 5%
(You may notice the % don’t add up, this is because I added 5% extra Oat Husks after calculating the recipe in BeerEngine)
Hops:
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 60 mins – 24g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 30 mins – 24g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 10 mins – 40g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 0 mins – 40g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.4% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (Reduced a little as I’m using a lot of wheat)
Bitterness: 49 EBU
Colour: 5 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 68c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
Liquor Treatment: General Purpose copied of a previous Brewsheet of similar Mash quantity & OG.
The Malts, its pretty cold in the Garage today:
First Breakfast while the Mash is on, Red Jade Tea & Porridge with Golden Syrup:
Just adding the second batch sparge liquor:
The First Wort Hops in the copper:
I think you’ll agree that was a particularly poor photographic effort!
I wasn’t messing about and made this as easy as I could, it will be nice to have some Amarillo homebrew in stock again.
*2rd Mar ’13 – **I actually just dry hopped it with 1g/L of Amarillo Pellets 😉 I’d have regret it if I hadn’t, its should be subtle but add an element of freshness.
*Bottled 8th Mar ’13 – with 110g white sugar to 22 litres of beer, tasting good, should be drinkable as soon as its carb’d up 🙂
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