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A Brewday with Matt at Truefitt Brewing

It was last June during our wedding anniversary week in Whitby that me and Emma paid Matt a visit in his new Brewery, less than a year later Matt was coming up to his 100th brewed Gyle and had plans for brewing that beer the day I was there. He was not working full time last year, but now having stopped working for The Lions Den and taken on his first employee, he is out on his own.
Best laid plans! The day before our brewday a fused spur had blown and Matt had to cancel a brew doe to lack of hot liquor, so our brewday was Gyle #99 though I suppose in spirit it was still #100, it was to be a big 7%+ IPA hopped with recently released Mandarina Bavaria Hops from Germany.

I was on holiday, it felt wrong getting up this early but I got to Truefitt for 7.30am and found Matt had just started mashing in:
Truefitt Brewing, Middlesbrough
Run-off starts from the Mash Tun via the converted Keg Underback:
Truefitt Brewing, Middlesbrough
He said he was attaching the hop filter!:
Truefitt Brewing, Middlesbrough
The Copper Stand, this is where the last or late hops get to steep in the hot wort giving them time for the hop oils and flavours to infuse into the wort:
Truefitt Brewing, Middlesbrough
He aerates the wort via a sprayball while transferring to the fermenting vessel:
Truefitt Brewing, Middlesbrough
Matt is currently contract brewing for the one for the last breweries he worked at so was going some back-fills for us at Saltaire:
Truefitt Brewing, Middlesbrough
The Beer was named ‘Trembler’ after a previous and differently hopped brew of the same strength, its 7.4% and a Double IPA… I’m hoping to get my hands on some of this in bottle so I can add some tasting notes to the blog.

I had a good day with Matt and his new apprentice Jack, I hope to see Matt down at Saltaire sometime.
The last thing to note is that a Sausage & Tomato butty in Middlesbrough is at least 40p cheaper than in Shipley!!

You also can catch Matt on:
@TruefittBeers
Facebook/TruefittBeers

Some of his regular beers are:
@truefittbeers North Riding Bitter, classic styrian flavours on the dry hop, could use some more crystal and body for my tastes, prob dried out in bottle :-)@truefittbeers Ironopolis Stout, really tasty toasty with a sweet hint, excellent.
Erimus by @truefittbeers@truefittbeers A big bitter mouthful of an IPA, condition spot on too.
All Bottle-Conditioned, Matt has chosen to hand bottle his beers to keep the full flavour, I’ve also got some other bottles from Truefitt Brewing to try soon 🙂

Click the Pics below to see what i thought of the beers 😉
@TruefittBeers 'Trembler' this totally covers its abv, very smooth and very clean, nicely done :-)@truefittbeers Black IPA, smooth and yummy, a nice amount of roast and tasty hops, nice one Matt :-)
@truefittbeers Holgate Red, a pretty good red colour, easy drinking crisp beer, does this have a touch of my least fav hop in it? :-)

On Saturday 15th of September the UK’s National Homebrew Competition took place (Hashtag #uknhc for Twitter).
163 Homebrewers had entered 460 beers and Ali-Kocho and the guys from Bristol Homebrew did the amazing job of making it all come together, this was their second year running this National event which was held in St. Werburghs Community Center this year.

Here come the photos… I’d love some help in putting some names to photos (Real name or Forum / Twitter etc), leave me a comment or Tweet me. I’m generally crap with names and the few that have stuck in my head I’ve either met before or have talked to on Twitter, so I totally apologise in advance for not remembering.

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Ali & @Quadrangularus1 in the background, @stevewright1976 inspecting his beer,  Light blue shirt, 2nd in is Paul Henderson, Simon Ashdown is front corner.
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Moustache and pinny is @_Michael_Palmer (top food! “Bastard Hot Wings”), Bed Fields @Alsothings middle front with white T-shirt.

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@NeilRimmer1005 over the back in the Blue/grey top and next to him is Mr Lard from JBK/THBF in the stripy t-shirt, the guy in the purple shirt sitting and bent over bottles is Paul Spearman the LAB chairman.
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@Des De Moor & @Marisotter then at the top right the middle beard wearer is Capn Ahab (JBK)/@zymurgeeza – also part of the food team!
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@TheMaltMiller with the red striped sleeve
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Steve Syson & SteveWright’s head, @BrettJEllis of forthcoming brewery Wild Beer
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Tony Barnsley/Aleman (From JBK / THBF) in the dark blue top and cap, Chairman of the Craft Brewers Association don’t ya know 🙂
White haired judge with Glasses in bottom left is Mike Carter from LAB
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@BrettJEllis with the funky facial hair opposite brown baseball cap is Pete Hughes @SwaziPete (pokerswazi from JBK) I’d spotted a crate with Swazi written on it and half made a connection with the accent, I should have said hi 🙂
White haired judge with Glasses in bottom left is Mike Carter from LAB
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Just some of the entries Mmmm Beer 🙂
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Steve & Tom
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To the right is one of the Justin’s from @DrinkMoorBeer
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Stephen Sykes standing and @GraemeCoates judging, Graeme is going to Norway for his Best in Show! @SamTait to Graeme’s right.
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In the red top, the other Justin from @DrinkMoorBeer
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Paul (Vacant on JBK) far left, Middle is Barney (JBK) Wayne then Stephen (Alix101 on JBK) on the right
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Ali and Tom
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Best in Show judging getting set up, standing behind Steve in grey shirt is Roger @trunky_bristol
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Steve (in the red shirt) is doing his PHD on beer judging some proceedings were recorded on multiple media!

We arrived at the venue just after the Stewards briefing, slapped wrists, and I was sent to help with the Belgian Ales and I spent the morning being a bit of a spare part but got to try a fair few Belgian & Strong Ales. After a lunch of BBQ Sausage sandwiches it was back to work and Ali got me to steward for the German Bock category and English Brown Ales, this was interesting listening to Steve Syson & Steve Wright doing the judging, I got to try all the beers and some of those in the Smoked & Spice/Veg category too which were being judged on the same table.
The judging finally finished with the raffle and prize giving after 9pm, a long but enjoyable day.

In case I missed copy/pasting any of the code from Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdtnc/sets/72157631555793596/

Congratulations to everyone that won a prize and all the Honorable Mentions.

Results – UK National Homebrew Competition

Best of Show

Place Brewer(s) Entry Name Style Club
1st Graeme Coates Cauchy – Schwarz Inequality 4C: Schwarzbier Oxford Brewers
2nd Steve Syson Debaser 14C: Imperial IPA Midlands Craft Brewers
3rd Dave Halse Mystrawraspb 20A: Fruit Beer London Amateur Brewers

Categories:

Porter (26 entries)
1st Jacob Griffin Zombier Baltic Porter –
2nd Chris Lewis Rigor Porteris Robust Porter
3rd Steve Crawshaw Waggoner Porter Robust Porter Bristol Craft Brewers

Stout (43 entries)
1st Ben Hislop Big Black Imperial Stout Scottish Craft Brewers
2nd Tim Daly Oatmeal Sweet Stout Sweet Stout Oxford Brewers
3rd Bryan Spooner Sadako Imperial Stout Imperial Stout London Amature Brewers (lab)
HM David Budd Heacham Russian Imperial Stout Imperial Stout North Devon Craft Brewers

Specialty Beer (27 entries)
1st Ali Kocho-williams Indian Ink Specialty Beer Bristol Brewing Circle/bristol Craft Brewers/pembrokeshire Union Of Brewers
2nd Ben Hislop Long Black Cloud Specialty Beer Scottish Craft Brewers
3rd Jacob Griffin Black Tiger Rye Pa Specialty Beer –

Strong Ales (14 entries)
1st Ross Harper Backbreaker Barleywine American Barleywine Red Earth Brewers
2nd Dave Halse Mybarleywine English Barleywine London Amateur Brewers
3rd Andrew Jardine Cave Adsum American Barleywine Boohs

Belgian And French Ales (45 entries)
1st Matthew Barker Disconnecty Belgian Ipa Belgian Specialty Ale London Amateur Brewers
2nd Robert Petterson Robert Petterson Witbier
3rd Ali Kocho-williams Black Monk Belgian Specialty Ale Bristol Brewing Circle/bristol Craft Brewers/pembrokeshire Union Of Brewers
HM Matt Bunn Duckfight 2012 Belgian Specialty Ale

Belgian Strong Ales (28 entries)
1st Ken Winter Velvet Tankard Belgian Dark Strong Ale
2nd Steve Syson Tripel Trubbel Belgian Tripel Midlands Craft Brewers
3rd Ron Allison Kiwi Dubbel Belgian Dubbel Midlands Craft Brewers
HM Daniel Van Der Zee 055 DSA Belgian Dark Strong Ale

Light Hybrids (16 entries)
1st Ali Kocho-williams Amarillo Wheat American Wheat or Rye Beer Bristol Brewing Circle/bristol Craft Brewers/pembrokeshire Union Of Brewers
2nd Stephen Sykes Stephen Sykes Kolsch Northern Craft Brewers
3rd Mark Grundy Eau De Cologne Kolsch Bristol Brewing Circle
HM Shane O’beirne Bruntsfield Blonde Blonde Ale

English Pale Ales (57 entries)
1st Steve Osborne English Pale Ale Special/Best/Premium Bitter Midland Craft Brewers
2nd Ron Allison Golden Bitter Standard/Ordinary Bitter Midlands Craft Brewers
3rd Richard Pearce Strong Bitter Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale) London Amateur Brewers
HM Rob Marchington Croft Hsb Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale) Cambridge Craft Brewers

American Ales (37 entries)
1st David Barker Citra Amber Ale American Amber Ale None
2nd Matthew Barker Prodigal American Pale Ale American Pale Ale London Amateur Brewers
3rd Tom Greasley The Red Scare American Amber Ale London Amateur Brewers

IPA (58 entries)
1st Steve Syson Debaser Imperial IPA Midlands Craft Brewers
2nd Steve Syson Stoned IPA American IPA Midlands Craft Brewers
3rd Ron Allison Classic Pale Ale English IPA Midlands Craft Brewers
HM Graeme Coates Emerald American IPA Oxford Brewers

Bock (5 entries)
1st Vladimir Kaznakov Bock Traditional Bock
2nd Rob Marchington Bob’s Your Dunkel Traditional Bock Cambridge Craft Brewers
3rd Richard Caller Bona Dea Maibock/Helles Bock Northern Craft Brewers

Scottish and Irish Ale (7 entries)
1st Karl Clark Claymore Strong Scotch Ale Northern Craft Brewers Association
2nd Aled Murphy Aittin 80/- Scottish Export 80/- Scottish Craft Brewers
3rd Steven Crump Start A War Strong Scotch Ale

German Wheat And Rye Beer (15 entries)
1st Graeme Coates Vital Signs Weizenbock Oxford Brewers
2nd Steve Wright KiWi-zen Weizen/Weissbier Northern Craft Brewer’s Assoication
3rd Ben Hislop Hefe Schwartz Dunkelweizen Scottish Craft Brewers
HM Richard Poole Druid Fluid Weizen/Weissbier Bristol Craft Brewers

Smoke And Wood Aged Beer (16 entries)
1st Paul Mills Butt-head Wood-Aged Beer Primary Fermenters Brewers And Vintners Of Minnesota (eastern League)
2nd Mike Tonks Saxon Smokey Porter Other Smoked Beer Bristol Brewing Circle
3rd Dave Halse Mysmokedporter Other Smoked Beer London Amateur Brewers
HM Bryan Spooner Sadako Imperial Stout – Oaked Wood-Aged Beer London Amature Brewers (lab)

New Zealand Pale Ale (11 entries)
1st Steve Syson Kiwi Pale Ale New Zealand Pale Ale Midlands Craft Brewers
2nd Mark Charlwood Summer Pale New Zealand Pale Ale London Amateur Brewers
3rd Ron Allison Kiwi Gold New Zealand Pale Ale Midlands Craft Brewers

Spice Herb And Vegetable Beer (17 entries)
1st Ken Bazley Kulao Porter Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer London Amateur Brewers
2nd Matt Bunn Snapdragon Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer
3rd Andrew Jardine Bandit Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Boohs
HM Kieran Wall Thackrey Stout Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer

Amber Hybrids (8 entries)
1st Matthew Hicks Ardley Easter California Common Beer
2nd Tony Milner Alt Northern German Altbier Boohs
3rd Ken Bazley Altbier Northern German Altbier London Amateur Brewers

Sour Ale, Fruit Beer (10 entries)
1st Dave Halse Mystrawraspb Fruit Beer London Amateur Brewers
2nd Brett Ellis Lambic Straight (Unblended) Lambic
3rd Richard Caller Rode Koe With Raspberry Fruit Beer Northern Craft Brewers
HM Richard Caller White Walls Raspberry Fruit Beer Northern Craft Brewers

Light Lager, Pilsner, European Amber Lager, Dark Lager (15 entries)
1st Graeme Coates Cauchy – Schwarz Inequality Schwarzbier Oxford Brewers
2nd Graeme Coates Notfest Oktoberfest/Marzen Oxford Brewers
3rd Steve Syson Goodnight Vienna Vienna Lager Midlands Craft Brewers
HM Steve Syson Schwarze Engel Schwarzbier Midlands Craft Brewers

English Brown Ale (5 entries)
1st Christopher Eyett Andersons’ Brown Northern English Brown Ale
2nd Ian Ross-bain Three Rivers Northern English Brown Ale Midlands Craft Brewers
3rd Steve Crawshaw Ask Jon Mild Mild Bristol Craft Brewers
HM Paul Dodd Pd’s Nut Brown Ale Northern English Brown Ale

Here’s a brief breakdown of what was entered in the following categories and how they were boiled down:

IPA:
EIPA – 13
AIPA – 30
IIPA – 15

Stout:
Dry Stout – 16
Sweet Stout – 4
Oatmeal Stout – 5
Foreign Stout -2
American Stout -2
Imperial Stout – 14

American Ales:
Pale – 14
Amber – 16
Brown – 7

Bock:
Maibock – 2
Traditional Bock – 3

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:
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Copper filling onto First Wort Northdown hops:
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I managed the protafloc all by my self:
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Flameout hops going in:
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Malt Recycling, she turns it into poo amazingly well:
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One division in the meniscus, 1046 on the nail at 20°c:
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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.

Abyss Imperial Stout – The big brew! New years Day 2012, a beer to brew-bottle-and-leave until New years Eve (or as long as you can wait! 6 months +) 🙂 Brewing today was the idea of @Leedsbrew and a number of us Homebrew Forum and Twitter users are having an Imperial Stout Brew-a-long, the results should be interesting if we get to taste each others fully matured beers in a years time.

Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 69%
Munich Malt I (Weyermann) – 7.2%
Sugar, Date Molasses – 4.9%
Cara Aroma (Weyermann) – 4.5%
Roasted Wheat (Simpsons / Barley Bottom) – 4.5%
Sugar, Molasses (Blackstrap) – 3.8%
Roasted Rye Malt – 2.7%
Chocolate Wheat Malt – 1.8%
Carafa Special III – 1.8%

Hops:
Target – 10.2 % @ 60 mins – 83g
Bobek – 5.2 % @ 60 mins – 37g
Centennial – 11.5 % @ 60 mins – 10g
Challenger – 7.6 % @ 30 mins – 35g
Pacific Gem – 14.6 % @ 0 mins – 21g (20-30mins steep)
Hersbrucker – 3.0 % @ 0 mins – 20g (20-30mins steep)
Fuggle – 4.9 % @ 0 mins – 19g (20-30mins steep)
Stella – 15.6% @ 0 mins – 19g (20-30mins steep)

Final Volume: 20 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.096
Final Gravity: 1.022
Alcohol Content: 9.9% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 21.2 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 65 % (reduced from a regular 75-80%)
Bitterness: 154 EBU
Colour: 625 EBC

The Malts, 8.455kg of them:
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The Sugars, Date Syrup & Blackstrap Molasses:
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The day so far:
The mash was on last night at 00:50 and the temp was 66°c, at 9am this morning it had dropped to 59°c.
I did 1 sparge at 80°c with an hour’s Mash-out and collected my pre-boil volume in the copper, as I had expected this was lower than the predicted pre-boil gravity (10 points too low).
I did a second sparge at 80°c with a 30min Mash-out of 12 Litres while boiling the first run-off hard, ran off about half the mash then boiled down some more before running off the rest of the mash. I also added the sugars at this point, and continued boiling down until I reached 1086/7 when the bittering hops went in which will hopefully put me in the 1096 area for the end of the boil.

7 Degree drop over about 8 hours:
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Pretty full mash tun with the sparge liquor added:
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Today’s hops:
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The Molasses going in:
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Flameout steep hops, I threw in a 19g sample pack of Stella too (very nice smelling hop):
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Dirty Copper, break material forming as the wort cools:
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173g Safale US-05 yeast skimmed from previous brew and kept in the fridge for a week at 4°c, I’ll pitch the lot at 18°c:
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OG: 1095 Temp corrected (Brix 23.8 with Refractometer = 1096):
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Running to FV:
Pretty much hit my predicted OG, yeast pitched (still smelling of Nelson Sauvin hops from AG#70, if it wasn’t that I’ve just ruined an entire brew!) **Update, the beer in my Glass is Ta Moko, it smells just like the yeast, beer is fine)**
Copper is being very slow to run off, must be the thick sticky wort.
Its almost time for a beer, a Chilled very-early taster of Ta Moko just to see how its doing 🙂
I think I’ll be buying some more Basra Date Syrup as it tastes very good and would lend its self very well to a Belgian Ale.

Other peoples NYD Imperial Stout brewdays:  (I’ll add more as they are posted)
Spikesdad’s Imperial Stout
Barney’s Imperial Stout
Leedsbrew’s Titan Imperial Stout Parti-Gyle brewday
Lugsy’s Super Massive Black Hole Imperial Stout
Jimp2003’s Event Horizon RIS (Slightly Belated)
Tom Dobson’s Old Black Imperial Stout

*3rd Jan ’12 – Gravity is currently 1064-ish, Tastes good, some of the hopping coming through and some Fruity stuff which might be the Date Syrup.
*4th Jan ’12 – 1050
*Bottled 18th Jan ’12 – with 60g of White Sugar, filled 50-off 330ml bottles.

*29th Feb ’12 – Taster:
The Carbonation is just about right, a good hiss when popping the cap and a solid mouth tingle.
Beer Colour is dark as it gets, if i shine a very bright LED torch at one side of the glass I can only just see a very, very faint red shape thru the glass.
Smells a leathery, dry, with a touch of alcohol and coffee.
Tastes, full mouth oily coating body, a fair amount of alcohol which lasts as long as the mouth coating, some coffee & liquorice.
I am, again, glad that i used sugars in this beer 🙂

*2nd May ’12 – Just having a bottle of this, its rather good… maybe more like a Black IPA as the sugars have obviously helped to dry it out, very drinkable 🙂

*6th Jun ’12 – Taster time! This is rather bloody good, a full smooth and oily mouth feel, crisp tingly carbonation, its getting to the stage of being like Warm Boot leather and just as chewy 🙂

One of Huddersfield’s newest breweries is Magic Rock , Rich is the boss who you might already know of from myBrewerytap, Stu is Head Brewer (Famed for eating Pork Pies on Youtube), recent addition is Scott the Drayman.

I’m not going to waffle on about Magic Rock too much when there is a great article in the Independent by Will Hawkes.
Needless to say, Magic Rock are brewing some stunningly excellent beers with my current personal favourite being ‘Highwire’ a thoroughly hop-forward & dry-hopped mouth coating loveliness of a beer.
The brewery was built and installed by www.malrexfabrication.co.uk who, as you can see from the following photos, have done a very professional job.

Its a bugger of a job making a Glass & Bottle look good with a torch in the kitchen!
Magic Rock Brewing Co.

From Left to right and anti-clockwise, Mash Tun, Bottom of Copper, Hopback:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
I’m sure on the inside there is a sticker that says ‘Caution – Hop Surface’:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Bottoms of two conical fermenters:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
The long-legged gas-fired Copper boiler:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Wort flow sight-glass and pipework, wort from the mash tun is re-circulated for clarity before being pumped to the copper:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Stu & Scott preparing the ‘Curious NZ’ hops for the Hopback:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Top of the copper:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Fermenter top hatch:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Another angle of the copper, through the plastic flaps is the Malt Loft; you can just see the grist case which is above the mash tun downstairs:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Filling the Hopback with lots of lovely whole-leaf hops:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Obligatory Sight Glass shot:
Magic Rock Brewing Co.
Two of the other fermenters, front filled with tasty Imperial Stout and the back has RockStar (the MagicRock & DarkStar collaboration brew):
Magic Rock Brewing Co.

Check them out on Twitter…
@MagicRockBrewCo @MagicRockRich @MagicRockStu @MagicRockScott @MagicRockJonny

Thanks for talking the time out of your day to let me take photos and talk beer ‘n brewing, it was good to hear Stu’s alternate views on yeast. I’m sure I learned a few things from you all 🙂

Yesterday I took the short trip over to Elland Brewery, West Yorkshire to meet Gordon the head-brewer for a proper chat after our first brief initial meeting at work (Saltaire Brewery). Elland use the same original Thwaites brewery yeast as we do at Saltaire.

The Mash Tun & Fermenters:
Elland Brewery

Gordon’s enthusiasm and excitement for brewing beer is very obvious and I thoroughly enjoyed a good few hours of nattering with him, tasting a few from their retained samples, and looking round their 10 Barrel Brew House.
My personal favourite sample was his Brewers Reserve which he’d dry hopped with New Zealand Motueka hops (Though not available in the shops, this was just an experiment) yummy stuff.
Gordon tells me that the plant originally came from one of the Firkin Brew-Pubs, with its all wood cladding and copper-domed boil kettle. He has a lot more technical know-how than myself with his Chemistry background, and is really got a handle on the entire brewing process with accurate process measurement and documentation and good practice procedure.
Gordon and the guys from Elland are not doing too shabby with their recent SIBA awards for the 1872 Porter, getting the 2010 Winter Gold and the 2011 National Gold. You’ve gotta love a full complex dark beer!

Mash tun to the front with valentine, Copper boiler behind with Fermenters to the left:
Elland Brewery
The Man himself with his FV’s:
Elland Brewery

Hopefully Gordon is enjoying my Home brewed beers I left with him, you can catch up on his Tweets @GJMcKiernan

Bottling – this is my bottling procedure, I use StarSan to sanitise mostly and fully bleach my bottles every few brews, I’ve based this on a 23Litre (5 British Gallons) batch of beer for the priming sugar.

  • Clean and Sanitise all your bottles (plus 1 plastic coke-type bottle).
  • Give your Bottling bucket a good clean and sanitise along with the Tap from both sides.
  • Sanitise a length of tube that connects to your Fermenter tap (Remember to give your Fermenter Tap a good sanitise externally) also Sanitise your Bottling stick.
  • Sanitise a Jug and a Teaspoon, add about 65g of sugar to 100ml of boiled water which you just boiled in the microwave, dissolve the sugar stirring with the teaspoon, re-heat to boiling in the microwave and set to one side until you are ready to transfer your beer to the bottling bucket.
  • With your Fermenter on the worktop, attach your sanitised plastic tube to your sanitised fermenter-Tap, the other end of the tube wants to reach the bottom of your Bottling bucket on the floor.
  • Tip your dissolved sugar into your bottling bucket.
  • Open the fermenter tap and let the beer run out, try and whirlpool the beer so that the sugar gets well mixed with the beer without any splashing or making bubbles (we need to keep oxygen out of the beer as much as possible).
  • You might have to tip your fermenter slightly to get the last bit out, if you get a little yeast pulled through don’t worry about it.
  • Turn off your fermenter tap and pull the tube off it, with the tube still in the beer, give it a gentle swirl to ensure the priming sugars are well mixed.
  • Now put your Bottling bucket on the worktop and attach your bottling stick.
  • Pull up a chair, a beer, your sanitised bottles, and throw an old towel or something on the floor to catch spills.
  • Fill your bottles until the brim, when you pull the stick out they are left with just the right amount of empty space.
  • DON’T FORGET TO SANITISE YOUR CROWN CAPS!
  • Cap Bottles, Wives are handy about now and a little production line gets the job done in a few mins, mark up your bottles so you know what is in them.
  • Store your somewhere warm for 1-2 weeks to condition (*Top Tip* You can give your plastic Coke bottle a squeeze from time to time to check on the carbonation process).
  • Store your conditioned beer cool for the rest of its maturation.

Liquorice & Treacle Stout – I’ve been thinking about both liquorice and treacle in a stout for a while. This is going to be V.1 (proceed with caution) and next weekend I will do a V.2 (less cautious) with a lot more Treacle in it, somewhere between 2-5% of the malt bill.

Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 1990g – 70.3%
Flaked Barley – 280g – 10%
Caramalt – 280g – 10%
Roasted Barley – 125g – 4.5%
Chocolate Malt – 125g – 4.5%
Sugar, Black Treacle – 21g – 0.7%

Hops:
Centennial @ 60 mins – 17g
Centennial @ 5 mins – 9g

Copper Additions:
Liquorice Powder @ 5mins – 10.4g
Protafloc Tablet @ 15-20mins – Half a Tablet

Final Volume: 12 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 5% ABV
Total Liquor: 19 Litres
Mash Liquor: 7 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 80 %
Bitterness: 37 EBU
Colour: 235 EBC

Water treatment to the Stout Profile in the GW Calc, added to the Malts and blended / Mashing in.
Mash for 90mins and Boil for 60mins.
Yeast probably just Safale S-04.

The malts, pale malt; caramalt; roasted barley; chocolate malt; flaked barley:
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Mini Mash Tun in use for the first time in ages, it just manages this brew length:
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Treacle weighed out:
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Liquorice Powder weighed out:
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First batch sparge:
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In go the Bittering hops, Centennial:
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its 1054/55, so near as damn it on the money:
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I cooled a bit far, oops, popped it by the radiator in the Kitchen to warm up:
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Kind of a drawn out brewday as I was finishing off the 50L brewery I was making.

*Bottled 15th Dec ’10 with 30g White Sugar, tasting plenty liquorice and hints of the Treacle still in there 🙂


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