A pint of ag16 all grain Double Dragon homebrew

I didn't bother with posting the brewday for this one as it was pretty much the same as the first time I brewed this all grain Double Dragon.

Gorgeous pint, malty and hoppy and a definite re-brewer for me. Loving the Bramling Cross hops just peeking through the malt. Nice, gentle carbonation, good head retention.

My recipe has changed a wee bit from the original that I got from Brew Your Own British Real Ale.

Photos Of My Brews - Wuppit's Bramling Amber

Still clearing from pouring from the jug in the pic above. I'm really liking this beer, it hasn't turned out quite how I imagined but it's not far off. Home cooked biscuits with a nice hit of burnt edges from the amber malt I used and a full, floral and fruity hop aroma from the copious amounts of Bramling Cross hops added at various stages. Great, creamy head that develops easily and sticks to the glass right the way down.

The brewday post is here: all grain homebrew bramling amber beer.

AG#12 All Grain Felinfoel Double Dragon

Brewday 3rd April and again a recipe from Graham Wheeler's book.

I hit my target volume for once but was over gravity, the downside to this was I topped up with some freshwater and ended up with 26 litres. Which was nice.

Pale malt
T. wheat
Pale crystal
Black malt
white sugar

Bittering Hops:
Challenger
Target (I had to make up a shortfall of challenger to get the right bitterness)
Bramling Cross - becoming a favourite
East Kent Golding

Aroma Hops:
East Kent Golding

Irish Moss

Safale SO4 starter made from reclaimed yeast from previous brews. It kicked off like a mo-fo in the FV.

Few words for this one, a pleasant brew again. My only gripe really is the immersion chiller. It works very well but the hosepipe I bought for it gets a bit soft and easily kinks causing back pressure that hasn't yet popped a fitting but probably could do. My other gripe with the immersion chiller is it don't half bugger up the hops settling onto the hop filter in the bottom of my copper.

Anyway, some piccies.

Grain shot obligatoire.

Nice clear run off from the Mash Tun. I only had to run off about a litre before it came clear, often it's 3 or 4 litres.

Sparging, allowing the sparge liquor to circulate around over a slotted foil try. I haven't bothered with my spray bar for a while.

Approaching the boil, getting ready to skim the surface crud away.

Surface crud skimmings, not as much as previous brews.

Rolling boil and bittering hops and debris rolling around.

Chiller and 10 minute hop addition

1,046 or thereabouts. Over OG so I added water to bring it down to 1,042 giving me 26 litres :)

The remains of the day. Notice the hop filter isn't entirely covered with hops! Bloody immersion chiller collects them in the centre. I need to address this, maybe some legs to lift the chiller off the base of the copper a bit.

Krausen about 4 hours after pitching the yeast. Took off like a rocket!

Bottled on 9th April and I had my first sneaker sampler bottle on 14th... WOW!!!!!

I've had a few glasses of this so far, it's absolutely bloody gorgeous! I haven't gotten round to any pics of pintas yet as the weather has turned a bit shitty and they just look better, taken out doors.

To date, this is my favourite beer that I've brewed.

Update: May 20th 2012 - Weather still shit, not sure if we're going to get a summer this year so here's a link to an indoor photo of this batch, pint of all grain Double Dragon. I do have a second batch in the Fv right now along with a Timothy Taylor Landlord I just really need to get my arse back in gear and blogging again.

AG#10 All Grain Own Recipe Amber Beer

First brewday posted for a while for various reasons.

This beer was brewed on 31st March 2012.

I became a fan of Amber Malt from my first ever all grain brew and have been looking for a recipe that featured more of this biscuity, flavoursome malt.

Having finally found, via teh Google, that it can be used as up to 20% of the grain bill I decided to construct my own recipe. In it I also wanted to feature Bramling Cross hops, another flavour and aroma I have found I've grown to really appreciate.

My aim was to brew a medium dark, biscuity beer with fruity hop notes. I came close.

Luckily I posted a few Tweets during the brew day and caught the attention of a brewer I have a lot of respect for and who's blog I follow as well as his numerous, informative and superbly photographed posts on Jim's Beer Kit forum, PDTNC.

He advised me of some Amber malt things to be aware of when used in higher quantities than typical and also offered some good advice on upping my original Hopping rates to balance the amber malt flavours. So, if you read this, cheers for the help Ade!

Here's the recipe:

Grain Bill:
Pale Malt: 3400g
Amber Malt: 900g
Torrified Wheat: 250g

Bittering Hops:
Challenger: 14g 90 mins
Northern Brewer: 14g 90 mins

Aroma Hops:
Bramling Cross: 60g (50% @ 10 mins - 50% @ flameout - 30 minute steep)

Irish Moss (10 mins), rehydrated and Safale SO4 made into a small DME starter a couple of days before.

Dry Hops: 15g Bramling Cross - added to secondary for a week before bottling.

Total liquor: 32 litres
Mash liquor: 12 litres

Mash time: 90 mins - Mash temp: 66C
Boil time: 90 mins

Target volume: 23l
Actual volume: 20.5 :(

Target OG: 1,043
Actual OG: 1,052 Oops! I didn't bother to top up with freshwater to adjust the gravity down.

Final Gravity: 1,011

All in all, an uneventful brewday, I like these as I read many that are fraught with equipment let downs. I'm still being very lucky in this aspect, no stuck mashes or blocked hop filters as yet. Using a gas burner for my copper I also avoid the seemingly common place electric boiler cut outs.

This time I batch sparged rather than fly sparging for no particular reason with 20l of liquor at 68C in the Mash Tun.

Here's the piccies...

The obligatory grain shot. Lots of Amber malt and fascinated audience.

I'd taken this pic and added the text before PDTNC advised upping the Bramling Cross (see recipe above)

HLT coming up to temp ready to add 12 litres to the mash tun.

Crud scum forming approaching the boil.

Vigourous boil and bittering hops in.

Spent grains, some went off to my Mum to make some splendid bread with and the rest went to the Chickens.

Post boil hops going in. Just remembered this was an overnight cool down hence the lack of immersion chiller.

I ran off the hopped wort and pitched the yeast the following morning then placed the FV in a heated water bath set to 21C.

Moved to secondary on 14th March but then everything went wrong, we lost our German Shepherd nicknamed The Little Wuppit (Holly) suddenly on the 18th.

Bottled on 22nd and not thinking very clearly primed it with 150g sugar in 350ml water. I usually prime with less than 100g.

As it turned out the extra priming must have fermented out as there's no detectable sweetness in the finished beer of which I have had a few now and it is nicely primed.

A piccy of my first pinta, which I raised to the memory of my very, very sadly missed Little Wuppit.

I love the colour and it has a fantastic head (my reason for adding the torrified wheat) that stays to the bitter (no pun intended) end.

Tastes... not my strong point in describing flavours but slightly burnt homemade biscuits springs to mind but with a floral, black current aroma that in my opinion sets it off very nicely indeed. For me, an enjoyable pint.

AG#5 All Grain Christmas Beer / Winter Warmer

With winter approaching way too quickly for my liking I have got to thinking about getting the Chritsmas brew on the go. I'm wanting something with all the traditional Christmassy flavours ie oranges, chestnuts, cinnamon and cloves but not a beer that's too strong. I don't mind the occasional head banger but I'm looking for something that allows everyone to enjoy a few, hearty glasses full during the festive season. Around 5% abv will do me.

Brew days, weekend of the 15th and 16th October. A late start for me due to some errands earlier in the day. I didn't get the HLT warming up until 16:45.

In the end I settled on:

The grain bill and sad Keanu for my Winter Warmer

• 3,800g Pale malt
• 270g Crystal malt
• 230g Amber malt
• 50g Roasted barley
• 110g Flaked barley
• 200g Brown sugar - this was added to the recipe by myself during the brew as it began to come clear the gravity was going to end up lower than the book made out. 

Mashed for 60 minutes with 10l liquor at 65C

First runnings from the mash tun

Sparged slowly for 30 mins with 20l liquor at 79C HLT with 62C run off from Mash Tun

Sparging

The taste of the run off remained sweet until the very end this time. Usually in the past I've stopped sparging when the flavour has gone and the run off is almost colourless. I think I could have ended up with an additional few litres of beer out of this brew but I currently don't have the fermenters for it.

60 minute boil - I have been doing 90 minute mash and boil but the book this recipe is based on calls for 60 mins each... we'll see. The book also didn't give any idea of target OG or FG so it's a bit of guesswork as to if the brew runs on track. Based on the approx ABV given in the book I aimed for a target gravity after the boil of 1048 to 1050 - I got 1048.

Skimming the hot break material from the wort as it approaches the boil.

As with my last brew I skimmed the hot break material away as it built up prior to reaching the rolling boil. I'm sure this makes a difference to the clarity of the final hopped wort as my last beer and this one (as I later found when running it off to the fermenter) are noticeably clearer to begin with than my others. It also makes cleaning the boiler easier afterwards as there isn't so much baked on gunk around the top of the pan.

Bittering Hops: (in at 60 mins remaining)

Nice vigourous boil and in go the bittering hops.

• 6g Goldings
• 20g Northern Brewer
• 7g Styrian Goldings

Roasted chestnuts (360g peeled and chopped up) in at 15 minutes remaining.

360g of roasted chestnuts, peeled and chopped up. Not sure if 360g is enough...

Spice mixture in at 10 minutes remaining along with the rehydrated Irish Moss copper finings.

The spice ingredients were mixed together the evening before in a small tub and allowed to melange together.

The spice and orange mix for this winter warmer. Also in shot, a pint of my Olde Wizard, All Grain Stout

• Zest of four med oranges - don't zest down to the bitter white pith, just take the surface off. Wash the oranges first, some are waxed, we don't want that.
• 1 stick of cinnamon, approx 50mm long snapped in two
• 3 cloves
• 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds

Post Boil Aroma Hops in at 10 minutes after the boil finished:

Post boil hops added.

• 8g Goldings
• 14g Styrian Goldings
• 12g Bramling Cross

Something I did differently this time (partly due to the lateness of getting started but partly due to a theory I had, read on below) I didn't use the wort chiller opting instead to cover up the finished, hopped wort and allowing it to cool overnight.

I popped the lid onto the boiler and left it all to cool down overnight. I've been reading about oils from chestnuts and the orange zest not only imparting flavour and aroma but also causing problems with the beers head retention. My thoughts were that if I allow the hopped wort to cool overnight the oils can do their thing and hopefully float to the surface. As my system drains via a filter from the bottom of the pan the oils should be kept away from getting into the Fermenter... this I do not know to be a fact.

The following morning the wort temperature was still at 35C, too high to pitch the yeast so I ran the wort off into the FV, covered it up to continue cooling while I cleaned up and got ready for my second brew of this weekend which I will be posting shortly.

When fermentation had taken the gravity down to 1,009 I racked off the beer into my secondary fermenting bin and dry hopped with a light handful of Bramling Cross hops. A sneaky taste before sealing the lid up and fitting an airlock gave me a subtle but pleasant Christmassy flavour. Great colour too and looking like it's clearing down ok.

UPDATE 20/10/11:
I have now bottled this beer and it's smelling, tasting and looking very good. All Grain Christmas Beer Bottled.