ag#19 Own Recipe Summer Blonde (again)

Second brew of this beer as myself and other drinkers of it enjoyed the first batch so much (see here: all grain summer blonde)

Not the most exciting of grain bills or hopping but it makes a bloody lovely session bitter.

I'm posting it again because there were a couple of brewing firsts for me in this batch. My first time with gypsum added to the mash and my first mega clear first runnings.

The gypsum was a guesstimate as I hadn't received my water analysis from the water company so I chucked a tablespoon in.

So, Brewday: 4th June 2012

Brew length 25 litres.
Target OG: 1042
Target FG: 1,010

Mash liquor: 11 litres
Total liquor: 38 litres

Maris Otter: 4,171g
Pale crystal: 101g
Flaked wheat: 150g

Hops. (Adjusted from first batch for different alpha acids)

Target: 12.66%AA 25g 90 mins
Fuggles: 3.81%AA 20g 30 mins
EKG: 5.85%AA 13g 10 mins

Flameout and cool to 75C steep for 30 mins
EKG: 5.85%AA 31g
Fuggles: 3.81%AA 31g

1/2 protofloc
Safale SO4 - rehydrated and starter made with 150ml first wort runoff

750ml first wort runoff boiled down to 300ml to caramelize and added at 10 mins from end of boil.

Obligatory dull grain shot

In case the grain shot was too dull, here's a Star Destroyer instead.

2 litres run off to clear the bits and this started flowing from the mash tun. Clearest yet, I don't think it'll get clearer than this.

Caramelizing 750ml first wort - it reduced to 300ml

Blah blah hops, rolling boil etc

Break formed in the caramelized wort - I didn't see this happen first time I tried this technique

Aroma hops steeping at 75C for 30 mins - Temp dropped to 62C during the steep.

Break shite settling

Bang on 1042 OG and 25 litres ran off to the FV

All in all, pretty uneventful other than a neighbour turning up just as I was doughing in to use our internet to find a phone number.

I tested this yesterday, the gravity was down to 1,012 and the sample is tasting very close to batch 1. I might yet decide to dry hop when I rack it off to secondary.

East Kent Blonde - Own recipe all grain pale bitter

I fancied something simple and session-able with the summer coming up (I wish someone would remind the rain gods of this) but also with a bit of interest in the nose and taste. Something quaff-able but with a bit of, "hmmmm what's that?" about it.

Ooops, half way down the first sampler I remembered to take a piccy. Clearest pale beer I've brewed to date.

I went for pale malt, pale crystal and tried just using flaked wheat instead of torrified to see what sort of head retention it gave. I've been reading that flaked wheat behaves the same as torrified but without the flavours torrified can sometimes add. It was absolutely nothing to do with opening the wrong bag and not realising until it had been tipped into the malt bucket...

I also wanted the classic combination of East Kent Golding and Fuggle hops with some target chucked in for its higher alpha acid content for bitterness.

I also figured I'd have a go at caramelizing some of the first run sweet wort after reading a thread on Jim's Beer Kit about the toffee, caramel and vanilla notes this process can bring to a beer.

End result, v nice. Everything I'd aimed for pretty much but I ended up slightly over target OG so from what was meant to be 3.9% abv beer I ended up with a 4.1% - still a lot more session-able than the typical 5.5 to 7% brews.

This is also one I plan to have on hand pull for our summer garden party.

Target brew length: 25l (got 26l)
Mash liquor: 11l
Total liquor: 38l

Mash time: 90 minutes
Boil time: 90 minutes

Fermentables:
Pale malt: 4,170g
Pale crystal: 100g
Flaked wheat (ahem): 150g

Bittering and Late Hops:
Target (12.6%AA) - 11g @ 90 minutes
Fuggles - 11g @ 90 minutes (old bag, pre MaltMiller supplier so %AA unknown)
Fuggles - 20g @ 30 minutes
East Kent Goldings (4.96%AA) - 15g @ 10 mins

Aroma Hops:
East Kent Goldings (4.96%AA): 20g @ 80C steep for 30 minutes
Fuggles (3.81% AA) - 25g @ 80C steep for 30 minutes

Not many pics, I was using my phone camera as my Mrs had pinched my camera to take photos of her handmade bags that she sells on Etsy.

As you can see (bottom left) flaked wheat looks nothing like torrified wheat... Not sure what I was thinking but it worked out ok in the end with a bloody nice, crisp pinter. Just need a bloody nice summer to finally appear now.

First runnings taken in my blurred foreground, sharp background photography style. FFS!

It was looking a little dark in the bucket even once I was sparging but it soon paled down/up.

1 litre of first run sweet wort boiling down next to the main boil...

Reduced to 250ml and a thick syrupy gloop. During this time the smells were absolute toffee and vanilla. Nice!

Chiller in and last hops etc etc yawn usual stuff

Shite heading for the compost bin.

Next time I brew this, all bittering hops in at 90 mins. Some additional EKG and Fuggles in at 10 minutes and then slightly more EKG and Fuggles in for the 80C steep.

It was bitter, it was hoppy but I think (possibly due to the caramel/vanilla notes) the bitterness and hop aroma can stand to go up a bit.

AG14 All Grain Black IPA - Black Dragon

I'm trying to get caught up with some brew day write ups to share so here's AG14, my first attempt at a controversially named Black IPA.

I've wanted to brew something using more American hops, this time to use up a bag of Cascade I've had for a while and some other odds and ends.

I ran this through qBrew an open source beer engine type brewing software for Linux.

Brewday 23rd April 2012

Target brew length: 20 litres
Target OG 1,074
Target FG 1,019
Target ABV 7.2%

Mash: 90 minutes
Boil: 90 minutes
Mash liquor: 15l
Total liquor: 35 (includes about 1.75l from the cold steep added to the boil)

Fermentables:
Pale malt (Maris Otter): 4.5kg
Munich Malt: 600g
Special B: 500g
Chocolate Malt: 100g
Pale Crystal: 250g
Torrified Wheat: 350g

Black malt: 500g cold steeped for 2 hours in 2 litres boiled and cooled water.

Note: Next time I'll use Carafa 3 as the finished brew did have slightly more roasted, burnt flavours than I'd wanted even with the cold steep of the back malt. I'll also use more hops.

Bittering Hops:
Target: 10g @ 90 mins - 9g @ 60mins
East Kent Golding: 11g @ 90 mins - 8g @ 60 mins
Northern Brewer: 5g @ 30 mins

Aroma Hops:
Cascade: 25g @ 10 mins - 32g @ flameout 80C steep for 30 mins

Cascade: 22g Dry hop added to secondary fermenter for 1 week before bottling.

Yeast:  Safale SO4 rehydrated and kicked of in a small starter of first run sweet wort boiled and cooled
Copper Finings: Protofloc - used a whole tablet as I wasn't impressed first time using just 1/4 tablet

The pics.

A bit of a grain user upper, Munich and Special B left over from AG13 Weissen

One of 2 carafes containing the cold steeped black malt extract

Adding hot liquor to the pre-heated mash tun

Doughing in

First runnings from the mash tun were pretty dark even before the cold steep was added.

Cold steeped black malt extract being added to the run off sweet wort before boiling.

Vigorous boil and the first bittering hops are in.

10 minutes from end of boil, chiller already in to sterilize in the boiling wort.

Lots of cold break crud settled on the base of the boiler as the hopped wort is run off to the fermenter

Pitching the SO4 starter @ 26C

The next morning. Water bath temp at 22C, hell of a fermentation

Crazy alien yeast head! It's Aliiiiiivvvvveeeee!!!!1!

I had to give the inside of the FV rim a good clean with a sterilized scraper before I could put the lid back on. It settled later that day but fermentation finally stopped around 1,022, 3 points above target FG.

I racked off to secondary and dry hopped for a week. Checking the gravity again before bottling and it was still at 1,022

I've calculated the finished beer to be 6.5% and it's tasting very good. As I wrote above though it does have a more burnt flavour than i was expecting so next time I'll definitely opt for the de-husked Carafa 3.

I'll try and get a decent photo of a pint of it this evening but I'm having a few blurry issues with my camera when it comes to photographing pints.

Pint of AG11, all grain homebrew Batemans Victory

Oops, here's another pint that I haven't actually posted the brewday for. It was a typically brew really, nothing special but it's made a cracking beer. Really enjoying this, it's a tad paler than original as I'm currently using up a sack of pale crystal malt I ordered by mistake. EDIT I lie like a cheap watch, here's the brewday, all grain Batemans Victory. One thing that has struck me is, having just been over to Batemans website is they say there are US Liberty hops used in the recipe... EKG and Styrians according to my recipe. So I think I'll be re-brewing this one anyone as it's nice and I'll get hold of some Liberty hops and see what the difference is.

Lovely wash of hop aromas as you stick your nose in the glass and a pleasing, creamy mouthfeel. Soft and delicate but at 6.1% abv it's one to keep an eye on. It goes down faster than a £300 escort light, summer session bitter. It has a lovely, thick white head that lasts the course and even when it begins to thin out a little, a quick swirl in the glass and it's back.

Here's the pic, sorry it's blurred I'm getting worse at photos. I seem to have a knack of getting backgrounds in perfect focus... meh!

While I'm on the subject of summer session beers, I've just bottled an own recipe Golden Bitter ready for summer, target abv was 3.9% but I ended up at 4.1% so it's still pretty low. A quicker taster before bottling and it's hoppy and fresh. I'm looking forward to trying the first small, sampler bottle in a few days.

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#11 All Grain Batemans Victory

No photos alas. This was brewed on 31st March and was really a test brew to see if I still felt like and enjoyed brewing having been very down in the dumps over the loss of the Wuppit.

It went well. The recipe is from Graham Wheeler's superb Brew Your Own British Real Ale (3rd edition) and as I've written frequently before, if you haven't got a copy... GET ONE!!! get it here right now, this minute!

Have you got it yet?

Pale Malt
Crystal malt
T. Wheat

East Kent Goldings
Styrian Goldings

I ended up slightly under target volume of 23 litres but not enough to worry about and it gave me an OG of 1,056 rather than 1,054.

Final gravity of 1,011 which I calculated to give me a beer of 6.1%ABV

12 days in the FV which is a bit longer than usual and finally bottled on 11th April with 80g sugar dissolved in 250ml water.

I've only had a sneaky taster so far, it's primed well but needs to drop a bit clearer looking at the single, clear glass bottle I always have each brew (kept in the dark). Tastes very nice and it's probably the palest beer I've brewed yet. I used pale Crytsal malt due to mis-ordering the standard stuff.

I'll update this post wit a photo of the first proper pinta when I have it.

AG#6 All Grain Everards Tiger (ish)

I brewed this beer during the same weekend as my previously posted All Grain Winter Warmer. This recipe is based on the all grain Everards Tiger recipe taken from page 145 of Graham Walker's Brew Your Own British Real Ale. If you don't already have this book, I highly recommend it!!!

I say that this brew is based on the recipe as I chose to replace the 12g of Black malt in the recipe with some Amber malt instead. Why? I found that the addition of the black malt in my all grain, home brew Banks Bitter made the finished beer a little too dark. I also have a surplus of amber malt and so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and use up some of my amber malt whilst adding some darker colour but not too much. I also like the subtle, biscuity flavours the amber malt brings to the beer.

I also (accidentally) added more Crystal malt and Torrefied wheat than the recipe required, I was getting some weight fluctuations that I didn't spot initially and had to put new batteries in my scales. Too late to remove and reweigh as I had already tipped the grains into the bulk of the pale malt... Next time I shall weigh the grains into separate containers before mixing.

Brewday, Sunday16th October, target volume 23l.

The grain bill:

• Pale malt: 3400g
• Crystal malt: 386g
• Amber malt: 200g
• Torrefied wheat: 197g

The hops:

• 31g Challenger in at start of boil (90 mins)
• 20g Fuggles in during the last 10 minutes of the boil.

200g white sugar to go in approx half way through the boil and as with my last couple of brews I rehydrated the Irish Moss which was added in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

Before bottling I will also be dry hopping with a few cones of Goldings.

Again, the brewday went without any major problems, my equipment is behaving and performing well.

The mash schedule: 10 litres of liquor at 66C for 90 minutes - again my mash tun didn't lose a single degree :) HLT temp was 75C giving me a strike temp in the pre heated mash tun (kettle of boiling water for 20 minutes) of 72C. After the addition of the grains and doughing in I hit the target of 66C bang on.

Unfortunately the yeast starter I had made from some yeast reclaimed from a previous brew didn't appear to get going and so I chose to bin it rather than risk using it. I had one pack of Wyeast 1968 London that I was saving for an ESB I plan to brew soon so I used that.

Target gravity was 1041 but I got 1045. I'm still not up to speed with calculating efficiency but I keep achieving higher gravities. I can only put this down to my mash tun being very efficient and extracting more fermentable sugars from the malted grains. I'm not overly concerned at this point, I'm far from being ready to consider selling my brews, as a slightly stronger beer isn't really a bad thing.

Here are the piccies.

First run off from the mash tun, I'm liking the colour. Note, I ran a couple of litres off into a jug first until the grain bed settled and the wort began to run clearer.

From the initial 10 litres of hot liquor for the mash I extracted about 7 litres of wort prior to sparging.

I heated the hot liquor tank to 80C for the sparge and slowly sparged the grain bed to end up with 25 litres of wort with a gravity around 1039 bearing in mind this lower gravity is pre boil and pre addition of 200g of sugar during the boil. Unable to calculate exactly what the boil and sugar was going to add to the gravity I wasn't sure how much water to add to the wort pre boil.

From previous experience of the evaporation losses, in order to end up with my target of 23 litres I'd need to start the boil with around 30 to 31 litres... I topped up to 30 litres and hoped the gravity would climb to the target 1041 with the evaporation losses and sugar taken into account.

Approaching boil, the hot break material begins to form. As before I skimmed the surface froth away as it formed prior to reaching the rolling boil.

Some of the skimmed surface break material... nice isn't it?

Getting down to business now with a vigorous boil, in go the bittering hops - 31g Challenger. This is my first brew using Challenger and the smell was very nice indeed. I have yet to find hops I don't love the smell of when they go in the boil.

As this was quite an uneventful, other than ending up with 23l of lovely beer, I haven't gone mad on photos. they are all beginning to look a bit samey. You can see the cold break material starting to clump together in the photo above as my home made wort chiller brings the temp down to 30C after the boil. The aroma hops, 20g Fuggles, went into the brew ten minutes before end of boil.

This addition of hops towards the end or after the boil is to me a bit of a pain when using an immersion chiller like above. As the chiller has to go into the boiling wort 15 or so minutes before then end of boil to be sterilized, the (end of boil) hops go in afterwards and tend to get all caught up in the coils of the chiller as they roll around. Not bad to begin with but they gradually collect together and rise up out of the boiling wort. I keep tapping them back in with my brewing spoon but, it's a bit of a pain in the ass.

The hopped sweet wort has been chilled and can be seen running off from the copper into the fermenter.

I pitched the yeast and as with my previous use of wyeast smack pack yeasts, nothing bloody happened for two days! I was beginning to worry the pack had not been viable - I followed the instructions to the T - when finally the brew burst into life and began to ferment.

A day or so later my order of bottles arrived along with some airlocks and grommets so I drilled the fermenter lid and fitted an airlock to it. As I write this, it's still glugging away like a goodun and the gravity is taking longer than normal to drop. This might be due to the slightly lower temperatures now or it might just be the yeast was struggling to get going. So even with my delayed posting, there's no photos of the finished beer just yet.

On the subject of temperatures I am looking to, in the not too distant future, convert and old fridge by way of an external controller with a probe in the beer and a tube heater fitted internally into a temperature controlled fermenting cabinet. More on that soon...

I am about to open a bottle of my Banks Bitter that I have been enjoying recently and, weather permitting, take a nice photo to post later on.

AG#3 All Grain, Extra Dark Stout

For my third all grain brew I wanted to do a Stout and having seen a couple of recipes I liked the sound of but was unable to decide between the two, I decided to create a hybrid and at the same try to increase the darkness and throw some torrified wheat in to further help with the head of the finished brew.

Much more relaxed this time as well and I didn't encounter any real trip ups this time. Totally chuffed with my additional insulation on my mash tun, I didn't lose a single degree during the 90 minute mash.

First off, the obligatory grain shot. Naich on Jim's Beer Kit forum has started what I hope will become something of a trend to jazz up the boring grain shots a little. So, for mine, I have included a rabbit with a pancake on its head.

The grain bill. Quite a hefty bulk of grains and wheat as I wanted to achieve a higher gravity to end up with a slightly stronger stout:

Pale Malt
Flaked Barley
Roasted Barley
Amber Malt
Black Malt
Torrified Wheat to further help create a creamy head on the finished brew.

I haven't bothered with any water treatment yet, our tap water tests at around 6pH. I'll see in time if there's need to alter anything. We're in a very granite area so I'm not sure what calcium is likely to be present, perhaps the water board add some... dunno. At the end of the day if I can get nice beer, consistently without having to fart about too much I'll be very happy.



Very efficient mash of the grains this time, 90 minutes and didn't lose a single degree in temp - my new insulated box around the mash tun worked a treat. This shot is after the mash had finished and the wort run off with the sparging device in place to rinse hot water over the grain bed and extract further fermentable goodness and taste.



Quick video of the sparge. It's a bit boring but I'm posting it as I want some feedback about the flow rate, too high? too low? Personally I think it's a little on the fast side but any slower and the hot liquor doesn't reach the extremities of the tubing matrix.

Into the copper for boiling, new gas burner not quite in shot but it works really well too.



 Approaching the boil.



Rolling boil reached so ready to add the first, bittering hops (Target hops - I'm using these a lot right now as I just received a new bag with the date code about to expire... grrrrr!)



 Bittering hops added.



90 minutes later and time to cool the hopped wort to 80C so I can add the aroma hops (8g each of Cascade, East Kent Goldings and Northern Brewer).



Soaked the aroma hops for 20 minutes then ran the chiller again to drop the temp to 30C and transferred to the fermenter, vigourous aeration during transfer produced this very large head. Allowed the hopped wort to cool further to 25C and pitched the yeast (visible in demijohn in the background). I used a special Irish Ale yeast and because I'd made a starter with it, in the demijohn using some malt extract, it got to work right away.



 The remains of the day, great for compost.



Three or so hours later and the yeast was going mad, the surface was rippling with activity as the yeast began creating co2



As this has been something of an experiment and me being a total newbie I've been waiting to see how it turned out before posting the brew day. I have just finished bottling and I have to say the early flavours are very promising although there doesn't seem to be as much hoppiness as I'd have liked. We'll see how it goes. Nice smoky burnt flavours coming through just as I like and the colour is incredibly dark. The bottles I have used are 650ml hefty old swing top things so I've used one clear glass bottle so I can keep and eye the brew on it as it conditions.



 And here are the others :O)



It's quite surprising how that extra 150ml in these larger beer bottles affects how many you end up with.