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.