Tuesday 28 August 2007

36 Pints of Goats Milk

On Bank Holiday Monday my brother & his wife purchased a 36 pint keg of "Goats Milk" from Church End Brewery for around £42 (bargain), it's a superb afternoon quaffer at 3.8% and ideal for the BBQ, it's a nice light tasting ale with a predominant Styrian Goldings aroma, it went down very well indeed, here's my brother making sure the keg was definetely empty. Cheers!

A good Barbie and Barbie-Brew!!

Saturday 25 August 2007

The Bedford Arms - Toddington

Today we visited friends in Toddington and visited The Bedford Arms, I had a couple of Wells Eagle IPA which were a nice afternoon session bitter. This is the write up from the Charles Wells web-site..

IPA long-standing favourite within Charles Wells' heartland and famed for it's rare, notably dry-bitter finish, Wells Eagle IPA (Alc. 3.6% Vol.) is starting to emulate the nationwide success of its premium bitter stable-mate, Wells Bombardier.

“A complex finish of bitter hops, nuts and citrus fruits.”
Roger Protz
(British Guild of Beer Writers and Editor of The Good Beer Guide)
The popularity of this perfectly crafted pint is described by award winning beer writer, Alastair Gilmour:
“The aroma is of freshly sliced ripe apples. Its amber hue is emphasised by a tight rich head which set it up as an ale with real credentials.”

Cheers for a great day guys!

Toecutter Fermentation

Well fermentation got off to a flyer, this picture is how it looked 8hrs after pitching the yeast.

Friday 24 August 2007

Brewday Friday 24/08 - ToeCutters Twist

Todays brew is this one : Toecutters Twist

5000gm Pale Malt (MO) Grain 98%
100gm Crystal Malt Grain 2%
26gm Fuggles [4.90%] (90 min) Hops 12.6 IBU
35gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (90 min) Hops 10.4 IBU
30gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (15 min) Hops 4.6 IBU
50gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (0 min)


Yesterday everthing that I'll need for the brew was given a clean and the grains were weighed out. I'm using 5kg of Crushed Marris Otter pale malt and 100g of Crystal Malt. This picture shows the colour difference between the two.


I got a nice early start today and had the boiler switched on by 06:30.

The steps here were:

Heat the mash liquor to around 78 degrees

Transfer the required quantity (in this case 12L to the mash tun)

Leave the tun to stand for 5 minutes to heat through

I then checked the temperature and found it to be too hot still, i needed a strike temperature of 72 degrees I added 2 L of cold water to get the temperature down to 72.

Once at 72 I doughed in (mixed in the grains thoroughly) I had to adjust the temperature to my required mash temp (65 deg C)by adding a further 1L of cold water.

1tsp of CRS was then added and mixed into the mash to get the PH to 5.2

The coolbox mash tun is then closed and wrapped for 90 minutes.


At the end of the mash the temperature was 64.5 so only a half of a degree drop over the 90 minutes.

Next I ran off the cloudy first wort runnings into a jug and returned them to the mash tun, the flow of wort from the jug was diffused using some foil with holes in it. The purpose of doing this is to filter the wort through the grain bed until there are very few or no grain particles coming through. .










The runnings were free from particles after 4 litres had been returned so sparging started, using water from an old FV which has now become my HLT. I use a spinny sparge are which sprinkles hot water (80 degrees) onto the grain bed the wort is then run slowly into the boiler.



I adjust the flow so that the input matches the output so there is a constant flow through the grain bed.





I collected 30 litres in total 25 in the boiler and another 5 in a seperate vessel, the 5L was used to top up the boiler to replace the wort lost through evaporation.



The wort was then brought to the boil and the bittering hops added (26g Oregon Fuggles and 35g Styrian Goldings.





While the boil was underway I made up a yeast starter (DaaB's flying starter) with Safale S-04 yeast. I rehydrated the 11g of yeast in 200ml of 35 degree water in a large PET bottle, then took 400ml of wort after 15 minutes of the boil and cooled it to 25 degrees then added this to the bottle, shook it like crazy and squeezed the air out.




15 minutes from the end of the boil I added the aroma hops (30g Styrian Goldings) then 10 minutes from the end of the boil I added a whirlfloc tablet to aid the coagulation of the protein break matter.

At the end of the 90 minute boil I added the aroma/steep hops 50g Styrian Goldings.






Then I dropped the immersion cooler in to bring the temperature down to around 28 degrees.







Once cooled the wort was transferred to the FV using grativy to help aerate it.







I hit my target OG (1046) and pitched the yeast, hopefully this should be fermenting away within a few hours.

Thursday 23 August 2007

Beer Beer everywhere but not a drop to drink...

I have 120 pints of beer conditioning at the moment with another 40 pints being brewed tomorrow but none that will be ready for 2 more weeks, so tonight i'm on the Ruddles County.

It's good but I wish it were a pint of homebrew.

Brewing Tomorrow

After about as much DIY and painting as I can stand on my week "off" I finally get to do a brew tomorrow.

So tomorrow i'll be having a bash at this one:

Toecutters Twist

5000gm Pale Malt (MO) Grain 98%
100gm Crystal Malt Grain 2%
26gm Fuggles [4.90%] (90 min) Hops 12.6 IBU
35gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (90 min) Hops 10.4 IBU
30gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (15 min) Hops 4.6 IBU
50gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (0 min)

It's a variation of my TLC Twist recipe a friend of mine tried the TLC and enjoyed it but said that he'd prefer it less bitter and to have more Styrian aroma. TLC Twist is normally around 37 EBU (by Beersmith calcs) this one should give me 27 EBU i've also upped the steep Styrians from 25g to 50g so I hope this will give me what I'm after.

Working at 75% efficiency i'd get OG of 1046 (4.4%abv)

Tuesday 21 August 2007

Ronnie Wrigglers Honey Ale

Here is a picture of my Honey Ale "Ronnie Wrigglers Honey Ale"

It was brewed on 23rd June and is now coming to the end of the keg, it's crystal clear and tastes superb, the honey has really come through.








4000gm Pale Malt 86.0 %
100gm Crystal Malt 2.2 %
25gm Northdown [6.50%] (90 min) 19.0 IBU
43gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (90 min) 13.6 IBU
25gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (10 min) 2.7 IBU
550gm Honey (2.0 EBC) 11.8 % at Switch Off
1 Safale s-04 Starter
Primed the Keg with 100gm Honey

Itching....

I'm off work this week and I'm itching to get a brew (or two) done but I have loads of DIY to get out of the way 1st! If I do get to brew I'll do a variation of my TLC Twist (less bitter & more aroma hoppy - Styrians) and a stout to put away for Christmas.

Best get the DIY done!

A Couple of Brews

A couple of weekends ago I had a double brew weekend where I made a batch of TLC Twist and a Batch of Grumpy Bum. Here's the recipes for both:

Both 25L batches calculated at 75% efficiency using Safale s04 and a whirlfloc tablet 10 mins from the end.

TLC Twist.

5000.00 gm Marris Otter Grain 95.6 %
130.00 gm Wheat, Torrified Grain 2.5 %
100.00 gm Crystal Malt Grain 1.9 %
41.00 gm Northdown [6.50%] (90 min) Hops 26.0 IBU
25.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (90 min) Hops 7.3 IBU
25.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (15 min) Hops 3.8 IBU
25.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (0 min) Hops -

I ended up with 25L at 1046 (73.5% efficieny)

Grumpy Bum.

4730.00 gm Marris Otter Grain 91.0 %
470.00 gm Crystal Malt Grain 9.0 %
60.00 gm Northdown [6.50%] (90 min) Hops 40.0 IBU
25.00 gm Styrian Goldings [2.00%] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops

I ended up with 25L at 1054 (87% efficiency)

Both of these got down to 1010 so the TLC Twist is a 4.7% beer and Grumpy Bum is a 5.7% beer.