Monday Night Brewing

To try to get a good balance between family time, work and brewing I decided to have a go at an evening brew last night, with a bit of preparation the day before I was able to switch the boiler on at 5.45pm and dough in by 6.20pm.

After the excellent results I had with Hookey Street I decided that I had to brew it again, there are two changes from the last time I did this, the first is the bittering hop, using Oregon Fuggle rather than Northdown (as I forgot to pick them up) the second is the addition of Cara-Pils to aid head formation/retention.

Grain Bill
5000.00 gm Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 90.3 %
410.00 gm Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (19.7 EBC) Grain 7.4 %
130.00 gm Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 2.3 %
260.00 gm Cara-Pils (3.9 EBC) Grain 4.4 %
Hop Schedule
70.00 gm Oregon Fuggle [4.70%] (90 min) Hops 30.1 IBU
20.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (15 min) Hops 2.6 IBU
20.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.00%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
Other
1 Whirlfloc Tablet (10 mins)
11g Gervin English Ale yeast starter

25L Batch
Target OG 1052 (75%)
Estimated EBU 31

The brew evening was a success with the yeast pitched and all put away by 11:40pm I missed my target OG by 4 points and ended up with 1.048 rather that 1.052 so it will be a 4.8% beer rather than a 5.3% beer, I can live with that, I think that I rushed the sparge so next time on an evening brew I'll up the grain bill to accommodate for the brewhouse efficiency drop (75% to 69%)

This morning the yeast seemed slow to start but by the time I got home this evening it was well on it's way. Monday night brewing it is from now on then!