Friday Night...at last!

After a manic week at work and hardly any ale in the week I've been looking forward to this Friday night. This is a half-pint sampler of the (not quite ready yet) Wezerection Easter Ale, I'm very pleased with it, it's got real thirst quenching qualities, a lovely dry finish and a cracking aroma, the elderflowers have come through a treat, they actually need to mellow a for while, looking at my notes from when I brewed this in April 2007 it took a month to come good, this isn't that far off. It had 30g Styrians at 15 minutes along with 50g dried Elderflower also at fifteen minutes and a further 40g Styrians steeped after the boil for 45 mins once the wort had hit 80 degrees. I'm looking forward to tapping this keg for real in about two weeks I think.

Other good things that have happened today, managed to acquire some Magnum pellets (courtesy of a fellow home brewer) and also managed to get an order in for some Cascade and some US-05 yeast, all of this means that I'm looking good to go on an SNPA clone brew late next week. I might try to fit another batch of Big Kenny in before that though, maybe Sunday? I also ordered a bottling stick to try to make me enjoy bottling, I hate bottling this had better work, I need to start bottling more of my beers!

Brewing Again (Randy Sparrow)

After the success that was Randy Sparrow I've decided that I want another keg of it, so I've brewed it exactly as I did before :

25L Brewlength
Target OG 1.046 at 75% efficiency
Target IBU ~40
13L Mash Liquor, 90 Min Mash at 67 Degrees
90 Minute Boil

4400gm Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 89.80 %
250gm Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.10 %
250gm Wheat, Torrified (1.7 SRM) Grain 5.10 %
57gm Challenger [7.10 %] (90 min) Hops 39.1 IBU
30gm Fuggles [5.50 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)
30gm Fuggles [5.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)
1 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale

This evening brewing is thirsty work so the brew is to be accompanied by a few pints of Big Kenny

I was origninally going to do a high gravity (1.090)version and diluting to 50L in my newest aquisition, courtesy of Steve F (cheers) a 66L coolbox but as yet I haven't got around to re-sealing the ball valve so that will have to wait.

Brewday : Red Sky Ale

With my heart set on producing a beer with good malt characteristics with a deep red colour I brewed 25L of Red Sky Ale. The hope was that by adding to a base of Marris Otter pale malt a reasonable amount of Crystal Malt (7%) and small amounts of Chocolate Malt and Roasted Barley (both 1.5%) I'd get what I'm after. As you can see from the trial jar at the end of the brew colour wise it turned out a bit darker than I thought although it is definitely red! I’ll see how it turns out but I might ease off or drop the Roasted Barley next time.

I overshot my target OG of 1.046 and ended up with 25L at 1.050, I've tried to bitter this one to around 36IBU using 55g of 6.8aa Challenger (a great hop) and following the pleasing results with "Big Kenny" of using a citrus aroma hop in a complex malt beer I've gone with 20g each of Styrians and Amarillo. St Peters do a beer called Ruby Red Ale, which use Styrians as the aroma hop, I’ll be pleased if it's anything at all like that.

It's fermenting away as it should be after pitching 11g safale s04.

An update or few...

It's been a while since I last posted for one reason or another. I've been quite busy brewing and bottling though!

Since my last post I have brewed and bottled Big Kenny v2 which seems to taste exactly the same as v1 so thats good, the bottles that I am sending for Sampling are currently say in the beer fridge cold conditioning along with the 30 or so pints that made it into a King Keg. I won't find out until April what the tasting panel at the brewery think of it the worst that'll happen is I'll get constructive feedback so It's worth a punt!

Randy Sparrow turned out lovely, this is a picture of the finished beer, really happy with the clarity. It's got a nice rounded mouthfeel, well balanced bitterness and the fuggles really come through, I'm glad I put the torrified wheat in there the head retention is superb.

I've also brewed & kegged another all-grain brew, a recreation of the first ever AG that I did, it's for Easter and is called Wezerection Easter Ale this is the recipe for that one:

Wezerection Easter Ale
25L Batch
Target OG 1.042 (75% BHE)
Target IBU ~40

4200gm Pale Malt 90%
220gm Crystal Malt 5%
220gm Torrified Wheat 5%
50gm Northdown [7.90%] (90 min) ~40IBU
30gm Styrian Goldings [3.30%] (15 min)
50gm Elderflower (Dried) (Boil 15.0 min)
40gm Styrian Goldings (0 mins)
1 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 min) Misc

This one is very potent, it's going to have ooodles of flavour, I just hope they have all mellowed out by the time Easter is here!

Finally...today I am brewing again Red Sky it's an adaptation of Big Kenny but I've upped the dark grains to try to get a reddish beer, I'm also using some Amarillo late hops with the styrians to see how it works out. The recipe for this one is:

Red Sky

Brewlength 25L
Target OG 1.046
Target IBU ~36

4500gm Pale Malt - Maris Otter 90%
350gm Crystal Malt - 60L 7%
80gm Chocolate Malt 1.5%
80gm Roasted Barley 1.5%
55gm Challenger [6.80 %] (90 min) ~ 36 IBU
20gm Styrian Goldings [3.30 %] (15 min)
20gm Amarillo Gold [4.00 %] (15 min)

Fermenting with S04

I'll try to take some pics to add on through the brew.