Tuesday 27 May 2008

Busy Yeast

Well the S04 seemed to like the Townes IPA I brewed yesterday, both fermenters looked like this first thing this morning, the smell from the Cascades is amazing, in time i think this will be a great beer, fingers crossed.
I picked up some Fiddlers Elbow today, while I'm in the mood for pale ale's I fancy a go at a clone of this, pale, wheat and styrians, sounds good already!

Brewday : 26th May - Townes IPA

I managed to get this brewed yesterday, the day went very smoothly and ended with 50L of 1.045 wort which was spot on what I was expecting. I batch sparged again and I'm pleased with how quickly this gets the job done, so far also I think my beer has more body than the one's I used to sparge right down to 1.006, the final runnings for this one were 1.020.

I used in total 260g Cascade in this brew, 160 for bittering to 40IBU and 100g steeped at 80 degrees for 15 mins, I turned the chiller off while they steeped. This picture is of the 100g aroma hops just after throwing them in.

I do seem to have carried over quite a bit of trub on this brew, i'm not sure if this is something that is down to the batch sparging, maybe I am not recirculating enough and more grain particles are getting into the boiler?

The wort seems very dark in this picture, but this morning now the yeast (s04) has started working it's lightened up quite a bit, there is lots of yeast activity and both fermenters have developed good size yeast heads this morninig. I'm looking forward to this one (as ever) it should be a Cascade fest!

Here is the recipe that I settled on, the Cascades are actualy 7.1% but I based their AA% on 5.75% to allow for hop age, 2007 crop.

Brewlength - 50L
Target OG 1.045 (70% efficiency)
Target IBU ~40
60 Min Mash at 67 degrees
60 Min Boil

10.4kg Marris Otter Pale Malt (96%)
430g Torrified Wheat (4%)
160g Cascade [5.75AA%] (60 min) Hops 41.8 IBU
100g Cascade [5.75AA%] (Steeped at 80 degrees for 15 Mins)

Fermented with 2x packs S04 per 25L Fermenter

Sunday 25 May 2008

Mally's Mild Kegged and Brewday Planned

Today I have kegged Mally's Mild into 2x King Kegs, they will sit for about 4 weeks then I'll try one. It's a lovely dark brown/red colour and has a good malty taste, pleasingly it tastes like a mild, which is a result.

Tomorrow I'll be brewing another recipe from Marc Ollossons book Real Ale for the Home Brewer, Townes IPA, it should be a nice pale ale with loads of citrus hop flavour, hopefully around the 4.5% mark.

Brewlength 50L
Target OG 1045 (based on reduced efficiency of 70%)
Target IBU 40
60 min mash 67 degrees
60 min boil
Batch Sparging

10.4kg Marris Otter Pale Malt 96%
430g Torrified Wheat 4%
125g Cascade 7.10%aa (60 min) 40IBU
100g Cascade 7.10%aa (steeped after the boil at 80 degrees for 30 mins)

Saturday 17 May 2008

Saturday Night Suppin'

I've started tonight with a bottle of West Coast Pale although this beer never did live up to a clone of SNPA it's still a great beer I think, the 40 IBU from Magnum and Pearle give the beer a good bitter bite and the aroma and flavour from 80g of Cascade at the end finish it of beautifully.

Next it's probably onto the (very young) Springfield Bitter through the beer engine, although there is always a chance that I'll tuck into some bottles that I have been sent from fellow all-grain brewers to try!

Wednesday 14 May 2008

Brewing "Mally's Mild"

It's been a little while since I've posted, I have been busy upgrading to 50L brewlengths simply by converting a 60L fermenter to a boiler by fixing to it the 2 3kw elements and tap from my old boiler. The maiden brew on the new system was of course Big Kenny, I have kegged that tonight, it was quite nice to get 2x 25L kegs from one brewday, I also had a go at batch sparging which worked a dream.

Anyway, tomorrows brew (even if it's not the weather for this sort of beer) is for my Dad, he loves a pint of Mild but we can't seem to find a decent one around here so i'm having a go at brewing something I think he'll like. It's from Marc Ollossons book "Real Ales for the home brewer" - Hoddesdon Dark..

50L Brewlength
Target OG 1.044 (based on 70% efficiency)
Target IBU ~26
60 min mash 66 degrees
60 min boil

8.45kg Pale Malt - Fawcetts Marris Otter 80%
860g Crystal Malt 8.0%
860g Torrified Wheat 8.0%
390g Roasted Barley 4.0%
80gm Challenger [7.10 %] (60 min) Hops 26 IBU
25gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min

Not decided what to ferment with yet......but it will be yeast ;)

I think that this one will turn out a nice deep mahogany colour.

*Edit, Had a great nice and easy brew evening, by having a 60 min mash, batch sparging and a 60 min boil the yeast was pitched before 11pm, not bad considering I only started at 17:45 (I did prep everything the night before and have the boiler switched on for me to heat the mash liquor at 17:15). I ended up with 2x fermenters with 25L of 1.044 each, spot on what I wanted, the final runnings from teh tun were 1.020 so hopefully I've managed to extract just 'the good stuff' from the grain. Used S-04 both FV's are currently chugging away nicely with lots of airlock activity.

Friday 9 May 2008

EB-BK - Even Bigger Big Kenny - 9th May

On 9th May I used the new 10 gallon equipment for the first time, sticking with a recipe I know I really like, Big Kenny:

Brewlength - 50L
Target OG (at 70%) 1.047
Target IBU ~31
Fermenting with 4x S04

10.4kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 92.47 %
540g Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC) Grain 4.76 %
150g Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 1.33 %
110g Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 0.95 %
50g Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 0.48 %

126.00 gm Fuggles [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 31.1 IBU
40.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.30 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)
40.00 gm Styrian Goldings [3.30 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)

The brewday went well and I ended up with 50L at 1.047 split between 2 fermenters. This was the first time I had batch sparged, I found it really easy, and fast, I'll be doing it again!

Sunday 4 May 2008

Brew Evening 2 May : Springhead Bitter

On Friday night I brewed this:

25L Brew Length
Target IBU ~29
Target OG 1.041 – 1.047

60 Min Mash @ 67 degrees 3.0L per KG
60 Min Boil
Yeast s-04

5200g Pale Malt (98%)
85g Crystal Malt (2%)

44g Northdown (7.0%) 60 mins (~29 IBU)
25g Fuggle (4.0%) 15 mins
25g Fuggle (4.0%) 0 mins (steeped from 80 degrees)

1 Whirlfloc Tablet 10 mins

I changed a few things for this brew, hoping to get more body in my beer. I upped the grain bill and mashed more than I normally would for a 1.040 beer and stopped sparging at 1.020 leaving some of the sugars in the tun, this way I hope to have collected the best runnings from the mash.

I stopped sparging at 1.020 which gave me 21.5L at 1.050 topped up to 27L with unused sparge water to give a preboil gravity of 1.040.

I got 25L of 1.044 in the end, which is a 70% efficiency, so if I am happy with the results from this method i'll just base future brews on 70% efficiency and stop spargng at 1.020 again.

It has been suggested to me by a more accomplished brewer to try a 'no sparge' brew, so just working with the runnings from the mash!

I do fancy giving that a go, i'm coming around to the opinion that chasing high efficiencies could be a detriment to the quality of the beer.

We will see!

It's currently sat in the fermenting fridge at 19 degrees.