Fermentation Control

Well, things have moved on a little at the fledgling brewery. The latest addition is a fermentation control lid which i've called "the contraption". I'm fermenting my beers in the 80L thermobox which I also use to mash in, the contraption lets me control the temperature that my beers are fermented at. It is a custom made stainless steel lid with beerline around the edge to create a seal (not airtight but it keeps the bugs out!) it has two SS cooling coils drilled through it which are connected to a beerline chiller and a 55w aquarium heater also fitted. The whole thing is hooked up to a TC10 temperature contoller with the probe going through the lid and this submerges in the beer. Basically all that happens then is I set the desired fermenting temperature and if the wort is 1c above this it kicks the beer line chiller on which pumps icy water through the product coils until the wort reached the right temperature or if it's 1c too cold it turns on the heater until the temperature of the wort is where I want it. Pretty good eh! The whole thing works really well.

I hate bottling

I've bottled and kegged the beer I made last Saturday which finished at 1.010 (5.1%) I bottled 3 crates (36 bottles) and filled 2.5 cornie kegs. I really hate bottling, seriously, I really hate bottling but, when it's time to drink them I'll be glad I did. I've also promised a few people a bottle or two to review so needed to do it. The bottles have been primed with 1/2 tsp sugar and the cornies are being force carbed. Now it's time to enjoy a pint of "Witches Wort" that I made back in September 2009. I found half a cornie of it today......and I thought I had NO BEER!

I think a Stout is up next, probably a Toasted Oatmeal Stout.

Starters anyone...?

A long long time ago I purchased some vials of White Labs liquid yeast, two of these vials have sat in the beer fridge unopened. The best before dates on them are October 2008. Being at a loose end this evening I thought I'd see if they will actually grow on after all this time!

So 2 x 2L starters made using 200g spraymalt in each, if they work I'll split each yeast into 4 x 500ml PET bottles and maybe even use them in a brew!

The strains are WLP002 (English Ale) and WLP023 (Burton Ale).

Fingers crossed.

Back In The Saddle, at Last!

Its been the longest layoff since I started all-grain brewing in April 2007 but on Saturday 20 February I got back in the brewing saddle it a few tweaks and additions to the Fledgling Brewery.

Equipment wise the major change was the addition of an 80L stainless steel tun, this is a thermobox from Nordic Optical kindly converted to be a bottom drained tun by user Muddydisco from thehomebrewforum there is a great thread posted there showing it's construction from start to finish which you can see by following the link here I have fitted a stainless steel false bottom which was custom made for me by John at homebrew shop Hop & Grape, although Muddydisco has also now started to make these too! Other than that I have fitted a sight tube to my HLT which has made life loads easier!

1st Brew In The New Tun

I decided to christen the new tun with a batch of my house ESB "Big Kenny"

Target 60L FV
Target 1.050
Target 30IBU
90 min 66c Mash
90 min Boil

97% Pale Malt (12.2kg)
1.5% Crystal Malt 120L (190gm)
1.0% Roasted Barley (130gm)
0.5% Chocolate Malt (65gm)
2.5tsp Gypsum

Challenger to 30 IBU
60g Bobek at 15 Mins
2tsp Gyspum

Fermenting with 2x 11g sachets of Nottingham

The brew went quite well, there were a few issues which I need to fix for the next brew, the biggest issue was the amount of grain particles that got past the false bottom, I've traced the problem and fixed it (I hope) but for this brew I had to pump back from the boiler to a cleaned out tun through a fine SS mesh and then back again to the boiler, again through a fine mesh to get the particles out. Something I'd rather not have had to have done! I'll also be wrapping the boiler in silver bubble insulation to decrease the amount of time it's taking to come to the boil. The picture here shows the fly sparge, gravity feeding water from the HLT to a spinney sparger and pumping out at the same rate to the boiler.

I backed off the boil strength a little and ran on one element, this mean that my losses were much less and from the 85L pre boil volume I ended up with 70L into the "fermenter" the OG was 1.048 which I'm happy with, I'd assumed a 75% brew house efficiency being the first brew, this volume and strength works out at around 85% which is quite good I think for a first brew with new equipment.

Why Waste The SS Tun?

Rather than ferment in my plastic fermenters I'm trying a new approach, the beer is being fermented in the thermobox tun! I have dropped an aquarium heater set to 18c in the "fermento-tun" and also placed a short piece of copper tube into the drain on the tun, the reason for this is so that when I come to draw the fermented beer out I'm hoping that the yeast cake will be just below this point so I'll be drawing beer and not yeast, we will see! As you can see from this picture fermentation has started well, tonight it's sat bang on 18c and is down 28 points to 1.020.

Christmas Wine

We are quite organised this year and have 8 demijohns of wine fermented out and clearing ready to be bottled. Kit wine's that we have made are:

Beaverdale Peisporter
Beaverdale Pinot Grigio
Beaverdale Barolo
Beaverdale Rioja Red
Beaverdale Chablis Blush
California Connoisseur Riesling

We have also had a bash at a wine which I have heard good things about, Wurzels Orange Wine, we have made 2 demijohns using the following method:

1Ltr 100% Pure Orange Juice (smooth)
1Ltr Pressed White Grape Juice
1.5Lbs Granulated Sugar
1tsp Yeast Nutrient
1/2tsp Tannin
1tsp Pectic Enzyme
1tsp Glycerine
Water to 1 Gallon
1pck White Wine Yeast

Add Orange Juice, Grape Juice, Yeast Nutrient, Tannin, Pectin Enzyme & Glycerine to the demijohn along with a pint and a half of cold water and shake to mix well

Dissolve sugar in a pint of boiling water

Add Sugar water to demijohn

Top up to 4ltr with cold water and mix, and add yeast.

Ferment under airlock until the initial vigorous fermentation is over then top up to 4.5ltrs and continue to ferment until done.

When fermented rack to a sanitised demijohn with 1 crushed campden tablet and a tsp of potassium sorbate. De-gas for 24 hrs by shaking a few times. Then add wine finings. Bottle when clear.

Ours is at the de-gassing stage at the moment, the wine smells lovely, looking forward to trying it! It works out at around 40p a bottle!

Time flies....

Wow! - it's been such a long time since last posting anything here, time has been taken up with other projects and also spending (probably) too much of my time on the forum!

The Keggerator which I last posted about is un and running and working well, I have it set to serve my beer at 13c and i've been pleased with it's performance. It uses an ATC800 to control a 60w tubular heater and the freezer itself, switching between the two where it needs to call for heat or cold. Mostly through the summer I have been dispensing via my beer engine which is a HiGene 1/4 pint jobby, I use a cask breather connected to the corni and an inline check valve also - it works pretty well.

I've not managed to brew as much as i'd like to have done lately, I did manage to fit in a brewday to get a beer ready for halloween though recently. Witches Wort was kegged last night and turned out at around 5%. It's mt first time using Nelson Sauvin hops i'm impressed was with the smell from the FV and also the small sample I had when kegging it. Fingers crossed it'll do the job come the 31st!

Here is the recipe

Witches Wort

Pale Malt (98%)
Crystal Malt (2%)
Bobek 90 mins (33 ibu)
Nelson Sauvin 15 mins (12 ibu)
Nelson Sauvin Steeped at 80c for 15 mins

Due to the mash tun dying on me when I added the mash liquor I had to mash in a smaller tun, so the brewlength was reduced from the intended 60L to 36L just right for 2 cornies. One fermenter was pitched with s04 the other was pitched with Nottingham.

The introduction of a pump and a therminator plate chiller has made life easier at the Fledgling Brewery, no more lifting dangerous amounts of hot wort!

The next imminent brewery upgrade is the addition of an 80L stainless steel thermobox tun. This is currently awaiting conversion. I'll put a post on about how I do it, all the bits and bobs are here, all I need now is time, peace and quiet!

Wezzerator - Work Begins!

Work started tonight on the Wezzerator. The chest freezer that I am using is not deep enough to hold a cornie keg so this collar effectively means that i'll have a cut & shut cooler. It's just the framework at the moment - I will be picking up the insulation for it tomorrow and fitting that.

I tried it out on the freezer and it fits like a glove.

XL Bitter - Kegged

The XL Bitter that I brewed on 12 March has been sat at a steady 1.008 for 3 days now so at 4.2% abv it's found it's home in 3 cornies.

I had a cheeky taster - I think it could be a nice beer, I got the complex malt taste that I was after and it's not too over powering, the bitterness level seems about what I wanted too (27IBU), certainly less bitter than some of the beers I normally brew. My only concern is that after the initial complex malt taste there wasn't much left, no lingering flavour to speak of....?

It's nice to have a sensible strength malty low IBU beer brewed anyway - looking forward to tapping this one.

Time to think about the next brew - It was to be Wezerection I think.

Warm Weather - Cool Beer

Well...spot on 13c beer hopefully :)

When the Mrs suggested that we could do with a larger Chest Freezer as the current one isn't enough I eagerly agreed as this means that I can now conver the older chest freezer into a KEGGERATOR - so over the next few weeks I'll be converting a Chest Freezer which can hold upto 4 cornies using an ATC800 temperature controller, a 60w Tubular Heater into a device to serve beer at the perfect temperature all year round.

The only problem is that the chest freezer isn't tall enough to hold a cornie - i'll solve this problem by adding a 20cm insulated colar around the top of the freezer and fixing the lid back on to this.

I'll take some pics along the way.

Should be a fun and productive project.

SUGAR Points..the way?

On the last few brews that I've done I have been experimenting with 'Sugar Points', Phil a member on www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk got me interested in doing this, it is in basic terms a method of ensuring that you collect the right amount of sugar from your mash to ensure that you hit the gravity that you want.

It calls for a bit of math, so as I sit here typing this with Hoegaarden in hand I'll try my best to explain how I understand it.

The start point that you need is to know three things

a) What your desired OG is
b) What your desired volume into fermenters is
c) How much you loose after the boil to your boiler, hops etc

To aid explanation we will assume that our three figures are:

a) 1.050
b) 25 litres
c) 8 litres


The amount of sugar points needed for 33L at 1.050 (33L is 25L + losses of 8L) is 33 x 50 = 1650

So what you do is calculate your grist as you normally would, based on your own known brewhouse efficiency but when you sparge measure what you have collected both in volume and specific gravity and stop sparging when you have collected your required sugar points (1650 for this example) (A refractometer is very useful for this).

You do this by multiplying what you have collected by the gravity of what you have collected. Your own efficiencies will dictate at what volume you reach your required Sugar Points, for the sake of this example lets say we collected 25L of 1.066 wort ... 25 x 66 = 1650.

This 25L is then diluted down to your pre-boil volume (you will have to work that out based on your equipment), boil happily away down to your post boil volume knowing that it will be at the OG you want.

It sounds complicated but it easy really.

I'll be lowering my efficiency to 65% from 85% next time to try to improve the quality of extract.

XL Bitter

Not posted a blog for a while – I’ve been busy with work and the home brew forum that we have set up.

I’m planning a brew this week, hoping for a nice session beer with lots of malt character and a fairly low IBU.

XL Bitter

60L Batch
Target OG 1.040
Target IBU 27

Pale 90%
Dark Crystal 3%
Amber Malt 3%
Wheat Malt 3%
Chocolate Malt 1%

20 IBU from Challenger 90 Min Boil
7 IBU from EKG’s 15 Min Boil
30g EKG Steeped at 80c for 15 mins

Fermenting using S04

Our New Forum - The Home Brew Forum

A few of us with similar interests have decided to set up our own brewing forum. Please feel free to join us.

THE HOME BREW FORUM

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/

A Busy Evening

I've had quite a busy evening, I've kegged "Thirst Gold" which I brewed back on June 25, I've prepared everything ready for an evening brew tomorrow and I've had a bash at coming up with something which will hopefully come close to the Brains S.A. Gold I recently wrote about.

Thirst Gold, the OG of this brew was 1.048, after 12 days of fermenting it stabilised at 1.010 so it's around 4.9% abv. I tried something new with this brew and split the overall IBU between the 60 min and 15 min hop additions, aiming for 20 IBU from each, giving a total of 40 IBU, tasting a sample tonight I was very pleased that the First Gold flavour that I recognise from the Badger First Gold bottled beer that I enjoy has come through well and also that it tastes like a 40 IBU beer, meaning my 100g 15 minute addition was worth it in the end! This needs about 4 weeks to mellow out, I'll have a sample each week......just to see how it's coming along!

Next tonight came the preparation for tomorrow nights brew, I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I wanted to have a go at a plain and simple bitter, I have twaeked the recipe a bit to add more crystal malt to hopefully improve the overall malt profile of the beer, I have also increased the Goldings aroma addition, the recipe which I have settled upon is:

Swift Bitter

50L Brewlength, Target OG 1.049 (70% brewhouse efficiency) Target IBU ~36

9.80 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter 87%
0.90 kg Crystal Malt 8%
0.56 kg Torrified Wheat 5%
100.00 gm Challenger [7.00 %] (60 min) Hops 30.8 IBU
35.00 gm Challenger [7.00 %] (15 min) Hops 5.3 IBU
70.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.00 %] (steeped at 80 degrees for 15 mins)

Finally tonight I sat down and tried to work out something that will come close to Brains S.A. Gold, the recipe that I came up with is below, I'll be fermentng with US-05 for a nice clean taste, hopfully this one will get brewed on Thursday night, that will be 100L of beer this week, so I'd best get drinking to free up some kegs!

Harvest Sunset

50L Brewlength, Target OG 1.051 (70% brewhouse efficiency) Target IBU ~30

11.00 kg Pale Malt, Marris Otter 90%
0.60 kg Crystal Malt - 60L 5%
0.60 kg Torrified Wheat 5%
80.00 gm Cascade [5.75 %] (60 min) Hops 20.0 IBU
46.00 gm Bobek [5.00 %] (15 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
40.00 gm Cascade [5.75 %] (15 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
50.00 gm Bobek [5.00 %] (steeped at 80 degrees for 15 mins)
25.00 gm Cascade [5.75 %] (steeped at 80 degrees for 15 mins)

Brains S.A. Gold 4.7%

The bottle neck label tells us that this is a "Delicious golden ale brewed in wales late-hopped with Cascade and Styrian Goldings" There is also an emblem on the main bottle label telling us that this beer won CAMRA's 'Champion Beer of Britain' Bronze in the Strong Bitter Category 2007. So when in the supermarket tonight and it caught my eye I thought that I could do worse, the only thing that put me off slightly was the clear bottle and obvious risk of skunking.

I'm impressed, I'd have to say that this is going to be this summers favourite bottled beer for me. The smell of the hops was there immediately after opening the bottle, the description on the back of the bottle is spot on "S.A. Gold is a full flavoured, hoppy and refreshing golden ale, brewed in Wales at the home of the world famous Brains S.A. The beer is late-hopped using Cascade and Styrian Goldings, giving it complex and refreshing citrus aromas and flavours"

I want to have a go at brewing something close to this, whilst I have around 1kg Cascade I have no Styrians but do have Bobek which are supposed to be similar, I'll have to have a scout around to see if I can find a recipe. I'd imagine that the bittering hop is also Cascade and I'd estimate that its around 30 IBU and just pale malt.

Swift Bitter

It's about time the Fledgling Brewery produced another bird related beer, so in coming up with a recipe that I hope could become a regular brew I've also named it after the Swifts I sat watching cruising around the sky yesteray evening, so Swift Bitter it will be.



I'm targetting a medium strength 4.6%abv (1.048) bitter with around 35-40IBU, 90% Pale, 5% Crystal and 5% Torrified Wheat, I've heard that Challenger and Goldings work very well together so for a 50L brewlength at 70% efficiency this is the recipe I'll be going for.

Grist
9.8kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter 90%
550g Crystal Malt 5%
550g Torrified Wheat 5%

Hops
100g Challenger [7.00 %] (60 min) Hops 31.1 IBU
35g Challenger [7.00 %] (15 min) Hops 5.4 IBU
50g Goldings, East Kent [4.00 %] Steeped during cooling at 80 degrees for 15 mins.

I'm probably also going to dry hop one of the kegs when the time comes, just to see the difference it makes, i'll probably add 10g Goldings in a muslin bag.

Hopefully I'll get to brew this up next week.

Brewday - "Thirst Gold"

I finally managed to get around to brewing a beer hopped only with First Gold on Wednesday evening. After posting on Jims Homebrew Forum the recipe I was going to go for (see previous post) I was egged on to change the hopping schedule around, quite drastically, so what started out as aiming for 29 IBU from the First Wort Hops (FWH), 8 IBU from the 15 minute additions and 2 IBU from a 5 minute addition ended up with me upping the FWH and throwing a basket full of hops in at 15 minutes to get 9 IBU from both additions. The AA of these hops is relatively high at 8%AA doing this method with a lower AA hop wouldn't be as practical and it could be expensive.

It'll be interesting to see if the bitterness is there and also if there is a notable aroma explosion from using such a large quantity of late hops, there was also a generous amount of steep hops, there were added when the cooling wort hit 80 degrees C and the immersion chiller turned off while they steeped before being turned back on to drop the wort down to pitching temp quickly.

I currently have 2x FV's both with 25L of 1.048 wort fermenting away well.

The final recipe that I went for is:

50L
Target OG 1.047 (70% bhe)
Target IBU ~38
68 degree mash 60 mins
60 min boil
Fermenting with s04

11kg Marris Otter 97%
300g Crystal Malt 3%

50.00 gm First Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 19.7 IBU
100.00gm First Gold [8.00 %] (15 min) Hops 19.7 IBU
80.00 gm First Gold [8.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep 80 degrees 15 mins)

An itch I have to scratch...

I have wanted to do an all First Gold brew and this week all being well I'll get one done, This recipe is what I have in mind. I am going to have a go at frist wort hopping with this one.

Brew Length 50L
Target OG 1.052 (70% eff)
Target IBU ~ 38

11.3kg Marris Otter 91%
600g Crystal Malt 5%
500g Torrified Wheat 4%
60g First Gold [8.00 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) 28.4 IBU
60g First Gold [8.00 %] (15 min) Hops 7.7 IBU
30g First Gold [8.00 %] (5 min) Hops 2.2 IBU
50g First Gold [8.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep for 15 mins at 80 degrees)

Bike and Beer

I went on a thirty five mile bike ride around the North Warwicksire countryside today, we stopped for a beer at the Plough Inn near Ansley, Nuneaton, the Abbot Ale was very satisfying indeed.

North Warwickshire Cycleway

Townes IPA Kegged

I managed to get the Townes IPA kegged today, both FV's were down to 1.010 so thats ~4.7% judging by the fact that the kitchen was filled with the aroma of Cascades while I was kegging, it's gonna be hoppy! Thats just what I wanted, my wife thought that the aroma was like lemon cheescake, I'd have to agree. I really think that adding the aroma hops (and a lot of them) at 80 degrees and turning off the immersion cooler for 15 mins helps to lock in the aroma.

Just have to wait a few weeks now until it can be supped, hopefully on a warm evening with a BBQ.

Mmmm Mally's Mild

Ok, Ok, I only brewed this on 14 May, but it's on tap already, for tonight only, just a tester before my Dad comes to give the verdict at the weekend. The picture is awful, I struggle to photograph dark beer, it has a lovely deep dark red/black, the roasted malt come through well and there is a nice dry finish, personally I think I would enjoy it more with a few more IBU's but the style I was after is as it is, so, it's good to go and I hope it gets the thumbs up from papa Wezbrew.