I've got a new enthusiasm for lager !
The pils with the california lager yeast is a beauty - well to my badly abused pallette anyway.
The good part is that I haven't needed any temperature control, just brewed at garage ambient temps.
My first attempt fermented at 16 and secondary about 14C
The second one maybe suffering a bit, the weather's warming up and secondary is 18C - this maybe my last lager for a while.
I toned down the hops for the second at Mrs T's request - though I don't really want to encourage her to drink too much of it

I've had a taste of all the brews for the comp, they were bottled rather than from the keg.
Dropped the Irish Red - I have no idea apart from the style guide what and Irish Red should taste like - but it wasn't great
To my taste the attempt was like a bitter NZ Draught (and yes I've swilled plenty of that in the past) Who knows, maybe I should put it in as that ?

I'm tempted to bottle some of the brown / mild from the keg and enter it as a mild
But then I'd have to pull the bottled version from the Brown class, decisions, decisions, decisions !

Ads By Google - "Unread messages" ?
Hmmm .. I was a bit slack with the eyes and thought I had something to read .. but ended up in a dating service .. shame they couldn't help me with astringent ale syndrome .. ah well, back to the fridge ..

Next recipe - no decision as yet, but I've got a couple of weeks before batch #3 is out of the way anyway.

I quite fancy attempting an Alt.

I'm keen for 2kg of chocolate. Swap for 3kg Munich? Not sure on the proper "ratio", let me know if that's about right. Pop me an email with time/address to meet up craig.drayton [@t] gmail.com

Cheers!

There’s also Jamil's Ordinary Bitter, he uses 120L Crystal and a touch of Special Roast; though I have no idea if its possible to get that in NZ. It looks pretty good, simple and uses all EKG. Here: http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/JamilsOrdinaryBitter.htm
Have you brewed with NZ Golding? If so, would it be pretty comparable with EKG for recipes?

Thanks for the recipe jt.

I just purchased a sack of Maris Otter and I'm planning on an all grain, MO only ale. That hopping schedule looks quite good for what I'm after although I might drop the dry hopping for now as I had an infected batch with my one and only attempt at dry hopping :(

Mr T! Here's a link to the my Brown Ale recipe.

OG 1.049
FG 1.014
Fermented using S04 @ 19C

It's a Macs Pale Ale kit base and I reckon it's around 25-27 IBUs. Rather than trying to change the bitterness, I've been adjusting the sweetness to try and match it to the bitterness that is dictated by the kit. It's tricky not knowing how much crystal is already in the kit but I'm quite familiar with them now and the bitterness in the Pale Ale kit seems quite versatile. The lager kits seem to be a bit lower maybe around 20-22 IBUs. Only eleven kits to go!

I still can't believe my highest scoring beer was a kit. Not sure what that says about my AG beers.

Hi John, well not bad, no disasters at least! Did two brews one with pellets - hop monster and one with cones - styrian stunner. The latter although #i has a perfect strike and rest temp came out very low OG and FG which meant it was 3.8% and thin, over attenuated, little mouth feel. dry hopped it and that just made it a bit grassy. So not one for sharing! The hop monster is much more presentable. Both tbh, could have done with a higher malt bill... was considering brewing this w/e but not likely now, I think. Still want to get a hop screen as had to sieve the pellet mush through a muslin bag as would otherwise have lost about 3 litres! place in AK quoted me $89+GST+carriage for a 1m2 of 30 mesh. Can anyone say rip off?! So do you know where I can get copper/stainless mesh?

Re mill: you're a gent!

Hi jt, the mill is new in that I have only used it a couple of times since I bought it last year in preparation for AG brewing. I got it from these guys in Australia
www.homebru.com.au They are called TWOC Brewing and I ddealt with Roy - he was very helpful. I think they are around A$275
I have got all my gear together now and brewed some beer and have a kegging kit which is great. I just didn't want to stuff about with a lousy brain mill and this one, the Barley Crusher, came highly recommended. It seems to work great (not that I have anything to compare it with) and I am using it on the factory default gap setting, having made a base for it to fit over the bucket and I'm about to try my hand at a bitter shortly.
Cheers,
Ian

Hey jt i sorry for the late reply. I think Saturdays brew went alrite i guess with just a couple of hiccups. First was thew digital thermometer that i bought, i was almost ready to start so i opened it up and it wouldnt turn on! so i wedged it open with a knife ran down to the supermarket and grabbed a new battery but it still wouldnt go. So i took the whole thing apart and then slowly reassembled and then it went! haha. Set me back bout an hour. The other thing was the pantyhose, im not goin to use them again. There is just way too much dye in them, i boiled them about ten times and there was still dye comin out, so i used them as a filter to filter my grains out but it wasnt ideal and i let a few grains fall into the brew, not many but a few. Other than that i think it went well. I made a 30 min addition of hops like you said. Its smelling wicked comin out the fermentor right now. Can't wait to try this one!

Yeah hopefully its all good. The cooling was pretty quick with the ice bath, around 20 mins with topping it up twice bought it down to 22 degrees, and thats what i pitched the yeast at. The transfer from pot to fermentor was ok i think. I poured pretty carefully and kept most of the gunk from gettin in the fermentor but a little fell in, im not too worried bout it really. Yeah im keen to get another done as soon as this is ready to bottle, still not sure what i should try to make tho. Still looking at recipes on the net

Yeah mate something like that could be good, i dont know what they are meant to be like but i might give it a go, i mean why not? haha. Or i might try something like an IPA, who knows, but i definitly wanna get onto another as soon as this batch is done. Tasted a sample before, and i thougt it was awesome, cant wait till im drinking this. Your in welly right? where do you get your supplies from?
Cheers Roper

Hey JT, I hadn't realised that. We should do a mini Northern Burbs HB swap, I'm keen to try what others are brewing. Happy to share ideas and assist if I can, bearing in mind I'm still a noob myself ;)

No accessories but my daughter wanted to paint some pink flowers on it. I don't think so Tim :-)

Did you say you were having a drink somewhere? i somehow deleted that message

Just some editing mate. Take a look now.

Hi JT, if you can't read Jokings post, youve been ninged. I had the same - just log out and you should then be able to read it. I posted something to this effect, but it too has been ninged, not showing up either!

Hi jt,

In the Maximus Cloning thread you mentioned:
"I've looked longingly at the copper tart recipe wondering, should I, shan't I ... well, maybe I should"
So do you actually have a clone recipe for Copper Tart?

Like I said, Steve gave me some quick pointers but I didn't have time to quiz him in detail. My latest attempt came out a bit on the strong side at 6.8% and Joking commented that it tasted like Copper Tart on Steroids :-)

If you have a recipe, I would like to see it if you are prepared to share.

Cheers
Pete.

Thanks jt. Had a few at the pub and about to settle down to a Young's Double Chocolate that my daughter bought me.

My wife reckons I've got tools in my workshop that Tim Taylor hasn't even seen and therefore I'm impossible to buy a present for.

Hello, I like beer! At least my daughter knows what to get me :-)

One for you jt, it's not Super Alpha but still close!

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//index.php?autocom=recipedb&a...

Hi JT!

Thats a mighty impressive rabbit you have on your picture, is it yours or have you just gotten a bit hairier over the years.

A flemish I suspect, always wanted one of those, but heard they needed a room in the house of their own, is it true?

No laundries full of fermenters, these days JT, just gettin back into it again, hopefully with a veangeance, onto brew number 2 this week, its difficult to keep the ferment temps down in this heat. been a bit lazy on the brewing last year or so, new house, baby  and lots a garden keep me too busy, and the fishing and beaches etc.

Hops are growing well, there all over the place.

 

Got a nice variety of smackpacks in the fridge now, hell some are getting nearly a year old, so have to go hard into it.