What are you brewing?

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Permalink Reply by jt on October 2, 2011 at 1:11pm

Brewing? Not today.
A double batch of roast pumpkin soup this morning in the hlt (aka the big warehouse pot)

Binned up the bag of golden promise I picked up yesterday, nice crisp sweet kernels, tasty.
Looking forward to next weekends pale with the new malt
85% golden promise
15% caramalt
12gm Sauvin to bitter and then 12gm additions each of motueka and Pacifica at 15 10 5 and 0
Probably be a coin flip between Nottingham and Windsor.
Aiming 1034ish as usual

Standard recipe for me so itll be a good comparison with the new bag of malt

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Permalink Reply by jt on October 9, 2011 at 11:55am

Ok, the new malt went well.
As Chris suggested, it took a bit to clear the first runnings, but then it was looking pretty good.
Joe reckoned the extraction would be down on what I'd expect and I did a percentage point less than usual, was worried that it would be more

I had a small bag of nottingham from Joe, confused it with the koppafloc and added1/4 teaspoon to the boil . . Only realised when I put the spoon down and read the packet, d'oh !

Been drinking a pale with Windsor this week and decided to go Notts, haven' been so keen on it in this recipe

Otherwise, looks and tastes good.

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Permalink Reply by martin w on October 2, 2011 at 1:58pm

brewed what was supposed to be a best bitter yesterday, the list of stupid fuckups is long-

 

doughed in and thought the mash was remarkably thin,figured i'd somehow got my water measurement wrong

started sparging,walked back into the garage to find a few litres of wort on the floor as i'd forgot to close the tap on the kettle.

stuck sparge,took forever

took gravity,very low, 65% instead of expected high 80's scratch head and put it down to the lost wort.

during chilling i notice maybe a 1/4 of my grain still in the hopper! the grain must have stopped drawing through the crusher and made the same sound it does when it's finished,i just grabbed the bucket and never looked in the hopper, the above problems now have answers!

start the mill to get the grain out

look around to see my uncovered wort still chilling,quite possibly contaminated from the grain dust.

swear,consider chucking it,muttered a bit more, added the yeast anyway and will see what happens in a couple of weeks.

 

worst brewday to date!

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Permalink Reply by martin w on October 2, 2011 at 6:06pm

and i forgot,just to top it off i tweaked my back lifting the fermenter into the cabinet!

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Permalink Reply by Richard Jack on October 2, 2011 at 7:43pm

If it makes you feel any better, I had a similar day yesterday brewing an imperial stout. Broke my mash paddle doughing in - there was so much bloody grain. first runoff was ok, then the mother of all stuck sparges, I couldn't even suck the wort through, it might as well have been a closed valve. after pissing around with that for ages I gave up, knocked up a cloth bag out of some muslin and ended up scalding my hands wringing the bugger out manually. Sticky mess everywhere. This morning someone had removed all the sticky mess and replaced it with ants. Still, 26L of 1.11 OG and 100IBU of simcoe and cascade, and black black black :) Should be fun, eventually.

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Ryan on October 4, 2011 at 3:01pm

What's been happening on our little Epicobrewery?

Brews to date:

Hobbit Toe - 9% US Style Barley Wine
Collision - 8% Fig and Coffee Oatmeal Stout
Aucklander Vice - 3.3% All Malt Berliner Weisse style (with Lactobacillus delbrueckii). Aged briefly with Pohutakawa wood chips
Hitchhiker's Guide - 6% Pale Oat Ale using 100% Galaxy hops
Monk Rock - 10% Belgian Strong Ale brewed with dates
Collision 2 - 7.8% Fig and Coffee Oatmeal Stout
Jonny (Brett's Brother) - 6ish% Red Ale with 100% Brettanomyces lambicus fermentation

I could get used to this brewing thing... ;)

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on October 4, 2011 at 3:36pm

Looks rockin' - but I,m hoping the Hobbit Toe tastes better than it sounds! Frodo Foot fetish has yet to catch me. You need to get these on guest taps at the C&B! Ellerslie C&B is my local watering hole in case you happned to be wondering.

EDIT - you could do an Epic cask twist range, the hand tap beside the Fuggles is always vacant. Caskageddon

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Permalink Reply by denimglen on October 7, 2011 at 10:25am

Hey Kelly,

 

Would than happen to be the WYeast Brett L strain?

 

In a 100% Brett ferment did you manage to get those cherry esters that show up that they talk about in the description?  I've had those esters in when I used Roselare blend from WYeast so I'm hoping it's the same strain in both.

 

Also if you don't mind, do you know the pH of the starting wort, and can you recall OG, FG, ferment temp and time?

 

Sorry for all the questions, I've got this strain on the way to me to do some more all Brett beers and some psuedo-sourbeers.

 

Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Ryan on October 7, 2011 at 10:41am

Yeah, tis the Wyeast strain. Only brewed it on Monday, so in full ferment at the moment. Am guessing the Roselare blend would have some lambicus in it... 

Regarding wort pH, I haven't got a pH meter, but assume it was lowish due to the grist. I didn't do any water treatment... wanted it to be super soft. Only about 13 BUs so as to not have any effect on the Brett growth.

 

I did make a starter with 500 mL 1.041 OG wort (5 BUs) which after 4 days I  topped up with another 500 mL and got a good amount of yeast. Gas evolution once pitched after around 6 hours, so stoked. Really good head as well, nice and thick with a light pellicle on top.

Fermenting at around 20 degrees C, but quite a rudimentary setup with no temp control, so imagine you could go up to 22 C without pushing out too much ester (unless that's desirable).

 

The starter had a fantastic aroma, reminded me of Tripel Karmeliet actually. Very estery, with some underlying phenols. Ferment is smelling amazing. Can't wait for it to finish.

 

I have heard that this yeast doesn't mind a bit of micro-oxygenation (up to 4 mg/L) during ferment as well, so could be something fun to experiment with if your setup allows it. Will keep you posted on the FG... am imagining something in the 1.004-1.007 range if all goes to plan.

 

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Permalink Reply by denimglen on October 7, 2011 at 11:16am

Awesome, thanks very much!  I look forward to hearing how it turns out.

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Permalink Reply by Martin Bridges on October 7, 2011 at 11:29am

I've just kegged an Oud Bruin - I used the Roeselare mix in secondary and left it for about 8 months. Tasting more subtle than I'd expected. I've brought a bottle into work today to inflict on my colleagues - not sure how they'll react!

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Permalink Reply by denimglen on October 7, 2011 at 11:33am

Haha the guys will choke and the ladies will love it - if it's anything like my work place.

 

Yeah, I think it really needs to go into the primary to work it's magic.  The red I did, pitched to primary, came out very similar to Rodenbach GC.

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