Recent content by Hazelwood Brewery

I believe the theory around how much water to use is concerned with the concentration of enzymes in the mash responsible for converting the starches into sugars. Modern grain though is well modified and this really shouldn’t be an issue for you (I’ve seen people do full-volume mashes with no...

It’s surely too warm to not have a beer so I’m starting with a bitter. This is the new Amber Alert which I left on tap because it’s nice - it might even be a contender in the Norwich Homebrew Comp. 😉

OK I think I get where you’re coming from, roasted barley starts off with about 60% of the sugar in base malts. I’m not arguing that point. We were discussing whether there is value in trying to recover residual sugars from the discarded grain after steeping where the great majority of sugars...

Understood but there is less sugar in dark roasted malt to start with, then the quantity is very small in a homebrew batch, then there’s the fact that a proportion of what is there will have dissolved into the steeping liquor leaving very little sugar in a small quantity of malt which you’re...

I didn’t say no sugar. Factoring in the quantities used I still maintain sparging the dark malt to recover sugar is pretty pointless at homebrew scale.

I always do an overnight cold steep for stout and imperial stout. @foxy is right about the fact there is very little sugar to recover from dark grains and because you also use relatively little dark grain it’s really not going to do any good sparging the dark grains. I don’t think you’d get...

Just nipped out to Waitrose for a couple of bits and bought myself a treat or four 😉

We actually have sunshine now but I’m indoors watching a box set and drinking Pirate Pale.

While I’m out here I thought now might be a good time to try my latest bitter, “Amber Alert”. This is it, 5.1% and very easy drinking. The beer has a lovely fresh sweet toffee/floral aroma, is perfectly balanced with a soft lingering bitterness and a flavour that’s clean with mild spice and...

Well I’m a sad sight sitting at my bar all alone with a glass of Best Bitter! We have nothing planned for today, the weather is ****, and my wife has some things she wants to do around the house so no pub lunch today. Never mind, I’m comfortable in my own company and the beer is good 😉...

No posts from me last night because we had a family pub day followed by a meal at a good Indian restaurant. The pub had a load of cask ales and ciders on in the garden, all fresh and beautifully conditioned. Lovely 😍. I could live there if they did that every day 😂 On the table are a pint and...

I can’t say for sure, I just tend to add a little as a preventative measure.

I expect any improvement will be marginal assuming you move the jug around as you sparge. Squeezing is okay, I used to use a potato masher to press down. I now batch sparge after trying a multitude of techniques because all those improvements resulted in more washing up for little improvement...

Not what I’d have expected, I wonder if the fermentation went a touch off piste? You may have to try another can 🤔

No, smokey flavour comes from using smoked malt or is from phenols produced through fermentation. Oak adds a subtle oaky vanilla flavour to beer.