What did you brew today?

I put together a copy of keglands Dark Side of the Schooner stout.

4.18kg Simpsons Maris Otter Malt
0.41kg Malted Oats
0.26kg Chocolate Dark Malt
0.26kg Roasted Barley
0.15kg Dark Crystal

I used Topaz hops for my bittering addition as I had some in the freezer and they are 20.2 % Alpha Acid so I didn't need much to get to the 29 IBU, And for yeast I used Crossmyloof ale yeast.

Fingers looks and smelled good so I'm hoping it will turn out well.

found a coopers aussie Pale ale kit i forgot about bbe 03/23. will pimp up with some cascade. worth a punt. luckily I didnt see any other 'little creatures' lurking at back of the shed tho .

A loose interpretation of Sierra Nevada pale ale

Batch #47
BIAB no sparge
12L
Total water 16.8L
OG 1.055
FG 1.014
ABV 5.4%
EBC 14.8
IBU 41

Maris Otter 2kg
Extra pale MO 1kg
Amber 175gm
Choc 10gm

10gm Northern brewer 60mins
15gm Cascade 30mins
15gm Cascade 5mins

20gm Cascade hopstand 80c 30mins

50gm Cascade dry hop 3 days

Chilling to temp in fridge before pitching
US-05

Pale ale / best bitter.

As this was going in the Pinter, I tried the hop pellets loose in the kettle. Won't be doing that again!

Ballantines IPA (sort of)

OG 1060 FG 1014 ABV 6.0% IBU 54.6 SRM 8.9 Mash pH 5.3
Reduced the ABV from 7.2 to something more manageable IBU reduced from 70.

4kg Veloria Schooner Malt
1.2 kg Flaked Corn
0.80 kg Light Munich
0.30 kg Light Crystal Fermenter addition

30g Cluster @ 60 mins
18g Brewers Gold @ 25 mins
28g EKG @ 5 mins.
Have been interested in brewing this for a number of years after reading the history of Peter Ballantine an immigrant from Scotland to The East Coast of America. Starting a brewery and becoming the 4th biggest brewer in America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ballantine
A double pass of the grain, read about this method some years ago and have used it now on my past 5 brews, raised the efficiency in doing so. First pass is coarse followed by a second pass of fine. This picks up most of the uncrushed grains without shredding the husk. OK it will get a couple of dough balls but no big deal they are easily dealt with. Whereas uncrushed grain does not get the starch converted.
First pass.

Second pass.

For me, I think it is important to keep the ball valve fully open throughout the mash, the liquor is being heated at the base and needs full flow to sustain an even temperature through the grist in the malt pipe.

66C is my mash temperature I only need a reliable thermometer to indicate the mash temperature in the malt pipe. Never went beyond + or - 1C

Iodine test @ 60 minutes indicates mash was successful. The hydrometer will give me a more positive indication.


The hydrometer is on 1,060 with temperature adjustment is 1, 061 fermenter volume is 19 litres actually 20 litres so happy with the brew day and ready for a beer.

Experimental (12 litre) Guinness clone with 90% Golden Promise and 10% dark. Actually remembered to take pictures this time.



Mash temp held fine although it did start high (my fault, I didn't account for a smaller grist and double digit temperature for a change in the brew shed so strike was too high). I did remember to reduce the P factor of the PID to account for less volume though.



Did the sparge water on the induction hob. I've got it on a plastic box because the instructions say don't use on a metal surface and the surface in this case is the top of a chest freezer. Anybody else with an induction hob worry about that ?



The dark grains steeping. My original plan was to put them through a sieve but in the end I just dumped them on top of the grain bed when I was sparging. The wort turned the colour I was expecting. I can confirm that both our chickens and next our friend's Highland cattle wolfed down the spent grain . Had a quick nibble of the dark grains myself and it was like an un-bitter coffee i.e. slightly sweet and not astringent.

Got 15 instead of 11 litres so I'm expecting the OG to be down a bit. Going to fiddle with the settings in Brewfather.

Now no-chilling ready for pitching tomorrow morning.

Twostage said:

Experimental (12 litre) Guinness clone with 90% Golden Promise and 10% dark. Actually remembered to take pictures this time.

View attachment 95302

Mash temp held fine although it did start high (my fault, I didn't account for a smaller grist and double digit temperature for a change in the brew shed so strike was too high). I did remember to reduce the P factor of the PID to account for less volume though.

View attachment 95303

Did the sparge water on the induction hob. I've got it on a plastic box because the instructions say don't use on a metal surface and the surface in this case is the top of a chest freezer. Anybody else with an induction hob worry about that ?

View attachment 95304

The dark grains steeping. My original plan was to put them through a sieve but in the end I just dumped them on top of the grain bed when I was sparging. The wort turned the colour I was expecting. I can confirm that both our chickens and next our friend's Highland cattle wolfed down the spent grain . Had a quick nibble of the dark grains myself and it was like an un-bitter coffee i.e. slightly sweet and not astringent.

Got 15 instead of 11 litres so I'm expecting the OG to be down a bit. Going to fiddle with the settings in Brewfather.

Now no-chilling ready for pitching tomorrow morning.

Click to expand...

No flaked barley?

Two more litres from the brew kettle of yesterday's brew ends up as 22 litres in the fermenter.

Twostage said:

Experimental (12 litre) Guinness clone with 90% Golden Promise and 10% dark. Actually remembered to take pictures this time.

View attachment 95302

Mash temp held fine although it did start high (my fault, I didn't account for a smaller grist and double digit temperature for a change in the brew shed so strike was too high). I did remember to reduce the P factor of the PID to account for less volume though.

View attachment 95303

Did the sparge water on the induction hob. I've got it on a plastic box because the instructions say don't use on a metal surface and the surface in this case is the top of a chest freezer. Anybody else with an induction hob worry about that ?

View attachment 95304

The dark grains steeping. My original plan was to put them through a sieve but in the end I just dumped them on top of the grain bed when I was sparging. The wort turned the colour I was expecting. I can confirm that both our chickens and next our friend's Highland cattle wolfed down the spent grain . Had a quick nibble of the dark grains myself and it was like an un-bitter coffee i.e. slightly sweet and not astringent.

Got 15 instead of 11 litres so I'm expecting the OG to be down a bit. Going to fiddle with the settings in Brewfather.

Now no-chilling ready for pitching tomorrow morning.

Click to expand...

Interesting pitching session this morning.

It was supposed to be 12 litres which fits nicely into my biggest stockpot but I thought I could squeeze 15 in. Took a gravity reading when the pot as about 1/4 full and it was 10 points off . Obviously because I doughed in too hot and it will have denatured the enzymes. No problem I'll just put sugar in. 375g sugar in and continued the fill. The pot looked quite full but I couldn't see how close it was because of the foam so I pitched the yeast over the foam to collapse it. Yep, it was nearly full so I had to find a way to split it. The problem was that all the sugar was at the bottom of the pot and all of the yeast was floating on the foam .
The solution was to decant most of it into the second pot, stir the sugar in and then decant back and forth a few times. Definitely aerated by this point .

Every days a school day .

Just mashed in the Vienna and Amber on a double brown stout. Brown and black to add 10mins before end of mash

On account of Gordon Strong being the world's highest-ranking beer judge, I have followed his recipe for a dry Irish stout which he claims tastes like Beamish Stout. So today I have brewed, "I can't believe it's not Beamish"

OG 1,043 FG 1,011 ABV 4.2 IBU 43.7 SRM 37.1 Mash pH 5.4

4.5 kg Veloria Schooner.
0.50 kg Flaked Barley.
0.050 kg Roast Barley.
0.250 kg Chocolate Malt Late mash tun addition
0.250 kg J. Whites Dark Crystal Late mash tun addition
0.150 kg Simpsons Black Malt Late mash tun addition
Mash @ 62C . Water treatment 5 g Calcium Chloride and 1 gram Lactic Acid
34 litres of water.- Base malts

Temperature of the mash.- Iodine test @60 minutes shows no starch


Mash out and add the nonfermentable grain. - The big squeeze.

31 litres pre-boil. - The boil

After the boil was over. Overshot my gravity by 6 points!

foxy said:

On account of Gordon Strong being the world's highest-ranking beer judge, I have followed his recipe for a dry Irish stout which he claims tastes like Beamish Stout. So today I have brewed, "I can't believe it's not Beamish"

OG 1,043 FG 1,011 ABV 4.2 IBU 43.7 SRM 37.1 Mash pH 5.4

4.5 kg Veloria Schooner.
0.50 kg Flaked Barley.
0.050 kg Roast Barley.
0.250 kg Chocolate Malt Late mash tun addition
0.250 kg J. Whites Dark Crystal Late mash tun addition
0.150 kg Simpsons Black Malt Late mash tun addition
Mash @ 62C . Water treatment 5 g Calcium Chloride and 1 gram Lactic Acid
34 litres of water.- Base malts
View attachment 95542 View attachment 95543
Temperature of the mash.- Iodine test @60 minutes shows no starch
View attachment 95545 View attachment 95546

Mash out and add the nonfermentable grain. - The big squeeze.
View attachment 95547 View attachment 95548
31 litres pre-boil. - The boil
View attachment 95549 View attachment 95550
After the boil was over. Overshot my gravity by 6 points!
View attachment 95551

Click to expand...

I read the 'overshot the gravity' caption while looking at the wooden dip stick picture and for a microsecond I thought you were somehow measuring the gravity with a wooden float .

Microsecond, honestly.

Twostage said:

Interesting pitching session this morning.

It was supposed to be 12 litres which fits nicely into my biggest stockpot but I thought I could squeeze 15 in. Took a gravity reading when the pot as about 1/4 full and it was 10 points off . Obviously because I doughed in too hot and it will have denatured the enzymes. No problem I'll just put sugar in. 375g sugar in and continued the fill. The pot looked quite full but I couldn't see how close it was because of the foam so I pitched the yeast over the foam to collapse it. Yep, it was nearly full so I had to find a way to split it. The problem was that all the sugar was at the bottom of the pot and all of the yeast was floating on the foam .
The solution was to decant most of it into the second pot, stir the sugar in and then decant back and forth a few times. Definitely aerated by this point .

Every days a school day .

Click to expand...

Bottled the Guinness clone. ABV is 3.8% which is OK. Had a sneaky sample of both batches and I think the smaller batch tasted cleaner which may or may not be a good thing . I'll know in a few weeks (or two days if it carbonates like the 80 bob which took 2 days). Also kegged/bottled the second batch of Cali Common. Can't remember what the ABV was . Still love my bench capper and bottle tree (why did I wait so long ?).

For a variety of reasons (holiday, work, illness, travel) I've not been brewing since December .

But the deadlock has been broken and I've got the got out at last and brewing a batch of my house saison! Stocks are incredibly low so hopefully I'll get a second batch on in a fortnight!

So other than a wash I'm not allowed to talk about, I threw in around 12 litres of Saison for the wife.
Whilst you might think "Why so little?" she's a token drinker. I mean genuinely, this will last her a year.
I'm tempted to get some 330ml bottles because the 500mls that I usually use are too much for her.

I've used half the amount I ordered, so I'll probably have to make it up in the next couple of weeks otherwise the hops will turn.

Tomorrow, I'm doing a NEIPA which I found the recipe on from reddit. It's a proper hoppy one - around 160g of Mosaic and 100g of Sabro (1/3 hopped on boil and 2/3 dry hopped))

Red Rye IPA to use up the bag ends of a few grains.

Water
Ca-114 Mg-10 Na-20 Co3-37 SO4-125 Cl-125

Mash - 60' @ 65c

Maris Otter - 64.5%
Roasted Rye Malt - 18%
Munich Malt - 15%
Crystal 77L - 6%
Flaked Maize - 1.5%
Roasted Barley - 1%
Dextrose (Boil) - 4%
First Gold (Home grown) - 30g

Batch -12.5L
OG -1.055
IBUs - 43
EBC - 27
ABV - 5.9%

Boil - 60'

Topaz - 5g @ FW
Chinook - 18g @ 15'
Protofloc - 0.3g @15'
Topaz - 30g @ 0'
Chinook -30g @ 0'

House Blend (2 parts S-33/Windsor, 1 part Notty, 1 part BE256)

Sadfield said:

Red Rye IPA to use up the bag ends of a few grains.

Water
Ca-114 Mg-10 Na-20 Co3-37 SO4-125 Cl-125

Mash - 60' @ 65c

Maris Otter - 64.5%
Roasted Rye Malt - 18%
Munich Malt - 15%
Crystal 77L - 6%
Flaked Maize - 1.5%
Roasted Barley - 1%
Dextrose (Boil) - 4%
First Gold (Home grown) - 30g

Batch -12.5L
OG -1.055
IBUs - 43
EBC - 27
ABV - 5.9%

Boil - 60'

Topaz - 5g @ FW
Chinook - 18g @ 15'
Protofloc - 0.3g @15'
Topaz - 30g @ 0'
Chinook -30g @ 0'

House Blend (2 parts S-33/Windsor, 1 part Notty, 1 part BE256)

Click to expand...

Are you using a mix of dry yeast or a starter from saved slurry

samale said:

Are you using a mix of dry yeast or a starter from saved slurry

Click to expand...

A mix of dry, for a hassle free, consistent, multistrain house yeast.

Just put on 17l of hard seltzer. Will be split in two and flavoured with cherry and black cherry respectively.

Even easier than kit brewing

So here's the IPA I've mentioned in my signature.
I've ignored the CTZ. I didn't have it and I'm not sure with all the hops in there it's that necessary.

This is going to be an "in your face" tropical IPA (which absolutely suits me - I'm aware it's marmite for some).

4kg American Pale Malt
0.5kg Flaked Oats
0.5kg Raw White Wheat


60g Mosaic (12% AA) @ Whirlpool (10 min in)
40g Sabro (14.3% AA) @ Whirlpool (10 min in)
90g Mosaic @ DH on day 3
60g Sabro @ DH

Yeast: Safale S-04

Process/Stats:

Mash: 68c for 75min
Boil: 60min
Dry hop: Day 3 of active fermentation
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.012
IBU: 40ish?
ABV: 5.9%

I tried one of the DIPAs last night. It's still not there, but it's 2 weeks old and I expected that.
I'll try another one next week.

It was an all-grain kit from HomeBrewCompany.

I need to work on my water.

With bottled water being so cheap, does anyone use this? I've got really high chlorine water (which is also hard).
Sadly Southern Water aren't great at telling me what's in it (other than sodium and so on) so I can't really use the calculator. I left the water overnight with a campden tablet in it.