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MEB

Landlord.
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I decided to go for another 'experimental' brew.
Here's the recipe
3035g MO
3015g Pilsner Malt
366g Carapils
188g Amber Malt

20g Sticklebract FWH
28g NZ Goldings 90 mins
20g NZ Styrians 15 mins
50g Nelson Sauvin STEEP 20 mins

1 tsp Irish Moss

1968 ESB yeast.

Off to sort my pic's out. :D
 
OK. Hands up. I admit it. I've been a bit slack. Had a great weekend though. :grin:

I'm processing the images now and will then upload them and then get em on here. I'm gonna use my point and shoot cam for my brewing pic's. It takes too long doing it with my 'real'( :ugeek: ) cam.

By the way Wez, Vossy1 etc. You guys should have a reasonable idea about how it'll turn out if all goes to plan. Whats the chance of pils malt and Maris otter at 50/50 being alright? Do you think it'll be ok?
I'm using it to try to get a really light, almost lager coloured base colour and light flavour but without being bland. Do you think i'm in the right area or am i way off? And this carapils stuff. Whats all that about? :?
 
You guys should have a reasonable idea about how it'll turn out if all goes to plan

Carapils doesn't really add much in the way of colour or sweetness. It's used principally to aid in foaming/head retention, and to give body/mouthfeel via the dextrins it contains.
The pilsner and maris will certainly give you a light beer whilst the amber will add a little colour.
I'm not too sure about the grist ratio as I've never experimented with pilsner malt.

Should be interesting :cool:
 
Cool. Thanks V1. Here's to hoping then. ;)

I got side tracked again last night by a friend popping round and a bit of a session ensued. :cool:
But all my pic's have been uploaded so i'll continue with my brewday report now. :clap:

First off. I decided to do a loose mash. Don't know why i just fancied it. :) So i filled my MT with 21L strike liquor.
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My Grains are on the left of the MT being filled.
 
I masheds in my grains and got a spot on 66C temp reading. Which i was v happy about. :grin:

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So i wrapped my MT up in my trusty old sleeping bag-which is now getting a bit mouldy and smelly so will need to be washed. A job for SWMBO obviously. :lol:

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I weighed out my hops and bagged them up ready for the boil. This is only my second go at first wort hopping. I like it-even if it does nothing to improve my beer the smell is fantastic. :cool:

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The first runnings came ouit quite murky-i ended up recirculating approx 4L. About the most i've ever had to recirculate. :eek:

The first runnings tasted lovely though. :grin:

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Within ten minutes the runnings had got lovely and clear. They still tasted great. :P

I sparge very slowly-the flow rate here is around 1L every 3 mins. I had no issues keeping the HLT at temp(85C-ish) and the sparge went well. I took this 'slack' period as time to sample a beer. :grin: I cover the top of the MT with towels to help keep the temp loss to a minimum. No pic-will get one next time. :geek:

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Here are the first runnings going into my kettle. The smell at this point is fabulous. Even if you don't think this works it's worth doing for the smell whilst your brewing. If this doesn't make you think your brew is gonna be great i don't know what would. I add 1tsp rock salt to the kettle at this point too.

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The salt addition was reccomended to me by Ross at Craftbrewer. He is on water catchment the same as me and he say's it helps get some minerals in the water and also brings out the flavours. Just like adding salt when your cooking. I haven't done a back to back test so don't have any input yet. My beers do seem to taste better with the addition of a tsp salt to the boil though. :geek:

Once the wort comes up to boiling point the 90min hops go in.

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I collected 30L of wort at 11.2 Brix (SG 1.043) and therefore had to decant 3L wort to a holding bucket. I can only boil 25-27L ish at a time. I wait for the hot break to subside and then i trickle in the excess wort over a half hour period.

The hot break...

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After the hot break subsides i begin trickling in my extra wort.

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If the boil gets too slow i stop for a while. Or if the volume of wort gets too high i also stop. I'll then allow wort to boil down a bit and start trickling in again.
 
With 15 mins to go i add the 15 min hops and my immersion chiller. Ten mins and i add the tsp of Irish Moss i've been rehydrating. At this stage the level of wort is usually around the 24-25L mark and the boil is quite fierce. I find this helps the beer to clear better. I'm sure someone can tell me why.

The cold break. You can see the little bits of protein coagulating. This i guess, will be the trub that's left behind. :cool:
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Once the temp of my wort gets to 85C i turn the chiller off. This usually leaves the wort at around 80C.

See. I told ya it does. :lol:
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So in go the steep hops. These will steep for 20 mins and then the chiller gets turned on again.

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After the wort has cooled to 22C i then transfer to a FV.

The hops look a bit spent now...

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All went well really. I had a moment when i nearly had a boil over. Another few moments when flies nearly got in my beer but overall a good brewday. :cool:

And an experiment for me. Some of my friends say i should brew a lager-ish beer. But i'm not keen on lager. So this is the start of a lager-ish pale ale thingy. I'm hoping the Nelson sauvin will provide a good fragrance and the malts provide a nice taste to match the main hops. All of which are NZ hops. Hence the NZPA. :) But i'm prepared to have many goes at this before getting something i'd happily serve. :D
 
Those are some fab pics there mate :) great camera!

looks like you had a goodun'
 
BrewStew said:
Those are some fab pics there mate :) great camera!

looks like you had a goodun'

Don't you mean ''great photographer' :lol: :lol: :lol: Nothing to do with the camera. :whistle:
 
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