sneaky Saturday brew

dad_of_jon · May 9, 2015

Having not received my mail order supplies this weekend I was resigned to not brewing this weekend, hoever, in between ferrying my in-laws and OH around, I found myself in lakeland staring at the Â£14.99 can of brewmaker IPA, so despite recently having vowed not to buy from Lakeland again (I paid ouch for 50 bottle caps) I relented and bought the IPA. Turns out Â£14.99 was more reasonable than their bottle caps were!

And so

Brew no .7 was born!

1.8kg brewmaker ipa
1kg brewing sugar
500g dark candi sugar
500g muntons dme - medium
30g juniper berries at 15 mins
100g citra - 20g at 15 mins 80g to be dry hopped
1 litre boiled chase spring water to rinse can
3 litres chase spring water for additional wort

Added candi sugar, brewing sugar and muntons DME to 3 litre chase spring water. Brought to the boil for 15 mins and added 20g Citra pellets and 30g partially crushed juniper berries. During this time had loosened brewmaker ipa in a pan of hot water with 1 litre boiled water to rinse can.

poured brewmaker ipa in FV with 1 litre water then added additional wort through sieve

topped up with chase spring water (some bottles from freezer) to 21.5 litres.

fermentis s-04 yeast
brewed to 21.5 litres.
pitched at 28.5 deg c.
1.060 og

will add 80G citra in 9 or 10 days and bottle on day 14/15 :)

baggybill · May 9, 2015

Sounds real nice! Don't think I've seen juniper berries mentioned before - is that not a gin ingredient? Where did you get the dark candi sugar? Make it yourself?

MyQul · May 9, 2015

You pitched at 28.5C!? :shock:

Hope you got that bugger's temp down quick or it's gonna be fusil city

dad_of_jon · May 9, 2015

baggybill said:
Sounds real nice! Don't think I've seen juniper berries mentioned before - is that not a gin ingredient? Where did you get the dark candi sugar? Make it yourself?

Yes it used in gin.

gives a perfumy edge to the bitterness.

I bought 3 x 750ml bottles in eurotunnel a few years ago of a beer with juniper berries on the label, and it was one of the best beers I'd ever had, trying to re-create that

The dark candy sugar is brewpaks. I will have a go of making the clear version myself :-)

Slid · May 9, 2015

baggybill said:
Sounds real nice! Don't think I've seen juniper berries mentioned before - is that not a gin ingredient? Where did you get the dark candi sugar? Make it yourself?

Candi sugar is made by sticking your cheapest available sugar into a pan, pouring in the minimal amount of water to dissolve it and then driving off the water by slow boiling, whilst stirring and caramelising the sugars to the colour you need for the beer.

It is possible to complicate this, but it will make little difference to the yeast.

Same sort of methodology as for making toffees, fudges, cakes and stuff.

Juniper berries are associated with cooking venison (deer meat) as well as flavouring gin.

dad_of_jon · May 9, 2015

MyQul said:
You pitched at 28.5C!? :shock:

Hope you got that bugger's temp down quick or it's gonna be fusil city

Fear not, mon ami : cheers:

It is much lower now. I've pitched at that temp before and it's been fine. Although now I have to move the brew out of the kitchen to the coolest room in the house as the year warms up.(a north facing room)

I've never had a hangover in my life, only a mild headache on one or two occasions, but fusel hangovers do sound pretty scary :shock:

Slid · May 9, 2015

MyQul said:
You pitched at 28.5C!? :shock:

Hope you got that bugger's temp down quick or it's gonna be fusil city

Not too late now, by any sense, to get the temps down a wee bit, as the yeast will focus on replication first before conversion.

Putting the FV in a bath or large sink and adding cold water (to the outside) will drop the temps fast enough to work OK

MyQul · May 9, 2015

dad_of_jon said:
Fear not, mon ami :

It is much lower now. I've pitched at that temp before and it's been fine.

Good stuff . The first 24 - 48 hours is when the yeast make any off flavours like fusils

dad_of_jon · May 10, 2015

ambient temps for brew will be 17-20 deg C.

will possibly get one more on the go before summer temps require a change of tactic.

Then will tweak my wit? non cherie recipe from 3/4 of a bottle of cherry syrup for priming to 4 bottles of raspberry at primary fermentation time.

Whilst I suspect the optimum result would be racking wheat beer onto the syrup that would mean a third transfer for bottling and a few more calcs for abv

dad_of_jon · May 25, 2015

dad_of_jon said:
ambient temps for brew will be 17-20 deg C.

will possibly get one more on the go before summer temps require a change of tactic.

Then will tweak my wit? non cherie recipe from 3/4 of a bottle of cherry syrup for priming to 4 bottles of raspberry at primary fermentation time.

Whilst I suspect the optimum result would be racking wheat beer onto the syrup that would mean a third transfer for bottling and a few more calcs for abv

Update: Change of plan re: tweaking existing recipe. Raspberry syrup is 84g sugars per 100ml
whereas Cherry syrup was 64g sugars per 100ml so can't put the full 4x440ml bottles in :cry:

Hopefully raspberry taste is stronger per % of real juice used than cherry.
will find out soon enough.:-D

dad_of_jon · May 25, 2015

Update: 10.15 mellow bitterness - tasty orange grapefruit with a little juniper, works really well with Citra. My favourite trial sample to date. 6.83%

renaming beer to Orang-no-tang, Whoa!

Will fish out the larger hope particles with sterilised sieve, transfering to bottling bucket shortly.

dad_of_jon · May 30, 2015

30/05/15

Sneaky carbonation test as the 330ml pet test bottle had firmed up.
liquorish with fruit and vanilla aftertaste.
totally bizarre, where did the Citra go?

daughter likes it, I need extra opinions though :drink:

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