Brew weekend- Slovenian single hop ales

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DanST

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So I've had a pretty busy weekend. I was lucky enough to be one of the winners of the recent Get'er brewed competition so decided to have a bash at a my first few ag brews. Nothing like repetition for learning so I did 3x1gallon brews, 1 Friday night, Sat and today, Sunday. The method was based Clibit's simple ag thread. Here are the recipies;

Grain (same for each brew)
1kg maris otter
80g carapils

Hops

Brew 1
60 min 5g styrian cardinal 9.2%
5 min 5g styrian cardinal
0 min 5g styrian cardinal

Brew 2
60min 4g styrian eureka 9.9%
5min 4g styrian eureka
0 min 5g styrian eureka

Brew 3
60min 4g styrian Dana 11.5%
5min 4g styrian Dana
0min 5g styrian Dana

Each brew had 1\4 whirlfloc tablet at 15min and are currently fermenting at 19-20°C in a water bath with 1\3 pack each MJ west coast yeast.
 
Brew 1
Unsurprisingly I made quite a few clangers doing this as it was my first attempt. Mashed in 3L at 68 which dropped to 64 over the hour. Sparged with 4L however I was only left with about 2.5L after the boil. I think this is due to my big 19L pot. I bought it planning to do 10L batches so when doing the smaller volume there's a lot of air space when mashing and the boil of rate was very high. Also I transferred the wort too a demijohn by pouring it through a sieve which I now know will not catch trub\cold break material. May try adding some fininings once my mud has finished fermenting.

Other issue was my low mash efficiency, once the cooled wort was diluted to 4L the SG was 1.044, which is reasonable but only around 50% efficiency.
 
Brew 2
Increased the volumes here, mashed in 4L sparged with 6L ended up with about 4.5L so that was an improvement. Also passed the wort through a sterilised muslin once cooled so it's a lot clearer.

Mash temp was 68 dropping to 63 but my efficiency was poor again. SG was 1.038
 
DanST said:
Also I transferred the wort too a demijohn by pouring it through a sieve which I now know will not catch trub\cold break material. May try adding some fininings once my mud has finished fermenting.
Click to expand...

I normally just chuck all the break material in with the wort. Once its finished fermenting it settled out to the bottom of the FV and I just carefully rack bottle it straight from above the trub. My beer is as clear as if I didn't chuck in the all the trub.
 
Brew 3
This one went comparatively well. Mashed in 3L at 68°C and added more insulation. After an hour I reheated it from 64 to 68 and gave it a good stir. Wrapped it up again for another hour.

Ended up with 4.5L again and SG of 1.046. This is apparently 60% so not too bad and improving at least.

Despite the misshaps I really enjoyed the whole process. SWMBO was less than happy with the house smelling like a brewery all weekend however. She hates the smell of hops and beer so Saturday morning when she had a hangover was fun :lol:

I'll post some more updates at tasting time.
 
Took samples of all 3 today and, of course, had a taste:

Brew 1 Styrian Cardinal
Firstly I was very pleased by how well this has cleared as there was loads of gunk in this.
G 1.013 ~4.1%
This had quite a subtle citrusy hop taste. Think I'll dry hop it once I've figured out when I can bottle it to bring the hop flavour out a bit more.

Brew 2 Styrian Eureka
G 1.01 ~3.7%
The description of this one was pretty spot on as I thought lychee straight away when I tasted it (I didn't read it before tasting) the creamy aftertaste was there too and was also very nice. Possibly a little bland on it's own but would work well in conjunction with something a bit floral maybe in a bitter?

Brew 3 Styrian Dana
G 1.012 ~4.5%
Got a nice fruity taste to this one. Perhaps a bit more powerful than I'd expect from the description but not too much with the amount I used. Could probably get away with more if you're a hop head but just right for my tastes.

Should be able to get these bottled by next weekend and I'll add a bit more once they are ready. Can't wait. I can definitely see them being ready much sooner than the more malty kit brews which I've mostly done so far.
 
Got these bottled today. Gave the styrian cardinal brew a 5 day dry hop with ~3g, the others seemed ok so I didn't bother.

I'm away the next 3 weekends so think the first proper tasting will be during the Wales England match. Looking forward to both!
 
Due to swmbo not following orders correctly (lol) I'm currently supping one of my styrian dana brews. Not cleared properly yet but it's lovely. Definitely drinkable already and much fresher tasting than a kit brew. Got a nice balance between the hops and the malt. Can't pick out much character from the yeast but I picked mj wc as it's meant to be a nice clean fermenting yeast so that's fine.

As for the dana hop it's a very nice subtle floral taste, maybe with a bit of fruity flavour. I could imagine it working well in an English style pale or bitter to sup in the sun when the weather perks up. It's nice on its own but I'd be a bit bolder and add a bit more if I brewed it again. Played it safe this time as I'm not a hop head.
 
Tried a bottle of the styrian cardinal last night and it was cracking. Lovely mixed fruit taste so I think the dry hop was a good call. Reminded me of shipyard pale ale they sell in wetherspoons.

Think this hop would suit American style pale ales and ipa's.
 
Nice, did you get any strawberry aroma/taste I have a cardinal pale with a bit of wolf in it and the strawberry was very prominent to my taste buds
 
Not obviously, I got a general mixed fruit taste and aroma from it. I'll see if I can pick up anything next bottle I have.

My last brew was bittered with styrian wolf and the smell was amazing when I chucked it in the boil. Can imagine the two combined coming out nicely.
 
Last edited:
That's really interesting. I have a cardinal/wolf IPA that is just at 3 weeks conditioning so I tried a bottle today [emoji6] the taste and smell was very strange. I can't quite place it. And I'm not sure if it's a taste/smell that I like to be honest. I wonder if they are a bit too berry like. I think I'm going to give it another few weeks to condition and then do a proper taste and post my review of those hops after that.
 
Now that you mention it that does sound a bit weird! :lol:
I must admit I am not sure if I like the flavour from the cardinal either at the moment, I am also hoping it will mellow a bit. I didn't use a huge amount of it but perhaps it is one that needs to be used sparingly or balanced against other less fruity options
 
HisDudeness said:
Now that you mention it that does sound a bit weird! :lol:
I must admit I am not sure if I like the flavour from the cardinal either at the moment, I am also hoping it will mellow a bit. I didn't use a huge amount of it but perhaps it is one that needs to be used sparingly or balanced against other less fruity options
Click to expand...

I find hop flavours,bitterness, etc will always mellow given enough time. So I always tend to overdo it where hops are concenered as I think it's better to overdo it and then just leave it to condition out than not have enough and wish you'd put in more
 

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