Eldorado and Amarillo pales

This is a bit of an advance post on this weekend's planned brews.

It's a double header, recipes to follow. I'm making one 16L batch of wort which will end up as two separate, though similar 8L batch pales, one hopped with Amarillo and eldorado, the other just eldorado

It'll be a simple grain bill, MO plus a bit of crystal and/or caramalt.

I'm very excited about these brews, but at the same time though I'm rather apprehensive, as I'm trying a lot of new things at once.

Exciting things:
- I love Amarillo and descriptions of eldorado (tropical fruit, watermelon, jolly ranchers) are intriguing. Right up my street. And I'm going to chuck a lot of them in.

- Vermont ale yeast. This apparently turbo charges hoppy beer. Not used it before but it sounds amazing. I'll find out.

- I'm getting two beers for the price of one, sort of.

Nerve wracking things:
- for the first time, I'm going to fanny about with my water profile with various chemicals, based on recommendations in my murphys water report.

- the Vermont ale yeast can be finicky, needing good temp control. I can't necessarily offer that good control. Foolhardy? Maybe, but if you don't try...

- I'm also making a starter for the Vermont which I'm no expert at

- two batches in one day is a fair amount of work so I'm preparing the sweet wort the day before, and doing two boils the next day.

So...we'll see what happens... If it works, I think some amazing beer might be created. If it fails...Christ knows what I'll have!

It's all part of the fun though!

When I get round to trying out using your murphy's suggested additions, I think I'll do two brews one straight water and one adjusted water, so I've got a comparison.

What are you gonna do to the sweet wort overnight to protect from nasties, cling film and in the fridge or what?

Never had a brew with eldarado hops but looking right now to get some

bought some el dorado a couple of weeks ago so interested to see what you think of them before I schedule in a brew.

Never got round to this today, life got in the way. have to be next weekend now.

Life's a bitch at times aint it

I'm brewing El Dorado today. Bought them a few weeks ago on the back of your other post I think. I've read that they pair up well with citra but unfortunately my local shop didn't have any so I've gone with cascade. I'm using magnum for bittering.

Keen to find out how the vermont yeast goes as I want to try this myself.

This is back on this weekend. Just got my starter wort cooling before lobbing in the Vermont.

Mashing tonight, keeping sweet wort in an fv overnight and then doing the two boils tomorrow.

It's gonna be intense.

Hmm. I've got to heat my mash water in the shed and it's blowing a bloody gale out. Could be a miserable evening!

What a bloody nightmare.

Kitchen sink was blocked as I started putting mash water in pot...spent 45 minutes sorting that out, turned out to be an enormous block of fat plugging it up. Anyway sorted the fat, now the piping won't go back together.

Anyway, figured I'd carry on with the mash, despite being an hour behind schedule. By now it's pi**ing down with rain and a hurricane is settling in for the evening, as I start heating 24L worth of treated water. 10g dwb and 25ml of ams, as recommended by my murphys report.

Anyway, it's mashing now. Had to do it all in the dark with a small led lamp, Traipsing mud in and out of the house every time.

Mash will be done by 9.40 then I've got a 5L sparge to do.

Slightly wishing I'd never started this...

Edit: having one of my rye pales while the mash is on is almost making it seem ok. It's matured brilliantly in the bottle, a really good blend of juicy hops and spicy rye malts. Yum!

Hang in there Gareth, needs must when the devil drives.

I guess you'll be sparging about now then, don't know if I dare ask if you are doing ph adjustment on this one?

cheapbrew said:

I guess you'll be sparging about now then, don't know if I dare ask if you are doing ph adjustment on this one?

Click to expand...

Yep, sparged about 9.45. Got exactly the volume I needed, then realised I had calculated my volumes based on two 8L batches but the recipes were for 10L...

About to boil the first batch and having to add 2.5 L

This has been a farce so far.

Aim is to be done by 3 so I can watch the rugby with a beer in my hand...

Got to fix the kitchen sink at some point too...

I hope you have a good day Gareth :thumb:

Did you adjust the PH as per Murphy's?

cheapbrew said:

I hope you have a good day Gareth :thumb:

Did you adjust the PH as per Murphy's?

Click to expand...

Certainly did!

Just put the eldorado in. I'm doing the single hop brew first. Immediatelay it's giving off some perfume. Think this is going to be an interesting brew to say the least! Must post recipe, will do that now!

Recipe
For two 10L batches, grain was:

4000g Maris otter
120g caramalt
120g crystal 30

Should give me an OG of 1050, though with the faffing with volumes I'm not sure where I'll end up. Should end up around 4.9% if I get 75% from the Vermont yeast

Batch 1: eldorado single hop pale

7g eldorado @ 60m
10g eldorado @ 10m
20g eldorado @ FO

Will dry hop with about 40g.
Vermont ale yeast
Ibu: 40

Batch 2: eldorado and Amarillo pale
6g Amarillo @60m
4g eldorado @60m
5g Amarillo @10m
5g eldorado @10m
10g Amarillo @ FO
10g eldorado @ FO

Dry hop later with 20g each.

Vermont ale yeast
Ibu 40

Last of my interminable updates for the day.

First batch, the single hop, hit OG 1050 and volume (10L) bang on. Hence the 'lucky' brewer thing. Christ knows how I got that right.

Second brew, despite being the same wort and boil timing was half a litre or so short and a bit over at 1054. Think I must have boiled it harder and so lost more. Topped up slightly as a result.

Pitched the Vermont starter into both after chilling (chiller works brilliantly with this lovely cold water) and both fvs are snug as a bug under the stairs. All done and cleaned up by 1230 which was a miracle.

Helped that the father in law came and fixed the sink. It's very handy having a mechanic/ general handyman in the family.

That's enough from me on these brews now though, til I dry hop next week. It's been fun.

good to hear it all went well despite boiling off more on 2nd, but it'll end up near the right og after topping up though eh, and result getting the sink fixed by the FIL

Wasn't going to do more updates but...

Happiness is two fvs and a very bubbly airlock. Which smells like heaven, though with more hops...

Dry hops in these two brews just now, with a view to bottling Friday. I'm going to Wales for the weekend so took Friday off work just so I could bottle then!

Used up all the remaining Amarillo and eldorado, so the eldorado single hop got 42g eldorado, and the Amarillo/eldorado got 35g of Amarillo and 5 of Eldorado.

Checked FG too, both have hit 1012 exactly as predicted. I was pleased with that as I had some concerns over how well I'd handled the Vermont ale yeast, but it seems to have attenuated exactly as expected.

Sampled the eldorado, very nice. Silky smooth and hoppy, obviously underdeveloped but definitely interesting. The dry hop will give it a big boost, there's 4g per litre in there!

It's gonna be a long five weeks before these babies are ready for glugging!