Back on the brewing wagon! XX Bitter
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IainM
Landlord.
Nope. At 7.3% my Bohemian Pilsner wasn't quite within the style guidelines.
Nope. At 7.3% my Bohemian Pilsner wasn't quite within the style guidelines.
Hahaha that's comforting to know! I'd be quite up for a 7% bohemian pilsner to be fair. Was it good?
I've done some strong French beers using Bohemian Pilsner and a Kolsch like yeast and they were really nice. They sometimes use lager yeast at a higher temperature too.
IainM
Landlord.
It's still conditioning, but the odd cheeky sample is promising. For some reason, I misread the packet of Saaz at 3.2% AA instead of 3.5% AA, which is just as well really.
This one seemed to settle at 1.012 after 3 weeks which seems in the right ball park given the higher ABV on an all malt brew. I've bottled now aiming for about 2.8 vols of CO2 and it's back in the fridge at 19C to carbonate. I'll give it about a week and then get it in the cold back room to settle.
My next will be a Blond Biere de Garde which will be along the lines of what I've described a few posts up. 100% German Pilsner and Kolsch yeast. Aiming for about 7% funnily enough! @IainM
My next will be a Blond Biere de Garde which will be along the lines of what I've described a few posts up. 100% German Pilsner and Kolsch yeast. Aiming for about 7% funnily enough! @IainM
Had a sneaky 1 week in the bottle taster and it seems quite nice but it'll need more time before I can tell if the bitterness is right. It's quite sweet and estery at the moment and once the trub drops out it'll dry out a lot and the bitterness will come through. Promising though and no detectable off flavours so far. More updates to follow....
After week 2 it's pretty pleasant and on the way to clearing. A touch more dry than it was, very refreshing and quite bitter but not as much so as the real deal.
Maybe more time in the bottle will lean it out and make it seem more bitter. Bloody easy to drink though.
I'm quite impressed by t58. It's made me a pretty tasty brew!
Maybe more time in the bottle will lean it out and make it seem more bitter. Bloody easy to drink though.
I'm quite impressed by t58. It's made me a pretty tasty brew!
This has cleared quite nicely so I thought I'd test it out against something from De Ranke.
I had a bottle of XXX Bitter which is basically the same as XX bitter but with another 50% extra hops.
The bitterness pops out a lot more than mine and even taking the extra 50% of hops into account. I'm sure I'd find this with the standard XX bitter too.
Mine is stronger and a bit sweeter but the yeast profile is pretty similar so I think T-58 is what they use. I'm considering trying this again with a bit less malt to see if I can nail it. I'm fairly sure I'd get better attenuation if I lowered the strength a bit. I'm at almost 7% whereas the real thing is only 6%.
Getting the hops to pop out might be a different story though. I use a hop spider in my Braumeister but it gunked up quite a lot and was hard to drain the wort through it. It's pretty much like a narrow malt pipe with a very fine mesh. I've had issues with the pump and taps getting gunked up with this amount of hops. I might try some hop bags instead.
I'm very happy with this beer though. It goes down really easy so I can see it being a permanent fixture over the summer.
I had a bottle of XXX Bitter which is basically the same as XX bitter but with another 50% extra hops.
The bitterness pops out a lot more than mine and even taking the extra 50% of hops into account. I'm sure I'd find this with the standard XX bitter too.
Mine is stronger and a bit sweeter but the yeast profile is pretty similar so I think T-58 is what they use. I'm considering trying this again with a bit less malt to see if I can nail it. I'm fairly sure I'd get better attenuation if I lowered the strength a bit. I'm at almost 7% whereas the real thing is only 6%.
Getting the hops to pop out might be a different story though. I use a hop spider in my Braumeister but it gunked up quite a lot and was hard to drain the wort through it. It's pretty much like a narrow malt pipe with a very fine mesh. I've had issues with the pump and taps getting gunked up with this amount of hops. I might try some hop bags instead.
I'm very happy with this beer though. It goes down really easy so I can see it being a permanent fixture over the summer.
Annoyingly despite a really promising start I can taste some oxidation and the colour has got a bit darker. Bummer!
At least this narrows it down to bottling I think. I'm careful to avoid splashing when transferring to a bottling bucket. I batch prime and boil a sugar solution in water which should drive off oxygen.
I use a bottling wand and have heard people don't like these. Maybe that's the source. I did try a length of siphon tubing when bottling my most recent brew but it was really messy, getting beer everywhere and the spigot on my bottling bucket has a little hole so it lets air in between bottles. That didn't seem suitable.
Any tips other than kegging?
At least this narrows it down to bottling I think. I'm careful to avoid splashing when transferring to a bottling bucket. I batch prime and boil a sugar solution in water which should drive off oxygen.
I use a bottling wand and have heard people don't like these. Maybe that's the source. I did try a length of siphon tubing when bottling my most recent brew but it was really messy, getting beer everywhere and the spigot on my bottling bucket has a little hole so it lets air in between bottles. That didn't seem suitable.
Any tips other than kegging?
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