Bluebird Bitter

[Birkin]

I was at a bit of a loose end this aft so decided to out a brew in.

It's almost a SMASH, it's a bluebird bitter clone,

4.2kg Maris otter
250g Crystal

And Challenger hops,

23g fwh
23g start of boil
15g last 5 mins
15g dry hop, half a day before bottling

I just checked the mash temp and both digital thermometers are reading 66.6 degrees. Spooky.

Yeast is White labs 013

Going well so far!

 

[Notlaw]

Nice, I like Bluebird... Although not as much as the Bluebird XB that they do in the pub where the brewery is.

 

[Birkin]

I think it went well, overshot the target fg a touch and mash temps were right where I wanted them, so I'm happy.

It all got a bit hazy towards the end, someone once told me it's a good idea to have a bottle of your last brew on brewday.

I found a bottle of my first AG, which was a lager made with beer yeast, I have to say it is actually very, very good, then a bottle of Hobgoblin, then a bottle of my second Hobgoblin, then some Stout..

You get the idea.

This last time I had more digi temp gauges, I had 2 tied to the strainer at the bottom of the grain bed and one on top, I discovered that sparging at about 90 degrees gradually heats up the grain bed, and towards the end of sparge it equalised niceley at 78 degrees, those extra thermometers really helped me to see what's going on!

 

[Birkin]

I just checked the og from a last night sample now that it's cooled and the froths settled, I hit 1.050

The target was 1.043 with 70% efficiency.

My mash efficiency has improved so much since I thinned the mash and spent more time doughing in properly.