A series of user upper brews

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MickDundee

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I’m starting a thread to make sure I actually do these user upper brews instead of buying more and more ingredients and ending up having to bin them.

Last autumn I inherited a load of hops and a little grain from someone who was moving away. The grain is all used now, but I still have loads of hops and other bits sitting waiting to be used . Some of them are old harvests (2018/19) and I really need to get them used up. I have 5 yeasts in stock (Lallemand London, Lallemand Koln, Lallemand Munich, Lallemand Abbaye and CML Pia) so have done a recipe for each yeast and they are:
  • An elderflower English Pale (Willamette to bitter, Celeia late addition and elderflower late in the boil)
  • A West Coast IPA (Chinook, Galaxy, Citra and Simcoe)
  • Kolsch (Hallerrau Blanc single hop)
  • A basic Hefeweizen (using the last of my Liberty hops)
  • A Belgian Blonde (using saaz as the only hop)
That will just leave me with Magnum (which I use a lot for my lagers anyway) and about 150g fuggles (which I’ll keep the unopened pack for a couple of bitters in the autumn), so I won’t feel guilty buying in more ingredients.

I’m off work today so will be starting the elderflower pale shortly.
 
Mash is on for the elderflower pale/golden. I think I’m going to do no sparge with this one given the small grain bill (I can handle around 4-4.5kg no sparge although efficiency drops to 65%).

4kg MO
250g wheat malt
Whatever golden syrup I have in the cupboard (I think about 200g) to go in at end of boil.

35g Willametter 60mins
20g Celeia 10mins
25g elderflower 10mins
20g Celeia 5mins
40g Celeia flameout

Lallemand London - it’s a low attenuator so I’m mashing at 65C and hoping the syrup dries it out
 
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I do like an elderflower pale.
I’ve only ever had Bird & Bees but it’s a nice summer drink. The dried elderflower was also inherited - not 100% sure how much and when I should be using but think I got 25g for 10mins from here (I was doing quite a lot of googling last night)
 
Off the top of my head, I think I use 10-15g in 10L batches in the last 10 minutes.

Darkstar Hylder is a favourite of mine when they brew it.
 
Just set the boiler to heat up for the boil and forgot to raise the grain basket 🤦‍♂️ Realised at 76.7C so will hopefully be ok, just like I’d done a short mash out!
 
User Upper Brew #2 - West Coast IPA

6kg MO
500g rye
150g Caramunich I

20g Chinook 60mins

20g chinook 10mins
20g Galaxy 10mins

10g Galaxy 5mins

20g citra flame out
30g simcoe flame out

50g chinook dry hop

Ferment with Pia


Had a pretty rubbish start to the day because one of my 10L FVs that I use for measure if grain has gone mouldy - I obviously put it away (stacked with the other one) before it was dry. I then jammed my grain mill because there was too much grain in the bucket.

Also tried to upload a couple of pics to this post and they haven’t worked.
 
Used leaf hops in the boil for the first time in years. Now both my tap and pump are clogged and I’m using the Fermentasaurus so pouring directly into the FV from the boiler isn’t an option 😡
 
Absolute disaster of a brew day. As well as the mouldy bucket I have had the following happen:
  • I had filled an empty keg with Starsan last night before kegging my elderflower pale this morning to free up the fermenting fridge. I left it emptying the Starsan into my spare FV while I milled my grain for today’s brew and came back to find I’d left the tap open on the FV - flooded the storeroom where I keep my kegerator.
  • Jammed my grain mill grinding the grain and had to take it apart to free it.
  • Forgot to use my hop spider and threw the hops in freestyle (the Galaxy was leaf hops). Blocked both the tap and the pump. In desperation I shoved my hand in the boiler to try and unblock them. Several times. In the end I got a jug out, sanitised it and scooped the liquid from my boiler and poured into my FV, hops, cold break and all. Wort and bit of hops all over my brew space!
  • I broke my hydrometer. “Not to worry” I thought, I inherited one with that other stuff. I got it out only to find that it’s a finishing hydrometer not a standard one so I can’t even measure my OG with it!
 
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