Ade's Self Build Boiler Brew Days - AG BIAB #12

#19 Tongue In Yer' Ear (any dog owners out there might get this name...) golden ale...

Brewed this one for 2 reasons:-

1) To give my wife something paler to drink.
2) To see if the onion I could taste in the POTUS-45 was the Jester hops, or just thanks to using too much of them, or thanks to having to syphon manually through a sieve... Pretty sure the metallic twang in the POTUS was from the brand new stainless steel parts in the boiler probably, as was the first brew I ever did after building it.

Oh, and I binned the Magnum hops I had. Brewed 2 beers with them, both tasted funky....

So, yeah, I'm no good at simple recipes these days...

Targets:-

Based on a brew house efficiency of 75% (for once I under-shot! I couldn't be bothered messing about with RO water and salts, so I used tap water and lactic acid.... Ended up with 69.5% brew house efficiency... Oh, and the power tripped 20 minutes before the end of the boil, so had to faff around trying to finish my boil, which didn't help any...).

OG: 1.043 (actual 1.040). Colour: 8.9 EBC. Bitterness: 38.4 IBUs (who knows after all of the faffing around...). Batch size: 14 Litres (Yay! A target I hit! lol).

Mash: BIAB full volume. 90 minutes @ 67 degrees C. Mash out for 15 minutes at 75.6 degrees C (rising over 25 minutes).

1200g Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
700g Munich Malt 10.8 EBC
400g Crips Pale Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC
200g Cara-Pils 3.9 EBC
100g Golden naked oats 18 EBC


Boil 70 minutes

@ 70 minutes 4g Admiral hop pellets 14.1% AA
@ 15 minutes 35g Jester whole hops 7.76% AA
@ 10 minutes 1/4 Protafloc
@ 5 minutes 1 tspn Tronozymol yeast nutrient

Pitched at 28 degrees C (lower than usual ....) with some Sigmund's Voss Kveik yeast. Not wrapping it with blankets this time either, I'm just letting it ride, see how it does.

FG sample taken today of #18 Susan's Hogswatch Porter. It's hit an FG of 1.013, giving me a very respectable apparent attenuation of 78.3% (the splashing and the nutrient seems to have done the trick then...).

Sample looked really good, nice and clear, very dark in colour once again:-



Both my wife and I tasted the sample. Her tasting notes consist of "A note of chocolate there", when I pushed her for any other flavours she may have detected, she expanded with "a note of beer...."... Not quite got her fully trained as a beer snob yet then... lol. I have to agree with her on the chocolatey notes, must be from the malts. Also very faint hints of a sort of black treacle/liquorice but that's really really faint. Other than that, the usual flavours you expect from EKG and Fuggles really. Absolutely delicious. I tried to talk my wife into letting me leave it unadulterated as it really is delicious as is, but she informed me that it's delicious with a hint of mint to it, based on the fact she had just brushed her teeth so was actually tasting it with that hint of mint present.... No biggy though, I have the recipe in Beersmith 3 and in my brew day folder, so can easily reproduce it any time for myself, brew a non-seasonal version of it with a normal name.

Took another SG sample from the golden ale today, SG of 1.008 which is probably FG. Flavour is, well, beer. Nothing special, but nothing overly unpleasant either. HOWEVER there's a suggestion in the hop flavour there that if I had used more of the Jester that it would have been a different story and I would have been cleaning the toilet with another batch.... So yeah, I now know where the onion came from. Pellet Jester might be a different story, but whole hop Jester is a nope from me, the rest are going in the bin sadly. Endeavour are a much much nicer hop, IMHO, a nice combination of traditional British with hints of citrus, where Jester I get traditional British with STRONG hints of onion.... Not good at all.

Making an early start today, as we were awake early so heh...

Today, I'm going to be brewing another of my experimental seasonal beers. This time in the form of:-

Binky's Baked Well Porter

Baked Well as aiming for a sort of Bakewell tart flavour, and an ABV in the region of 9.5%....

Full volume BIAB naturally, aiming for 14 litres into the FV, using an estimated 75% brew house efficiency (which I will likely overshoot, this been a porter....). I'll be mashing in a total volume of 21.35 litres of water, treated using half a Campden Tablet (our tap water has proven to be PERFECT for brewing porters with no additions etc beyond this). Mashing for 90 minutes at 67 degrees C, then rising over 25 minutes to 76 degrees C where it will be held for 15 minutes for mash out.

70 minute boil.

Targets: OG: 1.082. IBUs: 34.3. Colour: 60 EBC.

Grist:-

130g Oat Husks 0 EBC
2500g Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
600g BEST Munich Dark 28 EBC
300g Crisp Pale Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC
190g Brown Malt 128.1 EBC
180g Simpsons Chocolate Malt 1183.5 EBC
100g Simpsons Golden Naked Oats


Boil:-

@ 70 Mins - 17g Bramling Cross (pellet) 6% AA
@ 30 Mins - 20g Bramling Cross (pellet) 6% AA
@ 10 Mins - 1/4 Protafloc tablet
@ 5 Mins 800 Mls Cherry Lowicz Syrup (equivalent to 624g sugar) *WARNING this is EXPERIMENTAL and may go horribly wrong!!!!*
@ 5 Mins 1 Tspns yeast nutrient.

I'll then be cooling to 39 degrees C, and pitching some Sigmund's Voss Kveik slurry. Then wrapping it all up in a blanket to do what it does.

Once it's ready to bottle, I'll be adding 20 mls of almond extract at the same time as batch priming.

Took a couple of photographs whilst mashing, so thought I would share as usual, brighten up the thread once again.

The usual grain pic naturally...

New configuration for the temp probe. I need to re-orient the T before my next brew day, the temp probe is actually stopping me from opening the tap all of the way...

I put it that way around as I didn't want the pump sticking further out, but that just isn't ideal at all... So will have to have the probe coming out the front, and the pump below still. It's working well for measuring temps though, and I much prefer it convenience wise to having it in the lid. I can use it with the hose attached to the whirlpool tap for one thing, reducing the need to swap probes as often.

As you can possibly see, I've also gone back to my old grain bag. I get MUCH better flow through this than my new one, and can open my pump up much more. My new bag reduces flow a LOT, to the point where I have to run the pump on a trickle or risk a void forming under the false bottom. The down side, that bag is a pig for wanting to float, and also it tries to wick if you aren't careful. Really, I basically still need a better bag, one that combines a stiffer fabric with a fairly open pore structure, so I have the best of both bags in the one bag...

Well, I ended up with an extra litre (15 litres instead of 14), and an OG of 1.077 rather than 1.083, which meant my estimated brewhouse efficiency was pretty much spot on (I hit my estimated pre boil SG bang on...), whilst my estimated boil off wasn't quite reached. Not the end of the world though for me, as a beer with an estimated ABV of 8.8% is still strong enough for us....





I also ended up pitching at 27 degrees C, rather than the planned 39 degrees C... This cooler weather we are having making itself felt I fear. Should still be ready for New Year anyway, using the last of my Voss Kveik (the yeast I harvested from the Krausen, as the bit I had left from that ober-built starter had finally spoiled, it stank of vinegar when I got it out of the fridge.).

Still, I have a nice pouch of Omega Hothead Ale to start playing with next... Another nice traditional Norwegian strain, planning a nice Citra hopped porter made with it, darkly tropical.

That's number 21 done now too.... Finally got around to taking a stap at brewing something in the vicinity of a cloneish of Wychwood Dry Neck. Very much ish, has I had no recipe to use, and also because I've used Omega Hothead Ale yeast, a strain of Kveik.... So it's unlikely to be an exact match.

Faffed around with the water on this one, doing my water prep last night (make brew day a lot less bother). 15 litre of RO water, 5.92 litres of good old Severn trent, 1/3rd of a Campden tablet, 4mls Lactic acid (80%), 2g Calcium Chloride, 2g Epsom Salt and .2g Sodium Chloride (aka table salt). Don't copy this though unless you too have Severn Trent water obviously.

Used my usual estimated brew house efficiency of 75% in building my recipe, so...

Batch size: 14L into FV (hit this bang on), 19.55 litres into the boil (again, was bang on). Target OG 1.038 (overshot this, got 1.040 for a brew house of 79%). Colour 7.1 EBC. Bitterness (Tinseth): 35.3 IBUs.

90 Minute mash @ 66.7 degrees C (BIAB, full volume), mashing out at 76 degrees C.

1000g Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
700g Dingemans Pilsen Malt 3.2 EBC (for colour, and the bready flavour)
350g Munich Malt 17.7 EBC
200g Crisp Pale Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC



Pre mash out SG was 1.029, post mash out/pre boil SG was 1.033, illustrating why I do a mash out.



Boil was a 60 minute boil (short for me):-


@ 60 Minutes 12.0g Bobek (whole hops -ww) 3.6% AA
@ 60 Minutes 4g Waimea (ww) 15.10 AA

@ 10 Minutes 1/2 Protafloc
@ 10 Minutes 8g Belma (ww) 12% AA
@ 10 Minutes 8g Bobek (ww) 3.6% AA
@ 10 Minutes 8g Waimea (ww) 15.10% AA

@ 5 Minutes 1.5 tspns Tronozymol yeast nutrient

@ 0 Minutes 12g Belma (ww) 12% AA
@ 0 Minutes 16g Waimea (ww) 15.10% AA

Cooled to 35 degrees C, gave it a good whirlpool (sorta), then let it settle for a bit. Then transferred twice to give it a good splash. By the time I'd done this, is was a nice 30 degrees C. Left a nice bit of break material behind in the boiler...



Pitched my Hothead Ale yeast, airlock is blooping slowly already..



Sample



Gave my boiler a bit of a clean...

Brewed a porter yesterday.

Ponder's Paradise Porter

OG came in at 1.046 (target was 1.043, oops... lol). 28.9 IBUs. 50.3 EBC.

1200g Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
500g BEST Dark Munich 28 EBC
300g Pale Chocolate Malt 525 EBC
300g Crisp Pale Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC
190g Brown Malt 128.1 EBC
100g Simpsons Golden Naked Oats 18 EBC
20g Crisp Black Malt 1300 EBC

Mashed for 90 minutes at 66.7 degrees C, mash out at 76 degrees C blah blah blah, BIAB.



70 minute boil.

@ 70 minutes 6g Citra 13.1% AA pellets
@ 10 minutes 1/2 Protafloc
@ 10 minutes 15g Citra 13.1% AA pellets
@ 5 minutes 1.5 tspns Tronozymol yeast nutrient
@ 0 minutes 10g Citra 13.1% AA pellets

Dry hop 10g Mosaic 13% AA pellets

Cooled to 35 degrees C, transferred to FV (which after standing to settle etc, it cooled the other 5 degrees to 30 degrees C), then pitched approx. 10 mls of Hothead Ale yeast slurry, experimenting with under-pitching this yeast as you would with Voss.


By this morning, the first krausen was very well formed, so scooped it all out. Then just now I harvested the high krausen for some nice clean yeast for my stocks.



The wort smelled lovely, like toast and coffee with a hint of chocolate and tea. Yeast is giving off lovely overripe fruit/mango aromatics now though, which it didn't in the golden ale, where I pitched a full pouch. So I suspect that like Voss, you get the most flavour from this one by stressing it with a good under-pitch. Time will tell.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, as this is actually tomorrows brew day... Thought I'd get a start on things though, as I've already prepared my water and started the yeast starter, going to weigh the grain today too.

So, without further ado, I give you:-

Fuzzy Buzzy Bum - Old Ale

Yeah, and getting the funk on here, for the first time ever! Reason been, I'm going to be fermenting this with Wyeast Old Ale Blend 9097-PC, which has a bit of Brett mixed into it... So this has the potential to go very, very, wrong. But you only live once right? Besides, even if it goes sour, my wife likes sours (she also likes dry cider.... bleh!)…. Everything I've read about this yeast blend is, it gives the best flavours in a darker beer, so that's what I've come up with. Playing a bit of mix and match, drawing ideas from a Greg Hughes recipe (actually one published in Brewing Britain though, rather than "The Bible") and also the Old Peculier recipe from the other Bible (BYOBRA....), then adding my own twist and turns, et voila, undrinkable mud that's going to taste like horse sweat:-

Based on 75% brew house efficiency (yeah, and pigs fly out of my....)…

Est OG (lol): 1.070. Colour: 42.4 EBC. Bitterness: 48.8 IBUs. Batch size: 14 Litres.

Mash at 66.9 degrees C etc (BIAB). Brings out maltiness & bitterness water profile in Beersmith 3 (using RO & Severn Trent tap, with salts etc).

2800g Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
400g Bestmalz Dark Munich 28 EBC
250g Crips Dark Crystal 147.8 EBC
128g Simpsons Golden Naked Oats 18 EBC
120g Crisp Pale Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC
90g Crisp Chocolate Malt 1100 EBC

90 minute boil (it's brains out...)

@ 90 minutes 35g Challenger pellets 6.3% AA
@ 15 minutes 15g Fuggles whole hopos 4.5% AA
@ 10 minutes 1/2 Protafloc
@ 5 minutes 300g Polish honey (because we have some, and my wife won't let me use the orange blossom or the lavender honey....) 2.0 EBC
@ 0 minutes 15g EKG pellets 5.1% AA

Dry hop with 4g EKG for 3 days (it's going to fade during aging, but meh, whatever... Let's see what happens).

So yeah, that's Fuzzy Buzzy Bum. :tinhat: We'll know by maybe Christmas if it's any good.... aunsure....

Photo of the yeast in the packet (swelling it seems), and the starter wort sat on my stir plate waiting for the yeast... Just so, you know, there's a photo in this post...



Only using my 2 litre flask this time, as not overbuilding this overly (I won't be brewing using this yeast again this year), and 14 litres doesn't exactly call for a huge starter, it only needs one at all because of the 1.070 OG really.

Got the stir plate turned on already to get the starter wort nicely oxygenated.

If you're normally hitting 80% efficiency I don't see why 75% isn't attainable for 1.070. It all comes down to how well you sparge really.

foxbat said:

If you're normally hitting 80% efficiency I don't see why 75% isn't attainable for 1.070. It all comes down to how well you sparge really.

Click to expand...

It's easily attainable, as in I'm more likely to end up hitting 85% like I did last time around...… lmao You misunderstood me bud. I'd up my estimated BH in my software, but the one time I do that, I'll undershoot...… Oh, and I don't sparge, full volume BIAB bud, but when I use water treatment to make sure I get the mash pH spot on, I end up hitting 80-85%.... Luckily, on a brew like this, it'll still fall well within style, and the IBUs will still be good with the extra ABV, IF it happens again...… So I'd rather overshoot, than undershoot.

Tweaked the recipe very very slightly, purely because I didn't want to leave 8g of Golden Naked Oats in a bag (got another bag unopened anyway... Glad of this, as they really are a delicious addition to a grist). Didn't change the numbers any anyway. So grain is all weighed, and the water is sat in my boiler waiting for the morning. All I have to do tomorrow is turn it all on, dough in when it hits strike temp and weigh my hops etc. Should be an easier brew day.





Oh and yeah, I did put the lid on the boiler after taking that... Don't want anything drowning itself in there overnight... lol

So far, so good. Hit my pre-boil targets (1.045 SG, 20.5 litres of wort). So fingers crossed I hit the final targets.

Sadly, I'm now in quite a lot of pain. My back just went pop right near the end of my brew day. I wasn't even doing brewing stuff at the time, I pulled it a bit earlier when I slipped on a puppy pad, and well it just decided enough was enough just now...

Anyway, apart from the clean up, I've managed to finish off. Got 16 litres into my FV rather than 14 (I suspect that this was thanks to skimming the foam for the first time ever, reducing the quantity of break material in the boiler at the end, which allowed me to tip the boiler more. I'll see better once it's settled in the FV more). Bang on with the OG though, 1.070. My software as such is telling me that my BH efficiency was 86.4%, but this is purely the 2 extra litres I got into the FV.



I'm afraid that unless my wife wants to help, the clean up is going to have to wait.

OG sample pics...

Brewed another yesterday.....

Squiggle Wiggle

Now I'm not going to name the style here, as already got into an argument on a Facebook group over it once, and I don't want another argument. Basically the style I think it is, well the yeast I've used isn't traditional for that style... However, my argument was that this particular style is one that allows flexibility... So let's just go with a farmhouse ale, and avoid arguments.

I had some fun designing this one, used it to use up some grain I had left sitting around, always a bonus with a "farmhouse ale". Pretty certain my refractometer played silly on me though, as I was expecting to come in UNDER target, and came in slightly over target.... You'll see.

The recipe.

Estimated OG (based on estimed BH Efficiency of 75%): 1.053. Target volume into fermenter: 16 Litres (actually 14 litres though, as I wanted 2 litres for a real wort starter...). Estimated Colour: 19.4 EBC. Estimated IBU: 22.6.

The mash.

I got a bit fancy here, and decided to experiment with a protein mash. I wanted to see if it was true about this helping with chill haze mainly. So, 20 minutes at 55 degrees C, then rising over 15 minutes to 65 degrees C (was a bit quicker than this really) and held at 65 degrees C for 55 minutes, then rising over 20 minutes to 75 degrees C and held for 15 minutes for mash out. Full volume BIAB.

In the mash:-

2800.00 g Pilsen (Dingemans) (3.2 EBC)
397.00 g Caramunich II (Weyermann) (124.1 EBC)
260.00 g Pale Wheat Malt (Crisp) (3.5 EBC)
207.00 g BEST Munich Dark (BESTMALZ) (28.0 EBC)

Sorry, I didn't take a photo this time. Looked milkier than I get from a normal mash though.

The boil.

Nothing fancy here, 70 minute boil. I did however skim the protein scum to see if our dogs liked it. They enjoyed it, nommed it down happily (NB. obviously no hops were added prior to this been skimmed, hops been toxic for dogs).

In the boil:-

Hops were all whole ones, no pellets. Used a big bag to contain them.

22.00 g Saaz [3.63 %] - Boil 70.0 min 11.7 IBUs
0.50 Items Protafloc (Boil 10.0 mins)
12.00 g Mandarina Bavaria [8.90 %] - Boil 10.0 min 5.5 IBUs
7.00 g Waimea [15.10 %] - Boil 10.0 min 5.4 IBUs
4.00 g black pepper corns (Boil 10.0 mins)
1.00 tsp Tronozymol (Boil 5.0 mins)
12.00 g Mandarina Bavaria [8.90 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
12.00 g Saaz [3.63 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
7.00 g Waimea [15.10 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs

The pepper corns were VERY lightly crushed only. This I did take a photo of...




End of the boil, I cooled to 43 degrees C, removed my immersion chiller and left the pump to swirl it for a bit. Then left it with the pump off to settle, before transferring to a clean and sanitised FV. I then transferred it from a height into another clean and sanitised FV, apart from 2 litres that went into a sanitised 3 litre flask to be used as a starter for an unrelated brew....

The plan was that with the wort been cooled to 43 degrees that it might be 40 degrees C when I pitched the 1 tspn of Voss slurry.... Nope, it had falled to 34 degrees C by that point... Got on with it anyway, and wrapped the FV with a couple of blankets. The 2 litre starter got wacked on my stir plate and allowed to cool a bit longer, once it was ready I pitched the Imperial A09 Pub into it, basically overbuilding. Good job that it's Imperial yeast really, as forgot to mention, OG actually came out at 1.054... Bit high for a starter to be honest, but I just went with it.

Last photo, the OG sample of the wort, in a glass for the photographs...



Orange...

Oooh, peppery orangey maltiness! That sounds interesting.

cushyno said:

Oooh, peppery orangey maltiness! That sounds interesting.

Click to expand...

Hoping so bud. I should get nice tangerine flavours from the Mandarina Bavaria as I have when used before, and last brew I made with Waimea it gave a load of lemon flavour, so hoping for sort of peppery orange and lemon, with as you say some nice malt notes from the dark munich and caramunich II, with the usual bready notes from the Dingemans pilsen. I was planning to use some orange blossom honey in the boil originally too, but I've had to brew this a lot sooner than I was expecting, so haven't had time to buy any. I COULD have chucked any old honey in, but didn't want to do that and possibly wreck it.

Oh and quick update on the starter. It was really bugging me how over on the OG it was, even more after I did more research. So I diluted it with a further 650mls of boiled and cooled water, down to 1.040, then split it to reduce the volume as my stir plate couldn't cope with 2650mls in one flask.... So now I have one starter on the stir plate, which is STILL fighting with a thick layer of yeast that's only just staying suspended as it really, really, is trying very hard to flocculate out, and a smaller starter which I'm shaking regularly with a thinner layer in it. The one thing I know is, by the gods it's produced a LOT of yeast already, and shish Imperial A09 Pub is as flocculent as they describe for sure.....

Well, sadly I'll not be knowing if it was going to be any good, as it's going down the drain. The slurry mustn't have been viable, and some wild Brett got in there instead.... Incredibly slow fermentation compared to Voss, and just tasted the sample and it has that infamous medicinal/Elastoplast flavour so well known for wild yeasts..... Not a good wild yeast, oh no, couldn't have been luckly like that as I would have shrugged and carried on, nope I got the Elastoplast one... lol

So now down the drain it goes, and my FV will be getting an extra thorough clean (I use percarbonate to clean with anyway, so should kill it off without too much trouble).

I'll also be binning the Voss slurry that I inoculated with, to be certain just in case that's the source of the wild yeast.... I'll start with a new, clean, source of Voss down the line somewhere.

What a bloody shame! Sorry to hear its final resting place!

TBH with all the things you managed to fit into that particular brew it will be almost impossible to discover exactly where the infection came from; in which case I recommend that you start to sanitise everything!