Horners' Brewdays

Lovely weather in South East London for an al fresco brewday. After a 3 month hiatus I am treating 1 September as the first day of the new brew season.

First step was to cancel the in laws coming round for lunch. I am already enjoying having absolutely no time pressure today - memo to self to only brew on days where no other committments.

Step two: After a quick inventory of kit and ingredients procrastinate for an hour over what to brew. Exmoor gold type wins out.


Step 3: Rudimentary water treatment


Step 4 mash in at 70. Debut outing for inkbird dual probe thermometer which after things settle confirms mash temperature of 66C with very little variance between centre of mash and top.







Step 5 - dont normally bother but as I'm taking my time I measure pH - not sure how accurate this is TBH and probably needs recalibrating. In any case at 5.7 its a bit higher than anticipated.



To be continued.....

Update

Mash held its temp with no additional heat source





So then it was step 6 vorlaef, lauter, sparge etc





Step 7 - hours boil I find that with this Klarstein Maischfest you need to keep it well below line to avoid boil over. I top up with third runnings as I go along.



Step 8: Whilst it was boiling I used the time to clean the latest shiny toy with TSP. Loving the fact it has a thermowell. Managed to get down to 27 with ground water (not bad its 21C here today after a warm week).





Step 9: Gravity reading and weigh the FV - ended up with just over 22L in FV with OG of 1.043 - pretty much spot on and that gave a BHE of 75%. As ever my wort is cloudier than a lot that I see posted on here.



Now in the brew fridge to drop a few more degrees before pitch Safale -04.

A relatively thorough brew day for AG #14. Lets hope its a good un as need some Autumn session ale.

Final recipe:

Brew Method: All Grain

Style Name: British Golden Ale

Boil Time: 60 min

Batch Size: 22 liters (fermentor volume)

Boil Size: 28.5 liters

Boil Gravity: 1.035

Efficiency: 75% (brew house)



Hop Utilization Multiplier: 1



STATS:

Original Gravity: 1.043

Final Gravity: 1.010

ABV (standard): 4.35%

IBU (tinseth): 33.59

SRM (ebcmorey): 9.43

Mash pH: 5.37



FERMENTABLES:

4000 g - Maris Otter Pale (93%)

300 g - Flaked Barley (7%)



HOPS:

37 g - Challenger, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 8.1, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 31.32

15 g - East Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 2.27

10 g - Styrian Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 2.73, Use: Aroma for 0 min



MASH GUIDELINES:

1) Infusion, Temp: 66 C, Time: 60 min, Amount: 14 L

2) Sparge, Temp: 80 C, Amount: 19 L

Starting Mash Thickness: 3 L/kg



OTHER INGREDIENTS:

2.7 g - Gypsum, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash

15 ml - CRS/AMS (6.3% HCl, 8.6% H2SO4), Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash

20 ml - CRS/AMS (6.3% HCl, 8.6% H2SO4), Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Sparge

5 g - Epsom Salt, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash



YEAST:

Fermentis / Safale - English Ale Yeast S-04

Starter: No

"AG15 - Hold the Cherries

Finally got round to my experimental Cherry Belgian ale that I have been threatening for ages:

2kg Belgian Pilsner,
500g wheat
500g Vienna
500g Brown Candi Sugar
40g 2.5 AA Saaz

Got 15L at 1.044 which was a shocking decline on usual efficiency which I am really at a loss to explain. Wort was very very murky to boot.

Pitched Fermentis Abbaye BE 256 at 20C will ferment at 19C for a few days and then rack on to 1kg of sour cherry puree and 2kg of supermarket frozen cherries and then bigger off to the lake district leaving on the fruit for a couple of weeks. We will see."

Update

Brewed this on 13th October. Cherries went straight in 6 days later. Week later roused it and upped the temp to 21c. Set the FV to cold crash last weekend so 3 weeks on the fruit in all.

Ran a sample jar off this morning - it's pretty clear, a cherry hue to it and v tart with a discernible cherry taste albeit not packing a huge fruity punch. It's finished pretty dry too - 1.006. Into a keg for some heavy carbonation later today I think.

Only managed to keg this yesterday in the end so 4 weeks on the fruit. Managed to successfully deploy the carbonation stone so 24hrs late have a very clear, quite fizzy, very dry brew...

AG 16 - Greg Hughes APA

Lovely sunny day in SE London today and with no other commitments and a party coming up first week in Feb it was time to have a go at Greg Hughes American Pale Ale.

Simple grain bill - 5kg of MO. Citra for bettering and then equal amounts of citra and simcoe at 10 mins and flameout. I will use the leftovers as a dry hop.

First try on a grainfather I bought back in September after landing a big touch on my footy accumulator. Stuck with Klarstein for last couple of brews as GF looked a bit daunting but today was the day to get into it. All went swimmingly from converting the brewers friend recipe to the GF app to tackling the silicone seals I have read so much about.

Main pros I would say were 1. No need to manually recirculate. 2. Handy alarms. 3. Counterflow chiller had the wort down to 20C as good as gold 4. Easy to clean.

Anyway 20L at 1.059 for 75% BHE. Pitched at 20C with Us-05.

Set new WiFi inkbird that I won on a comp on here for 18c and now the wait begins.

Horners said:

AG 16 - Greg Hughes APA

Lovely sunny day in SE London today and with no other commitments and a party coming up first week in Feb it was time to have a go at Greg Hughes American Pale Ale.

Simple grain bill - 5kg of MO. Citra for bettering and then equal amounts of citra and simcoe at 10 mins and flameout. I will use the leftovers as a dry hop.

First try on a grainfather I bought back in September after landing a big touch on my footy accumulator. Stuck with Klarstein for last couple of brews as GF looked a bit daunting but today was the day to get into it. All went swimmingly from converting the brewers friend recipe to the GF app to tackling the silicone seals I have read so much about.

Main pros I would say were 1. No need to manually recirculate. 2. Handy alarms. 3. Counterflow chiller had the wort down to 20C as good as gold 4. Easy to clean.

Anyway 20L at 1.059 for 75% BHE. Pitched at 20C with Us-05.

Set new WiFi inkbird that I won on a comp on here for 18c and now the wait begins.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a lovely drop once finished. I fancy making a nice pale soon after the winter brews that have been consumed

Loving the wifi version of the Inkbird provided by sponsors @Inkbird. Temperatures dropped significantly overnight but rather than traipse down the garden to check that the small tube heater was maintaining sufficient temperature, didn't even have to leave my pit.

AG 17 - recipe to be determined

Took delivery of my first liquid yeasts this morning. Following advice from the forum I attempted my first starter. Mrs H was questioning whether 1230 after a few wines was really the time to start effing around. I persevered ( will clean the boil over up before she gets up). As a chemistry graduate was great to be mucking around with conical flasks and stir plates - very nostalgic.

Yeast was Wyeast Whitbread - at the moment favourite to go in is Youngs Special but still 36hrs to make mind up.

I haven't tried Greg Hughes' APA, and what a difference between his recipe and Graham Hughes' malt bill and James Mortons', which is one I had been using. Definitely going to give it a go.

Tomorrow is brew day so time for a quick inventory and to inspect my first liquid yest/ starter. Its very quiet in the brewcave apart from the calming percussion music of the stir bar punctuated by the airlock chugging away on the AIPA in the freezer. Starter seems to look as it should, those yeast are growing up fast.

Tomorrow's recipe, going for v simple water treatment - Camden and some CRS. Hoping it will loosely approximate to Youngs Special, one of the only London beers I truly like despite having lived here for 24 years.


HOME BREW RECIPE:

Title: Youngs Special



Brew Method: All Grain

Style Name: Strong Bitter

Boil Time: 60 min

Batch Size: 21 liters (fermentor volume)

Boil Size: 28.5 liters

Boil Gravity: 1.038

Efficiency: 75% (brew
STATS:

Original Gravity: 1.052

Final Gravity: 1.013

ABV (standard): 5.07%

IBU (tinseth): 31.18

SRM (ebcmorey): 21.64

Mash pH: 5.36

FERMENTABLES:

4 kg - Pale 2-Row (86.6%)

400 g - Dark Crystal 80L (8.7%)

200 g - Torrified Wheat (4.3%)

20 g - United Kingdom - Black Patent (0.4%)
HOPS:

35 g - Fuggles, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 3.8, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 16.28

25 g - East Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 12.24

15 g - East Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 2.66

20 g - Target, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 8.2, Use: Dry Hop for 0 days

AG17 Brewday - Youngs Not So Special

Arose from slumber at 8am. No sign of the missus, it later transpires that my snoring was unbearable and she has gone and got in with one of the kids. Unperturbed I head across the garden to the brew cave, fire up the oil radiator and get the mash water on having treated with Campden and CRS to approximate to the balanced water profile on BF. Lovely clear skys "sun's out tuns out" I smile wryly to myself.

It's my second go on the grainfather, recipe as set out in previous post. I have weighed out my malts resealing as I go along



For people looking to spend 20 odd quid on a piece of kit you can do worse than one if these.

I retreat to the sanctity of the kitchen where I indulge in half a box of Sainos Belgian biscuit selection snaffled for a squid in the post Christmas clear out washed down with a mug of builders tea. Life is sweet and mercifully everyone else is still in bed.

Then complacency set in.




Unheeding of the clear instruction on the connect I launch the first couple of kilos of grain straight into the GF ignoring completely the malt pipe/ basket.

Thankfully realised quite swiftly and hastily baled the lot into a plastic FV, assembled the pipe, struggling with seals and eventually back up and running. Mash in the rest of grain but by this stage we are at 50C. Despite connect showing as heating cant seem to get it back up to 65. Long story short , in all the fading about, the element has tripped. Once I figure this we are back up to temperature in no time. Only an hour extra added to brew day. I'm calling this a stepped mash.

Also in all the commotion forget to campden the sparge water. The boil passes smoothly and I'm back on track, feeling bullish again as I have finally managed to sort out my Sky Q connection in the brew cave.



And I love my cricket.

Drop the missus at the station so she can go up to town for the ballet leaving me to enjoy an unfettered pre noon snifter.



Again though complacency sets in I misjudged water pressure on garden tap such that counterflow chiller simply passes 60C wort into FV. I realise a third of the way through but it's too late and I end up having to stick the whole lot in the freezer on power freeze.

Finally at 8pm I'm at pitching temp and my starter goes in. I then realise that the AIPA is nowhere near finished and the Klarstein FV is an extremely tight fit next to it. I've wedged it in but I bet it will be a bugger to get out. The AIPA will now have to ride shotgun in terms of fermentation temperature.



Anyway ended up with 21L of 1.054 and it looks broadly the right colour so fingers crossed.



An up and down day and my God the brewcave looks like a bomb has hit it...

Life is so effing good.
Just put on a mash of Greg Hughes' APA, by the way, before drawing off another half of mild and hitting the sack.
Brewing beer takes 6 hours from kit out to wash up. A test match takes five days. Just a philosophical observation.

Couple of updates from yesterday's brew-house activity:

AG 16 Greg Hughes' AIPA

Two weeks in and after a slow start and sluggish progression gravity is in to 1.012 which is pretty much expected attenuation. No doubt one sachet of US-05 was a bit of an under-pitch. Taste wise its bitter and fruity, overall promising I would say. Have bunged in 20g of citra and 45g of Simcoe which is what I had left from the earlier additions. Probably will get only 2 days dry-hop as need to get it cold crashed and kegged before heading off away for a week on Friday.

AG 17 Young's Not So Special

This was my first dabble with liquid yeast (Wyeast Whitbread) and this went off nice and quickly. Albeit this was left at 22C to try and bring out some fruitier flavours.

A week in and this is down to 1.015 again in line with expected attenuation however given problems on brew day, it may have been a more fermentable wort than anticipated so maybe we will see another couple of points before FG. That said in the interests of time it has had a 30g dry hop with target as a nod to Graham Wheeler's suggestion of throwing a handful of cones of target into the cask. I did this previously on an extract version and it seemed to work quite well.

A fellow cricket lover always have highlights on during a brew day, or failing that the 2005 ashes on DVD (yes I’m that sad)

Hopsteep said:

A fellow cricket lover always have highlights on during a brew day, or failing that the 2005 ashes on DVD (yes I’m that sad)

Click to expand...

Ha I was at Lords, Edgbaston, Old Trafford and Oval in 2005 - great times!

AG18 Feeling Sheepish

It's a grim old day in South-East London but with a day working from home ahead of me and having accidentally left the heating on out there overnight, the brewhouse was beckoning me from first light.





Kids packed off to school in an Uber so it was time for a quick inventory. Although I try and track stocks on Brewers Friend, some of it always seems to go awry especially the EBCs of crystals etc. Settled on something approaching the black sheep ale clone in GW's CAMRA book. Main difference is that I have no Progress in my stocks. Seems that it is an offspring of WGV and so the latter might make a sensible substitute - and I have some that need using up. Also a bit of a user upper pale malt wise:

GRIST

1kg United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale 38 3.75 20.9%
2 kg United Kingdom - Pale 2-Row 38 2.5 41.8%
1 kg United Kingdom - Lager 38 1.4 20.9%
450 g Torrified Wheat 36 2 9.4%
320 g United Kingdom - Crystal 70L 34 70 6.7%
15 g United Kingdom - Black Patent 27 525 0.3%

HOPS

20g Whitbread Golding Leaf/Whole 7.04 Boil 60 min 16.24 28.6%
20 g Challenger Leaf/Whole 5.51 Boil 60 min 12.71 28.6%
10 g Fuggles Leaf/Whole 3.8 Boil 60 min 4.38 14.3%
20 g East Kent Goldings Leaf/Whole 3.98 Boil 10 min 3.33 28.6%

Aiming for 22L of 1.051 wort, with 36 IBUs. Colourwise I always think GW has them much darker than anticipated by the software - this may in part be down to his longer boil times. Have added a small amount of black malt just to help the colour along.

Water treatment wise I have simply gone with the suggested additions for a bitter per the excellent tool found on the home page of this forum. For my hard London water this is basically a suitable amount of CRS and gypsum in the mash and all sorts of odds and sods in the kettle.

Yeast wise, in the interest of time and experimentation I am just going to dump the brew straight on yeast cake from AG 17 - Wyeast Whitbread. This brew is currently cold crashing and needs an empty keg to into but it is a little early to begin on that particular misison.

Now just need it to stop peeing down as would prefer to boil outside and also not traipse back and forth in the wet. More to follow.....

Brief update, very limited time to brew or write up notes in recent weeks. AG-18 the Black Sheep Ale wannabe came out spot on the numbers but only dealt with it tonight so it has had 5 weeks in the FV including a couple of weeks cold crash. Doesn't seem to have done it any harm and tastes promising albeit maybe a touch sweet from the crystal. As you would expect it is nice and clear and pretty drinkable straight from the FV. The one I used keeps a good seal so there is already a hint of carbonation.

Delay was caused in part by a lack of empty kegs. I very nearly bought another 3 reconditioned ones from THBC but commonsense prevailed and instead settled for having a renewed crack at using the Blichmann beer gun to bottle the remains of my Old Tom clone. Pleased to say, first time I have really used it satisfactorily (and without p*ssing beer everywhere). Top tips, keeping everything v cold and turning the pressure right down.

Anyway a few bottles of strong old ale to lay down and a keg freed up to take the Black sheepish.

So what a difference a day makes. Still blustery but clear sunny skies in South East London. I've had a WLP007 starter burning a hole in my pocket for a couple of weeks. With the younglings' footie cancelled today was the day to have a crack at a first barley wine. Recipe inspired by the one from Greg Hughes and also @David Heath recent video.

AG19 - Barely Wine
Style Name: English Barleywine
Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 16 liters (fermentor volume
STATS:Original Gravity: 1.095
Final Gravity: 1.022
ABV (standard): 9.64%
IBU (tinseth): 40.83
FERMENTABLES
375 g - Brown Sugar - (late addition) (5.6%)
600 g - Carapils (Dextrine Malt) (9%)
225 g - Crystal 90L (3.4%)
5500 g - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (82.1%)
HOPS:
40 g - Northdown, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 8.8, Use: Boil for 90 min, IBU: 40.83
10 g - East Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 3.98, Use: Aroma for 0 min
10 g - Target, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.2, Use: Aroma for 0 min
YEAST:
White Labs - Dry English Ale Yeast WLP007
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 75%
Water treatment to approximate to Balanced Profile II on Brewers Friend

Quick check of stuff and I was off



Longer boil seems to be the order of the day for a barley wine so now reclining with a first taste of AG18 which was meant to be like Black Sheep Ale. And it is - just need to try not to nod off before protoflic due in....