UKSkydiver's Brewdays

UPDATE: AG#1 - Mad Boris Russian Imperial Stout

I've nearly finished these now. They've been ok, but there's something not right. Seems a bit too harsh. A bit over carbonated. I did not use any water additions, nor temp control. @strange-steve gave me a few pointers. Thanks Steve.

I think there are so many small things that you can do to improve brews, and I haven't found the one that makes the greatest difference. I hope and suspect its ferm temp control. And I will be able to test that theory when AG#3 Gem clone finishes, as I now have a temp controlled ferm chamber.

In the mean time, with this one, I tried tipping the latest bottle between two glasses for a few mins, as I did earlier with AG#2 80/- And do you know what? It actually improved things. Less harsh. Less astringent. Clearly less gassy. I can taste the chocolate. It has a smooth mouthfeel. Maybe that and a couple more small tweaks and I can actually feel like I'm improving as a home brewer.

Cheers.

It just shows the importance of getting the carbonation level for the site correct, really makes a difference thumb

Notes on over carbonation.

I found this (overly long) video that talks (drones on) about over carbonation and how to fix it.



By all means watch it, but believe me when I say it can be summed up (for bottles) thusly:

Take a long opener that does not bend / crease the bottle top.
Gently prise the cap until you hear a hiss. Do not open further. Release this CO2 into the head space repeat until you think you have released sufficient carbonation.

I did this maybe 6 or 7 times, leaving 30-60 mins between each. Once complete, nip the caps up with a capper.

It has certainly improved the carbonation levels and the beer tastes better as a result. Even my crappy, overcarbonated, astringent, kit stout is now drinkable!

I hope that's useful to someone.
Cheers Phil

Just read your first post. It's a learning curve and you appear to have drawn all the right conclusions. You'll get the time down, especially if you mash or cool overnight. By the way last year I made exactly the same recipe and forgot to put the chocolate malt in. So I've ended up with 25 litres of Mad Boris Brown Ale.

AG#4 - Dry Paddy Porter

Another brew from the James Morton book, Brew.

This was a bit of a user-upper, and I've had to make a coupe of small (I hope) substitutions that, I hope, won't affect the result. I would love to hear your comments.

OG - 1.066
FG - 1.012
ABV: 7.0%
EBC - Dark Brown-ish
IBU - should have been 50-55 but I've gone for 30 as I prefer less hoppy ales.

Recipe for 20 litres, but I've scaled it down for an 8 litre final batch (I need a bigger pot) - (actually I have a bigger pot but I'm working on it)

Fermentable / 20 litre / 8 litre / Percentage

Maris Otter / 3500g / 2080g / 79.5%
Crystal Malt 80L / 400g / 238g / 9.1% (substituted with Crystal Dark)
Chocolate Malt / 300g / 178 / 6.8%
Brown Malt / 200g / 120g / 4.5%
Black Treacle / 100g / 57g / 2.2% (substituted with dark muscavado sugar)

Hops / 50-55 / 30 IBUs

EKG 5% / 30g @ FWH (subst with Columbus 5.8g , 8 litres for 30 IBU)
EKG 5% / 30g / 16.4g @15 mins
EKG 5% / 20g / 10.9g @ 1 min

Additions
Whirlfloc @ 10 mins

Yeast
Irish Ale (subst with MJ New World Ale M42) @ 18c

Also, using my new brew space that I created in the garage. And also my fist time using the Ikea Tillreda portable induction hob. Seems as good, if not better, than the 'proper' kitchen hob. That'll please SWMBO. thumb

Nice one, i remember my first biab hardest job was cleaning up i did a 23L batch yesterday and clean up took 20 mins, happy brewing

UKSkydiver said:

Fermentable / 20 litre / 8 litre / Percentage

Maris Otter / 3500g / 2080g / 79.5%
Crystal Malt 80L / 400g / 238g / 9.1% (substituted with Crystal Dark)
Chocolate Malt / 300g / 178 / 6.8%
Brown Malt / 200g / 120g / 4.5%
Black Treacle / 100g / 57g / 2.2% (substituted with dark muscavado sugar)

Click to expand...

It's a bit early in the morning for me, but are you sure about the scaling? It looks more like a 12 Litre batch to me.
Or do you intend topping it up to 12 litres in the fermenter?

Maybe my terminology is incorrect.

Its 12 litre strike, 2 litre sparge giving about 12 litres into boil
Resulting in ~ 8 litres (batch?) into FV

I use BIABacus and it's been spot on up to now.

Cool. BIAB remains a mystery to me, especially no sparge techniques. I'd be interested to now how you OG turns out, though.

An Ankoù said:

Cool. BIAB remains a mystery to me, especially no sparge techniques. I'd be interested to now how you OG turns out, though.

Click to expand...

Hi An, my 23L biab yesterday i needed 29.7L of water total mash volume = 34.9L, my kettle is 30L so i put 20L in and mash the other 9.7L goes in a bucket for a dunk sprarge and bag squeeze about 15 mins this is then added to the kettle then just carry on with a normal boil, hope this helps to clear up the mystery, i got 27L and finished with 23L in the fv at 1051 which was what i was aiming for

Rodcx500z said:

Hi An, my 23L biab yesterday i needed 29.7L of water total mash volume = 34.9L, my kettle is 30L so i put 20L in and mash the other 9.7L goes in a bucket for a dunk sprarge and bag squeeze about 15 mins this is then added to the kettle then just carry on with a normal boil, hope this helps to clear up the mystery, i got 27L and finished with 23L in the fv at 1051 which was what i was aiming for

Click to expand...

Cool. I didn't get the relationship between to 20 litre grain bill and the 8 litre grain bill, which to my mind, should have been less than half rather than more. I see now that the 20 litre grainbill would give nowhere near an OG of 1066 while the 8 litre grainbill would give well over that with a full sparge. Taking into account the inefficiency of a minimal sparge, it's probably spot on. Thanks again, both, for clearing that up.

An Ankoù said:

Cool. I didn't get the relationship between to 20 litre grain bill and the 8 litre grain bill, which to my mind, should have been less than half rather than more. I see now that the 20 litre grainbill would give nowhere near an OG of 1066 while the 8 litre grainbill would give well over that with a full sparge. Taking into account the inefficiency of a minimal sparge, it's probably spot on. Thanks again, both, for clearing that up.

Click to expand...

Ended up with 9.5ish litres, but I will likely lose an amount of that into FV, @1.063, so a little under.

I'm sure my numbers will improve, but right now im just happy to:
a. Be making beer
b. With any luck, be improving the quality of the beer that I do make
Cheers

AG#3 - Bath Ales Gem Clone - Update

I tried these a bit early and they were a bit under carbonated, not surprisingly the advice was to leave them a bit longer. So here we are.



Left is a real Gem, right is my clone.

Appearance
Im pretty happy with this. Real Gem is a shade or two darker. Clone is a tad lighter and slightly less clear, but actually pretty good for a home brew.
Both have a comparable off white head with similar head retention.

Aroma
Gem is lovely and malty. Had a couple of good sniffs to work out what is was. The only way I can describe it is that is smells of wort. Kinda sweet / malty.
Clone nowhere near as heavy or sweet wort smelling. Just kinda smells like a bitter.

Taste
Gem has a nice sweet malt taste, low bitterness.
Clone (and I'm neither a beer judge or expert at drinking bitters) is a bit like an English bitter. It's ok, definitely drinkable, but not the malty-ness I was after.

Happy to hear your suggestions how I malt this up a bit.

AG#5 - Pelforth Brun Clone

Based on a recipe by @IPA here: Pelforth recipe - Home Brew Forum

My neighbour, bless him, keeps banging on about this beer and how difficult it is to get hold of. He will often bring a crate back from France when he's there. We both enjoy a Belgian brun beer, so I thought I'd try to re-create the Pelforth as it's one of his favourites. I'm good like that. Brewed on Sat 23 May 2020. As ever, I would appreciate your comments.

I've made a couple of changes; hops to match what I have 'in stock' and, given the provenance of the beer, went for a French saison yeast.

My modified recipe for a 10 litre batch (no sparge BIAB)
Final Volume: 10 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.070 (original recipe was 1.065)
Final Gravity: 1.012 - 1.014
Alcohol Content: 7.3% (original was 6.7% ABV)
Mash Water: 18.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: Unknown by me.
EBU: 39
Colour: 46 EBC (should have been 80-odd)

Maris Otter 7 EBC 2530 grams 74.9%
Wheat Malt 3.9 EBC 320 grams 11%
Brewferm Special B 350 EBC 370 grams 9.5%
Light Soft Brown Sugar 0 EBC 160 grams 4.7%

Step Mash (as best I could)
52°c mash in
52°c 10 min (mashed a bit high @ 62 for 8 mins)
66°c 30 min
73°c 20 min
78°c 10 min

Hops ~33 IBUs

Columbus (14%) 10.7g FWH for 35 IBU
EKG (5%) 5.8g @15 mins for 3.3 IBU

Additions
Protofloc @ 10 mins

Yeast
MJ Saison M29 pitched about 22c, then let it sit at 24 for a couple of days - then up to 26.

Notes
Brewing with my new converted Buffalo. Seemed ok for the mash, except I had to keep an eye on the temp. Had to keep adjusting heat on / off. I'm sure I will get used to the kit and how it works.

Planned and brewed using the BrewFather app. Still getting used to the settings and water totals.

Added 0.2g sodium metabisulphate to the full strike water the night before. Also the first time reducing alkalinity using @strange-steve 's water calc. Ended up adding 12ml CRS reducing alk from 178ppm to 67ppm.

When it came to the boil.... well it didn't. It kinda sat in the high 90s for about 40 mins and then started to drop down... After an hour or so, and having already added my FWH, I thought I'd cut my losses, transfer to my stainless steel pot and boil in that for 15 mins. Added my 15 min hops and 10 min Protofloc.

Bit of a nightmare. Suggestions welcome.

Cooled that in a couple of sink fulls of water and then left overnight to cool.

Transferred to the FV and pitched the saison yeast, stuck in the fermenter fridge and raised up to 22 for a few days. Still going. I fully expect this to be amazing, given the amount of kit I've bought and research I've done to try and improve my brews Update to follow in a couple of weeks.

AG#5 - Pelforth Clone - Update

This has been in the FV for two weeks so thought I'd see what the FG was.

Imagine my surprise when its down to 1.000

So I did a search and found this thread: MJ French saison yeast attenuation

It seems that this bad boy chomps through anything it finds!

Seeing as it started out at 1.070, it turns out that I've got an ale with a whopping 9.1% ABV.

**EDIT - I was getting a bit carried away, it's currently more like 1.006, so at 8.4% it's still no slouch.

AG#5 - Pelforth Clone - Update

This yeast is a monster

17 days. Down to below 1.000

AG

Pelforth Brune one of my favourite pre-craft revolution beers! Can't wait to hear how this one turns out.

A shame that Pelforth itself is now just a pawn in the Heineken empire.

I believe your Pelforth Brun will be quite different from the real thing. I recall the Brun being quite malty with a bit of body and residual sweetness. The Saison yeast will have chewed through all the dextrins to make a much thinner and stronger beer. Give it about 6 weeks to condition and I'm pretty sure with that colour, the special B and brown sugar, it'll be a rather decent Saison.

BTW, your Gem clone looks good. Maybe mashing at higher temperature, 68-69 would get you the malty sweetness you want and upping the crystal too. I have found that water treatment helps a lot. Make sure you're getting your mash pH around 5.3 and get the balance of sulphates to chlorides right, more chlorides bring out the maltiness.

@cushyno - I really appreciate your comments

cushyno said:

I believe your Pelforth Brun will be quite different from the real thing. I recall the Brun being quite malty with a bit of body and residual sweetness. The Saison yeast will have chewed through all the dextrins to make a much thinner and stronger beer. Give it about 6 weeks to condition and I'm pretty sure with that colour, the special B and brown sugar, it'll be a rather decent Saison.

Click to expand...

Yes - I agree - I'm still very new to brewing and thought the Saison yeast would be more appropriate in terms of the geography / origins of the beer. Having had a taste and done a bit more reading, it seems that it has added a peppery tone to it. It's not unpleasant, but as you say, not like the malty-ness I was after. I didn't want to use a classic Belgian / Abbey yeast as I didn't want to add clove / banana. I guess something more neutral would have been better? I know that S04 was suggested in the original recipe, but clearly "I knew better". I would appreciate your thoughts.

I'm hoping it will darken, but not ever having had a Saison, I'm not really sure what to expect, but I hope it will be pretty good beer.

cushyno said:

BTW, your Gem clone looks good. Maybe mashing at higher temperature, 68-69 would get you the malty sweetness you want and upping the crystal too. I have found that water treatment helps a lot. Make sure you're getting your mash pH around 5.3 and get the balance of sulphates to chlorides right, more chlorides bring out the maltiness.

Click to expand...

I was really happy with the look of the Gem- I was actually amazed at how similar they were. Again - I'm just now realising the importance of the stuff we do. I've tried to mash at the right temp, but maybe haven't really understood the consequences of doing (or not doing) so. Looking at my notes, I did mash at 50c/30mins and 67c/60mins. So maybe a single mash at 68-69c/60-80mins would give the extra body / malt I was looking for?

I now have CRS and calcium chloride and I'm not afraid to use it (well - only a bit scared)

All learning points. thumb

AG#5 - Pelforth Clone - Update

Because of my previous propensity for over-carbing, I purposely went a bit light on the priming sugar. I've opened a couple of bottles and they're a bit undercarbed, yet a bit sweet. (I'm not actually sure what a saison should taste like)

I wrote a bit about it here and here. I learned about what happens when you add sugar to a part conditioned bottle of beer.

I've added another 2-3 g sugar per bottle and left in the warm so let's see what happens in a week or so.