Ade's Brew Days

[AdeDunn]

Brew day is now well under-way. I doughed in as normal, however I'm now leaving the recirculation pump to take care of the rest for me.

Had to make a few of tweaks to the recipe. First up, 500g of Munich rather than 600, because when I went to get it I realised I only had a 500g bag... I have 3 kilos been delivered today (with the Belle Saison) but it hasn't come yet. I tweaked the colour a bit too by adding 60g of 150 EBC crystal malt. Finally, 26g of Citra at flameout rather than 25g, purely because that's how much was left in the pack at that point, no way was I putting 1g back in the freezer... lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Hmmm, so far I'm thinking my process still needs tweaking using this.

Happy with my efficiency into boil though, very much so! Software says I got 77.6% EIB, my last brew I got 72.1% EIB. That's with no stirring this time, regular stirring last brew. So not only less work, but better efficiency. Some of this could be because of the very small grain bill, allowing more efficient extraction. I'll need to confirm or disprove this next brew day (that one will be a dry stout).

The wort though, well it wasn't quite as clear as I was hoping. It's certainly clearer than it was without recirculation though for sure, and the sparge runoff was crystal clear. There was a lot of flour though, so could be the crush, plus I used up the bottom of a bag. One thing I do know, I need to wait and let the grain settle before I add the veg steamer and turn the pump on! I ended up with a load of grain sat on top of the steamer.

Sparging was really easy to do, just poured the water slowly onto the steamer insert, then once it was all in there put the pump on, medium flow, and let it run for a bit. SG of this was 1.014, so not bad from such a small quantity of grain.

So yeah, mash SG was 1.028. Sparge SG 1.014. Pre boil (the 2 combined) SG 1.025. So far I have 24.5 litres, but the bag is still draining, so might get more. Depends on what I see when I remove the false bottom in the boiler. If I see a lot of flower I'll be very careful removing any more wort from it, I don't want to ruin it all by been greedy.

No video I'm afraid. Would need my wife to hold the camera so I could hold the lid up for that, and she's pulled her face every time I've asked her for any help. She didn't even help with the sparge this time around.

Anyway, now having a break before the boil, so everybody can be fed. Then boil time, including 2.27 kilos of honey....

Laters.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Do you run off into another vessel before sparging?
You should consider conditioning the grain before milling - it means you can use a finer crush without tearing the husks apart, giving a better filter bed.
Do you have some mechanical means of lifting the bag? If so, you could consider slowly lowering the bag into the mash water, a type of underletting.

 

[AdeDunn]

Yeah, I empty my vessel into an FV, then sparge, and empty that too. I have to do things this way, as once I've finished mashing I then move the boiler right the way across the kitchen before boiling as this is where our big extractor hood is.

I don't currently crush my own grain sadly, need a grain mill first, it's on my list.

No mechanical bag lifting, just muscle. I can lift the full bag when wet usually, but I'd struggle to lower the bag slowly enough. No shed or garage to brew in, so have to brew in the kitchen. I'd set some ladders up with a winch, but I'm limited for space. Heck, still waiting to get rid of some vivs and a big aquarium just so I can fit a fermentation fridge in...

Oh, and along with my wife, we've also decided I need my own freezer. My wife is a bit fed up of the freezer been full of hops, and I'm fed up of having to go digging to find them after she buries them, move them around etc... lol

Oh, and turned out I had 26 litres into the boil, lost a few 100mls though as found a load of grain in the bucket.... I'm going to dough in on my own in future, bit fed up of my wife throwing the grain everywhere... She gets snarky when I ask her to try to aim for INSIDE the bag.... lol So after changing the numbers in software, it's telling me got just over 80% efficiency into boil... Slap bang where I want it to be, so SHOULD hit my target OG comfortably.

 

[AdeDunn]

Nearly done, just cooling the wort as I type this. The flame out hops I added once the temperature read at 79 degrees C.

What can I say, the recirculation pump has HUGELY accelerated cooling!! 27 degrees in 14 minutes, from boiling.... I made a short video of it in action. The whirlpool stays inside the chiller sadly, but this is because the coils are too close together really. One day I'll source some thick copper wire and space them out a bit I think.

 

[AdeDunn]

Oops, whilst I was posting this on another forum I overshot the pitching temp, and now need to warm it back up! Bonkers!

Shame I'm not brewing a lager..... lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Right, so far I have 20 litres of wort with an SG of 1.068... So yeah, probably going to dilute this a little bit... Time to add another 2.5 litres to the FV before I pitch. lol

Final numbers from Beersmith 2:-

Mash Efficiency: 90.7%
Brewhouse Efficiency: 87.98%

I reckon that I can live with that for sure.

 

[AdeDunn]

My wife has renamed the braggot I brewed to "Lipwig's Braggot" as the old name was too long to fit on a label... lol

 

[AdeDunn]

So, had a proper taste of Wen's Lunch (Patersbier) today.

Crystal clear, no trace of the haze I got previous to this brew. Nice and fizzy, with a clean, floral, flavour. I wasn't expecting that given I used CML Belgian Ale yeast, my wife is very pleased though as she was dreading any banana rearing it's head. lol Speaking of head, it poured with a lovely big white one, which vanished to what you see in seconds flat. Given the simple malt bill though, not totally unexpected.

An easy drinking beer to be sure, almost lager like. Would be nicer a little chilled rather than room temperature though.

 

[AdeDunn]

So, time for another "tasting" update.

Tonight my wife and I did a side by side taste test. This time, it was my Golbins Glod side by side with a bottle of Hobgoblin Gold (the beer it was an attempt to clone).

Visually, well you can easily tell them apart. My Goblins Glod had chill haze, the Hobgoblin Gold was crystal clear (it would be though... lol). The Hobgoblin Gold poured with a bit of white foam that vanished in seconds, Goblins Glod poured with a lovely white head that hung around for quite some time.



I'm sure I don't need to tell you which is which. lol So yeah, clarity the Hobgoblin easily won, but I so preferred the lovely white head on the Glod.

Next up, the taste test. We tried VERY hard, we really did, but both agreed that it was impossible to tell them apart! Maybe somebody with a better trained palate could, but we certainly couldn't. Both had that fairly bitter hit, followed by a delicious fruity hop flavour, both were seriously delicious and very very drinkable!

So, to the person who originally came up with this recipe, I doff my cap (or I would, but I don't own one.. lol), it's spot on! Recipe earlier in this thread, here: Ade's Brew Days.

TLDR, if you like Hobgoblin Gold, this recipe is literally spot on!! If/when I brew it again though, I'm going to use Clarity Ferm/Brewers Clarex though. Until the beer goes into the fridge it's as clear as the commercial, so it's entirely chill haze, even though I cooled the wort quickly on this one. I'm sure that cold crashing/cold conditioning would do the same job, but I still can't do that here. Longer in the fridge before drinking might do it too, it certainly helped the head retention (previous tasters the head has behaved a lot like the commercial beer, pouring big but vanishing super quickly). I'm having problems keeping much beer in the fridge at the moment though, my wife keeps filling it with pesky food.... lol

 

[Poochops]

How did you find the CML Belgian yeast in your patersbier? I used it on a old peculier clone and whilst it's a nice pint it's as Belgian as moules et frites. Very very phenolic, it's overwhelmingly dominant in my brew.

 

[AdeDunn]

About as phenolic as Nottingham for me bud! It was promising before conditioning, but the spice and alcohol flavours conditioned right out, leaving a very clean beer with a nice floral flavour from the hops.

 

[Covrich]

You like the M36 liberty bell yeast? nt tried it but it seems to work well in your gold goblin clone?

 

[AdeDunn]

I really like it yeah, it doesn't add anything unpleasant to the flavour (maybe a tiny bit of fruity esters? Perfect for a LOT of ales.) and is happy up to 23 degrees C (I find anyway) so perfect for me as I don't have temperature control. It drops nicely too, and sticks to the bottle fairly quickly. The only other dried, British style, yeast I have tried though was CML Real Ale, and that didn't work well for me at all. There are possibly dried yeasts that stick to the bottle better though than M36, so I wouldn't push somebody happy with their current yeast to try it unless they fancied a change. Most reviews and descriptions though, the best for sticking to the bottle are ones like Nottingham and Muntons Gold, which are possibly a bit too neutral for the flavour profile I'm looking to achieve.

Ultimately I intend to switch to liquid yeast, but not for British styles until I have a fermentation fridge sorted. Probably try a Saison one first, as when I experimented with my braggot it maxed out at 23 degrees C with free rising, and I was then able to slowly ramp it up to 26.6 degrees C at it's peak (making do with a reptile thermostat and small heat mat.... The irony is one of our snakes heat mat is controlled by an Inkbird... lol), which should work ok with liquid yeast as a "practising using them" thing.

 

[AdeDunn]

Ok, I have to add an addendum re. the Patersbier. We had a couple more bottles last night, these one though had spent a day in the fridge. So yeah, they had a bit of chill haze to them, BUT they also had a ton of spicey, fruity (NOT banana as my wife likes to point out) flavour. So yeah, definitely esters and phenolics there in the flavour, deliciously so with the fruity/floral hops. No idea why that 1st bottle tasted so clean to be honest, chilling should mute flavour surely, rather than enhance it?

Oh and it poured with a lovely white head, that settled down to a thin layer of foam that laced the glass as we drank it. My wife's kept it's head better, and poured with a larger head, but that was poured into a shaker style pint glass, where mine went into a good old fashioned pint glass with a handle and dimples...

It's gone on my wife's "please brew it again" list. :thumb1: She keeps making requests though, it's getting harder to stick to my original planned brews to do list, the stout already slipped one place so I can brew another Saison, and now she wants an Amarillo/Mosaic AIPA brewing.....

The good news is though, I'll never need to brew a Proper Job clone. We tried a bottle the other day, and it was nothing special. Too much bitterness, not enough flavour for the bitterness. All that we could taste was a hint of grapefruit and a TON of nasty bitterness (I am fine with high IBUs, but this wasn't a nice bitterness at all). On the flip side, the Zeitgeist we tried was delicious. Left me thinking of brewing a new world hopped stout, with a bit more carbonation and a little less body. Dark, roasty, fruity and with a good bit of fizz.

 

[AdeDunn]

AG BIAB #11 Moist Saison

Targets

Batch size: 23 Litres. OG: 1.047. Colour: 8.4 EBC. Bitterness IBUs: 17 Tinseth. FG: 1.004.

90 minute mash @ 65 degrees C, 23 Litres strike water @ 68 degrees C. Mash out at 75 degrees C (rising over 7 minutes) for 10 minutes. Sparge with 6 litres of water @ 75 degrees C, recirculating for 15 minutes.

75 minute boil.

Grist:-

Gypsum 5g
Dingemans Pilsen Malt 2701g 3.5 EBC
Crisp Maris Otter Malt 1500g 6 EBC
Munich Malt 320g 17.7 EBC
IREKS Light Munich Malt 270g 22 EBC
Torrefied Wheat 200g 3.3 EBC

Hops etc:-

8g Pilgrim 9.3% AA whole hops @ 75 minutes

1/2 Protafloc @ 15 minutes

8g cracked coriander @ 5 minutes
20g Citra 12.6% AA pellets @ 5 minutes
21g Amarillo 9% AA pellets @ 5 minutes
21g Mosaic 12% AA pellets @ 5 minutes

34.1g Amarillo 9% AA pellets @ 0 minutes (flame out)
48.5g Citra 12.6% AA pellets @ 0 minutes (flame out)

Ok, at his point you may have figured out that I was brewing to use up the pellets I still had in the freezer... I hate the things, and try to use whole hops wherever possible. The only pellets I have now are a minute quantity of Cascade in there....

Anyway, this was my 2nd go around using my new recirculation set-up, so I was using it as well to tweak the process a little. Main thing been suspending the steamer insert rather than pushing it onto the grain. Wasn't easy, and the butchers string my wife used snapped when I came to remove it, but it certainly was better. I got lovely clear wort from the mash, and crystal clear runnings from the sparge. Result! :thumb: Still got some more tweaks to come to the set-up though, try to make it even easier to use.

A few hiccups at the start, my wife was in the kitchen and I felt like she was rushing me, so got distracted. Nothing I didn't quickly recover from though. Turns out she was literally just keeping me company....

Totally solo brew sadly though, my wife had me put the table I use in the back doorway whilst mashing, so wasn't enough room for both of us to fit. So I doughed in myself, which took flippin' ages and seemed like a ton of grain (which it felt like when I came to lift the grain bag too.... lol)! On the plus side, absolutely NO grain on the outside of the bag, as I took a less "fling it everywhere" approach to pouring in the grain. Don't tell my wife I said that though! I just need to train her to use the same technique as I did, as opposed to the "throw it in the rough direction of the boiler" technique she favours (it literally goes everywhere... lol). It might have been effective, but it didn't feel as fun without her.

Onto numbers. Kinda getting to the point now where I mainly just care about the OG and the FG, but still took them. I will warn you now, I confirmed how ruddy inaccurate my refractometer is, so some of these numbers are probably way out where I used this.

First up, the SG of the wort from mashing, taken with the refractometer, came in at 1.057, which I thought respectable.

Next, the SG of the runnings from sparging, taken with the refractometer, came in at 1.032, which I was even happier about as you could make beer with that in it's own right... lol

Mix the 2 together, and I had an SG, taken with the refractometer, of 1.044, and a volume of just over 25 litres.

So, I boiled it silly. Both elements on, and when it foamed I HAD to use anti-foam spray! No amount of stirring, or turning an element off, would tame that foamy beast as it sought escape over the top of the boiler.... It just kept foaming right over. So, yeah, I defeated that beast with a good spraying of anti-foam, and it vanished. Sorry @Dutto!

End of the boil, I was left with 18.5 Litres of wort (according to the bucket...), with an SG of 1.058 (yeah, refractometer reading.....)... So, in went 6 litres (measured with a jug....), and somehow this gave me just over 23 litres of wort? Now, I know my maths isn't brilliant, but on no world did that ever add up... lol Somewhere, nearly 1.5 litres of wort vanished.... Anyway, however many litres are in that bucket, they have an OG of 1.050 (taken with my hydrometer, and double checked by my wife).... So yeah, I overshot again.... :thumb1: Oh, and did I mention that the sample was a gorgeous, crystal clear, golden colour? Clearest wort I've EVERY produced!! No bits visible, no sediment settling out of it, nothing but clear wort!! So, gave that beautiful stuff a really good sploshing from one FV to another. Foamed up like a beast whilst transferring from boiler, and again whilst sploshing into 2nd FV.

Anyway, 19 degrees C, so in went 1 packet of rehydrated Mangrove Jacks M29 French Saison yeast.

All that leaves that I can tell you about is the aroma! The hops in the tubs smelled wonderful! Especially the 5 minute ones mixed with coriander. As to the smell from the wort, gorgeously fruity and spicey! No, I didn't taste the wort, it's usually absolutely nasty!

The bad news is, I didn't take a single photograph.....

 

[AdeDunn]

A quick update on the Saison, which I labled Greebo Pee as it tasted naff before bottling.

Bottled this on the 2/5, adding a full sachet of Brewferm Hop Sensation Peach Melba in lieu of a dry hop.

Opened and tasted a bottle today, and my has it changed in a very short time! The flavour and aroma are now incredibly hoppy, absolutely bursting with flavour! It's carbed up really nicely too, making for a very dry and refreshing beer. Head retention sucked, but a week in the fridge (once it's had a bit longer to condition) should fix this (usually does). Crystal clear too, so definitely hit that target.

 

[AdeDunn]

AG BIAB #12: Pocket Rocket & Moose.

Originally I was basing the recipe on the single hop pale Amarillo recipe in the Greg Hughes book, but ended up modifying the grain bill and hops quite a bit to use some bits up, and make sure I used ALL of the packet of Mosaic hops.

90 minute (ended up running over...) mash @65 degrees C. I was SUPPOSED to strike at 68 degrees C as per usual, but had a senior moment and set the stat to 65... Bizzarely it only went down to 63 degrees C after adding the grain, and was soon back up to 65 degrees C again. So no biggy. Mashed out @ 76 degrees C for 10 minutes (rising over 7), sparged with 6.7 litres (grain retained more than software reckoned, so I just upped the sparge from 5 litres) @ 76 degrees C. Oh, and I seriously mangled my false bottom trying to run the pump at full flow, seems it could only cope with 1/3rd flow with so much grain...

Only pic I took, one of me transferring the mash runnings to a bucket, ready to sparge the grain...



Mash SG came out at 1.052. Sparge SG was 1.028. Total wort into the boil of 25.7 Litres @ an SG of 1.0485.

Boil was SUPPOSED to be 75 minutes, but 70 minutes in my ACE packed up on me, died stone dead.... So hops will who planned and then actual inside {}.

Targets: OG: 1.056. IBUs: 47.3. Tinseth. Colour: 11.1 EBC. Batch size: 21 Litres (I'm going by Beersmith 2 here, it tends to get much closer than BIABacus...).

Grain bill:-

Crisp Maris Otter 6 EBC 3000g
IREKS Pale Ale Malt 7 EBC 1450g
Munich Malt 17.7 EBC 350g
Carapils malt 3.9 EBC 240g

So yeah, biggest malt bill I've ever brewed with...

Hops (75 minute boil planned):-

Mosaic 13.4% AA 23g @ 70 minutes {So ended up going in at 65 minutes effectively}
Mosaic 13.4% AA 12g @ 15 minutes {So 10 minutes effectively}
Mosaic 13.4% AA 12g @ 5 minutes {So flame out...}
Mosaic 13.4% AA 53.4g @ 0 minutes {Went in the same time as the 5 minute hops} The .4 was basically me finishing of the packet, seems there was 100.4g in there... lol

After cooling down to 20 degrees, I transferred to FV giving me 20.5 litres of wort into the FV, with an OG of 1.060. IBUs should be about 43.8 Tinseth accounting for the 5 minute hops going in at flame out. Smells delicious, mainly fruity with just a hint of mint in the background. Oh and yeah, I pitched 1 packet of MJ M44 West Coast, should probably have been 2 but I hadn't planned on such a high OG..... At least I rehydrated it... lol

So, yeah, guess it's a good last brew for my ACE as any other really... lol

RIP ACE Mash Tun Boiler... You served me, well, ok I suppose... lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Sprinkled a second packet of M44, to be sure it'll manage the high OG.

 

[AdeDunn]

Ok, so seems I've made my first AIPA.... Took a quick SG measurement today, down from 1.060 to 1.012, for an ABV of 6.3%, and an apparent attenuation of 79.2% (so M44 West Coast certainly does the job when it comes to attenuation.).

Needless to say, we had a crafty taste of the trial jar contents (even if it did look like yellow milk thanks to suspended yeast). Absolutely delicious! Fruity, with just a hint of herbal. It'll be getting a dry hop with 50g of Mosaic pellets at some point down the line (probably in another 7 days time, when I check the SG again).