AG#3 Retweet Summer Ale

[broadfordbrewer]

Retweet Summer Ale I brewed this 30/05/11. Hopefully creating a refreshing pint with a twist of citrus flavour.

Fermentables:
Pale Malt - 93%
Flaked Maize - 7%

Hops:
Challenger - 6.4% @90mins - 50g
Bobek - 4.0 % @90mins - 30g
Bobek - 4.0% @0mins - 35g (Boiler Off & Steep for 10mins)

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.042
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.2% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75%
Bitterness: 44.1 EBU
Colour: 4.7 SRM
Mash for 90mins @ 68c
Boil for 90mins
Yeast Safale S-04

Got off to a nice early start and the HLT was on for 6.45am. Meanwhile sorted the basic grist and gypsum addition.

Mashing in using the newly created mashtun... a satisfying moment! 11.25L liquour

90min mash at 68C although I will now adjust this for my next brew. In the meantime I refilled the HLT heated to 78C for mashout. Also set my brewing monkey on with weighing my hops and water treatment for the boil.

First runnings from the mash tun

Recirculating a few litres of wort

Sparging with my brewing monkey

Transferred the wort to the boiler and reached a rolling boil before adding first hop additions 50g Challenger and the water treatment

Second hop addition of 30g Bobek at 15 minutes to go, along with protofloc.
Flame out and hop addition of 35g Bobek, steeped for 10 minutes.
Target of 1.042

Drained the boiler into the FV and placed the FV in a sink full of iced water. Cooled until decent cold break acheived

Cooled to 23C and pitched 23g of Safale S-04

A good brewday and really pleased with the performance of my mash tun. No stuck mash and only lost 1C. I'll cover it next time to try and save that temp.

 

[chrisb2k]

Looks great nice one :) Particularly impressed with the font on your hydrometer!

I too have a set of brewing monkeys, one of whom lacks interest and the other two lack interest, attention span and height. More training needed I think ...

 

[broadfordbrewer]

Hi Chris,
Yes the monkeys do need some intensive training, but eventually just the smell of hops gets them working for nothing, much like a drug dog
Ha ha yes the font on the hydrometer is pretty cool. It was my father-in-laws hydrometer and he bought it back in the 70's. I also had a retro thermometer which I dropped in the sink and the sink won

 

[broadfordbrewer]

Down to 1.011 last night so almost done in no time at all. S-04 is bloody quick! :party:

 

[leedsbrew]

nice one BF! should be a great summer brew! i'm brewing this afternoon! 1st brew with live tweets!

 

[broadfordbrewer]

Cheers.

Excellent, wish I was brewing today. I've left my phone at home, but will be sure to check your twitter action as soon as I get home from work . Have a good one :thumb:

 

[graysalchemy]

Looks a cracking brew. Its good to have brew monkeys. Unfortunately I brew in secret at work so I get no help from my two however they were bottling a dj of wine last weekend which they enjoyed and I got them chopping veg for my casserole last weekend.

:thumb: :thumb:

 

[broadfordbrewer]

Looks a cracking brew. Its good to have brew monkeys. Unfortunately I brew in secret at work so I get no help from my two however they were bottling a dj of wine last weekend which they enjoyed and I got them chopping veg for my casserole last weekend.

:thumb: :thumb:

Cheers, it's smelling good too and am anxious to get this bottled as soon as it's done as my last one was going well but left it slightly too long in the FV and it oxidised!
Ha ha I remember reading that you are a stealth brewer...to be honest I wish I could brew at work too! Brew monkeys are fun to a certain extent but can make things more stressful if things don't run smoothly (plus boiling liquids and giddy kids are a risk managament nightmare :shock: ). I have twins arriving soon so will have a monkey troop before too long :hmm:

 

[graysalchemy]

Mine are 8 and 5 and know everything (so they think) so being a stealth brewer is probably not a bad thing :lol: :lol: .

At the moment I don't even let them or SWMBO to the workshop because of all the brewing stuff but she keeps threatening to come over as I have got half our house stored here which she wants to put of flea bay, so the brewery may well have to be stored away.

However need to find time next week for another brew I have got an empty FV.

 

[jampot]

Mashing in at 68, what effect does that have on the brew? Also what water treatment did you go for?

 

[broadfordbrewer]

hi Mashpot,
It's a temperature recommended in a couple of the books I have, but my reason to mash at 68C was that I was using a new mashtun and wasn't sure how it was going to perform. It lost 1C during mashing-in so actually mashed at 67. For my next brew I can start at 67C and acheive 66C (or I could try insulating the tun further and test until I know I will acheive no loss).
For water treatment, I used;
HLT 1 campden tablet
Gypsum 4g to the mash
Gypsum 4g to the boil
Epsom salts 3.8g to the boil
This was based on my calculations using a Yorkshire Water profile report. My calculations could well be wrong, but used the same treatment before and all turned out well.

 

[broadfordbrewer]

Bottled this 05/06/11. It was clear and smelling and tasting good!

 

[Franklin]

Looking good there mate :)
Hope you like Maize, I found it a bit Cornie, I have a Kilo to use up which I'll probably put it in Stouts where there's plenty of Dark malts to mask the flavour. (Thats for me at least, it just wasn't my thing)

 

[broadfordbrewer]

Looking good there mate :)
Hope you like Maize, I found it a bit Cornie, I have a Kilo to use up which I'll probably put it in Stouts where there's plenty of Dark malts to mask the flavour. (Thats for me at least, it just wasn't my thing)

I haven't used it before so just an experiment. Do you think it'll give the cornie taste even with the amount I've used? To answer my own question, I'm guessing it's only got a pale malt to compete with? I take it you won't be wanting to swap for this one then?

 

[Franklin]

I did a brew based on the lager recipe here http://uk-homebrew.tripod.com/id26.html using a lager yeast and inoffensive lager hops.

Bets are yours will be 100x better than my crappy first Lager attempt! :)

 

[broadfordbrewer]

I opened a small tester bottle last night to see whats what at this early stage and it's tasting and smelling good to me. I think the hops are overpowering any chance the maize might have of asserting itself :)

Once they've had their 5 day ferment in the bottle (still keeping warmish), should I just store them in the fridge?

 

[Franklin]

JUst somewhere cool will do.

 

[broadfordbrewer]

But if I have a spare fridge, is it good to store that way?

 

[graysalchemy]

Probably best keeping at room temp the priming carries on after being taken of the heat. I usually leave in my fermentation cupboard for a week and then another 2 - 3 weeks at room temp and hopefully you have a well developed bottle conditioned beer. If you batch manages to last a few months you will certainly notice it improving.

I'm now brewing so that my beer will be 2 -3 months old before I drink it. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Franklin]

Though some beer can be tasting good and at its best after 2 weeks in the bottle, so its best to take regular samples so you learn how they develop and when it best suits your tastes.

Personally I keep my bottles warm for upto 2 weeks then put them in the garage at whatever temp it happens to be, chill down in the fridge if needed and drink :)