Andrew's brew days

[Ajhutch]

This thread is missing a few brew days from July and August (Imperial Stout v2, not bad but not touching it for now; IPA with Aus/NZ hops, pretty decent; extract Flanders Red, in progress) but with a need to improve my dwindling stocks I got back on the horse yesterday after a couple of months without brewing.

I made 15 litres of blonde ale with hibiscus, inspired by the hibiscus plants all over the property we stayed at on holiday in September (my son called them goat flowers because the goats ate the dead flowers)

Very simple recipe, 3kg of Pale malt mashed at 66C for 90 minutes. 60 minutes boil, 25 IBUs of Magnum and 75g of dried hibiscus flowers boiled for 5 minutes. OG 1.048. Fermenting with US-05. The hibiscus should give a nice mix of sweetness and tartness, I’ve seen it compared to cranberries in that respect. It gave the wort a pleasant pink tinge, will see if that survives fermentation. I may dose it further if there’s not enough hibiscus character after fermentation.

I’m going to go back to back and brew 20 litres of Pilsner later today / this evening. Another very simple recipe, 5kg of bohemian Pilsner malt, saaz hops. This’ll be my first proper lager fermentation using S23 yeast.

 

[IainM]

Sounds good. I had a hibiscus sour on Sunday and it was very nice!

 

[Ajhutch]

Everything looking good. The hibiscus beer got 24 hours or so in the brew fridge and is now in a wardrobe where’s it’s a fairly steady 19C. Got a big pink krausen so hopefully the colour is going to be there. That’ll be good to go at Christmas, along with a stout and a Belgian which have been laid down for a while.

The pilsner brewday went well, collected 21 litres at 1.050 and it’s fermenting away at 10C in the brewfridge.

I’ve got the ingredients for my next two brews already, feels good to be back at the brewing after a quiet few months.

 

[Ajhutch]

Hibiscus ale: at 1.010 which probably means it’s finished. Very pleasing pink/orange tinge to the sample. Initially I thought maybe there was a little plasticy taint but this may have just been residual sanitiser as by the end of the sample I thought it was fine. A little bit of sweetness and tartness from the hibiscus but I’d like it to pop a bit more so I think I’ll add a tea at bottling. Should probably get the bottling done this week.

Pilsner: at 1.012 after 12 days fermenting at 10C and tastes pretty good. It isn’t a particularly refined flavour but it is definitely in the direction I was hoping for. This is my first lager fermentation so I’m pleasantly surprised by both the taste and the speed of progress. Raised to 18C now for diacetyl rest and then will lager for an as yet undecided amount of time at as cold as I can get in my fridge.

I don’t know whether I should rack it off the yeast before lagering, I’d always prefer not to risk an unnecessary transfer but does lagering stress the yeast cake and cause any issues? What do others do?

 

[Bigcol49]

I don’t know whether I should rack it off the yeast before lagering,

Hi!
I've got a kölsch chilling nicely in my brewfridge, and I'm also pondering about whether to rack into a secondary. I'm not planning to re-use the yeast cake, but I'm wondering whether it will impart unwanted flavours to the beer.
The trouble is, I've got Arseonchair Syndrome and it seems such an effort to clean and sanitise my autosyphon and a second FV.

 

[Ajhutch]

Exactly the same Col!

 

[Ajhutch]

After further reading I’ve decided not to rack before lagering. If I lager for a month it’ll still only be about 7 weeks on the yeast and with a good sized pitch and what appears to have been a good healthy fermentation, I think this is less risky than a transfer. It’s funny how protective we become of our beers, but I really want this one to turn out well. It’s not as if it’s a particularly expensive brew or anything, but it’s had time and care paid into it I guess.

 

[Ajhutch]

Bottled the hibiscus ale tonight. I added a further ‘tea’ with 50g of flowers in a cafetière, I got 750ml. Certainly the colour looks good and the flavour hit definitely amped up a bit with that addition. After priming the beer will end up right around 4.6% so nice and sensible.