Anna's Brewdays

[Gerryjo]

Excellent advice from @Buffers brewery though a floating diptube may also help though would be more inclined for a short hop stageon day 2 of high krausen but this maybe hard to judge and dry hop for around 3 days depending on the AA% of your hops.
I have a proper job clone in keg at present which is very young and sweet but tastes really grassy with no dry hops and this is because it's still young and needs to condition.
You'll get to know your setup over time and you will get it cracked.

 

[Brew_DD2]

It might be that they are a little young, but NEIPAs really benefit from being drunk young.

I know you used a load of hops, but the level of haze you've got suggests you may be right about the lack of good contact. My advice would be to ditch bag and chuck your dry hops in. They sink like a stone and are easy to rack off of. You'll get far better flavour that way, and the haze will be far more pronounced.

Although I have a pressure fermenter, I don't really bother with fermenting under pressure. Sometimes do for lagers, but never for ale.

Don't beat yourself up. I had that many failed NEIPAs (due to oxidation, before it was widely talked about) that I nearly stopped brewing.

Sounds like you're doing just about everything right. A few tweaks and you'll be good, and be brewing effortless juice bombs.

 

[Brew_DD2]

The hop contact time really won't be an issue either. I keg hop and never have any issues with grassiness etc.

 

[DocAnna]

Could “we” be being a tad impatient? I make it 3 weeks from brew day? While a have little snifter tasters during the brewing process I don’t have any expectations of my beer until at least 6 weeks from brew day or 4 weeks after transfer from FV, whichever is the longest.
You have a plan to weigh your hop bag next time. I’d investigate your hop bag fixing method to make that a bit slicker and de-risk it. I’ve sown 4 magnets in little pouches on mine so it can be held flat(ish) against the FV.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s still early days for you with your new “kit”. Best plan is......make some more beer and iron out your process “glitches”.

Thanks, I'd thought that with the NEIPA it should be good from young and since it was already carbonated in the pressure fermenter, that it should be ok near straight away. You are also quite right - I do need to sort out the process issues, it was a complete faff on brew day with the dry hop bag and magnets. I'm not sure on balance whether to bother with the magnets again like that, and just open up the fermenter to loose dry hop. I like your thoughts on 'de-risk', particularly since that's something I'm supposed to be good at in my day job . A bit of transferable skills needed here...hmmmm... might even think about starting a risk register with an audit record on mitigations, that might be taking it a bit far though!

Anna

 

[DocAnna]

I know you used a load of hops, but the level of haze you've got suggests you may be right about the lack of good contact. My advice would be to ditch bag and chuck your dry hops in. They sink like a stone and are easy to rack off of. You'll get far better flavour that way, and the haze will be far more pronounced.

I'm very much thinking along those lines now, the bag was a pain with the floating dip tube and I had to open the fermenter at racking which did rather defeat the point of a closed transfer

Excellent advice from @Buffers brewery though a floating diptube may also help though would be more inclined for a short hop stageon day 2 of high krausen but this maybe hard to judge and dry hop for around 3 days depending on the AA% of your hops.
I have a proper job clone in keg at present which is very young and sweet but tastes really grassy with no dry hops and this is because it's still young and needs to condition.
You'll get to know your setup over time and you will get it cracked.

I think one of the problems is that I'm not sure what 'grassy' tastes like, but the advice on giving it some time is reassuring, I'll leave it in the garage for another couple of weeks before revisiting it.

Thank you all for your encouragement, I'm feeling a bit better on two counts, one coming back here and writing about it, feeling a bit daft for getting so upset. Secondly, I made scotch eggs for the first time last evening, black pudding, apple and pork, (can't believe I've never made them before!) and tried one for brunch today and it had a lovely still gooey yolk. So I'm feeling a bit more accomplished than I was earlier.

Anna

 

[Gerryjo]

I'm very much thinking along those lines now, the bag was a pain with the floating dip tube and I had to open the fermenter at racking which did rather defeat the point of a closed transfer



I think one of the problems is that I'm not sure what 'grassy' tastes like, but the advice on giving it some time is reassuring, I'll leave it in the garage for another couple of weeks before revisiting it.

Thank you all for your encouragement, I'm feeling a bit better on two counts, one coming back here and writing about it, feeling a bit daft for getting so upset. Secondly, I made scotch eggs for the first time last evening, black pudding, apple and pork, (can't believe I've never made them before!) and tried one for brunch today and it had a lovely still gooey yolk. So I'm feeling a bit more accomplished than I was earlier.

Anna

See your smiling already

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

We all (I think!) have off phases like this but don’t let it undermine your confidence, you WILL get your mojo back.

If you want to increase the hoppy flavour, maybe more/different hops in the hopstand? What temperature and how long was your hopstand?

 

[DocAnna]

We all (I think!) have off phases like this but don’t let it undermine your confidence, you WILL get your mojo back.

If you want to increase the hoppy flavour, maybe more/different hops in the hopstand? What temperature and how long was your hopstand?

I just want to be able to make good beer and wine, that is at least as good as the commercial regular beers. I realise that's quite a high bar but I felt I was achieving it with most of my beers, the last two not so much.

I added 100g of Sabro at 80 deg and held it at 80 for 20 mins, had originally planned on 15 min but that didn't seem long enough at the time. Then continued to chill, which given the ground water temperature only took about 15 min then transferred to the FV. I'm wondering if I should have left it in longer and let it passively cool over that time rather than holding it at 80?

Anna

 

[fury_tea]

There's no need to hold it at 80c, you just want to be under 80c so I wait until it gets there, then put the hops in and continue chilling (or not if I'm doing no chill). My last one had 250g total whirlpool hops added at 80c then no chilled. Another 250g added at day 2.

the bag kept getting in the way of the float tube.

I had a similar issue, and this reminds me I need to get a new hop filter tube. Those things are great for keg hopping.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I felt I was achieving it with most of my beers, the last two not so much.

So you know you can do it, keep the faith.

I added 100g of Sabro at 80 deg and held it at 80 for 20 mins

I would personally double the volume, increase the hopstand time to 30 mins, and reduce the hopstand temperature to 74C.

• The volume speaks for itself, more = more.
• Increasing the time a little gives more chance to extract the essential oils, 20-30 mins is the norm and I mostly use the longer interval.
• The lower temperature is less likely to vaporise the volatile oils, 74C is considered the sweet-spot.

 

[DocAnna]

So I've tasted the 'Tram' again and it's really bitter, and I think I know what is wrong, it seems almost salty. I think I must have really overdone the salts additions for water chemistry. I'm tempted to tip the lot away, it's on the edge of not being drinkable. I'm going to see if I can find a better target profile than is the one built in to brewfather for hoppy neipa.

A

 

[WonkyDonkey]

So I've tasted the 'Tram' again and it's really bitter, and I think I know what is wrong, it seems almost salty. I think I must have really overdone the salts additions for water chemistry. I'm tempted to tip the lot away, it's on the edge of not being drinkable. I'm going to see if I can find a better target profile than is the one built in to brewfather for hoppy neipa.

A

That's a real shame, I know you had big hopes for it.
I recently brewed Even Sharks Need Water by Verdant and had good results with the water profile given by Verdant themselves. Down in Cornwall they have really soft water and so have a good base to work from. Depending on your local water, if you can I'd have a go at their water profile which was along these lines:

"Working with the water in your area, in my opinion, is one of the most exciting parts of brewing that’s similar to the concept of ‘terroir’ in farming. With sharks we push Chloride up to around 230ppm, we leave Sulphate at base mains level (10ppm), we elevate Sodium to around 50ppm. The Sodium Chloride is added to the boil and the Calcium Chloride to the mash. By doing this we create a very soft mouthfeel but without elevating Calcium levels above 100ppm."

I was a bit hesitant the first time and went with Ca = 91, Na = 39 and Cl = 199 but I think I'll go with 99, 50 & 230 next time.

See how you go, hopefully great beer is just around the corner

 

[fury_tea]

So I've tasted the 'Tram' again and it's really bitter, and I think I know what is wrong, it seems almost salty. I think I must have really overdone the salts additions for water chemistry. I'm tempted to tip the lot away, it's on the edge of not being drinkable. I'm going to see if I can find a better target profile than is the one built in to brewfather for hoppy neipa.

A

Give it a month and try it again. It might get better with time?

 

[DocAnna]

A Sunday brewday yesterday: I'd meant to be up bright and early to get started promptly in the morning... then ended up starting after lunch, ho hum, best laid plans of mice and women. So as previously it meant the brewday running into prep for the Sunday roast, nipping between kitchen garage for chopping veg and cleaning up the brew. It did lead to a fortuitous discovery that bringing the brewzilla into the kitchen for cleaning was far more pleasant than freezing my fingers in the garage. Sadly all that busy bee running around meant less time for dancing in the kitchen while cooking .

This is the beer I'm making for my son's keg, and for this version I'm leaving out the water salts due to my upset with the Tram beer. The mash pH was a wee bit high at 5.72, but with the addition of a mash out my efficiency seems ok. The boil volume was well off, with initially about 2 litres short and an OG of 1.062, so for the first time ever I topped up with tap water to 22 litres, a bit tentative and was a bit approximate here. This was almost certainly due to boiling with both elements on. I'm planning on doing a batch for myself and will try with only the 1900 element till the last 10 mins then vigorously boil at the end.

I'm planning on adding vit C with the dry hop, in line with previous discussions about oxygen scavenging, as I'm going to open the FV and loose dry hop rather than fiddle with magnets.

Day 1 less than 24 hours later and its off to a vigorous start, this is the third time I've used the Beirm five yeast and every time its gone off like a rocket.

Anna

Recipe adapted from Teri Fahrendorf for Scottish base malt and yeast

BrewZilla / RoboBrew 35L
75% efficiency
Batch Volume: 23 L (Actual 22 L)
Boil Time: 90 min

Original Gravity: 1.057 (Actual 1.060)
Final Gravity target: 1.013
IBU (Tinseth): 57 Color: 11.6 EBC

Mash
Temperature — 67 °C — 60 min
Mash out -77 °C -10 min

Malts (5.86 kg)
4.06 kg (69.3%) — Craft Maltsters Pop's Pale Ale Malt — Grain — 5.4 EBC
1.35 kg (23%) — Simpsons Vienna Malt — Grain — 7.5 EBC
450 g (7.7%) — Simpsons Munich Malt — Grain — 21.5 EBC

Hops (171 g)
32 g (47 IBU) — Chinook 12.8% — Boil — 90 min
41 g (10 IBU) — Crystal 3.6% — Boil — 20 min
30 g — Chinook 12.8% — Boil — 0 min
30 g — Crystal 3.6% — Boil — 0 min
38 g — Chinook 12.8% — Dry Hop — day 3

Yeast — Crossmyloof Beirm Five 78%

Fermentation
Primary — 19 °C — 3 days
Primary — 19 °C — 15 PSI — 16 days
Cold Crash — 0 °C — 3 days

 

[DocAnna]

The ‘Tram’ smells like lychees and tastes a bit like grapefruit- so not all bad. Normal service has resumed and kitchen dancing is back with flash dance on the playlist and roast pork with crackling in the oven ☺.

Anna

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

The ‘Tram’ smells like lychees and tastes a bit like grapefruit- so not all bad. Normal service has resumed and kitchen dancing is back with flash dance on the playlist and roast pork with crackling in the oven ☺.

Anna

 

[Clint]

Sounds great! I transferred Sunday roast to tomorrow as I spent too much time boozing in the garden...but you know what...who cares?! It'll be fine...I got curry leftovers...

 

[Buffers brewery]

Phew! Soo glad order has been restored to the universe and "dancing in the kitchen" has been restored

 

[DocAnna]

Well this could be interesting... how much pressure can my kit take... gulp

Aiming for a Prosecco style sparkling wine, aiming for 6 vols of CO2 and my garage is at 8 deg C so that's about 55psi

OK, joints and all seem to be holding fast for now, rather dreading a big bang during the evening, fingers crossed

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

No worries, I take my PET bottles to 60

(They’ll take well over 100)