Finally Going to Brew Again...

[phettebs]

With the kids back in school and involved in various after school/weekend activities, I have not had time to brew. Today at lunch, I went to the LHBS and picked up some new yeasts I haven't used:

Wyeast 1275 - Thames Valley
Wyeast 1318 - London III
Wyeast 1026 - Cask Ale

I also grabbed some more Fuggles and Whitbread Goldings Variety hops. Plenty of malt in stock already.

The plan is to brew on Sunday. I would love to pull off a double brewday but I also have to bottle my mead that day so I think I'll play it safe and just brew one beer. I want to brew some sort of bitter from GW's book and use the cask ale yeast because this one is going into the polypin. If all goes well, this will be the inaugural beer for the hand pull!

Any recommendations on a beer to brew? I want something in the low to mid 1.040's OG that will lend itself well to being "casked" in a polypin.

Baz

 

[dennisking]

Never used that yeast, but there are several "standard bitters" in GWs book you could do. London pride is always popular.

 

[phettebs]

Thanks Dennis. I think someone on chat one weekend mentioned Arkell's 3B. I've earmarked a bunch of them so in the end, I'll just pick one and go with it.

 

[graysalchemy]

Fullers ESB for me, but add about 5% wheat malt to make it Northern. :whistle: :whistle:

That will work a treat with your new hand pump (when you get it)

 

[dennisking]

Thanks Dennis. I think someone on chat one weekend mentioned Arkell's 3B. I've earmarked a bunch of them so in the end, I'll just pick one and go with it.

Not tried that one Barry.

Fullers ESB for me, but add about 5% wheat malt to make it Northern.

Take one of London's finest and put clogs on it. :wha:

 

[phettebs]

I ended up brewing Courage Directors (thanks for the suggestion PiddleDribble) yesterday.

I ended up boiling a bit too long and had 19l at 1.050 instead of 1.045 so I watered it down a bit and saved the extra for making starters. The airlock is bubbling away this morning. I used the special edition Wyeast 1026 British Cask yeast. I've not used that one before but since this is going into the polypin, it seemed appropriate.

While I was mashing, I used my new floor corker and bottled 24 750ml bottles of oaked vanilla mead. The floor corker worked a treat and made quick work of all of those bottles.

I ended the day by getting the last of my 2013 Centennial hops out of the freezer (stuck them in there fresh) and got them all picked and into the oast to dry.

All in all, it was a very productive day at the Summer Creek Brewery!

 

[Jeff Brewjubbly]

Smashing day - 3 jobs in 1 :)

I managed to get an IPA done while taking all 3 kids to a party and making sure the misses felt like she had company to boot. I will have to consider making my brews more challenging again to add some stress :)

 

[PD]

just racked mine off Barry, ended up with gravity of 1010 ( NBS west coast style ale yeast from Malt Miller ) so a lot stronger ale than I intended, ( oh dear how sad never mind ). The ale is quite dark and tastes malty. there is a pleasant background flavour that I can't but my finger on as yet, will have to see how it goes....
Its a little more cloudy than I would have hoped for, which might be the yeast characteristic, I've never used it before.