Hazelwood’s Brewday Part 2

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Finally for today, introducing “Magnum Opus” (It’s a latin expression for an artists best work). This is a beautiful 4.7% English Bitter utilising the “new” Opus hop along with Fuggles and EKG. I’m struggling to describe this one but maybe floral, honey, earthy and a touch of spice. Hmmm, this might just be my magnum opus!

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Looks great but why no Magnum hops?😂
 
Today I brewed the base beer for my oaked cherry brandy sour. 21 litres with an OG of 1056 now fermenting with a couple of packs of Philly sour yeast. This will stay in primary for about a week and will then be transferred to secondary where I’ll add 2 Kgs cherry purée and 100g of medium charred American oak chips.

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Today I brewed the base beer for my oaked cherry brandy sour. 21 litres with an OG of 1056 now fermenting with a couple of packs of Philly sour yeast. This will stay in primary for about a week and will then be transferred to secondary where I’ll add 2 Kgs cherry purée and 100g of medium charred American oak chips.

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Could you soak the wood chips in cherry brandy?
 
I’ve decided to do a brew tomorrow because my fourth beer in this next tranche is going to be an oaked cherry brandy sour and I want to get the beer off the trub and on the fruit before I head off to Cornwall for a few days.

Water is prepared and I’m just waiting on my drill battery to charge before milling the grist.

I’ve not seen an oaked cherry brandy sour before so I might be an innovator or an idiot. I hope the former! 😂

Let me know if you need any insider help with you upcoming trip H. 👍
 
I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t but I’m not sure how much sugar there might be in cherry brandy, it’s more of aliqueur isn’t it?

In this case though I’m going to use fruit purée for a fresher fruit flavour and will add brandy.
I made a cherry sour wheat beer for my son’s fiancé for Xmas. I added frozen cherries and cherry essence. It was very under powering. She preferred the raspberry wheat made the other half of the base.
 
I made a cherry sour wheat beer for my son’s fiancé for Xmas. I added frozen cherries and cherry essence. It was very under powering. She preferred the raspberry wheat made the other half of the base.
Yeah, raspberry is very flavoursome compared to most fruit. Some fruits just don’t give much flavour when fermented out.
 
Yeah it might be worth doing a combo of cherries and extract, might even be worth letting everything finish up and adding the extract tp samples to get to your preference.
 
Decided to get another brew on today so I’m mashing another batch of Czech Pilsner. I’m a little bit excited because I’ve just replaced my hoses with crystal clear new ones. I realise this is a bit sad but I can’t help myself! 😂

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Clever-looking external pump rig-up .. looks a far more powerful system than a standard Grainfather (which if anything goes wrong is submerged under 20 litres of hot wort).
 
Clever-looking external pump rig-up .. looks a far more powerful system than a standard Grainfather (which if anything goes wrong is submerged under 20 litres of hot wort).
It is pretty straightforward and short of a heating element failure there isn’t much that would stop a brewday or make life difficult. Mind you, for the cost of a GF I could have a spare boiler sitting there, just in case! 😂
 
The Full English is done. 20 litres in the fermenter at an OG of 1054 which is on the money. Pictures show the nice clear wort during transfer to the fermenting bucket and the beer tucked up with its buddies in the fermentation cupboard.

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Now preparing for tomorrows brew, a batch of Summer Breeze.
 
The mash is on for Summer Breeze. This mash is a little different to most because it uses mash hopping to complex metal ions and help reduce oxidation. At the 20 minute mark gravity is 1052 and pH is 5.2. The picture shows the mash with hops clearly visible.

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Could I do mash hopping in my picnic cooler or does it have to be in a recirc system?
What changes from a normal hop schedule?
I would think you could still do mash hopping in your cooler (maybe need an occasional stir?).

The IBUs from mash hopping are a little under 10% of what you would have got from boiling those hops for the same time (you get fewer IBUs because mash temperatures are lower). Make sure you use leaf hops though because pellet hops will break up and get into the boil where they will then add lots of bitterness.

Use high alpha hops (it’s the alpha acids that complex metal ions) and dose at the rate of 2g/litre mash volume.
 
Sparging now. Sparging was delayed a couple of minutes because the sparge pump failed and I had to replace it. The sparge pump is a tiny submersible pump that comes in packs of 4 for about £5 the lot. The problem is they are intended to be used in fish tanks so not best suited to sparge water temperatures and the impeller eventually slips up the motor shaft until it seizes. I really ought to source a better pump. For now, a 2-minute solder job and I’m back in business.

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