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I neglected to mention the results, but the forced ferment I did with M36 on my AG#68 Hurricane Porter wort went from 1.051 to 1.021, 58% apparent attenuation.

By comparison, the actual beer I made went from 1.046 (I liquored back in the FV) to 1.019, same 58% apparent attenuation.

That's consistent. That yeast is quoted as attenuating in the 78-82% range if memory serves me well. Last two batches I did with it got 80%. What's up with your wort that your have such low attenuation? lots of unfermentables in there I assume.
 
That's consistent. That yeast is quoted as attenuating in the 78-82% range if memory serves me well. Last two batches I did with it got 80%. What's up with your wort that your have such low attenuation? lots of unfermentables in there I assume.
MJ claim 74-78% attenuation but ISTR there's quite a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that M36 isn't a mega attenuator - which makes your 80% impressive!

I mashed at 67degC which isn't mega-high but could be a factor. But yeah, it's probably mainly down to the 36% unfermentables I think!

I had a play in BF and if I just fermented the base malt I'd get the same ABV and 75%ish apparent attenuation. I think the issue is simply that BF is way over optimistic when it comes to the fermentability of dark malts. I've been seeing this in lots of dark beers recently and it's something I'm figuring out how to work around.
 
Pardon me, I'm talking out of my backside. Just looked at attenuation again and calculate 77% and 79% for my last two with M36. Both mashed at 67degC, though the second spent some time at 64 before I raised it.

First recipe was mostly Vienna and Red-X with a little crystal, second was 48/48 pale and light Munich with 3.5% carapils, so managed decent attenuation. Nothing like the dark malts you'd have in a porter or stout, therefore not much to trouble the yeast.

My water is very hard too so usually tip in at least 16ml of CRS and lucky to get pH as low as 5.3, most often 5.5ish. Yet I never seem to have any problems with fermentability in all my 36 brews to date, regardless of yeast or colour of the wort.
It's odd that something is consistently causing low attenuation for you. So many mysteries in this hobby.
 
Update: AG#69 Podium IPA

Screenshot_20210326-172756_Sheets.jpg


1 week + 1 day after pitching, gravity fell sharply at first and then took a few days to settle the last couple of points before ending at a suspiciously low Tilt indicated 1.007 (BF predicted 1.011).

Sure enough, a hydrometer check confirmed gravity 1.011 (or just under) corrected, giving 4.5% ABV and 75% apparent attenuation, bang on what I expected from BF.

Sample tasted not outrageously bitter, but bitter enough. Maybe a bit of malt sweetness. Little bit of resin there from the hops maybe, then grapefruit and bitter orange peel.

(Would make a nice hoppy pale ale as it is actually, I've done something similar before, but that's not the order of business here)

Dry hopped through airlock hole with 40g Amarillo & 20g Citra. I'll give it 2-3 days before cold crashing and then bottling.
 
Bottling: AG#69 "Podium" IPA

20210331_163822.jpg


20 x 500ml bottles, batch primed with 35g table sugar for a modest 1.74vols CO2

Colour = Pale; hazy but expect it'll clear a bit
Aroma = Hoppy
Taste = Initially I got bitter orange peel / grapefruit. Then I was surprised I seemed to be getting more resin. Overall, bitter enough but not too much. I think I'm getting the tangerine I'd expect from all that Amarillo. Finishes quite dry.

I'll wait until it's properly carbonated and chilled before giving my final verdict. But from memory I suspect this is pretty close to when I made it first time round (AG#5, more than 2 years ago now!).

As far as I could tell from a small hydrometer sample I think it's gonna be a nice beer, though with a couple more years experience under my belt now I did have a tiny thought whether it would benefit from a bit more malt presence. Ah, far too early to judge yet, we'll see...

OG 1.045, FG 1.010, 77% apparent attenuation
ABV = 4.61%
SRM = 4.5
IBU = 53.55 (Tinseth)
 
AG#70 Mk.III Hurricane Porter (Brett aged)

First brew in a little while - I took a few weeks off from brewing as I realised I've been making beer faster than I'm drinking it so need to slow production down a little.

This is actually a straight rebrew of the Mk.II Hurricane Porter I made a few weeks ago and have actually only just started drinking.

So why the sudden rush to make more? Well once primary fermentation with MJ M36 is complete I'm gonna rack half or all of it (haven't totally decided yet!) to a secondary and then age it for 3-6 months with some WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii.

Historically, Porter was aged in huge wooden vats where, unbeknownst to the brewers of the day, it was subject to various little critters, including Brettanomyces Claussenii.

Now I'm absolutely and categorically not claiming this as an authentic historic porter - for starters it's about half the right OG for that! But I'm certainly taking inspiration from history and frankly, well, I'm just curious to try this little twist on what has become one of my regular brews.

All pretty straightforward, no major crises:

17L tap water, 1.25ml lactic acid 80%, 2g CaCl, half a Campden tablet.
Calcium 169, Chloride 102, Sulfate 40, Alkalinity 292

2000g Golden Promise Malt
375g Brown Malt
375g Chocolate Rye Malt
125g Dark Crystal Malt 80L
125g Extra Dark Crystal Malt 160L
125g Special B Malt
3.125kg Total

Full-volume no-sparge mash, 1h45mins @ 67degC

Boil 30mins:
25g Northdown 7.5% AAU 30mins
15g Northdown 7.5% AAU 10mins
1/2 Protofloc tablet 5mins

12L in the FV @ OG 1.049 plus 2L crud in bottles which will yield another 1L or so.

Pitched 5g rehydrated MJ M36.

34 SRM
27 IBUs Rager
OG 1.049
Expected FG 1.020, giving 3.8% ABV after primary fermentation. And then after 3-6 months on Brett.C, all being well? No idea! :beer1:👍🍻
 
Update: AG#70 Mk.III Hurricane Porter

Not much to report. Last batch I made I used a vitality starter and it took off pretty much straight away whereas this time, even though I rehydrated the yeast, there was a more noticeable lag time of about a day which I thought was kinda interesting.

According to the Tilt it's down to 1.024 and levelling off already - I'm expecting it to get down to about 1.020 based on last time.

In the meantime, today I've prepared a vitality starter for the WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii - it might have been fine just chucking it in, but I figured I'd make a starter because I could and also because the vial is not too far off the best before date:
20210426_170646.jpg

20210426_170704.jpg


I had about 1L wort left over from brew day that I collected and left to settle out.

That went into the 5L bottle shown and shook like mad for a few minutes - as you can see, the resulting foam pretty much half fills the bottle!

Then into that goes the vial of Brett.C, and now it's tucked in a corner to do its thing while the main brew finishes off 🤞👍🍻:beer1:
 
AG#71 Amber Hoppy Ale v3

Version 3 of my Hoppy Amber Ale. I still have some bottles of v1 & v2 which, while both still nice, never quite came out like I had hoped.

I'm a bit torn between carefully fine tuning this beer, versus using it as my experimental beer to try out various hopping ideas - this time the latter kind of won out!

V1 was closest so far to what I was aiming for but I kinda messed up the dry hop (too cold, not enough hop extraction).

So after trying myself in knots and chasing my tail I've kinda fine back to the v1 hopping and tweaked it from there.

I've basically moved some hops from the end to the start of the 30min boil to give it a bit more bittering.

And I've decided to add the dry hop (not massive anyway, only 30g in 10L) at the start of fermentation - half at yeast pitch, the other in a couple of days at high krausen.

Why do this? Well, categorically I'm not trying to make a NEIPA! But I'm really interested in bio-transformation of hop compounds.

I believe BRY-97 can do this to some degree, but you need the hop compounds to be present in the first place. Hence, add your dry hop early in fermentation when the yeast is still active.

In addition I've added some new "Aromazyme" enzyme I got from The Malt Miller (actually a repackaged Lallemand product I believe). The idea is that this enzyme can liberate more of the aromatic compounds present in the hops and so should boost hop aroma and flavor

15L tap water, 20ml CRS, 2g gypsum, half a Campden tablet, giving:
Calcium 166
Chloride 133
Sulfate 238
Alkalinity 36

1500g Golden Promise Malt
500g Vienna Malt
250g Amber Malt
250g Carapils
2.5kg Total

60min full-volume no-sparge mash @ 67degC

Boil 30mins:
I'm using a blend of hops, Amarillo 8.3%, Cascade 6.7% and Centennial 9.5% AAU
5g of each for 30mins
5g of each for 15mins
10g of each for 10mins
10g of each for 5 mins
1/2 Protafloc tablet 5mins

Dry hop:
5g of each at yeast pitch
Will add another 5g of each at high krausen.

10L in the FV at 20degC with another 2L crud in bottles to settle out and top up the FV later. I'm definitely getting more clear wort into the FV and less waste thanks to the re-circ pump. Also, efficiency and hence OG is also a bit higher (2-3 gravity points).

Pitched 5g BRY-97 along with 0.25g "Aromazyme" enzyme plus first dry hop noted above.

5.9 SRM - Amber
49 IBUs Rager
OG 1.047, expect it to end up a touch stronger then I was aiming for, probably 4.5-5.0% ABV.
 
Busy evening - bottling first, brewday notes later...

Bottling: AG#71 Amber Hoppy Ale v3

I fined a few days ago with Harris Starbrite, then cold crashed and added gelatine so it's already a lot clearer than I'd expect for a dry hopped beer.

Yield = 20 x 500ml bottles
Batch primed with 35g table sugar giving a modest 1.7vols CO2.

OG = 1.047
FG = 1.009
ABV = 5.0%
SRM = 6
IBU = 48 (Rager)

Aroma & Taste = Hoppy
Colour = Amber
(I mean, seriously, what were you expecting? Look at the name - it's called "Hoppy Amber Ale"!🤣)

At 5.0% ABV it's actually ended up a bit stronger than I was aiming for, something in the 4.0-4.5% ABV range would do me fine. As noted in my original brewday post I added some "Aromazyme" enzyme (from The Malt Miller, but I think it's a repackaged Lallemand product).....

This enzyme aims to boost hop aroma & flavour - on this point I'll reserve my final verdict until it's carbonated and ready to drink, but it's certainly not bad! However, the notes also say it may increase attenuation slightly so I think this is what's made the difference.

Looking forward to having a proper first taste once it's carbonated in a week or two 👍🍻
 
AG#72 NPS American Stout v2

Re-brew of my recent monster 3.8% ABV AG#66 "Not Particularly Stout" American Stout - @pilgrimhudd said he could drink it until the cows come home and I'm inclined to agree even if I do say so myself!

The only change is the hops & hop-timings - I've switched from Simcoe, Citra & Amarillo to Chinook, CTZ & Simcoe as I think that piney/resiney vibe will work well in a stout.

16L tap water, 1.25ml lactic acid 80%, 1g gypsum, 1g CaCl, half a Campden tablet.
Calcium 167, Chloride 72, Sulfate 75, Alkalinity 292 (yup, that's high!)

1500g Golden Promise Malt
500g Munich Malt
150g Caramunich
150g Extra Dark Crystal 160L
150g Chocolate Malt
150g Chocolate Rye Malt
150g Roasted Barley
2.75kg Total

60min full-volume no-sparge mash @ 67degC.

Boil 30mins:
I'm using a blend of hops, Chinook 12.3%, CTZ 14.9% and Simcoe 13.3% AAU
5g of each for 30mins
5g of each for 10mins
5g of each for 5 mins
1/2 Protofloc tablet 5mins

Whirlpool 10mins @ 80degC:
10g of each

All went to plan. 11.3L in the FV, plus 2L crud in bottles which will net me another 1L or so once it has settled out. No question - since I started using the re-circ pump I'm definitely getting more crystal clear wort straight into the FV.

Pitched 5.5g (half pack) BRY-97 to ferment at 20.0degC.

43 SRM (black!)
52 IBUs Rager
OG 1.047

Should end up about 1.018 and 3.8% ABV if it attenuates as it did last time, and to be honest there's no reason it shouldn't. Happy days :beer1:
 
Bottling: AG#72 NPS American Stout v2

Yield = 23 x 500ml bottles
Batch primed with 38.5g table sugar for a modest 1.68vols CO2.

OG = 1.047
FG = 1.017
ABV = 3.9%
SRM = 43
IBU = 52 (Rager)

Colour = Black
Aroma = Malty
Taste = Dark with nice roasty flavour and a hoppy backnote.

I'm not quite sure it's got the piney-resiney character I was going for. I'll reserve final judgement as always until it's carbonated and ready to drink (about a month) but it seemed more grapefruitey to me - which to be fair arguably fits with the hops used (Chinook, CTZ & Simcoe)

Still think it'll turn out nice and I still think it works, might just be a case of trying a different hop combo next time but we'll see :beer1:
 
NIce one, i've never used CTZ but i'd have thought with SImcoe and Chinook you'd get the piney resin character? Sounds nice though! 👍
Are you sure? CTZ = Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (all different brand names for the same hop apparently), pretty sure I've seen one or other in your recipes here and there.

Yeah, I'd have thought so too but I think both Chinook and Simcoe can also have a grapefruitey side, along with the pine/resin thing. It's certainly not awful by any stretch so we'll see in a few weeks - and to be honest, taste at bottling isn't always a perfect representation of how the finished beer turns out!
 
Are you sure? CTZ = Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus (all different brand names for the same hop apparently), pretty sure I've seen one or other in your recipes here and there.

Yeah, I'd have thought so too but I think both Chinook and Simcoe can also have a grapefruitey side, along with the pine/resin thing. It's certainly not awful by any stretch so we'll see in a few weeks - and to be honest, taste at bottling isn't always a perfect representation of how the finished beer turns out!

Oh yeah....... yeah I have used CTZ..... duh!

No that's very true! I'm hoping my sample of my Bramling x IPA isn't representative of it's final taste! :laugh8:
 
AG#73 Get Even IPA v2

This beer started out about a year ago after a succession of lacklustre brews - I went back to basics and shoved in some base malt and some Chinook & Simcoe and got myself back on track 👍

Couple of variations this time round: First, along with the Chinook and Simcoe I've added in some CTZ; Second I've reduced the base malt to get it down from almost 6% to more like 4% ABV which suits what I'm going for these days.

Similar to my recent Hoppy Amber Ale I've gone with a modest dry hop - half at yeast pitch and I'll add the other half at high krausen after a couple of days. The idea is to encourage biotransformation by the yeast of more of the hop compounds to boost flavour and aroma. To help it along I've also added a pinch of "Aromazyme" enzyme - I haven't done a back to back but it certainly didn't seem to do the Hoppy Amber Ale any harm.

15L tap water, 17.5ml CRS, 3g gypsum, half a Campden tablet, giving:
Calcium 182
Chloride 121
Sulfate 260
Alkalinity 75

2000g Golden Promise Malt
2kg TOTAL

60min full-volume no-sparge mash @ 67degC

Boil 30mins:
I'm using a blend of hops, Chinook 12.3%, CTZ 14.9% & Simcoe 13.3% AAU
5g of each for 30mins
5g of each for 15mins
5g of each for 10mins
5g of each for 5 mins
1/2 Protafloc tablet 5mins

Dry hop:
5g of each at yeast pitch
Will add another 5g of each at high krausen.

10.75L in the FV at 20degC with another 2L crud in bottles to settle out and top up the FV later. I think I've got the hang of the slightly higher efficiency I'm getting now since I started using the re-circ pump - having updated the efficiency in Brewer's Friend I got my OG bang on.

Pitched 5.5g BRY-97 along with 0.25g "Aromazyme" enzyme and the first dry hop as noted above.

3.9 SRM - Pale
60 IBUs Rager
OG 1.038
Expect it to end up about 1.007 and 4.0% or thereabouts 🍻
 
The one I sent was Wyeast 1318 as I finished off the Verdant IPA ones a while ago.

Taste-wise I couldn't tell them apart, so if you wanted to stick with dry yeast I reckon you'd be fine with Lallemand Verdant IPA, which is said to be derived from/very closely related to 1318.

They have slightly different fermentation characteristics - with Verdant lots of people have commented the krausen appears not to drop, but like I say, taste-wise I couldn't tell them apart.

My feeling generally is yeast can make a surprising difference - as we were discussing with my Porter! MJ M36 could be worth a go but I'd personally avoid just chucking in some S04/Notty/whatever and assuming it'll be okay - I think there are better dry strains available these days.

Oh yeah, as you'll have seen in the recipe for v2 I think I was out of Vienna malt so I used wheat malt instead - no idea what difference if any that would make!
 
Might be worth an experiment to see what difference vienna makes.

I should really try liquid yeast again sometime, couple of bad experiences put me off.

I've not used the verdant yeast though, I've heard generally positive things so I'll give it a go here.

Just got to make a quick croasmyloof order for some hops!
 
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