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AG number 83
Big Belly Yorkshire ale

The HBS order has come through and my beer stocks are looking very very low. Time to do a large brew (for me) and try to build up the stock cupboard for christmas. As i only have a 23l boiler, thei means doing a concentrated brew and back liquoring. Not something i normally do, not for any particular reason, i just like brewing lots of different beers, so only doign 15l batches doesnt really bother me.
I like a good 'Ale' and i think Pilgrim does a fantastic jop of giving you a spicey, cedar hoppy note to anything English. So this time round, its my old favourite take on a Yorkshire ale - very much along the lines of session ales like Great Newsome "Sleck Dust" and Littondale brewery. I also found out that the revised Tetleys no.3 pale ale used pilgrim too.

4.5kg Maris Otter
200gm medium crystal

18l mash at 66C for 120mins, and a 5l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
15g Admiral @30min
25g Pilgrim @5min
10g Admiral @5min

Yeast
gervin GV12 - Notty yeast,

This produced a way to strong wort, exactly as planned. So back liquored by 5l to get 21l in to the FV before pitching the yeast.
Expecting 8srm and 30ibu. Measured the back liquored wort to 1.045, which should give 4.5%.
 
Wood-bee lager pic.
It's wet, alcoholic and kinda tasty actually. Too malty for a proper lager and obvs not made with a lager yeast and not lagered.
But it's using European pisswater hops, so it's a lager.
Seem to have lost my foo recently, too many Blahblahblah blurrrrgh beers. Sorachi IPA, this fake lager, sorachi saison. Even my super hopped English ipa just didn't quite hit the spot.
Think I might try going back to some of my earlier brews that I know and trust.
 

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Wood-bee lager pic.
It's wet, alcoholic and kinda tasty actually. Too malty for a proper lager and obvs not made with a lager yeast and not lagered.
But it's using European pisswater hops, so it's a lager.
Seem to have lost my foo recently, too many Blahblahblah blurrrrgh beers. Sorachi IPA, this fake lager, sorachi saison. Even my super hopped English ipa just didn't quite hit the spot.
Think I might try going back to some of my earlier brews that I know and trust.
My Sorachi Saison is a bit meh too.
I've had my fill of "fruity" IPAs and suchlike, got a good 180 bottles stored in the garage.
I'm doing a Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome tribute today as a break from my norm.
 
OMG. I completely forgot to write up a brew that I'm about to bottle!
So tomorrow I'll write up my citra mosaic ipa as ag84, even though I put it on before ag83. Ooops
 
AG number 84
The Forgotten IPA


As I completely forgot to write this one up when I brewed it, I'm calling this the lost IPA. Its my take on the Munton hazy IPA everyone seems to be raving about recently on the kit brewing bit. So very much trying to emulate what they have done and matching it, but with all grain to avoid any chance of 'kit twang'

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm medium crystal
500gm oats

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
LOTS, using mosaic and citra at 15 mins and 5 mins to get the right IBU
But this is heavily dry hopped, including a dry hop during active fermentation at day 1. Apparently this takes advantage of a process called biotransformation and gives a much fruitier flavour. So its 25gm Mosaic and 25gm Citra on day 1 and then another 25gm Mosaic and 25g Citra on day 7

Yeast
Verdant IPA yeast - not the S04 that the Muntons kit comes with.
expecting 45IBUs, 5.3% abv and colour roughly 7SRM
 
AG number 85
Jester Tester


First go of one of these new fangled English hops - Jester. I like the sound of these, typical earthy English hop profile with a subtle hint of fruit and blackberry. Its nearly a smash, but i like to add a little colour just for my own sensory enjoyment to make a visual difference between fake lagers and saisons and whats going to be an english ale. I know it doesnt really make a difference, but its a 'thing' ok....

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm medium crystal
10gm carafa iii for some colour adjustment

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
15gm Jester @ 30min
35gm Jester @ 5min
25gm Jester dry hop day 5

Yeast
Notty finest for a clean neutral profile to let the jester hops come through.
expecting 55IBUs, 4.3% abv and colour roughly 9SRM
 
Bottled the lost ipa and it is as hazy as custard.
Smells amazing and can't wait for this to carb up. I get a feeling the moment this is halfway carb'd I'll be tucking in before 'the hops fade' :-)
 

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Bottled the lost ipa and it is as hazy as custard.
Smells amazing and can't wait for this to carb up. I get a feeling the moment this is halfway carb'd I'll be tucking in before 'the hops fade' :-)
Oh cock
As part of my last hbs order I got some bottle tops.
I ran out of my existing crown caps with 10 bottles to go and ripped open the bag of new crown caps. These look weird, they have a plastic insert bit on them.
So away I went of capped them. Strange they were a little tough to extract from the bench capper.

Oh, having looked further I have ordered the wrong caps, they re bigger caps for wine bottles and large beer bottles. Now they capped OK, just difficult to remove from the capper..... But will they actually work?
Or should I do an emergency crown cap order, chill these 10 bottles to almost freezing and recap them?


Ps does anyone want 90 large crown caps with the plastic inserts? Free to good home
 
2 brews this week!

AG number 86
Mandarin Saison
I love mandarina bavaria hops, and i think it will go really well in a Saison. bit late for christmas - as working from the office all last week really messed up all my brew timetables! Never mind, on with the show. This time i am experimenting with a single massive hop addition late on in the boil to get the bittering I want and the flavour profile maximised, for these are a fairly delicate hop.

2.5kg Maris Otter

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
50gm Mandarina Bavarai @ 10 mins

Yeast
Danstar Belle Saison
expecting 30IBUs, 3.8% abv and colour roughly 3SRM
This one is getting brewed HOT, heat belt on and fleeze wrapped around the FV and its sat bubbling away (very vigorously!!!) at 26C
 
AG number 87
El Dorado IPA
I have done this one a few times now and it never fails to impress. Love the strong stone fruit flavour from el dorado and its leaves a lovely pleasant aftertaste.

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 113ebc

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
10gm El Dorado @30 mins
40gm El Dorado @5 mins

Yeast
MJ M44 US west coast which i love for its clean profile and letting the hops shine
expecting 42IBUs, 5% abv and colour roughly 7SRM
This one is getting brewed cold - probably around 18C to get it as clean as possible
 
Hazy Forgotten IPA
It's mad juicy, like brew dog elvis juice juicy!
If it wasn't for thr cost of using so many hops, 200gm in this one, I'd brew this all the time. Well until I get bored and default back to Yorkshire ales again😂
 

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AG number 88
Tangarine IPA

On a roll with my IPAs of late - not sure why but i am fairly confident in the new year I'll be saying "not brewing that american muck anymore" and sticking on a foxbats mainline or something!
But i digress. This is using up the saison mandarina bavaria hops and combining them with Summit. And to avoid any onion flavours from the summit, they're all being added as late as possible to give the IBU i want and a big aroma hit. This should - SHOULD - give a real fruity tangerine and orange flavoured IPA. But to be on the safe side, I am going to stew some tangerine peel in vodka and add that on dry hop day.
Commercially speaking there are a few west coast breweries doing this hop combo, so re-using my M44 west coast yeast should suit the style well.

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 113ebc
150gm Oats

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
20gm Summit @ 10 mins
20gm Summit @ 5 mins
20gm Mandarina @ 5 mins
30gm Mandarina @ day 3
1 tangerine peel @ day 3

Yeast
MJ M44 US west coast which i rescued from AG87
expecting 42IBUs, 5% abv and colour roughly 7SRM
 
AG number 89
Jester mk2

I liked ag85 so much I'm brewing it again! No changes to the previous brew grist, but I am knocking back the hops a little on the bitterness and as I forgot to add the dry hop on the last one, I have just enough hops to do it.

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm medium crystal
10gm carafa iii for some colour adjustment

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
10gm Jester @ 30min
35gm Jester @ 5min


Yeast
I wasn't sure on the bottle of notty I had in the fridge, so chucked it. But that's left me with my only pack of dried Yeast, Mangrove Jacks m36 liberty Bell. Not overly concerned as its a good general purpose ale yeast so shouldn't do anything too wierd and should in fact compliment it.
expecting 35IBUs, 4.3% abv and colour roughly 9SRM
 
AG number 86 Mandarin Saison taste test.

Reliably lovely - you can't beat a Danstar belle saison SMASH for a thirst quenching pint of bubbles. Brews like a monster, carbs in no time and conditions in the blink of an eye. Really good pepper spice combo that's ready to rock n roll grain to glass in 3 weeks.
BUT....its completely ripped out any hint of the mandarina bavaria hop flavour. It's just not strong enough to fight its way through. Might as well have used any old noble hop for all the good it's done.
Never mind, lesson learned.
 

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Jester mk2 has been bottled and smells super dooper
But as its a weekend, I might as well put a brew on and use up the last of my grain stocks

AG number 90
Summit SMASH


You cant beat a good SMASH, and as i am using up the last of my grain, it was a case of just chuck it all in and back liquor to get the numbers right. I know some people dont like Summit and complain of onion or garlic flavours, but I have never picked up on this before, so not sure if its a flavour profile that i am not sensitive too...

4.2kg Maris Otter

18l mash at 66C for 90mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 19l wort for a 60 minute boil and 15l in the FV

Hops
10gm Summit @ 60min
50gm Summit @ 0min


Yeast
Mangrove Jacks m36 liberty Bell.
Wort was at 1.060, so i back liquored to 18l and thats given me a much more sensible 1.048 OG
expecting 40IBUs, 4.8% abv and colour 5SRM
 
AG number 91
low Alcohol session saison

My previous saisons always tend to over attenuate and end up being way more loopy juice that i anticipate. as i usually shoot for about 4.5-5% and after 3 beers, it always feels like they were closer to 6-6.5%
So this time i am erring on the side of caution and doing a fairly low alcohol version - a 'session' saison - with the expectation it will come out fine in the end.

2.5kg Maris Otter

18l mash at 64C for 90mins, and a 2l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 19l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
20gm hallertau tradition @ 60min
25gm hallertau tradition @ 5min

hit my numbers exactly, with an OG of 1.040 and 16l
Yeast
danstar belle saison rescued from my last brew ag86
expecting 25IBUs, 4.0% abv and colour 4SRM
 

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