Rob's brewdays

[roboto]

I've just bottled 9 litres of what was supposed to be an extra 'extra special' bitter. Target ABV was ~6.3%, but my efficiency was way up and I chucked an extra 10% Maris Otter in as it turned out it would fit in the mash. I've ended up with a final gravity before bottling of 7.1%.

2.5kg Maris Otter
0.25kg Crystal (66 'L)
40g Fuggles @ 45

I'm relatively certain the efficiency bump is due to the 4 hr mash. This was sort of intentional as I'm trying to make my brew schedules more flexible. I've already taken to no-chill for the convenience, and as I brew on such a small scale everything is cool by the next morning.

Looking forward to trying this in a few days, the slightly cloudy sample I just supped on was nice enough!

 

[roboto]

Managed to get my hands on some new equipment a few weeks back so had my first brew day on my new setup.

Made a bastardised clone of one of Brewdogs kellerbiers, from pilsner malt and mandarina bavaria hops (courtesy of @fury_tea).

I'm 'no chilling' the wort in a corny keg and hoping to pitch some lager yeast tomorrow. Aiming for a easy drinker at around 4 - 4.5%.

The last beer I brewed was a NEIPA (forgot to post about that one) but the ESB I knocked out before that has turned out very nice, I've nearly finished the lot. The NEIPA needs another few days to mellow out but the taster bottle I had last night was good, you can really taste the blueberry in the mosaic.

 

[roboto]

So last weekend I tried to remake the ESB I made previously, but scaled up for a keg. I also tried reusing some dry hop in the boil, but think I c*cked up the amounts as I added approx 100g of mosaic and citra instead of 75g fuggles.

To counter this I shortened the boil a bit but having run the numbers through a hopping calculator it looks like my 35 IBU ESB is going to be closer to 100 IBU.
It's targeting 6.4% abv, and has a good bit of crystal in it which I'm hoping will help disguise the bitterness.

Is this going to be undrinkable?

Either way I'll let you know once it's fermented out

 

[roboto]

Well the ESB update is in, I've had a couple of pints of this now and while it is definitely on the bitter end of a bitter, it's actually still pretty palatable - and aside from the bitterness the crystal malts help mellow it out a bit. Might revise the hop addition down for the next one though!

As for the most recent brew I moved back to the kitchen and my starter gear to knock up a small batch of the Cloudwater-Brewdog NEIPA clone I've been mucking with. I used the BIAB bag I acquired during the mash which was a great help although I'm not sure I ended up with any less trub and my sparge may have been less efficient...
I tried whirlpooling most of the hops (rather than saving them for a big dry hop) but otherwise it should hopefully end up similar to the last batch.

Anyway, I chucked a load of dry yeast in and let it rip. 36 hours later and its down at 1.015 from about 1.066. Might even get it bottled by the end of the week so it's carbed up in time to take to my dear mothers house when I visit in a couple of weeks.


In other news I've ordered a floating dip tube for one of the kegs (the ESB is still very yeasty at the moment, despite being in the garage, but I haven't the space to cold crash it properly), and I also ordered a low pressure gauge for my reg to replace the current one which reads in litres per min.

Thanks for reading!

 

[roboto]

Delayed brewday write up as usual but a little over a week ago I had a go at fermenting in my BIAB setup, which so far seems to be doing fairly well!

This recipe is a NEIPA: Maris Otter with Citra and Cascade. OG was 1.077 so it's going to be a strong one but I just dry hopped it and will keg tomorrow or Wednesday and take the FG to find out quite how strong it is.

Managed to fix a leaky keg too, just a new o-ring did the job so very happy with that job sorted for £2.

Rob

p.s. the floating dip tube is an absolute winner and I will almost certainly get more for my other kegs.