SouthDowns Brews

[Mayor of Simpleton]

One of my new year resolutions is to keep better records of my brewing. My brew day record keeping itself is good in terms of timings and measurements but I am guilty of shoving the fermenter in my brew fridge and then the records stop (aside from measuring SG and determining when to keg).

So my plan is to put on record

- recipe development - I have a ton of recipes that I have no idea how and why I arrived at them; and just as important, whether they were any good and what should be tweaked or consigned to the "don't do that ever again"
- brew day - what worked, what didn't and what could I do different
- fermentation - how long, dry hopping schedule and how
- packaging - kegging and carbonation
- taste - how did it turn out and what adjustments should I think to make

I am planning to brew my SuperFuzz NEIPA on Sunday so that seems as good place to start as any. I am chasing the grail of producing a beer that keeps to that style longer than my many previous attempts. They lose that NEIPA flavour and aroma faster than I can drink them (I must be on V5 of it by now). It will also be the maiden voyage for my all rounder (my trusty SS Brewbucket is consigned to the shelf for this one) and my first attempt at a completely closed transfer to keg.

Anyhow, please chip in if you are reading my progress and think of something I could do different etc.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

First up is Superfuzz, a 6.5% NEIPA.

The recipe I have worked on is

Malts
69% grain bill is a 50/50 mix of Pale malt and Pilsner for the base. I want a clean, crisp malt with toasty/bready character
4% Amber malt to provide colour. I was thinking to use Amber as I want to avoid caramel notes but am keeping to a low quantity so as not to overpower with the associated flavour
4% Cara-pils to add a bit of body without contributing to taste
18% 50/50 mix of malted wheat and malted oats for the mouthfeel and head

5% Rice Hulls - to prevent the dreaded stuck sparge which frequently impact my brews

Hops

I am planning to use Columbus as my hops for bittering. I will add as first wort hops for a more subtle, rounded bitterness than that associated with additions at the start of the boil.

Other hop additions will be as whirlpool and dry hop. Using the classic Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy combination in a 1:1:1 ratio. Approx 30% of the addition will be at whirlpool (80C) with the remainder added at two points of the fermentation. 30% will be added at high krausen with the remaining 40% added when it reaches terminal gravity. Total hops come in at 19g/L.

Water

Tap water here. I will treat with a Campden tablet to remove Chlorine and I plan on adjusting chloride and sulphate to bring to a 2:1 ratio (150ppm:75 ppm) . I will also adjust Calcium to 100ppm and bring the residual alkalinity down with CRS

Yeast
London ale III (Wyeast strain 1318)

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

So, first brew day log (23 Jan 2022).

Sorry for the ramble......

First job was to get the tap water on to heat for mashing.

Water heating and treatment

My current set up is a Powell Brewing stockpot heated by a non-rusting Anvil forge floor standing propane burner that has gone, well, rusty. Consequently it burns a bit yellow and I end up with soot on the base of my kettle. Note to self: Job 1 - service my burner. This is filled with water through food grade hose. Then I add a campden tab.

While that is heating I move on to water treatment. I routinely measure alkalinity and calcium using the Salifert kits. I use my water report from my supplier to give me an idea of sulphate and chloride. At the moment, these are the only parameters I bother with. The table below shows my base and corrected profiles:

Parameter	Baseline	Adjusted	Target/Notes
Alkalinity (ppm CaCo3)	171.5	62.5	40-120
Following addition of CRS
Alkalinity	62.5
Calcium (ppm)	80	125.6	100-150 (increase from Calcium chloride addition
Chloride (ppm)	68.5*	185.6	150-300
Sulphate (ppm)	89.2*	99.3	75-150
Magnesium (ppm)	Unknown	2.6	adjusted refers to amount added only (as MgSO4)
Sodium (ppm)	Unknown	22.9	adjusted refers to amount added only (as NaCl)

*includes contribution from CRS

There is a ton of articles on the web on water chemistry of NEIPAs and I went to some extent with what I felt was consensus. There seemed to be reasonable agreement on Calcium levels but Chloride:Sulphate ratios varied from 3:1 to 1:1. I went with approx. 2:1 as this worked for me previously and I got the mouthfeel I wanted from the beer.

I added the water chemistry salts in two steps. First addition was to the mash and 2nd addition is to the boil. I generally don't add salts to the sparge water.

Mash and Sparge

Next step is to get together the grain bill. For this recipe I used

2.4 Kg Pale Malt (Maris Otter)
2.4 Kg Pilsner Malt
0.65 Kg Flaked Oats
0.65 Kg Flaked Wheat
0.3 Kg Cara-pils
0.3 Kg Amber Malt
0.3 Kg Rice Hulls

This is for a 20.5 L batch. (I reduced batch size from 23 L when I started kegging - I can't be bothered to bottle the leftover from the bigger batch size).

(I always add rice hulls to my brews as I suffer from a stuck mash with every brew. I think I have traced the root cause to grains crushed by a particular LHBS. My last 2 brews have been fine, but I need further brew days to confirm).

I also added the mash salts for water chemistry adjustment.

3.39 g CaCl
1.18 g NaCl
0.53 g MgSO4

Mash was at 68C for 90 minutes with about 20.25 L water (because that time fits my brewday).
Mash pH 5.51

I hit my mash temp. beautifully (see picture below). I generally find I need to mash in my grains with water 10C higher than my intend mash temp to hit my numbers. Note to self: Job 2 - re-do the volume measurements on my stock pot to reduce guesswork). At the end of the mash, temperature had dropped to 67.3C. A <1C drop is typical for my Igloo cooler mash tun set up. I always find my mash pH is between 5.5 and 5.6.

Batch sparge was in two steps. First step was addition of 2.5 L water at 75.6C, stir and then leave for 10 mins to set the grain bed. Following collection of the first run off, I added 15.5L water at 75.6C and repeated the sparge process. I ended up with 29.5 L wort with and SG of 1.051. This was a few points down on the 1.056 predicted by Beersmith but hey ho

Wort volume 29.5L
Post mash Gravity 1.051
Mash efficiency 75.3 (down on my usual 80-85%)

Boil/Whirpool hops and Cool

I added my first wort hops and the sparge water salts and brought the wort to the boil (see picture). Boil length for all my beers is 60 minutes. 30 minutes in I installed my immersion chiller and with 10 minutes to go I added half a protofloc. At flameout I started my whirlpool using my ridiculously over engineered system (see picture) and immersion chiller. I use a 10 gal SS Brew Kettle Brewmaster edition that has a tangential whirlpool built in with a March May pump to flow wort and create the whirlpool. Once the wort had reached 80C I stopped the chiller and added my whirlpool hops. After 20 minutes hop whirlpool, I re-started the chill.

20 g Columbus First wort hops
45 g Citra 80C whirlpool for 20 minutes
45 g Mosaic 80C whirlpool for 20 minutes
45 g Galaxy 80C Whirlpool for 20 minutes

Sparge water salts added at the start of the boil were
3.02 g CaCl
1.05 g NaCl
0.47 g MgSO4

Fermentation

Maiden voyage of the Fermzilla all-rounder. I ummed and ahhed about whether to use a standardblow off tube or go straight to spunding valve. I decided on the latter. After checking there were no gross leaks, I pressurised the vessel and set the spunding valve to about 2 psi. I Transferred the wort to the fermentation vessel and pitched the yeast. I should have checked the all rounder fits in my fermentation fridge. I found that my temperature probe doesn't reach my nicely put together thermowell so I had to tape to the side of the vessel. Note to self - Job 3. Sort my inkbird out so the probe reaches my all rounder thermowell.

Wort volume 20.5 L (target 20.5)
OG 1.068 (target 1.068)
Overall brew house efficiency 69.8%
Fermentation temp. set to 20C
Spunding valve set to 2 psi

Other parameters (according to Beersmith)
Colour 11 ish EBC
Bitterness 58 ish IBU

I pitched with London Ale III (Wyeast #1318).

Overall a successful brew day with a few jobs to do. I switched on my HLT at 9.45 AM and was doing my final clean up at 5.30 pm.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Day 6 Update

Fermentation kicked off within 24 hours and I could hear gas being released through the spunding valve (set to 2 psi). I added the first dry hop charge 41 hours from pitch by releasing pressure through the PRV and adding hops through the lid. I gave a few squirts of CO2 to repressurize and minimize oxygen ingress.

1st dry hop addition was
40 g Citra
40 g Mosaic
40 g Galaxy

I also knocked up a sample line with flow controlled by a party tap to measure gravity.

By day 6 SG had fallen to 1.022 (Beersmith predicts a finish at 1.019) so I added the second dry hop charge (again through the lid).

60 g Citra
60 g Mosaic
60 g Galaxy

The aroma I picked up when I sampled is the massive tropical hop bomb I was hoping for. That carries through to the taste as well. I am concerned that there is some hop burn there but hopefully this will mellow out on conditioning. Importantly, I am not picking up any off flavours.

I dialled in the spunding valve and plan on increasing the pressure to 8 to 10 psi to aid closed transfer.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Gah. Best laid plans and all that. Something wacky is going on with my NEIPA. Yeast attenuation is way beyond what it should be for this strain at 82% and still going. SG is currently 1.013 and still dropping slowly. So, not only do I have a beer that is 7.3% rather than the intended 6.5%, my dry hopping is now way longer than intended with the first hop in the FV 9 days and the second dry hop now at 5 days rather than the planned 3. B******s.

It's still super juicy and the tropical is there, but the citra is taking over

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

I fermented for 12 days in total, starting my cold crash as soon as I had 2x consistent SG readings. I allowed 24 h to reach 3C and then cold crashed for 4 days. During the cold crash I noticed that the pressure in my vessel had dropped from 8 psi to 0 psi - I stupidly forgot to close the spunding valve. I wacked some Co2 on top back to 8 psi and closed the spunding valve. Pressure then held reasonably well for the 48 hours or so before I did my closed transfer.

My closed transfer process was from a handy YouTube video from Simple Home Brew that I basically followed.

1. Clean and sanitise keg (and while I am at it, clean my kegerator beer lines ) leaving a few litres of sanitiser in my keg.
2. I connected my gas supply to my keg and a 3/8 beer line with a party tap at the end. I ran the starsan out through the party tap until the keg was empty. With Co2 still running through the 3/8 beer line, I switched out the party tap for another beer line keg disconnect. I also gave the PRV on the keg a few quick bursts to be sure I had purged the oxygen completely.
3. I removed the spunding valve from my all rounder and connected up a Co2 line. I then connected my beer line from the all rounder to the keg.
4. I used CO2 to push beer from the all rounder to the keg, using the PRV to relesase CO2 from the headspace. It took me a matter of minutes to make the transfer. I probably only transferred about 15 litres before I started to hit the trub at the bottom. Had I slightly tilted the all rounder I reckon I could have recovered another 1.5 litres.

A quick taste of the beer and I was happy. Super tropical aroma and taste. I only had a small sample from my transfer line so I didn't get a true sense of mouthfeel.

Final details - Superfuzz (NEIPA). OG 1.068, ABV 7.3%, IBU 57.7, EBC 11.2

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Supposed to be brewing my first lager today, but woke up in the wrong headspace to brew (does this happen to anyone else?). For some reason, I was in too bad a mood to attempt a brew. So instead, I serviced my propane burner - hopefully no more soot on the base of my HLT and kettle. I also re-marked the volumes on my HLT.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Superfuzz NEIPA taste notes (18 days in keg) - 36/50

I have used the BJCP style and scoring guide, but the scores are my own interpretation with no calibrating point of reference.

Aroma Intense tropical with a faint malt background No caramel or toast apparent. All the individual hop aromas are there. Citra is perhaps more prominant than I would like. (9/12)

Appearance - Golden colour with debris free opacity. There is a good lustre to the beer. Head is on point and well retained. I would have liked more haze (and that was my intention) (2/3).

Flavour - hop aroma is carried nicely through to the flavour. There is a harshness to the after-taste though (hop-burn?) which I think is coming from the citra. Nice breadiness coming from the malts and a dry finish. Despite the high ABV, there isn't an over-riding alcohol taste. I am not detecting any off flavours. Dropping points for the harsh finish (16/20).

Mouthfeel - Smooth mouthfeel and on-point with carbonation. Perhaps a little thin (3/5).

Overall. A nice drinking beer that is on point to style. The harshness on the finish detracts and while it is in spec. for ABV, it is higher than intended. (6/10)

For the next version, I will drop the ABV down and also tone back on the Citra.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Saazzy Biatch - Bohemian Pilsner Recipe (20.5 L)

Tomorrow marks my first dip of the toes into the world of brewing lager. I have been researching the style over the past couple of weeks and have come up with a recipe and a plan. As part of my research, I thought I would try a bottle of Pilsner Urquell as a great example of this style. I was shocked that this was not available in my local Tesco. In fact I was shocked at the range of lager they did sell; it was all Carling, Fosters and Stella. Anyway, the recipe:-

Malts

4.0 Kg Bohemian Pilsner
0.11 Kg Cara-Pils
0.11 Kg Melanoiden

Hops

50 g Saaz (First Wort Hops 60 mins)
22 g Saaz (30 mins)
19 g Saaz (10 mins)
30 g Saaz (0 mins)

Yeast

2x Saflager W-34/70

Water

35 L Tesco Ashbeck

I didn't want to mess around with the malts too much so I have gone for 95% Pilsner to get that bready/cracker like flavour and aroma. Because I can't do a decoction mash, I am using a bit of melanoiden to add that cookie/cake like maltiness and a hint of caramel. My reading around suggested to keep this < 5%. I am also adding a bit of Cara-Pils for that body and head. Again, my research suggested <3% on this one.

For hops, it was an easy choice. For a Czech Pilsner, its all about Saaz. Most of the bitterness is coming from the FWH hops. I like the rounded bitterness that comes from first wort hopping. I am adding throughout the 60 minute boil and at flameout. I am avoiding whirlpool and dry hopping is this isn't intended to have a high hoppy flavour and aroma.

There were a number of options for yeast, but I am keeping it simple with the W-34/70. 2 packs should give me the right pitching rate.

On the water front, I have gone away from my usual process of using tap water because it doesn't have the right mineral profile. The closest I could find was Tesco Ashbeck (Ca 11 ppm, Mg 3.5 ppm, Na 10 ppm, Cl- 14 ppm, SO4 11 ppm, HCO3 25 ppm). I don't need to make any additions to adjust the chemistry but I will need to add some lactic acid to bring my pH to 5.4. Beersmith suggests I will need about 4.4 mL, but I will work that out on my brew day from my measurements.

Mash - single infusion @ 67C for 90 minutes
Boil - 60 minutes

Fermentation schedule

Ferment to FG at 13C
Increase temp to 19 C and leave for D-rest for 72 hours
Crash to 1-2C until clear
Transfer to keg and keep @2C for 4 weeks

Then carbonate and enjoy.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Saazzy Biatch Brewday (6 March 22)

A bit breezy out today, so before I could start I needed to put up the event shelter and windbreak. I finally got my HLT on at 10.30 am. Pleased to report that the service I made of the burner worked a treat. No more orange flame and sooty bottoms.

The Tesco Ashbeck water negated the need for any mineral additions to my water for a Pilsner style although I did throw in a Campden tab for good measure. The water profile for the Ashbeck was

Parameter	ppm
pH	6.2
Calcium	11 ppm
Magnesium	3.5 ppm
Sodium	10 ppm
Chloride	14 ppm
Sulphate	11 ppm
Bicarbonate	25 ppm

I weighed out my grain bill and mashed in at 11.50 am at 66.2 C

Malts

4.0 Kg Bohemian Pilsner
0.11 Kg Cara-Pils
0.11 Kg Melanoiden

Target pH 5.4
Actual pH 5.14

Beersmith suggested that the pH of my mash would be 5.72. I measured it at 5.67 so pretty good. For the first time I needed to rely on acid addition to bring my pH down to my target 5.4. I came across a handy acid addition calculator buried deep in the mash page on Beersmith and naively used that off the bat without checking it. I added 4.1 mL 80% lactic acid to the mash. and checked pH again after giving it a good stir. I overshot massively and my mash pH was 5.14. Rightly or wrongly I decided not to correct. My thinking being that I didn't want to raise the bicarb levels. In hindsight I probably could have added a bit more water and taken it off the sparge additions.

Something else wacky happened during the mash - I lost a lot of temperature and at the end of the 90 mins my mash was at 58.7 C. WTF. Normally I lose about 1 degree from my cooler mash tun. One point of difference is that today I gave the grains a real good stir before taking my reading.

Note to self:

1). Work through acid addition calculations to address Beersmith shortcomings.
2). Investigate what is going on with my mash temps.

For the first time in several years I omitted rice hulls from my recipe. The result, 2x stuck sparges.

Anyhow at the end of all that mash efficiency was 81% which is in my normal ball park with post mash gravity bang on at 1.036.

The rest of the brew day was largely uneventful.

Hops

50 g Saaz (First Wort Hops 60 mins)
22 g Saaz (30 mins)
19 g Saaz (10 mins)
30 g Saaz (0 mins)

My 10 minute hops were added with 8 minutes left. Note to self 3: Don't get distracted by watching last kick of the game penalty for STFC away to Bradford.

I forgot to add the racking arm to SS Brewmaster Kettle which meant I pulled a load of **** through into my all rounder when I drained my wort into the FV.

I pitched with 2 packs of W-34/70 straight from the packet.

Wort volume 19.75L (target 20.5)
OG 1.046 (target 1.045)
Overall brew house efficiency 69.5%
Fermentation temp. set to 20C
Spunding valve fully closed

I haven't figured how to collage photos in correct sequence. Bottom right is showing the "brewhouse" set up. Top left is one of my favourite parts of the brewday; that point when you just start to hit the rolling boil and the hot break begins to break up. Bottom left is transfer of wort (and additional **** caused by not ading my racking arm). Top right is the sun setting on my brew day.

Other measured parameters (according to Beersmith)
Colour 7.2 ish EBC
Bitterness 34.5 ish IBU

Fermentation temp. set to 13C.

Over and out.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Pink Grapefruit IPA (MJ Craft Series) Brewday

Brewday with a difference for me today. After 7 years of AG brewing, I am going down the kit route. My fermentation chamber is tied up with my Saazzy Biatch for the next six weeks-ish so I have a couple of things planned in the meantime. The first of those is to see how a decent extract kit made exactly as per the IFU turns out. How good a beer can you get for minimal equipment investment?

Looking at the discussions on this forum, the MJ Pink Grapefruit IPA has solid reviews so I thought that is a good place to start.

One slightly annoying thing about this extract kit is the fact that the instructions call for the addition of a malt extract that isn't included in the kit. Why?

According to the extract pouch:

Alcohol: Approx 5.7%
IBU: 35-45

I boiled my 3L water and then added the malt extract from the IPA kit and the pure malt enhancer. I mixed to a consistent viscosity and then topped up to 23 L with cold water straight from the tap.. I mixed and added the M44 yeast included in the kit.

Original gravity was 1.050 so I think I am going to struggle to hit the 5.7% alcohol. Yeast was pitched at 18.8C. I am concerned that I should have allowed more time for the malts to dissolve in the hot water. The sample I took for OG was cloudy rather than clear.

Not much else to add. Look forward to seeing how this turns out.

Over and out

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Saazzy Biatch - 7 days in FV

7 days in and SG is already down to 1.010. Seems to have fermented very quick (even at 13C)? Despite looking super anaemic it tastes great though. I will monitor SG over the next few days as I suspect that because of my low mash temp it will ferment further.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

9 days in on my Saazzy Biatch fermentation and SG has dropped to 1.008. I think I am a point or two off FG now so will start to increase the temperature up to 19C for d-rest. I think it tastes OK but I need to get a Czech Pilsner to double check. I think I am going to make a Saaz tea to check that the flavours I am picking up beyond the malts are coming from the hops. I find the "Spicy" descriptor used to describe Saaz as not particularly helpful. I expect that the beer will finish at 5% rather than the 4.5% intended - I suspect this is due to having more fermentable sugars in my mash due to the low temp.

36 hours in on my MJ Pink grapefruit IPA kit. No airlock activity to report yet; although my kitchen is on the cold side and the wort is at 17C. I am preserving oil so the heating is off.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

I think Saaz taste like mushy peas! gip lol.

I do use them now and again though.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

I think Saaz taste like mushy peas! gip lol.

I do use them now and again though.

****. I hate mushy peas

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Me too!

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Perhaps I need to do a side by side comparison of a Saaz hop tea and a Mushy peas tea

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Perhaps I need to do a side by side comparison of a Saaz hop tea and a Mushy peas tea

I'll have a sick bag ready for you

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

60 hours in on my MJ Pink Grapefruit IPA. Still no airlock activity. Had a quick search online and the M44 yeast included in the pack is reported to be a slow starter. Temp in my FV is up from 17 to 19.5C suggesting something is going on. I took a sample to measure SG. and it has dropped slightly from 1.050 to 1.044 so hopefully it will kick off soon. It smells and tastes fine at this point so I don't have concerns about infection just yet. I don't really want to add another sachet of yeast - the whole point of this experment was to test an extract kit as is.

My Saazzy Biatch Pilsner is now in d-rest (as of about 21:15 last night). I will give it another 24 hours before taking an SG reading to see where it is at. One other thing. I think I cut a bit too much off my thermowell that I put through the lid of the all rounder. The probe is not quite sitting in the centre of the wort. Its probably just about OK though.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

80 hours in on my MJ Pink Grapefruit IPA and still no airlock activity. I took a sample and SG has now dropped down to 1.028 so I obviously don't have a great seal on my FV lid. The recipe calls for the dry hop addition once SG gets below 1.020 so I will likely need to do that tomorrow.

I need to start working on my next recipe. As my brew fridge is tied up with my Pilsner for the next 4-6 weeks, it seems the perfect opportunity to try fermenting with a Kveik. It will also be a test run of the Brewzilla so I am going to look through my ingredients cupboard and plan a user-upper. I have a ton of hops in the freezer that could do with being used as well.

I should add that on 15th (21:15) I increased the pressure on my Pilsner from 2 psi to 10 psi. I am within a couple of points max of my FG and want some pressure on top for when I come to transfer to keg after d-rest and the cold crash.