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The child is out, the wife is working, the sky is blue, there’s nothing else for me to do , but it’s .... time for a wee American Pale [emoji106]


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Today I brewed from Greg Hughes' book for the first time - Cornish Tin Miner's Ale. Probably the worst name ever for a beer, but the description makes it sound great. Malty, biscuity, blackcurranty. And also using CML yeast for the first time (the real ale one).

All numbers hit bang on, which was reassuring. Only snag is the First Gold hops I used for bittering didn't smell too fresh. But I guess as they're only used for bittering it might not be such a big issue.
 
Wanted to try doing a Cereal Mash, so brewed a Wild Rice American Lager (68% Pale Malt, 8% Munich, 10% Wild Rice, 14% Basmati).
 
Not used them before. From what I've read, other than being an adjunct and making the beer lighter and less malty, the Basmati adds a slightly nutty, popcorn aroma. The Wild Rice (not actually rice, but a grass seed) apparently adds a walnut like nuttiness to the flavour.
 
I'm trying to work out if my wheat malt has gone fausty and is what has been causing off tastes in my recent batches of beer (always add for head) so I'm eliminating everything apart from it by making a wheat beer with just it, DME, coriander and peel. Repitching crossmyloof kristalweisen from my 50/50 malt/flour experiment which tastes absolutely lovely, smooth and bananary - even though I thought I was going to have to throw that down the toilet at first because it was like playdough and I thought I'd have to force it into the fermenter with a broom handle.
 
Brewed a version of the Palmer Stout on New Years Eve. Had various issues (detailed elsewhere in the forum) but got 17l in the FV at 1.048 ish. Swapped out fuggles for mt hood from the recipe and added some black patent.
 
Brewed an American IPA today, using Greg Hughes recipe.

I had my first go at doing some water treatment, adding the appropriate amounts of gypsum and lactic acid to the water (thanks Strange Steve for the guide).

I miscalculated the sparge water volumes, so ended up with 12.5 l in the FV rather than my planned 11.5 l, leading to a slightly reduced OG of 1.056 (according to my new refractometer).

Chilled and pitched at 22C with a whole pack of CML US Pale Ale yeast and now in the brew fridge at 19C.
 
Had some issues with my brew today. Firstly, I had already started before checking my freshly delivered ingredients, leading to a realisation that I hadn't ordered the Challenger hops I thought I had :doh: - anyway, I decided to use the Belma and in-stock Williamette hops for the bittering instead, having recalculated amount required to achieve a similar IBU.

My recipe was:

3kg Golden Promise
1kg Hook Head

10g Belma (60 minute boil)
5g Williamette (60 minute boil)
5g Belma (last 10 mins)
5g Hull Melon (last 10 mins)
15g Belma (end of boil)
15g Hull Melon (end of boil)

The first issue is that I'd read various advice on how long you should steep hops for at the end of the boil. I left mine for 10 mins and then began the cooling, leaving the hops in for a few more minutes. I've since read this may lead to infection?

The next issue was that as I turned my hose on for my immersion chiller, the fitting leaked with some force, spurting water into my wort. Although it's tap water, it's from my outside hose pipe which is quite a concern.

I then drained my wort into the fermenter at a little higher than pitch temperature as I had read it would lose some heat during this process. Despite aerating for some time (even outside at one point) I could not get the wort below 23c. Eventually the Mrs wanted the kitchen (and Me) back and so, with temperature reading of 22.9 - 23.1 across the wort, I pitched the yeast :(

Based on the above is it worth keeping?

I also forgot to take a reading of the OG before draining into the fermenter. There was enough left in the boiler to take a reading later (22c) but it contained some of the 'foam' left over from the boil. The reading was 1.038. Does that sound accurate? :hmm:

After fermentation I plan to rack some off into a demijohn containing strawberry purée as an experiment. Both hops supposedly provide strawberry flavours and aromas so it should be a good match (and the Mrs wanna a fruity beer :lol:)

Any thoughts / advice welcomed please :hmm:
 
Had some issues with my brew today. Firstly, I had already started before checking my freshly delivered ingredients, leading to a realisation that I hadn't ordered the Challenger hops I thought I had :doh: - anyway, I decided to use the Belma and in-stock Williamette hops for the bittering instead, having recalculated amount required to achieve a similar IBU.

My recipe was:

3kg Golden Promise
1kg Hook Head

10g Belma (60 minute boil)
5g Williamette (60 minute boil)
5g Belma (last 10 mins)
5g Hull Melon (last 10 mins)
15g Belma (end of boil)
15g Hull Melon (end of boil)

The first issue is that I'd read various advice on how long you should steep hops for at the end of the boil. I left mine for 10 mins and then began the cooling, leaving the hops in for a few more minutes. I've since read this may lead to infection?

The next issue was that as I turned my hose on for my immersion chiller, the fitting leaked with some force, spurting water into my wort. Although it's tap water, it's from my outside hose pipe which is quite a concern.

I then drained my wort into the fermenter at a little higher than pitch temperature as I had read it would lose some heat during this process. Despite aerating for some time (even outside at one point) I could not get the wort below 23c. Eventually the Mrs wanted the kitchen (and Me) back and so, with temperature reading of 22.9 - 23.1 across the wort, I pitched the yeast :(

Based on the above is it worth keeping?

After fermentation I plan to rack some off into a demijohn containing strawberry purée as an experiment. Both hops supposedly provide strawberry flavours and aromas so it should be a good match (and the Mrs wanna a fruity beer :lol:)

Any thoughts / advice welcomed please :hmm:
My 2 penneth for what it's worth.

Can't imagine that waiting before chilling will cause any problems at all. Presumably the wort would have stayed pretty hot and therefore prohibit bacterial growth.

Similarly if the wort was of sufficient temperature to pasteurise the water sprayed into it I would have thought it'd be fine.

Getting down to pitching temp when you've started cooling seems to me to be critical (unless you chill in a sterile sealed container). Pitching the yeast at those temps will be fine in my opinion.

In short definitely worth keeping!
 
"Don't worry." :thumb:

Wort is very resilient and "Worth keeping?" think on lad. Do you really want to dump all that money and effort without finding out what the end result will be?

Write down what you know went wrong, read your own comments before the next brew and make sure that you don't make the same mistakes in the future. :thumb:

Remember "A bachelor is a man who didn't make the same mistake once!"

Enjoy! "thumb:
 
I finally got round to testing the fg on my user upper brown porter featuring a tin of coopers dark malt. It's been in the fv since 13/12/17 and I had initial fears of an off smell..this disappeared so confidence renewed I decided to leave it well alone.
Well...it's finished bang on recipe fg of 4.7%,it's definitely brown but on a more positive it's delicious! ! Crashed to 3 for a couple of days.
I must order malt!! Saying that I have a John bull english ale,another tin of coopers dark and various crystal,carapils etc...plus loads of yeast. .....
 
I'm brewing an American Amber Ale tonight. Got all my kit out earlier and I couldn't find my grain bag (my spare died two brews ago). So I improvised, a three vessel style brew with only one vessel! Ran off into a FV and heated sparge water on the hobs. The biggest drawback of course is the wort was 55C before I switched the kettle on so I have a long wait for the boil. But the positives are there, the sample wort is miles clearer than my usual BIAB efforts. Haven't got it cool enough to check the gravity yet but if it's good efficiency (I've been terrible in that regard recently) then I may be buying a second kettle and ditching my no sparge BIAB ways.


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um a simple bitter ...

2.5kg dme extra light
500g dwe
50g ekg hops

Method - 20 min boil with 500g dwe & 500g dme & 3.86 liters (took out 140 ml water from a 2 litres bottle to rehydrate the yeast.)
6 litres of water in fv , mixed up the remainder of extract.

mangrove jacks liberty bell yeast pitched at 23.5 into 21 litres of wort.

*no candy sugar or GS used - what was I thinking :doh:
 
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