What's in Your Fermenter? 2017

[James Lao]

I used to use dark brown sugar in my dark ale recipes, but have gone away from it and just use white sugar now.

I use between 200- 500g along with a fair amount of liquid and dry malt depending on what ABV I want.

I think I was getting an iron-y like flavour, and since I switched to using normal sugar I don't notice that flavour any more.

I know sugar is frowned upon but British and Belgian beers are not ashamed to use it and they make bloody nice beers!

 

Cheers

 

James

[BlackSands]

I know sugar is frowned upon but British and Belgian beers are not ashamed to use it and they make bloody nice beers!

 

A small amount of table sugar features in most of my brews. I keep it below 10% but it's a useful adjunct for both raising ABV and thinning the body of a beer. When I used to brew with 100% LME I found the beers to be quite full-bodied so a few hundred g's of sugar was certainly helpful on those occasions. I don't usually use specialty sugars for flavouring though I did use demerrara in a saison once. I've never used dextrose! I've never understood why people pay so much more for 'brewing sugar' when the end result is exactly the same.

[porschemad911]

Hi John

 

Good to hear you have found some more time in your life to throw down an AG brew. I've been a but busy of late so cubes r empty but I do have two lagers in the CC phase in my fermentation fridge. Will have to get brewing a hoppy ale in a few weeks. I have a bit in my stockpile so want to drink it while it is fresh and hoppy and not waste any by leaving them a while.and drinking past their prime.

 

Bells two hearted looks like a fantastic recipe. Thanks I will save. Haven't had a lot of luck with my brews including centennial recently. Haven't got that citrus and pine punch that it is known for.

 

Perhaps the 250gm bag I bought was not stored properly or past its prime. Will bookmark this brew and get to it in the future tho.

 

Cheers' date='

Jools[/quote']

Cheers Jools! Now to find a day to ride up to my LHBS to grab the grain. I finally did a ride in to work today after recovering from a back injury and patching up the tube, so might head up there on Thursday.

 

I also finally got my IPA book by Mitch Steele back from my friend and have decided to do a Stone Ruination (v1) instead of the Bell's Two Hearted ale. I remember trying this a few years back and loving it. Mitch's recipe uses Colombus for bittering, then a big dose of Centennial at flameout and as a dry hop. I'll just use Centennial for bittering since I've got heaps on hand.

 

As an aside, where did you get your Centennial? I bought 900g of the 2016 US harvest from Brewman's Dealz page and they have tasted sensational in the 3 beers I have made with them so far - a big hit of pine and grapefruit.

 

Cheers,

 

John

[Otto Von Blotto]

I know sugar is frowned upon but British and Belgian beers are not ashamed to use it and they make bloody nice beers!

Belgian beers use candi sugar which is different to table sugar or raw sugar etc. I don't think sugar itself is frowned upon as such, it's more using it in excessive amounts that is frowned upon because in the majority of cases it leads to shit beer. I have used 200-250g raw sugar in my ESBs from time to time. I don't always use it, just depends what I want from the particular batch I'm brewing at the time.

[joolbag]

Hey John,

 

Great to hear that you are back on the bike AND back on the brew schedule again. Life doesn't get much better!

 

I bought my Centennial from iBrew. Usually their hops are great, vacuum sealed. I'll be looking at the brewman dealz when I need to restock.

Thinking I should get a good whack of my favourites like Cascade, Mosaic, Galaxy and of course, Citra.

 

May even look at importing them and splitting them with some local brewers/mates. Got plenty to use up first tho and fresh is best

[Del]

I just put a Coopers Real Ale can down as a

Coopers Unreal Ale, http://store.coopers...dex/view/id/21/

1.7kg Coopers Real Ale

1kg Coopers Brew Enhancer 2

500g Coopers Light Dry Malt

Kept this one pretty standard as its not a bad drop as is. This will be fermenting at ambient temps,

 

And a Coopers Pale tin, i hopped this up a bit.. into an IPA

 

Coopers pale tin 1.7kg

500gram Light dried malt,

1.6kg AMber Dried malt

30grams Citra @15 boil

20grams Centenial @10mins

 

will dry hop with another 15-20 grams of Centennial

this is in my spare fridge.. ive never actually tried to use the current temp controller as a fridge controller.. and i cant find my STC1000 since i moved house.. so.. hoping to ferment at 18`

[Away]

Just laid down my 3rd Stone and Wood Pacific Ale clone in a row. It has become my go-to quaffer and I'm just tinkering around the edges with each batch now having cracked it a few batches ago.

 

Current recipe is:

 

1.5 kg Briess Pilsen Light

0.5 kg Wheat DME

0.75 kg Dex

14g Galaxy (16%) at 11 mins

30g Galaxy (16%) at 5 mins (Predicted IBU 19.2)

US-05 from a starter, from a previous starter, from a previous starter, a la Kelsey.

23 litre batch, 4 L boil

Pitching temp 23C

Brewing Temp 18C

OG 1040

 

I am going to add a hop-tea at about 4 days in, rather than do a dry hop. I have found that a tea seems to give a more enduring flavour hit that the dry hop does.

 

This recipe differs from the last in that I was using 0.75 kg of wheat DME and 0.5 kg Dex but have swapped these around to try and get a thinner brew which will be a closer match to the commercial drop. This is purely as an experiment and next batch I'll probable switch back, because it's a pretty good drop.

 

Cheers

[DJB1962]

Finally got around to brewing a Vienna Lager which has been planned for a while. Recipe was online somewhere can't recall exactly where.

 

1.95kg Vienna Malt (Wyermann)

1.9kg Pilsner (Joe White)

0.5kg Flaked Rice

0.27kg Caraaroma (Wyermann)

0.27kg Red Back (Gladfields)

0.20 Carapils (Briess)

36g Motueka 60min

12g Motueka 10min

 

2 x W34/70 Yeast.

 

Going along nicely at 12C.

 

 

[Hoppy81]

I have 2 on the go at the moment.

 

Coopers real ale

1kg ldm

250g medium crystal

250g dextrose

150g maltodextrin

20g Riwaka @ 15min

US05 rehydrated

 

Coopers Canadian blonde

1.5kg Coopers light extract

200g caramunich

150g maltodextrin

20 Cascade/Galaxy @ 10min

US05 rehydrated

 

Both smelling great.

 

Cheers,

Hoppy

[BlackSands]

Had this idea of designing a partial mash beer based on each of the Coopers OS cans, for no particular reason other than it helped fill a rainy afternoon! I've already brewed a couple of golden ales based on the OS lager but I figured the draught can was probably quite well-suited to a best bitter. I screwed up a little and accidentally made this one up to 24 litres, hence the slightly lower than expected OG:

 

Basic Bitter

(Partial Mash)

 

1.50 kg Gladfield Ale Malt 39.5 %

0.20 kg Gladfield Biscuit Malt 5.3 %

0.30 kg Gladfield Dark Crystal Malt 7.9 %

1.70 kg Coopers (OS) Draught 44.7 %

100g Sugar 2.6%

5g Waimea - FWH (35min boil)

25g Sticklebract - (45 min FO steep)

Nottingham Slurry

 

| OG=1.038 | ABV=4.2% | EBC=20.8 | IBU=32 |

[Mark D Pirate]

Got a few batches fermenting away happily

 

Case swap RIPA

threw dry hops at it this morning , 100 g each of citra , cent and mosiac

 

GF day APA

75 g each cascade and amarillo dry hop in today

 

GF day coopers clone

set and forget this one , Coopers yeast took less than 8 hours to kick off and is running at 70 + burps a minute

 

2 different versions of Smurtos golden ale both got dry hopped today as well

Rye version has a slightly lower FG than the wheat version but both are tasting great with identical undisclosed hop combinations and look forward to getting feedback on them from Smurto and serving both at the case swap event in october

[Prang]

Aussie, Kiwi pale ale.

7% Vienna, 3% Dark Munich

Magnum bittering

Riwaka, Vic Secret at 15mins and flameout

3 day dry hop of 25 grams of both

Og 1.048

FG 1.012

Ibu 39

Ebc 10.5

 

Ready to bottle tomorrow, it smells and tastes alright out of the test tube. This is our sixth ag and we are starting to hit our numbers, although only 72 % mash efficiency.

Cheers Pete

[Rowbrew]

I just pitched the US 05 yeast starter into the batch of American Amber Ale i brewed last week. Lets hope it doesnt turn out too sweet!

[Otto Von Blotto]

Still got my Bo Pils in the FV, but will be kegging it either tomorrow or Wednesday. After that, my red ale is going in, either Thursday or Friday, and I have a brew day planned for Sunday which will be an APA. It was going to be with my home grown Cascade flowers but I haven't had time to build a mesh basket to contain them yet, so I'll brew something else this time and use them on the next one.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[porschemad911]

My Ruination batch got its dry hop last night - 40g Centennial in my stainless hop tube from Grain and Grape. It's perfect for the Craft DIY fermenter because it can sit at an angle to be pretty much completely submerged, but the fermenter dimensions don't allow it to flip over like the full-size DIY fermenter does.

 

My Nottingham pitch has done well. It started fermenting at 15° C, then slowly rose to 17° C over 3 or 4 days. After 6 days it is down to 1.011 (Mitch specified a target FG of 1.012 in the book) and the krausen has dropped completely. The gravity sample was delicious, and I was surprised at how well the malt flavour came through, with a pleasant hint of light caramel. It has fermented very cleanly, so I think I'll save the Nottingham slurry and use it in an American Brown ale next.

 

As for hopping, bitterness and hop flavour was good, so I am counting on the dry hop to add enough hop aroma. It will certainly be an interesting exercise to see what an early-2000s DIPA might have tasted like when it is all done and ready.

 

Cheers,

 

John

[Fergy1987]

I've got an Amber Ale in the fermenter at the moment. It's been 7 days and the krausen still hasn't dropped. Using us-05 yeast. Does this usually take a while to drop?

 

OG was 1.034 and current is 1.007

[Otto Von Blotto]

US-05 can do that yeah.

 

My red ale is in the FV now, since Friday. OG was 1.0435 and I got 25 litres into the FV for an efficiency of 75.2%. It's being fermented with 1469 as per usual, should be ready to keg in a couple of weeks time.

[James Lao]

Put my usual 2 brews down last night, with a few minor tweaks.

An American IPA and an ESB, both using Muntons Maris Otter LLME cans.

 

CCCM IPA

Coopers Lager can

Muntons Maris Otter LLME can

LDME 500g

200g Cara Rye

400g White sugar

Chinook 25g 20min

Centennial 20g 20min

Citra 40g 10min

Mosaic 25g 5min

IBUs 60

OG 1.059

FG 1.010

Should be about 6.4% in the keg

1.5 litre starter of West Yorkshire

Pitched at 24degC , fridge set to 18.5

Will probably dry hop 25g each of Citra, Centennial and Mosaic

 

ESB

Coopers English Bitter can

Muntons Maris Otter LLME can

LDME 0.5kg

Choc malt 100g

Crystal malt 100g

White sugar 400g

Goldings 20g 5min

Centennial 20g 5 min

IBUs 48

OG 1.060

FG 1.010

Should be about 6.5%

 

The house smelled bloody lovely from the hop boils, probably my favourite thing about brewing is the smell of boiling hops in wort!

 

Cheers

 

James

[Rowbrew]

I just dry hopped the American Amber Ale with 55g of Mosaic. Took a reading too which read 1.010 from 1.057. Although i know that the sample is only an idicator of how the beer will taste in the glass, i dont feel at this stage that it is too sweet. It could probably do with a touch more bitterness, but i think its gonna be ok...... I hope its gonna be ok

[Beerlust]

Hi Rowbrew.

I just dry hopped the American Amber Ale with 55g of Mosaic. Took a reading too which read 1.010 from 1.057. Although i know that the sample is only an idicator of how the beer will taste in the glass' date=' i dont feel at this stage that it is too sweet. It could probably do with a touch more bitterness, but i think its gonna be ok...... I hope its gonna be ok [img']crying[/img]

I did raise some concerns about the balance of this brew in the "Brew Day!!!" thread around the time you posted the recipe. It appears my concerns may have eventuated.

 

The recipe had a lot of dark crystal & your adjusted hop schedule from the recipe you were following has left a 12 IBU shortfall against the malt bill that would create an increased sweetness. How much so, I don't know as I can't taste it.

 

All I would say is if you are not happy with the balance of the current brew (i.e. it comes across as too sweet), then don't bottle it yet. What you can do to correct the sweetness is to do a mini hop boil to create a wort that will add the increased bitterness you require, ferment it to a beer state, & then blend it with your existing beer to create the improved balance before bottling/kegging.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Lusty.

[Rowbrew]

Hey Lusty!

 

Thank you for that brilliant idea of making a mini beer of sorts, and blending it with this brew. I was trying to come up with some different ideas to help with the bitterness issue, and this might just be it. Its definitely not too sweet, but it is lacking a little in the bitterness department.

 

How do you think i should tackle this? What sort of volume are we talkin here? Is 2 litres enough, or are you thinkin more like 10? Should i make a small wort with boiled hops into a starter and ferment that out?

[Beerlust]

Hi Rowbrew.

...How do you think i should tackle this? What sort of volume are we talkin here? Is 2 litres enough' date=' or are you thinkin more like 10? Should i make a small wort with boiled hops into a starter and ferment that out?[/quote']

Given you want bitterness here you'll need to boil whatever hop(s) you decide to use for at least 30mins, ideally longer. There are a number of ways you can approach this, some more complicated than others. The following is arguably one of the simplest, & the approach I would use.

 

I'd be looking at using 300gms of LDM in probably a 3½ - 4 litre boil (depending on your boil off rate) to leave a volume of 3 litres left after the conclusion of a half hour hop boil. You need to accurately know what volume of wort you have left at the conclusion of the boil to know how much hops to bitter it with. You can aim for a lower post boil volume if you like, just adjust your LDM & bittering addition accordingly to suit.

 

So an extra 3 litres of wort brings the total ferment volume to 26 litres. Yes I know you've already fermented 23 litres of it, but for calculating the required added IBU you need to base your IBU calcs on the full volume. Adding 3 litres of UN-hopped wort dilutes the 23ltr hopped wort further to approx. 26.5 (from the original 30 quoted from your recipe), before you bitter the small wort via a hop boil.

 

I'd aim for approx. a 15 IBU increase on the now 26.5 IBU/26 litre volume beer bringing the final IBU to around 41. 20gms of Centennial (9.9%AA) @ 30mins boiled will give you 14.77 IBU's when fermented at 26 litres. You'll only be fermenting a small 3 litre wort, but once combined with the other 23 litres will add that number to the overall volume. Note the little 3 litre wort will be extremely bitter. It's meant to be, but once combined with the other 23 litres, it will blend to a nice level. You can even add 10gms of Mosaic after this wort has cooled below 80°C & steep to maintain some flavour integrity of the brew.

 

3½ - 4 litre boil with 300gms of LDM.

20gms of Centennial (9.9%AA) @ 30mins = 14.77 IBU's @ 26 litres fermented.

Ferment the little 3 litre hopped wort & combine with the main batch. Final bitterness = approx. 41 IBU for 26 total litres fermented.

 

Good luck with whatever approach you decide to take. I hope that helps.

 

Lusty.

[Rowbrew]

Thank you so much Anthony for taking the time to help me out. What you are saying makes sense, and i think is a brilliant idea. Just one question though, should i add the newly made wort (once cooled of course) to the main batch or ferment it seperately with different yeast, then blend it on bottling day?

[Beerlust]

Just one question though' date=' should i add the newly made wort (once cooled of course) to the main batch or ferment it seperately with different yeast, then blend it on bottling day?[/quote']

I have assumed you already fermented the 23 litre batch? If you haven't, I'd combine the two worts, & ferment the combined volume.

 

If the 23 ltr batch is already fermented out, it's an interesting question you pose & as far as my knowledge extends, I don't have a definitive answer on this one as I've never done this before in a practical sense.

 

One theory says you could dump the unfermented wort directly onto the fermented beer still in the fermenter, gently mix & re-rouse the yeast & it will begin fermenting again as there should be an abundance of yeast in there to deal with it, & stalled ferments are often dealt with in a similar way. Then there are thoughts of it being an alcoholic environment & potential oxidation issues etc.

 

If you ferment the mini 3 ltr wort separately, it won't take long to ferment out, & you can combine the two beers prior to bottling. Probably a safer option I reckon, given what could go wrong with combining beer & wort & trying to re-rouse yeast.

 

Just my 2 cents on this one.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

[Rowbrew]

Yes, i have already fermented the main batch so i think that i will just make a seperate beer and blend it.

 

Thanks again mate, much appriciated