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Brew Day!! Watcha' got, eh!? 2018


Beerlust

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9 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Not having a beer while brewing qualifies as a brew day fail I think ?

Then I'm a failure! My best available day to brew is a Friday and I have it timed that I can drop my son off to preschool, get home, mill, mash, boil, cube and clean up just in time to pick him up at 3pm. My brewing assistant is my 2.5yo daughter.

 

Not a great look to pick up my son with a few beers under my belt. I crack one at 3.05pm though as soon as we get home.

 

I've said before that I don't drink while bottling. If I pour a beer it will go warm as I get so focused on bottling. Yeah, yeah I can hear you keggers saying how quick it is to transfer to a 19L steel bottle. But it means I have something forward to once all beers are bottled, capped and back in crates.

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I never had a beer while bottling either for the same reason, it just gets forgotten while bottling. Generally don't have one while kegging because it's over quickly plus there's the fermenter cleaning after. 

I guess you could have one beer while the mash is happening and still be ok later, but my comment was more in jest than anything else ?

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My LHBS has just got in the hops I need for my pirate life inspired hop co pale ale. 

All steeped hops will be cube hops at 85 degrees which will up the ibus a bit probably in the low 30’s

I’ll be using the WL001 from the previous batch. 

Captain

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23 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Not having a beer while brewing qualifies as a brew day fail I think ?

I have had this problem too, but when brew day is before I start work that is a problem

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44 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

That's a problem I never have doing all grain. Can't brew on work days anyway ?

You bloody could because you've all but posted your split shift bus driving commitments on here over the last few years. I reckon I could almost meet you at a certain stop! ?

The thing is you like to have an ale or two while going through the BIAB AG process on brew day! ?

?

Lusty.

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7 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

That's a problem I never have doing all grain. Can't brew on work days anyway ?

Huh? I always work on brew days!

I wake up as normal at 5:30 to do housework / have breakfast / get ready for work. Only additional task on brew days is to measure out my strike water. I get home from work at about 5:30 and put the strike water onto the stove on low heat. Then it's feeding my little boy dinner and giving him a batch. He's in bed by about 6:45 - 7pm, so after that I finish heating strike water,  mash in, do a bunch of housework during the mash, lauter, another bunch of housework during the boil, then done.

So, a full work day and a brew day is definitely possible and I have done it many, many times.

Cheers,

John

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Yeah, but I can't be forked doing a 6 hour brew day when I get home at 7.30/8pm and then have to wake up at 5.30am again the next morning. That would give me about 3 hours sleep. I might as well turn up to work drunk, as it would have about the same effect on my ability to drive safely ?. My work days stretch over about 12-13 hours due to the split in the shift (today I start at 7:10 and finish at 19:50). Saturdays are brew days/housework days, weeknights are for relaxing in this household ?

You're also doing smaller batches so the heating up to strike temp/boil etc. wouldn't take anywhere near as long as using nearly 40 litres.

Besides all that, it's just far more enjoyable doing a Saturday brew day, having a couple of beers and maybe inviting mates over as well than it would be rushing around in the middle of a work day and then not finishing it due to time constraints. If it works for some people that's great, but it doesn't work for me at the moment ?

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43 minutes ago, porschemad911 said:

Then it's feeding my little boy dinner and giving him a batch.

Damn, that's impressive! I thought getting through a batch in a few weeks was a big effort but your little boy does it in one sitting. I know you do half batches but it's still a great effort null

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19 hours ago, The Captain1525230099 said:

My LHBS has just got in the hops I need for my pirate life inspired hop co pale ale. 

All steeped hops will be cube hops at 85 degrees which will up the ibus a bit probably in the low 30’s

I’ll be using the WL001 from the previous batch. 

Captain

I had to look that one up. Taiheke is NZ Cascade.

Kiwi's love changing the names on us.

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1 hour ago, Hairy said:

I had to look that one up. Taiheke is NZ Cascade.

Kiwi's love changing the names on us.

Yep certainly is Hairy. 

They got some cascade crowns over from the US, then after they established the crowns they realised it was a completely different hop.

And because it was so different they are trying to disassociate with the term cascade. Hence the name change. 

I find it amusing that this company will change a name to make it distinguishable as a brand yet call there hops after towns or places, when you can’t trademark a name of a place or town

Anyway, ranting again

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3 hours ago, Hairy said:

Damn, that's impressive! I thought getting through a batch in a few weeks was a big effort but your little boy does it in one sitting. I know you do half batches but it's still a great effort null

Hahaha good one.. Give him a 'bath'. He could probably nearly get through one of my small batches though. 

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Kelsey, you could fairly easily mash in on your break, then lauter and boil when you finish work. Just put your urn in the house and insulate it before you go back to work.

Haha of course you don't have to if you don't want to, but I'm not going to let you get away with saying it's not possible! ?

Cheers, 

John

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So this NZ cascade. Fascinating. Is it really that different from US grown cascade? And how does AU cascade compare? I got sent some NZ cascade because ibrew were out of stock of the US variety. I've just been using it as per normal Cascade. Can't say I've noticed a huge difference

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Brew day tomorrow, trying out another one of the NZ hops I bought recently in a single hop pale ale.

The grains will be mashed at 67C for 70 minutes then raised to 72C for 20 minutes before a mash out at 78C.

Ferment temp will be 18C for the first 3-4 days then raised to 22C to finish off.

Predicted FG is 1.0121 with an ABV of 4.9%. Depends whether I hit the OG or not though. Lately I've been nailing the pre-boil figures but the OG has been at least 2 points lower than predicted for some weird reason. Never used to be like that and I haven't changed the boil time. Anywho, I can always boil it a bit longer if necessary.

Recipe: Waimea Pale Ale
Brewer: Kelsey
Asst Brewer: 
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 35.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 31.56 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 25.50 l   
Bottling Volume: 24.50 l
Estimated OG: 1.0498 SG
Estimated Color: 15.6 EBC
Estimated IBU: 35.6 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 86.2 %
Boil Time: 80 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
36.00 l               Brisbane Water (APA)                     Water         1        -             
5.50 g                Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent   2        -             
4.00 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   3        -             
4.500 kg              Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett)  Grain         4        83.3 %        
0.500 kg              Munich II (Weyermann) (16.7 EBC)         Grain         5        9.3 %         
0.300 kg              Crystal Malt - Medium (Thomas Fawcett) ( Grain         6        5.6 %         
0.100 kg              Acidulated (Weyermann) (4.5 EBC)         Grain         7        1.9 %         
6.00 g                Waimea [15.90 %] - First Wort 80.0 min   Hop           8        10.3 IBUs     
25.00 g               Waimea [15.90 %] - Boil 10.0 min         Hop           9        13.4 IBUs     
20.00 g               Waimea [15.90 %] - Steep/Whirlpool  20.0 Hop           10       9.0 IBUs      
20.00 g               Waimea [15.90 %] - Steep/Whirlpool  5.0  Hop           11       2.9 IBUs      
1.0 pkg               American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [124 Yeast         12       -             
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Do you really get that low FG kelsey mashing at 67C? I find my pale ales mashed that high will stop at 1.014/5. Similar grain bill to yours.

 

My porter that is in the FV atm had a predicted FG of 1.015 but it stopped at 1.019. And that was leaving it for 4 days, and it didn't drop lower. Given the specialty malts in that brew, and mash temp of 66.6C, at 1.019 I feel it was done and Beersmith was over predicting attenuation (US-05 American porter)

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8 hours ago, joolbag said:

So this NZ cascade. Fascinating. Is it really that different from US grown cascade? And how does AU cascade compare? I got sent some NZ cascade because ibrew were out of stock of the US variety. I've just been using it as per normal Cascade. Can't say I've noticed a huge difference

Hey Jools,

not sure really sure what the difference is, only just put down a couple of batches with it. I’ll let ya know when I know

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4 hours ago, joolbag said:

Do you really get that low FG kelsey mashing at 67C? I find my pale ales mashed that high will stop at 1.014/5. Similar grain bill to yours.

 

My porter that is in the FV atm had a predicted FG of 1.015 but it stopped at 1.019. And that was leaving it for 4 days, and it didn't drop lower. Given the specialty malts in that brew, and mash temp of 66.6C, at 1.019 I feel it was done and Beersmith was over predicting attenuation (US-05 American porter)

Yeah mate, I find the FG predictions pretty accurate. Usually within a point if not bang on. I did a stout a year or so ago that was mashed about 65, predicted FG was 1.016 and hit it bang on with 1469 yeast. Other brews are similar. Maybe check your mash thermometer, it might be out a bit and you're mashing higher than you think. 

Also, specialty malts don't have quite the same effect on the FG when mashed with base malt compared to steeping alone, as the enzymes do break down the sugars a bit.

Cheers

Kelsey

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Brew day underway here, well has been for a couple of hours now. Grains almost ready for mash out after a 70 minute stint at 67 and just finishing up the 20 minutes at 72. The mash started a bit higher at 68.7, but I just allowed it to drop over the 70 minutes so I am anticipating hitting FG or at least get within a point of it. I won't be disappointed if it does finish a little higher than 1.012.

Cheers

Kelsey

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The beauty of Valley Weather, today is like an English Summer with the temps hitting 14oC early in the day.

Enough about the weather today I am brewing an English Extra Special Bitter, which I guess has a correlation to my opening statement.

English Bitter in Targets and Name only

OG 1.054

IBU 39.6

EBC 27.3

ABV 5.2%

The Grain Bill is a mix match to make up the required 5kg with 2.5 GP, 1.5 Pils, .5 Ale and .5 Caramalt.

Magnum to bitter, Fuggles to finish and rinsed ESB to ferment. Might even do a small dry hop of 10g.

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

 

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