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


Beerlust

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Ok. Little surprised your efficiency came out that low. Grain crush especially with BIAB is pretty key. If this was a fine crush then id be asking the LHBS for a coarser crush next time and see how that works for you. Also try altering your mash times a little. Try 75 next time and see where it comes out at.

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Just yet another batch of DSGA today,  had planned to do a side by side with 2 very different strains of yeast I've decided I'll run a pitching rate experiment instead. 

Pitched a batch this morning at 0.5M / ml /°P  which is about 2/3 of my normal rate 

Will pitch the other at 0.35 so half my usual rate. 

Still expect 7 days pitch to pour with this mental yeast I'm playing with 

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Brewed a batch I was meant to do a while back and didn’t. Pale with Mosaic, Amarillo and Chinook. 

Adjusted my mill from the last batch and hit my numbers spot on. 

Broke another bloody hydrometer though. The hydrometer god must hate me. Least this one lasted a few months

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5 hours ago, NewBrews said:

Brew all done and in the fermenter.

Given I didn't have any reference - I didn't hit my numbers, but am happy with what we got to.

Target mash SG was 1.042, actual SG was 1.036 which makes a measured efficiency of 65.7%. Post boil volume was low so obviously the grain absorbed more that I thought (even after a good squeeze), but I decided to leave it rather then dilute it further.

Post boil volume was down to about 9.5l and post boil gravity 1.044 after expected gravity of 1.050 (using a default of 75%).

Great exercise - was actually easier than I thought however I have some learnings from it:

  • Need a better burner - keeping a solid boil was challenging using the wok burner on my BBQ (I'm sure my kitchen hot plate doesn't have a chance);
  • I'll be dropping my expected efficiency down to 66% and recalculating my next planned recipe based on that; and
  • I think I'll be trying out a no chill cube for my next brew - chilling 11l takes a lot longer than chilling 6l, and a cube is a lot cheaper than a counter flow chiller.

I think I'm a new AG brewer!!!

 

Gday NB

Chilling 10 odd liters of wort to sub 24C takes 4L of ice aka frozen bricks. 

Check Gumtree for a chiller or as my LHBS guy exclaimed to me "can you get some copper?!' lol 🤔

Or grab the cube, I like a hack, though the only time i tried a cube it was a bad batch so i cant speak from experience as others can (bad batch was nothing to do with the cube.

Enjoy the brew mate, i like it.

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It was brewday for me also today, my first one in a long, long time. Today i made a Mountain Goat Steam Ale type beer. Recipe is as follows

2.7 kg Pilsner.

900g Wheat.

80g Acid.

15g each of Cascade, Citra and Galaxy at Flameout.

15g Cascade, 25g each of Citra and Galaxy dry hops.

Coopers Commercial Ale yeast.

Im still unsure about ferment temp. This will be the first time using this yeast and im not sure how it behaves at lower temps. I was thinking of a cool ferment, maybe 17°C? Dunno yet

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I like these understated styles @Rowbrew

 

This from @Beerlust

Quote

I fermented the Coopers commercial yeast lower @ 19°C to minimize ester production & it has produced a cleaner profile that allows the hops to shine & is lovely to drink. 

Apparently the yeast is a beast.

I used it once about 8 years ago but it was an infected batch. Damn fruit flys.

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8 minutes ago, Rowbrew said:

Cheers @grogdog, i like those sort of beers too. Sometimes im just in the mood for an easy drinking, low bitterness summery beer.

Thanks for finding that info on the Coopers yeast too. Maybe ill try normal ale temps of 18°C first and see what happens

Provided you've re-activated enough yeast cells from the bottles 18°C should keep you ester free. 21°C & above seems to be my point where I can get the ester to produce.

The quote grogdog has taken from me is from a very recent brew using 2nd gen CCA yeast that I had harvested from trub from the re-activation brew. That was then tossed into a 2 litre starter prior to pitching it into that 19°C fermented brew. I reckon I would have had a shite load of yeast cells in that brew so even at 19°C, I doubt there was much chance of the ester surfacing as there was no chance of under-pitching as is often done with wheat beers to throw the banana ester.

Just thought you might want to know that.

It's a great yeast to have at your disposal, & I'm currently having a crack at trying to maintain the strain in my fridge. Gen III will be my next usage of it.

Cheers & good luck with the brew (sounds nice),

Lusty.

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On 12/12/2018 at 2:05 PM, Lab Rat said:

Going to try something different from a pale this time. Sort of.

https://www.diybeer.com/au/recipe/parity-amber-ale.html

I'll be swapping the bootmakers for Black Rock regular pale, and BRs amber malt is 1.7kg. The recipe suggests cascade, but I'm hopping with 50g of Dr Rudi. 

Sound ok, or Frankenbeer?

Well this brewed into a pile of bland crap... Can't taste any of the dry hopped Rudi in here, or much else. Very similar to the super-bland pils I tried to brew with ale yeast and saaz a while back.

About the only thing I've brewed that's been really good, is pales. But it's pretty boring just doing those.

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Hi Lab Rat.

28 minutes ago, Lab Rat said:

Well this brewed into a pile of bland crap... Can't taste any of the dry hopped Rudi in here, or much else. Very similar to the super-bland pils I tried to brew with ale yeast and saaz a while back.

About the only thing I've brewed that's been really good, is pales. But it's pretty boring just doing those.

Your choice of hops (in particular) on these two brews was never going to produce anything highly aromatic or potently hop flavour forward. Dr. Rudi is primarily used for bittering in the recipes I see it used in, so treat it like Magnum (yeah an outcast!! like the Tom Selleck'ers!! 🤣) & use it primarily for bittering. Saaz has a nice spicy character & is generally best added during the boil phase of making beer to create this trait.

If wanting more hop flavour & aroma in your beers (regardless of style), you need to look at using some of the more "aromatic" & "pungent" varieties, & using them late in the boil phase & dry hopping.

Here's my BIG 3 that will guarantee high hop flavour/aroma. Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy, Citra.

Best of luck moving forward,

Lusty.

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42 minutes ago, Lab Rat said:

Can't taste any of the dry hopped Rudi in here, or much else.

Hmmm perhaps it's the quantites. I've got a Dr. Rudi Pale Ale in the cupboard and the hops come through fairly strongly. That was a Mexican Cerveza kit with (if my memory serves me correctly) a crystal malt steep, made up to 11l with 40g Dr Rudi at flameout and a 60g Dr Rudi dry hop.

It's not a bad hop. I get some nice stonefruit notes out of it. I'm thinking of using it blended with EKG and Enigma in my next beer, an amber saison. 

As Lusty mentions it's nowhere near as potent as some of the cheater hops though. I'd add Mosaic and Centennial as hard to go wrong with too. I love Centennial in a single hop beer and Mosaic, Nelson and Galaxy makes an awesome blend. 

Cheers, 

John 

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51 minutes ago, Beerlust said:

Here's my BIG 3 that will guarantee high hop flavour/aroma. Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy, Citra.

Best of luck moving forward,

Lusty.

Cheers. Yes, my pales with lots of citra and/or mosaic did really well.

But I tried to avoid making another pale. So that's why I didn't go with the pale hops, which were part of the cooper recipe. I did wonder why Coopers went with a pale kit to make an amber though. I even brewed it a 20l as well to try and concentrate everything a bit more.

I have in the past tried to do bittering hop boils, but didn't get much out of this at all. I did a boil and dry hop with the ale yeast pilsner, and again didn't get much of a beer. Over 100g hops total went into that brew. The English Bitter with a fuggles boil and dry hop was ok, but nothing special.

As I said, my pales have been good especially the black rock crafted, which was excellent. But as soon as I've tried something else, the beers turn out quite bland. It would have helped if my brew shop had suggested to go large with the hops in the first place, if Rudi are that up front. But they seemed to think I had something that would be good.

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Took a sample of my "Little Fat Bastard" cider gone from 1.091 Down to 1.010 drank the sample and it's still got a lot of sweetness to it which was a surprise from last time, the Lactose has made a difference. Will give it a bit more time in the FV to make sure it's done. At around 12% ABV atm so might carbonate half and leave the other uncarbed.

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On 12/30/2018 at 6:34 PM, Lab Rat said:

Well this brewed into a pile of bland crap... Can't taste any of the dry hopped Rudi in here, or much else. Very similar to the super-bland pils I tried to brew with ale yeast and saaz a while back.

About the only thing I've brewed that's been really good, is pales. But it's pretty boring just doing those.

I might have to retract this a bit - perhaps home brewing is making me fussy. Maybe Ambers aren't my thing, but a mate gave me a Rogers' the other day. It was shite.

Didn't finish it. I remember Rogers' used to be decent. Whoever bought L Creatures are ruining their beers. I can taste the style in my beer - and it's better. Not great though.

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 My go to beer this summer has been Coopers Cerveza with BE2 and Citra 25 Gm @10 min. I'm loving it and so is everyone coming around.

i decided to up it a bit and add some corn.  I couldn't get flaked maize over Christmas and New Years.  Couldn't be bothered waiting so I decided to go with the corn flake mash.  I added 200 gram of Australian made corn flakes for a 30'min mash, added this with BE2.  5 days in and looks and smells like beer

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On 1/4/2019 at 6:43 PM, Hermoor said:

 My go to beer this summer has been Coopers Cerveza with BE2 and Citra 25 Gm @10 min. I'm loving it and so is everyone coming around.

My next brew is going to be a Pale Ale with 25gms citra boiled for 10 mins in 2L/200gms of light dry malt. Is this what you did with the Cerveza? I picked up a Cerveza can for the first time the other day and was just going to brew it per instructions, but I have loved what Citra does as a dry hop in previous pale ales. 

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6 hours ago, Silmaril said:

My next brew is going to be a Pale Ale with 25gms citra boiled for 10 mins in 2L/200gms of light dry malt. Is this what you did with the Cerveza? I picked up a Cerveza can for the first time the other day and was just going to brew it per instructions, but I have loved what Citra does as a dry hop in previous pale ales. 

That's exactly whatI did, I bottled a batch in 1.25 l bottles for NYE. They didn't last long!

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