BREW DAY!! WATCHA’ GOT, EH? 2021

[Hilltop hops]

Today's brew day, been a while getting sick of buying beer. Looks similar to OVBs.

[Popo the Reprobate]

A simple blonde ale tonight. Around 5% ABV.

96% ale malt

4% crystal

Wakatu to bitter 15g 10IBU

Waimea hopstand 30g approx 15 IBU

I rarely do the same recipe so close together but I did this one the other day (all Mosaic) and my numbers were really high. Thought I'd put through another one before I adjusted my efficiency. Everything looks on track so far. I used a different mill and the crush was a fair bit finer. I'm assuming it was that. Every now and then I get one that is rather high.

[iBooz2]

Had a pretty easy brew day today.  Did not even have to mop the floor after clean up, just too good!

Another Carlsberg Pilsner but using my RO water and a few salt additions so Version 1_1.  Decided to just leave the 150 g Acidulated Malt as per prior batch of this but left out the other acid additions on prior batch just to see where the mash PH would land using RO.  It hit 5.6 when 15" into the mash but subsequent samples tested at later times in the mash showed the PH was 5.7.   I upped the late boil hops from 25 g to 30 g to see how that tastes and smells in the glass.

 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 36.25 L
Post Boil Volume: 25.00 L
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 L   
Bottling Volume: 21.00 L
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 4.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 26.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 78.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt              Name                                             Type          #          %/IBU         Volume        
37.50 L          Alicat's RO Water                                Water         1          -             -             
0.50 g           Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash)                        Water Agent   2          -             -             
0.25 g           Calcium Chloride (Mash)                          Water Agent   3          -             -             
0.05 g           Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash)                  Water Agent   4          -             -             
3.75 kg          Pilsner (WEY) Premium Pilsner Malt (2.8 EBC)     Grain         5          86.2 %        2.44 L        
0.45 kg          Corn, Flaked (Bairds) (2.6 EBC)                  Grain         6          10.3 %        0.29 L        
0.15 kg          Acidulated (Weyermann) (3.5 EBC)                 Grain         7          3.4 %         0.10 L        
30.00 g          Saaz [3.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min                    Hop           8          13.7 IBUs     -             
30.00 g          Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop           9          12.5 IBUs     -             
1.00 g           Whirlfloc Granulated (Boil 5.0 mins)             Fining        10         -             -             
1.0 pkg          Copenhagen Lager (reclaimed) (White Labs #WLP850 Yeast         11         -             -             


Mash Schedule: BIABasket, Carlsberg Pilsner, Light Body Step Mash
Total Grain Weight: 4.35 kg
----------------------------
Name                         Description                     Step Temperature Step Time     
Mash Step 1 Mash In          Add 38.91 L of water and heat t 51.0 C           10 min        
Mash Step 2                  Heat to 63.0 C over 5 min       63.0 C           60 min        
Mash Step 3 Mash Out         Heat to 76.0 C over 12 min      76.0 C           10 min   

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

KB Lager brew day today. Simple recipe but very tasty for a megaswill type. Plan to follow it up in the next couple of days with a sapporo clone while the ferm fridge is at lower temps.

 

[RDT2]

Pilsner Brew day a couple of days ago a quick full volume  mash started heating the water and started to mill the grains. Rollers were turning no grain going through wtf Was working fine last week emptied the grain out made a small mess. Rollers were spinning with no slippage. More grain in same result. Tipped grain out again stuffed around a bit made more mess blood pressure rising wife rang at wrong time. Stuffed adjusted rollers cleaned rollers still no movement. Moved rollers out then it started to crush. The rollers were too close together pulled a credit card out measured and works fine now. I had never heard of this before and it crushed fine (as in worked fine)last time unless it moved or something. Anyway wasted probably an hour. Did the mash measured Ph was at 6 so put some acid in dropped to 5.5 was happy with that for now. No other issues into the cube might be slightly less bitter than anticipated. Any made a starter for the wd34/70 and pitched last night. Tested starter it tasted a little bit sour I though wtf googled it apparently that can happen with lager yeastso another lesson learnt.(anyone else had this) I did everything right so can’t be infected  and it has started fermenting nicely this afternoon and smells good. Cheers  

Edited July 4, 2021 by RDT2

[iBooz2]

18 minutes ago, RDT2 said:

Pilsner Brew day a couple of days ago a quick full volume  mash started heating the water and started to mill the grains. Rollers were turning no grain going through 

Yep this has happened to me just about every brew day in the last month or so.  Did the same as you, did an autopsy on the grain mill and all to no avail.  Then low and behold the next brew day my battery drill was very flat.  Guess what?  Because the battery was flat the speed was very, very low and bugger me if the grain did not start to pull through.

So now when I start milling, I get the drill to just start rotating as slow as I can (few rpm) and it will grab the grains and pull them in and start the feed process.  I think, with a very close gap in the mill you have to start it super slow, it will make a labored crunching sound that tells you that grains have been pulled into the roller gap and then you can try to speed the drill up.   This saved me heaps to frustration and stuffing around.   Hope that helps.

[Marty_G]

Put this through today. 

 

Forgot to put my salts in but I use rainwater so it is not a huge issue.  I have been making all manner of European style malt driven beers for the last couple of  years.  Mostly double batches for myself and son who has very conservative tastes. Pilsners, EBs, Irish Reds, Koschs,  Australian Lagers and Sparkling ales.  Recently made a smaller batches of APA for my self just for a bit of difference.   Must admit enjoyed the APA which was Simcoe, Galaxy and Nelson rather than the Amarillo, Galaxy and NS in this one.    Think this will have a broader citrus flavour with orange from the Amarillo to compliment the Galaxy as Simcoe  has some similar flavours to Galaxy.   I used the dregs of my Simcoe for bittering.

Fermenting under pressure with US05 at 21c and 15psi.  Should be ready in 10 days or so. Will be using the FV as a unitank for this so once it has cold crashed I will be start slowly drinking it.   

Not much more to add really.           

[Popo the Reprobate]

Chinook IPA is mashing as I write. It's cold outside tonight!

 

[Breaktrainjack]

Its cold my way too @Popo ..im deciding whether to chinook dry hop a Chinook IPA tonight  ..hmmm  ..first ..i better have an IPA ..lifes tough sometimes

Edited July 7, 2021 by Breaktrainjack

[Popo the Reprobate]

36 minutes ago, Breaktrainjack said:

Its cold my way too @Popo ..im deciding whether to chinook dry hop a Chinook IPA tonight  ..hmmm  ..first ..i better have an IPA ..lifes tough sometimes

That it is  

I've not brewed with Chinook before. I'll probably give this a reasonable dry hop and see what it is all about.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I actually nailed my target OG on that last brew, came in at 1.0504.  Also filled the cube more as I got my hop sock/spider cleaned up for that batch so there wasn't as much crap in the bottom of the urn after the boil and whirlpool. Then as I was squeezing the sock out it split open, and of course craftbrewer is out of stock of the damn things so I won't be brewing for a short while. 

I have to pay my golf club membership this week so next week I'm gonna order some hops from cheeky peak, and get one of their hop spiders as well. Not totally against throwing hops in loose but if it's gonna create more crap I'd rather brew with a spider. Next brew will probably be on the weekend after that stuff arrives.

[MitchBastard]

Gearing up for brew day tomorrow. @Graubart you’ll be happy to know it’s a saison. No belle sais in sight though. Got some white labs Belgian saison 568 I think it is. Meant to be a well balanced flavour of “Belgian” and “saison” twang. We’ll see. 
basic beer comin up…..

pilsner, Vienna, rye. Some Dex. Styrian pellets. Maybe some mandarina bavvy as a late addition. Champers bottles and high priming rates in this beers future. 

[jamiek86]

Classic Aussie bitter or whatever called on coopers site but tin malt not kg of dry like the recepie says. Instead of dubbya used the 2 week old slurry from 3 packs of 86 days pils yeast from last pilsner made. 

now my concern is the 2 bigger jars of slurry smelt different to the stubbie. The stubbie smelt like a mini beer where the bigger one was like the spaghetti that came out of it although was washed and sanitised properly. The smaller jar was hard to pick up on but not a bad off smell. It all went in anyway as I noticed heaps of hop matter in the jars that smelt different so put it down to that now got fingers crossed. Pics of jars were from 2 weeks ago it had actually settled to bottom nicely.

OG 1.050 20.5 litres pitched slurry on 14 degrees Fridge set to 12.

 

[Shamus O'Sean]

12 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I actually nailed my target OG on that last brew, came in at 1.0504.  Also filled the cube more as I got my hop sock/spider cleaned up for that batch so there wasn't as much crap in the bottom of the urn after the boil and whirlpool. Then as I was squeezing the sock out it split open, and of course craftbrewer is out of stock of the damn things so I won't be brewing for a short while. 

How do you get such precise SG measurements, Otto?

I have drifted away from using a hop spider or hop sock (paint strainer bag) for my last few brews.  45g in a Dunkelweizen; 54g in a Stella clone; and 35g in a Stout.  I figured I would get better usage from commando-ing the hops.  Also the amount of hops I used was not huge.

I have an IPA planned in a month or two with just over 200g of hops in the kettle, 120g late and 100g in the whirlpool.  I will bring out the paint strainer bag at least for the boil.  I do not seem to get any hop agitation in the hop spider, even for small additions.  I think it might overflow with 200g in it.

[iBooz2]

13 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Then as I was squeezing the sock out it split open, and of course craftbrewer is out of stock of the damn things so I won't be brewing for a short while. 

Otto, my technique with hop additions in the boil is to use the hop socks for each addition then at the end fish each sock out with the spoon, giving each a moment to drain then drop them into my sanitised coffee plunger.  Once all the socks are in the plunger just squeeze them all at once and then pour the juice back into the boil.  You may have to repeat this procedure a couple of time until no more hop juice appears.  If one of the socks does happen to split then no big deal as it is all contained in the coffee plunger anyway and filtered by its mesh.  Plus no scolded fingers etc.

Later during clean up I snip the string at one end of the hop sock, tip the spent hops into my fern garden and rinse out the socks with hot water ready for next brew / boil.  Just hang them up to air dry so they do't go moldy.

Edited July 8, 2021 by iBooz2

[Otto Von Blotto]

13 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

How do you get such precise SG measurements, Otto?

I have drifted away from using a hop spider or hop sock (paint strainer bag) for my last few brews.  45g in a Dunkelweizen; 54g in a Stella clone; and 35g in a Stout.  I figured I would get better usage from commando-ing the hops.  Also the amount of hops I used was not huge.

I have an IPA planned in a month or two with just over 200g of hops in the kettle, 120g late and 100g in the whirlpool.  I will bring out the paint strainer bag at least for the boil.  I do not seem to get any hop agitation in the hop spider, even for small additions.  I think it might overflow with 200g in it.

Temperature correction usually. I can eyeball to half a point for the physical readings but the temperature I take them at varies. I correct it to 4 degrees since that's where it reads 1.000 in distilled water (which is accurate). 

The spider I used is just a large hop sock with stainless rod legs that were attached to it. I'm not sure why it failed but it may have been exposed to sunlight too much. It was sitting on the patio table since the last brew last year, which does get sun for a couple of hours in the summer mornings. It works quite well for boiling hops, the beers always turn out as expected, but since I can't get another one at the moment I need something else to avoid excessive trub. I used a grain bag in the boil once, sort of like a paint strainer bag I suppose, but it mucked up the boil off rate. Generally I'm not using more than 150g in a recipe so a spider should work ok. Only one way to find out I suppose. 

Not overly keen on using multiple socks for each addition, I already hate cleaning up what I do use . I'm not sure how much wort I squeeze out of my usual one, I probably get the majority of it but not all. Enough to fill a cube without getting hot break in it, or very little of it, is good enough. I'm sure I could use the coffee plunger to get it out of a stainless spider. I'll keep an eye on craftbrewer though for whenever they get the others back in stock. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Otto Von Blotto

[Breaktrainjack]

The lids are the culprits @jamiek86 ..cling wrap em then screw the lids on next time ..guess you got some spaghetti blonde bitter to try out aye ..pour em up with a sprig of bazil ..laughin

[jamiek86]

35 minutes ago, Breaktrainjack said:

The lids are the culprits @jamiek86 ..cling wrap em then screw the lids on next time ..guess you got some spaghetti blonde bitter to try out aye ..pour em up with a sprig of bazil ..laughin

yes mate knew lids done it but thought they were OK before put them on maby I'll do cling wrap and just use lid to slosh it around before pitch it. It's fired up fast and taken off like a rocket so don't think anything bad happened.

[Breaktrainjack]

Ive done the same in the past @jamiek86 ..was funny to see someone else do it as well

[jamiek86]

17 minutes ago, Breaktrainjack said:

Ive done the same in the past @jamiek86 ..was funny to see someone else do it as well

good not being only one

[Shamus O'Sean]

8 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Temperature correction usually

That makes sense.

8 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

The spider I used is just a large hop sock with stainless rod legs that were attached to it

Nice.

8 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I used a grain bag in the boil once, sort of like a paint strainer bag I suppose

I will do something like this with the IPA

8 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Not overly keen on using multiple socks for each addition

I will probably use one sock for the boil additions and one for the whirlpool additions.

Thanks for all your advice.  Very appreciated.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Put down a westy 12 clone yesterday. Finished up bang on the quantity but 4 points low for whatever reason. Extra aeration with 15 mins from the aquarium air pump in this one as well as the splash from height. Started at 20c and ramping up to 28c. Taking the opportunity as well to keep a tripel and golden strong I bottled a few days ago warm as well as a starter. 

[Aussiekraut]

It was a long brew day but both batches are in the ferment fridges. Mötley Brëw in the Coopers FV and a Queensland Sunburn in the other. I’m even taking the heat belt for a spin

Edited July 11, 2021 by Aussiekraut

[Classic Brewing Co]

50 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

It was a long brew day but both batches are in the ferment fridges. Mötley Brëw in the Coopers FV and a Queensland Sunburn in the other. I’m even taking the heat belt for a spin

Looks like you have been busy @Aussiekraut  I notice you have no Airlock fitted but I understand they are not totally necessary. I kind of like it bubbling away for a few days but it's all about the beer so Cheers anyway.

[RDT2]

4 hours ago, Greeny1525229549 said:

Put down a westy 12 clone yesterday. Finished up bang on the quantity but 4 points low for whatever reason. Extra aeration with 15 mins from the aquarium air pump in this one as well as the splash from height. Started at 20c and ramping up to 28c. Taking the opportunity as well to keep a tripel and golden strong I bottled a few days ago warm as well as a starter. 

Look forward to hearing how that goes another yeast for me to try eventually