Brew Day What Did You Make - 2024

[John304]

Another ausie lager on the boil in the old urn,

[stquinto]

On 4/15/2024 at 5:36 AM, Back Brewing said:

Have you got a link to that COPA recipe?

Coopers Original Pale Ale - 2 cornie watered down Grainfather Community Tools.pdf

Sorry, forgot. Here's the recipe.

This is defo my go-to beer. Dead easy to make, and guaranteed results. I tend to keg a cornie and bottle the rest. My neighbour greatly appreciates a slab from time to time.

[jennyss]

6 hours ago, John304 said:

Another ausie lager on the boil in the old urn,

Is that a chux hop bag in your boil there @John304?

[Classic Brewing Co]

12 hours ago, jennyss said:

Is that a chux hop bag in your boil there @John304?

Probably got hops in there Jenny.

[Red devil 44]

Brew day today, German Kolsch AG pack from the LHBS.

Have done this one before a few times but picked it up on way back from our Northern NSW getaway. 

[Brauhaus Fritz II]

On 4/13/2024 at 7:08 AM, Brauhaus Fritz said:

After 2 weeks the SG is 1011 and smells and tastes fine.

After 3 weeks fermenting and ramping up the temperature from 11 to 13 degrees for two days and another 3 days on 15 degrees I took a sample this morning. SG 1008 quiet  dry but very nice, no farty odors or flavors at all. Tomorrow is bottling day. Got my label ready as well 

[John304]

17 hours ago, jennyss said:

Is that a chux hop bag in your boil there @John304?

Yes Jenny, as Phil said I use chux for hop additions during the boil and for dry hopping as necessary 

[iBooz2]

On 4/19/2024 at 5:46 PM, stquinto said:

Coopers Original Pale Ale - 2 cornie watered down Grainfather Community Tools.pdf 865.2 kB · 15 downloads

Sorry, forgot. Here's the recipe.

This is defo my go-to beer. Dead easy to make, and guaranteed results. I tend to keg a cornie and bottle the rest. My neighbour greatly appreciates a slab from time to time.

@stquinto, your recipe above is more like a Coopers Sparkling Ale than a COPA.  Too high a ABV for COPA for starters.  Just saying!

[iBooz2]

On 4/14/2024 at 12:32 PM, RDT2 said:

Another Guinness clone for me today the last batch is nearly gone! It was so good i am making it again!

 

@RDT2 , do you put the roast barley in for the full mash?  I have read that it only needs to go into the mash for the last 15 minutes.  This is because roast barley in not a malted barley so no resultant benefit other that the colour or some of the roasty-ness.

My first and recent batch of Gunness clone that I did, I put the roasted barley in for the whole mash time and don't know if this is the right technique as it does risk bringing in all the astringencies of the roast grains.  My Guinness, now kegged up and at serving pressure tastes like a hit of short back coffee almost.  It's close but not as close as I would like it to the original beer, even with the souring of two or so drops of lactic acid to the pint glass.

Edited April 21 by iBooz2

[stquinto]

23 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

@RDT2 , do you put the roast barley in for the full mash?  I have read that it only needs to go into the mash for the last 15 minutes.  This is because roast barley in not a malted barley so no resultant benefit other that the colour or some of the roasty-ness.

My first and recent batch of Gunness clone that I did, I put the roasted barley in for the whole mash time and don't know if this is the right technique as it does risk bringing in all the astringencies of the roast grains.  My Guinness, now kegged up and at serving pressure tastes like a hit of short back coffee almost.  It's close but not as close as I would like it to the original beer, even with the souring of two or so drops of lactic acid to the pint glass.

Interesting question @iBooz2 and @RDT2.

I’m going to knock up a double batch this week and that would be good to know.

As it is, I’m thinking of putting less malted barley in anyway, I read somewhere that it might be an explanation for why the head is more beige rather than white like in Ireland. Also I noticed in the last trip there at Easter that it has a reddish tinge when you hold it up to the light. It also seemed more bitter than sour

But a perfect 2nd brew for the kegmenter in any case

[stquinto]

I knocked up the Guinness clone yesterday.  I put 200g less roasted malt. I panicked as it seemed more brown than nearly black, so I threw in some black malt powder. For some reason my OG readings were really off, I don’t think the samples were thoroughly mixed. I boiled it for 90 minutes, and ended up adding 7 litres of water to get it to 1.048

That’ll be two cornies full .

It seems a perfect beer for the second outing of my kegmenter, as it won’t fit in any fridge, although at a pinch I could fit it in the keezer if I had to.

I got a new floating dip tube for it, and the evoline to upgrade my beer lines

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

@stquinto different parts of that brew look like breakfast and tea. You have done a few Guiness clones now. 

Got the lactic acid ratio for you're liking or still experimenting? 

[stquinto]

23 minutes ago, Uhtred Of Beddanburg said:

@stquinto different parts of that brew look like breakfast and tea. You have done a few Guiness clones now. 

Got the lactic acid ratio for you're liking or still experimenting? 

I put in 4ml lactic acid for a cornie, and have also done the souring of the wort. Both work well IMHO. For the souring, I put aside about a pint of the wort before pitching. Over the course of the fermentation (I left it two weeks) the set-aside portion grew a fur coat and it had gone sweet. I binned that, and drew off a pint and left it to sour over the course of about three days. I then boiled it up to sterilise it and added it to the cornie. If I have a double batch I tend to do one cornie using each method to experiment. Since both are good, I reckon the lactic acid is less of a faff, and I have a litre of the stuff to use up...

https://shop.theelectricbrewery.com/pages/dry-irish-stout#:~:text=A simpler solution is to,per 5 gallons of beer.

 

 

1. After primary fermentation, put 3% (2.4 cups per 5 gallons) of the beer into a separate jug and pitch bacteria meant for producing sour beers such as Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus or White Labs WLP677 Lactobacillus Delbrueckii. This will develop the sourness, but can take time (sometimes months). You can also simply leave the 3% of beer out on the counter and let it go sour for a few weeks from whatever bacteria it picks up in the air. (Make sure to boil for 10 minutes before adding back in). This natural method of souring is likely what Guinness used to do traditionally. A similar option that some may find easier is to purchase commercial Guinness a few weeks ahead of the brew day, sour it by leaving it out in a bowl, and then freeze it. Thaw it the night before brew day and add to the boil 10 minutes from the end.
2. A simpler solution is to add 88% lactic acid to the beer after fermentation is done, before kegging. This is said to be what Guinness does today because it's cheaper, easier, and more efficient than relying on bacteria. All is takes is around 3-4 ml of acid per 5 gallons of beer. Go sparingly adding 0.5 ml at a time with a syringe (without needle) until the taste is to your liking. You can also use this method to do a trial run to see if you like the results: Once the beer is kegged and on tap, add one to two drops with an eye dropper to a 16 oz glass of beer and see what you think. One drop per 16 oz is equivalent to 2 ml in 5 gallons. Careful not to overdo it!
3. The last option is to replace 3% of the base malt (the Maris Otter (2.5-4L) and flaked barley (1.4-1.5L)) with acidulated (sour) malt (1.7-2.8L). This will of course affect your mash pH as well so careful to not have it go too low. 

[stquinto]

One other point: last time I mistakenly ground up the oats and it kept clogging the circulation arm. I had to hover around the Grainfather during the entire mash (quite a long one,  2 and a quarter hours), blowing into the circulation pipe. Doh !

Yesterday I put them in whole, much better idea. Here's the recipe if you like. 

Guinness double batch - less roasted malt.pdf

[stquinto]

On 4/21/2024 at 1:59 PM, iBooz2 said:

@stquinto, your recipe above is more like a Coopers Sparkling Ale than a COPA.  Too high a ABV for COPA for starters.  Just saying!

I've not had a Coopers Sparkling in ages, I can only source COPA here. I tend to make brews at least 5%, it's the inner p*ss-head coming out in me...

Either way,  it's a lovely drop

 

[Uhtred Of Beddanburg]

@stquinto sounds like you have it all worked out now that's great.

[Aussiekraut]

The porter that will get the rum barrel treatment. One point under the pre-boil estimate but two points over in OG. Nice and dark and sticky. It’ll go in the FV tomorrow with a Nottingham starter. 

 

[Back Brewing]

The boils underway with 15g POR hops will do a 90c hop stand with 25g POR for 20 minutes  then into the cube

 

[Back Brewing]

Into the cube it goes I'll put it in the FV tomorrow and pitch some Verdant yeast slurry on top

[Aussiekraut]

3 hours ago, Back Brewing said:

The boils underway with 15g POR hops will do a 90c hop stand with 25g POR for 20 minutes  then into the cube

 

As a matter of interest, why PoR for a hop stand? What's the beer? PoR is usually a bittering hop, so why the aroma treatment? Asking for a friend  

[Back Brewing]

9 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

As a matter of interest, why PoR for a hop stand? What's the beer? PoR is usually a bittering hop, so why the aroma treatment? Asking for a friend  

@iBooz2 recipe 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Belgian Pilsner, based on Stella Artois.

30 litre batch (22 litres of concentrated wort, diluted in the fermenter with 8 litres of top-up water).  Efficiency was slightly down on the predicted numbers.  This means a 4.7% instead of a 5.1% beer.

I had to use a sock load of Saaz hops because they had such a low alpha acid of 2.8%.

• 5.8kg Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner
• 470g Carapils
• 95g Saaz 60 minute boil (19 IBU)
• 45g Saaz 5 minute boil (3 IBU)
• Czech Budejovice Lager (White Labs WLP802)

Interestingly, the recipe called for a 90 minute mash.  So I thought, okay, if I must.  Just to see for myself, I took a SG reading after 60 minutes of mashing and it was 1.072.  After 90 minutes of mashing it was still 1.072.  This outcome suggests the extra 30 minutes of mashing was a complete waste of time.  I am not sure of the longer time does something flavour-wise?

I love how clear the wort looks at the end of the mash.

As noted above, this brew had a large amount of hops in it.  Therefore, I used my home-made hop spider to contain the hops.  The little filter on the Grainfather can get clogged if commando hop boiling with more than 70-80g of hops.

Wort in the fermenter.  Nice and clear - See the Pill through the FV wall.  However, lots of trub got into the FV.

DISASTER

Poured myself a beer just before I sat down to write this post and ran out of kegged beer.  I thought the keg had a few litres to go.  Negligible commercial beer in the house.  One can of Botanic Ale.  Homebrew-wise Coopers 2023 Vintage Ale and a Duvel clone in bottles.  Chucked some of those into the freezer to get them cold.  Tonight is gonna be messy. 

 

Edited Saturday at 11:39 AM by Shamus O'Sean