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Brew Day!! Watcha' got, eh!? 2015


Canadian Eh!L

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Been busy with work and baby-prep for the last couple months, so haven't brewed for a while. Now that things are starting to slow down a bit, I'm hoping to finally get another split brew day done tonight or tomorrow after work.

 

The Red Ale will be the first time I've tried to clone an AG recipe using a kit base, and it'll be interesting to see how this affects the final product -- you're in Brisbane, aren't you Otto? Care to do a side-by-side tasting session in a few weeks? biggrin

 

Diable Rouge

(a Craft version of Otto's Devil's Squaw Red Ale)

1/2 OS Lager can

400g LDM

130g CaraAroma

80g CaraPils

30g Black Patent

 

(I've changed the hopping schedule from my original post to suit the ingredients on-hand and to better approximate how I imagine the AG recipe's hop profile tastes/smells. Also, why didn't anyone tell me I was out of Cascade?)

Magnum 5g @ 20m

Centennial 5g @ flame-out

Centennial 30g dry-hop

1/2 x US-05 yeast

 

10.5L batch

18 - 20° for 10 - 14 days

OG / FG: 1.043 / 1.011

IBU: 35.4

EBC: 37.2

ABV: 4.6% (bottled)

 

 

Lawnmower Lager V3 - aka “Spoils to the Victa”

(Attempt #3 at perfecting my mid-strength faux-lager)

1/2 x Coopers OS Lager can

200g LDM

1/2 x US-05 yeast

 

10g Galaxy @ 5m

30g Galaxy dry-hop

 

10.5L batch

14 - 16° for 10 - 14 days*

OG / FG: 1.032 / 1.008

IBU: 31.6

EBC: 6.2

ABV: 3.8% (bottled)

 

* This will be the first time I've used US-05 below 18° -- I've heard of it being using down as low as 13° without issue, but I'm hedging my bets with a 2° temp range and low OG just to be sure.

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Also' date=' why didn't anyone tell me I was out of Cascade?[/quote']

G'day Gibbo, I have heard Centennial referred to as 'Super-Cascade' multiple times, so you should be right there.

 

Also, good luck with the red ale! My version is currently being dry-hopped ... looks good so far.

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I am in Brisbane indeed, unfortunately I'm out of red ale at the moment! pinched I won't be brewing any more ales until the weather starts warming up again in a few months. Not that it's cold now, but by the time I bottle the next batch it will be and I can't be bothered with the PITA of carbonating ales when it's too cold overnight for them. tongue

 

I have also been subbing the Cascade with Centennial in recent batches for the same reason. It doesn't turn out as well as the original recipe with Cascade, to me anyway, however, it is still a bloody nice drop. I've got some Mosaic hops here, so I might even brew the next batch with those and see how that one goes. biggrin

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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Brew day today! Making an Oatmeal Stout ... have just put the first runnings on to boil' date=' the wort smells so good! Couldn't resist the FWH urge, so went with 20g Fuggles @FWH instead of 23g @60 mins.[/quote']

This was a very smooth brew day in the end. Mash, lauter, boil and transfer to cube all went very smoothly. Somehow I seemed to be unusually organized and motivated to clean as I went which helped! lol

 

Along with the FWH, I decided to give the mash a stir and let it sit for 15 mins after adding the sparge water before running off, just to help dissolve as much sugar as possible. I think the runnings from the mash smelled the best of all my brews so far. Must be a combination of the roasted malts, the toasted oats and the Maris Otter. Beautiful! Now all I have to do is not bugger it up with a dodgy fermentation.

 

I think there is something wrong with my plastic jerry can though. Possibly squeezing the air out is warping the thread so the cap can't grip properly and doesn't quite seal. If I reseal it without squeezing as much air out it's fine.

 

Now to get to work on my English Old Ale recipe ...

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Also' date=' why didn't anyone tell me I was out of Cascade?[/quote']

G'day Gibbo, I have heard Centennial referred to as 'Super-Cascade' multiple times, so you should be right there.

 

Also, good luck with the red ale! My version is currently being dry-hopped ... looks good so far.

Cheers! I'd also heard 'Super Cascade' once or twice and always considered Centennial to be in the same ballpark from taste/smell alone.

 

I came across a spare 25L cube while I was sorting last weekend and was instantly tempted to use it for brewing, but realised it was too big to fit in my ferm fridge anyway. But last night while driving home from work, I had a thought from left-field that I could use it to finally have a crack at an extract version of your Petite Raspberry Saison and put the fate of the brew in the hands of the mild ambient temperatures (in traditional Saison-style, I suppose).

 

The brewhaus (read: laundry) seems to hover between 17 - 25° at the moment, so it should be perfect for some raspberry funk.

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Brew day today!!

 

The next incarnation of my Boh Pils recipe today which for those who haven't seen it is this:

 

Strike water 36 litres distilled water with the following mineral additions:

0.51 g Epsom Salt (MgSO4)

0.41 g Chalk (CaCO3)

0.38 g Baking Soda (NaHCO3)

0.35 g Calcium Chloride (CaCl)

 

BIAB Otto's Made Up Step Mash

5.000 kg Floor Malted Bohemian Pilsner (4.0 EBC) 95.1 %

0.250 kg Munich Malt - 10L (23.0 EBC) 4.8 %

0.007 kg Black (Patent) Malt (1300.0 EBC) 0.1%

 

Sacch 1: 63C for 70 minutes

Sacch 2: Heat to 69C, hold 15 minutes

Mash out: heat to 78C, hold 10 minutes

 

Hops

 

90 min boil

 

40.00 g Czech Saaz - First Wort 90.0 min (14.1 IBUs)

51.00 g Czech Saaz - Boil 80.0 min (16.1 IBUs)

59.00 g Czech Saaz - Boil 20.0 min (10.6 IBUs)

 

Wyeast 2001 Urquell Lager yeast (from starter)

 

Batch size 25 litres, based on 72.5% brewhouse efficiency:

 

Est Original Gravity: 1.046 SG

Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG

Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.3 % (4.7% bottled)

Bitterness: 40.4 IBUs

Est Color: 9.2 EBC

 

I'm hoping with this modified mashing schedule that I won't have the issues of the full step mash. Will be going back to using the false bottom today as I believe with the more conventional mash temperatures that I won't have the issues with the excess rubbish on the urn's element.

 

And on that note, I'm going to finish off this coffee, and go and fill the urn, do the mineral additions and start heating it up, then get these grains milled! happy

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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Or perhaps just leave it sitting in there somewhere and leave the little computer fan I have in there to circulate the warm air around? (using a temp controller btw)

 

This.

 

cheers for that ... just finished' date=' all went perfectly , hit my OG spot on at 1.051 , only worry will be if the BRY97 lets me down again ... I almost went and bought a pack of us05 instead but I thought if coopers has that much faith in it then I will give it one more go. Hopefully the packet of coopers yeast that I threw into the boil as a nutrient will give it a kick start this time...we shall see. [img']whistling[/img]

 

quick update on this ... well the BRY kicked in well and truly within 24 hours so my fears were unfounded...in fact , at the moment (6 days in) its still got the biggest Krausen I've seen so far in my limited brewing experience. Could be due to it having my highest OG reading so far too (.0510).

 

Smells good, starting to get a nice red hue to it so looking forward to trying this one out for sure biggrin

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Sounds like it's working then mate! biggrin

 

Well, the mash is underway on my brew day, and is looking considerably less milky being doughed in at 66ish (to bring down to 63), than it was when doughed in at 35. Having the false bottom in, I have left the urn switched on to maintain the temp if it drops too far. Will begin the ramp up to 69 in about 70 mins time, this will be a good indication if it is working properly this time around.

 

 

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Well today's mashing is going much better. The mash sat around 63C for the 70-80 mins, then I turned the urn on to raise it to 69. It took about 10 minutes to raise the temp, and the urn was going strong with no signs of cutting out at all. I left it at 69 for 15 minutes, now it's back on to raise it up to 78 for the mash out. Then, I'll be hoisting the bag up to drain out, and can begin the boil after it is drained and squeezed. I'm much happier with it going better today, and hopefully the beer turns out well. happy

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Definitely!

 

I did have an issue maintaining a boil right towards the end of it though. I'm gonna make up a tool, something like a stainless rod with a hook on the end, to remove the false bottom prior to commencing the boil, so I can easily scrape the element before doing this. Also, a lot of the trub settled on the false bottom post-boil, as it would, but this caused it to be prematurely sucked into the tap when draining into the cube. Without the false bottom, it settles below the tap level and takes longer to be drawn in, so that's another reason I want to remove it pre-boil.

 

Other than that though, the urn handled the temp rises perfectly fine, and maintained a decent boil for about 70 minutes before it started having issues. I daresay if I'd been able to scrape the element prior to boiling, there would have been no problems - the previous batch I did this, and had no problems boiling.

 

So all in all, a good brew day, and a couple more things learned to refine the process for next time. happy

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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Hi guys,

Double brew day.

 

SIMPLE SIMON SAYS BITTER

1.7Kg Coopers Real Ale can

0.5Kg DME

0.1Kg Medium crystal (Hot steep)

0.1Kg Victory malt (Hot steep)

30g Fuggles @ flame out (30+ mins steep)

US05 @ 18C

23L

OG 1035, FG 1010 (est), IBU ~30, ABV 3.9% (bottle)

 

MAI BOCK

1.7Kg Blackrock Mai Bock Can

US05 @ 18C

10L

OG 1057, FG 1015 (est), ABV 6.2% (bottle)

Not sure about the rest of the stats.

I'm aware that a Mai Bock is traditionally brewed as a lager but due to my only experience with the style (Rouge Dead Guy) I decided to brew as an ale.

I really enjoy these Blackrock crafted kits. I believe that this is the third one they have released. The previous two that I have brewed (American Pale and the Riwaka Pale) have been great!

Cheers,

Dave.

 

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Recipe: Happy Pills

Brewer: Grumpy

 

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l

Estimated OG: 1.054 SG

Estimated Color: 10.2 EBC

Estimated IBU: 38.8 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

 

Ingredients:

------------

Amt Name Type # %/IBU

5.00 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 95.1 %

0.25 kg Munich II (Weyermann) (16.7 EBC) Grain 2 4.8 %

0.01 kg Roasted Barley (Joe White) (1398.7 EBC) Grain 3 0.2 %

50.00 g Northern Brewer [5.85 %] - First Wort 90 Hop 4 34.2 IBUs

4.00 g Brewbrite (10 minutes)

50.00 g Saaz [3.03 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 20.0 mi Hop 5 4.6 IBUs

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll use lager yeast from the LHBS.

Wanting to use all my hops up. One more brews left after this lot.

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A bottling and pitching evening for me tonight.

 

I bottled my take on Otto's red ale tonight, got a 6 litre Tap-a-draft bottle and 8 stubbies full. I then poured about 750ml yeast slurry in a sanitized 1 litre jar, cleaned and sanitized the fermenter, poured my oatmeal stout from the cube through a strainer and took a gravity sample. I then poured off some of the liquid and pitched the slurry. The stout had an OG of 1.050 in the end, 3 points below my target of 1.053. The gravity sample tasted beautiful though! Not really that bitter or roasty, just really smooth and rich. I'm looking forward to this one!

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Well my English Old Ale is safely in the cube happy The brew evening went smoothly, although I only ended up at with an O.G. of 1.070, rather than the targeted 1.075. Oh well, by the look and taste of the gravity sample, it should still be a nice drop!

 

after reading Graham Wheeler's Real Ale book, I decided to do a 90 minute mash and 90 minute boil on this one. The odd grain amounts are my dodgy measuring again innocent Just about maxed out my little cooler mash tun with this one!

 

Recipe I went with was as below ... will pour this directly onto the yeast cake from my Oatmeal Stout after I bottle it next Wednesday night.

 

Recipe: Old Ale

Brewer: porschemad911

Asst Brewer:

Style: Old Ale

TYPE: All Grain

Taste: (30.0)

 

Recipe Specifications

--------------------------

Boil Size: 15.46 l

Post Boil Volume: 10.92 l

Batch Size (fermenter): 10.50 l

Bottling Volume: 10.50 l

Estimated OG: 1.075 SG

Estimated Color: 32.1 EBC

Estimated IBU: 44.7 IBUs

Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %

Est Mash Efficiency: 70.0 %

Boil Time: 90 Minutes

 

Ingredients:

------------

Amt Name Type # %/IBU

2798.00 g Thomas Fawcett Floor Malted Maris Otter Grain 1 77.0 %

303.00 g JWM Wheat Malt (3.5 EBC) Grain 2 8.3 %

301.00 g Weyermann Munich I Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 3 8.3 %

100.00 g Simpsons Dark Crystal Malt (240.0 EBC) Grain 4 2.8 %

100.00 g Simpsons Medium Crystal Malt (150.0 EBC) Grain 5 2.8 %

30.00 g JWM Chocolate Malt (650.0 EBC) Grain 6 0.8 %

20.00 g East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.70 %] - Firs Hop 7 32.4 IBUs

15.00 g East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.70 %] - Boil Hop 8 12.3 IBUs

1.0 pkg Bedford British Ale (White Labs #WLP006) Yeast 9 -

 

 

Mash Schedule: My Mash (Esky)

Total Grain Weight: 3632.00 g

----------------------------

Name Description Step Temperat Step Time

Mash Add 10.00 l of water at 78.4 C 68.0 C 90 min

 

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 8.31l) of 78.0 C water

 

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Very exact measurements there too.

Haha well Craftbrewer gave me an extra 48g of MO so that went in - was meant to be 2750g. The others were meant to be round numbers but I like to keep track of what I actually used, probably not much point though.

 

Yeah I guess a 1.070 OG is a reasonably substantial brew. That's about dead on 65% efficiency, so maybe I should use 65% for recipe formulation where the OG will be 1.060 or over and 70% where it will be under that. When you design recipes, do you tend to vary the estimated efficiency based on how big a beer it is? I know the Biabacus from biabrewer.info does this automatically.

 

Be interesting to see how much the WLP006 attenuates it. If it gets down to the 1.019 Beersmith guesstimates, that would be about 7.2% ABV post-carbonation which sounds about right for this beer actually.

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I don't currently change my efficiency number for formulating recipes, but I don't make big beers either. Most of mine are around that mid 1040s OG. If I did make a bigger beer like yours though I would drop the efficiency number because it is known that you get a bit less efficiency on big beers.

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Last Minute Milk Stout

 

1.7kg OS Stout

500g LDM

300g Dextrose

150g Choc Malt

150g Crystal

75g Roasted Barley

300g Lactose

100g 100% Cocoa powder

Nottingham yeast

20 litre batch

 

I've had my grain doing a cold steep since 9 pm last night and am gonna brew this tonight, I've reduced the cocoa powder by a fraction as I don't want to make it super sweet. I'm going to attempt to re-hydrate my yeast for the first time too, better late than never.

 

Cheers + beers,

Mark

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Brew night!

 

I normally brew on Sundays, but wanted to get a brew down & free up some time tomorrow as I'm having a few mates around. I also needed to use up some leftover hops as well before they lose their lustre.

 

Coopers Liquid Amber Malt extract 1.5kg

Coopers Liquid Light Malt extract 1.5kg

Light Dry Malt extract 250gms

Dextrose 150gms

CaraMalt grain 200gms

Pride of Ringwood 20gms @ 35mins

Riwaka 20gms @ 25mins

Simcoe 25gms @ 15mins

Cascade 25gms @ 5mins

Centennial 30gms @ hop tea

Riwaka 15gms @ hop tea

Mosaic 15gms @ hop tea

Will dry hop with some mix to around 25gms

Re-hydrated US-05 yeast

Brewed to 23 litres.

OG = approx. 1049

FG = approx. 1.014

EBC = 18.7

IBU = approx. 44.8

Kegged ABV = approx. 4.6%

Bottled ABV = approx. 5.0%

 

Modelled on the Chubby Cherub recipe, but using what I had on hand.

 

Cheers & good brewing,

 

Lusty.

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Hi John.

 

I've only begun using a hop tea recently. It came about as I felt I was losing too much wort to hop absorption when using a lot of hops in conjunction with my small volume boils. There's no getting around any hops I need to add bitterness into the brew, but I saw an opportunity away from the main boil to post boil steep my flameout type hops in 75-80°C pure water to reduce the wort lost to hop absorption.

 

You gain better utilization in pure water than you do in wort, so given that the temperature should not produce any isomerisation that contributes to bitterness, there should be no harsh tones as a result & possibly an improved flavour/aroma as a consequence from this hop tea of sorts.

 

It's early days with this little experiment, but I'll post something if anything positive comes from it. wink

 

Ohh, the hop tea is added pre-fermentation.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

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