Brewed: 13th February, 2010
This was the 9th batch in the Summer Ale series I have been brewing and a contender for the BABBs March mini-competition, which focuses on American Ales. I actually changed two key ingredients for this batch; the hops and the base malt. I chose Chinook hops as I've heard of its good for bittering and flavouring aspects, and although I haven't used it before, I've tasted a few beers that contain Chinook and have enjoyed the flavour. This recipe will isolate the hop flavour so I can see what it tastes like itself. I changed the base malt for this recipe too, as I knew I wanted to enter it into the competition, and American Pale Ales are meant to have a bit more of a malt component than what I've been getting in my previous Summer Ales. I chose English Maris Otter, as it is said to leave more malt flavour trace than the Australian Pale Malt I've used in the past.
I first noticed the difference that the base malt brought to the recipe when I was draining the Mash/Lauter tun; the runnings were a lot darker and cloudier than I had seen in the past. It almost had a green hue to it and certainly appeared to have a higher suspended protein content. The aroma from the mash and kettle was also a bit more grainy than what I remember from previous batches, so hopefully that carries through in the final product.
I hit most of my targets on the day, with the exception of stopping the boil a few minutes late, hence the odd timings for the hop additions.
I've since tasted the beer after primary fermentation finished, and really noticed a good citrus aroma and grapefruit/passionfruit flavours coming through. I'm going to dry-hop the keg before I bottle my competition entry, with the aim of delivering more of that fresh aroma on the night. I didn't notice a change to the malt flavour at the time though, so I'm not sure if that part of the experiment has paid off. Time will tell.
The recipe:
Maris Otter Pale Malt: 4500g
Torrified Wheat: 400g
Chinook pellets (11.5% AA): 15g @ -83 mins ~19 IBU
Chinook pellets (11.5% AA): 15g @ -23 mins ~ 14 IBU
Chinook pellets (11.5% AA): 20g @ -8 mins ~ 4 IBU
Chinook pellets (11.5% AA): 20g in no-chill cube < 1 IBU
Chinook pellets (11.5% AA): 20g dry-hop in keg < 1 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 64C
Start: 64C End: 63C
Runoff: 30L
Pre-boil SG: 1042
Boil time: 90 mins
Post-boil volume (hot): 24L
Target OG: 1049 Actual: 1051
Volume in fermenter: 19.5L
Yeast: WLP001 - California Ale (harvested from #30 AmSA)
Ferment temperature: 19C
Actual FG: 1010
ABV: 5.4%
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
#23 GIPA (German Eis-PA)
Brewed: 25th November, 2009
Time for a catch up post. This brew came about after a BABBs social outing up to Eagle Heights Brewery at Mount Tamborine. On the day we were there, they made up 500L of boiled sweet-wort, which was packaged into 20L cubes and distributed to members of the club. Each member who took some wort home was able to further process the wort and ferment it out however they pleased, with the only exception that no further malt could be added to it (other fermentables, such as sugar, honey, etc were ok). The results were to be brought back to the club's first meeting of the year in January, where we got to try everyone's beer side-by-side. The grain bill for the wort was 100% Munich malt, mashed at 66.5°C then boiled for 45 minutes.
Here's a picture of me on the day peering into the Mash/Lauter tun as Johann, another BABBs member, was mixing in the grain:
A great day was had by all, starting off at Eagle Heights Brewery, then heading up the road to MT Brewery for a few more beers before returning home. There's more pictures from the day on Eagle Heights Brewery's website, and more information about the day in the BABBs November newsletter.
Anyway, back to the brew. I didn't want to do anything too fancy with it, as I wanted the Munich Malt to shine through the end result. I was considering doing a SMaSH, but then had the idea of combining German and English ingredients, and doing something along the lines of an IPA, a style I hadn't tried brewing before. So I ended up with German malt, German bittering hops, English flavouring hops, and English yeast.
One of the most interesting things to happen with this batch was that at the end of five weeks of cold conditioning at around 0-1°C, when I went to transfer the beer to a keg, I found that it was a little too cold and had partly iced up on the inside! I only noticed this after I had started transferring, so I couldn't wait for it to thaw out. In the end, I decided to leave the ice behind and ended up with an Eis Bier! A German Eis Bier (Ice Beer) is made in a similar way, where once the beer has finished fermenting, it is cooled to below 0°C. At this temperature, the water component of the beer starts freezing, but the alcohol, which has a lower freezing temperature, remains in liquid form. Once the water is in ice form, it can be separated from the beer, thus concentrating the remaining flavour and alcohol. In my case, I only lost about 2 litres out of 16 to ice, which increased the alcohol content by about 1%. Ordinarily, brewers yeast can only tolerate alcohol up to 12-15% ABV, but by repeating the process, you can get the alcohol content much higher, which is how some beers can achieve up to 40% ABV.
I was pretty happy with how this one turned out - a great strong malt flavour. If anything, it is a little too bitter, but I'm planning on letting it sit for a couple of months and see if it smooths out.
There was a wide variety to the beers that were brought to the January meeting by the other members. There was a Belgian interpretation, a Bock and Dopple-bock, a couple of Dunkels, a sour-orange and a berry infused brew, and then there were those that were flavoured with oak chips, chai spices, and even pureed banana! I also took the oportunity to enter a bottle to be judged by Eagle Heights Brewery's owner, Ed Gordon, with the chance of winning a case of Mikkeller beer. I guess that will be announced at the next meeting.
This was the recipe I went with:
Light Munich Malt: 100%
Perle pellets (8.3% AA): 30g @ -60mins ~35 IBU
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 47g @ -15mins ~15 IBU
Pre-boil gravity: 1051
Pre-boil volume: 20L
Boil time: 60 minutes
OG: 1064
Volume in fermenter: 16.2L
Yeast: WLP005 British Ale Yeast
Ferment temp: 19C
FG: 1018
Pre-ice ABV: ~6%
Final Volume: 14.2L
Final ABV: ~6.9%
Time for a catch up post. This brew came about after a BABBs social outing up to Eagle Heights Brewery at Mount Tamborine. On the day we were there, they made up 500L of boiled sweet-wort, which was packaged into 20L cubes and distributed to members of the club. Each member who took some wort home was able to further process the wort and ferment it out however they pleased, with the only exception that no further malt could be added to it (other fermentables, such as sugar, honey, etc were ok). The results were to be brought back to the club's first meeting of the year in January, where we got to try everyone's beer side-by-side. The grain bill for the wort was 100% Munich malt, mashed at 66.5°C then boiled for 45 minutes.
Here's a picture of me on the day peering into the Mash/Lauter tun as Johann, another BABBs member, was mixing in the grain:
A great day was had by all, starting off at Eagle Heights Brewery, then heading up the road to MT Brewery for a few more beers before returning home. There's more pictures from the day on Eagle Heights Brewery's website, and more information about the day in the BABBs November newsletter.
Anyway, back to the brew. I didn't want to do anything too fancy with it, as I wanted the Munich Malt to shine through the end result. I was considering doing a SMaSH, but then had the idea of combining German and English ingredients, and doing something along the lines of an IPA, a style I hadn't tried brewing before. So I ended up with German malt, German bittering hops, English flavouring hops, and English yeast.
One of the most interesting things to happen with this batch was that at the end of five weeks of cold conditioning at around 0-1°C, when I went to transfer the beer to a keg, I found that it was a little too cold and had partly iced up on the inside! I only noticed this after I had started transferring, so I couldn't wait for it to thaw out. In the end, I decided to leave the ice behind and ended up with an Eis Bier! A German Eis Bier (Ice Beer) is made in a similar way, where once the beer has finished fermenting, it is cooled to below 0°C. At this temperature, the water component of the beer starts freezing, but the alcohol, which has a lower freezing temperature, remains in liquid form. Once the water is in ice form, it can be separated from the beer, thus concentrating the remaining flavour and alcohol. In my case, I only lost about 2 litres out of 16 to ice, which increased the alcohol content by about 1%. Ordinarily, brewers yeast can only tolerate alcohol up to 12-15% ABV, but by repeating the process, you can get the alcohol content much higher, which is how some beers can achieve up to 40% ABV.
I was pretty happy with how this one turned out - a great strong malt flavour. If anything, it is a little too bitter, but I'm planning on letting it sit for a couple of months and see if it smooths out.
There was a wide variety to the beers that were brought to the January meeting by the other members. There was a Belgian interpretation, a Bock and Dopple-bock, a couple of Dunkels, a sour-orange and a berry infused brew, and then there were those that were flavoured with oak chips, chai spices, and even pureed banana! I also took the oportunity to enter a bottle to be judged by Eagle Heights Brewery's owner, Ed Gordon, with the chance of winning a case of Mikkeller beer. I guess that will be announced at the next meeting.
This was the recipe I went with:
Light Munich Malt: 100%
Perle pellets (8.3% AA): 30g @ -60mins ~35 IBU
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 47g @ -15mins ~15 IBU
Pre-boil gravity: 1051
Pre-boil volume: 20L
Boil time: 60 minutes
OG: 1064
Volume in fermenter: 16.2L
Yeast: WLP005 British Ale Yeast
Ferment temp: 19C
FG: 1018
Pre-ice ABV: ~6%
Final Volume: 14.2L
Final ABV: ~6.9%
#32 EBB (English Best Bitter)
Brewed: 6th February, 2010
This is another contender for the February BABBs mini-competition. In all I'll have three to choose from; this one, #31 CSA and #29 OPA. The rules of the competition are that you can only enter one beer to count towards scoring, and one additional beer to get feed-back on, so I'll enter the one that fits to style best for scoring, and perhaps the one I want to improve for feedback.
This brew will be cutting it fine for the competition, but it's also a style that is better fresh/young, so that might work out in my favour. I figure I'll have a week for primary, then transfer it to finish off fermenting (maybe three days?), four days cold conditioning and a couple of days to carbonate it. The competition is on February 25th and I transferred to primary on the 9th. Yes, definitely cutting it fine!
Once again, I was shooting for a lower volume with the intention of having just enough to fill one keg. I've only just started adjusting recipe volumes and I now realise that I have made a couple of mistakes over the last couple of batches, thinking I was doing the right thing by scaling the volume along with the grains & hops. Unfortunately, I hadn't taken into account that things like evaporation rate and transfer losses remain fairly constant, and so on both occasions, I have ended up with far less volume in the fermenter than I was expecting. It's a good lesson to learn, and something I'll be practising over the next few brews until I get right.
There were a couple of hiccups on the day. Firstly, during pre-heating the Mash/Lauter tun, I noticed a small leak at the tap, but subsequently forgot to tighten it after emptying. It wasn't until the grain was in and I'd started filling it that I noticed the leak again. Luckily, I was filling the tun from the bottom, which meant most of the grist on top was still quite dry and I was able to remove enough to get in and tighten the tap. I'll have to figure out a way to remind myself in the future.
The second problem came as a result of cleaning up from the last batch, when I mixed up the stainless steel washers from the MLT and Kettle. I had thought they were the same size, but it turns out that the kettle one is slightly bigger and I couldn't get the other one to fit. I only noticed this after the MLT was full so I was unable to retrieve the proper kettle washer, which meant I had to file back the mash tun washer until it fit the kettle. This lead to slight delays after mashing. On the plus side, the two washers really are interchangeable now.
Everything else went to plan, and aside from the lower volume, I'm confident about the result. I recently bought some English Maris Otter malted barley to use in some of my more malt-driven ales instead of the Australian Pale malt. The aroma coming from the mash tun was noticeably nuttier, the sweet wort had a nice grainy taste to it, and there was a slight toffee flavour in the hopped wort. I'm really looking forward to tasting the finished product.
The recipe (based on this one):
[Note that the original recipe calls only for Caramunich II, but as I didn't have enough, I substituted the remaining amount for the lighter Caramunich I]
Maris Otter Pale Malt: 3717g (88%)
Caramunich II: 268g (6.5%)
Wheat Malt: 165g (4%)
Caramunich I: 62g (1.5%)
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 54g @ -60mins ~32 IBU
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 17g @ -60mins ~5 IBU
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 17g added to no-chill cube <1 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 67C
Start: 67C End: 65.5C
Runoff: 25L
Pre-boil SG: 1043
Boil time: 60 minutes
Target OG: 1046 Actual: 1048
Post-boil volume (hot): 20.5L
Volume in fermenter: 17.5L
Yeast: WLP005 British Ale harvested from #27 DA
Ferment temp: 19C
Updated 4th March: This beer scored 36/50 in the BABBs February 2010 mini-competition. Results posted here.
This is another contender for the February BABBs mini-competition. In all I'll have three to choose from; this one, #31 CSA and #29 OPA. The rules of the competition are that you can only enter one beer to count towards scoring, and one additional beer to get feed-back on, so I'll enter the one that fits to style best for scoring, and perhaps the one I want to improve for feedback.
This brew will be cutting it fine for the competition, but it's also a style that is better fresh/young, so that might work out in my favour. I figure I'll have a week for primary, then transfer it to finish off fermenting (maybe three days?), four days cold conditioning and a couple of days to carbonate it. The competition is on February 25th and I transferred to primary on the 9th. Yes, definitely cutting it fine!
Once again, I was shooting for a lower volume with the intention of having just enough to fill one keg. I've only just started adjusting recipe volumes and I now realise that I have made a couple of mistakes over the last couple of batches, thinking I was doing the right thing by scaling the volume along with the grains & hops. Unfortunately, I hadn't taken into account that things like evaporation rate and transfer losses remain fairly constant, and so on both occasions, I have ended up with far less volume in the fermenter than I was expecting. It's a good lesson to learn, and something I'll be practising over the next few brews until I get right.
There were a couple of hiccups on the day. Firstly, during pre-heating the Mash/Lauter tun, I noticed a small leak at the tap, but subsequently forgot to tighten it after emptying. It wasn't until the grain was in and I'd started filling it that I noticed the leak again. Luckily, I was filling the tun from the bottom, which meant most of the grist on top was still quite dry and I was able to remove enough to get in and tighten the tap. I'll have to figure out a way to remind myself in the future.
The second problem came as a result of cleaning up from the last batch, when I mixed up the stainless steel washers from the MLT and Kettle. I had thought they were the same size, but it turns out that the kettle one is slightly bigger and I couldn't get the other one to fit. I only noticed this after the MLT was full so I was unable to retrieve the proper kettle washer, which meant I had to file back the mash tun washer until it fit the kettle. This lead to slight delays after mashing. On the plus side, the two washers really are interchangeable now.
Everything else went to plan, and aside from the lower volume, I'm confident about the result. I recently bought some English Maris Otter malted barley to use in some of my more malt-driven ales instead of the Australian Pale malt. The aroma coming from the mash tun was noticeably nuttier, the sweet wort had a nice grainy taste to it, and there was a slight toffee flavour in the hopped wort. I'm really looking forward to tasting the finished product.
The recipe (based on this one):
[Note that the original recipe calls only for Caramunich II, but as I didn't have enough, I substituted the remaining amount for the lighter Caramunich I]
Maris Otter Pale Malt: 3717g (88%)
Caramunich II: 268g (6.5%)
Wheat Malt: 165g (4%)
Caramunich I: 62g (1.5%)
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 54g @ -60mins ~32 IBU
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 17g @ -60mins ~5 IBU
East Kent Golding pellets (4.8% AA): 17g added to no-chill cube <1 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 67C
Start: 67C End: 65.5C
Runoff: 25L
Pre-boil SG: 1043
Boil time: 60 minutes
Target OG: 1046 Actual: 1048
Post-boil volume (hot): 20.5L
Volume in fermenter: 17.5L
Yeast: WLP005 British Ale harvested from #27 DA
Ferment temp: 19C
Updated 4th March: This beer scored 36/50 in the BABBs February 2010 mini-competition. Results posted here.
Monday, February 1, 2010
#31 CSA (Coopers Sparkling Ale clone)
Brewed: 31st January, 2010
I decided to brew this batch for a couple of reasons; first, it fits in to one of the styles open for competition at the February BABBs mini-competition, and second, it looks like we're going to a party at the end of February where this style of beer could go down pretty well. The hop signature of this, and many other Australian main-stream beers, is that of the Pride of Ringwood cultivar, and although it's far from my favourite from a flavour perspective, it's pretty distinctive, and in my experience, reasonably easy to replicate from a home brewing perspective.
I was shooting for a lower volume with this brew with the intention of getting enough to fill just one keg (without any left overs for bottling). Unfortunately my calculations were a bit out when it came to my first sparge water and I ended up with a lower first-runnings volume. I made up for it with the second sparge, whilst still being close enough with my pre and post boil gravities.
The yeast for this batch is currently being brought back to life from a couple of Coopers Pale Ales I was enjoying the other night. For those reading who aren't aware, Coopers' beers are bottle conditioned with what is reported to be the same strain of yeast that they use in primary fermentation. What this means from a home brewing perspective is that you can take the "dregs" from a Coopers beer and build it back up to a quantity of yeast suitable for pitching into your own brew, giving you a yeast flavour profile and properties that are similar to Coopers' beers. There's an article and discussion about how to do this on AussieHomeBrewer.com.
The recipe (based on this one):
JW Pale Malt: 4030g
Wheat Malt: 225g
Crystal 125 Malt: 75g
Pride of Ringwood pellets (8.3% AA): 17g @-60 mins ~17 IBU
Pride of Ringwood flowers (9.6% AA): 11g @-60 mins ~12 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 63C
Start: 63C End: 61C
Runoff: 24.5L
Pre-boil SG: 1043
Boil time: 60 minutes
Target OG: 1051 Actual: 1048
Post-boil volume: 19.5L
Yeast: Recultured Coopers Ale yeast
Ferment temp: 18C
Target fermenter volume: 20L
Updated 4th March: This beer scored 36/50 in the BABBs February 2010 mini-competition. Results posted here.
I decided to brew this batch for a couple of reasons; first, it fits in to one of the styles open for competition at the February BABBs mini-competition, and second, it looks like we're going to a party at the end of February where this style of beer could go down pretty well. The hop signature of this, and many other Australian main-stream beers, is that of the Pride of Ringwood cultivar, and although it's far from my favourite from a flavour perspective, it's pretty distinctive, and in my experience, reasonably easy to replicate from a home brewing perspective.
I was shooting for a lower volume with this brew with the intention of getting enough to fill just one keg (without any left overs for bottling). Unfortunately my calculations were a bit out when it came to my first sparge water and I ended up with a lower first-runnings volume. I made up for it with the second sparge, whilst still being close enough with my pre and post boil gravities.
The yeast for this batch is currently being brought back to life from a couple of Coopers Pale Ales I was enjoying the other night. For those reading who aren't aware, Coopers' beers are bottle conditioned with what is reported to be the same strain of yeast that they use in primary fermentation. What this means from a home brewing perspective is that you can take the "dregs" from a Coopers beer and build it back up to a quantity of yeast suitable for pitching into your own brew, giving you a yeast flavour profile and properties that are similar to Coopers' beers. There's an article and discussion about how to do this on AussieHomeBrewer.com.
The recipe (based on this one):
JW Pale Malt: 4030g
Wheat Malt: 225g
Crystal 125 Malt: 75g
Pride of Ringwood pellets (8.3% AA): 17g @-60 mins ~17 IBU
Pride of Ringwood flowers (9.6% AA): 11g @-60 mins ~12 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 63C
Start: 63C End: 61C
Runoff: 24.5L
Pre-boil SG: 1043
Boil time: 60 minutes
Target OG: 1051 Actual: 1048
Post-boil volume: 19.5L
Yeast: Recultured Coopers Ale yeast
Ferment temp: 18C
Target fermenter volume: 20L
Updated 4th March: This beer scored 36/50 in the BABBs February 2010 mini-competition. Results posted here.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
#30 AmSA (Amarillo Summer Ale)
Brewed: 10th January, 2010
The eight batch of beer in the Summer Ale Series, this time using Amarillo for the hopping component. This was a bit of a last-minute batch to accompany the Oz Pale Ale for our firend's party this Saturday. As I write this, the beer has just finished carbonating and will get a couple of days rest at about 3°C. The hydrometer samples I've tasted so far have been very promising and I look forward to tasting the final product!
In terms of recipe formulation, I used Beer Alchemy to determine how to adjust the hop bittering addition based on the lower Alpha Acid content of the Amarillo hops (as compared to Nelson Sauvin or Galaxy). Based on the advice of another brewer, I left the weights for the flavour and aroma additions the same as the base recipe.
As far as the brew day was concerned, I was pretty close to my target mash temperature, starting fractionally high and ending up only losing less than two degrees over the hour. First runnings were a little low, but I managed to compensate well with the second volume of sparge water added. In a major oversight on my behalf, I didn't record the original gravity anywhere (or I did but forgot to save it), so I'm only going by memory on that one. There also may have been a little bit of precipitated hot-break material that made its way into the fermenter, as my kettle filter came off at some point during draining. Not that I'm worried it will have any impact on flavour, but if it does, I have something that I might be able to trace it back to.
The recipe:
JW Pale Malt: 4500g
Torrified Wheat: 400g
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 20g @ -80 mins ~19 IBU
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 25g @ -20 mins ~ 14 IBU
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 20g @ -5 mins ~ 4 IBU
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 25g in no-chill cube < 1 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 64C
Start: 64.3C End: 62.5C
Runoff: 30L
Pre-boil SG: 1039
Boil time: 90 mins
Target OG: 1047 Actual: 1047
Volume in fermenter: 22.5L
Yeast: WLP001 - California Ale (harvested from #26 XMAS)
Ferment temperature: 19C
Actual FG: 1011
ABV: 4.7%
The eight batch of beer in the Summer Ale Series, this time using Amarillo for the hopping component. This was a bit of a last-minute batch to accompany the Oz Pale Ale for our firend's party this Saturday. As I write this, the beer has just finished carbonating and will get a couple of days rest at about 3°C. The hydrometer samples I've tasted so far have been very promising and I look forward to tasting the final product!
In terms of recipe formulation, I used Beer Alchemy to determine how to adjust the hop bittering addition based on the lower Alpha Acid content of the Amarillo hops (as compared to Nelson Sauvin or Galaxy). Based on the advice of another brewer, I left the weights for the flavour and aroma additions the same as the base recipe.
As far as the brew day was concerned, I was pretty close to my target mash temperature, starting fractionally high and ending up only losing less than two degrees over the hour. First runnings were a little low, but I managed to compensate well with the second volume of sparge water added. In a major oversight on my behalf, I didn't record the original gravity anywhere (or I did but forgot to save it), so I'm only going by memory on that one. There also may have been a little bit of precipitated hot-break material that made its way into the fermenter, as my kettle filter came off at some point during draining. Not that I'm worried it will have any impact on flavour, but if it does, I have something that I might be able to trace it back to.
The recipe:
JW Pale Malt: 4500g
Torrified Wheat: 400g
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 20g @ -80 mins ~19 IBU
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 25g @ -20 mins ~ 14 IBU
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 20g @ -5 mins ~ 4 IBU
Amarillo pellets (8.6% AA): 25g in no-chill cube < 1 IBU
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 64C
Start: 64.3C End: 62.5C
Runoff: 30L
Pre-boil SG: 1039
Boil time: 90 mins
Target OG: 1047 Actual: 1047
Volume in fermenter: 22.5L
Yeast: WLP001 - California Ale (harvested from #26 XMAS)
Ferment temperature: 19C
Actual FG: 1011
ABV: 4.7%
Friday, January 8, 2010
#28 NSSA (Nelson Sauvin Summer Ale)
Brewed: 2nd January, 2010
First brew of the new year! This is for my sister's birthday party in a few weeks time and is the seventh batch in the series of Summer Ales I am brewing. This time, I tried using malted wheat instead of unmalted torrified wheat. If anything, I expect the body of this one to be slightly thinner in comparison to the summer ales I've made with torrified wheat.
The brewday went well with most of my targets within acceptable ranges. I actually had an extra litre of sweet wort from my second sparge runnings, which I intentionally left out of the boil, as I wanted to see what the gravity of the remaining liquid was out of interest. It was a bit of an eye opener to me to see that the gravity was 1019; a lot less than the rest of the wort in the kettle at 1042, so it was probably a good thing that I stopped when I did, because otherwise it would have brought my pre-boil gravity down without significantly contributing to the malt level.
I went with a 60 minute bittering addition again (as opposed to 80 minutes in the original recipe) to play it safe for the party. I still haven't done a blind side-by-side tasting to see if it makes much of a difference, though I've got that planned for the near future and will report back here.
The recipe:
JW Pale Malt: 4500g
Wheat Malt: 400g
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 15g @ -60 mins
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 15g @-20 mins
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 20g @ -5 mins
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 25g in no-chill cube
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 64C
Start: 64C End: 62.5C
Runoff: 30L
Pre-boil SG: 1042
Boil time: 90 mins
Target OG: 1052 Actual: 1048
Volume in fermenter: 21.5L
Yeast: WLP001 - California Ale (harvested from #26 XMAS)
Ferment temperature: 19C
First brew of the new year! This is for my sister's birthday party in a few weeks time and is the seventh batch in the series of Summer Ales I am brewing. This time, I tried using malted wheat instead of unmalted torrified wheat. If anything, I expect the body of this one to be slightly thinner in comparison to the summer ales I've made with torrified wheat.
The brewday went well with most of my targets within acceptable ranges. I actually had an extra litre of sweet wort from my second sparge runnings, which I intentionally left out of the boil, as I wanted to see what the gravity of the remaining liquid was out of interest. It was a bit of an eye opener to me to see that the gravity was 1019; a lot less than the rest of the wort in the kettle at 1042, so it was probably a good thing that I stopped when I did, because otherwise it would have brought my pre-boil gravity down without significantly contributing to the malt level.
I went with a 60 minute bittering addition again (as opposed to 80 minutes in the original recipe) to play it safe for the party. I still haven't done a blind side-by-side tasting to see if it makes much of a difference, though I've got that planned for the near future and will report back here.
The recipe:
JW Pale Malt: 4500g
Wheat Malt: 400g
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 15g @ -60 mins
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 15g @-20 mins
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 20g @ -5 mins
Nelson Sauvin pellets (11.5% AA): 25g in no-chill cube
Mash time: 60 minutes
Target mash temperature: 64C
Start: 64C End: 62.5C
Runoff: 30L
Pre-boil SG: 1042
Boil time: 90 mins
Target OG: 1052 Actual: 1048
Volume in fermenter: 21.5L
Yeast: WLP001 - California Ale (harvested from #26 XMAS)
Ferment temperature: 19C
#29 OPA (Oz Pale Ale)
Brewed: 7th January, 2010
Time to catch up on a few recipes!
I brewed this one for a friend's party at the end of the month, and I've still got one more to do for that party so I'll be cutting it fine. On the plus side, if it comes out any good, I'll can take a few samples of it to enter into the first club competition of the year in February where the styles contended are Australian Pale Ale and English Bitters.
I've brewed the recipe a couple of times before. It's a pretty easy drinking pale ale; not over hopped and fairly dry. Think of a slightly lighter Coopers Pale Ale.
The previous times I've made this recipe, I've been a little unhappy with a sulphur taste that was present in the bottles. I think I've since narrowed that down to the old bottle cleaner I was using (sodium metabisulphate), so I'll be interested to see if my current cleaner (iodophor) leaves the beer tasting, well, cleaner. I also noticed when looking at the previous two batches that I made, I added double the amount of hops that was required (copy & paste mistake), so perhaps that had an impact on the undesirable flavour as well. Mind you, it didn't appear to be over-bitter so here's hoping this one comes out bitter enough.
The original recipe calls for 95% Australian ale malt and 5% wheat malt, but because I didn't have enough ale malt, I ended up substituting the missing amount with Australian pils malt. Aside from that lapse in preparation, the brew day went very well with most of the numbers falling well into place.
Actually, just as I write this, I'm thinking that perhaps I should have boiled for longer to account for the pils malt in the bill. I've seen in passing a number of references to doing a 90 minute boil for pils malt, but I'm not sure if that's more for doing lagers, or because of the malt itself. It's something I'll need to look up on for the future.
The recipe (based on this one):
JW Pale Malt: 2700g
Aus Pils Malt: 1100g
Wheat Malt: 200g
Pride of Ringwood flowers (9.6% AA): 10g @ 60 mins
Pride of Ringwood pellets (8.3% AA): 15g @ 45 mins
Mash time: 60 mins
Target mash temperature: 65C
Start: 65C Middle: 63.5C End: 62.5C
Runoff: 26L
Pre-boil SG: 1037
Boil time: 60 minutes
Target OG: 1043
Actual OG: 1042
Time to catch up on a few recipes!
I brewed this one for a friend's party at the end of the month, and I've still got one more to do for that party so I'll be cutting it fine. On the plus side, if it comes out any good, I'll can take a few samples of it to enter into the first club competition of the year in February where the styles contended are Australian Pale Ale and English Bitters.
I've brewed the recipe a couple of times before. It's a pretty easy drinking pale ale; not over hopped and fairly dry. Think of a slightly lighter Coopers Pale Ale.
The previous times I've made this recipe, I've been a little unhappy with a sulphur taste that was present in the bottles. I think I've since narrowed that down to the old bottle cleaner I was using (sodium metabisulphate), so I'll be interested to see if my current cleaner (iodophor) leaves the beer tasting, well, cleaner. I also noticed when looking at the previous two batches that I made, I added double the amount of hops that was required (copy & paste mistake), so perhaps that had an impact on the undesirable flavour as well. Mind you, it didn't appear to be over-bitter so here's hoping this one comes out bitter enough.
The original recipe calls for 95% Australian ale malt and 5% wheat malt, but because I didn't have enough ale malt, I ended up substituting the missing amount with Australian pils malt. Aside from that lapse in preparation, the brew day went very well with most of the numbers falling well into place.
Actually, just as I write this, I'm thinking that perhaps I should have boiled for longer to account for the pils malt in the bill. I've seen in passing a number of references to doing a 90 minute boil for pils malt, but I'm not sure if that's more for doing lagers, or because of the malt itself. It's something I'll need to look up on for the future.
The recipe (based on this one):
JW Pale Malt: 2700g
Aus Pils Malt: 1100g
Wheat Malt: 200g
Pride of Ringwood flowers (9.6% AA): 10g @ 60 mins
Pride of Ringwood pellets (8.3% AA): 15g @ 45 mins
Mash time: 60 mins
Target mash temperature: 65C
Start: 65C Middle: 63.5C End: 62.5C
Runoff: 26L
Pre-boil SG: 1037
Boil time: 60 minutes
Target OG: 1043
Actual OG: 1042
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