The Chaos that is a Buffers Brewery brew day

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As the old saying goes "make beer while the sun shines". I took advantage of today's fine weather and an empty fermentation bucket to do a repeat brew of the APA I brewed back in February. No change to the recipe or the equipment so no pics today (you've seen them all before šŸ„±). Wort is currently chilling on the patio. I'll transfer to the fermentation bucket and pitch the yeast tomorrow.
 
Just moved the NEIPA I brewed at the end of March in to the barrelator. Couldn't resist a quick pour to check for the dreaded oxydation ashock1
IMG_20240427_111252755.jpg

Looks good and tastes šŸ‘šŸ»

:groupdancing:
 
The APA I brewed earlier this month has finished fermentation. FG 1.012 so time to cold crash ready to transfer to a barrel in a couple of days time. As I'm busy tomorrow, wifies birthday, I decided to prepare the barrel today. After cleaning and sanitising time to prime with CO2. Fortunately another barrel had just finished so I used the remaining pressure to start displacing the water...
IMG_20240428_141626686.jpg

Managed to get half the water out. Just needed my cylinder for the remaining water. N.B. the barrel in the sink is the empty one and the barrel on the drainer is full of water.
 
My eldest son was visiting from New York and asked if we could have a brew day while he was over. Of course I said ā€œyesā€. His flight was cancelled so he flew the following day, arriving here on brew day. He and his brother got to me after everything was set up and strike water was up to temperature. Given the choice between mashing in or drinking my beer and having some lunch, you can guess which they opted for. They did ā€œwatchā€ me mash out and lauter then returned to my beer. I managed to persuade one of them to turn the boiler tap on to drain the wort into the fermentation bucket and the other one to pitch the yeast.
A fun brew day even if they did do some damage to my beer stock.
Five gallons of Cascade pale ale OG 1.052, now fermenting in the brew fridge.
 
It seems like a long time since I last had a brew day! After my annual pilgrimage to Australia to visit my daughter and grandkids I'm now back and battling jetlag. What better thing to do?
Brewery set up and cleaned yesterday so started straight away this morning. Nothing like the sound of brewing....

So today it's a Tribute clone.
3.5kg Maris Otter pale malt
1kg Munich malt.
Mashed at 66C for an hour.
1 hour boil.
Hops:
16g Fuggles 60 minutes
19g Willamette 60 minutes
15g Fuggles 15 minutes
12g Willamette 15 minutes
25g Celeia 0 minutes
25g Willamette 0 minutes

Chilled down to 25C and left for 2 hours to settle.
Now for the exciting bit. Having developed an aversion of transferring trub with the wort to the FB I made a syphon to transfer the cooled wort to the FB "sans trub".
IMG_20240724_165248887.jpg



Drawing the wort from the top resulted in no trub transfer. Gradually dropping the syphon tube until it hit trub resulted in nice clear wort in the FB
IMG_20240724_170159418.jpg

but a loss of 2-3 litres of wort. Only 4.5 gallons/21 litres in the bucket!
IMG_20240724_170414666.jpg

OG 1.047. Sachet of Nottingham yeast pitched and fermentation fridge set at 20C.
 
Before I cleaned my boiler I tipped the trub into a bucket and put it in my empty brew fridge set at 3C. Had a look this morning....
IMG_20240726_120018475.jpg

Still a fair depth of trub so I poured off the clear wort...
IMG_20240726_120202832.jpg

Just short of 2 litres that accounts for the loss in the F bucket. I might consider returning to whole hops and hop bags for the boil in future to see if it reduces losses.
 
IMG_20240813_125014697.jpg

I have an empty barrel in the shed and an almost empty barrel in my barrelator so it's time for another brew day. NEIPA today. However, due to a slip up in my record keeping I was out of Simcoe hops. Looked up suitable substitutions and decided to use some leftover Cascade and Magum pellets.
Brew day progressed without incident (doing a B-G rest at 50C for 30 minutes really sorts out the oats and avoids a gummy mash). 30 litres in the boiler, currently simmering nicely while I have a bite of lunch. Hops will be added after the boil at 80C for 30 minutes then chill.
Dry hoppers will be filled with Citra and Galaxy to be dropped with three days to go šŸ¤žšŸ».
 
Used my syphon method to transfer to "cooled" wort (27C) to my fermentation bucket. Just shy of 5 gallons with very little trub. OG 1.056.
IMG_20240813_202248258.jpg

Colour looks good. It's in the fridge now to chill it down to 20C ISH and I'll pitch the yeast tomorrow, Verdant IPA.
 

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