What did you brew today?

Made 16ltr of the Mangrove Jacks Belgian Tripel yesterday.
Starting gravity of 1.074/5. Pitched the 20g sachet of the kit yeast at 25°c and will meet it at that temp for 7 days before adding the Kit hops. Instructions say it's best to ferment between 24&28°c.
I've never made a Belgian Tripel before so I'm hoping it comes out ok.

Bzee said:

in a 50 L saucepan

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That must be a beast.

Hello,
No been around or brewing for a while. Life, growing older! Hope everyone is well.
Itchy fingers last night so set out to make an all grain brew. Simple lager, Einstein yeast, under pressure.
Grain bill 4kg Crisp Europils, 250g each of Torrefied Wheat and cara malt. 50g Rice hulls. Mashed for 60 minutes at 65C, mash out at 75C, boil for 60 minutes.
Intended to bitter with 11g Magnum 17% AA but my inventory list failed me, used Ekaunot 14.2%AA that's been around for a while to an equivalent 20 ibus.
Used Promix rather than protofloc.
Cooled down to 23C, as low as I could get it today. Splashed into a chubby and pitched 2 packets of WHC Einstein. Out the kettle it was a good colour, looks dark through the clear pet but will no doubt be fine. Spundy set to 5psi.
Took 6 hours start to finish, washed up and laid away. Out of practice.
Only a couple of niggles along the way - took an age to actually boil, Brewzilla sat at 98C for 25 minutes before going to a rolling boil. The hop fiasco. New pH meter, calibrated at 4.01 at the start, getting some odd readings. Mash pH 5.4, OK, sparge 5.8 even with .75ml lactic acid. End of boil saying 4.6.
Wish I'd bought an ATC pH meter instead. Lesson learned but £100 difference in price. Wait and see how it ferments.

Applesnmore said:

Hello,
No been around or brewing for a while. Life, growing older! Hope everyone is well.
Itchy fingers last night so set out to make an all grain brew. Simple lager, Einstein yeast, under pressure.
Grain bill 4kg Crisp Europils, 250g each of Torrefied Wheat and cara malt. 50g Rice hulls. Mashed for 60 minutes at 65C, mash out at 75C, boil for 60 minutes.
Intended to bitter with 11g Magnum 17% AA but my inventory list failed me, used Ekaunot 14.2%AA that's been around for a while to an equivalent 20 ibus.
Used Promix rather than protofloc.
Cooled down to 23C, as low as I could get it today. Splashed into a chubby and pitched 2 packets of WHC Einstein. Out the kettle it was a good colour, looks dark through the clear pet but will no doubt be fine. Spundy set to 5psi.
Took 6 hours start to finish, washed up and laid away. Out of practice.
Only a couple of niggles along the way - took an age to actually boil, Brewzilla sat at 98C for 25 minutes before going to a rolling boil. The hop fiasco. New pH meter, calibrated at 4.01 at the start, getting some odd readings. Mash pH 5.4, OK, sparge 5.8 even with .75ml lactic acid. End of boil saying 4.6.
Wish I'd bought an ATC pH meter instead. Lesson learned but £100 difference in price. Wait and see how it ferments.

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I set the boil target temperature to 103c on my BZ. It never gets there so keeps the power on. Once boiling I wind the power down to 50%.

Twostage said:

I set the boil target temperature to 103c on my BZ. It never gets there so keeps the power on. Once boiling I wind the power down to 50%.

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I do the same...works fine, nice rolling boil..mind you still getting to grips only done a couple of brews but all seems to go well so far...

Twostage said:

I set the boil target temperature to 103c on my BZ. It never gets there so keeps the power on. Once boiling I wind the power down to 50%.

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Have a gen 3.1.1 so setting is 99, HH, which is the equivalent of your overshoot. Normally not an issue but as its been 3? Years since the last brew. It was strange because it was just sat at 98 but not taking that extra step to a rolling boil. Started thinking an element had gone but then achieved a rolling boil with no issues. See how it goes on the next brew day.

Had planned on a whole hog Czech Pils today but won't have time in the afternoon, so I'm going for a lager of sorts with no decoction, 60 min boil, and novalager. Should allow me to brew again in a couple of weeks.

Brewing something whilst watching the WC Mountain Biking and La Vuelta. Pale and bitter, Bitter.


Northwest Bitter

Batch -18L
OG -1.036
IBUs - 38
EBC - 15
ABV - 3.6%

Water

Ca-150 Mg-10 Na-40 Co3-15 SO4-274 Cl-137

Mash - 60' @ 68c.

Extra Pale Planet - 72%
Chevallier Malt - 20%
Extra Dark Crystal - 4%
Malted Wheat - 4%
Prima Donna - 30g

Boil - 60'

Galaxy - 10g @ FW
Fuggle - 10g @ FW
EKG - 10g @ 10'
Fuggle - 10g @ 10'
Protofloc - 0.3g @ 10'
EKG - 30g @ 0'
Fuggle - 10g @ 0'

Fermentation

House Blend Trial (Safale S-33 (x2), Safale S-04 (x1), Safale BE-256 (x1)) pitched at 19C.

Sadfield said:

Brewing something whilst watching the WC Mountain Biking and La Vuelta. Pale and bitter, Bitter.


Northwest Bitter

Batch -18L
OG -1.036
IBUs - 38
EBC - 15
ABV - 3.6%

Water

Ca-150 Mg-10 Na-40 Co3-15 SO4-274 Cl-137

Mash - 60' @ 68c.

Extra Pale Planet - 72%
Chevallier Malt - 20%
Extra Dark Crystal - 4%
Malted Wheat - 4%
Prima Donna - 30g

Boil - 60'

Galaxy - 10g @ FW
Fuggle - 10g @ FW
EKG - 10g @ 10'
Fuggle - 10g @ 10'
Protofloc - 0.3g @ 10'
EKG - 30g @ 0'
Fuggle - 10g @ 0'

Fermentation

House Blend Trial (Safale S-33 (x2), Safale S-04 (x1), Safale BE-256 (x1)) pitched at 19C.

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The vuelta is good this year.

Well, other than making a complete mess of the kitchen last week in my hungover state (I put the boil up to 105c by accident and of course the small hole in the lid caused the boiling wort to go everywhere, amongst other mistakes) the NEIPA appears to be in a good place and I've transferred it into a corny.

I'm still struggling with my fermzilla. Whilst it's great in that everything is done in no time at all (it hit FG in about 2 days), dry hopped after 5 before cold crashing, I'm losing loads. Basically, the way it's setup, the floating filter doesn't go to the bottom. At around 5 litres, it pops out the top and stops transferring. I'm going to have a play with it once it's empty to see if the tube needs shortening or perhaps putting a weight on the filter or something. I'll take some pictures and put it up on the Fermzilla FB group - see what people are doing.

Stu said:

Well, other than making a complete mess of the kitchen last week in my hungover state (I put the boil up to 105c by accident and of course the small hole in the lid caused the boiling wort to go everywhere, amongst other mistakes) the NEIPA appears to be in a good place and I've transferred it into a corny.

I'm still struggling with my fermzilla. Whilst it's great in that everything is done in no time at all (it hit FG in about 2 days), dry hopped after 5 before cold crashing, I'm losing loads. Basically, the way it's setup, the floating filter doesn't go to the bottom. At around 5 litres, it pops out the top and stops transferring. I'm going to have a play with it once it's empty to see if the tube needs shortening or perhaps putting a weight on the filter or something. I'll take some pictures and put it up on the Fermzilla FB group - see what people are doing.

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I put a couple of stir plate bars inside my filter which helped a good bit. I do still need to tap the sides of the fermzilla the odd time to stop the ball catching, but not nearly as much.

6Trails said:

I put a couple of stir plate bars inside my filter which helped a good bit. I do still need to tap the sides of the fermzilla the odd time to stop the ball catching, but not nearly as much.

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Is that heavy enough?
I can't get my filter to stay down. It just wants to go 90% to the ball all the time.

I'm not entirely sure anything is going to stop it short of chopping off some of the tube.
The tube seems to curl itself up on the bottom and then come back on itself. I've not cut any off - it's as it came out of the box.

EDIT: Just checked Facebook. Yes, it needs cutting and someone suggested a large stainless steel nut. That sounds like a great idea.
But I'll need to ensure it really is stainless as some of them that look like it are just zinc coated mild steel.

Twostage said:

Finally got the second attempt Staropramen clone done with my first go at a decoctation (or is it decoction ?) :-

View attachment 103122

Took about a third of the mash out and boiled it for 20 minutes. Found out the flip side of the saying "a watched pot never boils" which turns out to be "an un-watched pot boils over" .

The wort definitely looked darker than last time (my first attempt was too light in colour, staropramen has a bit of a dark tinge to it).

As I didn't know how things were going to progress time wise I used manual control on the BZ. I also left PID control on for the boil. I reasoned that as I'd set the target to 102c which it would never reach it would just keep the heat on which it did. Set it to 50% once it reached the boil.

Took slightly longer than yesterday's kit brew (I did a chill rather than no chill), like four hours longer .

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Bottled/kegged it. Forgot to give it a taste

Didn’t brew but bottled x37 Harlequin Pale Ale.

My first decocted Pilsner! Bought the Radim kit from the Malt Miller

ale_crowe_holic said:

Made 16ltr of the Mangrove Jacks Belgian Tripel yesterday.
Starting gravity of 1.074/5. Pitched the 20g sachet of the kit yeast at 25°c and will meet it at that temp for 7 days before adding the Kit hops. Instructions say it's best to ferment between 24&28°c.
I've never made a Belgian Tripel before so I'm hoping it comes out ok.

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So to update on this...
Tested the gravity today and it's showing to be around 8.4% but it's still bubbling away.
I've added the hops and I was hoping to bottle on Saturday. This might not happen now as I've been informed that I might be travelling for work tomorrow night!

Do I 1: leave it sitting in the fridge at 25°c until I get back in 2 weeks (chance of popping home during this time is slim)
Or 2: Hope my steriliser arrives in the morning/ go and get some tablets from Boots, and bottle it before I head to work? Leave it conditioning in the fridge whilst I'm away but it'll be very lightly hopped. I also think it's still fermenting too (will check the gravity again before if I do this but I suspect it'll be going still)

Bugger.

ale_crowe_holic said:

So to update on this...
Tested the gravity today and it's showing to be around 8.4% but it's still bubbling away.
I've added the hops and I was hoping to bottle on Saturday. This might not happen now as I've been informed that I might be travelling for work tomorrow night!

Do I 1: leave it sitting in the fridge at 25°c until I get back in 2 weeks (chance of popping home during this time is slim)
Or 2: Hope my steriliser arrives in the morning/ go and get some tablets from Boots, and bottle it before I head to work? Leave it conditioning in the fridge whilst I'm away but it'll be very lightly hopped. I also think it's still fermenting too (will check the gravity again before if I do this but I suspect it'll be going still)

Bugger.

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I'd leave it for 2 weeks, I can't see it being a problem.

pilgrimhudd said:

I'd leave it for 2 weeks, I can't see it being a problem.

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Cheers.
This seems to be the general consensus elsewhere.

pilgrimhudd said:

I'd leave it for 2 weeks, I can't see it being a problem.

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Yup, I'm with this.
I had a similar issue with a beer a few weeks back.

Doesn't hurt at all, as long as there's no oxygen getting in.

Just finished another four day brew day, partially my own fault as I set it all up on Friday but then had a few too many and wasn't up to cracking on with it on Saturday, so did the business yesterday and no chilled overnight, culminating with getting it in the bucket today!

No pics as it's pretty much the exact same as my last one (also, I forgot to take pics), second time using my Klarstein Mundschenk, definitely easier the second time around. My notes are a little all over the place, as usual:


30 litres tap water (stood for 48 hours and treated with approx 7ml lactic acid) at strike temp of approx 68°C.

2.5kg Crisp Maris Otter
500g Crisp Chevalier
Mashed for approx 45 minutes at a consistent 65°C with the recirculation pump running throughout and the element maintaining temp.

Lifted grain basket and sparged with approx 9 litres recirculated wort.

Added approx 800g light dried malt extract and stirred until dissolved (this briefly clogged the recirculation pump, furiously stirring the wort and swearing profusely at it seemed to persuade the blockage to disperse).

Set thermostat to boiling and brought to a rolling boil, added approx 15g Summit at 30 minutes and approx 50g Lorien at 15 minutes (for a total of 36 IBU) along with approx 10g Diammonium Phosphate and a gram of protofloc.

Allowed to cool to 60°C and took SG: 1042 (temp corrected from 1026), so that gives a 77% brewhouse efficiency (three points up from last time, when no sparge) and should yield a 5% ABV beer after carb (if it hits 1008 as previous batch did).

Pitched directly onto trub (Kveik Hornindal) from previous batch (bottled a couple of days ago) and set on heat mat with target temp 31°C and covered with neoprene jacket.


The last batch seems to have done exceedingly well, unfortunately I don't have any kegs empty so I'll have to wait for it to bottle condition, hopefully this one will follow suit and I'll have something half decent to replace the two god awful kits I'm currently choking down.