Notts beers days

Nottsbeer said:

Exe Valley Bitter - 16L

Brewed a version of this today. Inspired by the recipe @pilgrimhudd posted, I took some of the ideas from Wheeler and added Motueka to use the end of a bag. Hopefully this will turn out good. The recipe was:

2.67kg MO (3.4ebc)
0.16kg Crystal 100
0.05kg Special B (300ebc)

Fuggles (6.4%AA) - 27g - @ 60mins
Sty. Goldings (2.1%AA) - 35g - @ 15
Motueka (4.9%AA) - 28g - @ 80oC for 20 mins

Yeast: CML Midland
Protofloc: 1/3 tablet @ 15.

OG - 1.042 (target was 1.040)
IBU: 40
EBC: 12.4

I decided to make a 16L brew with the aim of getting 14-15L into the FV, leaving 1.2L in the boiler below the tap level, this being the crud layer. Amazingly this worked for once, and I had c.14L. As I was slightly over target, I will have hit my numbers for once!! I'm putting this down to my reccently changed process, plus getting my recirculating pump back in action. For this one I mashed with 16L water @ 65oC for 60 mins, and then sparged with 6.6L water. The sparge is a new process for me and this is working well. I collected c.21L wort @ 1.036. Preboil gravity aim was 1.034 so I could have sparged with slightly more water. I'll have to slightly tweak my efficiency for the next one. As i only have a 15L FV I can't really collect much more that I get, so I'm happy to tweak the numbers on this slightly.

As Sty. Goldings and Motueka have similar characteristics, I decided to use up my remaining hops for these in this brew. I was going to use the motueka as a dry hop, but since i may be away at some point, I didn't want to add this and then have to leave them in the FV for too long, thus the hop stand addition.

The taste from the trial jar tastes great. Quite bitter, but nicely this is a mellow bitter! I'm hoping it doesn't lose too much of the bitterness. Will see.

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Nottsbeer said:

Back in the game with a bang.....Jump Lead For one Black IPA!!

I've been a bit absent for a while and went through a period of not enjoying the process. Last post on this thread was reference to my TT Landlord clone. This was a disaster! Not too sure what went wrong but it wasn't a great pint. Threw the lot after trying to give it time to "mature". In January I made a Scottish heavy for the swap group, but again that was pants. Around the same time I also made a Biere de Guard style which is OK, but still not great. Coupled with being super busy at home/work, I lost my mojo for a while.

In Feb I was given a Jump Lead For One Black IPA kit from Brew Day. I finally managed to make this mid July, and bottled it a few days ago. Finally a brew that tastes like beer! I love the ingredients used in this one and the taste when bottling is very promising. This one was a challenge as i typically make c.15L BIAB style. As this was for 23L I had to change my process slightly to get it to fit with my kit. This was the first time I attempted to do a proper sparge! I was close to the numbers (gravity wise), but a bit off the volume. I'll need to look at the method more closely and play with sparging as I only got about 18L from the brew (though i may have left 1-2L in the brew kettle as I didn't want all of the crud).

I'm energised again and planning another brew for next weekend. Going to be simple for this brew as I really fancy a light, hop-forward bitter. My only concern at this stage is the grain I was using for the brews that failed. It was fresh from the local grain shop but I'm not sure if i just had a couple of bad recipes (highly likely) or if the grain is not great. The grain tastes good so planning to give it one more go and see how things turn out.

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Nottsbeer said:

Big Lamp Bitter - 6/10/24

I brewed this bitter recently. This has been a long-time favourite, but not brewed enough. I'm easily distracted by other beers that have "exotic" sounding hops, but whenever I make this I always wonder why i don't make it more often!

Batch vol: 15L

M.O. pale - 2.5kg - 3.4 ebc
Crystal - 0.3kg - 110 ebc

Fuggles @60 55g 4.3%
E.K.G. @15 15g 4.8%
E.K.G. - hopstand @80oC for 20 mins - 15g
Fuggles dry hop (day 3) - 20g

US-05 Yeast

This brew was a bit of a disaster on the day. I did a mash with 15L water and then sparged with 6.5L. My preboil gravity was 1.043 (refractometer) - the target was 1.033! I thought I'd massively increased efficiency and added a few litres of water until the gravity was 1.035. After the boil the refractometer reading was 1.043. My O.G target was 1.039, so I thought I was over by a bit. Double checking with the hydrometer made me realise my refractometer was way out, hydrometer reading was 1.036! I normally use the refractometer and hydrometer together when checking gravity but failed to do that this time! Due to the extra water added I had c.17L of wort after decanting from the boiler. I did have a worry about the ops and if the greater volume would dilute by bitterness etc. I upped the quantity slightly and carried on.

I bottled the beer yesterday - F.G 1.006 (c.3.9% abv - so spot on!). This tasted amazing, I love the dry hop addition. Hopefully this will condition nicely and be a great pint. As my FV only takes 13L, I fermented 4L separately and didn't dry hop that one. Will be interesting to see the difference between them.

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