Ade's Self Build Boiler Brew Days - AG BIAB #12

[DarrenB]

Will definitely be brewing the hobgoblin Gold shortly.

I used lellemand abbey and Tate and Lyle golden syrup in a blonde recently and it was very tasty

 

[AdeDunn]

I'll have to give that a try next time I brew a Patersbier, as so far this one is meh. Last one I had the opposite problem, the yeast gave too much flavour... lol Could also just be that the recipe is that bit too simple, as my understanding is that the monks brew it from the 2nd runnings from their stronger beers, yet the recipe in the Greg Hughes book is just Pilsner and Saaz, which doesn't make a lot of sense. I can't help but think it needs a slightly more complex malt bill. lol

 

[DarrenB]

With Belgians it’s all about the yeast, most of the flavor profile comes from the yeast.

Consider using liquid yeast if you find your Belgian bland. Sugars and Candi also give a light body to high abv beers. The single I brewed had golden syrup in it at 1047 og was not necessary and won’t put as much in it in next time, but I did detect a slight golden syrup flavor that I enjoyed.

Also, my secret weapon is chateau abbey Malt, it adds to the Belgian character.

Belgian Ardennes is a lovely liquid as is wyeast 1214.

I was happy with lellemand abbey at 20 degrees and will use it again. Also saaz hops add a little spice and I used yellow balanced water profile.

4.25 kg Pilsner or 82%
120g chateau abbey or 2.5%
300g golden syrup
16g Northern brewer or Magnum at 60 min For 16 ibu
21g saaz at 30 min
21g saaz at 10

Step mash 66 for 30
Step mash 70 for 30
Mash out 78 for 10

Boil 60 minutes
Cool to 18 and pitch

Ferment at 19/20 degrees

Og 1048 fg 1012 ABv 4.7
Yeast
Belgian Ardennes
Lellemand abbey 1 pack under 1050 or 2 packs over 1050


Delete this if u like, as this is your thread, don’t want to clutter it

 

[AdeDunn]

Aye, last time I brewed the Patersbier, I used CML Belgian Ale yeast. It was nice to start with, but over time it became WAY too phenolic, to the point where I started finding it hard to drink, far far too funky. So this time around, I used Mangrove Jack's M41 Belgian Ale, as I usually get good results with their yeasts. Fermented during the full on heat wave, so I was expecting some pretty flavoursome results from the yeast, as it fermented pretty darned warm. But nope, it's the cleanest darned beer I've ever had! Hoping at the moment that it does the same as the CML batch did, and gets funkier over time, as otherwise it's one for giving to Bud light drinkers... I used yellow balanced too.

I've been getting bored of Greg Hughes recipes anyway to be honest, they're too cautious! His hopping tends to be very light, and his malt bills are often underwhelming too. Also, I swear he typed the wrong mash temp on some of his recipes. You look at the grain bill, see lots of chocolate and crystal, and think "mmm, that'll be a medium body mash then", but nope, there it is at 65 degrees for a nice (not) thin and watery beer again.... I think it's time I just walked away from his recipes to be honest.

To be honest, I was already planning to try with one of the "abbey" dry yeasts next time, and switch out the mittelfruh for some tradition, I was also going to add some cara-pils for a bit more sweetness in the malt profile. I was also going to mash at 67, again for a bit more sweetness in the malt profile.

Oh and nope, no need to delete anything (even if I could. lol). It's not clutter, it's advice and feedback, which I welcome, always. The only time I get annoyed (and it's never happened here) is when somebody starts picking and having a go at my process based entirely on their own personal preference, rather than anything genuine. I posted that my beer came out bland, you came up with suggestions to try to avoid that next time, all good.

 

[AdeDunn]

Third day (last sample was taken on 1st, this one is 3 days later) sample taken of Crivens. SG still at 1.012 (so this is likely as not the FG). Flavour notes still there, but slightly more bitterness noticeable, quite delicious, more balanced.

 

[AdeDunn]

#17 Kelda's Hogswatch Eve: Chocolate Orange Robust Porter

Targets:-

Based on 80% brewhouse efficiency (I may not reach this, but beats ending up with another overly strong beer... lol).

OG: 1.060. Bitterness: 39.4 IBUs. Colour: 67.2 EBC. Batch size: 13 Litres.

Yeast: Yeast Bay Sigmund Voss Kveik (2 Litre starter, massively overbuilt so I can keep a stock back).

In the mash (90 minute mash at 69 degrees C, BIAB):-

1.95 Kg Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
0.32 Kg Munich Malt 17.7 EBC (because I like it)
0.19 Kg Torrefied wheat 3.9 EBC
0.19 Kg Warminster Pale Chocolate Malt 600 EBC
0.19 Kg Crisp Crystal Malt 150 EBC
0.16 Kg Weyerman Chocolate Wheat Malt 817.5 EBC
0.1 Kg Malted flaked oats 3.9 EBC
0.13 Kg Oat husks 0 EBC

In the boil (70 minute boil):-

7.5g Admiral 14.1% AA Pellet hops @ 70 minutes
12.5g Mandarina Bavaria 8.5% AA Whole hops @ 15 minutes
12.5 EKG 5.9% pellets @ 15 minutes
1/2 Protafloc @ 10 minutes
26.6g fresh orange zest @ 10 minutes

In secondary: 52g cacoa nibs soaked in vodka.

Added at bottling time: 2.6mls Asda Extra Special Vanilla Extract (added to smooth the chocolate flavour, giving more of a milk chocolate flavour rather than dark chocolate).

What can I say, but that so far it's been a naught brew day! My bag has decided suddenly that it's not going to work with recirculation... Pump turned right down, empties out underneath the false bottom. Luckily I was right on top of it, so turned everything off fast, stirred the grist, and switched to old school methods of just letting it sit.

Pretty coloured grist though for sure, I made it look all fancy for you folks. lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Managed to get the recirculation working. All I can think of is I must have turned the pump on too soon or something....

Yeast starter seemed to go well, I'll post more about that in my yeast thread though.

 

[AdeDunn]

Currently mashing out, and it actually looks like chocolate... lol No, we're NOT going to suggest what else it might possible resemble.... It looks like chocolate, ok? lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Hmmm, for some reason this reminds me of something.....

 

[AdeDunn]

Well, been done and dusted for a while. I was VERY close with my brew house efficiency estimate, got a not so bad 78.5%, giving me an OG of 1.056, and 13.6 litres into the FV. I also manned up, and went with the underpitch for the yeast, putting the rest in the fridge stock for future use.

It sure is a dark wort, like dark chocolate (this is the OG sample, tipped into a glass for the photograph)...



Boiler is just pumping percarbonate around now, once that's done and I've rinsed it out well, I'm completely done.

 

[Oneflewover]

Nice one. Love the Pratchett references

 

[AdeDunn]

My wife started that off bud, back when we were brewing kits, and it stuck, so now we give most of our brews a Pratchett derived name.

You'd probably enjoy the labels for my last brew and this one that I designed too if you like the names (they're rotated the way they are as that's how I arrange them to print them).





The Crivens one looked quite good on the bottles once printed off on our laser printer, on some good quality paper.




Was our first time using glass bottles, my wife much preferred putting the crown caps on with the bench capper than tightening screw caps on PET bottles by hand she said.

All in all, it was a much better brew day today. Been better organised because I had to be from using a liquid yeast meant I had my water treated and salts added last night, so was better organised this morning. Been a smaller batch size meant less weight to sling around, and no need to mess around sparging etc, I was able to brew true BIAB full volume style. I even managed to completely clean up fully, even completely cleaning my boiler. Usually I'm too tired to do this by the end of brew day, and have to just rinse it out to clean properly another day. It all means as well that I should only need about 20 or so bottles, which is a perfect number to fit into a single crate.

 

[AdeDunn]

Just some updates to the various brew days.

POTUS-45 - Unless you chill it right down this tastes terrible! Hoping this is the old funky saison problem from the different yeast, so it's getting put away to condition for a few months, then we'll try it again. If it's still as rank, it's drain cleaner.

Wen's Lunch 2 - Patersbier has gone on my "whey did I brew this twice?" list.... I realised after drinking a bit of the last bottle of my previous batch, I don't actually like it.... This batch is "worst" than the last. My conclusion is that the yeast I used would taste a LOT better in a beer with a much darker coloured grain bill, and maybe stronger flavoured hops. Used with a super pale grain bill, and only noble hops, it's just to overpowering. It reminds me of the flavour you get in the background of a bottle of Old Peculiar, but right up front, all on it's own, with nothing else there to balance it properly. Again, it's been put away to condition for a few months, to see if it improves any, plus my wife quite likes the flavour, no plans to clean the drains with this though as my wife actually likes the flavour.

Librarian's Wit - Absolutely delicious! Made the mistake of opening one bottle at room temperature though, let's just say it poured with a stunner of a head that hung around for ages.... Chilled down, it pours perfectly, giving you the choice to either pour it without rousing the yeast into the bottle (meh), or going for the full wit experience (woohoo!) and swirling the last 3rd of the bottle to get the yeast into suspension. You can gather, I prefer the latter method (Hoegaarden style), as this pours a beautifully smooth and silky pint, with tons of all of the flavours you expect from a Belgian wit, but with that hint of orange you'd expect using Mandarina bavaria hops instead of Saaz (if you've not tried this, I recommend it! It really does take the beer to a new level of deliciousness!). It may have been a faff to produce thanks to the stepped mashing, but it was well worth it. Oddly, I didn't get any scorching on the element either, I got more scorching from my porter in fact.

Crivens! - Om nom nom nom nom nom nom.... We were very naughty, and popped open one of the 330ml bottles of this for a sneaky taster, and also to check on the pressure situation (the single PET bottle I did is ROCK solid). Pressure was fine, the bottle opened with a nice little hiss. The beer is obviously quite young, and should be perfect in time for Christmas. The youth is displayed by an alcohol heat present, a burn in the throat, probably from the golden syrup in the recipe. Giving it until around just before Christmas should allow this time to mellow a bit, and my oh my it's going to be a delicious winter warmer for sure! Definitely the best beer I've brewed to date, and has sold me that British hops and approach are the way forward for my brewing, contrary to my previously held opinions. I just need to leave the pales and bitters alone.

Kelda's Hogwatch Eve - Chocolate orange robust porter - Chocolate, nope can't taste any in the SG samples. Orange, nope none of that either... Good start to my first infused brew there then. You try and add flavours the natural way, and nope, you get it wrong.... The orange is no surprise, as the zest went into the boil, probably would have worked better as a "dry hop". The chocolate, well it appears I should have used ROASTED cacao nibs, and mine are raw ones. I soaked them in vodka, and bunged that in too, and it had a lovely aroma of chocolate, but nope not any real flavour without letting it sit on it for a few weeks.... That's not going to happen though, I used Kveik yeast, I'm not leaving it sat there in the FV like that. :p So, got a bottle of a good quality chocolate extract ordered to come tomorrow, and I already have a very good orange extract I can use. Oh, and the sample, SG (or should I say FG?) is 1.013, yeast had settled out nicely, flavour was of a deliciously smooth and rich porter, nice level of bitterness, very nice malt flavours with no burned flavours or harshness. I'll be going very gently with the extracts, to give just the hint of chocolate orange, rather than an overwhelming flavour explosion. So long as I take care with the extracts, I'm pretty much guaranteed a delicious porter to drink. If I go in like a bull in a china shop though, I'm going to end up with something tasting like "craft" beer...... :p

 

[AdeDunn]

Another SG sample taken from the Kelda's chocolate orange porter today. SG remains at 1.013. Flavour, the chocolate flavour from the nibs has actually started to really come through now quite nicely, as has the orange flavour too. Experimented with chocolate and orange extracts, and found it disguised the malt flavours too much for our liking, we much preferred the flavour without. Then experimented with just vanilla essence, this worked perfectly, smoothing the bitterness from the nibs (but NOT the hops), and giving us the quantity of 2mls per litre to get this effect when scaled up.

The chocolate flavour I'd say was somewhere in the middle of the profile, with the orange hovering in the back, malt and hops right up front. This seems to be perfect, as end of the day it's a beer, not a chocolate bar.

 

[AdeDunn]

Finally bottled the Kelda's Hogswatch Eve chocolate orange robust porter tonight (I'll fess up, I added 1 ml of orange extract to the bottling bucket for a bit of extra aroma... lol).

I put the dregs from the bottling bucket into a glass for a couple of photographs once finished. You can see why I like to use a bottling bucket, as that sediment would have made it into bottles otherwise.

With flash, so you can see the colour properly:-



Without flash:-



It's certainly dark coloured, that's for sure.

Bottled:-

 

[AdeDunn]

#18 Susan's Hogswatch Porter - Chocolate Mint Robust Porter

Or, it will be. There's no mint or chocolate in it yet, as I'm going to be using good quality extracts to add the flavours at bottling time, for shelf life and flavour stability.

Anyway, all finished this, had to stop before cleaning out my boiler though as I have a bad headache trying to make a return... I'll give it a rinse out obviously though.

On to the recipe. Why do I always use an estimated brew house efficiency of 75% when I'm designing my recipes? So yeah...

Targets: Batch size 14 Litres. OG 1.055. Bitterness Tinseth: 35.5 IBUs. Colour: 68.8 EBC
Actual batch size into FV 14 Litres. Actual OG 1.060. Brew house efficiency: 81.6%...

Mash 90 minutes at 69 degrees C, Mash out at 75.6 degrees C. BIAB, full volume, with re-circulation.

2200g Minch Hook Head Irish Pale Malt 4.2 EBC
300g Bestmalz Best Dark Munich 28 EBC
300g Crisp Pale Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC
240g Chocolate Malt 1100 EBC
180g Brown Malt 140 EBC
130g Oat Husks 0 EBC
90g Simpsons Golden Naked Oats 18 EBC


Drained in the usual way....



Boil 70 minutes

@ 70 minutes 25g EKG pellets 5.1% AA
@ 20 minutes 20g Fuggles whole hops 4.5% AA
@ 10 minutes 1/4 Protafloc tablet
@ 5 minutes 1 tspn Tronozymol yeast nutrient (which could be why I got good results from my kveik yeast last time around... Burt forgot to mention that I used this...)


Then cooled to a rather warm pitching temperature....



Then left to settle for a bit:-

 

[AdeDunn]

Transfer time, so first pumped into a 30 litre bucket FV, with lots of splashing....


Then, transferred from a hight into my Speidel FV, with even more splashing....




Then pitched a tiny bit of Kveik yeast from my stock (fetched out to warm to room temperature before use), hopefully enough.... lol Then wrapped the FV up and put it to bed...



Here's the OG sample, in a glass, modelling for a photo shoot...



Tis dark, and tis brown..

 

[AdeDunn]

We tried a bottle of the POTUS-45 again last night, and the decision is final that it's going down the toilet.... It's absolutely FOUL! An overwhelming flavour of copper coins, with a background flavour of rotting onions, not my idea of a delicious beer at all. A shame, as it's stunningly crystal clear... lol

 

[Ajhutch]

We tried a bottle of the POTUS-45 again last night, and the decision is final that it's going down the toilet.... It's absolutely FOUL! An overwhelming flavour of copper coins, with a background flavour of rotting onions, not my idea of a delicious beer at all. A shame, as it's stunningly crystal clear... lol

Sounds perfectly named

 

[AdeDunn]

Sounds perfectly named

Pretty much yeah! I did express concerns when my wife suggested the name that maybe we were jinxing it to horrible taste.....

It's orange, you can see right through it, and it has a horrible taste... Yup....

My wife wants me to add "and it's going to go down the drain, a fitting fate!"... lol