AG#5 Hoppy Benny Bitter - wastage avoided & pics added

[gurtpint]

Seems I'll finally be able to get another brew on the go on Sunday. The starter (WLLP002) already prepared. I've been craving a well-hopped bitter as of late and my grain bill will be along the lines of Wez's Big Kenny remix. I'm planning to hop the bad boy up to about 50 IBUs (Challenger, Fuggle, EKG) and then dry-hop with 30-50g of EKG. Any suggestions anyone? Should I maybe up the crystal malts a bit?

Another thing - I have blissfully forgotten to get hold of a hop bag to use in dry hopping. If I'm not able to acquire one before the weekend, could I simply use a sanitized (=boiled) cotton sock?

 

[rickthebrew]

Hops sound good to me :party: I always just chuck the dryhop hops into the FV, give them a gentle stir couple times a day :thumb: When it comes to bottling I tie a small square of muslin cloth over the end of the syphon in the FV - no hops get through and I like to think that the hops being free and loose impart more to the brew

 

[gurtpint]

Cheers Rick! Do you throw the green ones in at the very start or after some time the fermentation has started? I'll not be using a secondary but intend leave the beer in the FV for 2 weeks and then rack to a bottling bucket. Hmm, can the dry hops (Goldings in this case) make the beer taste grassy or cause any other unpleasant tastes if the bottles survive for a longer time (say, 4 months plus)?

Is this the sinister start of my irreversible downward spiral to the eldritch unwholesome depths of the cult of Hop Head...?

 

[ncmcdonald]

When I dry hop I wait for primary fermentation to settle down and when most of the activity stops then throw the hops in, otherwise I have noticed some get caught up in the trub. I think you will only get grassy flavours if you leave the beer on the hops too long.

 

[gurtpint]

^ Marvellous. Thanks!

 

[rickthebrew]

Just like he said :thumb: If i`m using us-05 which can have ayeasty head after ten days I normally transfer to secondary and then dry hop, my last brew with wlp051 was pretty done after 4 or 5 days - i still transferred but you could get away with chucking them in.
I normally give around 4 or 5 days as some people say about grassy flavours from to much time on the hops but i`ve never experienced this even when i`ve dry hopped for seven days plus

Is this the sinister start of my irreversible downward spiral to the eldritch unwholesome depths of the cult of Hop Head...?

Oh yes.......be afraid..........very afraid............. :twisted:

 

[gurtpint]

Ta Rick! The mash is nearly done now - woohoo! I tweaked the recipe a bit more and decided to re-name this one as Hoppy Kenny - you know, Kenny's divorced and a tad more miserable cousin

 

[gurtpint]

The good news: proper use of brewing salts seems to have boosted my efficiency. Collected some 31 liters with the BG of 1.042. Think I'll have to liquor this one up a bit. (Erm, how was this done? Anyone?)

The bad news: the boiler died 15 minutes into the boil... Don't know if it's the fuse or the element. My brother will come round tonight and see what can be done but there's no way we'll be getting spare parts before tomorrow. Cooled the wort, filtered the bittering hops out and stored the bucket outdoors. I hope I'm able to do the boil on Monday. An unpleasasant situation though :|

Anyone had similar problems with Buffalo boilers? I've found that it's not easy to get a gentle rolling boil with mine - it's either full blast or not boiling at all. Is boiling at max a surefire way to bust either the element or the fuse?

 

[gurtpint]

Damn boiler... It couldn't be fixed yesterday. I found a repair shop that's going to have a look at the bugger tomorrow and if I'm lucky they'll have the needed spare parts. If not, they'll have to order them and it is likely to take days to get the boiler back. This is not looking very promising. :x Not much I can do about it at the moment though, so I'm trying to practise the virtues of "Zen and the art of not going berserk when your boiler lets you down with no notice at all and you're left crying into your unfinished wort."

The wort is now lurching in my unheated attic storage space in a FV with a lid + an air lock on at about +6C. I keep hoping I'm still able to use it when these technical hiccups have been ironed out. Would re-boil get rid of all potential nasties, would there be an unreasonably big risk of off-tastes? If so, well there is no other way than to make time for another complete session...

 

[gurtpint]

Wonders never cease... I took my boiler to the shop at 9 on Tuesday morning and got a call the same afternoon to come and get it. Great service. Apparently the cause of malfunction had been the overload sensor. Might be better to take the boiler back at some point for them to have a look at the thermostat as I'm quite unable to control the boil - it's either going mad or nothing at all - no chance of a gentle simmer and this time I lost nearly 10 litres even though I did only a 80ish minute boil and had the lid partially on for all but the last 15 minutes.

Anyway, I dragged the boiler back home and started re-boiling the cold wort as soon as I got home. No off tastes as far as I could tell, so I just added 30g of bittering hops to compensate for the interrupted boil a couple of days earlier. The recipe can be found here: recipeview.php?recipe_id=972 Played around with some of the speciality malts I had in stock just for the fun of it. Since the boil as so rapid I decided to try and make it just 75 minutes but in reality it got closer to 80 mins. Decided against dry-hopping since I may not be able to get the beer off hops when I should due to other commitments. So, I just threw in some post-boil hop at flameout and turned the chiller on.

Some pics (only a few and pretty **** at that):

how it usually starts

the mash pit

wort, you can run but not hide

more hops for the masses! (flameout)

lovely lovely

the naughty shot

Collected about 22 liters of wort at 1.052, so smack dab that one. Had made a starter beforehand and the yeast duly kicked into gear a few hours after pitching. The recipe calculator gave me the estimated FG of 1.017 but the brew had raced down to 1.014 in just two days and it's currently at 1.012. I have carefully roused the yeast a couple of times since it did no harm to my oatmeal stout. Plan on keeping this one at room temp for a couple of weeks and then cool it for a week or so before bottling. Tasted absolutely gorgeous already, with plenty of hop aroma, so hopes are high. I think I like Challenger. This was by far the most stressful of my brewdays this far due to that damn equipment failure but seems like it was worth the effort! Whoo!

 

[robsan77]

looks like a nice amount of hops there :thumb:

 

[Good Ed]

I bet you're glad that one is now bubbling away, well done :thumb:

 

[gurtpint]

^ All smiles, me!

 

[rickthebrew]

All smiles, me!

nice one gurt

 

[gurtpint]

Sampled a bottle of this last weekend. It had matured for just a couple of weeks but the taste was alright maan! Maybe the hoppiness was even a bit too pronounced but I assume it might mellow a bit given time. Given patience more like...

 

[rickthebrew]

Maybe the hoppiness was even a bit too pronounced

:nono:


Glad it turned out well - my appollo 55 took five weeks and then the hops had lost some bitterness and loads of flavour comes through

 

[Mark1964]

Nice one GP good looking brew :thumb:

 

[gurtpint]

Maybe the hoppiness was even a bit too pronounced

:nono:


Glad it turned out well - my appollo 55 took five weeks and then the hops had lost some bitterness and loads of flavour comes through

I guess the darker grains might also give it some bitter notes... But it's all good and drinkable. Had a chat about brewing with an American pal (who has a serious hop problem) and he promised to send me some recipes. This is getting scary. I've been finding myself appreciating Yank-type pales more and more. Want to experiment with using both English and American hops. But that'll take a while, my apartment is already getting too hot for fermenting