AG#8 Greg Hughes Brown Porter

[matt76]

Pg.169 if you're playing along at home...

Well, something went awry somewhere - I know what I measured but I cannot get brewers friend to tally with my BG, OG and volumes at start and end of the boil. I reckon I measured a volume wrong somewhere along the way... And I got nowhere near as much boil off as I normally get - I'm putting that down to the cold weather.....

Nevertheless, everything seems basically ok - my OG is a little off from the book, 1.047 instead of 1.049 but close enough for me.

I've been discussing problems with loads of trub recently so I tried out some very fine nylon bags - a big one for the grain, and a little one for the hops. The wort for my OG sample seemed especially clear so let's see what happens.

I've been playing around recently with growing yeast so for the first time I pitched a starter of Wyeast 1056 American Ale that I'd cultured up myself from next to nothing - fingers crossed!

 

[MyQul]

If your a no chiller like me, I have a method of making sure you only have about 1cm-2cm of trub, most of which is yeast

 

[matt76]

If your a no chiller like me, I have a method of making sure you only have about 1cm-2cm of trub, most of which is yeast

Thanks @MyQul - I used some very fine nylon grain and hop bags this time in an effort to reduce the amount of crud/sludge I've been getting in my FVs. To be fair, the OG sample in my trial jar looked much clearer then normal.

(I used leaf hops for the first time instead of pellets - not sure how much difference this makes?aunsure....)

I very seriously considered no chill, or at least leaving it to settle in the kettle overnight before transferring to the FV this morning - but in the end I didn't bother as the volume post boil was higher than usual, more then enough to offset my normal trub losses.

Nevertheless, I'm keen to continue playing with yeast so fingers crossed I don't get so much trub this time as they would make harvesting the yeast much easier!

 

[matt76]

Airlock seems to have woken up already so that's an encouraging sign - this is the first time I've tried growing my own yeast rather than chucking in a packet of Wyeast

Was thinking about the trub thing - but the trouble with such a dark beer in a plastic FV is you can't see where the beer stops and the trub starts!

 

[Clint]

I'm fairly new to AG. I have had various levels of trub/carry over to the fv. My latest brew had had the least having settled out in the fv to less than an inch. The only difference in my last process was to let the break material settle properly after the boil,crack the tap partly to start the flow and allow the bazooka in the boiler to slowly fur up with the trub. Couple of bigger holes appear allowing the wort to drain but most of the trub is held back.

 

[Baffled]

I've done this AG recipe twice now. First time I followed the recipe exactly, like you I finished a few points short on my O.G reading. Had an absolute disaster on bottling day, so the whole batch ended up down the drain. Second time I used a different yeast than the recipe. Initially I was a little disappointed but it definitely improved with a long condition and is now quite a drinkable beer. Only have a few bottles left.
Have the ingredients so will give the recipe another try in the near future.

 

[matt76]

I'm fairly new to AG. I have had various levels of trub/carry over to the fv. My latest brew had had the least having settled out in the fv to less than an inch. The only difference in my last process was to let the break material settle properly after the boil,crack the tap partly to start the flow and allow the bazooka in the boiler to slowly fur up with the trub. Couple of bigger holes appear allowing the wort to drain but most of the trub is held back.

Thanks for this Clint My current gear is designed for smaller scale brewing so no tap on the kettle.

Won't know until I bottle as the wort is so dark, but it seems like even simple measures such as a hop bag and a finer grain bag have helped a bit.

Next time I might try letting the crud settle overnight and then syphon the clear wort to the FV.

 

[matt76]

I've done this AG recipe twice now. First time I followed the recipe exactly, like you I finished a few points short on my O.G reading. Had an absolute disaster on bottling day, so the whole batch ended up down the drain. Second time I used a different yeast than the recipe. Initially I was a little disappointed but it definitely improved with a long condition and is now quite a drinkable beer. Only have a few bottles left.
Have the ingredients so will give the recipe another try in the near future.

Sorry to hear you had to ditch a brew, what went wrong at bottling?

I used 1056 for this as the website says it also works for porters, plus I wanted to try growing my own starter. But I bought some 1028 as per the recipe just in case - probably gonna use that for a Greg Hughes mild I have planned next.

I think I worked out why I missed my OG - instead of reading my notes from previous brews I made a wrong assumption and ended up adding too much water! Still, lesson learned and I'm still well within the guidelines for this beer so no major harm done.

 

[Baffled]

Sorry to hear you had to ditch a brew, what went wrong at bottling?

I used 1056 for this as the website says it also works for porters, plus I wanted to try growing my own starter. But I bought some 1028 as per the recipe just in case - probably gonna use that for a Greg Hughes mild I have planned next.

I think I worked out why I missed my OG - instead of reading my notes from previous brews I made a wrong assumption and ended up adding too much water! Still, lesson learned and I'm still well within the guidelines for this beer so no major harm done.

I racked the beer to a bottling bucket, added my batch priming sugar and then set about filling and capping my bottles. Was using a cheap twin lever capper. After a few bottles it was becoming extremely difficult to cap the bottles, they kept slipping, caps wouldn't go on properly and the rubber was getting torn to shreds. Checked the few bottles I had capped and they popped straight off, none of the caps had sealed properly. Now I have a table top capper and never had a problem since.

 

[matt76]

Hmm..... So 36 hours after pitching i drew off 500ml from just below the surface in the FV, like this.....

(so basically it's all @MyQul 's fault! )

I checked the FV of this sample a few days later (7 days after pitching) once it has finished fermenting and i came to harvest the yeast - it was 1.014, no surprise at that point as I'd normally wait 2-3 weeks before bottling to let it attenuate fully.

But i assumed the main batch in the FV would have the same gravity.....

I checked the gravity in the FV again today, 16 days after pitching, thinking it might be ready to bottle - still 1.014. Hmm..... aunsure....

I can leave it another week, maybe it'll creep a little lower. Or maybe having mashed at 67degC the FG will be just a touch higher then we might otherwise expect - for comparison the original recipe in Hughes says FG 1.012.....

The beer was really clear and tasted great, just needs to condition a little maybe - so I'm not worried, just pondering it and rambling on here

 

[Zephyr259]

I made this beer 18 months ago, was really good, I used Carafa Special I as the dark malt, think that was a change but can't remember what the actual recipe said. I got 1.048 OG and 1.010 FG but I also used Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire. and mashed at 65c. If you mashed a bit hotter than his recipe then you'll likely finish slightly higher too, stable at 1.014 for 9 days sounds done to me.

 

[Brightonnik]

1.014 will be fine for the style. I usually mash my shouts a bit higher with the intention of them finishing up around that number.

 

[matt76]

Thanks guys - yeah, my gut says it's done, but better to play it safe and sleep on it then rush it and bottle before it's really ready

 

[matt76]

Finally had a chance to bottle this last night, in amongst brewing another beer.....

In the end I got 20 x 500ml bottles which will do me very nicely.

Gravity was still 1.014 as expected which brings it out at 4.3% ABV. It's very clear and tastes rich and smooth with flavours of coffee and chocolate - hardly a surprise given the grain bill!

Looking forward to trying this properly once it's conditioned and carbonated

 

[matt76]

Update:

Had a first tasting of this last night. It's been in the bottle 3 weeks so it's carbonated fine, and tastes good, but in truth it does also taste a bit "young".

Although it's a relatively modest ABV, my gut feeling is a dark beer like this will probably benefit from longer aging - any thoughts on this?

(Not to mention of course that I'm not even obeying the rule of 2+2+2! )

 

[Slid]

Update:

Had a first tasting of this last night. It's been in the bottle 3 weeks so it's carbonated fine, and tastes good, but in truth it does also taste a bit "young".

Although it's a relatively modest ABV, my gut feeling is a dark beer like this will probably benefit from longer aging - any thoughts on this?

(Not to mention of course that I'm not even obeying the rule of 2+2+2! )

View attachment 18274

I've done this recipe, or variant thereof, a few times with good results. A darker beer seems to improve after a couple of weeks or months, even a low-ish ABV one like this.

 

[Zephyr259]

Agreed, this was a great beer and one I intend to brew again, but it did improve over a couple of months.

 

[matt76]

Thanks chaps, noted

 

[matt76]

Update:

Tried this again last night with a mate of mine.....

I have to say I'm really impressed!

It seems to have really benefited from a few more weeks in the bottle. Any harshness has gone and it's really mellowed - very smooth mouthfeel, not aggressive at all, just gentle chocolate and coffee flavours

My mate said that with my first few brews they were good but you could tell they were homebrewed, but much less so with this one - very pleased with that compliment!