An Ankoù brewday:

[The Baron]

Glad the stink as gone I think sometimes even the same yeast can for no apparent reason give off a sulphur smell
Right I will give the DPC a go but prob be a month or so as i have orders from SWMBO to brew my Rhubarb IPA as the keg kicked last night

 

[An Ankoù]

Sounds like a good excuse for a week's self-isolation and two or three brews against hard times.
Rhubarb IPA?

 

[The Baron]

Yes Rhubarb IPA it is a really good brew just do your normal fruity type IPA and then after 3/4 days of fermentation add a catering tin of rhubarb , I get mine from Booker the Trade warehouse I think it is 2.8 kilo of rhubarb with no sugar or water and leave for about a week. I use a BIAB bag to keep it all together and so I can squeeze the bag as it does take a lot of the beer on I think I lost about 2/3 Litres but it is very nice and I add a little lactose to take the real sour edge off it about 270g or thereabouts

 

[An Ankoù]

Whitbread Trophy and Whitbread Best Bitter
I said I was going to rebrew my recipe for Trophy (above post #47) to try to see whether the yeast stink was due to the load of sugar in the recipe or what. I also wanted to darken it a little as it is much lighter than I remember. So at the risk of horrifying @foxbat yet again, I've brewed up a 12 litre batch pitched with half a sachet of S-04. The formulation is excatly the same (pro rata) as in post #47 except that I substituted the medium crystal malt for Simpson's Double Roasted crystal malt (300 ebc). It looks about right now and, after3 days in the fermenter, there's no yeast stink so I don't know what happened with the first batch.
I'm not expecting anything stunning considering the amount of sugar required by the recipe. It reminds me of when I first started with a one-can kit and a 2lb bag of sugar (yes we had pounds and ounces in those distant days) and I notices that the same source (Les Howarth, database) has a listing for Whitbread (Cheltenham) Best Bitter, which is all grain. The recipe calls for some hop extract both at full boil and dry hop stage and I've substituted that for a full measure of the hops that were added at the same time as the extract except that it was dry hopped with Target oil and I'm going to use the same hop as the late addition, which is Styrians.
I made a 12 litre batch using the other half a sachet of S-04 rehydrated but I'll give the recipe for 20 litres in case anybody wants to have a go at it.

Whitbread Best Bitter (Cheltenham)
20 Litres: O.G. 1036 : IBU 29
2.88 Kg Pale Malt (I used Crisp's Flagon, but any pale will do)
144 g Crisp's Double Roasted Crystal Malt (any dark crystal will do, but not, I think, Minch' s Black Crystal)
144g Torrified Wheat
Boiling hops: WGV to 29 IBUs FWH (disregard contribution of late addition)
Late hops: 10g Styrian Goldings 10 minutes (I used Savinjski, but this isn't specified in the database)
½ protofloc 10 minutes
Dry hop with 10g Styrians (Savinjski) for 2-3 days max.
Mash at 65C. 70 minute boil. Pitch with S-04

My measured OG came out at 1039 so I'll just top it up again to full measure when I rack the beer off the trub.
Et voila. Robert est ton oncle, et Fanny ta tante. As we say in these parts.

 

[foxbat]

More Trophy? Quelle horreur! Seriously though, I'm sure yours will be miles better than the original. I remember the colour as being a mid-amber-pale, not very pale and certainly not dark. Have you sampled a bottle from the first batch yet?

 

[An Ankoù]

More Trophy? Quelle horreur! Seriously though, I'm sure yours will be miles better than the original. I remember the colour as being a mid-amber-pale, not very pale and certainly not dark. Have you sampled a bottle from the first batch yet?

Not yet, it's still carbing up. Might have a crafty taster next weekend.

 

[An Ankoù]

I offended the gods by wearing shorts before the equinox and they've turned our gorgeous sunny weather back to grey and gloom. Great! I was worried about getting all my lagers in before it got too warm so here we go.

Pacific Pilsner
This is a favourite with a lovely floral aroma, which goes well with a baking hot summer's day and a barbecue. I've been making this one since 2009 and a quick look back through the records show that I favoured Hallertau Aroma (now Waketu) over Pacific Gem. I think I got frightened off Pac Gem when I made a single-hop bomb out of it in a moment of madness. Anyway it's back to what it should be with Pacific Gem and Green Bullet. The latter being probably my favourite NZ hop. It;s essentially a Czech Pillsner with New Zealand hops.

25 litres ; O.G. 1050 : IBUs (not counting late additions)

5.62Kg Bestmalz Pilsner (any good Pilsner will do)
0.62 Kg Vienna Malt
104 g Acid Malt
Very soft water
Bittering Hops: Pacific Gem to 12 IBUs and Green Bullet to 26 IBUs FWH
90 minute boil
Late Hops: 10g Pacific Gem 15 minutes + protofloc; 15g Green Bullet 5 minutes; 30g Green Bullet hop steep at < 80 C for 15 minutes; Dry hop with 18g Green Bullet.
MJ M84 Yeast

Ferment cold and lager for at least 6 months.

 

[An Ankoù]

Bolllocks to Boris Best Bitter
Haven't brewed since last weekend and suffering severe brew withdrawal symptoms so I approached this brew in a blind panic. I wanted a target OG of 1040 and I work on the rule that 4Kg of Pale Malt will give me an OG of 1050 in 20 litres of wort and I scale up or down from there. Well first I couldn't be arssed reducing the contribution of the adjuncts and secondly I forgot to reduce the amount of each component by 20% so as to get an OG of 1040 instead of 1050.
I'm proud of myself, such a cavalier approach and shoddy methodology is worthy of the great man himself and I'm sure the beer is more authentic for having been made in the manner of Boris himself.
Here's the recipe for 20 litres and I haven't corrected the weights. In fact I scaled up to 27 litres, but that's neither here nor there.
20 litres : target OG 1040 : IBUs 34
Proportions 85%:5%:5%:5%
No additions to local soft water.
Pale malt (Crisp's Flagon) 3.4 Kg
Crystal malt dark (200 ebc) 200g
Flaked Barley 200 g
Caramalt 200g
Bittering Hops
Challenger to 34 IBUs (contribution of late additions ignored) FWH
Late Hops
EKGs 10g 15 minutes plus ½ a protofloc tablet
EKGs 10g flameout
75 minute boil
Dry hops EKGs 5g
S-04 Yeast
I collected 26 litres (remember the above is for 20 litres) with an OG of 1046 so when the fermentation subsides and I rack into secondary, i'll just add another 4 litres of water which will be the same as having had an OG of 1040. Or maybe I won't. This is Boris beer after all. I'll make it up as I go along.

Whitbread London Porter (1850)
Got a second brew on as I'd been meaning to do this for a while. Overnight mash and brewed up this morning. Recipe excatly as the Durden Park book or their recipe online. I estimate the IBUs to be 56 as they stipulate 1 oz of fuggles per gallon.
Recipe for 20 litres
4.5 Kg Pale Malt
0.88 Kg Brown Malt
0.313 Kg Black Malt
Fuggles to 56 IBUs
Protofloc ½ tablet
Overnight mash. 70 minute boil
Pitched with the head of last night's brew (above) so S-04

All fine and dandy. This takes 4 months to mature apparently.
nb @Zephyr259 I think you were going to have a go at this one, too.

Edit: It's now in the FV and I collected nearly 21 litres with OG1062. I'll leave it at that. It looks and tastes like creosote so I guess all is well.

 

[An Ankoù]

Dog's Bolllocks Mild
First brewed 18th Jan 2004 with WLP007 Dry English Ale yeast. Brewed many, many times afterwards with whatever yeast is at hand or the fallback yeast of S-04 if nothing else on the go. The name means it was "house" mild of the establishment, which was my garage in my Poole Brewing days. In those days, my records were in pounds and gallons which is why, for my reference volume of 20 litres, the hops are calculated to one decimal place to reduce scaling errors as I rarely actually make 20 litres. Every record shows that primary and secondary fermentations were over in a week, whatever the yeast, and we were drinking it after another four or five days in the PB.
20 Litres : O.G. 1040 : I.B.Us 25
Pale Malt 1.6 Kg
Mild Ale Malt 1.6 Kg
Crystal Malt (135-150) 200g
Chocolate Malt 100g
Black Malt 100g
Bittering Hops
Fuggles to 25 IBUs (ignore contribution of late additions) FWH
Flavour Hops
Fuggles and Irish moss (protofloc) Last 15 minutes 13.1g
Fuggles Last 5 minutes 13.1g
Yeast S-04

In those days I used to routinely do a 90 minute mash at 66C and a 90 boil. Here, I made a 25 litre batch (scaled up from above) mashing at 66C and leaving overnight, and then a 75 minute boil. I collected 23 litres with O.G. 1045 so I've topped up to 26 litres to give target O.G. Pitched with S-04 harvested from the bitter in previous post and it's going like the clappers.

 

[An Ankoù]

Brewed over the weekend:
Experiment with dark but diastatic single malts.
I got a sack of Simpson's Imperial malt a few weeks ago as I intend to substitute it for Pale Amber Malt in Durden Park recipes. However, since it's fully diastatic I knocked up a SMaSH with Centennial just out of curiosity. I have to say I'm disappointed. First, I should never have used Centennial, but apart from that the malt profile is just flat and languid. A drinkable beer but I think I can do better by bolstering the maltiness and body with caramalt and giving it a bit of earthiness with flaked barley. English hops and looking for a nice rich coloured best bitter.
I've also got a sack of Red-X which is also fully diastatic and a little lighter in colour so knocking up a mini-batch of that one, too.

Rich and Red Best Bitter v1
12 Litres
Target OG 1045 : BU 35

Simpson's Imperial malt 85% 1.836 Kg
Caramalt 10% 216g
Barley Flakes 5% 108g
Bittered with Challenger to 35 IBUs FWH
15 minutes 6g EKGs and a quarter Protofloc tablet
flameout 6g EKGs
Dry hop 3 days 3g EKGs
Long mash at 64-65C overnight or 6 hours, 75 minute boil
Safale S-04 from a previous brew.

Rich and Red Best Bitter v1
12 Litres
Target OG 1045 : BU 35

Exactly the same substituting Bestmalz Red-X for Simpson's Imperial

Both brews came out slightly under gravity and I was expecting this as these malts tend not to yield quite as well as a standard pale malt. As I didn't know what the shortfall would be, I assumed the same yield as pale malt to be corrected at the end of the brew. In fact when topped up to length, the OG is 1042, which I'm happy with for a Best Bitter. Both bubbling away nicely.

 

[An Ankoù]

From Post 68 above.

Bolllocks to Boris Best Bitter

This is delicious beer. Far to good for Boris so I'll think of another name for it. Didn't dilute it in the end as I only had a 25 L secondary vessel available.

Whitbread London Porter (1850)

Racked into secondary. It tasted lovely already and I can't wait to get it bottled and conditioned. Nice flavour of liquorice at this stage which will mellow down nicely.

 

[samale]

From Post 68 above.

This is delicious beer. Far to good for Boris so I'll think of another name for it. Didn't dilute it in the end as I only had a 25 L secondary vessel available.

Racked into secondary. It tasted lovely already and I can't wait to get it bottled and conditioned. Nice flavour of liquorice at this stage which will mellow down nicely.

I like the sound of the 1850 porter. I have just added it to my list

 

[Zephyr259]

I like the sound of the 1850 porter. I have just added it to my list

It looks to be an excellent beer, mine is about a month ahead of An Ankoù's. It's also a good experiment with brown malt, 17% or so in the beer, going to start experimenting with it in my bitter, but not at that level.

 

[Lawrence22]

Dog's Bolllocks Mild

I am currently trying to brew some British style beers that I have never had. They were just not available here for years. Just made an ESB that I am really happy with and I think I would like to add this to my list to brew in the near future.

 

[An Ankoù]

In preparation for my next mild, I wanted a low attenuating yeast and remembered I had a Lallemand Danstar London ESB knocking around somewhere at the back of my fridge. It turned out that the expiry date was June 2018 so I thought I'd better build a starter just to be sure. What a mistake! Rehydrated the yeast and made up a starter medium with 85g malt extract in 800 ml boiled water in a 1 litre conical flask, pitched the yeast and took the dog for a walk. On our return (about 30 minutes as we're in confinement) it was away like the clappers of doom! So, I've had to abandon cooking tea and bring my mild-making forward. It's now safely in the mash tun for a brew up tomorrow morning and the Erlenmeyer hasn't yet burst its banks. Fingers crossed.
Don't tell me that out of date yeast doesn't work.

 

[An Ankoù]

Well here's the mild recipe from previous post. Standard 20 litre batch except I brewed it on the cooker in my 12 litre (to the brim) pot. Haven't thought of a name for it yet:

The Mild With No Name
20 litre batch : O.G. 1036 : IBU 22 : Target F.V. / abv 1011 / 3.3%
Vienna malt 84% 2.63 Kg
Caramalt 10% 313 g
Carafa Special #1 2% 63 g
Carafa Special #2 2% 63 g
Carafa Special #3 2% 63 g
Fuggles to 22 IBU FWH (adjust for high S.G. of low volume boil)
Last 15 mins a quarter tab of Protofloc
Last 5 mins Fuggles 10 g
Overnight mash at 66C
75 minute boil

Collected 11½ litres with S.G. 1062 so diluting to 20 litres gives me an O.G. of 1035.65- good enough.
Pitched with ancient Danstar London ESB as previous post and away we go.

 

[An Ankoù]

Following on from last two posts, wandered into the brewery this morning to be greeted with the ghastly reek of H2S, which caused me some consternation as well as eye-watering. A bit of googling on Danstar ESB came back to this forum:

Basically it'll ferment an average gravity wort inside of 36 hours. Afterwards it'll stink like sulphur, but this conditions out. You chill it, but good luck getting cell counts of less than 20*10^6 even after 4 days which really makes the rapid fermentation a moot point. Viability is usually 30-60% at this point which is not so good. It does drop bright in package given some time though, but it seems to be designed for filtering and fining unless you are happy packaging soup. Terrible for bottle conditioning as a result.

Never used this yeast before so I'm glad it's smelling the way it should. Hoping for better clarity in my mild than @stz reports. I did massively overpitch since I built a starter from a very viable (if well out of date) sachet.
Right, time to track down that dead rat.

 

[An Ankoù]

Posted this under thread "What did you brew today?" What did you brew today? so won't repeat it here.
It's been a bit of a brew week getting these four batches done, but the last one's on the cooker now.
Each hop to by tested: Aramis, Barbe Rouge, Plgrim, Sovereign is added to wort of the same grain bill as follows:
Note that I made 12 litre batches but now I always standardise my recipes on 20 litres and then scale up or down.
Experimental Hop / Best Bitter
20 litres ; Target OG 1045 : IBU's 35
3 Kg Pale Malt (Crisp's Flagon)
360 g Caramalt
180 g Dark Crystal Malt (200 ebc)
180 g Flaked Barley
Mashed overnight 66C
Hops bittering to 35 IBUs ignoring late additions FWH
Aramis and Barbe Rouge beers: bittered with Endeavour then 10 g for 15 minutes and 10 g at flamout
Pilgrim: bittered with Pilgrim then 10 g Pilgrim for 15 minutes and 10 g at flamout
Sovereign: bittered with Sovereign then 5 g/5 g Sovereign/EKG for 15 minutes and 5 g/5 g of same at flamout
All beers dry hopped with 10g (or 5g/5g Sov/EKG) for three days
Protofloc last 15 minutes
Safale S-04 yeast. (Doing the yeast is great, I just take the head from yesterday's brew and pitch it in today's)

 

[An Ankoù]

What better way to spend a long weekend than to take advantage of the weather and get some wheat beer on. And what better way to do that than start with a mild. As posted above, I pitched Danstar ESB in my earlier mild and, as @stz predicted, it fermented quickly and stank to high heaven. The last bottle I tried was still tainted and it's going to take some time to condition out, if at all, so put another 25 litres on and pitched with S-04 otherwise same recipe as above. That was Friday followed by an overnight mash of Greg Hughes' weissenbier. Substituted half the wheat malt with Bestmalz dark wheat malt to give it a bit of colour and flavour and pitched with MJ M20, going nicely. Things going smoothly and mash tun empty so decided to grab a quick 25 of brown ale and use the head of yeast from the mild to kick it into action. All done, overnight mash of Greg Hughes' Belgian wit put on and all cleaned up by 7 pm. That was a busy day. Sunday morning, up bright and early to finish the wit. Recipe as the book, but reduced the coriander drastically and the orange peel by about half- I'm making beer here, not curry ! A very pale beer, OG came in 2 degrees lower than expected, but not very concerned, I'll just increase the malt next time. Pitched with MJ M21. All washed up and put away by lunchtime and Bob's your uncle. A fruitful weekend. I notice the tap water is taking longer to chill the beer with my immersion chiller and it's hard to get it down below about 25C. I'll have to start trying the Voss soon, if this carries on.
Monday, received Viking Age Brew in the post from Amazon inspired by posts from @Fireside Ales Homebrewery (the long weekend is Thursday to Sunday here) so juniper trees are going to become an endangered species and I'm looking for some Norwegian bakers' yeast. In the meantime, found a phial of Whitelabs French Ale yeast that's months out of date in the fridge so have made up a starter to try to resurrect that. Little sign of life yet. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I think it's going to give me plenty of time to make up my mind. There's no rest for a poor Brewer!

 

[samale]

T

What better way to spend a long weekend than to take advantage of the weather and get some wheat beer on. And what better way to do that than start with a mild. As posted above, I pitched Danstar ESB in my earlier mild and, as @stz predicted, it fermented quickly and stank to high heaven. The last bottle I tried was still tainted and it's going to take some time to condition out, if at all, so put another 25 litres on and pitched with S-04 otherwise same recipe as above. That was Friday followed by an overnight mash of Greg Hughes' weissenbier. Substituted half the wheat malt with Bestmalz dark wheat malt to give it a bit of colour and flavour and pitched with MJ M20, going nicely. Things going smoothly and mash tun empty so decided to grab a quick 25 of brown ale and use the head of yeast from the mild to kick it into action. All done, overnight mash of Greg Hughes' Belgian wit put on and all cleaned up by 7 pm. That was a busy day. Sunday morning, up bright and early to finish the wit. Recipe as the book, but reduced the coriander drastically and the orange peel by about half- I'm making beer here, not curry ! A very pale beer, OG came in 2 degrees lower than expected, but not very concerned, I'll just increase the malt next time. Pitched with MJ M21. All washed up and put away by lunchtime and Bob's your uncle. A fruitful weekend. I notice the tap water is taking longer to chill the beer with my immersion chiller and it's hard to get it down below about 25C. I'll have to start trying the Voss soon, if this carries on.
Monday, received Viking Age Brew in the post from Amazon inspired by posts from @Fireside Ales Homebrewery (the long weekend is Thursday to Sunday here) so juniper trees are going to become an endangered species and I'm looking for some Norwegian bakers' yeast. In the meantime, found a phial of Whitelabs French Ale yeast that's months out of date in the fridge so have made up a starter to try to resurrect that. Little sign of life yet. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I think it's going to give me plenty of time to make up my mind. There's no rest for a poor Brewer!

That's some brewing. You deserve a beer after all that