Anna's Brewdays

[DocAnna]

Decided yesterday it might be nice to do a brew day today, not prepared and not checked what I have for recipe . I did know I had the hops for an equivalent of the Bombay bomber previously made, but wasn’t sure about the grain. Sure enough, I didn’t have enough Vienna malt. So 11 o’clock last night sat down and worked out a recipe trying to make an English IPA – Well sort of.

I’ll do a proper update later but for now just to say again … I do love this new pulley , it has transformed part of the brew day and so less stressful!

 

[DocAnna]

I have to hand it to you Anna, that looks superb, simple yet elegant.

However, the game is up, it's time to change clean, it's clear you are an imposter - with handwriting that neat you cannot possibly be a doctor! All doctors - as everyone knows - write in a totally illegible scrawl decipherable only by pharmacists!

Thank you, that’s lovely of you - I do have genuinely awful handwriting, and learnt to touch type 25 years or so ago, which saved staff a whole lot of angst trying to read what I’d written! I can though be more legible when I take my time over it.

As to the Kegerator - I’m liking the simple black and silver vibe at the moment but do also quite like the idea of some colour on the board .

Anna

 

[matt76]

In essence this is a way of doing O2 free brewing in a bucket. I haven't though come up with a great way of doing closed transfer to a keg from a brew bucket - but I'm working on that one
Anna

JFYI, I've added a more complete post here with photos explaining the method I've come up with, might give you some ideas

 

[dan125]

Well I was feeling a bit down this morning as last night I tried a small glass of my NEIPA that I was so proud of, and it had already lost that punchy pineapple and fruit edging into floral finish. Oh it was ok, not oxidised, haze stable. I know I shouldn’t really complain, it’s just that I sent out the beer to a couple of people to try and think it if it tastes like that I’ve under delivered a bit.

So I ended up labelling this one as ‘Thrice as Nice’ as it was my third go at an NEIPA. Next is to work on flavour stability and aim for ‘Four-ever yours’ though that is a bit bad as puns go.

Needing a bit of that @LisaMC positivity I think - and a bit of head down technical reading on hop flavour stability for good measure !

Anna

Well there's not much to be dissappointing with here.
It's very good indeed. :hat:
Potent ripe tropical fruit aroma that follows through, not quite so strong, in the flavour.
The neipa mouthfeel is there. Its soft with decent body, but not cloying or heavy.
Low bitterness and there's no booziness or heat from the high ABV.
I'd be really interested to know what temp you fermented this at??

 

[DocAnna]

So this is the beer I brewed at the weekend, which was a bit spontaneous and a bit about using up some of the grains and hops I had - still have lots though, but it should be interesting. I hope this will taste like an English IPA and is a little darker than my usual fare. I'm not ...horrors of horror... temperature controlling this so it has shot of like a rocket. 48 hours in and fermentation has well slowed, with the krausen almost completely suppressed by a bit of pressure, which I'm hoping will compensate for brewing warmer 22 C ish than my normal. Oh and yes the mistake was that I measured the salts for an American IPA then messed with the recipe in the morning so the water profile isn't quite right.

oops edit due to a bit of address info on that file.

 

[DocAnna]

Ok 2nd try

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Interesting to see the slaked lime - don’t think I’ve every used that! does It not just fight against the lactic acid?

 

[DocAnna]

Interesting to see the slaked lime - don’t think I’ve every used that! does It not just fight against the lactic acid?

It's a food grade slaked lime which allows me to increase the hardness without adding more sodium, but yes it will act against the lactic acid. This is the first time trying it other than in soft drinks where I've been using it to match the mineral water profile of San Pellegrino.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

It's a food grade slaked lime which allows me to increase the hardness without adding more sodium, but yes it will act against the lactic acid. This is the first time trying it other than in soft drinks where I've been using it to match the mineral water profile of San Pellegrino.

Oh that‘s really interesting - thanks!
Increasing the hardness is not something I have to worry about here…

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Oh that‘s really interesting - thanks!
Increasing the hardness is not something I have to worry about here…

Me neither - 300 ppm

 

[clyne]

Out of interest what app/software is your output from @DocAnna - looks good

 

[DocAnna]

Out of interest what app/software is your output from @DocAnna - looks good

It's from Brewfather which is free for use but limited in the number of recipes I think you can have at any one time with the free version. I purchased the paid version on one of their many special offers for $15.99 for the year. I'm expecting it will go up to the heady amounts of $19.99 annually after my first year though. You could use the free one indefinitely and you can get round the supposed limitation of no stock control in the free one by adding stock through a blank recipe. The pdf output is also limited to the paid version though you can copy and paste into Word from the reader view of the recipe. I eventually paid for it when I realised how much I was using it and I thought it was the fair thing to do really. I like it a lot and spend far too much time tweaking recipes in it .

 

[DocAnna]

Wow not quite sure what to make of my latest brew. This has been at garage temperature which has been about 20-22 so I'd been keeping the beer pressurised after the first 24 hours to try to compensate for the raised temperature. 4 days have elapsed and after it having shot off like a rocket, all the krausen has died down and the airlock on the spunding valve isn't bubbling, beer starting to clear with the yeast dropping out . Normally I give my beers 2 weeks at least to ferment and clean up.... this one well I think I'll keep it going to at least 10 days on principle but sheesh that was quick. I'm worried it will taste foul but this was always a bit of a put together at the last minute beer. I am a bit worried I've wasted a beer though not having temperature controlled.

I guess we'll see, if nothing else, it's a learning exercise again. I might stick it in the fridge to crash chill it after 8 days, and just hope it's not awful .

Anna

 

[Wynne]

Wow not quite sure what to make of my latest brew. This has been at garage temperature which has been about 20-22 so I'd been keeping the beer pressurised after the first 24 hours to try to compensate for the raised temperature. 4 days have elapsed and after it having shot off like a rocket, all the krausen has died down and the airlock on the spunding valve isn't bubbling, beer starting to clear with the yeast dropping out . Normally I give my beers 2 weeks at least to ferment and clean up.... this one well I think I'll keep it going to at least 10 days on principle but sheesh that was quick. I'm worried it will taste foul but this was always a bit of a put together at the last minute beer. I am a bit worried I've wasted a beer though not having temperature controlled.

I guess we'll see, if nothing else, it's a learning exercise again. I might stick it in the fridge to crash chill it after 8 days, and just hope it's not awful .

Anna

To take out the guesswork, you could do an accelerated fermentation of a sample at, say, 30C then when you get consistent gravity readings work out the maximum attenuation then wait until your fermentation has reached the same FG. Hope it turns out well, I suspect it will.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I'm worried it will taste foul but this was always a bit of a put together at the last minute beer. I am a bit worried I've wasted a beer though not having temperature controlled.

I shouldn’t worry too much... I got caught out by that warm spell at the beginning of June when I’d just started off that Yorkshire bitter and my chiller was otherwise occupied with Pilsner. I found that the problem wasn’t the 22° ambient temperature as such, but the metabolic heat generated by the more vigorous fermentation (I measured the beer itself as peaking out at 24°). However, the beer itself doesn’t seem to have suffered overly - it did finish very very quickly, but seems to have cleared down fine and no massively ‘off’ flavours

 

[DocAnna]

I shouldn’t worry too much... I got caught out by that warm spell at the beginning of June when I’d just started off that Yorkshire bitter and my chiller was otherwise occupied with Pilsner. I found that the problem wasn’t the 22° ambient temperature as such, but the metabolic heat generated by the more vigorous fermentation (I measured the beer itself as peaking out at 24°). However, the beer itself doesn’t seem to have suffered overly - it did finish very very quickly, but seems to have cleared down fine and no massively ‘off’ flavours

Thanks that really is reassuring. I did have a thermometer on the outside for the first 48 hours it was thankfully about 19-20 ambient and the beer was reading about 21-22 but I suspect the true fluid temperature was closer to your 24 deg. I've never seen a brew so active churning away like it was being constantly mixed.

Thanks @Wynne a bit late I think to try an accelerated fermentation - rather suspect that's what I've achieved anyway. By the way the yeast is already starting to settle I am guessing it's mostly sorted. I will though give it till day 10 just because I'm vaguely hopeful the yeast might tidy up after itself given that time.

Anna

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I'm vaguely hopeful the yeast might tidy up after itself given that time.

Yes, I felt the same way and gave it a good week and a half resting in the FV after the obvious activity had stopped. Now I think about it, it did take longer than usual to clear down, too

 

[matt76]

Your mileage may vary of course but I've been using BRY-97 and MJ M36 a lot this year and fermenting at 20degC (not pressurised, but under temp control) it's generally all over bar the shouting in 3-4 days.

So I don't think what you're seeing is necessarily anything to be concerned about.

That said, at times the yeast is a bit sneaky and just when you're confused it's done the yeast slowly nibbles down a few more points (I use a Tilt so I can see all this happening without having to keep taking samples).

As @Wynne says, if you're not sure then doing a forced ferment can be very illuminating. You only need enough for a hydrometer sample, 100ml is plenty, and I just bung it in the airing cupboard for a few days.

 

[DocAnna]

A bit of a surprise evening off last night! I turned up for work at the hospital only to discover that I’d been somehow missed off the rota by mistake .

So spent a pleasant half of an evening kegging the lime Cerveza and tidying up the garage…… and then tackling the ironing basket . The Cerveza Is interesting, it was pretty clear at the time of dry hopping with lime zest and lime juice but since then with cold conditions to just under 0.5 C it has become a bit cloudy which I’m hoping its just a persistent chill haze. The lime taste is probably a bit more pronounced than I was expecting, having added six limes worth of zest and juice. I am afraid I was not brave enough to add the salt at the time of bottling as I thought it could easily ruin the entire batch and could always be added at the time of drinking if I really wanted.

From an initial taste check it's a clean continental type lager with a distinct lime taste so I’m not sure that the White Labs Mexican lager yeast had much of a chance to contribute taste with the lime background. I'll see once it's properly carbonated. One of the interesting things was just how carbonated it already was even without pressure, I had to leave a sample overnight to degas just to get a final OG (1.011 which is spot on as expected).

Anna

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I'll see once it's properly carbonated.

It's a really interesting point that - for one reason and another I ended up force carbonating my lager (by rocking the keg with the gas on), so I was able to do a side-by-side comparison both before and after... really quite a surprisingly big difference in terms of taste :-)