Anna's Brewdays

[Brewnaldo]

Thanks @RoomWithABrew for the detailed pictures. I'm going to have a good look and plan around how to set up the new system once it arrives and plumb in the cooler. The 3 way tap idea is excellent - need to look at that as an option.

In the meantime though I have a week mostly off from work, if you don't count a few meetings and working in the hospital two evenings...
So I'm planning on a couple of different brew days. Tomorrow is going to be a bitter and twisted clone since it's a beer I really like from a local brewery, and a Perle pilsner which as a recipe grew out of a couple of recipes here from @foxbat and @Brewnaldo . Later in the week, I'm going to try my own take on a Gose inspired by the beers from Up Front Brewing, and a raspberry sour. I really really enjoy a brew day, even when things don't go to plan, it is so completely different from anything else I do in the week. It feels a real treat to be taking time like this for myself - not something I've really been able to do in the past .

Anna

Tomorrow is my first brewday in a wee while and I am also venturing into the realm of the sour, with an almost NEIPA style Nelson Sauvin sour. I am cheating though, and using Philly Sour yeast.

 

[Clint]

Thanks @RoomWithABrew for the detailed pictures. I'm going to have a good look and plan around how to set up the new system once it arrives and plumb in the cooler. The 3 way tap idea is excellent - need to look at that as an option.

In the meantime though I have a week mostly off from work, if you don't count a few meetings and working in the hospital two evenings...
So I'm planning on a couple of different brew days. Tomorrow is going to be a bitter and twisted clone since it's a beer I really like from a local brewery, and a Perle pilsner which as a recipe grew out of a couple of recipes here from @foxbat and @Brewnaldo . Later in the week, I'm going to try my own take on a Gose inspired by the beers from Up Front Brewing, and a raspberry sour. I really really enjoy a brew day, even when things don't go to plan, it is so completely different from anything else I do in the week. It feels a real treat to be taking time like this for myself - not something I've really been able to do in the past .

Anna

Time is all we really have...its great to spend it doing nice things. Lots of money would be nice...to buy more time.

 

[Gingerbrews]

I've brewed @foxbat's B & Twisted clone, a couple of times and it's v good

 

[foxbat]

I've brewed @foxbat's B & Twisted clone, a couple of times and it's v good

Wow that one was a few years ago. Good beer though as I recall

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Tomorrow is my first brewday in a wee while and I am also venturing into the realm of the sour, with an almost NEIPA style Nelson Sauvin sour. I am cheating though, and using Philly Sour yeast.

I used the philly sour for a sour ipa, did it quite warm and then lobbed in some opshaug kveik when the pH had dropped to the level I wanted and held the temperature at 28 C it worked well. Clearest self clearing beer I've ever made.

 

[dcbrookes]

Thanks @RoomWithABrew for the detailed pictures. I'm going to have a good look and plan around how to set up the new system once it arrives and plumb in the cooler. The 3 way tap idea is excellent - need to look at that as an option.

In the meantime though I have a week mostly off from work, if you don't count a few meetings and working in the hospital two evenings...
So I'm planning on a couple of different brew days. Tomorrow is going to be a bitter and twisted clone since it's a beer I really like from a local brewery, and a Perle pilsner which as a recipe grew out of a couple of recipes here from @foxbat and @Brewnaldo . Later in the week, I'm going to try my own take on a Gose inspired by the beers from Up Front Brewing, and a raspberry sour. I really really enjoy a brew day, even when things don't go to plan, it is so completely different from anything else I do in the week. It feels a real treat to be taking time like this for myself - not something I've really been able to do in the past .

Anna

Have you got a Bitter & Twisted recipe you could let me see, please?

 

[DocAnna]

I'll share the recipes in a wee bit... my well planned brew day isn't going quite to plan.
I milled all the grains and weighed out the hops yesterday nicely, water on last night with a delay to be ready first thing ... all wonderfully organised and planned ... hmmm

I forgot to put my helix filter in, and only realised part way through the mash... cue my hoisting up the grain basket, double nitrile gloved up to the elbow and inserting the helix at mash out 75 deg C that was a bit ouchy hot. Then found my pH was well off again at 5.80 - third time running. I had a taste of the acidulated malt that I have and it doesn't taste at all acidulated! So basically sold the wrong grain. It will mean my efficiency is off a bit, and I've done a quickie order with Geterbrewed for a 3kg bag of acidulated malt and paid for 1 day delivery - oh and a few other bits and pieces to make up the order and justify the postage.

I'm going to have to look back and see who the acidulated malt was ordered from.

Anna

 

[DocAnna]

All weighed out and ready to go these are the hops for the B&T. I’ve added an extra 6ml of lactic acid as well to compensate for the lack of acidity in the malt.

60 min hops in - a bit later than planned in the day but still ok

 

[Rodcx500z]

It will be beer Anna

 

[DocAnna]

It will be beer Anna

It will indeed but you know I'm a complete fusspot when it comes to measurements and accuracy, I also get miffed over things like pH not being on target... and no I'm not high maintenance, I just like things to be nice and tidy .

Speaking of tidy, that's the first brew cleaned tidied, and the mash water heating for the perle pils, still a bit off expected time as I'd tried to be good and use the first part of the water from the counterflow chiller as my mash water. However whether it was psychological or not, I thought I could taste a plastic sort of flavour in the water from the vinyl surrounding the chiller so discarded it and have started with tap water instead.

Time for some unnecessary process pictures:

B&T tucked up in its new home for the next week or so, and it was quite good in that I managed to cool direct from the boiler to the fermenter to pitch temperature. I'd not counted on the cooling while filling though and rather overshot on cooling, so pitched at 17 deg rather than my hoped for 20, it is to ferment at 18 so not too much to fuss about. It's also US-05 yeast so quite frankly it gets on and ferments clean whatever I might do to it!

in other news..
Finally got round to actually checking the FG of the Naeb'dy Aboot v2, in at 1.012 on my nice newish hydrometer with a larger scale

Right need to get those salts weighed out, and my son has just arrived back from the day from Uni, so need to make a bit of lunch for him.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Sounds like you had fun, i have just tucked mine up and like you i managed to get pitching temp with ground water that's a first, my first time fermenting under pressure and i need to dry hop i just hope i have done it right, what a hobby but i love it, like yourself Anna i like neat and tidy all i have to do now is clean the kettle

 

[DocAnna]

Recipes for today - ignore the salts, I forgot to remove some of the options from the 'auto' calibration so they ended up a bit complicated. They also both had a protofloc in at 15 min.

Numbers for today - overshot on efficiency for a change which was unexpected. They did have much longer mash outs than they should have, due to me forgetting to put the sparge water on to heat - but that wouldn't make sense for that to be why.

Perle Pilsner OG 1.050 expected 1.045
B&T OG 1.046 expected 1.042

The fermenter volume on the Pilsner was also a wee bit down but those whole leaf hops soaked up an awful lot of liquid

Fun day, though took a bit longer than expected and the last hour and a half was spent running between kitchen and garage making a sausage casserole in one and finishing the wort in the other .

Oh and the big beastie arrived in the post today which was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't expected it till later this week. I haven't had time to open it though

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Recipes for today - ignore the salts, I forgot to remove some of the options from the 'auto' calibration so they ended up a bit complicated. They also both had a protofloc in at 15 min.

Numbers for today - overshot on efficiency for a change which was unexpected. They did have much longer mash outs than they should have, due to me forgetting to put the sparge water on to heat - but that wouldn't make sense for that to be why.

Perle Pilsner OG 1.050 expected 1.045
B&T OG 1.046 expected 1.042

The fermenter volume on the Pilsner was also a wee bit down but those whole leaf hops soaked up an awful lot of liquid

Fun day, though took a bit longer than expected and the last hour and a half was spent running between kitchen and garage making a sausage casserole in one and finishing the wort in the other .

Oh and the big beastie arrived in the post today which was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't expected it till later this week. I haven't had time to open it though

Busy day!

 

[Clint]

If my Mrs was into brewing I could spend twice as much time fishing.

 

[dcbrookes]

Recipes for today - ignore the salts, I forgot to remove some of the options from the 'auto' calibration so they ended up a bit complicated. They also both had a protofloc in at 15 min.

Numbers for today - overshot on efficiency for a change which was unexpected. They did have much longer mash outs than they should have, due to me forgetting to put the sparge water on to heat - but that wouldn't make sense for that to be why.

Perle Pilsner OG 1.050 expected 1.045
B&T OG 1.046 expected 1.042

The fermenter volume on the Pilsner was also a wee bit down but those whole leaf hops soaked up an awful lot of liquid

Fun day, though took a bit longer than expected and the last hour and a half was spent running between kitchen and garage making a sausage casserole in one and finishing the wort in the other .

Oh and the big beastie arrived in the post today which was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't expected it till later this week. I haven't had time to open it though

Thanks for copying the recipes, Anna.

 

[DavidDetroit]

fusspot

Great, great word. Maybe I've seen it before and maybe I haven't. Hard to say. Didn't bother to Google it or check in my dictionaries.
Going to steal it though--it's quite impactful and appropriate given the proper situation.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Great, great word. Maybe I've seen it before and maybe I haven't. Hard to say. Didn't bother to Google it or check in my dictionaries.
Going to steal it though--it's quite impactful and appropriate given the proper situation.

Indubitably

 

[DavidDetroit]

Indubitably

If that could be fit in somewhere, I'd be all over it and I would thank spell-check as well.
I saw "firkin" a while ago--don't recall the circumstance, but I do recall thinking the word resonated. Don't know how or why, it just did.

 

[DocAnna]

First brew day (EDIT ‘Tomorrow’)with the new big boiler which is going to be a split batch that will work as a Passionfruit and Clemantine Gose, and a Raspberry sour. A bit difficult putting in the numbers for brewfather as the only way I could think of doing it was to add all the ingredients. This does mean I won't have that accurate an idea of the alcohol since it will be different across the two batches due to the different amount of fruit. The Raspberry sour is also getting a half kg of passionfruit puree just because I reckon 1.5kg is enough in the other one. (not the kg as below - need to change that!) This will also be an opportunity to check the equipment profile I've used for the bigger equipment.

 

[DocAnna]

So it’s the bigger brew day trial today. Oh lots of learning already! Here’s the temporary set up with the breezily as my sparge heater. The OH is doing academic stuff today so I’m balancing a brew day with preparing for a roast tonight, and pumping up the tyres on my daughter’s bike which she decided to go out on today - extracting her bike in the midst of my brewing bits.

Observations so far:

• The klarstein (Klars) heats up v quickly much faster than the brewzilla even allowing for the higher water volume.
• Klars cycles on and off every 30sec or so to achieve the equivalent wattage power - like a microwave power setting, so it’s not actually reducing the power to the element at any time.
• I can’t heat up the sparge water and keep the mash heated at the same time since they are on the same socket sine 2400W + 3300W is lots
  
• This means I’ve had to extend the mash while the water for the sparge heats up. This will need sorted for next time. I think an extension cable to the other side of the garage where there’s another socket and a 500W slow heat may be my best option
• Mashing in was sooo much easier on the wider diameter Klars took about 1-2 mins
• I’ve fitted the helix to the pump inlet in Klars rather than the short mesh filter as I’d read elsewhere that it blocks easily.