Anna's Brewdays

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

It may have escaped notice, but I haven't had a brew day for ages, far far too long. This is partly because I'm trying to be good and diet better, but for the most part it's because any spare time I would have been brewing is spent studying for the Brewing & Distilling course. This is rather ironic. It does mean I'm well behind on plans for brewing for Christmas and haven't entered any of the more recent competitions.
I'd love to brew this coming weekend, but I've a cake to start making for my son's 21st which is going to take quite a while to make. Here's hoping anyway!

I feel your pain! I was ‘flywheeling’ over the Summer (drinking stuff I’d brewed earlier in the year) and it’s only recently I’ve got my act together and been brewing again. On the plus side, taking some time away from it means I’ve enjoyed coming back to it all the more, and I think my beer may even have improved as a result :-)

 

[DocAnna]

At long last a brew day - and I'm out of practice. As usual making things complicated for myself, a version of my Wassail but changing the hops and using up some ends of base malts. So it has Crafty maltsters Pop's pale ale, Crisp extra light ale, and Crisp MO.

I set the mash going this morning, then out to church for the remembrance day service, which of course was longer than usual, but thankfully it had only dropped to 60 deg. The manual programme on the Klarstein only allows for 99 mins at held temperature, so it had plenty long enough at the right temperature - but about 3.5 hours overall . Coming back to brew straight after a service also meant I was brewing while wearing a smart outfit and ballet flats which perhaps wasn't the best idea .

Only after getting it to the boil did I realise the equipment profile was set for a 60min boil but the first hops were for 75 min. Ho hum, sort of worked out, took far too long to finish the day and tidy up.

The tea balls for the hops nicely stopped the pump blocking but I am still left wondering about the efficiency of hop extraction like this. It really does make me wonder about a hopback/rocket and circulating the wort through the hops.

Efficiency was off as well, with an OG of 1.070 rather than 1.079, which is super annoying.

Right now on to making tea for the family, a bit of gammon tonight as it's simple ... oh and a beer I think.. phew

 

[DocAnna]

Always a relief to see vigorous fermentation early on . Due to lack of planning I'd not made a starter, and even worse had forgotten to activate the yeast smack pack early enough. I took about 500ml of the just boiling wort into a flask, brought it back to the boil on the stove with foil on top, cooled and added the yeast. Gave it about 3 hours as it was showing activity, and added to the wort.

There was some airlock activity last night but there's a good coating of foam this morning so that's a good level of activity within 12 hours. I'm happy with that! I really must get to grips with the ispindle I have somewhere but I've never used, it would remove some of this stress!

 

[Stan's Brew]

Always a relief to see vigorous fermentation early on . Due to lack of planning I'd not made a starter, and even worse had forgotten to activate the yeast smack pack early enough. I took about 500ml of the just boiling wort into a flask, brought it back to the boil on the stove with foil on top, cooled and added the yeast. Gave it about 3 hours as it was showing activity, and added to the wort.

There was some airlock activity last night but there's a good coating of foam this morning so that's a good level of activity within 12 hours. I'm happy with that! I really must get to grips with the ispindle I have somewhere but I've never used, it would remove some of this stress!

Using a tilt, I find that the gravity drops like a stone by the time you notice any foam, usually 2-6 points have turned to alcohol and it just accelerates from there, well worth the effort to use.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Hey @DocAnna , wondered if you could share your wassail recipe? I have searched, but can't find it! Thanks!

 

[DocAnna]

Hey @DocAnna , wondered if you could share your wassail recipe? I have searched, but can't find it! Thanks!

Thanks for asking, v happy to share. Here are copies of the Wassail for the last three years. I reckon year 1 was better on the roasted winter flavours, year 2 was better on candied fruit flavour - probably the orange from the first gold coming though.

So this year, new equipment profile, tweaked the water profile for a bit more sodium and a blended approach to the hops from both years. The complex base malt profile this year was simply a case of using up ends of base grain from earlier this year.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Thanks for asking, v happy to share. Here are copies of the Wassail for the last three years. I reckon year 1 was better on the roasted winter flavours, year 2 was better on candied fruit flavour - probably the orange from the first gold coming though.

So this year, new equipment profile, tweaked the water profile for a bit more sodium and a blended approach to the hops from both years. The complex base malt profile this year was simply a case of using up ends of base grain from earlier this year.

Thank you very much!

 

[DocAnna]

Some time ago the BMJ was my Sunday read, this looks like it's now going to take over as it arrived today. Mind you, a daft picture on the cover, you'd never work with the dust from grain with you're hair down like that!

 

[Clint]

Some time ago the BMJ was my Sunday read, this looks like it's now going to take over as it arrived today. Mind you, a daft picture on the cover, you'd never work with the dust from grain with you're hair down like that!

View attachment 77800

Yes,exactly! And I also think the ties on that pinny are just waiting to get tangled into something whizzing round and drag her to a dreadful end...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Plenty of beards out there in craft brew land that long!

 

[Deadhead]

Mind you, a daft picture on the cover, you'd never work with the dust from grain with you're hair down like that

And if you're me, all your hair would end up in the brew....
I don't know how many times I am pulling stray hairs out of my kettle or fermenter

 

[Clint]

This is degenerating into a horror story...hair in the beer!
Perhaps the more follically blessed should wear a hat or at least get a skin head haircut.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Couple of concerns confessing to getting the BMJ and reading it! What were you thinking? Pursuit of hoppiness a monthly which frees up three Sundays for brewing.

 

[DocAnna]

Thanks for asking, v happy to share. Here are copies of the Wassail for the last three years. I reckon year 1 was better on the roasted winter flavours, year 2 was better on candied fruit flavour - probably the orange from the first gold coming though.

So this year, new equipment profile, tweaked the water profile for a bit more sodium and a blended approach to the hops from both years. The complex base malt profile this year was simply a case of using up ends of base grain from earlier this year.

I'm a little disappointed in my wassail so far this year, it has just been kegged so hasn't really had time to condition so I'm not giving up hope yet, but it doesn't have the chewable dried fruit flavour of previous years. Hopefully some magical transformation may occur with conditioning. If not I might add some calvados or similar fruit spirit to boost the fruit flavour.

 

[Clarence]

I'm a little disappointed in my wassail so far this year, it has just been kegged so hasn't really had time to condition so I'm not giving up hope yet, but it doesn't have the chewable dried fruit flavour of previous years. Hopefully some magical transformation may occur with conditioning. If not I might add some calvados or similar fruit spirit to boost the fruit flavour.

Cointreau is a good bet.

 

[DocAnna]

Following on from another thread, I'm thinking of utilising the friggin freezing temperatures here in Scotland and making an Eisbeer. It is a positively tropical -5.5 today compared to to the -8 of yesterday. I'm still spending every hour I can on the Brewing and Distilling MSc but I'm really hoping to get a brew day sometime over the festive -sort of break-. I'm going to do some research on this style of beer, the complexity appears to be in how to remove the water ice formed. Commercial varieties look to create a mix of beer and ice crystals in suspension and then filter. That isn't feasible at a domestic level, partly because I don't have a suitable filter, and partly because doing so would involve a lot of air exposure.

Has anyone else tried making an eisbeer?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Following on from another thread, I'm thinking of utilising the friggin freezing temperatures here in Scotland and making an Eisbeer. It is a positively tropical -5.5 today compared to to the -8 of yesterday. I'm still spending every hour I can on the Brewing and Distilling MSc but I'm really hoping to get a brew day sometime over the festive -sort of break-. I'm going to do some research on this style of beer, the complexity appears to be in how to remove the water ice formed. Commercial varieties look to create a mix of beer and ice crystals in suspension and then filter. That isn't feasible at a domestic level, partly because I don't have a suitable filter, and partly because doing so would involve a lot of air exposure.

Has anyone else tried making an eisbeer?

You know you’ll be summoning up a heat-wave if you attempt this!

I haven’t done this myself but know someone who has. He allowed his beer to form ice crystals (takes 4 hours) and removed the ice crystals (not sure how, I’ll ask). He did this through the day and through the night, setting his alarm, until after 10 cycles no more ice crystals formed.

I wonder if you could rack to a secondary fermenting bucket and use a sanitised fine sieve to remove the ice crystals? If the crystals are too small, maybe a coarse filter paper in the sieve?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Apparently he used a colander! Not the answer I’d expected. So maybe you can use a colander and a sieve to collect the bigger and smaller pieces.

He also created a blanket of CO2 over the beer while doing this but didn’t have any fancy setup, just blew gas from his bottle. He said he used quite a bit of gas. A more considered approach to this aspect of the process might be worthwhile if you are thinking of doing something similar.

 

[Brewnaldo]

Some sort of in line coarse filtration in a closed corny to corny transfer might be ideal? Suppose it wouldn't be long getting blocked up with ice though

 

[DocAnna]

Time to be a bit more organised about my brewing schedule this year. I need to extract the digit and get on with some brews for competition as well.
My thinking is
January:
Clementine & Passion fruit Gose : done before and would like to tweak a little. Will also use the Heritage grain I’m due to collect.
A larger batch of my Core-F lager with a bit more bitterness, a 60litre single batch. This can cold condition in the back garage so won’t tie up my temperature controlled fridge - need to get this on first.so need to order the extra pale MO for it.

February
I’d like to make a Belgian Dubbel having never made one before it’s worth a go. I’m away some of Feb working so probably just plan a single brew.

March
A juicy NEIPA - has to be done , always good to have on tap. Is a ‘precious flower’ of a beer so will need lots of attention for about 3 weeks.
I’d like to try to squeeze in another go at Tribute, but also want to make a beer that showcases the Heritage malt…. Either my Perle pilsner, or ‘Twinnie’ the Bohemian Pilsner I’ve done before.

April
Likely to have no spare kegs based on the above, so let’s make this a packaging month and try to clear out as much as possible.
Also keen to try to set up a cask style beer pull, probably the time to do so if I’ve managed to make some Tribute.

May
Coming into Summer - time for a user upper aiming for an English IPA style.

That’ll do for now, let’s see if I can remotely stick to this!