Cestrian Brewday

[Cestrian]

I’m quite new to the forum, but I’m quickly approaching 200 AG brews. So I’ve been at this a while. You’d think I’d know what I’m doing by now, but that’s one of the things I love about this hobby, there’s always something new to learn or try, another yeast or hop combo. That’s what I love. That and the beer!

Anyway thought I’d get a brewday log going to track my progress.

 

[Cestrian]

Really looking forward to this one. I’m going to brew an Oktoberfest tomorrow. I haven’t brewed a proper lager for years. I just bottled an all Vienna Malt beer this afternoon after a months lagering, but it was brewed with a kolsch yeast, so that doesn’t count.
I made a starter with Wyeast 2308 last weekend and stepped it up three times 1.5L > 2L > 3L. It’s a lot of work to make a lager.

25L brew
1054 OG
30 IBU

3.0 Kg Weyermann Pilsner malt
1.5 Kg Weyermann Vienna
1.5 Kg Weyermann Munich 2
0.5 Kg Caramunich 2

30g Magnum 90 mins
15g Hallertau Mittelfruh 15 mins

 

[Cestrian]

Made this pale ale at the weekend. A Cascade / Willamette combo.

I had a double brewday planned, but my electric brew kettle finally gave up the ghost. I must have done 100 brews in it and it was looking well battered, so I've had my moneys worth out of it. I've treated myself to a new 40L Buffalo boiler. Should arrive before the weekend hopefully.

Brew Volume 25L
1054 OG
40 IBU

5.5Kg MO
0.5Kg Vienna
0.2Kg Crystal
0.2Kg Wheat

Challenger 30g 60 min
Willamette 30g 30 min
Cascade 30g 15 min
Willamette 20g 5 min
Cascade 20g FO
Willamette 20g FO

Thanks to Keruso for the yeast. Never used CML US Pale Ale yeast before.

After 24 hours in the FV the yeast has got off to a fast start with a big rocky head and it smells much fruitier than I expected.

 

[Cestrian]

Mashing in

sparging

 

[Cestrian]

Made these two brews last weekend

The first was based on a recipe I saw in BYO magazine for Breakside IPA

25L Volume
1068 OG

6.0 Kg PA malt
1.0 Kg Vienna
0.2 Kg Flaked Wheat
0.2 Kg Cara

Magnum 10g 60 min
Magnum 15g 30 min
Centennial 25g 10 min
Citra 50g 5 min
Chinook 50g FO
Citra 50g FO
Chinook 50g Dry hop
Citra 40g Dry hop
Centennial 35g Dry hop

I dry hopped after 3 days in to fermentation

The second was a fruity pale ale with Mosaic, Vic Secret and Ekuanot

I went easy on the Ekuanot, because I've read it can give a flavour of peppers aswell as fruity.

25L Volume
1048 OG
30 IBU

4.5 Kg PA malt
0.5 Kg Munich 1
0.2 Kg Flaked Wheat
0.3 Kg Cara

Magnum 10g 60 min
Magnum 10g 30 min
Mosaic 20g 10 min
Vic Secret 20g 5 min
Mosaic 30g FO
Vic Secret 30g FO
Ekuanot 20g FO
Mosaic 40g Dry hop
Vic Secret 40g Dry hop
Ekuanot 20g Dry hop

 

[Cestrian]

Going to get this Oktoberfest on tomorrow

Volume 25L
1054 OG
30 IBU

3.5 Kg Pilsner
1.0 Kg Vienna
2.0 Kg Munich 2
0.4 Kg Caramunich 1

Magnum 30g 60 min
Hallertau 15g 15 min

Yeast WLP2308

 

[Telemaster18]

Hey bud. Are you in Chester then?

 

[Cestrian]

From Chester. Now live in Hawarden.

 

[Telemaster18]

Ah cool, not far then. I moved to Chester last November after living in Manchester for 15 years. I previously grew up in Flint so know this area well anyway. Any home-brew meet-ups round here?

 

[Cestrian]

No. Not that l’m aware of mate!

 

[Cestrian]

Got two brews on yesterday after ruining my last three brews with bleachy bottles. I've got 150 bottles of beer under the stairs and I've had to go down the Co-op to buy beer, because it's all going down the sink. I'm not happy!

First up was a standard malt bill for me and mosaic / amarillo & galaxy. looking forward to this - should be fruity

0.8Kg Golden Promise Malt
4.2Kg Marris Otter
0.5Kg Vienna
0.2Kg Caragold
0.2Kg Wheat

1050 OG

35IBU target

Apollo 20g 60 min
Willammette 30g 15 min
Mosaic 35g 30m steep at 70C
Amarillo 20g 30m steep at 70C
Galaxy 20g 30m steep at 70C
Amarillo 20g Dry hop
Mosaic 20g Dry hop
Galaxy 35g Dry hop

Yeast was US-05

 

[Cestrian]

The other brew I called El Dorado Gold

Volume 25L

5.0Kg Golden Promise Malt
0.5Kg Vienna
0.2Kg Caragold
0.1Kg Wheat

1050 OG

38IBU target

First Gold 20g 60 min
First Gold 20g 20 min
Pioneer 20g 15 min
El Dorado 40g FO
Vic Secret 40g FO
Pioneer 40g FO
First Gold 20g FO
Vic Secret 20g Dry hop
Motueka 20g Dry hop
El Dorado 20g Dry hop

Yeast BRY-97

 

[Cestrian]

Funny thing about these two brews was almost exactly the same malt bill and strike/sparge water, but the Marris Otter batch hit gravity bang on at 1050 (70% efficiency) and the Golden Promise batch was only 1042. I've noticed this before with the last two sacks of GP - efficiency has been down.

 

[Cestrian]

Brewed these two yesterday. First was a Kolsch with Sorachi Ace, second was a California Common / Steam beer. Pitched at 17C last night and both now sat in the brew fridge at 15C

Sorachi Ace Kolsch

1.2Kg pale malt
4.0Kg pilsner
0.5Kg Vienna
0.2Kg Caramunich 1

1045OG - 4.5% (63% eff)
22IBU

Magnum 10g @ 60 min (Pellets)
Tettnang 30g @ 30 min (Leaf)
Sorachi ace 25g @ 5 min (Pellets)

Yeast Safale K-97

 

[Cestrian]

Cali Common

Brew length 25L
2.5Kg pilsner
3.5Kg Pale malt
30g Carafa 2
500g Caramunich 1
300g Vienna

1058 OG (70% eff)
31IBU

Northern brewer 23g @ 60 min (Leaf)
Northern brewer 37g@ 15 min (Leaf)
Northern brewer 40g FO (Leaf)

Pitched 2 packets of rehydrated Mangrove Jacks M54 at 17C and cooled to 15C

 

[Cestrian]

Bottled two batches of Oktobefest this weekend. The first had been lagered for two months and the top third of the bucket had frozen. Thawed it out overnight and bottled on Sunday. The second batch had been lagered for 4 weeks. Realised when I racked it to the bottling bucket this afternoon that I forgot to rack this one off the yeast. The sample tasted great though, so hoping that leaving it on the cake hasn't impacted the flavour.

 

[Cestrian]

First try of my Oktoberfest. It’s much darker than I was expecting and malty. It’s almost a Munich Dunkel. Nice though. Very drinkable!

 

[Cestrian]

 

[Cestrian]

Brewed a kolsch today, probably just a pale ale but with kolsch yeast! Safale k97 second gen top cropped

2kg golden promise
3.5kg Maris otter
200g crystal
200g wheat

20g magnum 60m
30g cascade FO
10g sorachi ace FO
10g chinook FO

made another pale ale with california common yeast. Same malt bill.

20g magnum 60m
40g el dorado FO
20g mosaic FO

 

[Wynne]

Interested to note your hop schedules both have Magnum for bittering and the other hop additions are at flame-out. Do you use that approach for all your brews? Do you stick with Magnum or use other high a/a bittering hops? Have you ever compared the flame-out approach with more conventional flavour hop additions to assess the impact? I follow a similar approach to you using either Magnum or Apollo (or occasionally using up ends of bags of whatever I have) but haven’t done a side-by-side comparison yet.