Cestrian Brewday

[buddsy]

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!

That seem very bad luck! Bleachy bottles? What happened did you forget to rinse or something?

Looks like you made good progress since this set back.

buddsy

 

[Cestrian]

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.

I’ve tried many bittering hops over the years and l find magnum just gives a nice clean bitterness. I’ve used first gold, Apollo & northern brewer recently. All pretty good, but magnum is my favourite bittering hop. I like using challenger for bittering too in English type ales.
I don’t usually just do flame out hops. I was just having a lazy brew day, but when I was planning these brews, I was looking back through my brew notes and found a recipe that had made a really nice beer, which had just used FO hops. It was my attempt at a Manx PA clone using galaxy and citra. So these two brews were roughly inspired by that hop schedule.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I find target a really good bittering hop

 

[Cestrian]

That seem very bad luck! Bleachy bottles? What happened did you forget to rinse or something?

Looks like you made good progress since this set back.

buddsy

It was when lockdown had just started and people were stock piling toilet roll, hand sanitiser and bleach. I grabbed the last bottle of bleach in Asda and it was not anything I'd used before; domestos ultra white and sparkle. This stuff will just not come off, no matter how many times you try and rinse. I posted about it here. Just have to put these things down to experience, but it was hard to pour all that beer down the sink.

 

[buddsy]

@Cestrian thanks for the heads up!

Thats a real shame

buddsy

 

[Cestrian]

I find target a really good bittering hop

Never tried target before. I'll definitely give it a try!

 

[Cestrian]

Got two brews on today, both loosely based on the Sierra Nevada PA recipe plus a few other hops

SN PA + Citra & Mosaic
Volume 25L
OG1053
32 IBU

2.25Kg Golden promise
3.25Kg Marris Otter
0.25Kg Caragold
0.25Kg Caramunich 1
0.20Kg Wheat malt

Magnum 20g @60
Cascade 25g @15
Cascade 25g @10
Cascade 58g @80C steep for 30 min
Citra 25g @80C steep for 30 min
Mosaic 25g @80C steep for 30 min

Yeast: 3rd gen MJ M54 Cali Common yeast

SN PA + Amarillo & Simco
Volume 25L
OG1053
32 IBU

2.25Kg Golden promise
3.25Kg Marris Otter
0.25Kg Caragold
0.25Kg Caramunich 1
0.20Kg Wheat malt

Magnum 20g @60
Cascade 25g @15
Cascade 25g @10
Cascade 58g @80C steep for 30 min
Amarillo 25g @80C steep for 30 min
Simco 25g @80C steep for 30 min

Yeast: 3rd gen K97 Kolsch yeast

 

[Cestrian]

Just got a keg come free so got a pale ale on today. This was a bit of a user-upper on the malts. Bottom of a sack of pilsner and bottom of a sack of marris otter and a generous slice of munich, but still got 75% efficiency. This came out a beautiful copper colour. Hoping this will go well with this mix of hops.

23L 1052 OG / 38 IBU

2.5Kg Pilsner
1.2Kg MO
1.1Kg Munich 1
0.2Kg Wheat
0.3Kg Carmunich 2

Challenger 30g 90 min leaf
Cascade 25g 10 min pellets
Citra 25g 10 min pellets
Cascade 25g FO pellets
Citra 25g FO pellets
Mosaic 25g FO leaf

Yeast US05

 

[Cestrian]

Mosaic Pale Ale today. Mashed in before work. Got a bit of an early dart and just running out of the kettle into the FV as we speak.

23L 1055 OG / 33 IBU

2.5Kg Vienna
2.0Kg Pilsner
0.5Kg Munich 1
0.2Kg Wheat
0.2Kg Carmunich 1
0.2Kg Carmunich 3

Magnum 20g 60 min pellets
Apollo 10g 15 min pellets
Cascade 25g 10 min pellets
Mosaic 25g 10 min leaf
Cascade 20g FO pellets
Mosaic 50g FO leaf

Yeast US05

I'll probably dry hop this with 50g of Mosaic. Got some pellets in the freezer.

 

[Cestrian]

Dry hopped this one with 30g mosaic & 30g cascade. I’ll keg it in the week.

 

[Cestrian]

What a beautiful day it was today. Feels like spring is finally here. I’m just catching the last of the sun in the back garden with a pint of cascade/citra PA. I made a vic secret & citra combo today. Reminds me of the Manx PA clone I tried to make this time last year, but that was with galaxy. Hope it turns out as good!

 

[Cestrian]

Volume 23L
OG 1050/IBU 38

2.5kg Pilsner
2.0kg Vienna
0.5kg Munich
0.2kg Wheat
0.3kg Caramunich I

Magnum 15g @ 60m
Challenger 15g @ 60m
Cascade 25g @ 10m
Vic Secret 25g @ 10m
Cascade 50g @ FO
Vic Secret 25g @ FO
Citra 20g @ FO

Plan to dry hop this with citra & vic secret, probably cascade too. I bought a kilo of it so it’s going in everything at the moment. What doesn’t go with cascade though!

 

[Cestrian]

Belgian Pale Ale
Volume 25L
1055 OG / 25 IBU

3.0Kg Pilsner
2.5Kg Marris otter
0.5Kg Vienna
0.2Kg Caramunich 1
0.2Kg Wheat

Hallertau Mittelfruh 40g 60 minutes
Hallertau Mittelfruh 25g 30 minutes
Hallertau Mittelfruh 10g 10 minutes
Mandarina Bavaria 15g 10 minutes
Mandarina Bavaria 40g flame out

Yeast 1L starter of Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes yeast. Pitched at 17C.

 

[Cestrian]

This turned out nice! It’s a beautiful bank holiday Monday for a change. Just sat in the back garden trying this new brew. The Ardennes yeast reminds me a lot of Duvel or La Chouffe, and there’s definitely a bit of orange coming through in the finish from the Mandarina Bavaria. Nice summer quaffer.