dlowe1992 brew-days.

[dlowe1992]

Have been meaning to update this for a while. This week I bottled / kegged two batches.

First was an old school American Pale Ale. Mostly Golden Promise with a bit of Munich and some Crystal malt. Citra and Amarillo through the hot side, whirlpool and a small dry hop. Small stove top batch to test the recipe out. Bottled last week and the SG sample tasted great. I leaned for slightly more Amarillo in the late additions, probably 3:2 in ratio. Optimistic for this one..

Second was a TT Landlord clone that had been in the planning for a while. A few firsts.... I used WY1469 yeast for which I made a 1.5L starter and then top cropped. This yeast will suit most of the styles I enjoy, bitters, moderately hopped pales, golden ales, so I intend to use it as something of a house yeast if I can.

Fermentation went without a hitch. 1.043 to 1.011 for 4.2%. Kegged this evening with a bonus 3 bottles. For some reason there was a massive air bubble in the tube transferring from FV to keg, despite beginning the transfer into a sanitised jug to try and avoid exactly this. That's now got me worrying about too much O2 pickup. As a result I'm going to prime the keg with around 20g of sugar to condition. Keg conditioning should suit the style and I'm hoping the secondary ferment might scrub any O2 in the beer.

Otherwise, SG samples all along have tasted good, and there's a real character to the beer that I've not noticed with other beers, putting this down to the yeast. High hopes for this, hoping I haven;t ballsed up too much on transfer.

 

[dlowe1992]

Tonight I made a starter from top cropped yeast, which is a first for me. I'm hoping to brew a golden ale on Sunday and I've just made a starter for some WY1469 that I top cropped off a Landlord clone about 5 weeks ago.

No stir plates / Erlenmeyer flasks here yet so procedure was as follows.

I boiled up 120g of DME in 1.2L of water to give me a 1L starter (after boil off) at around 1.036. Cleaned out a 2 litre Kilner Jar with Chemclean, sterilised with a Milton tablet and rinsed with some boiled water. Starter wort was chilled to 18 degrees after a 20 minute boil and poured between the pan and jar a few times then shook vigorously in the jar to aerate.

The yeast was kept in a Mason jar in the fridge under beer after top cropping (second skim). I brought the jar up to room temp, decanted off the beer and pitched the yeast into the wort, having swirled it all out with some of the starter wort.

IT's now gone into the brew fridge and will be regularly agitated by hand. I'll monitor for signs of activity and do a few sensory checks (smell etc) before hopefully pitching into my golden ale on Sunday. I have a pack of Notty in the fridge in case of any disasters.

Now sat on the sofa with a pint of the Landlord clone. I didn't have great hopes as initial samplings weren't great. Three weeks in the keg and it's coming really good, like REALLY good. Definitely getting the stone fruit notes that are talked about. I think there was still a lot of yeast in suspension on first samplings. Given a few weeks to settle out this yeast seems to be all people hype it up to be.

 

[dlowe1992]

An update on the starter. Fridge has held a steady 18 degrees and it seems to be doing its thing.

I give it a healthy swirl and shake whenever I walk past and there’s yeast accumulating at the bottom and a krausen of sorts on top.

Photos below was a few hours since last agitation.

Clearly there’s very little science to this approach but intrigued to see where we go. From eye I think there’s a similar if not greater amount of yeast settling at the bottom at this stage compared to the original starter from the snack pack, which I take to be a good sign.

 

[dlowe1992]

About 24 hours after pitching and the starter has a healthy krausen very reminiscent of the initial fermentation.

In two minds as to whether to cool it now so I can decant the wort off tomorrow or just leave it doing it’s thing for another day…
Will probably leave it…

 

[dlowe1992]

Today I brewed as planned, the perfect day for it while sorting the shed out.

A golden ale with Challenger for bittering and all Harlequin in the late boil and hopstand. There’ll be a small Harlequin dry hop also. Yeast is my top cropped WY1469 and I think the harlequin should pair well with the peachy eaters i got from it last time out.

Mashed in in the morning sun. Fairly uneventful mash though I was to keen to see how the new tap water (combined 50/50 with Spotless) played out. PH was a little on the high end at 5.45 but no cause for concern.

1 point off the pre boil gravity. Challenger in at FWH.

Good vigorous boil. I was a bit low on kettle volume, need to play around with my Brewfather numbers, but spot on OG of 1.042.

Majority of the hops added for a 20 minute hopstand at 77 degrees, then cooled in stages whilst I got on with other bits. The hops probably had a couple of hours in there before transferring.

Nice clear wort to the FV. I added a bit of the trub also as I’ve found this beneficial, particularly in hoppier beers. Should give me a nice sessionable golden ale at around 4%.

Cooled down in the ferm fridge before pitching yeast at 18 degrees. The starter I made on Friday looks v healthy, with a krausen climbing to the top of the jar by yesterday evening. Tucked up at 18 degrees.

I’ll look to to crop again and keep this yeast going. Next brew is likely a bitter in the next few weeks, when time allows.