Sometimes things just conspire against you....
I set out to brew a Gales BBB Clone based on the recipe in Palmer's Brew Your Own English Real Ale. All planned out, all ingredients on hand (or so I thought).
I had sourced some original Gales yeast from Brewlab and grown it on from the slope they sent.
The recipe slightly adapted recipe was:
21L Batch
3kg Maris Otter
200g Torrified Wheat
150g Dark crystal malt
50g Black malt (I love the raw taste of that stuff - could crunch the grains all day)
150g Golden syrup
Mash at 66C, Mashout at 75C
20g Challenger, boil 90m
15g Fuggles, boil 30m
15g East Kent Goldings, boil 10m
10g of each hop, steep 20m
Problem 1: The good lady of the house had chucked the golden syrup a week previously as it was "out of code" - no worries I thought - I will substitute some very mild flavoured honey - 160g.
Problem 2: The Marris Otter I ordered as uncrushed, but came pre-crushed. I only noticed when it was already in the hopper of my mill with the other grains - no worries I thought I will crush it again.
Problem 3: I heated my strike water a couple of degrees above the suggested value in beersmith as I have previously missed mash temp by a couple of degrees. This time even with the extra 2 degrees I was 5 degrees below target. I added 5 more litres very hot water to the mash tun to hit mash temp - no worries.
Problem 4: Because of the extra strike water there was not enough room left in the mash tun to hit mashout temperature even with boiling water - missed by 6 degrees - no worries I thought it will still make beer :)
Problem 5: The double crushing of the Maris Otter turned the mash into porridge. The sparge stuck 5 times. A good stir and repeat vorlauf got it moving again each time, but lots of time wasted and temp loss in the process.
Problem 6: About 20 mins into the boil, my wife called to say she needed collecting at 5pm (right in the middle of my boil/chill time). Arghh. Into beersmith to adjust boil time to 60 mins and still get the correct IBUs for the recipe. OK sorted with more hops added at 30, 15 and 10 mins - no steep. Quick chill to get the wort to 50C then I had to go get the wife.
Problem 7: I had already removed the chiller to allow me cover the boil kettle properly when I left to get the wife. No worries I thought - it can cool naturally from 50C. The wort took from then till 5am this morning to cool to 25C - I pitched the yeast and headed for work.
Amazingly I was very close to target SG of 1.040 - managed to get 1.041 :thumb:not sure how that happened!! :shock:
Anyhow its in the fermenter now and whether or not it ends up like Gales BBB, it was one helluva brew day. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that somewhere in the middle of all this, my builder got into a slanging match with my next door neighbour about fence lines - so I had to calm them both down. What a day.
:
Laurence.
I set out to brew a Gales BBB Clone based on the recipe in Palmer's Brew Your Own English Real Ale. All planned out, all ingredients on hand (or so I thought).
I had sourced some original Gales yeast from Brewlab and grown it on from the slope they sent.
The recipe slightly adapted recipe was:
21L Batch
3kg Maris Otter
200g Torrified Wheat
150g Dark crystal malt
50g Black malt (I love the raw taste of that stuff - could crunch the grains all day)
150g Golden syrup
Mash at 66C, Mashout at 75C
20g Challenger, boil 90m
15g Fuggles, boil 30m
15g East Kent Goldings, boil 10m
10g of each hop, steep 20m
Problem 1: The good lady of the house had chucked the golden syrup a week previously as it was "out of code" - no worries I thought - I will substitute some very mild flavoured honey - 160g.
Problem 2: The Marris Otter I ordered as uncrushed, but came pre-crushed. I only noticed when it was already in the hopper of my mill with the other grains - no worries I thought I will crush it again.
Problem 3: I heated my strike water a couple of degrees above the suggested value in beersmith as I have previously missed mash temp by a couple of degrees. This time even with the extra 2 degrees I was 5 degrees below target. I added 5 more litres very hot water to the mash tun to hit mash temp - no worries.
Problem 4: Because of the extra strike water there was not enough room left in the mash tun to hit mashout temperature even with boiling water - missed by 6 degrees - no worries I thought it will still make beer :)
Problem 5: The double crushing of the Maris Otter turned the mash into porridge. The sparge stuck 5 times. A good stir and repeat vorlauf got it moving again each time, but lots of time wasted and temp loss in the process.
Problem 6: About 20 mins into the boil, my wife called to say she needed collecting at 5pm (right in the middle of my boil/chill time). Arghh. Into beersmith to adjust boil time to 60 mins and still get the correct IBUs for the recipe. OK sorted with more hops added at 30, 15 and 10 mins - no steep. Quick chill to get the wort to 50C then I had to go get the wife.
Problem 7: I had already removed the chiller to allow me cover the boil kettle properly when I left to get the wife. No worries I thought - it can cool naturally from 50C. The wort took from then till 5am this morning to cool to 25C - I pitched the yeast and headed for work.
Amazingly I was very close to target SG of 1.040 - managed to get 1.041 :thumb:not sure how that happened!! :shock:
Anyhow its in the fermenter now and whether or not it ends up like Gales BBB, it was one helluva brew day. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that somewhere in the middle of all this, my builder got into a slanging match with my next door neighbour about fence lines - so I had to calm them both down. What a day.
:
Laurence.
