HalsteadMills Brews

[SamBrewster]

All done, other than chucking a jug of hot break crud all over the garage it went well. Diluted to 1.043 from the 1.045 achieved. Still oily - no MO next time. Fermenting fridges all full so:

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I spy a keg of beer

... and a fine looking pint it is too :hat:

 

[SamBrewster]

Bottling today.

37 bottles of porter (brown, blackberry & plum).
38 bottles for the house bitter experiment.
8 bottles of strawberry and lime Perry.

My 11 year old daughter has the day off school tomorrow and wants to make some beer. She has chosen Hop Goblin - more tomorrow...

 

[DocAnna]

My 11 year old daughter has the day off school tomorrow and wants to make some beer. She has chosen Hop Goblin - more tomorrow...

That's an impressive bottling production line! As for teaching your daughter to brew - sounds an excellent idea, so far my daughters have resisted my offers to assist, though my son has tried a few kits. I don't think it can quite compete with the allure of the xbox!

Anna

 

[SamBrewster]

Hop Goblin

My daughters brew day - the brewery's not really big enough for 2!

Based on The Big Book of Clones - Hobgoblin:

4700g Pale Malt
500g Crystal Malt - ERR message on Scales so somewhere over 300g!
103g Chocolcate Malt - heavy handed weighing out of an 11 year old!

26g Challenger at 60 mins
35g Styrian Golding at 15 mins
10g EKG at flame out.

Everything good - at this point we dropped 5l hot to a DJ so I have some Hobgoblin - OG 1.052.

This is where my daughter went rogue to create Hop Goblin - cooled to 80C.

13g Columbus for 20 minutes whirlpool.

Cooled to ~ 22C.

We prepared 4l of cold water by steeping 45g chocolate malt, 16g porridge oats & tablespoon of lactose for an hour or so. 1l of the wort was added to this giving us Hop Goblin lite with OG 1.013 - once fermented () this will be put into a 5l keg to force carb so it can be served to the kids via the tap - estimate about 0.3% ABV.

The remaining Hop Goblin was dropped to FV and diluted to give OG 1.048.

Pitched CML Midland yeast with a little reserved to add to the Hobgoblin once cooled. In the brew fridge set to 21C.

Bonus - no washing up for me

 

[DocAnna]

I love the idea of a lite version of the beer which the children could drink. Never thought of this but it’s a great way of them being more involved.
Anna

 

[SamBrewster]

The lite is fermenting away quite happily. Not sure whether to dry hop or not. Can't imagine there's much hop flavour left with the dilution but does it matter? Will get this into the keg as soon as fermentation ends as there will not enough alcohol to protect it...

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Please let us know what they think of the flavour...

 

[SamBrewster]

Christmas Brew

Tasting time

The 2l bottle was really concentrated lemony with no malt or hop character at all

As for the beer:
2019 Christmas Tree - still nice but a metallic taste is not good. Get the same taste from this year's version so put this down to the pine needles and will drop them in future.

The Pomander is very nice, smooth, rich toasty with hints of the orange. The clove is a bit lost but this is the best of the 4 and will evolve further next year.

Chocolate Elf (forum Christmas brew). This is nice and easy drinking but a little forgettable. Not sure if it needs more lactose?

As for the mince pies: Iceland filling with Sainsburys pastry would be the optimum, they tied for best of what we sampled.

 

[jof]

I love the idea of a lite version of the beer which the children could drink. Never thought of this but it’s a great way of them being more involved.
Anna

I did a lite brew several years ago with the kids.
Did 2 gallon batch, used like 300g crystal malt, 300g Pale malt & hops
Was a bit watery.
But flavour did improve a bit with age - but took several months.

 

[SamBrewster]

Was a bit watery.

I fear watery, don't think the oats were soaked long enough to do anything, we'll see

 

[SamBrewster]

No meetings today. I bought a pack of Nonsuch cones last year, bbe was August so used them today in something like the GH Single Hop recipe:

4300g Pale Malt
235g Catapils
1/2 Scoop Flaked Barley

Nonsuch hops:
33g at 60min
16g at 15min
17g at 5min
44g at flame out

Cooled to 23 pitched CML 5 and put in fridge set to 18C. OG adjusted to 1.046.

Wort is oily again, last 7 brews, nothing connecting them - does anyone know what this could be?

 

[SamBrewster]

Quiet week at work so productive in the brewery.
Dubbel on Monday influenced by recipes on here, in books and my ingredients - 20l at 1.061.
Acquired some kit on Tuesday- 4x30l FVs, 6 DJs, loads of chemicals, tools and 5x40 pint kits all for...
.
.

£3.60
Wednesday I made GH Yorkshire bitter, 23l at 1.041 in a new FV.
Yesterday bottled the rest of

My daughters brew

10l PB & 9 bottles of Hop Goblin, 7 bottles of gloopy Hobgoblin. Already had 5l keg & 4 bottles of

Hop Goblin lite

from the weekend. This fermented down well and ended up about 1% abv so I diluted 50% and hooked up to the CO2.
Would like do do one more brew before Christmas but have busy week next week so...
That will be all kegs, PBs and bottles full so maybe a month off brewing , drinking though

 

[SamBrewster]

Woken up about 1am by a loud bang. Assumed it was the shower curtain falling as normal but no. Wife ventured downstairs, nothing in kitchen or brewery but there was hissing from the office (my nice warm conditioning room)...

7 bottles of gloopy Hobgoblin

Two bottles had exploded, glass everywhere, I quickly popped the other 5 caps, beer fountains and beer everywhere. Popped the cap of a Hop Goblin but that was fine...
Spent the morning cleaning the carpet.

Soooo, I really need to find why my last few batches have been like an emulsion, it wasn't effecting anything but has now given my office a nice beer aroma.

Do you use other fining agents?

Always used Irish moss but the recent batch is more like powder than fish food. This is the only thing left so I will leave out of next batch...

 

[SamBrewster]

First brew day of the new year - Memory Jogger - Rye IPA with Rosemary.
I made this a couple of years ago, it was nice so when I came across a GH recipe I decided to use that - until I tried a vanilla beer in the brewdog advent calendar.
So created something that I hope works:

3800g lager malt
500g rye
400g cararye
Scoop of porridge oats.

Chinook at 60, 10 & flameout
Rosemary at 10
Citra at flameout

Pitched CML 5 and into fridge set at 20C.

Dry hop with Rosemary and Citra.

Sticky mash gave me a few extra gravity points so have a DJ at that strength and diluted the rest aiming for about 4.5%.

Thoroughly enjoyable days brewing

No Irish moss today. Wort does not appear to be oily , it is however quite dirty...

 

[SamBrewster]

My favourite beer of last year was a Belgian "single" made with lager malt and candy syrup. I have not been able to get anymore syrup but do have some dark chunks. I adjusted the recipe to better align to the Belgian Pale Ale style and will make the original again for summer if I can get the syrup.

3500g Lager malt, 600g Munich, 100g Amber

Crystal and Saaz hops added at 60 and 15 min ~27IBU

80g Dark Candy rocks during boil

15g each of sweet and bitter orange peel at 5 min

Great brew, no stuck mash, clean clear wort (no kettle finings again) and a few extra gravity points so I diluted a little.

23l in FV pitched CML Belgian. 18C for a week then raise to 24 over a few days

Sparging

Didn't put in fridge because it's controlling perfectly at 20C and don't want to change it...

 

[SamBrewster]

I love the idea of a lite version of the beer which the children could drink.

Please let us know what they think of the flavour...

Kids tried the lite beer yesterday. From their faces they were not impressed

It's very watery - will add some lemonade later to see if that helps.

The full version however is really good, i think she has stumbled upon a nice recipe that I will try again...

 

[SamBrewster]

Enjoyed Mauldons Suffolk Pride so much over Christmas I kept the dregs. This week made my first ever starter from them (did a mini mash Monday to get some wort) - wow it went off like a rocket.
Found a "beer almanac" in my wife's book collection that has Mauldons Suffolk Punch (I assume the prior name of the same beer) - 97% pale, 3% crystal, bittered with challenger, flavoured with goldings - 37 bitter units, 30 colour units.
Although 30 colour units can't be correct and 3% crystal doesn't seem quite dark enough, I went with it.
23l at 1.046 tucked up with the yeast in the fridge at 20C
Excited to see what I get.

 

[SamBrewster]

Ghost of Box Mill today.

Increased bittering hops to 32IBU and moved last hop addition back to flameout because I preferred my first attempt at this.

Great brew day, forgot kettle finings so chucked them in at about 90C.

Recently made a 'manifold' in the fridge so I can use it in summer

Tap on the gas in with a splitter. The orange beads cover lengths of tube to run the beer out lines through.

For now using the gas in as a CO2 harvesting line. Once I see bubbles in the bottle I can hook up to a keg well it works as a bubbler to monitor activity .

Cheers

Pale Malt - 4.1kg
Crystal Malt - 90g
Rye Malt - 130g
Chucked in a scoop full of Porrage Oats - Feedback on all beers to date has been around mouth feel, hopefully this improves it.
Mash @ 64C (a little lower than last time to try and "dry out" a little)

20g Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes
30g Cascade @ 15 minutes
20g Cascade & 20g Citra at 80C Whirlpool for 15 minutes (last time this was at flameout, before I discovered "whirlpool")

40g Citra to dry hop 3 days before packaging (mostly bottles, maybe a PB - more to follow).

 

[SamBrewster]

Short on keg space so combined a couple of ideas into one brew.
I have made an 'Elderflower Easter' beer the last few years - basically a Citra PA with a bottle of home made Elderflower fizz chucked in the bottling bucket (better then drinking it!). Running out of Citra and have something similar already so decided to wing it a little, use up some stuff and combine with a hop trial.

Pale, rye, flaked oats and sugar for a basic and dryish beer. Trying to keep the kettle as full as pos I lost a couple of gravity points - doesn't matter.

Bittered to 44IBU with Columbus (supposed to be Summit but my inventory didn't match my stock...).
Dropped hot:
~2l onto 10g each of Amerillo, Galaxy, Simco, Crystal & Willamette - these I will dry hop with the same them mix and match to find my favourite combination - not used most of them before.
~10l onto 80g home hops and 25g dry elderflowers.

Had some water left over and a Woodford Wherry kit I acquired with some cheap FVs so knocked that together too (forgot I was running out of space, ha).
Just waiting for it all to cool:

Will pitch US05 to the hop trial DJs, kit yeast to Wherry and some yeast from the bottom of the FV I emptied earlier in the week to the Elderflower Easter.
Another fun brew day