Hazelwood’s Brewday Part 2

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I kegged the Trappist Single today. It smelled and tasted lovely and was very clean. I’m already looking forward to a few pints of this beer.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

It’s going to get a bit busy again over the next few days…

Sunday 30th, brew a Czech Pilsner
Monday 31st, transfer sour to secondary
Tuesday 1st, keg the Tripel
Wednesday 2nd, brew Summer Breeze

After that I have another bitter to brew (Friday?) and then maybe a stout.

Now I’d like to improve the stout again so I will use cold steeping rather than late mashing, I’ll make some changes to the recipe (fairly minor - more dark crystal, more roast, less chocolate) and I’m thinking of moving the stout onto nitro. The working title for this beer is “Smooth Operator” and I’m hoping it will live up to it’s name.

Then I want to brew another couple of American IPAs based on Mosaic and on Cascade. One will be more East Coast so will be juicy and sessionable (“Sweet Disposition”) and the other will be more West Coast so will be more bitter and higher ABV (“Reckless Abandon”).

It’s a good job I’m retired!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

In the opening post for this thread I said maybe one day I’ll make myself a Valentine arm to save having to manually decant wort as I sparge. Well today I constructed a recirculating Valentine arm combo (not sure they exist but I now have one!). This is it…

If you’re not familiar with the idea of a Valentine arm, it’s a device to automatically match flow in and flow out during sparging. Ignore the open end with the disconnect fitting for the moment. The arm you can see in the air can be moved up and down. As sparge water is sprayed into the mash the wort level rises (and rises up the pipe). When the wort reaches the level of the elbow it then pours out down that silicone tube into a bucket. Moving the arm up or down sets the level of the wort (just above the grain). Taking this one step further I’m also continuing to recirculate - why there’s an open end. Here’s the setup with recirculation plumbed in.

The bit I’m not sure of, and will find out tomorrow, is whether the recirculation affects the Valentine arm performance.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Tomorrow’s brew-day is on. The weather looks good - dry, bright, calm. I’ll be brewing a Czech Pilsner. The grain is milled, the water prepped, and the timer is set to heat the water at 6:30.

 

[Leon103]

Tomorrow’s brew-day is on. The weather looks good - dry, bright, calm. I’ll be brewing a Czech Pilsner. The grain is milled, the water prepped, and the timer is set to heat the water at 6:30.

I have a German pilsner fermenting at present. What temp do you ferment at

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I have a German pilsner fermenting at present. What temp do you ferment at

I’m using M54 so will ferment at 19-20.

 

[Leon103]

I’m using M54 so will ferment at 19-20.

Double mine then. I am at 10c at present. Will keep it like that for 3 weeks

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Todays brew of Czech Pilsner went to plan and I’m pleased to say the Valentine arm performed perfectly. This was the full setup…

The bucket on the right is the sparge water and is pumped up the vertical pipe into a spray head feeding sparge water onto the grain. The bucket on the left is collecting the outflow from the Valentine arm, the outflow perfectly matches whatever inflow is selected. This is a close-up of the Valentine arm…

The pump is also recirculating the wort through the grain bed. This is what’s going on under the lid. The outer ring of water jets is sparge water, the inner spray is the recirculating wort…

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I transferred the sour into secondary and off the yeast today as planned. The base beer was a nice tart pale ale with a pH of 3.50.

I added only half the amount of fruit to this batch so I have 1 litre of raspberry purée added to 21 litres of beer. I also added some pectolase so the finished beer is not as thick and soupy. 22 litres now tucked up back in the fermentation cabinet for another week.

 

[MickDundee]

It might be worth getting in a practice run? Your submission for a competition is probably not the best time to be trying something new!

I can vouch for this. I entered the MaltMiller/Elusive witbier competition last year. Thought I’d be better off with WLP400 instead of M41 and made the worst witbier of my 6 attempts.

 

[samale]

I can vouch for this. I entered the MaltMiller/Elusive witbier competition last year. Thought I’d be better off with WLP400 instead of M41 and made the worst witbier of my 6 attempts.

Just waiting on the yeast to arrive. Hopefully get brewing on Sunday all going well

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I forgot to update this thread yesterday after I kegged the Belgian Tripel. A clean looking beer that tasted very smooth from the fermenter.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Today I brewed another batch of Summer Breeze. All went well and the new Valentine arm performed flawlessly again. This is a short clip of the whirlpool as a change…

 

[samale]

I forgot to update this thread yesterday after I kegged the Belgian Tripel. A clean looking beer that tasted very smooth from the fermenter.

View attachment 62306

What was your final gravity. I just checked my tripel it still has a bit to go yet. It's sitting now at 24 degrees

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

What was your final gravity. I just checked my tripel it still has a bit to go yet. It's sitting now at 24 degrees

The Tripel finished at 1004, a little bit low for the style according to the style guide so I may mash slightly warmer for my submission to the comp.

 

[samale]

The Tripel finished at 1004, a little bit low for the style according to the style guide so I may mash slightly warmer for my submission to the comp.

I am aiming for around 1.008-1.010 range.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I am aiming for around 1.008-1.010 range.

That’s more like it. What was your grain bill and mash temperature?

 

[samale]

That's what I went for. Mash temp 66
Mashing in a Belgian tripel. The plan is to enter this into the LAB competition all going well

5.5kg
200g aromatic malt
1kg clear candy sugar

30g Magnum@60mins
20g Styrian Golding's@10mins
20g Styrian Golding's@flameout
5g coriander seeds@5mins

Looking to hit around the 1.075-1.080 mark.
Yeast WLP 550

I hit 1.076 for around 18 litres

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I decided to not brew the bitter today because the forecast wasn’t so good. I have stuff planned for the weekend now so Monday is my next opportunity and the forecast is looking good. We’ll call that a date.

I’ve also changed my mind about those two American Pales, I’m still going to brew them but I’ve decided to use Ariana & Citra for my New England IPA and Callista & Citra for my West Coast IPA. I’ve not planned the brew days for those pales yet but the hops arrived today.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

The weather was good to me today and I did brew another batch of bitter. It’s tucked up in the fermentation cabinet now. The next brew will be another batch of Belgian Tripel, this one for the LAB Open competition. I’ll hopefully get that brewed on Friday - weather is looking good

Tomorrow I’ll chill down the sour in readiness for kegging it.