Hazelwood’s Brewday Part 2

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Ah I see. How do you find it compares to a traditional lager yeast?

As someone that brews a lot of ales and not many lagers I find it’s easier. Cold fermenting yeast is a bit more fickle with temperature control and diacetyl rests. With Californian lager yeast you just treat it like another ale.

I have won a couple of second places with my Pilsner in forum competitions so clearly the resulting brew is on a par.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Another day, another starter - well two starters. These are the first stage in a couple of three-stage starters for the big Imperial I’ll be brewing on Saturday.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Quite a busy day today, partly in preparation for brewing an Imperial stout tomorrow and in part because I needed to clean my beer lines again today.

I first tended my yeast starters to decant the exhausted wort and make up a new batch of wort for the hungry yeasties. They’re now munching away at those sugars.

Then I started my water collection and treatment. For this brew I need 36 litres of blended and treated water. I also reviewed the recipe sheet and made some changes, mostly minor but it will mean this next batch will be closer to 14%.

I prepared the grist for my first mash - this recipe calls for two mashes and the wort from the two mashes will be combined in the boil. This is necessary because my mash tun/boiler doesn’t have capacity for the rather large grain bill.

Finally, I had to prepare the grist for the overnight cold steep. The liquor from this steep will be added late in the boil.

I’m just about ready now for the big brew tomorrow.

After cleaning the beer lines I did my usual thing, tasting all the beers on tap. Pilsner, Cherry sour, DIPA, APA, Porter, Bitter, Imperial.

This bitter incidentally is a new keg because the old one was about to kick, this explains the cask like carbonation.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’ve been brewing an Imperial stout all day. It’s just finished the boil now but I think I might let it cool overnight rather than use my plate chiller because it’s been a long day.

I’m not actually sure what the OG is though because my refractometer tops out at 1130 and the wort is at least that, maybe a tad more. I’ll find out tomorrow with my hydrometer.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

This morning the wort was at just the right temperature to pitch the yeast. A quick check on the gravity with a hydrometer showed the wort to be at 1130 exactly. 22 litres has been split between two buckets with blow-off tubes - this is a big beer and likely to be dramatic.

The Butterfly Effect IPA has been moved out of the fermentation cabinet to chill down (fitted with a CO2 balloon) ready for kegging tomorrow.

 

[samale]

This morning the wort was at just the right temperature to pitch the yeast. A quick check on the gravity with a hydrometer showed the wort to be at 1130 exactly. 22 litres has been split between two buckets with blow-off tubes - this is a big beer and likely to be dramatic.

View attachment 81579 View attachment 81580

The Butterfly Effect IPA has been moved out of the fermentation cabinet to chill down (fitted with a CO2 balloon) ready for kegging tomorrow.

That's a monster, what's your predicted final gravity. Is this one going into the barrel to age

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

That's a monster, what's your predicted final gravity. Is this one going into the barrel to age

It is a bit of a beast! Yes, this is going in the barrel along with a little bourbon and will then go on nitro like the last batch.

I’m hoping for a final gravity between 1030 and 1040 giving me 12%-13% before the bourbon. The final gravity is a bit uncertain because I’m pretty much at the limit of the yeasts alcohol tolerance. The bourbon will add another 1.2% for a finishing ABV of 13.2%-14.2%.

 

[Agentgonzo]

A new lesson for me - wash out the buckets every time before reusing them even if they look clean.

I've found that even a tiny amount of moisture can cause mildew if in a sealed container. Especially if it's stored in a garage etc where it's cool.

After washing, cleaning and drying my kit, I let it air dry for 24 hours to be completely devoid of moisture before storing it.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

After washing, cleaning and drying my kit, I let it air dry for 24 hours to be completely devoid of moisture before storing it.

I do the same, alway give it a good airing in a warm room.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

This morning I kegged the batch of Butterfly Effect that I put out to gold crash yesterday morning. It’s looking fairly clear out of the fermenter.

While putting the keg in the brewshed I took a peek at the imperial and was happy to see krausen all the way to the top of the buckets and a nice bubbly blow-off.

I also popped down the post office to get my beers off for the Nationals and for the February forum comp.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Good to see my beers for the UK Nationals have been checked in, I hope this means they all arrived intact

I’m starting to think about my next tranche of beers now and decided I’m going to brew another batch of @Clint ’s Pipster Pale Ale, another bitter (but this time using Admiral and Phoenix hops because I want to try something different), and then another imperial - this one will not be barrel aged and not have any bourbon added.

I won’t be brewing them for a few days because my fermentation cabinet is full at the moment with the Pilsner, Bitter, and Imperial shown in post #605 above.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

It’s time to keg the bitter and pilsner I currently have in the fermentation cabinet. I’ve just put the bitter out to cold crash and will keg that tomorrow. Then, tomorrow I’ll put the Pilsner out and keg it on Tuesday. This will give me two spaces in the fermentation cabinet for the pale ale and the new bitter I have planned.

I’ll leave the imperial stout fermenting for at least another week (this one will go in the barrel with some bourbon) and then I can get another imperial on the go (this will be a regular imperial).

 

[matt.]

It’s time to keg the bitter and pilsner I currently have in the fermentation cabinet. I’ve just put the bitter out to cold crash and will keg that tomorrow. Then, tomorrow I’ll put the Pilsner out and keg it on Tuesday. This will give me two spaces in the fermentation cabinet for the pale ale and the new bitter I have planned.

I’ll leave the imperial stout fermenting for at least another week (this one will go in the barrel with some bourbon) and then I can get another imperial on the go (this will be a regular imperial).

Re the Imperial Stout; what kind of barrel do you use? And how much priming sugar?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Re the Imperial Stout; what kind of barrel do you use? And how much priming sugar?

Hi Matt.

It’s a 20-litre re-coopered American oak barrel from Celtic Timber. I don’t add any sugar during the barrel-aging process. The beer is carbonated (nitrogenated actually) after aging when the beer is kegged.

You can read about it in the thread linked below:

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/barrel-aged-imperial-stout.99462/

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

The bitter is now kegged and the Pilsner is out to cold crash and will be kegged tomorrow morning. The bitter is looking good and tastes really nice, I increased the bitterness in this batch and think I might prefer it. We’ll see once conditioned.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’ve been a big tardy with my updates recently so need to put that right. I did keg the Czech Pilsner as planned and that tasted good out of the fermenter so I’m sure it will be fine (I forgot to take a picture).

A couple of days later I cleaned all my beer lines as I do every couple of weeks although on this occasion I was a couple of days late because I put my back out while lifting carpets and floorboards so it was a bit too tender to do anything very much.

Yesterday I cleaned a couple of kegs after my bitter and brown ale kicked. I have four more kegs that are virtually empty too so I need to get another batch of beers brewed.

This morning I kegged my latest batch of Imperial stout which finished at 1039 for an ABV of 12%. My wife also has a taste from the fermenter, declaring it nice as I prised her fingers from the glass.

This afternoon I replaced the deionisation crystals in my RO machine so I can prepare some water for another Pilsner - this will be a German Pils hopped with Hersbrucker but it might be Saturday before I get the brew on because we’re out for a pub lunch tomorrow.

I think that’s brought me up to speed for now. I’ll try and do better in future

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I did brew that German Pils yesterday but left it overnight to cool and settle out. 21 litres went into the fermentation cabinet today with a higher than usual 1060 OG (85% BHE). I have a suspicion what’s behind this and will test that suspicion tomorrow with my next brew - @Clint ‘s Pipster Pale.

 

[Pennine]

I did brew that German Pils yesterday but left it overnight to cool and settle out. 21 litres went into the fermentation cabinet today with a higher than usual 1060 OG (85% BHE). I have a suspicion what’s behind this and will test that suspicion tomorrow with my next brew - @Clint ‘s Pipster Pale.

Nice I have been hitting close to that from conditioning the malt, and I actually quit sparging and just add what would be sparge water to the mash right before mashout. I am actually trying to reduce my efficiency since I am a little worried I am extracting too much.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I am a little worried I am extracting too much.

Is that possible?

 

[Pennine]

Is that possible?

No idea, @foxy and maybe @Agentgonzo put the idea in my head that there are optimal flavourful sugars extracted and then suboptimal bland ones, plus any potential not nice things like tannins etc...