Hazelwood’s Brewday Part 2

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’ve been talking about brewing a Weissbier for a while but just not done one for ages. Tomorrow that changes. The water and grist are prepared, and the timer is set for an early start.

I’ll also be kegging that pale ale.

 

[stripeyjoe]

I’ve been talking about brewing a Weissbier for a while

You should bring some along to the London Amateur Brewer's meeting on Aug 1st, we are bringing in Weizenbiers of various descriptions to taste. Brewing mine next week.
We meet at Mash Paddle Brewery – 92 Enid St, London SE16 4AW

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Based on the above im going to brew a Dunkle Weizen in my July schedule. With
Munich light, Wheat malt, crystal wheat and chocolate wheat.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

You should bring some along to the London Amateur Brewer's meeting on Aug 1st, we are bringing in Weizenbiers of various descriptions to taste. Brewing mine next week.
We meet at Mash Paddle Brewery – 92 Enid St, London SE16 4AW

I should but I don’t like London at the best of times and the journey isn’t great. I’ll send one or two of the boys a bottle for feedback.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

The brew day is done!

I kegged the pale ale and brewed a Weissbier ending up with 21 litres having an OG of 1048.

I don’t have much in mind for the next tranche yet but a Pilsner will soon be needed and I’ll be brewing a Golden Ale for swaps.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Pretty much all the beers I brew can be trusted - not a Weissbier however. Good job I kept my eye on the little begger!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’ve now decided on my 3rd tranche and this is leading to something a bit different. The brews will be:

Cider, Golden Ale, Pilsner, Barrel Aged Stout.

The cider is the first point of interest because I bottle cider. This is because I don’t drink very much so a batch usually lasts a year and it’s because I want high carbonation. Where it gets interesting is that I have most of my bottles tied up with old brews that I kept to see how they would stack up over time. Some are over 2 years old. I intend now to taste them all and see what they’re like - back to this in a moment.

The other point of interest will be the barrel aged stout. This will be an Imperial stout aged in that smaller barrel. I’ll post more on that along the way.

So back to these bottles…

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

This is the collection. There are between 3 and 6 bottles of each.

Time to tuck in!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

This is the first (I won’t post them all!). It was bottled almost exactly 2 years ago. I didn’t think to attach a copy of the recipe to the bottle and at this stage in my brewing I didn’t record the gyle number on the bottle. This is something you might think about if you ever keep beers for later interest.

Anyway, the beer is crystal clear and quite effervescent. The aroma is quite fruity and there are no unpleasant compounds so I’m happy to have a try. The flavour is really quite fruity and at a guess I’d say I used Bramling Cross from the dark berry flavours. It’s still very drinkable and my wife confirmed for me “that’s not bad”

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

This one is interesting because I’m sure it was made from a kit - that would make it at least 4 years old!

It looks very clean but there is a lot of muck in the bottom of the bottle. The aroma is clean too with a bit of grainy malt and a floral fruity (red apple) aroma. The flavour though isn’t so good it has that kit twang. Wife’s comment “It’s not bad but had a bit of an aftertaste.”

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Another old one. The aroma is beautiful and very much along the lines of Titanic. The mouthfeel is the most obvious quality - so soft and just a touch creamy. The flavour is really good too. Wife’s comment “That’s really nice”. This one is going back in the garage

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

A couple of years ago I did an experiment where I brewed one beer and used it to make four hopped beers which I then combined in various combinations to see which I liked best. The end result was that almost any combination of three different hops scored more highly than fewer or more. I still have a few bottles of Citra and of Ella. This one is Citra and isn’t at all bad. Although Citra is immediately obvious the floral aspect of Citra has become more prominent than when fresh. Wife thinks this one is also nice and commented that the floral aspect reminds her a little of elderflower.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Now this is interesting. Here is Ella. These beers were all produced at the same time from the same batch of base wort. All of the Citra are clean and look the same. All of the Ella look the same but are all oxidised - I can’t help but wonder if this has anything to do with the hops . You can see the beer isn’t very bright and the aroma is very sweet. The flavour isn’t awful, it takes like some hoppy ale/mead combo. I wouldn’t want to drink them though.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Another lager, this time one I brewed myself. It might in fact be the first lager I ever brewed that wasn’t a kit. It tastes very soft, with a little sweet grainy malt and light bitterness - probably too light. My wife likes it so these will also go back in the garage along with the plum porter and Citra pale.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

THIS is why I have so many kegs!

 

[White Rose Al]

Some great looking beers

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Some great looking beers

Cheers Al!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I had a busy day today in the brewshed. I originally designed a temperature control system around the capabilities of the glycol chiller, primarily the pump. The design allowed for one of the fermentation cabinet, brewshed, or beer python to be cooled at a time (in that priority) because the pump wasn’t able to service all three concurrently.

Recently, I’ve discovered a neat little submersible pump that is both tiny and powerful so today I installed three in my glycol chiller - one each for the fermentation cabinet, brewshed, and python. This means that all three can now be chilled concurrently but did mean I had to reconfigure my control panel.

Then to finish the day I cleaned all my beer lines as it’s been a couple of weeks since I last cleaned them.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’m a little behind on these posts. Last Friday (1st) I kegged my latest batch of Best Bitter and got an Apple Cider in the fermenter which I hope will be ready by the 22nd for a family event.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

This morning I kegged the IPA. The finishing gravity was 1012 for an ABV of 5.0%. It feels like an awful long time since I had an IPA on tap, I’m pleased to have this one in the keg and conditioning. The beer was brewed with Mosaic and dry hopped using Citra so should be pretty dependable.