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Your pathfinder recipe really is very interesting indeed, good names by the way too 🤩 I'm particularly interested to find out about the lemongrass!
Me too. I really should conduct a number of specific trials so I know which plant is producing which effect and try it at different doses and different stages - but I’m too impatient for that. Maybe that kind of discipline can follow after I’ve satisfied my initial lust for experimenting with everything! 😂
 
I’ve started to collect my plants for Friday…

First the rose petals. My roses are all China roses and every part of the plant is edible though I don’t much fancy chewing on the stems.

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The flower is beautifully scented though is also mild. The petals are really clean, slightly crisp and almost dissolve in the mouth as you chew them, not at all fibrous. The flavour is mild, slightly sweet, and fresh like a sugar snap pea with a hint of orange citrus and a hint of rose water aroma. These would be really good in a salad. These particular flowers are clearly pink but I also have apricot coloured roses of the same type that taste of mild apple rather than orange.

To prepare them I just pulled off the best petals to make up 20g dry weight, washed them gently in gold water, laid them on kitchen roll and gently patted them dry, put them in a plastic container and they are now in my freezer until Friday.

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Next the geraniums. I’ve established that I’m growing Horseshoe Geraniums, Pelargonium Zonale.

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When I was looking these up I was at first disappointed to learn they are mildly toxic until I read further. They contain geraniol, an essential oil that can be an irritant to the eyes, and they contain linalool, a terpene that can cause skin irritation. Good to know - that’s EXACTLY why I’m using them! (Because they contain geraniol and linalool, not because they are irritants! 😂 ).

I have several colours and I’ve spoken a little about the flavours a few posts ago. The leaves I selected are from the plant that has a mild lemon after taste. The larger darker leaves have a mild lemon verbena / cabbage flavour to start (hmm, lemon verbena 🤔 ) fading toward the lemon. These leaves are a little fibrous to chew but they’re not tough. I did wimp out a little and stopped collecting them at 16g so the recipe has already changed slightly.

I gave these the same treatment and the geranium leaves are also now in my freezer.

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Edit: I should have mentioned there is also a mild pepper aftertaste that goes with the lemon so maybe these leaves would go well in a saison?
 
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I’ve started to collect my plants for Friday…

First the rose petals. My roses are all China roses and every part of the plant is edible though I don’t much fancy chewing on the stems.

View attachment 50367
The flower is beautifully scented though is also mild. The petals are really clean, slightly crisp and almost dissolve in the mouth as you chew them, not at all fibrous. The flavour is mild, slightly sweet, and fresh like a sugar snap pea with a hint of orange citrus and a hint of rose water aroma. These would be really good in a salad. These particular flowers are clearly pink but I also have apricot coloured roses of the same type that taste of mild apple rather than orange.

To prepare them I just pulled off the best petals to make up 20g dry weight, washed them gently in gold water, laid them on kitchen roll and gently patted them dry, put them in a plastic container and they are now in my freezer until Friday.

View attachment 50370 View attachment 50371

Wow look someone is doing well for themselves
 
Time for this Pilgrim to hit the road…

Salts added, water up to temperature…
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The water profile for this ale I thought should be chloride rich because if I’m going for something really hoppy maybe a NEIPAish profile would suit better.
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Grist is 4500g Simpsons Golden Promise, 500g Naked Golden Oats, and of course the mash hops - 20g of Magnum (the mash hops should be high alpha-acid.
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Grains milled and ready to start the mash
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At my first waypoint. 40 minutes in and my mash pH is again lower than I’d expected so I’m starting to question whether this might be an effect of adding hops to the mash. Gravity is 1052 and exactly where I’d hoped it would be at this stage.

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Next stage now and temperature set at 158F.
 
I’ve arrived at my second waypoint but it’s taken twice the time I’d planned. I’ve barely hit 1061 but after 40 minutes. My best guess is that because my pH is a little off the enzymes are working sub-optimally and it’s taking longer for them to do their job. That’s fine, I’m not in any rush.

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Time to mash-out.
 
Gave this a listen supposedly he has been on a 3 year quest for the perfect Neipa thought you might be interested in the hopping schedules.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr07-08-21perfectneipa.mp3
The process is:
A small bittering charge 14g at 60min
Two whirlpool charges of 56g one at flameout in CO where he is that is 93c and one at 82c
Then after fermentation is complete soft crash to 15c and add a huge dry hop addition for 3-4 days.

Seems similar to what you are doing.
 
Gave this a listen supposedly he has been on a 3 year quest for the perfect Neipa thought you might be interested in the hopping schedules.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr07-08-21perfectneipa.mp3
The process is:
A small bittering charge 14g at 60min
Two whirlpool charges of 56g one at flameout in CO where he is that is 93c and one at 82c
Then after fermentation is complete soft crash to 15c and add a huge dry hop addition for 3-4 days.

Seems similar to what you are doing.

Thanks @Pennine I’ll have a listen.
 
Well I haven’t made it easy for myself today. The mash-out went okay except it again took longer than it should to reach my 1064 target. It got there in the end but added another 15 minutes to my mash so in all the mash took 40 minutes more than planned.
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Never mind, get on with the sparge - except the slow mash was playing on my mind so I started reading stuff while I should have been tending the sparge. This led to me not draining off wort as the sparge water was added and the boiler filling with sparge water that just sat on top of the wort rather than flowing through the grain. The real shock though came when I checked my pre-boil gravity and led to me having to do a second manual sparge using the wort to wash out the sugars along with a final rinse with another couple of litres of fresh RO water. Now of course, I had a couple of extra litres of water to boil off. I got there but the day has been a lot longer than I’d expected.

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So next, the hopstand. 50g of Citra leaf and 100g of Cascade leaf at 194F (90C) for 30 minutes. This went absolutely to plan I’m pleased to say!
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Next was to chill down and again no issues. Now I’m just letting the wort rest and settle out before the next exciting bit - putting the wort in the fermenter with my day 0 hop additions and the two complimentary yeasts.clapa
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