Hopsteep Brewing

[user 18729]

What did you brew today

This heat is making me crave a hop bomb. American pale ale, tori wheat and caramunich II to give it some back bone and then very late additions of Amarillo, Galaxy and Mosaic. I plan to dry hop with all three. I’ll post the recipe in a bit

 

[user 18729]

American Pale Ale


30L Batch

Colour 13.3 EBC
Est Abv 5.7%
45.3 IBU

Grist
Maris Otter 8 kg
Flaked Oats 500g
Torrified Wheat 500g
Caramunich II 150g

Hop Schedule

10 mins
Amarillo 40g

5 mins
Galaxy 50g

Whirlpool (Steeped for 10mins at 85 degrees)
Galaxy 50g
Mosaic 50g

Dry Hop
Mosaic 50g
Amarillo 32g (Leaf Hop)
Galaxy 32 (Leaf Hop)

Yeast
St Austell
(Propagated from bottle conditioned Proper Job, repitched the slurry from previous batch)

Adjusted Water
Ca 186ppm, Mg 18ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 302ppm, Cl 101ppm and a mash PH of 5.4.

 

[cushyno]

Nice to see you keeping the St Austell yeast going. I ditched my last load of slurry (6 weeks since I brewed, having been away for 2) but it was easy enough to culture it up again from one of my own bottles.

 

[user 18729]

Nice to see you keeping the St Austell yeast going. I ditched my last load of slurry (6 weeks since I brewed, having been away for 2) but it was easy enough to culture it up again from one of my own bottles.

My other half wants a lager back in the bar so the snozzel yeast will go in the fridge for a while sadly! Great yeast

 

[user 18729]

My other half wants a lager back in the bar so the snozzel yeast will go in the fridge for a while sadly! Great yeast

It is tempting to brew a kolsh with it to keep it going

 

[user 18729]

Since you asked!

Resignation Pale Ale
APA

30L Batch

Colour 16 EBC
Est Abv 5.3%
35.7 IBU

Grist
Maris Otter 7 kg
Medium Crystal (230 EBC) 200g
Flaked Oats 500g

Hop Schedule

10 mins
Cascade 30g
Chinook 30g

5 mins
Cascade 40g
Chinook 40g

Whilrpool
Cascade 40g
Chinook 40g

Dry Hop
Cascade 50g

Yeast
St Austell (Propagated from bottle conditioned Proper Job & repitched slurry from previous batch)

Adjusted Water
Ca 186ppm, Mg 18ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 302ppm, Cl 101ppm and a mash PH of 5.3

Sampling one after 3/4 days in the bottle. This is gorgeous, the St Austell yeast is an absolute trooper to have fully bottle conditioned this after three days. Juicy, tropical and resinous with plenty of pine in there. What a belter of a beer

 

[user 18729]

Dry Hopped the APA with 50g loose pellet of Mosaic and managed to find some left over leaf hops hiding in the freezer, so they went in as well in my trusty Chinese tea balls. It was down to 1.019 when they went in and still going like the clappers

 

[user 18729]

Next batch to be brewed at the end of this week:

Lager


40L Batch

Colour 6.3 EBC
Est Abv 4.9%
21.8 IBU

Grist
Simpsons Lager Malt 8 kg
Flaked Rice 3 kg

Hop Schedule

60 mins
Magnum 16g

30 mins
Saaz 40g

10 mins
Saaz 30g

5 mins
Saaz 30g

Yeast
Wyeast 2278 Czech Pilsner (Two step starter from slurry stored for a few months)

Adjusted Water (From RO)
Ca 8ppm, Mg 1ppm, Na 8ppm, SO4 16ppm, Cl 9ppm and a mash PH of 5.3.

 

[user 18729]

Couldn’t sleep so fired up the brewing rig at 4 this morning

 

[user 18729]

After drying out this year’s hops grown in the garden I’ve got an impressive 275g of Challenger and 30g of Goldings. Will be brewing an ESB with these little beauties either tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday. Stir plate is now in action with the Ringwood yeast

 

[user 18729]

Changed the standard chuck on the Cannular over to the CDLE chuck this evening.
I’ve sourced a load of 440ml cans manufactured by Ball from brewery who were kind enough to ship a load down to me. (Long story short the two market leading homebrew shops that sell cans have lost my custom after years of using them. One allegedly has pallets of cans but has nothing to post them in (after repeated emails explaining I need them for my wedding beers) and the other is charging well over the odds for them and won’t price match.)

Canned a few from a batch of lager and the seam looks spot on after fiddling around with the machine.

Brew day tomorrow

 

[user 18729]

Mash currently recirculating so thought I'd update with today's recipe:

Ball & Chain
ESB


30L Batch

Colour 26.2 EBC
Est Abv 4.5%
31.1 IBU (approximate)

Grist
Maris Otter 7500 g
Flaked Oats 500 g
Medium Crystal 300 g
Pale Chocolate 100g
Roasted Barley 30g

Hop Schedule

60 mins
Challenger 45 g

15 mins
Challenger 30 g

5 mins
Challenger 30 g
Calais Goldings 30 g


Yeast
White Labs WLP005 (Ringwood)

Adjusted Water
Ca 166ppm, Mg 13ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 104ppm, Cl 197ppm and a mash PH of 5.4 (5.35 actual)


I've guesstimated the IBUs of the hops as they are home grown. The Challenger is full of lupulin and smells fantastic- it leaves your hands yellow and is as sticky as a new world hop so chances are I've underestimated their alpha acid. Very excited to get this one canned and enjoy it at our wedding (providing Bozza doesn't impose any more pathetic restrictions before December)

 

[user 18729]

Finally found some time to keg and can the ‘Ball and Chain’, although we have now had to postpone the wedding until 2021 so I’ll have to rename this one

 

[user 18729]

First brewday in ages (for me ) brewing a Porter with Crystal, Special W, Chocolate, Flaked Barley, Oats and MO. Smelled amazing. The Ringwood yeasties are off pretty much instantly which is good! There’s usually a lag with this strain.

recipe to follow...

 

[user 18729]

A lovely Brown Ale kindly sent by Mr H @Hazelwood Brewery a while ago!

This is right up my street- Delicate aroma, perfect carbonation and mouthfeel. A really well brewed ale with no off flavours at all. Really nicely balanced with subtle tropical fruit and roasted malt character. If I were to suggest anything it would be to perhaps try and add more body and more of a rounded finish to the beer- mash a touch higher or increase the calcium chloride addition.
overall this it’s delicious and I wish I had another one...

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

A lovely Brown Ale kindly sent by Mr H @Hazelwood Brewery a while ago!

This is right up my street- Delicate aroma, perfect carbonation and mouthfeel. A really well brewed ale with no off flavours at all. Really nicely balanced with subtle tropical fruit and roasted malt character. If I were to suggest anything it would be to perhaps try and add more body and more of a rounded finish to the beer- mash a touch higher or increase the calcium chloride addition.
overall this it’s delicious and I wish I had another one...
View attachment 37373

You’ve had that a while! I hadn’t even started treating my water when that was brewed.

 

[user 18729]

You’ve had that a while! I hadn’t even started treating my water when that was brewed.

Very nice beer my friend! I’d love to try it with adjusted water!

 

[user 18729]

Groundswell
English Porter

30L Batch

Colour 50.4 EBC
Est Abv 4.8%
28.6 IBU

Grist
Maris Otter 6500 g
Flaked Oats 400 g
Medium Crystal 600 g
Chocolate 200g
Special W 200g

Hop Schedule

60 mins
Polaris 17g

15 mins
Fuggle 35 g

0 mins
EKG 30 g


Yeast
White Labs WLP005 (Ringwood)

Adjusted Water
Ca 166ppm, Mg 13ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 104ppm, Cl 197ppm and a mash PH of 5.4

Really nice beer this one, good balance and very enjoyable!

 

[user 18729]

Forum chocolate stout going straight onto gas...

I had to tweak the recipe a little from my original as I had run out of a particular colour crystal. I also changed the hops to EKG but it should be virtually the same. The Ringwood did get carried away though and despite the lactose it’s finished at 1.014 so a bit less body than intended!

I’ll update with a photo of the finished pint at Christmas!

 

[user 18729]

First planned brew day of 2021- aiming to get this on the go on Monday!

Back in Bruges
Belgian Tripel

25L Batch

Colour 12 EBC
Est Abv 9.1%
31.9 IBU

Fermentables
Lager Malt 8500g / 87.6%
Aromatic Malt 300g / 3.1%
Belgian Candi Sugar 900g / 9.3%

Boil
60 mins
Polaris 22g / 28.1 IBU

15 mins
Hallertauer Hersbrucker 20g / 2.7 IBU

5 mins
Hallertauer Hersbrucker 20g / 1.1 IBU

Yeast
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale Yeast (Chimay or similar)

Adjusted Water
Ca 108ppm, Mg 9ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 90ppm, Cl 91ppm and aiming for a mash PH of 5.3 (alkalinity adjusted with phosphoric acid).

Temperature control is sadly out of the window for this one as my fermenting fridge is now used for storing cheeses for our online delivery business

One of our spare rooms has the radiator turned off and it’s really cold in there so that will be my ‘brew fridge’. Planning on getting the room temp up to 17/18 and letting the FV sit in there and do it’s thing