Hopsteep Brewing

[user 18729]

Brewday postponed

My other half spotted a tall larder fridge for sale locally at £50 so picked that up with our trailer on Monday... looked alright in the photos but this thing is absolutely rats- stagnant water in the seals of the door, bloody stinks inside and I doubt even COVID would want to go near this thing.

Day one of cleaning was sprucing up the outside, today was to nuke the inside, then tomorrow I’m going to throw a load of bleach at it for one final assault... wish me luck

 

[user 18729]

Split brew day- mashed in at 69 degrees and locked the garage up until the morning

 

[user 18729]

View attachment 40067
Split brew day- mashed in at 69 degrees and locked the garage up until the morning

Absolutely Baltic this morning in the garage. So after mashing in the freezing temperatures overnight the grain bed was at 57 degrees which is impressive. Currently fly sparging

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

There’s dedication! My next brew-day is Wednesday. I think it’s going to be wet but it will at least be a few degrees warmer than today

 

[user 18729]

There’s dedication! My next brew-day is Wednesday. I think it’s going to be wet but it will at least be a few degrees warmer than today

Well had a ******* this morning!

Hit all my numbers and everything was going swimmingly until I went to cool the wort. After about 5 mins of whirl pooling whilst running cold water through my HERMS coil I noticed the coil had sprung a leak where it connected to the bulkhead fitting in the side of the kettle So I should have ended up with 25L at 1.081 and instead I got 30L at 1.070

So rather than chuck it I thought I'd try and save it. Added half a Camden into the wort as it was cooling to try and counter any chlorine from the tap water. Then boiled up some of the diluted wort with 300g LME and 100g Candi sugar then chucked that in. This boosted the gravity back up to 1.080.

This will either be a decent beer or destined for the drain, time will tell! :hat:

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

It will quite likely be almost the same except you now have a few extra pints

 

[user 18729]

It will quite likely be almost the same except you now have a few extra pints

At least it was a Belgian and not a NEIPA with a lot of expensive ingredients

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Watering down a NEIPA might not be such a bad thing!

 

[user 18729]

Watering down a NEIPA might not be such a bad thing!

Definitely want to brew one soon, it’s a style I’ve never tried brewing before purely because until now I couldn’t perform a closed transfer. Hopefully won’t water it down though!

 

[user 18729]

Bubbling away nicely this morning

 

[user 18729]

The Chimay strain is an absolute monster... Gone from 1.080 to 1.010 in 3 days

Taste from the trial jar is gorgeous at this stage so (touch wood) this might have been saved!

 

[samale]

The Chimay strain is an absolute monster... Gone from 1.080 to 1.010 in 3 days

Taste from the trial jar is gorgeous at this stage so (touch wood) this might have been saved!

Do you harvest the yeast

 

[user 18729]

Do you harvest the yeast

This was an old pack of wyeast that I found in the fridge. Been propagating it on the stir plate for a good week (two step up to 2.5 L)

 

[samale]

I need to buy a stir plate, I might take a chance on one from AliExpress

 

[user 18729]

I need to buy a stir plate, I might take a chance on one from AliExpress

I got mine from a Chinese seller on eBay, so the same thing really. Great little piece of kit and loads cheaper than buying one from a uk home-brew shop

 

[user 18729]

Tribulation
New England IPA

22L Batch

Colour 7.9 EBC
Est Abv 6.2%
25.6 IBU

Fermentables
Lager Malt 5500g / 69.6%
Carapils 800g / 10.1%
Torrified Oats 800g / 10.1%
Torrified Wheat 800g / 10.1%

Boil
60 mins
Magnum 5g / 5.3 IBUs

Whirlpool (30 mins at 80 degrees)
Cascade 80g / 9.2 IBUs
Chinook 50g / 11 IBUs

Dry Hop (15.9g/L)
(Post fermentation, cooled to 15 degrees, added for 5 days)
Mosaic 150g
Cascade 100g
Citra 100g

Yeast
Lallemand Verdant IPA (Variant of London Ale III)

Adjusted Water From RO
Ca 137ppm, Mg 12ppm, Na 8ppm, SO4 48ppm, Cl 245ppm and targeting a mash PH of 5.3

So planning to have a go at an NEIPA for the first time and knocked up this recipe using the grains and hops I have to hand. Planning on mashing this one high at 70 degrees to try and get the full bodied mouthfeel and residual sweetness.

@Hazelwood Brewery lets hope I don't water this one down!

After taking the HERMS coil off, the stainless olive on the compression fitting was the culprit as it had moved slightly. I've used some JB weld on it to bond it in place so fingers crossed I shouldn't have any more leaks. I'll re-fit it today and leak test it before brew day!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Good luck!

 

[user 18729]

Tried out my pressure transfer set up this evening with the Tripel. Firstly I filled a sankey keg using an old coupler which I modified by removing the non-return valve (this worked well)

Then with the 10L of beer left in my fermenter I connected up my beer gun and bottled whilst forcing the beer out of the FV whilst under pressure. This worked brilliantly and allowed me to bottle on my stainless brew bench whereas before I would be bent over filling bottles on the floor of the garage.

I think to save some CO2 I may try and pressurise the keg first and then connect that to the FV in a closed loop. I’m not sure if there would be enough pressure at 2psi to get the transfer going though and maintain it.

The Tripel was tasting pretty good tonight so fingers crossed once it’s conditioned it will be a decent attempt!

 

[user 18729]

Got the Verdant yeasties going on the stir plate tonight and hoping to brew tomorrow. Loads of snow here in Essex!

 

[user 18729]

Photos of the day...