Hopsteep Brewing

[user 18729]

Time to join the crowd and start one of these brew day thread things

This will be the first brew of 2020.

My parents are coming to stay with us at the end of February so I need to brew something that my dad will actually enjoy. He is a little bit stuck in his ways (it was only recently I converted him from Lager to drinking ales). That said, he has it in his head he doesn't like any grapefruit/citrus flavours in ales which pretty much restricts him to malty beers.

His go to beers are Guinness and St Austell's HSD, so I'll have a go at producing something similar. I'm not brewing a clone, as I think I can make something a little more interesting, but this should be pretty close.

Dry Irish Stout

Made a starter last night with Wyeast 1084. This is likely the Guinness strain so a good place to start. Any clean yeast would do the job but having never used 1084 before I'm looking forward to using this in the next beer, fermenting a little warmer and seeing what it's all about.

 

[Horners]

If he likes his St Austells, the St Austells 1851 AG Recipe pack from Brew UK is probably the best beer I have made to date.

 

[user 18729]

If he likes his St Austells, the St Austells 1851 AG Recipe pack from Brew UK is probably the best beer I have made to date.

Thanks for that, I’ll have a look

 

[user 18729]

The brew day involved loads of new processes which I thoroughly enjoyed.

First I set about milling the grain. I set the roller gap to 0.9mm using feeler gages. After a quick test with a handful of malt, I was happy with the crush and went for it.

Water treatment wise- Gypsum, Calcium Chloride and a little Epsom salts were thrown into the mash and sparge water along with phosphoric acid, with the target of the adjusted liquor being Ca 166ppm, Mg 13ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 104ppm, Cl 197ppm, RA 155ppm and a mash PH of 5.4.

Fisrt time using a pump with my two vessel system, so I thought I'd give underletting a try. I'm now completely converted to this method. Took 3 minutes to pump from the Kettle to the Mash Tun. A quick stir and the lid went on.

The mash was then recirculated for the last 15 minutes.

The measured mash PH after calibrating the meter was 5.44 so happy days.

I then started fly sparging controlling the flow with the valve on the pump and the outlet of the mash tun.

After pumping everything back into the kettle EKG was added and it was brought up the the boil.

After the boil was finished, I started whirlpooling and connected the HERMS coil to the cold water feed (once I've finished my control panel build this system will double as an immersion chiller and HERMS). I then chilled to (what I stupidly thought was pitching temperature of 18 degrees

This is where things went a bit wrong...

 

[user 18729]

I transferred into the FV and pitched the yeast having stupidly trusted my old faithful thermometer

When I turned on the ink bird, the temperature was showing 27 degrees . After a few expletives I then calibrated my thermometer in boiling water and on boiling it was showing 90 degrees... bugger. The beer was quickly cooled in the FV and after a couple hours it was down to where it should be and left at 18.

My efficiency was down considerably. I was aiming for an OG of 1.044 and only got 1.040. Initially I suspected it was the crush size, but it has to be the mash temp. I'm not sure if the error in the thermometer is linear, as in if it will always be 10 degrees out or if the error increases with temp. But assuming the worse I likely mashed at 76 degrees

Checked the gravity this morning and she's down to 1.014 roughly

Due to the high mash temp I'm not expecting it to drop much more so will be about the 3.5% mark. That said the trial jar sample tasted really really good so who knows, this may just turn out well in the end, if not as intended.

 

[user 18729]

Picked up one of these thermo pen jobbies for about £10. It has a calibration function and as a bonus a bottle opener

 

[St00]

Looks like a fun brew day!

A mill may have to be my nxt brewing purchase I think.

 

[user 18729]

Looks like a fun brew day!

A mill may have to be my nxt brewing purchase I think.

A Christmas present from my soon to be brother in law. It's something I wouldn't have bought myself as they are quite pricy but I love it. Really satisfying

 

[Horners]

@Hopsteep loving your stainless steel table - where did that come from?

 

[user 18729]

@Hopsteep loving your stainless steel table - where did that come from?

I’m always browsing Gumtree the bloke selling it didn’t realise its value. Took £50 for it. Added some castor wheels and jobs a goodun.

 

[user 18729]

After fiddling with the Cannular for absolutely ages it’s finally calibrated ready for some canning!

I’ll be canning only 5/6 of the Irish stout as a test of how well it’s seaming. If all is good I’ll start brewing some batches for our wedding later on in the year

 

[BradleyW]

That canning machine looks like fun!!!

 

[user 18729]

So the stout was only 3.5% as expected. Flavour is really nice though so I’m sure my dad will enjoy it!

Christened the canning machine this evening

Only filled 10 cans and kegged the rest. Fingers crossed the seams are good

 

[user 18729]

HSD - Hopsteep's Special Draft

32L batch

Grist
Maris Otter 7000g
Light Crystal 500g
Roasted Barley 120g
Flaked Oats 100g
Pale Chocolate Malt 100g

Hop Schedule (32 IBU)
60 mins
East Kent Goldings - 35g
Fuggles - 35g
10 mins
East Kent Goldings - 40g
Fuggles - 40g
Dry Hop
East Kent Goldings - 26g
Fuggles - 26g

Yeast
Wyeast 1084 Irish ale

Adjusted Water
Ca 166ppm, Mg 13ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 104ppm, Cl 197ppm, RA 110ppm and a mash PH of 5.4.

So the brew day went really well. No issues with efficiency at all so mash temp was definitely the issue with the Irish stout. Mashed at 68 degrees for an hour and the mash ph was 5.33.

OG 1.048. It's been tucked away in the FV at 19.5 degrees for a couple days. Tonight I've increased it to 20.5 degrees and will continue to gradually increase it for a diacetyl rest. I plan to dry hop when fermentation is nearly complete for about 5 days.

 

[user 18729]

Gravity down to 1.012 and dry hops thrown in. Will keg this on the weekend

 

[user 18729]

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Looking good @Hopsteep and making me hanker after a pint of my own stout.

Back in a couple of minutes...

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Cheers!

 

[user 18729]

Kegged, canned and bottled this evening

The HSD came out at 5% so bang on. If the old man doesn’t like this one then I will give up.

 

[user 18729]

Endeavour Pale Ale

30L batch

Grist
Maris Otter 6500g
Red Rye Crystal 300g
Flaked Oats 200g

Hop Schedule (38 IBU)

10 mins
Cascade 45g
Citra 45g

Whirlpool (80 degree steep)
Cascade 30g
Citra 30g

Dry Hop
Cascade 25g
Citra 25g

Yeast
Wyeast 1084 Irish ale

Adjusted Water
Ca 186ppm, Mg 18ppm, Na 43ppm, SO4 302ppm, Cl 101ppm, RA 93ppm and a mash PH of 5.3.

Had a lazy morning but fancy getting the brewing rig out of the garage shortly and getting this on the go. Pictures to follow...