Horners' Brewdays

[Horners]

AG26 Hop Replacement

Belated and brief write up of yesterday's brewday. This one is intended to be my definitive attempt at cloning Darkstars Hophead having pieced together a number of additional clues since the last effort. Hophead has been discussed in a couple of threads recently and a couple of things we have on good authority are that there is no amarillo despite what it says on the website , that they do indeed use S04 SO5 and Notty yeasts, that the malt bill is just extra pale and about 3.7% caramalt and there is no dry hop.

Hophead is bittered with Warrior these days as too expensive to use Cascade. I couldn't get any so I used magnum as a neutral high alpha alternative otherwise I made it up to what I believe to be the actual recipe.

So water treated per forum calculator for pale hoppy. Grist of 96% extra pale and 4% caramalt
Warrior for 60 mins to bitter to 50 IBUs. No other boil additions just 60g of Cascade (20L batch) at whirlpool 80C, 30 mins stand. My one unknown factor was how much cascade to use having never really done whirlpool additions before.

Reasonable brewday apart from only remembered kettle salts 50mins into boil. Naturally struggled to cool it in the 35 degree heat but got it to 24c for pitching and stuck in the freezer to ferment at 20c with half a pack of each of the 3 yeasts

Looking forward to giving this the side by side tasting treatment.

 

[Horners]

AG 27 80 Bob

Belated write up of Monday's brew day loosely based on GH 80 Shilling recipe. For 21L in the FV at OG 1.049.

4.2kg MO
200g Caramunich I
80g Caramalt
190g Medium Crystal
80g Carafa III
250g Acid malt (See below)

Mashed at 70C. Turns out that my water is pretty close to the Edinburgh (scottish Ale, Malty Ale profile on Brewers Friend) so rather than use CRS to get pH somewhere right but throwing all the other ion concentrations out I used some acid mat I had left from a pale.

Bittered to 17 IBUs just with EKG at start of 70 minute boil. No other additions.

Yeast was WLP028 Edinburgh Ale Yeast.

Brew day was punctuated with work so slightly distracted but it was a reasonably smooth process. Main cock up was I turned my HLT (a Cygnet urn) on without water in which must have caused it to trip. Somehow never noticed that the water was not warm till half way through the sparge so took a bit longer to hit boil than normal.

Also I managed to force the bung for my airlock through the hole in the lid of my brewbucket. Couldn't easily fish it out (and its the only one that fits) so had to get a star sanned arm in there.

Also hadn't been arsed to make a starter given relatively low gravity beer. Compounded with the fact that I conciously didn't bother hooking the tube heater up to the inkbird as all recent brews have required cooling only meant that 48 hours later last night fermentation hadn't started and the temp had dropped to about 14C. Anyway all now fixed and there is the reassuring sound of steady bubbling to accompany my mornings work. Just hope that with the lag/ arm in fermentor etc no nasties have got in there.

 

[Horners]

AG 27 80 Bob

Belated write up of Monday's brew day loosely based on GH 80 Shilling recipe. For 21L in the FV at OG 1.049.

4.2kg MO
200g Caramunich I
80g Caramalt
190g Medium Crystal
80g Carafa III
250g Acid malt (See below)

Mashed at 70C. Turns out that my water is pretty close to the Edinburgh (scottish Ale, Malty Ale profile on Brewers Friend) so rather than use CRS to get pH somewhere right but throwing all the other ion concentrations out I used some acid mat I had left from a pale.

Bittered to 17 IBUs just with EKG at start of 70 minute boil. No other additions.

Yeast was WLP028 Edinburgh Ale Yeast.

Brew day was punctuated with work so slightly distracted but it was a reasonably smooth process. Main cock up was I turned my HLT (a Cygnet urn) on without water in which must have caused it to trip. Somehow never noticed that the water was not warm till half way through the sparge so took a bit longer to hit boil than normal.

Also I managed to force the bung for my airlock through the hole in the lid of my brewbucket. Couldn't easily fish it out (and its the only one that fits) so had to get a star sanned arm in there.

Also hadn't been arsed to make a starter given relatively low gravity beer. Compounded with the fact that I conciously didn't bother hooking the tube heater up to the inkbird as all recent brews have required cooling only meant that 48 hours later last night fermentation hadn't started and the temp had dropped to about 14C. Anyway all now fixed and there is the reassuring sound of steady bubbling to accompany my mornings work. Just hope that with the lag/ arm in fermentor etc no nasties have got in there.

A whole week since brewday and this is still chugging along. Going to give it another 3 days at 19c and then ramp up a couple of degrees to make sure its properly got through everything

 

[Horners]

After 3 days commuting into the square mile this week, it was back to business as usual today - operating by video from the brewcave. Boredom quickly set in and I started to get concerned about the number of kegs that had been rendered empty following a large family gathering (remember them?) at the weekend.

Started to plan out the next few brews and then started to get vexed that my inventory stored on Brewers Friend was awry compared with the actual stuff in here. Instigated a full stock count and updated everything - 25 malts, 20 hops and a range of yeasts all reconciled from fridge to laptop - an hour well spent if you are a chartered accountant. Predictably I seem to be an ingredient short for a few things on the "To Brew list" so in the end I'm going to have a tilt at an oatmeal stout. Just finished my dry irish guinessy stout which went down a storm so feeling emboldened that having a stout conditioning is the best next move.

Currently formulating recipe. In the meantime have set previous 80 shilling brew to cold crash and that will be going in a keg come what may tomorrow night to free up the brewbucket. The 80 shilling (see previous post) was a real slow burner but has hit expected FG of 1.015 and tastes pretty good.

Planning on being up early doors to attempt the following (21L in FV):

Pale MO -3600g; malted oats 200g; medium crystal 170g; chocolate 130g; roasted barley 200g
Hops: Bittered to 30IBU with Challenger and then 15g each of challenger and goldings at turn off.
Yeast: SO5
Water: not treating other than Campden as our london water should be good for this.

Going to do a stepped mash with whatever the 45C rest is called.

As ever I have run out of steam and reneged on promise to myself to weigh out grist and water ahead of brewday.,

 

[Horners]

AG #28 Oatmeal Stout

Some 2 weeks later finally got round to brewing the recipe in the previous thread yesterday. Final recipe

Fermentables Hops (70 min boil)
3kg Maris Otter 42g Challenger 5.5% (70mins)
200g Acid Malt 15g Challenger (0mins)
250g Oat malt 15g EKG (4%) (0 mins)
130g Chocolate IBU: 29
170g 100 EBC crystal
200g Roasted Barley

No water treatment other than campden and the acid malt to bring pH down a little.

Mash: 15 mins @45C; 60 mins@ 67C; 10 mins @75C

The 45C rest I had read somewhere that this can help prevent the oats going to gloopy.

Anyway broke my own golden rule of only doing brewdays when free from other commitments and predictably ended up with a very unsatisfactory day.

Started well - quite a few malt additions to weigh out and bags to seal back up but I was quickly in my stride and against the clock of getting doughed in before taking eldest to his Duke of Edinburgh expedition, the only cock up was measured out too much strike water. Decided to leave it and it made mashing in very easy - need to read up on any downsides of having too liquid a porridge but may just do this in future for an easy life - also quicker sparge.

Got back and the grainfather's automation is into its own in situations like this as it is busy going through the mash steps in my absence. Next deadline is to take younger child to his Sunday league game. Wort takes forever to reach a boil due to the strong fresh winds I think. Anyway one boiled and flameout hops in, decide I am pushing it to get finished and me on time for football so whirlpool and abandon with lid on.

By I return over 2 hours later it has dropped to 53C so I decide to paly it safe and heat back up to 80C , hold for 10 minutes. Not sure what this will do to hop profile but figure it'll be fine. Then disaster strikes, long story short I activate pump, seems to be working but then nothing going through CFC. I figure maybe an air blockage so mess around for an hour trying toggling pump on/off, blowing in it etc. Anyway long story short I must have knocked the filter off during hasty whirlpool and pump blocked with hops. By now roast shoulder of lamb is on the table and I still have nothing in FV. Go back out in dark after dinner and feel relieved that I never sold my immersion chiller when I bought the GF. Got that hooked up and then used a couple of elastic bands to secure a muslin across top of FV and launched the whole lot in. Unfortunately once sufficient hops had been decanted some of the wort then deflected off the muslin all over the patio.

Not sure how much I lost but ended up with 19.5L at 1041 (target was 1043) so probably standard efficiency if hadn't lost a load.

Anyway by bedtime it was all tucked up in the chest freezer set to ferment at 21C with US05. I now have the prospect of getting home from work tonight to finish clear up and strip the pump down.

Still you never know could be a good beer in there.....

 

[Horners]

AG #29 Hamden Pale 2.0

A second attempt to clone Camden Pale yesterday. Recipe link:

"Hamden Pale - Beer Recipe - Brewer's Friend"

A few noteworthy things:

1. Having not experienced any detrimental affects from using a thinner mash than normal for my previous oatmeal stout brew I also used a thinner mash here. Two significant advantages to my mind are a. doughing in is much easier b. much quicker sparge.

2. We were going out for late Sunday lunch. Rather than rush everything and the experience become a bit stressful I left the grain basket draining post sparge whilst we went out for a couple of hours and completed the boil later. Much more relaxing.

3. There was a relatively large amount of hops in the kettle by I had finished whirlpool addition. I am not convinced that BF really factors this into efficiency calculations. Whilst hop losses are taken into account for water requirements, there is a lot of sugar also left behind in 150g hops. Anyway BH efficiency was down.

4. Noticed this morning that I seem to have completely effed up my water additions and seemed to have removed all of the carbonate from the mash.

5. In terms of recipe I have upped both the late hop additions and the whirlpool as first attempt AG #23 was lacking a bit of flavour. Also lowered the crystal slightly.

Looking forward to a speedy ferment and getting this one drinking fresh.

 

[Horners]

AG #30 Pendle's Witches Brew

Have felt lazy of late but with Christmas imminent, I was finding myself short of decent bitter. Attached my Beer 365 engine to a keg of my 80 shilling yesterday and to be honest it tastes under attenuated and too sweet for my palate.

Anyway T shirt weather in South East London, neither a cloud nor a breeze in sight so thought I would have another crack at this one. As a good Lancashire lad, Pendles Witches still holds some mystique and for followers of English history worth doing a bit of research into the back story.

A very smooth brewday (recipe below) where I hit exactly 21L @1.049 in the fermenter at bang on 21C. Then the flaw in my organisation - started my WLP005 starter yesterday morning as yeast was slightly past BBE date. The bit I forgot was that I didn't leave time for it to crash/ settle. Toyed with just bunging it all in but as I had used some old amber DME and made 2L and decided that I didn't want it tainting the actual wort which is quite a light colour.

As I type some many hours later, enough yeast is settling out to let me decant off much of the amber starter 'beer'. Supplementary problem is that whilst I have been off to cook Sunday dinner etc, wort now too cold. Going to have one more glass of brandy whilst wort moves back up to pitching temperature and starter yeast drops further.

Recipe is basically GW BYOBRA

Water treated for English bitter as per forum calculator and then mashed at 66C, for 60 mins followed by 10 mins mash out at 75C, brew was as follows:

MO 3600g; Crystal (100 EBC) 360g; Torrified Wheat 240g; 320g Tate & Lyle golden syrup

60 minute boil with Fuggles to bitter to 31IBU and a further 10g fuggles addition at flame out.

Going to ferment at 20C .

Cheers

Horners

 

[DocAnna]

Anyway T shirt weather in South East London, neither a cloud nor a breeze in sight so thought I would have another crack at this one. As a good Lancashire lad, Pendles Witches still holds some mystique and for followers of English history worth doing a bit of research into the back story.

Just a bit envious of the idea of T shirt weather at this time of year, I needed a jacket while brewing inside the garage this weekend! Your reference to the Pendle Witches piqued my interest and after a bit of wikipedia feeling grateful that 'healers' are not regarded with quite the same suspicion these days, bit of a sad story.
Oh and sympathy about fitting in making a family Sunday meal in the middle of brewing ... and it messing around with timings.

Anna

 

[Horners]

Belated write up of Saturday's Brew day a Tinsel Toes Kit from Muntons/ Woodfordes.

Have been suffering from a lack of brewing mojo these last few weeks exacerbated by stocks being reduced to:

A keg of disappointing 80 Shilling- under attenuated;
half a keg of Patersbier - not to my taste;
half a keg of Kveik tin miners ale - doesn't taste of beer;
a couple of minikegs of what was decent bitter waiting to be tipped adue to the dreaded metallic taste;
30 bottles of barleywine - not quite as good as I thought it was going to be and not exactly session;
a keg of Pendles Witch clone which is taking an age to condition.

Also have been getting really bored and consequently ill disciplined with all of the cleaning up recently - often leaving it until a few days after brew day which just makes life even harder.

Ordered this 2 can kit weeks ago (in good time to get it done for Christmas) and despite the comparative convenience I kept putting it off (couldn't even be arsed to finish cleaning my 'best' FV). Even got as far as treating some water with a campden a couple of weeks ago and still not getting round to making the kit up.

Anyway Saturday evening was the day and the only notable thing apart from the real convenience of not taking up 5 hours of the day with tons of cleaning up was the fact that just as I was about to decant the first can I noticed a really bad smell from the water. I generally use the hose in the garden for brewing and always run off the water for a bit to make sure I am getting 'fresh' stuff. A combination of a new hose late summer which is 3 times the length of the old one and the fact that there has not been much cause for supplementary irrigation of late meant that I had not run enough off. The water I was going to use had sat within the plastic hose for weeks giving rise to the horrible vinyly smell.

Crisis averted and one one to watch out for - will go back to jugging my liquor straight from the outside tap in future.

Anyway pitched the 2 packs of yeast that came with the kit and by last night a very vigorous fermentation underway. Not going to be ready for Christmas but as no-one is coming round that is no great hardship. Hoping that maybe it will be there for a sampler on New Years Eve.

 

[SamBrewster]

This is a familiar post, had the same feelings last year. The turning point was Secret Santa 2019. The excitement of trying the beer of others and receiving kind comments in return. Since then went back to basics, bought a couple of books and entered a few of the monthly comps. The feedback received has really helped and my beer (although not competitive with others) is much better for me. Still have bottles and kegs of rubbish beer but some better ones and potential house beers amongst them

 

[Horners]

AG31 GH Northern Brown Ale

So having not had a full on brew day for ages, went out first thing this morning for a run in the sunny but freezing conditions and on returning invigorated decided today was the day to get back on the horse.

After a few disappointing brews decided to give everything a really good scrub and get back to basics recipe wise with Greg Hughes Northern Brown ale. Think I pretty much used his recipe as is - 93 %MO; 5% 200EBC crystal ; 2% chocolate. Bittered to 28 IBUs with target and then challenger at flameout. Water profile I adjusted the corporation pop to Balanced Profile II on brewers friend.

Have just finished up and pitched a pack of Notty which I am going to ferment at 20C.

In terms of brewdays,it was pretty good. Got into a good rhythm, clearing up as I went along, vacuum packing half bags of grain, hops etc; adjusting inventory records and generally not cocking anything up. Think the early morning exercise had given me a clarity of thought today. Also stuck to a couple of my brew years resolutions of doing ALL of the cleaning on brewday and not multitasking with none brew related activities which inevitably leads to cock ups and makes what after all is meant to be a hobby a bit stressful.

Numbers were a bit all over the place. I did measure my mash pH and it was a lot higher than expected so i wonder if this led to poor conversion efficiency as overall BHE was massively down. Volume was all over the place as you can imagine given the ambient conditions it was billowing steam all over the shop. Did anticipate that and gave the boil a little top up half way through. Anyway ended up with 20L in FV at 1.045OG.

Gutted that I will have to wait a good few weeks till this is ready as all my other stuff in stock is rubbish at the moment and the only thing in the fridge is 4 cans of San Miguel.

 

[user 18729]

AG31 GH Northern Brown Ale

So having not had a full on brew day for ages, went out first thing this morning for a run in the sunny but freezing conditions and on returning invigorated decided today was the day to get back on the horse.

After a few disappointing brews decided to give everything a really good scrub and get back to basics recipe wise with Greg Hughes Northern Brown ale. Think I pretty much used his recipe as is - 93 %MO; 5% 200EBC crystal ; 2% chocolate. Bittered to 28 IBUs with target and then challenger at flameout. Water profile I adjusted the corporation pop to Balanced Profile II on brewers friend.

Have just finished up and pitched a pack of Notty which I am going to ferment at 20C.

In terms of brewdays,it was pretty good. Got into a good rhythm, clearing up as I went along, vacuum packing half bags of grain, hops etc; adjusting inventory records and generally not cocking anything up. Think the early morning exercise had given me a clarity of thought today. Also stuck to a couple of my brew years resolutions of doing ALL of the cleaning on brewday and not multitasking with none brew related activities which inevitably leads to cock ups and makes what after all is meant to be a hobby a bit stressful.

Numbers were a bit all over the place. I did measure my mash pH and it was a lot higher than expected so i wonder if this led to poor conversion efficiency as overall BHE was massively down. Volume was all over the place as you can imagine given the ambient conditions it was billowing steam all over the shop. Did anticipate that and gave the boil a little top up half way through. Anyway ended up with 20L in FV at 1.045OG.

Gutted that I will have to wait a good few weeks till this is ready as all my other stuff in stock is rubbish at the moment and the only thing in the fridge is 4 cans of San Miguel.

Can’t go wrong with Target & Challenger. Lovely combination!

 

[DocAnna]

Numbers were a bit all over the place. I did measure my mash pH and it was a lot higher than expected so i wonder if this led to poor conversion efficiency as overall BHE was massively down.

Just had a similar experience today with pH and and efficiency, have you had any experience of using lactic/phosphoric acid to adjust the pH?
Sounds a good brew though and yes cleaning as you go along really works .

Anna

 

[Horners]

Just had a similar experience today with pH and and efficiency, have you had any experience of using lactic/phosphoric acid to adjust the pH?
Sounds a good brew though and yes cleaning as you go along really works .

Anna

Not really I normally use CRS to get to most profiles and the pH is normally there or there about. Occasionally I will use a bit of acid malt which I guess is just a cheat for lactic. Phosphoric is on my shopping list for next order albeit I am trying to use some stuff up before then.

 

[Horners]

AG32 - Horners' Genius

Saturday afternoon saw a second crack at creating something a bit Guinnessy for those members of the family that swear by the stuff and who may be able to come round to sup it by the tame it has conditioned.

Malt: 70% MO; 7% Acid Malt (for pH control/ lactic notes); 9.5% Roast Barley; 7.5% Flaked Barley; 6% Crystal (135 EBC)

Hops: Target at 60 mins bittered to 46 IBUs

Yeast: Wyeast Irish Ale 1084

Water: Tap water is decent profile for stouts so simply treated with a camden

Mash: 15 mins at 45C; 60 mins at 66C and 10 at 75C (I had used the extra step on an oatmeal stout previously as helps with oats apparently. No oats in this one but was a great beer so will jeep the 45C one in there)

Anyway I actually planned and prepared far more than usual on Friday evening so I was looking forward to Saturday being nice and organised. I had planned four modifications to my process for this brew which were as follows:

1. Treat water the night before;
2. Full volume mash;
3. False bottom for the grainfather
4. Late addition for the roasted barley to reduce roastiness.

Mixed success. Report on each of these 'improvements' as follows:

1. My Grainfather leaks. The 20L of water I had treated was only 10L by I came to start on Saturday. Even more worryingly the other 10L has gone missing. I can only assume it has seeped into whatever sits below the laminate flooring in the brewhouse and will cause it to rot prematurely and a terrible damp smell in the future. Not exactly great weather for drying it out. So any time savings from being organised were squandered right from the off.

2. I think I had upped the bill by about 20%. This wasn't enough and at 1.044 was a few points below what I was aiming at. Also didnt actually use another water in the mash stage and so ending up topping up with a lot of cold which meant oit took ages to reach the boil.

3. False bottom didnt achieve much. I think that is partly my fault because I kept my default position of having filter rest ofn the temperature probe so I don't think the FB sat snugly. When I pulled it out it was difficult to remove and so ended up with most of the hops it had collected dumped back in there so no 'savings' on the clear up.

4. Because for once I weighed out grain the night before, the dark grains ended up in a washing up bowl somewhere between the layer of MO and the Crystal - so late addition not possible.

Pitched starter about 20hrs ago which is a bit of a worry as no signs of activity yet. Not sure my starter was great TBH.

Anyway a few lessons learnt. The leaking GF being the most salutory one.

 

[Horners]

Belated write up of yesterday's brewday AG33 - Vanilla Bourbon Stout

Have been putting off and putting off kegging AG32, a dry stout as wanted to dump a bigger beer straight on the yeast cake.

A challenging brewday ensued. Previous brew was my first attempt at full volume mash in the GF30 so still tinkering with efficiency etc and of course I had previously heard that GF (and other all in ones) struggle efficiency wise with heavier grain bills.

Anyway recipe was largely the one from the GH book. So ended up with about 8.5kg of grain broadly comprised of MO plus other odds and ends of base malts; healthy charge of Vienna; Brown Malt; Crystal 200 EBC; and Chocolate.

Bittered to just over 30 IBU with Northern Brewer. First problem - late addition was meant to be challenger, I have c20 bags of hops in the fridge but any challenger no....Apparently best sub is Perle so used that which now disrupts the next brew meaning I will need to make another order.

Anyway, no sparge as stated and ended up about 20 points down for a BHE of 30%. As this beer is going to have vanilla and bourbon in it I figured it needed to be a bit heftier so in the end late in the evening, boiled up 500g of Tate & lyle and 500G Pale DME and hoyed that in to get the gravity somewhere a bit closer.

Then checked the whole lot on the cake which was Irish Ale yeast without even attacking the krausen residue from previous brew and stuck it in at 20C. Fermentation started predictably quickly with such an overpitch.

Once primary is close to finishing I will stick in a couple of whole vanilla pods and about 400ml of JD.

The one good thing that happened yesterday was I legged it up to Sainos during the mash and procured a litre for £23 before their offer ends. That's now stashed in one of my bottle crates - I have plans for the remaining 600ml.

 

[Horners]

Quick write up of yesterday's brewday AG34 - Hop Replacement V2.0

Lovely blue skies and sunshine in South London yesterday so feeling full of the joys of spring and with a relatively non-punishing work timetable figured I would multitask and attempt a reboot of my attempt to make a passable Darkstar Hophead clone.

I had previously come up with what I had decided from various sources was the definitive version - a neutral bittering hop plus large whirlpool addition of Cascade. That recipe will be somewhere further up this thread. Anyway decided to go instead with practically a SMASH of MO extra pale and Cascade (using cascade for bittering so as to use a whole pack - they used to do this at Darkstar before it became too expensive). Only non-smash aspect was the addition of 5% caramalt.

In keeping with last couple of brews went for a full volume mash and just about crammed in 5kg of extra pale and 250g cara into the GF.

New things from previous brews:

1. Ordered extra fine crush from Malt Miller (see below) - this has not been an option with other suppliers I generally use;
2. Ashbeck - old school mineral content, adjusted to something towards Mosher's pale ale water profile
3. Pellets rather than leaf

Mashed at 65C and had a 3 way mix of US 04, US 05 and Notty left over from previous attempt.

All seemed straightforward and life was good. Even hung the first washing out of the spring whilst strike water was heating .

Things that went wrong:

1. Assembled malt pipe etc, cannot for the life of me work out where the top half of the middle tube thing has gone. Eventual conclusion - in the garden waste with the grain from the previous brew. This has been collected so will never know for sure. Eventually found some silicon tubing and bodged something.

2. Effing around with my new hozelock work around for the CFC cooler I knock the bowl with the 50g cascade whirlpool addition off the workmate on to the patio at which point the pellets rebound in 50 directions over the lawn etc. Eventually recover maybe 45g but including some of the lawn fertiliser that had been put down the day before.

3. Assembling SS brewbucket but the oring is missing on racking arm. Nothing in my sundry supply drawer will do the job. Afte rabout an hour by which time its dark I get some PTFE tape to do the job.


All a bit of a pain and not cleared up but on the plus side massively overshot my numbers which Im putting down to the much finer crush and has restored my faith in pursuing full volume for regular size beers.

Cheers

Horners

 

[Horners]

As a postscript- this 33:33:33 mix has gone off like a train. Most vigorous ferment with these ale yeasts for a long time

 

[Horners]

AG #35 German pilsner

Write up from Friday.

Very relaxed brewday Friday having had a major tidy up in the brewcave over Easter. makes such a difference to have everything organised.

Anyway had intended to copy @Hazelwood Brewery German Pilsner recipe as it always looks good on the What are you drinking thread and I have not previously cracked a decent lager yet. Ended up forgetting the glucose I had bought specially so brew is a Tettnang/ pilsner SMASH.

Hit all the numbers nicely and so as I only realised the missing sugar as I was emptying kettle I thought I would settle for leaving it out and a more sessionable brew expected to be around 4.3%.

Finally overcame the inertia to set up the vyair RO system I bought a few months ago. Whilst it looks fiendishly complicated it was really straightforward and output the filtered stuff at an acceptable rate from my outside tap.

Used 7 parts RO 1 part tap and then adjusted with gypsum and CaCl to desired levels. Used lactic to adjust pH which I have not done before and it seemed spot on during the mash.

Ended up with much less hot break and also post boil, clearer wort than normal. Could be a coincidence.

Now bubbling away at 12C with two packs of 34/70 9another departure) which I am told is relatively forgiving.

Cheers

Horners