Leon103's brew days

[Leon103]

You can never get complacent whilst brewing beer.....

Before we talk about the mishaps on today's brew day lets have a look at what was brewing

Another version of my house pilsner. The main change here was the base malt, giving the Hana heritage malt a try for the first time. The only other change was the additional 15g of hops at 0 minutes, that was purely to use a full pack.

With no work this week I started the day early but forgot the wife was popping out so I have two kids to contend with. First mishap was done twice, not sure how that happened. I forgot to press start on the mash out, adding 30 plus minutes to the day. I know I should have selected auto mode.

The next set of mishaps was a lot more messy. I like to connect the transfer pipe to the pump and use it to circulate wort over the grain bed once i have lifted the basket. I find this adds to my efficiency - more on that later. Well I turned my back for one second and the pipe slipped shooting hot wort all over me and my garage. Shortly after this I managed to pull the end of the pipe away from the pump fitting, this time hot wort all over my hand. The shock caused me to knock my trial jar and ph meter over. Sticking wort everywhere today.

Luckily that was the end to the **** ups, I stuck a film on for the kids and concentrated on my brew. Despite losing about a litre to 1.5l on the floor, I managed to get 28.25l in the fermenter and still got my target OG. I have started to find a bit more consistency since going all in one, the method of washing the grain with the re-circulating wort for a few minutes seems to help.

This will ferment at 10c for about 3 weeks and then lager in the fermenter until I get two free kegs. Should be ready for Xmas.

 

[Leon103]

Busy couple of hours in the brewery this evening.
Cleaned all my lines and taps. Cleaned 2 kegs and filled with pilsner that had been lagering.

Deserve a beer now and on the rosemary ipa, still tasting really fresh

 

[Leon103]

Can't believe it was November that I last brewed. The above pilsner got 45 in the lager for life comp. Scoresheet attached for save keeping.

 

[Leon103]

The reason for no beer is purely done to the fact I haven't been drinking as much. I entered Xmas with more or less 3.5 kegs and about 50 cans. I still have some cans left but down to just the pilsner on tap. Work as got in the way but today I managed to brew. A bit of a user upper, a West Coast.

I gave the kit a deep clean yesterday and prepped the water last night. Should have checked the batteries on my scales though, went to do the grain this morning and the batteries died half way through, and they were those silly round ones that I always seem to mislay. Never mind I think I got the right amount, I sort of know how much a full bowl is.

The only other thing to play up was the transfer, pump seemed to get blocked a lot. Oh, and I noticed after mashing in that I have a bit more water than planned, the rest over 24l instead of the intended 21l. It won't be as strong but at least I will have more beer.

 

[Leon103]

With the brew out of the way I need to start planning my next one, and order some ingredients. I think a dark beer is needed next and I will try my hand at a honey porter. I have been promising a local honey producer that I would brew one with their honey so that will be next. I am not sure after that, spring is upon us so perhaps a Saison and a bitter. Need a trusted Bitter recipe first.

Any thoughts?

 

[Pennine]

With the brew out of the way I need to start planning my next one, and order some ingredients. I think a dark beer is needed next and I will try my hand at a honey porter. I have been promising a local honey producer that I would brew one with their honey so that will be next. I am not sure after that, spring is upon us so perhaps a Saison and a bitter. Need a trusted Bitter recipe first.

Any thoughts?

I suggested this to H, it's perfect timing for marzen.

 

[Leon103]

I suggested this to H, it's perfect timing for marzen.

That's some long conditioning time. Although I did say last year that I needed to find a trusted recipe and put on my schedule

 

[Leon103]

With a couple of kegs empty I needed to get a brew on last weekend. The plan was for a honey porter. A friend had dropped two jars of honey off for me and I had prepped the water the night before. I even decided to get all the grains ready for an early start. Big issue though, I messed up my inventory and didn't have the brown or black malt that I thought was in stock.

Nothing lost though, I adjusted my water and got the grains for my bitter ready. Nice easy brew day, no major issues. Was aiming for 22L but came in at 24L so will need to bottle a few. Fermentation got going really quickly and it seems more or less done.

Recipe below with the assistance of @Hazelwood Brewery

 

[Leon103]

To add some colour to the thread I thought I would include a photo of the same taken after cooling

 

[Leon103]

Put the bitter to cold crash. Check gravity and down to 1.006 so about 4.4%abv

 

[Leon103]

Finally got the Honey porter brewed today.
A pretty straight forward brew day in the nice walk sun, even managed to top up with the swimming pool with the warm water from the chiller - yes I did have a dip afterwards.
The HONEY malt in the recipe is the actual honey and will be added at high krausen. The honey is from a local guy that I know, it is lovely stuff.

 

[Leon103]

Rule One of Brew Day - Never say its an easy brew.

Thought I would get a Pilsner on early this morning before work. @dave_77 mentioned it must be a hot one and I said that it was an easy brew, implying I won't be standing over the kettle all day.

What a mistake. First up my mash PH came under at 4.8, I didn't think to adjust it.
Then my kettle tripped the extension, twice, whilst doing the boil - I don't think it went off for long.

Whilst chilling I didn't click the hose in correctly so boiling water all over the garage floor.

The biggest problem, and most likely due to the PH level was that it came in at under 50% BH efficiency. Not good. Instead of a sessionable 4.4% it would be a 2.9% table pilsner.

I decided to add some sugar to increase the abv slightly, most likely added too much but there goes. The resulting recipe is attached.

A few additional lessons -

1- Don't throw away the grain until the day is over - I could have done a mini mash to get more sugars out of it.
2 - Always keep some US05 yeast in stock - Could have gone for a proper hoppy table beer.
3 - Get a new water report - mine is a few years old
4 - Don't trust Beersmith with the PH adjustments - My gut said I didn't need 15ml
5 - Upgrade to Beersmith3

 

[Leon103]

In other news, I kegged my honey porter yesterday.

10 days grain to glass.

Just poured a cheeky taster.

 

[Leon103]

Last weekend I got a Saison on the go.

Things went a lot smoother compared to my last brew day, despite not making the changes I had previously listed.

Looking forward to see what the Farmhouse yeast brings to the saison. Also managed to pick up some Barbe Rouge - French hops, not really a saison hop but worth a go.
I started at 20c. Lifted it to 22c after 24 hours, 26 after a 48 hours and I will raise it to 28c tomorrow.

 

[Leon103]

Should have included a photo of the hops

 

[Leon103]

Its been a while since I brewed but finally have something fermenting away. A Hazy pale. You will see from the name, I was meant to brew this in the summer, things just got in the way.

It was a straight forward brew day, volumes were spot on but totally overshot my target by about 10% Who needs a 5.5% pale any way? 6.8% is much better

 

[dave_77]

Its been a while since I brewed but finally have something fermenting away. A Hazy pale. You will see from the name, I was meant to brew this in the summer, things just got in the way.

It was a straight forward brew day, volumes were spot on but totally overshot my target by about 10% Who needs a 5.5% pale any way? 6.8% is much better

Nectaron & Idaho 7

 

[Leon103]

Never got round to updating this last week but on the 11th I brewed a Marzan, my first attempt at the style. Below is the recipe. Should have been a pretty simple brew day but it was full of errors.

First off the bottom of grain basket came loose, I was stirring the mash early on and didn't know why my hand was getting burnt, I lifted the basket out and realised the bottom wasn't attached. It was not so long ago that i got rid of some old fermenters, realising I needed to decant all the wort and grain to refill left me a little puzzled. Luckily I managed to have a enough pots and pans.

Second error came shortly after, in the above error I turned the AIO off, when turning it back on I automatically thought it was still on the mash programme - wrong it was on boil, luckily I noticed within minutes and it only hit about 70c. After sorting all that I put it to boil and went to get a stiff drink, only I didn't press start, when I came back 10 minutes later it was cooling rather than boiling.

All in all it made for a much longer day. End result, 2.5l over what I wanted but also went over my efficiency so all good. Sat at 10c fermenting away lovely.

 

[Leon103]

I have been a bit rubbish at updating this.

Just over 2 weeks ago I brewed a Saison, more or less the same as the last one, I enjoyed that.

A pretty straight forward brew day until it came to filling the fermenter, both the pump and tap were blocked. I hate it when that happens.

I went to keg this first thing and realised I was out of gas. A quick text message to my supplier and he delivered another cannister. Cracking service and not bad for £24. It will continue to lager whilst I am away and go onto tap once I have room.

 

[Leon103]

Like usual, I have brewed a few times since updating this thread. Over the last few brews I have began to really question a few things, don't get me wrong the beer turns out good (perhaps by luck), but there are always mistakes. I learn from one and then something else goes wrong.

First beer was a DIPA which I brewed a few weeks ago and kegged last weekend. The beer turned out good and got some time to improve before it goes off to @Hoddy. Along with Dan we have brewed different DIPA's to help with the recipe development at Maverick Brew Co.

The plan was to brew a smaller than normal batch - too much DIPA might turn me into an alcoholic. Now this was the first and big issue, I use a 50l AIO, the water level would be too low for the planned 15l batch so I had to up it to 18l and adjust accordingly - more water, more grain. A nice thick mash with plenty of rice hulls. Hit all my numbers for a nice 8% session beer.

The other issue with this brew was the pump filter got blocked, will discard in the future.