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Put the Hop back Mild in a King Keg today. Its finished at an incredible 1004. Sample tasted good. Primed with unrefined dark sugar for a change ( i.e. its all we had in! ). There's a bit more on my blog if anyone's interested.
 
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I made a couple of errors with this recipe. The first is that I'm relatively new to all grain brewing, and still don't trust my efficiency, which is usually (always) higher than Ron assumes in his book, so I got an OG of 1056. I really need to have the confidence to dial the grain bill down a bit when I am doing other people's recipes so as to try had get a similar OG.

My second mistake was the yeast. I don't use liquid yeasts (yet) so plumped for 2 packets of Nottingham, pitched at 15 degrees and allowed to rise to 17 where it was held for fermentation. It still massively over attenuated; I got a FG of 1006! Should have used a different yeast.

The good news is it tastes great, although not conditioned yet. It will be packaged into a King Keg this week.
 
I got an OG of 1059 so might be that our methods are more efficient. As it's over 23º now, only yeast I trust is S04. Hopefully next year I'll have a set of Kveiks as fallback.
I found that his hops were on the mild side, not 5.5% as I had. So I reconfigured his early hops to give the IBUs, and kept the last hop gift to scale to meet the original recipe.
 
Yes, I had to adjust the hop schedule as I was using pellets, and also they had a higher AA count than in his book.

As for temps, I have an inkbird controlled fridge so I can just dial in whatever temp I need. However, S04 is probably closer to the yeast he specifies than Notty, so you should be OK I reckon.
 
I made a couple of errors with this recipe. The first is that I'm relatively new to all grain brewing, and still don't trust my efficiency, which is usually (always) higher than Ron assumes in his book, so I got an OG of 1056. I really need to have the confidence to dial the grain bill down a bit when I am doing other people's recipes so as to try had get a similar OG.

My second mistake was the yeast. I don't use liquid yeasts (yet) so plumped for 2 packets of Nottingham, pitched at 15 degrees and allowed to rise to 17 where it was held for fermentation. It still massively over attenuated; I got a FG of 1006! Should have used a different yeast.

The good news is it tastes great, although not conditioned yet. It will be packaged into a King Keg this week.

You need to remember notty attenuates to about 80% (thats what Ive found with it). I imagine for old beers of yore, the yeast would have what we would consider under attenuated rather than over. What yeast are recommended with this reciepe?
 
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I got an OG of 1059 so might be that our methods are more efficient. As it's over 23º now, only yeast I trust is S04. Hopefully next year I'll have a set of Kveiks as fallback.
I found that his hops were on the mild side, not 5.5% as I had. So I reconfigured his early hops to give the IBUs, and kept the last hop gift to scale to meet the original recipe.

Notty has a MASSIVE temp range. I had it up to about 27C last summer as I had read it had a high temp tolerance so I tested it out. It can aslo ferment down to about 14C

I'm going to try some keik, that danbriant sent me, in a bitter recipe tommorow (well actually I'm making the wort tommorow, then I'll pitch the yeast on wednesday because I'm no chilling, not that the wort will be that 'chilly' at ambient temps) . As the profile for the yeast sounds remarkably similar to a classic English Ale yeast. My kitchen floor brew corner is currently at 26C so should be pretty good for the kviek
 
You need to remember notty attenuates to about 80% (thats what Ive found with it). I imagine for old beers of yore, the yeast would have what we would consider under attenuated rather than over. What yeast are recommended with this reciepe?
Wyeast 1098 British Ale—dry or Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale. I thought of Notty too but I'd rather spend it on a brew when the temperatures are more moderate.
No-chilling here too, I expect the wort to be around 25º in the morning. If I'm lucky.
I was on an ale series (Greg Hughes) with CML but I'll finish the series in September.
 
Wyeast 1098 British Ale—dry or Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale. I thought of Notty too but I'd rather spend it on a brew when the temperatures are more moderate.
No-chilling here too, I expect the wort to be around 25º in the morning. If I'm lucky.
I was on an ale series (Greg Hughes) with CML but I'll finish the series in September.

They are the Whitbread A strain so if you used S0-4 (which is also supposed to be derived from the whitbread A strain) you should be ok as it can go up to 25C (according to the data sheet).
If you happen to want to get your hands on the whitbread B strain, this is the Gales strain and you can get it from Gales HSB from ASDA (which is where I got it from)
 
Its a 'use stuff up' brew today. Brewing a Kentucky Common inspired brew, which has been anglicised with UK hops and grains. I'm using up my CML Californian yeast ~ hopefully, I'll get on with it better than the real ale and US ones.

FERMENTABLES:
2 kg - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (41.7%)
1 kg - United Kingdom - Lager (20.8%)
1 kg - Flaked Corn (20.8%)
0.5 kg - German - Vienna (10.4%)
100 g - American - Black Malt (2.1%)
100 g - United Kingdom - Crystal 60L (2.1%)
100 g - Flaked Barley (2.1%)
HOPS:
10 g - Challenger, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.5, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 11.68
15 g - Challenger, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.5, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 13.47
20 g - Bramling Cross, Type: Pellet, AA: 6.5, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 3.56


Mash is on.....
 
In the fermenting fridge, could on;y get the wort down to 32 deg, the fridge is working away doing the rest. Will pitch at 17.

1046 OG, so lost a fair amount of efficiency somewhere. Interestingly, only a 60 instead of a 90 min mash that I usually do. The maris otter was fairly old as well. Still, if it finishes at 1010, it will be a pleasing 4.7% ish.

Sample tastes really encouraging, lets see what the CML Californian yeast can do with this.
 
Well, this is interesting. It's took off, with the Inkbird keeping the temp between 16 & 17. It must have been fairly vigorous, as it blew the top of the airlock off, but I've put it back on. Predictably, it isn't bubbling now but I can see activity. I think this is the air lock; the top part is too firm a fit so pressure builds up and it pops off.

It looks to be a proper bottom fermenting yeat, which as I understand it, is correct for the style; I read somewhere that some of these supposed Cali common yeasts were top fermenting ale yeasts that just happened to be quite clean, which isn't what they would have used in the gold rush era; they would have been bottom fermenting lager yeasts that could tolerate the higher temps.

Either way, all the activity appears in the lower paer of the fv with just a bit of crud on tye top.

All very interesting.
 

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