My Brewdays

[Moe]

Blonde Ale: Experiment with no chill.

After my last debacle with the unintended no chill, I ordered a no chill cube from TMM.

It’s difficult to find a 4-6hour block to make a brew, so if I can find ways of splitting/reducing that time it means I can brew more regularly.

I’ve done 30m boils, and for me they mostly work well without any discernible reduction in beer quality to my taste.

Next up was to try no chill. I did this yesterday evening, for a total brew time of 2.5 hours.
I chose a recipe that I have brewed a few times before (roughly based on Vacant Gesture), but with different hops that I had to hand, it has only one boil hop addition so I am hoping that I can no chill this without it becoming overly bitter.

For 23L:

4kg Pale Malt
300g Wheat malt
80g Cara 25

20L mash water- 9L sparge water. Both treated with acid, campden & gypsum.

Mashed for 1 hour @66C.

I added 20g of Centennial as FWH, depending on how much the No chill method adds to the IBU, this should give between 20- 30 IBU according to Brewfather.

Boiled for 20 mins and added to the no chill cube.

OG was 1.044, so depending how low it drops I should have a 4.5%ish beer.

I will make a hop tea with 40-50g of CML Māori mingle and add when kegging, with the rest of the 100g pack added to the keg I’m a dry hop tube.

There was ~2L of wort left, so I have added it to a pan and added some left over yeast cake of Verdant that I have had in the fridge since 14th Dec, to see if it gets going.

Plan is to grab a sachet of US05 on the way home this evening. If the ad hoc Verdant starter has got going and doesn’t smell off I may pitch that, if not I’ll play it safe and pitch the US05.


Got home from work and already picked up on the first learning point: don’t leave the no chill cube in the garage- it’s dropped to 14C! I am waiting for it to warm up so I can pitch the yeast!

 

[Rwilts]

Blonde Ale: Experiment with no chill.

After my last debacle with the unintended no chill, I ordered a no chill cube from TMM.

It’s difficult to find a 4-6hour block to make a brew, so if I can find ways of splitting/reducing that time it means I can brew more regularly.

I’ve done 30m boils, and for me they mostly work well without any discernible reduction in beer quality to my taste.

Next up was to try no chill. I did this yesterday evening, for a total brew time of 2.5 hours.
I chose a recipe that I have brewed a few times before (roughly based on Vacant Gesture), but with different hops that I had to hand, it has only one boil hop addition so I am hoping that I can no chill this without it becoming overly bitter.

For 23L:

4kg Pale Malt
300g Wheat malt
80g Cara 25

20L mash water- 9L sparge water. Both treated with acid, campden & gypsum.

Mashed for 1 hour @66C.

I added 20g of Centennial as FWH, depending on how much the No chill method adds to the IBU, this should give between 20- 30 IBU according to Brewfather.

Boiled for 20 mins and added to the no chill cube.

OG was 1.044, so depending how low it drops I should have a 4.5%ish beer.

I will make a hop tea with 40-50g of CML Māori mingle and add when kegging, with the rest of the 100g pack added to the keg I’m a dry hop tube.

There was ~2L of wort left, so I have added it to a pan and added some left over yeast cake of Verdant that I have had in the fridge since 14th Dec, to see if it gets going.

Plan is to grab a sachet of US05 on the way home this evening. If the ad hoc Verdant starter has got going and doesn’t smell off I may pitch that, if not I’ll play it safe and pitch the US05.


Got home from work and already picked up on the first learning point: don’t leave the no chill cube in the garage- it’s dropped to 14C! I am waiting for it to warm up so I can pitch the yeast!

All my all grain batches have been no chill (20+) and funny enough I am determined to use one of my two chillers for the first time when I get back to brewing next month. Re the cube I normally try and let them cool a little in garage (until I am confident it's not going pop) then bring inside so that it's room temp (20 ish) by the morning

 

[Moe]

All my all grain batches have been no chill (20+) and funny enough I am determined to use one of my two chillers for the first time when I get back to brewing next month. Re the cube I normally try and let them cool a little in garage (until I am confident it's not going pop) then bring inside so that it's room temp (20 ish) by the morning

That’s a good shout, thanks. I’ll do that next time

How do you add your late hop additions to your no chilled batches? Am I on the right lines with a hop tea?

 

[Rwilts]

Did a lot of reading early on about adjusting hop schedule to adjust for no chill, printed off a chart. I don't make any adjustments from the standard recipe . I have been very satisfied and never felt the need ..BUT I have done a bit of first wort hopping and that was interesting.

So in short I don't know , it will be interesting if I do manage to chill a brew down on the day and to see if the resulting beer tastes any different.

 

[Moe]

Wort finally reached 18c so I have pitched the yeast.

The 3 month old Verdant slurry “starter”looked like this when I checked it (24 hours since making it up) and smelled fine so I have pitched that.

We’ll see what happens

 

[Moe]

I wouldn’t normally test a beer this soon, but I was keen to see if the yeast was any good.

It has dropped to 1.016 ( ~45 hrs after pitching) and tasted fine-no sourness or off flavours at all. In fact it tasted fairly decent.

So keeping the trub in the fridge for three months and re using seems to have worked out okay

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I wouldn’t normally test a beer this soon

Honestly - as soon as it’s in the FV I’ll give it a taste (but spit it out) :-)

 

[Moe]

kegged the no chill beer.

It held steady at 1.014 for a couple of days, so I added a hop tea made with 50g of CML Māori mingle and put the “spent” hops in as a dry hop for good measure.

It dropped to 1.010 after this so I put it in a keg with some gelatine.

Going to leave it until next week to try.

Put my next batch on. I wanted something along the lines of a British golden ale, but using ingredients I had in.

Settled on:
23l batch;

60m mash:
4.2kg pale ale malt
250g wheat malt.

30 min boil:

20g El dorado @30
20g EKG @5
20g EKG@0
30g EKG for a 20m hop stand.

Will dry hop with the remaining 30g EGK

Ferment at 19C with US05


OG was 1.044 and IBU predicted at 32.

I chilled this one as I’ve not tried the no chill beer from last week yet.

Not 100% true to style, I bittered with the el dorado as I wanted to save the EKG for late additions, I had US05 in the fridge and I think a bit of wheat brings a lot to the table in a pale ale.

 

[Moe]

Brewed the CML oatmeal stout last night.

Started getting the gear out at 6pm, did a 60mash and a 60 minute boil and pitched the yeast at 10pm.

I clean as I go so only had the Brewzilla to rinse and clean afterwards so was all done by about 10-20.

Recipe OG was 1.062, I managed 1.057.

I’ve dialled in my efficiency with 4-5kg malt bills quite well and I’m quite consistent, but this was a 6.3kg grain bill and my efficiency in the BZ has always tanked with bigger malt bills, so I was happy with only being 5 points shy.

Should be in the region of 5.5%

Came back from work and it was bubbling nicely.

 

[Moe]

The stout is down to 1.014 and has been for 2 consecutive readings. So 5.6% in the end.

I’ve turned the fridge down for a cold crash.

I had a taste of the trial jar, it’s really good, can’t wait for a pint or 5 in a couple of weeks

 

[Moe]

stout was nice and chilled, I’ve dropped it into the keg (+a few bottles) this eve.

I know it will be better for a few weeks conditioning but I’ll probably start “sampling” it in a few days

 

[Moe]

The stout has come out absolutely lovely

 

[Moe]

First brew since May: El Dorado Smash

23L batch
21L (ish) mash water & 8L sparge water. Both treated with acid, campden and gypsum.

5kg Crisp ale malt, mashed at 66 for 60min

30 min boil:
12g El Dorado FWH
18g El Dorado @10min
30g El Dorado hop stand @80C for 20min

50g El dorado to be added as a dry hop.

Set to ferment @20C with a sachet of CML Atlantic

Brewfather predicts for a 70% BHE:
1.048 OG
9.7 EBC
26 IBU
1.009 FG
5.1% ABV

Brewday went really well. I started getting the gear out at 9.20 am, pitched the yeast at 1pm, and cleaned up by 1.20pm.

I used the top plate on the Brewzilla to compress the grains a little before the sparge to slowed it down.

Other than a bit of confusion over the pre and post boil gravity, which was fixed by adding the last litre of mash runnings, I hit the vol & OG dead on.

I’m really hoping this comes out well, dry January has dragged.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

First brew since May: El Dorado Smash

I can relate to that... I'm such an infrequent brewer. I love it when I do it though :-)

 

[Moe]

Filled the BZ, added the acid and salts and set the timer.

Plan is to wake up at 7ish and dough in the American Amber Ale

Hopefully I’ll be done and dusted by lunch

 

[Twostage]

View attachment 95390
Filled the BZ, added the acid and salts and set the timer.

Plan is to wake up at 7ish and dough in the American Amber Ale

Hopefully I’ll be done and dusted by lunch

Hadn't thought about plugging the BZ into an alexa enabled plug. Would save going across the road to switch it on first thing in the morning to see how the no-chill is going. I've got a spare one (now its not turning all the Christmas tree lights on and off).

 

[Moe]

The Kraken American Amber Ale

Just brewed this. It’s a kit from THBC

The instruction sheet keeps the recipe a bit of a secret, you get the grains and hops, but not the quantities, or IBU:


Grain: Pale malt, 2 Types of Crystal Malt, Munich
Hops: Nugget, Simcoe, Centennial (Dry hopped)

Original Gravity 1.051.
Finishing Gravity 1.012. Alcohol 5.1%

Based on a 72% efficiency.

Wort volume for boil =27lt

I ended up doing a 90minute mash as I was kegging last weeks beer.

Boiled for an hour, the hops come labelled with 60, 10 and 0 minute additions, as well a bag for the dry hop.

I ended up with an OG of 1.046.

I pitched about 2/3 pint of the CML Atlantic slurry from last weeks brew and set to ferment at 20C.

The smash from last week finished at 1.010 making it 5%.

A bit early, but I wanted my fermentor free for today’s brew.I bottled 8 500ml bottles, and ended up with about 80% of a keg.

I’ve added 50g of El Dorado to the keg in a dry hop cylinder. I’ll leave it until next weekend to hopefully condition a bit and settle. I’ll add finings next week if it needs it.

 

[Moe]

Poured a small glass out of the smash to check on the carbonation.

It looked like soup so I’ve added some gelatine.

 

[Moe]

The Kraken Amber ale has fermented down to 1.012.

The sample is really clear and it tastes amazing.

I’m going to leave it a while longer to finish off and hopefully get it kegged early next week ready to drink the weekend after next

 

[Moe]

Kraken amber ale is kegged, set at 12psi so should be good to drink in a week or so. Fermented down to 1.010 which makes it 4.7%.

It looked really clear coming out of the fermenter. I also bottled 6 x 500ml bottles of it, and it was still coming out of the fermenter so I ended up putting the last 800ml/1L into a 2L pop bottle. I’ll hit that with 40PSI and shake it this evening and have an early sample.

I may squeeze in a brewday tomorrow, I am undecided on another pale ale, a stout or a bitter.

For the first time in about a year I have two beers on tap in my beer fridge