New Year - Slid Brewday

[Slid]

Another Golden Ale today:

Maris Otter 4.6kg
Vienna Malt 300g

Hop-wise I picked up some English hops including Olicana and Sovereign at £2 from Worcester Hop Shop and was intending to use those today, but finished the open bags from the freezer instead, so:

Chinook 20g @ First Wort and the rest (~10g) at Flame out
EKG 20/20 and the rest ~30g @ 15m / 5m / Flame out

Re-used US05 yeast.

 

[Slid]

OK, so, I did the Olicana and Sovereign two weeks ago. Here is the recipe:

Maris Otter 4.4kg
Caragold 200g
Wheat Malt 200g

Bittering with Tomahawk @ 15.9% 10g @ FW (yes, this is not going to be bitter!)
Olicana (7.34%) and Sovereign (4.94%) 15g each - at each of 15, 5 and 0 mins.
I racked this over today to secondary and was pleased with its colour.

Yesterday's brew was a Greg Hughes Dry Stout, everyone on here must know this recipe, surely, except that I just used the Tomahawk bittering hop at First Wort. Both the above beers were done with re-used US 05.
As regards the Stout, #2 daughter ended up (after young person stuff with a jilted ex-boyfriend) with 15 cans of Black Fruit Cider, which is very sweet and berry-ish, in an over-the-top way and may go well with a Stout.

I have experimented and the best mix is maybe only 15-25% of the cider to the dark beer, such is the overpowering nature of the berry cider.

 

[Slid]

Hmm, not posted anything here for ages. Main reason is that I have done nothing particularly new, interesting or even different for months. Golden Ale, a Weissbier, Orkney Dark, Old Peculier clones, Patersbeer and Tripel with M31, all done before.
The Grainfather has cut out around 80C on the way up to boil for years now and I have developed a rather tedious methodology for using BIAB bag and Peco Boiler (the HBC kit) to work around this. I do the mash and sparge in the GF and use the Peco Boiler for the sparge water. After sparging, I jug the wort into the Peco via a BIAB bag, which filters out a lot of little bits of grain - between a ping-pong ball and a tennis ball sized lump. Then after boiling in the Peco, jug it back into the GF to cool and put in the FV as per any normal A-i-One system.

During this palaver, SWMBO asks "why don't you just get a new one? How much are they anyway". A quick search showed Lovebrewing @ £675. I dunno if this is the latest version or not of the G30, but I don't have an i-phone, (on principle - that principle being that everyone I know with one, lives via this interface onto reality) so not too fussed about the tech stuff. I did think about a cheaper alternative, and did minimal research, but WTH and SWMBO completed the purchase whilst I was messing around with the cleaning up.

For what its worth this was today's beer, the Orkney Dark Island Clone grain bill:

Maris Otter 3,980g
Wheat 250g
Crystal 280g
Chocolate 180g

CTZ hops to bitter and NZ Cascade 20g @ 15m and 35 @ 2mins. The old workhorse, US 05 for the yeast. Got 27L of wort and 80% efficiency.

SWMBO expects me to take the old one to the tip. If the new one works OK, anyone interested in collecting from BL1 could save me a job, if they would have any use for a partially functional unit. It heats water, mashes OK, does the cooling with a Counterflow chiller and cuts out at circa 80C. A sparky could by-pass the safety cut-off, but that is far too risky for me to even think about.

 

[Slid]

The New GF unit arrived during the week and I did a US Stout (8% Crystal, 8% Black Malt, 84% Maris Otter) using Simcoe and Summitt hops with US 05.
This went smoothly and without having to transfer the wort around.

The younger daughter's new-ish BF was shadowing me to find out more and confirmed afterwards that he would like to take the old, partially functioning unit away with him. So that, as they say, is that. He showed me some Pic's on his phone of a German colleague who has a brewing system that is bafflingly hi-tech looking and makes an All-in-One system look like a leaky pot on a camp fire.

I'm going to try and look after the new one better than the first (186 brews - £3.25 a pop).

 

[Slid]

OK, so done a couple of beers on the new GF and it saves at least an hour not transferring wort to the Peco Boiler to boil and then back to the GF to do the chilling. However, the fact that any malt or hop bits get captured in the transfer (via a BIAB bag) meant that less wort was lost overall (surprisingly).
Anyway the beers were just the same as done before - including a Raspberry Wheat, for instance. But today I finally got around to brewing an Irish Red Ale from the GH book. As an experiment I also did a 30 mins boil instead of the usual 60. Wort seemed very clear, but perhaps all the gunk just got tipped down the sink instead of into the FV.
The recipe:
X-Pale Maris Otter 4.7kg
Flaked Barley 300g
Crystal 225g
Roast Barley 55g

Simcoe to Bitter (to use up a long open bag) and 30g Fuggles at flame out (or switch off) and US05 (thought about S33 but it was quite warm today!)

 

[Slid]

The 30 minute boils have gone pretty well, although the beers are not really any different to all the other stuff already on this sparingly interesting thread.
Did two things different today - first was going back to a 60 min boil for a Stout. The malt bill was:

Maris Otter 4kg
Dark Munich 1kg
Crystal (pretty dark) 500g
Black Malt 122g (would have been 500g, but may have done the last WHS order slightly p*****d)
Roast Barley 378g
Spray Malt Wheat 400g and Cane Sugar 500g (to make for a strong-ish beer for Winter).

Zeus 15.2% - 27g @ FW
Fuggles 37g @ 15mins - they had been knocking around in the freezer for a bit.

US05 re-used.

Second difference was - I finally got fed up trying to get the seals on the second GF to stop "sticking" about half an inch from the bottom of the Malt Pipe and parting company with the perimeter of the bottom mesh plate and just did without. (Insert profanity of choice liberally throughout the preceding sentence.) Made no actual difference leaving the seal out! That saves 5-10 mins off the brewday!

Then forgot the whirlpool again and had to "handball" the last of the wort transfer to FV. Other than that, all went well.

 

[Slid]

OK, so done a couple of beers on the new GF and it saves at least an hour not transferring wort to the Peco Boiler to boil and then back to the GF to do the chilling. However, the fact that any malt or hop bits get captured in the transfer (via a BIAB bag) meant that less wort was lost overall (surprisingly).
Anyway the beers were just the same as done before - including a Raspberry Wheat, for instance. But today I finally got around to brewing an Irish Red Ale from the GH book. As an experiment I also did a 30 mins boil instead of the usual 60. Wort seemed very clear, but perhaps all the gunk just got tipped down the sink instead of into the FV.
The recipe:
X-Pale Maris Otter 4.7kg
Flaked Barley 300g
Crystal 225g
Roast Barley 55g

Simcoe to Bitter (to use up a long open bag) and 30g Fuggles at flame out (or switch off) and US05 (thought about S33 but it was quite warm today!)

This Irish Red Ale is an OK beer, but a little bland. Would not do another.

 

[Slid]

As it is now Autumn, I did a London Porter today, again left the seal off the bottom plate on the Malt pipe of the GF, as after one failed attempt, I just got fed up with the experience. Todays mash went a bit pear shaped with a load of foam and wort going down the middle and out the side holes for the handle etc.
Oddly, the sparge went OK and got 80% BH efficiency! So:

Maris Otter 4.59 kg
Brown Malt 693g
Light Choc Malt 150g
Black Malt 200g
Crystal 30 500g

Used some Mandarina Bavaria Pellets - 35g @ FW and 15g @ 15m and a 250ml bottle of re-used US05 trub.

This was going to be the GW malt bill, but the Brown Malt I made on Thursday (by roasting whole MO grain) looked a little Amber-ish, so I bunged in some Black Malt instead of crystal, and so on, as you do. The hops were, just so 2018, so WTH, it's not exactly a hop forward beer.
Even remembered the whirlpool today, eventually, and all went well in the end.

 

[Slid]

Now seems time to write up the Cascade ****-Up Ale that was bottled over the weekend.
It started out as being a Smash beer, with a bit of a bittering hop to save some of the Cascade for later, but here is the recipe and the tale of woe.

Maris Otter 5kg
Zeus 17g @ 35m (this was the Boil time, supposedly)
Cascade 20/20/60g @ 15/5/0mins.

All seemed OK, with the short boil, and even remembered the whirlpool this time, except that it must have been a tad energetic, as the hop filter on the GF fell off and it blocked the pump with a load of hops.

As an experienced dealer with set backs I was initially un-phased by this and just transferred the wort back into the Peco Boiler that is used to heat the sparge water. Unfortunately I just could not un-block the pump and so it was a very long time before I eventually unblocked it.

In the meantime, the hops had been in contact with the hot water for ages, i had decided to "No Chill" the wort once it had been finally separated from the hops and in desperation I had added Voss Kweik at 45C or something. After 2 wks the wort was at 1.016, as the temps had dropped pretty quickly. So racked and added some US05 re-used trub yeast. After another 2 weeks it was down to usual bottling gravity, but tastes mouth puckeringly bitter.

So, it is now in 2x 5l Demijohns and the rest in bottles.
May be a long wait!

 

[Slid]

Last two beers chez Slid have been a Patersbeer (Greg Hughes) using an Abbey beer yeast and then re-using some of the trub yeast today in this Dubbel sot of a beer:

Maris Otter 5.1kg
Amber 500g
Special B 400g

Zeus 13g @ First Wort
Hallertauer Hersbrucker 37g @ 15m

Both went well, good efficiencies and few snags.

Last week I followed my first Grainfather up to its new home, to where the BF of #2 daughter was staying. First brew on the old machine since the said BF fixed the cut-out issue. He likes a dark beer. so I took up the ingredients for a Stout, Pale, Crystal and Black malt and Brambling Cross and US05.
Despite some comedy with attaching the chiller to a tap, it went pretty well and I think the lad may be hooked.

You know the saying - give a man a couple of beers, he drinks for a day, teach him to brew and he drinks himself to death...

 

[Slid]

Had a strange one recently with a Belgian Blonde I brewed on Wed 21st Dec. The heat probe fell out at some point during the mashing in process and as I was finishing off stirring the mash I noticed that the temp displayed kept dropping. Anyway, after much panic and faffing about - raising the grain basket, adding cold water etc etc - the temp had gone up beyond 70C.
I pressed on and once I had finished, ordered some amylase. As it was nearly Xmas, I paid extra for next day delivery. As it turned out, it arrived a week later.

Had left it alone in the meantime and had a pleasant surprise when I dropped the hydrometer in, Amylase bottle in hand. 1.005 or something. Very much the sort of attenuation I have been getting since brewing a few Saisons earlier in the year.

There have been a number of posts recently about overheated mashes - maybe my experience suggests that as long as the doughing in process is at the correct temp (65C) and takes a good 15-20 mins, it should be fine if the temp creeps up later...

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

Had a strange one recently with a Belgian Blonde I brewed on Wed 21st Dec. The heat probe fell out at some point during the mashing in process and as I was finishing off stirring the mash I noticed that the temp displayed kept dropping. Anyway, after much panic and faffing about - raising the grain basket, adding cold water etc etc - the temp had gone up beyond 70C.
I pressed on and once I had finished, ordered some amylase. As it was nearly Xmas, I paid extra for next day delivery. As it turned out, it arrived a week later.

Had left it alone in the meantime and had a pleasant surprise when I dropped the hydrometer in, Amylase bottle in hand. 1.005 or something. Very much the sort of attenuation I have been getting since brewing a few Saisons earlier in the year.

There have been a number of posts recently about overheated mashes - maybe my experience suggests that as long as the doughing in process is at the correct temp (65C) and takes a good 15-20 mins, it should be fine if the temp creeps up later...

OK, you had a strange one with a Belgian Blonde

But have you been brewing any beer since you met them (just explaining non-gender specific - non binary)

 

[Slid]

OK, you had a strange one with a Belgian Blonde

But have you been brewing any beer since you met them (just explaining non-gender specific - non binary)

Belgian Blondes brewed 1, Belgian Blonde's met 0, I'm afraid, OB!

 

[Slid]

I see it is now over a year and a half since I mentioned a single brew. I have certainly brewed quite a number in the interim, but the same basic set of brews:

• Belgian, starting Patersbier, then re-using yeast for a Dubble, a Tripel, maybe a Leffe Bruin Clone, etc
• Saison, using BE134 or Belle Saison, again re-using yeast for variants including Rhubarb or Honey and so forth
• US Pales, fairly low hopping rates and maybe the odd US stout, all using (and re-using) US05. Am not a big fan of over-hopped beers.
• English style bitters, porters etc, maybe from BYOBRA or the Marc Ollosson book
• The odd wheat beer or two, adding raspberries for a novelty.

Today's beer was an Orkney Dark Island inspired effort using MO, Chocolate and Crystal, Columbus for bittering and Sovereign as a later addition.
So, basically no real change to the brewing styles, but I have changed my brewing methods on the Grainfather (and the model of machine as well). Main changes are:

• 35 minute boil, mainly in response to rising energy costs, rather than brewing "fashion".
• Rarely doing a grain bill over 5kg.
• Routinely adding cane sugar to most brews. This is done by putting sugar in a large pot (Wilko 15L) then at the end of the sparge, moving the grainbasket onto the top of the pot to collect wort and sparging another 1L of water at 75C. This gives a litre or two of "bonus" wort (obviously lower gravity, maybe up to 1020) in which the sugar will dissolve on heating to boiling point. This is then added to the main wort later.
• Using a BIAB bad to strain the wort post boil into the sparge water vessel (a Peco boiler) after squeezing the bag (using very thick waterproof PPE gloves). This involves two transfers using a jug, between the GF and Peco Boiler. This drops the temp to around 85C and takes a few minutes (not one to rush, too hot!). Main purpose is to strain out the hop and grain trub that can really mess up the counterflow chiller. This greatly reduces wort losses and also reduces the amount of water used by the CF Chiller, as there are no real changes in the flow of wort due to partial blockages.

Since introducing the last "steps" above, I have got efficiencies well into the 80's percentage-wise, 84% for the last four brews, up from 75-78% previously. Not suggesting that any of this is likely to be widely adopted, but could potentially represent useful suggestions.

 

[Slid]

Still little more to add to the above, to be honest.
Here was yesterday's beer:

Maris Otter 4.1kg
Dark Crystal 0.4kg
Sugar 0.5kg

Rakua Hops 25g at each of FW and 15mins
T-58 re-used.

Nice, boring and uneventful brew-day. The hops cost me £1 as they are 2020 harvest. Probably less aroma than chewed up paper, but I prefer malt forward to hop forward beers and am currently favoring Belgian styles, hence the T-58, which sort of might be Belgian, might be an English interpretation Belgian. Bit like Hercule Poirot.

 

[Slid]

The most recent grain bag I got (WHS) seems to be a rather fine crush and both the mash and sparge were a bit problematic. Should have used rice hulls, but being wise after the event rather seems to define human existence.
Anyway, today's brew was a Saison, with a very straightforward grain bill:

4.5kg Pale Malt
0.5kg Vienna malt
0.5kg Cane Sugar

The mash was one of those where the the flow through the grain was so slow that the pump picked up more air than wort, so much foam on the top and some angst from the brewer. Did not do the usual stir of the grain at 30 mins, because the grain was too deep in water/wort. So 30 more mins into the mash, up the temps go to 75C for the "mash-out". Temps at the bottom of the GF go up, then down and basically consistent with low amounts of wort below the grain basket.

On to the sparge - which took around 100-110 mins. The flow through the grain pipe was so slow that I resorted to adding around 1/2 litre of water and stirring the grain after each addition, trying not to repeat the "worst ever disaster" which is briefly described on another thread. Eventually, got to a point where I could get on with the boil, so, as the book (well one book anyway) says that Saison shows Citrus notes and I got a1kg bag of Citra pellets for Xmas 2023:
10g Simcoe @ FW
30g Citra @ 5mins

Very tedious brewday, though when I shove the numbers into BrewMate, I get insane efficiencies - 85 or 86%, after months of normal 75-80%, with nice, easy mash / sparge experiences.

Looking forward to doing some different Saisons in the coming weeks - Special B, Carapils, etc additions.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

The most recent grain bag I got (WHS) seems to be a rather fine crush and both the mash and sparge were a bit problematic. Should have used rice hulls, but being wise after the event rather seems to define human existence.
Anyway, today's brew was a Saison, with a very straightforward grain bill:

4.5kg Pale Malt
0.5kg Vienna malt
0.5kg Cane Sugar

The mash was one of those where the the flow through the grain was so slow that the pump picked up more air than wort, so much foam on the top and some angst from the brewer. Did not do the usual stir of the grain at 30 mins, because the grain was too deep in water/wort. So 30 more mins into the mash, up the temps go to 75C for the "mash-out". Temps at the bottom of the GF go up, then down and basically consistent with low amounts of wort below the grain basket.

On to the sparge - which took around 100-110 mins. The flow through the grain pipe was so slow that I resorted to adding around 1/2 litre of water and stirring the grain after each addition, trying not to repeat the "worst ever disaster" which is briefly described on another thread. Eventually, got to a point where I could get on with the boil, so, as the book (well one book anyway) says that Saison shows Citrus notes and I got a1kg bag of Citra pellets for Xmas 2023:
10g Simcoe @ FW
30g Citra @ 5mins

Very tedious brewday, though when I shove the numbers into BrewMate, I get insane efficiencies - 85 or 86%, after months of normal 75-80%, with nice, easy mash / sparge experiences.

Looking forward to doing some different Saisons in the coming weeks - Special B, Carapils, etc additions.

I have a recipe for a dark saison if you are interested in having a look? It's in the dark recesses of my brew thread and I'd have to dig it out.