Nicks90's Brewdays

[Nicks90]

AG number 91 bottle up - so lets get AG92 underway

AG 92
Best Bitter (millionth iteration)

I love a good English bitter, and I have done probably 30-40 such versions in my AG 'career', so why not add another? This one is fairly similar to some of my earlier ones, heavy on the crystal and higher mash temps to give a big body feel to them.

3.5kg Maris Otter
300gm crystal 145EBC
50g carafa3 for colour

18l mash at 69C for 90mins, and a 5l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 21l wort for a 60 minute boil and 17l in the FV

Hops
25gm Progress @ 60min
25gm EKG@ 5min

hit my numbers exactly, with an OG of 1.045 and 17l
Yeast
Good old Notty!
expecting 30IBUs, 4.5% abv and colour 14SRM for what I hope will be a pleasant amber ale.

 

[Nicks90]

doubling down on this weekends brew!

AG 93
3C's big bold American IPA

Nothing beats Chinook, Centennial and Cascasde - so lets stick them all in together and do a classic 3C IPA

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 145EBC
100gmoats

20l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 5l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
At this point, brew 2 rears its head and i steal 5l of the wort.......
Leaving 18l wort for a 60 minute boil and 14l in the FV

Hops
40gmChinook at 5min
40gm Cascade at 5min
40gm Centennial at 5min

Expect an OG of 1.043 and 14l
Yeast
Mangrove Jacks West Coast M44
expecting 50IBUs, 4.5% abv and colour 7SRM. If this isnt a fruity little number, I am giving up!

 

[Nicks90]

AG 94
Rochefort 8 trappiste

I treated myself to a bottle of this the other weekend when i was home alone and decided to decant it carefully so i could keep the yeast. On another thread someone confirmed it is a bottling yeast, but its the same yeast thats used for the main fermentation, so all was good. I've never brought on a yeast from a bottle before, and always had a mind to do a small brew - so i very simply topped the bottle up with some boiled wort from AG92 and left it. This resulted in a good finger width of what appears to be healthy yeast at the bottom of the bottle. Game on!
As i stole essentially a quarter of the wort from AG93, some of the figures are approx from that brew, with the rest measured up specifically for this one

1kg Maris Otter (ag93)
25gm crystal 145EBC (ag93)
25gm oats (ag93)
40gm carafa3 in a cold steep overnight
150gm dark candy belgian sugar

ignore the mash, as that was done at the ag93 stage...
So 5l of wort for a 60 minute very gentle boil on the stove and 4.5l in the FV

Hops
10gm hallertau tradition @30min
10gm hallertau tradition @5min

its currently sat cooling, but hoping for an OG of 1.065 and expecting 30IBUs, 7% abv and colour 25SRM.
This wont be massively simillar to a rochefort 8 - as i didnt add any special B, or coriander seed - and the alcohol content isnt high enough. But I am hoping it will still be a good 'trappiste style' dark beer

 

[Nicks90]

Efficency seems to have been sky high today.
My trappist beer is at 1.075, a whole 10 points up.... And the ipa has back liquored to 1.045 and now has 16l

Not complaining...

 

[Nicks90]

Trappiste yeast failure!!!!!
3 days in and zero activity from the Belgian beer. Shining a string light through it and zero evidence of any bubbles or any activity anywhere. Very Dissapointed

So to rescue the brew - I know it's only 5l, but it was a ballache juggling this on the stove whilst doing the regular brew - I've top cropped the m44 yeast from my ipa and dosed it with that.
Yeah I know an American West Coast yeast is about as far from a Belgian trappiste yeast as it gets! But it's all I have on hand and I am not losing the brew!!!!! It will be beer.

 

[moto748]

doubling down on this weekends brew!

AG 93
3C's big bold American IPA

Nothing beats Chinook, Centennial and Cascasde - so lets stick them all in together and do a classic 3C IPA

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 145EBC
100gmoats

20l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 5l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
At this point, brew 2 rears its head and i steal 5l of the wort.......
Leaving 18l wort for a 60 minute boil and 14l in the FV

Hops
40gmChinook at 5min
40gm Cascade at 5min
40gm Centennial at 5min

Expect an OG of 1.043 and 14l
Yeast
Mangrove Jacks West Coast M44
expecting 50IBUs, 4.5% abv and colour 7SRM. If this isnt a fruity little number, I am giving up!

Is that as typo? You said an hour's boil, but not all at 5 mins, surely?

 

[Nicks90]

@moto748
No typo, all in at 5 mins.

I have added 120gm of high AA hops, so I have gained all the ibu's I need from that single hop addition. However it is a risky strategy. The ibu difference between 5min and 7 min was about another 20ibu and therefore you have to time it right. Then there is the time it takes to cool the wort below 80c where the hops stop adding bitterness.
I cheated and lifted the hops as soon as my timer went off for 5 mins and then waiting till the cooler got things to 70c and added the hop bag back in to release as much flavour as possible.

 

[moto748]

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

I don't think it's a technique I'd be brave enough to try!

 

[matt76]

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

I don't think it's a technique I'd be brave enough to try!

@moto748 so called "late hopping" or "hop busting" like this really isn't all that radical these days so don't be shy about giving it a whirl...

My house IPA gets is first hops with just 20 mins left in the boil, and that was my 5th ever batch...

And I made a version of it recently (on tap now actually) where the hops didn't go in until 5 mins...

There's a Basic Brewing video on YouTube where he didn't add any hops until the whirlpool.

For me the big question is whether there's actually some benefit to having at least a small bittering addition in the boil, but that's probably a question of personal taste and experimentation as much as anything else

 

[Nicks90]

@matt76 there is a difference in how the bitterness is perceived between all late and some early on hop addition. It's 'rounder' if added earlier. But I think this is definitely more important in an English ale where it makes a significant part of the flavour profile.
In a super hoppy ipa, that subtlety just gets lost in the hops! The high ibu in most hop forward ipas doesn't need or require to be smooth, like you would get from 10gm of progress at 60min.

 

[Nicks90]

Belgian beer is going great guns now.
Have to get that airloack cleaned out tomorrow

 

[Nicks90]

AG 92
Best Bitter (millionth iteration) early taste test.

Nomnomnom
Really malty and the crystal really sets it off. You even get a bit of the carafa even though it's such a small amount. Plus progress hops give a really lovely smooth bitterness and flavour profile. And obviously a good dose of ekg to round it off. Much happiness

And yes it really is that crystal clear already. Grain to glass in 18 days and sparkling bright. Good old notty yeast.

 

[Nicks90]

AG 95
Cascade Saison

Saison stocks are running low - as is the amount of Hallertau hops in the freezer, so doing a bit of an IPA type saison this time.

3kg Maris Otter

20l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 5l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 23l wort for a 60 minute boil and 19l in the FV

Hops
25gm Hallertau at 60min
20gm Cascade at 5min

bang on with an OG of 1.040 and 18.5l
Yeast
lallemand belle saison
expecting 25IBUs, 4.3% abv and colour 4SRM. Interesting to see how the cascade hops plays with the saison yeast. Hoping it will be a nice fruity zingy number!

 

[Nicks90]

AG 96
EKG a go-go

I love a good English ale made with EKG and i discovered 75gm of it hiding in the back of the freezer. Be rude not to use it up! Decided at the very last minute to add a small chocolate malt addition just for colour and to give it a little background taste. not entirely sure it will work with ekg, but hey - nothing ventured nothing gained!

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 145ebc
15gm chocolate malt for colour

20l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 22l wort for a 60 minute boil and 18l in the FV

Hops
25gm EKG at 60min
50gm EKG at 5min

bang on with an OG of 1.045 and 18l
Yeast
mangrove jacks M36 liberty bell. not my usual english ale yeast, but its what i had to hand
expecting 28IBUs, 4.1% abv and colour 9SRM.

if its blurgh, it'll still get drunk

 

[Nicks90]

had a very early tester of the big 3C IPA that i bottled last weekend (scientific purposes you understand)
WOW, that carb'd up quick! Whilst its still very young, the hop profile is absolutely in your face. So much so I went out and did a copy of it today so i can get another 15 liters down! hahahaha

AG 97
3C's big bold American IPA - even bolder

as per AG93 - but this time upping the hops to 60gm of each and making it more alcoholic!

4.0kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 145EBC
100gmoats

20l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
50gmChinook at 5min
50gm Cascade at 5min
50gm Centennial at 5min

spot on with an OG of 1.060 and 15l
Yeast
Mangrove Jacks West Coast M44 recovered from AG93
expecting 60IBUs, 5.5% abv and colour 7SRM. Expecting this to be a real smasher! This smells fantastic already as raw wort. nomnomnomnom


interestingly AG94 my saison from 2 weeks ago is still showing signs of activity. this is unusual as bell saison would normally munch its way through whatever is put in front of it in about 5 minutes......

 

[Nicks90]

AG 98
Admiral Saison

Sod it, day 3 and brew 3! whilst i wasnt sure if the saison from ag95 was fully finished, it was finished enough according to the hydrometer so it got bottled. slightly lighter sugar added for carbonation in case it does something like carry on fermenting another point or two. better to be safe than sorry!

2.5kg Maris Otter

18l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 3l jug sparge
Leaving 19l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV

Hops
10gm admiral at 30min
10gm Admiral at 5min

bang on with an OG of 1.045 and 16l
Yeast
dumped it straight on to the yeast cake of AG95 - so LOTS of lallemand belle saison
expecting 25IBUs, 4.8% abv and colour 4SRM. Admiral isnt a traditional saison hop by a long way, but i think its a good bittering hop and general purpose piney flavour for late additions and should match the pepperyness of the saison yeast for a decent end result.

 

[Nicks90]

AG 99
Spring Time Ale

Spring is upon us and its time to brew up a nice ale for quenching my thirst after a hards days work in the garden. Also using up the last of my stocks, so its what i had left......

3.5kg Maris Otter
200gm crystal 145ebc

20l mash at 65C for 90mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 21l wort for a 60 minute boil and 17l in the FV. Liquored back to 20l

Hops
10gm admiral @30min
20gm admiral @5min
30gm pilgrim @5min

bang on with an OG of 1.041 and 20l
Yeast
mangrove jacks M36 liberty bell rescued from ag96
expecting 32IBUs, 4.0% abv and colour 7SRM.

Need to think of something special for my next HB order - as it will be my 100th all grain brew!!!

 

[Nicks90]

Talking of ag96, tester pint!
Tastes pretty good actually. Impressed with the level of carb'ing too, just north of flat and a long way south of fizzy!
Definitely think this will be a good pint given another 4 weeks to condition.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

For brew no.100 it’s got to be something special - what about a Porter?

 

[Nicks90]

AG 100
Its a Dubbel

Wow, 100 AG brews - who would have thought this hobby would have brought me such happiness and joy over the past 4 years and given me the oppotunity to take part in manufacturing, organic chemical engineering and energy conversion to solid state mass. Otherwise know as making batch brews, getting pissed and gaining a beer belly! So for this milestone brew I have gone to town and researched many different Dubbel recipes and tweaked and played until I have something that I feel will deliver a nice belgian beer that suits my taste buds. Its not a complete classic recipe and some may even frown, but I hope it will be a good one.

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm Melanaoidin malt
200gm Special X
30gm black patent
250gm belgian candi (dark)

I have used Melanoidin malt in substitution for munich malt, as both give the same bready malt forward tasting notes, but i dont have any use for munich in my other planned brews, but will be using the melanoidin in a wheat beer, so made sense to substitute. Hopefully its a successfull experiment.
And the special X is just bestmaltz version of special B, so no issues there.

20l mash at 68C for 90mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV.

Hops
20gm hallertau mittelfruh @60min
20gm hallertau mittelfruh @20min
10gm hallertau mittelfruh @10min

I am hoping for and OG of 1.060 and 25ibu and 27srm. Should come out a fruity 6.2%
Yeast
Mangrove Jacks Yeast - M41 - Belgian Ale Yeast