Nicks90's Brewdays

[Cheshire Cat]

AG 103
Summer Lightning IPA

Taking a slightly different slant on a summer lightning ale clone - and substituting american hops - so a tangy hoppy pale ale for the upcoming summer evenings in the garden.

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm crystal 145ebc

20l mash at 65c for 60mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV. Back liquored to 19l for a more sessionable ale.

Hops
10gm Centennial @30min
10gm Amarillo @30min
20gm Centennial @10min
20gm Amarillo @10min
20gm Centennial dryhop @5 days
20gm Amarillo dryhop @5 days

Yeast
verdunt ipa yeast

Brew day went perfectly.
Hit my numbers exactly - OG of 1.042, should give me a final beer with 40IBU, 4% abv and a pale 7SRM

No blasphemy Summer Lightning is a wonderful English bitter that cannot be contaminated with foreign hops and yeast. It’s like calling Prosecco, Champagne

 

[Nicks90]

No blasphemy Summer Lightning is a wonderful English bitter that cannot be contaminated with foreign hops and yeast. It’s like calling Prosecco, Champagne

Alright then, its a session ipa to be drunk in summer, when there might be lightning.

Better?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Alright then, its a session ipa to be drunk in summer, when there might be lightning.

Better?

 

[Nicks90]

Ag102 Yorkshire mild first taste test.
Oh yes, this hits the spot exactly! As my first ever mild I am very impressed, OK I don't have a pint from my local circa 1991 to compare it against, but it's lovely.
I doubt this will be around for long...

 

[Nicks90]

A week later and the mild has really hit its stride. What a lovely drop of beer.
The search is on for a couple more mild recipes from yester-year for my next hbs order.

 

[Nicks90]

AG 104
Proper Summer SMASH

IT'S SUMMERRRRRRRR! Lets get a really traditional English summer beer on the go. Cant beat a fuggles smash. Keep it simple, keep it clean and consume slightly chilled with a BBQ.

3.5kg Maris Otter

20l mash at 67c for 60mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV. Back liquored to 19l for a more sessionable ale.

Hops
20gm fuggles @60min
30gm fuggles @15min

Yeast
Safale US-05 for a super clean style

Brew day went perfectly.
Hit my numbers exactly - OG of 1.040, should give me a final beer with 22IBU, 4% abv and a pale 5SRM

 

[Nicks90]

AG 105
User upper English ale

Nearly time for another HB order, so might as well do a mix and match of whats left over to come up with something maybe a little different.

3.5kg Maris Otter
100gm Melanoidin
85gm crystal 60L
20g black patent

20l mash at 69c for 60mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 17l in the FV.

Hops
10gm admiral @30min
16gm admiral @5min
25gm Pilgrim @5min

Yeast
Safale US-05 recovered from the last brew

Brew day went perfectly.
Hit my numbers exactly - OG of 1.048, should give me a final beer with 35IBU, 4.8% abv and 10SRM

 

[Nicks90]

I've been very good and not supped all my mild from Ag102 and it's really come into its own after an extra month to condition.
Very clear with a good thick creamy head and a really smooth malty biscuit taste. Spot on
It looks a bit pale ans red in the photos but that's because of thr background sky be in bright. It's actually a fair bit darker

 

[moto748]

Unfortunately my Big Bold never quite hit the spot; I don't care (for this style) that it's cloudy, but it tastes too harshly bitter, without the 'zing' I was hoping for for. I'm wondering whether I should point the finger at that half-hour boil? Maybe I'll give it another go, and follow your instructions to the letter this time!

Meanwhile I really like the look of that mild; I've never done one, and fancy having a go.

 

[Nicks90]

Unfortunately my Big Bold never quite hit the spot; I don't care (for this style) that it's cloudy, but it tastes too harshly bitter, without the 'zing' I was hoping for for. I'm wondering whether I should point the finger at that half-hour boil? Maybe I'll give it another go, and follow your instructions to the letter this time!

Meanwhile I really like the look of that mild; I've never done one, and fancy having a go.

Overly bitter? Could be that massive last hop addition, as it can easily get out of control on your ibu. I would bag all your 5 min hops and time that 5 minutes super accurate and then pull the bag out immediately the time is up. Then once the wort is down to 80c drop the bag back in for max aroma.
I am sure someone more cleverer than me can say how much additional ibus 100gm of C hops would impart between boiling and 80c if it takes 10 minutes to cool that much.

 

[moto748]

Thanks for the suggestions, I may give it another go.

 

[Nicks90]

Planning my next brew, but whilst doing it I opened a bottle of AG 104
Proper Summer SMASH. It's gone a bit saison-y and rather highly carb'd.

I can't remember which FV I used for this brew or what I had in it beforehand (saison perhaps), but I think my cleaning regime obviously wasn't up to much and either it's inherited some saison yeast or become infected.
So I supped that and opened another, same.

It's not ruined (yet) , as I love a saison and as this is a smash brew, it's not far off what I would do anyway... But I am disappointed that I have got a brew that is changing in the bottle.
So I am now goibg to get this drunk as quickly as possible in case it is an infection and proceeds to become undrinkable.

 

[Nicks90]

AG 106
Saison the season for summer beer

IT'S SUMMERRRRRRRR! So just enough time to get another saison on. Doing a slightly darker and sweeter version this time, just because.

3.0kg Maris Otter
100gm Crystal 300

20l mash at 67c for 60mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV. Back liquored to 19l for a more sessionable ale.

Hops
25gm Hallertau Mittelfruh @60min
25gm Hallertau Mittelfruh @5min

Yeast
Belle Saison of course!

Brew day went perfectly.
Hit my numbers exactly - OG of 1.047, should give me a final beer with 15IBU, 5% abv and a pale 7.5SRM

 

[Nicks90]

Ag102 is continuing to mature in to one of my favourite ever brews
I am doing this again when I get my next hbs order, but maybe with a traditional Yorkshire yeast this time. Maybe even a liquid West Yorkshire

 

[Nicks90]

AG 105
User upper English ale

Gratuitous pics of the finished ale after a month of conditioning.
Reay nice session beer, not something you would write home about. But you would be more than happy having a pint of that with your fish and chips - which was the whole point of this brew. Nice afternoon / early evening session beer that goes with everything or just as happy being quaffed on its own.

 

[Nicks90]

Interesting how my camera automatically interprets colours, same ale, different lighting

 

[Nicks90]

AG 107
A BIG IPA

Taking a slightly different slant on the IPA I did for AG103 - very simillar overall, just a bit stronger and some added wheat malt

4kg Maris Otter
1kg Wheat malt
100gm crystal 145ebc

18l mash at 68c for 60mins, and a 3l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 18l wort for a 60 minute boil and 15l in the FV. Back liquored to 17l for a more sessionable ale.

Hops
10gm Centennial @30min
10gm Amarillo @30min
20gm Centennial @10min
20gm Amarillo @10min
20gm Centennial dryhop @5 days
20gm Amarillo dryhop @5 days

Yeast
verdunt ipa yeast

Brew day went perfectly.
Hit my numbers exactly - OG of 1.060, should give me a final beer with 35IBU, 6.0% abv and a pale 7SRM

 

[Nicks90]

AG 108
The Voss Kveik test

I've never used a Kviek yeast before, so was keen to give it a go with the Voss strain from Lallemand. I look forward to feeling my skin crawl pitching yeast at 35C and not uttering expletives that I've ruined a brew. The question was what to brew, in the end decided on a fairly generic english bitter. Voss is supposed to be fairly clean with a moderate citrus/orangy note - which will work well with challenger hops

3.5kg Maris Otter
1kg Wheat malt (using it up)
150gm crystal 145ebc

18l mash at 65c for 60mins, and a 4l 'dunked in a bucket for 10 mins' sparge
Leaving 19l wort for a 60 minute boil and 16l in the FV. Back liquoreing - more on that later

Hops
10gm challenger @30min
20gm challenger @5min

Yeast
lallemand Voss Kviek

Brew day went perfectly.
Hit my numbers exactly - OG of 1.056, 35 IBU and colour of 10SRM
However i do not want a 6% beer for this. From what i have read, Voss likes a strong wort and can stall in low gravity beer. So my plan is to let this one run with the relatively high OG and once it has finished, to back liquor it post fermantation to 20l. This should bring the abv down to 5% and the bitterness to approx 30IBU. I;ve not done a back liquor after fermantation before, always before when i wanted to exceed the capacity of my small kettle.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
oh and i will be setting the brew belt to 'high' to keep this bad boy over 30C. I fully expect it to be finished in 2 or 3 days.

 

[Nicks90]

brew update - the Big IPA is finished and i bottled it today. I know its only been 8 days, not my usual 2 weeks. But its been done for 4 days with a steady FG and i want to get it carb'ing.
the Kviek experiment appears to be a complete success. It was finished in 30 hours!!! Monstrous krausen, this yeast has a fantastic work ethic. I just wish i could replace all my staff with kviek yeast. Work in high temperature environments and get the job done in literall a quarter the time it takes everyone else.
So its basically had 5 days to tidy up after itself and i will be getting this bottled tomorrow as well. Definitely saving some of this yeast!

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

I've had a bit of a break from Kveik recently. I found that the beer never cleared, but other yeasts like US-05 I have no clarity issues with. I also found I was still leaving it in the fermenter for darn near 2 weeks anyway.
Maybe I'll use it again in a hazy. I've got loads of it from harvesting when I was using it.