Notts beers days

[Donegal john]

I went for CML Midland. I've used that one in a Trappist style brew in the past and it's done a good job. It's a nice pint....got a bit carried away .

It will defiantly be an interesting brew.

 

[Nottsbeer]

It will defiantly be an interesting brew.

If it turns out drinkable I'll send you one over for your feedback

 

[Nottsbeer]

Brew #21 Beerworks Double Prancing Buck IPA.

I won this kit recently on a comp on here. It came with 2 x 3kg bags of extract. As 40 pints may be too much I gave one pouch of extract to a friend to brew with the aim of comparing our final product.

This was a very easy brew eve....quick mix of water and extract! As this was noted to be an 8% beer I diluted it slightly. OG was 1.072. I used the supplied yeast 10g (20g was supplied in the kit). Instructions note to add hops (Olicana) on day 5, and then bottle on day 10. I will see how fermentation goes as I usually bottle on day 14. May wait until day 7 before adding them. If I remember I'll report back on how this kit tastes

 

[Nottsbeer]

If it turns out drinkable I'll send you one over for your feedback

Hi Mate, I'm quite impressed with this brew. It was initially a bit harsh (maybe from the Candi sugar) but it's mellowed nicely over a few weeks. PM me your address and I'll send a bottle over to you.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Brew #21 Beerworks Double Prancing Buck IPA.

I won this kit recently on a comp on here. It came with 2 x 3kg bags of extract. As 40 pints may be too much I gave one pouch of extract to a friend to brew with the aim of comparing our final product.

This was a very easy brew eve....quick mix of water and extract! As this was noted to be an 8% beer I diluted it slightly. OG was 1.072. I used the supplied yeast 10g (20g was supplied in the kit). Instructions note to add hops (Olicana) on day 5, and then bottle on day 10. I will see how fermentation goes as I usually bottle on day 14. May wait until day 7 before adding them. If I remember I'll report back on how this kit tastes

Update on the brew. Bottled it today. I had 11from the half kit. FG was higher than expected (1.022) - the instructions didn't give a FG, apart from noting it should be 1.010 or less. This finished and was kept in the FV for a week, def not getting near that gravity. I added the dry hop addition on day 8 and left until day 14. Smells and tastes great. Finished @ 6.5% abv which is good for me. Not impressed with the yeast. Although it worked well, there was quite a bit of floating small clumps of yeast in the beer when bottling. Other yeasts I have used have always settled out very well (see pics of trial jar and beer towards the end of bottling). I was tempted to substitute another yeast when making this as there was no indication of which yeast was supplied, but decided to give it a go. Def would recommend using another if I ever did this again. As I said, tasting good from the barrel. Hopefully a few weeks in the bottle will see this improve and be a great pint

 

[Nottsbeer]

Update on the brew. Bottled it today. I had 11from the half kit. FG was higher than expected (1.022) - the instructions didn't give a FG, apart from noting it should be 1.010 or less. This finished and was kept in the FV for a week, def not getting near that gravity. I added the dry hop addition on day 8 and left until day 14. Smells and tastes great. Finished @ 6.5% abv which is good for me. Not impressed with the yeast. Although it worked well, there was quite a bit of floating small clumps of yeast in the beer when bottling. Other yeasts I have used have always settled out very well (see pics of trial jar and beer towards the end of bottling). I was tempted to substitute another yeast when making this as there was no indication of which yeast was supplied, but decided to give it a go. Def would recommend using another if I ever did this again. As I said, tasting good from the barrel. Hopefully a few weeks in the bottle will see this improve and be a great pint

Forgotten pics!!

 

[Nottsbeer]

AG #22 - Herfstbock style brew

I was so excited to finally get a recipe together for this brew....it's only taken me about a year to get around to brewing this one!!

BIAB no sparge - 14L
1.8kg Minuch Malt - 13.1ebc
1kg Wheat malt dark - 16 ebc
1kg Pilsner malt - 3.5ebc
0.46 kg Caragold - 15ebc
0.2 kg Choc wheat malt - 1150 ebc

Hops:
Tettnang (4.2%AA) 20 g @ 60
Northern Brewer (8.1%AA) 8g @ 30
Tettnang 20g @ 5
Northern Brewer 10g @ 0 - 80oC for 20 min

Protofloc @ 15
US-05 yeast

Mash was 64oC for 40 mins then 70oC for 30 mins

Sadly I had a bit of a poor start to this one. Set the boiler to mash temp, then managed to knock the plug out, once I put the plug back in I failed to re-set the mash temp so when I came to add the grain it was at 80oC! Subbed out some water for cold and got the temp down. Added the grain then reviewed my notes from a recent Dunkel I'd made and realised I failed to do the initial mash at 50oC for 30 mins. Damn, the Dunkel came out reallly nicely and I wanted to replicate the mash schedule. Left it for 40 mins then upped the temp. I gave the grain a few stirs, however once I had removed the grain I missed my target pre-boil gravity (1.056) by quite a bit - mine was 1.042!! Boiled quite vigorously for an hour and had a starting gravity around 1.053 (ispindle recording 1.055). The OG should have been 1.069. My efficiency was pants today. I had set my efficiency at 68% in brewfather, but for some reason it was alot worse this time. Guessing I should have mashed at 64oC for longer.

Everything else went fine. Wort cooled nice and quick and I pitched 3/4 pk of US-05 into just short of 13L liquid. My initial excitement of making this brew faded after getting my numbers so far out, I'm hoping that this still has enough body to make it a nice drink. I'm not bothered about it being lower in alcohol, just hoping it doesn't taste thin. The choc wheat added a nice flavour when I tasted the trial jar offering.....fingers crossed it ferments well and is better than I'm now expecting.

I've decided to upgrade my set-up and get a mash upgrade kit for my digiboil. I'm hoping this will give me more room in the boiler when mashing (I sometimes think the bag restricts getting a better efficiency). I'll report back after xmas if this has helped (and I may get recirculation set-up as I think this will also help). Naturally getting a sparge system set-up would be great, however I'm limited on space and equipment.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Bottled by Bock style beer tonight. FG was 1.012, so came out around 5.4%. tasted slightly thin from the trial jar, not surprised as I was quite a way off the OG value. Tasted promising tho, so hoping it's an OK brew. Definitely need to sort out my mash when I try this one again. It could also do with upping the Choc malt I think, but shouldn't judge it until it's conditioned.

 

[Nottsbeer]

First Brew of the New year - a Rye IPA

Batch size 12.5L - BIAB full volume

2.6kg Maris otter (3.9ebc)
0.87kg Rye malt (6.5ebc)
0.3kg Biscuit malt (55ebc)

24g Northern Brewer (8.5AA) @ 60
38g NB @ 10
25g citra (12AA) @ o (80oC)
Day 5 planned for 25g Citra

Yeast - US-05 (CML).

OG - 1.062 (target was 1.058); 61 ibu; 14.2ebc

This brew went pretty much to plan. I had initially setup to use my new grain basket, but once I had added the water (c.18L) I wasn't convinced that the grain would be sufficiently soaked as my recycle pump setup wasn't complete, thus I had a last minute change to my normal bag. All was going well with an outside brew until the rains came....luckily I spotted this quickly (at the boil stage) and moved it into the shed. 5 mins later the rain was biblical!! All else went fine, and I even went above my target gravity! As I didn't realise at the time, I only collected c.1L wort and pitched the yeast.

I was tempted to use a complex grain bill for this one to use up some of my odds and sods, however I resisted to ensure the rye will (hopefully) shine through. I have also resisted too many hops. The taste from the trial jar was lovely and bitter, so I'm hoping for a good beer from this.

As noted by others, the rye did end up scortching the base of the boiler. There were no burnt flavours in the trial jar taster so I'm comfident there won't be any damage to this. Hopefully this was my last biab brew so that shouldn'ty be an issue going forward!

 

[Nottsbeer]

Oh, how time flies. Just realised I have made a few brews but not updated my brewday thread.

Today - Brew #27 - Trappist V3. This is labelled as a Belgium Dubble as I'm aiming to enter this into the "Brew Like a Monk" comp.

12.5L BIAB no sparge:

3.2kg M.O.
0.625kg Pilsner Malt
0.250 kg Special B
0.15kg Biscuit malt
0.1kg Crystal 150
93g Candi rocks (added to the last 10 mins of the boil)

11g Challenger (6.5% AA) @ 60
9g Chalenger @ 20
16g EKG (6.5AA) @ 5
75g raisins @ end of boil (actually this was @5min by mistake)

Yeast - Flushed Nun (CML).

Mash - 30mins @ 64oC; 10 min @ 70oC; 10 min @ 77oC.

As noted above, this is my V3 of a trappist style beer. I made a few tweaks compared to V2, the most otable being the addition of Raisins. I was flicking theough the Brew Like a Monk book when putting this one together and noticed that a Dubble recipie in there has a raisin addition. This tickled my fancy, to thought I'd give oit a go. Maybe a bit foolish when making a beer to enter into a competition, but it could end up good!!

Brew day was great. Hit my targets (only 1pt off my OG target), and the wort tasted great. This should come out around 7.2%. I think I have underpitched my yeast previously for these beers, thus resulting in a slightly phenolic taste. I therefore went on the safe side and added nearly a whole pack to this one.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Since brewing my Rye IPA, I have made a disappointing milk stout (though I do need to try another bottle of that to see if it has improved!), a Bitter hoppped solely with Goldings (this was Ok but not something I'd make again....bit of a user-upper) and a promising Imperial Stout. The recipe for that one was:

Imperial Stout - #26 BIAB full volume

4.25kg M.O.
0.35kg Brown malt
0.257kg Biscuit malt
0.2kg Dark Crystal (400 ebc)
0.146 Choc malt

35g Fugles (4.5AA) @ 60
25g Bullion (7.5AA) @ 60
25g Goldings (6.2AA) @ 30
40g Bramling cross (6.5AA) @ 80oC - flameout.

The target volume for this one was 12L. I used the wrong settings in the App and I was 20pts off my target! I ended up adding 216g dark candi crystals and 150g white sugar to get near the OG! The wort tasted fantastic when I had a sip, and this fermented out nicely. I bottled this 7 days ago and it was tasting very nice. I'm hoping that after a few months maturing this will be a nice drop...though quite strong (9.6%).

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Oh, how time flies. Just realised I have made a few brews but not updated my brewday thread.

Today - Brew #27 - Trappist V3. This is labelled as a Belgium Dubble as I'm aiming to enter this into the "Brew Like a Monk" comp.

12.5L BIAB no sparge:

3.2kg M.O.
0.625kg Pilsner Malt
0.250 kg Special B
0.15kg Biscuit malt
0.1kg Crystal 150
93g Candi rocks (added to the last 10 mins of the boil)

11g Challenger (6.5% AA) @ 60
9g Chalenger @ 20
16g EKG (6.5AA) @ 5
75g raisins @ end of boil (actually this was @5min by mistake)

Yeast - Flushed Nun (CML).

Mash - 30mins @ 64oC; 10 min @ 70oC; 10 min @ 77oC.

As noted above, this is my V3 of a trappist style beer. I made a few tweaks compared to V2, the most otable being the addition of Raisins. I was flicking theough the Brew Like a Monk book when putting this one together and noticed that a Dubble recipie in there has a raisin addition. This tickled my fancy, to thought I'd give oit a go. Maybe a bit foolish when making a beer to enter into a competition, but it could end up good!!

Brew day was great. Hit my targets (only 1pt off my OG target), and the wort tasted great. This should come out around 7.2%. I think I have underpitched my yeast previously for these beers, thus resulting in a slightly phenolic taste. I therefore went on the safe side and added nearly a whole pack to this one.

This sounds great, I keep meaning to brew a Dubble or something similar.

 

[Nottsbeer]

This sounds great, I keep meaning to brew a Dubble or something similar.

I'll let you know if this is worth making

 

[Nottsbeer]

Bottles my Dubble at the weekend. Had a taste and was initially a bit disappointed as it had a sweetness I wasn't expecting. I had a further taste after bottling and that had gone, so putting it down to maybe getting a bit (a lot!!) Of yeast in the first taste. Am hoping this comes good after conditioning.

Brew #27 - Rye IPA

I realised that I had entered the Nottingham Hop Idol comp and not made a start (early June date...oops!!). Quickly threw together the recipe I did for the Rye swap a while back. Nicely tucked up in the FV bubbling away. Going to dry hop this again (going slightly bigger in vol) and possibly bottle a few days earlier than normal to get extra conditioning time. Thankfully this was nice as a young beer so hoping it's good for yr comp.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Been a bit quiet recently and run off my feet with various things life has thrown my way. I was contemplating making a TT landlord this weekend until I got the price for the grain and liquid yeast £25 just to make a 12-13l batch. I love this when I make it, but could put that money to better use at the moment. Will make a Big Lamp Bitter instead as I have al of ingredients and some dry yeast knocking around Had my father-in-law over the other week and he "helped" me finish the red Merlot I made last year . It was a VERY nice wine so I'm hoping to stop off at the local home brew shop and get another on the go. With the warm weather coming I won't have to worry about keeping it warm . Enjoy the weekend everyone and I'll put date this on how things go (if it happens....especially as we have some doors that need painting ).

 

[Nottsbeer]

I've never bothred to do a full pic rundown of a brew day, but thought I'd see how far I get today. First pic...water heating and crystal malt ready.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Grain in and pump on.

 

[Nottsbeer]

So, now all set up, here is today's recipe:

BIAB no sparge 13.5l. Big Lamp Best Bitter

2.4kg maris otter (3.4ebc)
144g crystal (68g 150 and 80g 265)

Hops
Fuggles 35g @60 (6.4%)
E K Goldings 10g @15 (6.5%)

53 IBU and 16.2 ebc.

This is a nice simple recipe which tasted great last time. I'll use Midland for the yeast. My target vol is 12.5 after loss for bottom trub.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Mash done. Pre boil target was 1.035, today my gravity is 1.039 (temp adjusted), so going well! Not sitting in the sun waiting for the boil to start.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Final info from this brew. Post boil gravity was around 1.043 but vol was lower than expected. Think my starting vol may have been a bit short. Added cold water to get OG to around 1.041 (kids and bbq got in the way of getting an accurate reading) and pitched yeast. Started to see some activity today on the ispindle. Taste from the trial jar was great