PilgrimHudds Brewdays

[foxbat]

Yep...

I'd not thought of using Admiral before, reading about it, it seems like a nice hop, i've got some left so tempted to do something with that and first gold and/or fuggles.

Cheers

Hook Norton Flagship IPA is a cracking beer and the one that made me realise that Admiral isn't just for bittering. It's been on my 'must brew that' list for over a year now (time moves slowly in my brewery )

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Yes it is, though not had it for a long time.

Someone posted a link to this website that has some recipes for some great beers in it, not sure how true they are to the original. UK IPA, STRONG ALES, BARLEY WINES (wildabouthops.nz) but it's worth a look.

Next up for me is an Old Ale!

 

[pilgrimhudd]

First impressions of my Kiwi Pils v2!

2 Weeks in bottle so needs a lot longer....but... good so far, no off flavours, when cold, lacking a bit of flavour, as it warms you can definitely get orangey, herby pine. Nice Pilsner aroma, pleased with it at the mo.

 

[matt76]

First impressions of my Kiwi Pils v2!

2 Weeks in bottle so needs a lot longer....but... good so far, no off flavours, when cold, lacking a bit of flavour, as it warms you can definitely get orangey, herby pine. Nice Pilsner aroma, pleased with it at the mo.

That's good news then - this is the one where you were concerned right, because the temperature controller experienced a <cough cough> unexpected malfunction?

 

[pilgrimhudd]

That's good news then - this is the one where you were concerned right, because the temperature controller experienced a <cough cough> unexpected malfunction?

Yep that's right. She was very relieved when I told her this morning, not.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Hmmm.... some good and some bad, just checked my user upper pale ale, looks good, finished at 1010, the aroma, wow, my daughter said strawberries, raspberries I think citrus but whatever, absolutely gorgeous. However... to taste it is mouth puckeringly bitter, which I don't think it's meant to be, it's not quite paint stripper but not far off. I'm going to bottle anyway and hope with a bit of ageing and fizz it mellow a little. That or its infected.

 

[matt76]

Just tell people it's a saison or something

 

[pilgrimhudd]

So I bottled up my user upper ipa last night, had another glass of whilst bottling and perhaps it wasnt as searingly bitter as I thought that morning. Possibly didnt go well with my cornflakes. Anyway, dry hop bag had come open so hop everywhere, got 31 bottles of hop free beer but ditched the last 2l or so. This one will be around 5.5%.

This morning I got the mash on for another broadside clone, I was going to copy the one that I'd done before but found another recipe and thought I'd like to run with that instead.

5kg otter
240g light crystal
110g dark crystal
40g choc

Mashed for 5 hours at 67.

Brought to the boil and added 240g of golden syrup.

20g first gold @60
14g fugglesand 14g goldings @15
24g first gold and 24g goldings 30 min hopsteep @70c

So I'm a right prat but I decanted into the fv but forgot to turn off the tap on the fv... wandered off and must have lost 4l onto the floor. So,15l in the fv at 1062. Pitched mj empire ale.

 

[531Man]

So I bottled up my user upper ipa last night, had another glass of whilst bottling and perhaps it wasnt as searingly bitter as I thought that morning. Possibly didnt go well with my cornflakes. Anyway, dry hop bag had come open so hop everywhere, got 31 bottles of hop free beer but ditched the last 2l or so. This one will be around 5.5%.

This morning I got the mash on for another broadside clone, I was going to copy the one that I'd done before but found another recipe and thought I'd like to run with that instead.

5kg otter
240g light crystal
110g dark crystal
40g choc

Mashed for 5 hours at 67.

Brought to the boil and added 240g of golden syrup.

20g first gold @60
14g fugglesand 14g goldings @15
24g first gold and 24g goldings 30 min hopsteep @70c

So I'm a right prat but I decanted into the fv but forgot to turn off the tap on the fv... wandered off and must have lost 4l onto the floor. So,15l in the fv at 1062. Pitched mj empire ale.

Oh dear!

As I said recently on another thread, no matter how experienced,
we all have a spillage/flood sometime.
A very sticky one for you I suppose.
More technically, any particular reason for such a long mash, or just that's how long you left it?
Glad you've still got 15L left to ferment.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Oh dear!

As I said recently on another thread, no matter how experienced,
we all have a spillage/flood sometime.
A very sticky one for you I suppose.
More technically, any particular reason for such a long mash, or just that's how long you left it?
Glad you've still got 15L left to ferment.

It was outside so no probs really!

Yeah, time saving, I got it mashing this morning, went to work and when I came back only have to get the boil on. Quite often I mash overnight, it saves me an hour or so and with two little kids that's important! I have also noticed that I tend to get better efficiency from a longer mash.

 

[foxbat]

Possibly didnt go well with my cornflakes.

Love it!

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Love it!

I remember when I was 16 I went to watch Somerset Vs the West Indies with a friend, we had cider with our cornflakes before heading to the ground, good times.

I got a high five off Curtly Ambrose.

 

[foxbat]

I got a high five off Curtly Ambrose.

England vs the Windies at Headingley in the early 90s. We had seats down by the boundary and had a great time friendly heckling Curtly as he fielded yards from where we were sitting. He was a great sport that gave as good as he got!

 

[pilgrimhudd]

England vs the Windies at Headingley in the early 90s. We had seats down by the boundary and had a great time friendly heckling Curtly as he fielded yards from where we were sitting. He was a great sport that gave as good as he got!

Lanky git wouldn't sign my bat! Got Courtney's though!

 

[pilgrimhudd]

So, to answer some earlier posts..... I didn't give the fridge a bash, but I did go out in the middle of the night and take another look, there was a drain thing with something sticking out so I pulled that out, a tile (I had been using some tiles to prop up one of the legs on my stand) that had somehow slipped vertical that I pulled out. I then managed to get the FV in the fridge after improvising a latch to stop it popping open.

And to today, an unexpected day off with no kids or wife, yay! But have got some Covid symptoms which is why I can't go to work, boo!

Anyway... I thought it was a good day to get one of my xmas beers brewed, this time a Belgian Xmas Beer, recipe posted by @An Ankoù a few weeks ago.

3.2kg Lager Malt
1.3 kg Munich
700g Cafe Light
700g Dark crystal

Mashed for 90 mins at 68c

Boiled for 60

12g Admiral @60
16g Perle
15g Brewers Gold @10

200g Invert Sugar @5 (slightly more invert sugar than the 100g in the recipe but it's a ball ache to do all that for just 100g....)

To make the sugar I simmered 200g sugar in 55mls of water for about an 90 mins. It tasted lovely!

Cooled whilst I went for my PCR test, returned, chucked it in the FV and pitched Safale T58 at 18c!

So I bottled this up last night, usual 30 odd bottles 100g sugar for priming. Beer was lovely and clear, tasted very raisiny, really nice. However it finished at 1018 at a push which was not what I expected. I'd agitated the FV and raised the temp but it seemed to have finished. Looking at the beer, there was defo no life left in it. This makes it around 5% well short of the 6% I was going for....

The yeast didn't seem to make it's presence felt either (i know it's dificult to say this straight out of the FV) , i'm thinking I may brew this again using a more Belgian(y) yeast, something more spicy, any ideas from anyone?

 

[matt76]

I can't speak with any authority when it comes to either Belgian beers or yeast strains...

One thought was whether you can do anything with the temperature profile during fermentation to get the desired effect - maybe worth researching...

Apart from that I'm wondering whether it's simply a case that none of the dry strains available are going to give you what you want so you need to start looking at liquid?

(Not quite the same thing but I recall recently hearing Drew Beechum saying none of the available dry saison strains really cut it)

Regards the poor attenuation - aside from the way that strain generally performs (not idea if it's a good/poor attenuator), I'm wondering how dark is the Cafe Light (never heard of that one) and Dark Crystal you used? (Each one is about 12% of your grist).

My experience with Porters and Stouts recently is that Brewers Friend is rather optimistic about the amount of fermentable sugars from darker malts - roasted malts and darker crystal malts included.

So maybe that's an answer?

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Decided to brew this today, mashed overnight last night.

Og of 1066, misjudged boil off and the amount of water retained in the mash so was left with 16l, which was fine because I had planned to brew short and liquor back with bottled water. 3l of bottled water later and an revised og of 1056. Cooled and pitched cml midland.

 

[matt76]

View attachment 53544

Decided to brew this today, mashed overnight last night.

Og of 1066, misjudged boil off and the amount of water retained in the mash so was left with 16l, which was fine because I had planned to brew short and liquor back with bottled water. 3l of bottled water later and an revised og of 1056. Cooled and pitched cml midland.

Looks good I think Midland is the one CML yeast I'd consider using again, I remember liking what that one did in an ESB and a Porter

Interesting to see the range of hops you've used - I'm planning an English variant of my Hoppy Amber Ale soon, basically a bitter, but I plan to go with just EKG (plus a bit of Magnum for bittering) as I don't make bitter all that often so I don't tend to have those kind of English hops lying around that much

(The exception is Northdown which goes in my Porter)

 

[foxbat]

Apart from the late challenger that I think will be lost amongst the others I think that's a great hop combination. Should be a cracking brew.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

Apart from the late challenger that I think will be lost amongst the others I think that's a great hop combination. Should be a cracking brew.

Yes the challenger was an afterthought the almost empty packet in the hop box.