Poochops GF brew no2 - Centennial Brown Ale

[Poochops]

Well I'm getting treated tomorrow afternoon / night for Father's Day in Liverpool with the fambo, going out for libations and a meal and more libations so I thought, as I'm idle tonight and the missus is engrossed on Ancestry.com, that I'd get a mash on tonight ready to boil in the morning :thumb:
Put this on http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53514 because it sounds delicious and I need some more variety in the beer store.
GF brew1 comes out the brewfridge tomorrow and this will take its place, I'll leave brew1 till next weekend to bottle, then rinse and repeat with brew3 I think. I'm going to have to drink more as I'm nearing my bottling capacity of about 350, but new toys and all that hey:)

 

[druid]

350!!! Oh my!



....but I like how you think.....

 

[Poochops]

I know. I'm going to have to invest in some more bottles s:lol:

Well the brew day went well despite a few hiccups. For brew1 I tied the leaf hops up in a large nylon bag, but this brew I was using a combination of pellets and leaf and I thought the bag would be pretty useless with pellets, so I decided to see how it went just leaving everything loose it the boil.
I was giving it a good stir at the bottom to make sure nothing was sticking and managed to knock the silicone cover off the end of the hop filter, I realised I'd done it but all I could do was hope. I whirlpooled and let it settle before I pumped it through the chiller into the FV and fortunately it drained fine if a little slow so that was good, when I retrieved the hop filter it was jammed full of cones which actually had the effect of straining the pellet fines out of the wort.
The standpipe had a blockage so I unscrewed the non return valve off the top and sure enough there was hop leaf in the spring which was easily removed, then i just jammed the outlet hose of the cooling coil into the ball valve, it's an ideal tight fit, and turned the water on to backflush the pipe, sorted no problem.
I got 23l in the FV, 2litre less than planned, but I think I lost a bit to the leaf. I liquored back again to 25 and got an OG of 1.052 so .004 higher than expected. All in all a good enough day, I learned a few tricks and will remember not to stir close to the filter again. The wort was lovely looking, I pitched a rehydrated crossmyloof English ale yeast and the airlock is going like a train right now, looking forward to this one.

 

[Poochops]

FG 1.014 abv 4.99% bit stronger than I wanted but below 5% which is good. put it in the bottling bucket tonight, was very clear, very robust, malty chocolate and quite aromatic and bitter. Bottling tomorrow, I'm going to enjoy this one I reckon.

 

[Poochops]

Only got around to bottling this tonight so it had nearly three weeks in the FV and nearly a week sat in the bottling bucket. I used crossmyloof real ale yeast and well the beer was almost perfectly clear, really impressed with the flocculation, it was gently carbonated as well so I had two pints straight off the bottling wand :whistle: What a lovely lovely drink, I only added about 3 grams of sugar to each bottle as I think it'll be lovely lightly carbed and just slightly chilled. Cant wait to start this.
I'm going to say that if the general standard of AG brewing is as good as this then that GF contraption is going to be worth every penny :thumb:

 

[Poochops]

4 weeks + bottled. Lovely pint this very very moreish indeed. It's crystal clear chestnut brown, nutty with a hint of chocolate and a nicely bitter finish. Head laces nicely down the glass. Lovely drop.

 

[Covrich]

4 weeks + bottled. Lovely pint this very very moreish indeed. It's crystal clear chestnut brown, nutty with a hint of chocolate and a nicely bitter finish. Head laces nicely down the glass. Lovely drop.

Looks good, I did a centennial brown last year and was nice