Re: AG#7 Ruby Pearl with reclaimed RCH yeast

[fbsf]

Another day, another beer!

With the last of the brown porter gone from the corny keg, I decided that it was time to get another brew on to fill it.

As I’ve got the NYEB in the first corny, and that is quite light in colour and about 3.5%, I wanted to get something a little darker for corny2. Looking through Marc Ollosson’s book Real Ales For The Home Brewer – incidentally, a great recipe book that Marc now publishes himself in PDF format for the miserly sum of £3.49 – I was drawn to his Old Ruby recipe. However, being me I decided to tweak it a little.

I won’t publish Marc’s recipe here (if you want it, go buy the book!), but noticed that it had an OG of around 1.050 and used around a kilo of sugar. I didn’t fancy anything quite that strong, so went with the following recipe.

3550g Maris Otter
210g Crystal Malt
105g Chocolate Malt
100g Amber Malt
110g Torrified Wheat

I had intended this to be BIAB mashed with 15L of 67° water for 90 mins. However, things never quite go to plan and I had to make a trip out with my brother in law to look at some potential new cars for him, as his had gone bang. So my 90 min mash (which I had just set going as he phoned) turned out to be a 9 hour mash. Thankfully I had insulated the mashtun well, so it had only lost 6° over the 9 hour period.

I went for a double batch sparge – basically adding 10L of 75°C water, letting it soak for 10 mins, then draining it, and repeating so I had approx 29L of wort in the boiler.

Once this was done, I got the wort boiling. I went for a 90min boil due to time constraints, and added the following hop schedule:

40g Perle Hops (10%AA) @ 60mins
500g granulated sugar @ 15mins
11g Challenger Hops (7.2%AA) @ 15mins
1/3 Protofloc tablet @ 15mins

I also added in my wort chiller at 15mins to go so it could be sterilised by the boiling wort.

It took around 45mins to get the wort temperature down to about 25°C. I ended up with 23L of 1.045 wort which was pretty much what I was hoping for.

Now, for the yeast, I tried something different. I had a bottle of RCH Brewery’s Pitchfork, a bottle-conditioned pale ale which had a good 1mm or so of yeast deposits at the bottom of the bottle. Emails from the brewery have confirmed that it is the same yeast they use for the primary fermentation, which is handy. The fact that it’s also a very good beer is a bonus!

Firstly, on thursday evening (so two days before brewday) I made up a wort solution with 1L of water and 100g of dry malt extract, and boiled this for 10 mins to sterilise it. After allowing it to cool, I put it into a Robinson’s 1.75L squash bottle, as these have necks the perfect size for taking an airlock and bung!

I carefully poured the beer, leaving the last 15mm of beer in the bottle along with the yeast, then swirled the remaining beer to get all of the yeast into suspension, and poured that into the wort solution and fitted the airlock. I removed the airlock and gave the mix a good swirling every half day or so, to re-agitate the yeast and get some more oxygen back into the brew, to allow the yeast to multiply.

By Sunday evening, there was a good layer of yeast on the bottom of the bottle, so I poured away most of the “beer”, leaving the last 20mm or so, swirled again to suspend the yeast in the beer, and chucked it into the fermenter whilst I was draining the boiler into it. As normal I fitted the lid and airlock and went to bed!

This morning it was bubbling away merrily, so hopefully I will have my first successful fermentation using “proper” brewery yeast rather than the dried yeast that I have used up until now.

 

[fbsf]

Just a quick update, the RCH yeast has been going like a mad thing - pretty much a constant stream of bubbles from the airlock since Monday morning, and it only seems to be slowing a little this morning.

So any of you who fancy a go at reclaiming a commercial yeast could do well to give the RCH Pitchfork a go if you can get hold of it (my local Tesco had it in stock, but it is a west country beer). It only took me two days to get it up to the level I pitched it at.

I'll wait until the bubbles have died off completely before taking the SG, but it's certainly looking promising at this stage. :thumb:

 

[mmaguy41]

Sounds good, im looking at growing some yeast soon so might have a go with this one

 

[fbsf]

Well, it's been in the FV for three weeks now, so time for the corny.

I managed to get a full corny and 8 bottles, so a proper full batch, and a little left over for tasting.

Taste wise, it's sort of half way between a bitter and a porter. A sweet taste from the crystal, darker notes from the choc, nutty from the amber. Not noticing any major shredded wheatiness from the Torry either. A nice bitterness from the Perle (I'm liking these, which is good considering I've got another 2kg or so to get through!) rounded off by the challenger aroma hops.

The yeast has really let everything shine through, whilst also giving a really nice mellowness.

So top marks all round, esp for the recultured RCH yeast. It formed a nice solid trub at the bottom of the FV, and has pretty much cleared - just a mild haze, which given it's only 3 weeks old and not conditioned is pretty good. It went down to 1.011 in the end, giving me a nice session 4.5% brew. Just as well it isn't stronger, as it's a highly sinkable brew.

 

[joe1002]

If its good now just wait a few weeks :thumb: