stuff that's bothering me about my seventh brew so far

[Buzzing]

I got hold of a kg of hemp seeds and decided to brew a hemp-ale.

The brew was based on per Steve Nordahl's Original Hempen Ale recipe.

The hemp seeds were roasted on a cookie sheet and then crushed to produce a fantastic aroma. This was steeped in 60`C water to prevent too much tannins from getting in. The hemp seed extract had a tan colour to it and a very earthy and nutty taste and smell to it. This was added to 50`C water in which some crystal malt was steeped. Together this formed the base for the adding of the dark and pale malts (extracts).

The brew was done with Cascade hops at the correct intervals to produce a very well balanced wort with an interesting hemp/nutty aroma.

After 2 weeks in the primary, 2 weeks carbonation in the bottle and 2 months maturing, the hemp ale was had, and it was pure nectar. Surprisingly the roasted hemp seeds did not actually affect the taste of the brew drastically, more like a suttle aftertaste than a upfront dominating taste, but the aroma was very pronounced and makes for a very good ale.

One thing that I did notice is a constant cold-haze, and I am guessing that it's the starches in the hemp seeds that did that.

The ale was carbonated to 2.4% CO2, a bit higher than normal, but this worked out well to balance the lack of head-retention that was expected.

All in all a good brew that I will do again in future, but next time with a little bit less hemp seeds, and perhaps a type of dry-hemping with a small bag of roasted hemp seeds after about 3/4 days' fermentation to impart as much taste as what the aroma achieved ? Comments welcome on how to get the taste and arome balanced.

Biggest thing that's bothering me on this one is the fact that I only did a 12 litre experimental brew on this one, and not a full 23 litres . . .

 

[screamlead]

Possibly a problem with the haze could be due to oil from the hemp? Dunno where you got yours from but i used to use it for fishing by boiling it until the acrospires popped out then grind it up to mix with groundbait for fishing.
Plus the stuff bought in UK would never germinate due to being treated apparently with gamma rays?

I once bought a 25kg sack of the stuff in Cyprus from a local supermarket and that stuff did sprout as i chucked all the remaining stuff from fishing onto the garden ha ha!

 

[Buzzing]

You could be correct about the oil in the hemp seeds causing the chill haze. It's not too much of a problem, but I will make it a bit darker next time.

The seeds were organic and untreated. Roasted until crispy on the outside, but still starchy on the inside and able to be crushed by putting one cookie sheet into the one containing the roasted hemp seeds and putting wight on the top sheet.

This process did leave some oil residue on the sheet, so some of it was removed this way and the amount that ended up in the brew was minimised, but still there.