TT Landlord

[Fore]

AG#7. Recipe from Wheelers book.

Prep for my dad visiting in August; his fave beer.

Following (and tweaking) process notes makes for a very trouble and stress free brewday. Made a few process changes this time which saved me about 1 hour, e.g. preheating mash tun as opposed to adding over hot strike water and waiting for it to cool to strike temp.

Expecting 79%, managed 82% mash efficiency (double batch sparge). Pretty pleased with that.

Gave neighbour with chickens the spent grain; got 6 fresh free range eggs in return. Pretty pleased with that too.

I keep a check of the cost of production, and this was the cheapest by far. A combination of low(er) grain use and cheaper hops. Came in at 15p per pint.

EDIT: oops, forgot the yeast. Thought it seemed very cheap. Now @ 21p/pint. Still my cheapest so far, by 1p/pint.

 

[MyQul]

Which yeast did you use? I haven't made this beer but other forumites (Spapro I think) said that WYeast 1469 is quite crucial to this beer (1469 is my house English strain and makes a cracking bitter and other English styles). I might be be mis-remebering but I think Spapro also recommended using Golden Promise as the base malt too

 

[Fore]

Well, my "cloning" is currently limited to ABV, the right hops and IBU. Let's say, following Wheelers book on face value. It's not really my aim to exactly duplicate a beer, but to stand on the shoulder of giants to help bring me quickly to a home brewed beer I can be proud of. In any case, without a side by side, I honestly would have no idea if I matched the original or not.

In answer to your question though, I used Nottingham. Not yet moved from dry yeast. I know well of liquid yeast and controlled temp fermentation, all very interesting, but I have more fundamental issues to crack before I make those steps.

Drinking my Moorhouses Pendle Witches Brew tonight. Have come to believe that I have very likely tainted it with tannins. While trying to improve efficiency with double batch sparge and meeting sparge temp limits, and although I stayed within reported boundaries for pH & temp, tannins still seems to have come through. My first experience of this, still figuring it all out. I fear though my following 2 fermenting brews which pretty much followed the same process.

 

[MyQul]

Yes, it can be hard to make an EXACT clone. So the times I've tried it I tend to think of it 'as a tribute to..'

As far as the tannins go in the pendle brew, what could have happened is that the second sparge made the OG of the grain too low and therefore lower (or is it higher, can't quite remember) the PH to allow tannins to be extracted. . iirc it goes something along the lines of, the grain acts as a buffer against the alkalinity in the water. By doing a second sparge you've lowerer the OG and therefore the buffering power of the grain against the alkalinity in the water.
When doing batch or fly sparging the advice is not to go lower than 1.010 with the runnings (although you dunk sparged (?) this general advice is also true)

I used to do two sparges but seemed to be extracting a tiny bit of tannins. So now to get my efficiency right I just squeeze the bag like it owes me money. You could also add a bit more grain too

 

[Fore]

Yes, I think a process change is needed here. My single batch sparge brews were smoother, albeit at slightly lower efficiency. My mash pH has been really low at 5.2 (something I'm addressing separately, as I think I'm underestimated the buffering capability of my grain), and I think this low mash pH led to my confusion a little, because I need to understand this has no bearing on the water that I use for batch sparging and subsequent pH.

I thought I was being bright by skipping the top-up on first drain, splitting the top-up between the subsequent 2 sparges. It meant that I was really efficiently washing the grain. And yes, I probably reached optimum mash efficiency, but at what cost?

Well you know, it's all part of the learning process. I've read a lot about tannins and methods to avoid, but nothing teaches you the lesson better than drinking beer that tastes like a used tea bag.