What did you brew today?

[foxy]

No I don't BIAB, I have an Ace and a BM and I do work on a 75% efficiency, the recipe I followed was also brewed at a 75% efficiency but I doubt it was a recirculating mash. I ended up with an OG 1056 2 points higher than the poster of the recipe and for the first time used WLP007 Dry English ale yeast, very impressed with it.

 

[Ajhutch]

It's going to be a kettle soured wheat beer, I'm going to ferment half on raspberries and half on a bit of citra hop and lemon zest. Trialling a Yakult lacto starter just now to see how it develops

That sounds amazing, good luck with it. I'm thinking about doing a kettle sour soon too, probably using uncrushed grain as the lacto source.

 

[Zephyr259]

Brewed a Belgian Brunette today using a recipe from James on basic brewing radio using the Grainfather.

I stirred the mash at 20 and 40 min since my mashes have been getting a bit stuck, first stir was a bit sticky but after that I no longer got any flow through the recirculation pipe and the mash wasn't stuck at 40 min, 10L sparge took about 30 mins and my mash efficiency was 87% so not bad, also my first time crushing my own grain.

My candy syrup was homemade. 500 g white sugar cooked with water 1 cup water and 1.25 tsp DAP to 143C then cooled with 3/4 cup water and heated to 143C again. A final 3/4 cup of water added to cool and heated to 116C to make a syrup for storage. Nice rich dark syrup tastes of toffee apples and plum, really made the wort dark, lager and wheat malts for the grain and the sugar turned it into a brown ale kind colour. Was expecting a coppery brown but I may have a proper brunette.

It's in the shiny new brew fridge at 20C with Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes. The starter 'beer' tasted pretty nice so looking forward to seeing how it presents in a full beer. Got 13L at 1.082 and should finish around 1.012 for 9.2%... oops I was aiming for more 8 - 8.5%. :)

 

[Pazza]

Didn't brew per se, but yesterday I zested 32 lemons to make some homemade limoncello, and with the juice, along with the juice of my last batch of limoncello, I made Skeeter Pee - or at least my version of it, with is easier and doesn't need a yeast cake from a batch of wine or cider...

Would love to hear your recipe for both please mate :thumb:

 

[Martybhoy]

Brewed a Belgian Brunette today using a recipe from James on basic brewing radio using the Grainfather.

I stirred the mash at 20 and 40 min since my mashes have been getting a bit stuck, first stir was a bit sticky but after that I no longer got any flow through the recirculation pipe and the mash wasn't stuck at 40 min, 10L sparge took about 30 mins and my mash efficiency was 87% so not bad, also my first time crushing my own grain.

My candy syrup was homemade. 500 g white sugar cooked with water 1 cup water and 1.25 tsp DAP to 143C then cooled with 3/4 cup water and heated to 143C again. A final 3/4 cup of water added to cool and heated to 116C to make a syrup for storage. Nice rich dark syrup tastes of toffee apples and plum, really made the wort dark, lager and wheat malts for the grain and the sugar turned it into a brown ale kind colour. Was expecting a coppery brown but I may have a proper brunette.

It's in the shiny new brew fridge at 20C with Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes. The starter 'beer' tasted pretty nice so looking forward to seeing how it presents in a full beer. Got 13L at 1.082 and should finish around 1.012 for 9.2%... oops I was aiming for more 8 - 8.5%. :)

What is DAP? Did you have to stir the syrup constantly to prevent it catching? 143° is pretty high. But I do like the idea of making your own candi syrup

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[Zephyr259]

Sorry, Diammonium Phosphate or bog standard yeast nutrient. It'll smell of ammonia when it starts to boil but don't worry it doesn't end up in the finished caramel.

The opposite is the case, once the sugar is dissolved you don't stir at all as that encourages crystallisation. I've heard that non-stick pans also risk this, probably because the teflon ends up with rough bits, but I use a copper/stainless steel pan for my sugar work. If you fancy learning some more then this podcast is pretty good and is what I used for guidance, it's based on Randy Mosher's recipe in Radical Brewing / Brew Like a Monk. You're looking for the episode from 7th May 2009, they go through the results from various temperature ranging from a clear syrup to the double cooked dark brown I used.

In an earlier episode of the podcast they did an experiment using different sugars in a belgian ale and they found that this syrup was unfermentable... 9 gravity points of each sugar added and the homemade syrup finished 9 poionts higher than the rest. I'm going to watch out for that when mine is done, but I don't see why this should be the case and I've not heard of it happening elsewhere. My wort tastes awesome with the caramel in it, will see how much it comes through in the final beer.

 

[beechwood]

brewed a smoked blonde ale today.....10lts: 70% lager malt 30% raunch malt. challanger hops at the start of boil to about 22 ibus. dumped it onto yeast cake from last weeks blonde ale: mj's m54 californian lager yeast. :)

 

[foxy]

I have 2 stouts to do next a Beamish clone and a Double stout today I will crush and cold steep the speciality grains (2 batches, one for each stout) hopefully will be doing one on Wednesday and one one Friday.[/QUOTE]

Ended up doing both on Thursday, the cold steeped grains managed to throw me a bit with the water additions but everything seemed ok according to the pH meter, one will be going in a comp and I think it will be the Beamish, smells magnificent.

 

[Slid]

I made the Old Ale recipe from GH's book again today. A few variations though. I used the last but one of the Coopers Lager kits from the last ever Tesco HB sale and used Herkules 20g to bitter (the kit has some bittering) and then Progress 30g and EKG 40g @ 15mins.

Went quite smoothly today and I am finished, cleaned up and ready for the Challenge Cup semis before 2pm. Result!

 

[Poochops]

Did my first sour this morning, only 2kg of grain as I'm adding fruit later, and a 15min boil just to sterilise the chiller! Just added a lacto starter and I'll boil and hop it in 2-3 days.

 

[pvt_ak]

Did my first sour this morning, only 2kg of grain as I'm adding fruit later, and a 15min boil just to sterilise the chiller! Just added a lacto starter and I'll boil and hop it in 2-3 days.

Not tasted a sour yet. Must look out for one today.


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[Slid]

I made the Old Ale recipe from GH's book again today. A few variations though. I used the last but one of the Coopers Lager kits from the last ever Tesco HB sale and used Herkules 20g to bitter (the kit has some bittering) and then Progress 30g and EKG 40g @ 15mins.

Went quite smoothly today and I am finished, cleaned up and ready for the Challenge Cup semis before 2pm. Result!

Result also for Hull Football Club! After a fabulously entertaining and engaging afternoon, they face either Salford or Wigan in the final.

Old Ale Recipe 3:

Maris Otter 3.4kg
Vienna 1kg
Munich 1kg
Crystal 300g
Chocolate 200g
Wheat 100g

Coopers Kit - Draught Lager 1.7kg
Demerara Sugar 700g

Herkules 20g @ 60m
Progress 30g @ 15m
EKG 40g @ 15m

Long doughing in with 21L in the Grainfather. 25 minutes at least, doing the David Hughes - style stirring at the top and bottom after every addition. Obviously this gets more arduous after the first two or 3 kg of additions. Well worth the effort, though as the mash went through very nicely with never more than a centimetre of wort above the plate all the way through.

Sparge was uneventful, which is always a great plus, to have no issues at that stage either.

Did not take a gravity reading, as I was having difficulties with women trying to gain access to my kitchen at the critical phases. As in, for instance, daughter (23) dressed in knickers, bra and towel around head telling me I show "lack of respect" for her wanting a drink of water during the fag-end of the chill, with the water flow down to a spit a minute, her mouthing it off like she wants to be in a Macc Lads song or something...

Re-used the US 05 yeast from a smoked porter that I bottled somehow during the mayhem.

 

[Sadfield]

Experimenting with my first attempt at a Raw Ale (no boil) Saison. Aiming for around 4% having mashed at 65C for 50 minutes then a 10 minute mash out at 78C. Mashed at full volume and wort run off straight to the FV.

OG: 1.038
IBU: 35
Batch Size: 10L

Extra Pale Propino - 92%
Wheat Malt - 6%
Flaked Rye - 2%
First Gold - 50g at start of mash.
First Gold - 37.5g with 20 minutes of mash to go.

Going to pitch a mixture of Belle Saison and WY3711 French Saison, as both past BBdate and want enough viable cells in there. And also want to see if this blend works as a house strain when cropped and repitched.

 

[DaveK]

My second ever all-grain brew, a slightly tinkered with version of Greg Hughes' "Spring Ale". Missed my OG by a full eight points and it slightly resembles gnats' p*ss so I shall call it "Rusty Bed Springs" I think. Fingers crossed I'll end up with something closer to 4% than 3%, lol.

 

[Clint]

....made by I P Nightly!

 

[pvt_ak]

....made by I P Nightly!

Had to think about that for a minute 🤣


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[DaveK]

....made by I P Nightly!

Hehe - that's the one!

 

[Zephyr259]

My second ever all-grain brew, a slightly tinkered with version of Greg Hughes' "Spring Ale". Missed my OG by a full eight points and it slightly resembles gnats' p*ss so I shall call it "Rusty Bed Springs" I think. Fingers crossed I'll end up with something closer to 4% than 3%, lol.

How did you tinker with this? I did the same recently, couldn't get Wai-ti hops and had a bunch of galaxy so went with 15g at 60 mins, 10g at 20 and 10 mins then 20g at 0 mins total of 35 IBU. I find it a bit harsh (i believe galaxy can be that way) but my wife and father-in-law like it a lot.

I was also low on OG, getting 1.043 but for some reason the Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale powered through the wort and fermented down to 1.006 giving 4.9% abv.

Hope you're turns out tasty.

 

[DaveK]

How did you tinker with this?

I used Maris Otter Pale Malt and Munich Malt and wanted to use a dried yeast (rehydrated) as I'm not setup to do starters yet - so I went with S-04.

My OG was 1.042 I'm still getting to grips with the process, Beersmith and the equipment profile for the ACE. I now realise that what I should have done is keep boiling until I hit the OG. I even have a refractometer but never ocurred to me.

 

[Zephyr259]

That's the same malt bill as I used. I think you'll be fine, should get to 4% and I bet it'll be very tasty with the fruitier English yeast.