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A Lawson's Finest Liquid Double Sunshine IPA Clone from BYO. It was one of the first AG brews I made on the Grainfather, it was superb.

Yield 5 Gallon / 19 litres. ABV 8%. Ingredients 9.5 lbs. (4.3 kg) 2-row pale ale malt 2.5 lbs. (1.1 kg) Vienna-style malt 1 lb. (0.45 kg) flaked oats 12 oz. (0.34 kg) dextrin malt (7–9 °L) 6 oz. (0.17 kg) Caramunich®-type malt (20–30 °L) 1 lb. (0.45 kg) corn sugar (10 min.) 10.5 AAU Columbus hops (60 min.) (0.75 oz./21 g at 14% alpha acids) 12.5 AAU Citra® hops (20 min.) (1 oz./21 g at 12.5% alpha acids) 37.5 AAU Citra® hops (5 min.) (3 oz./84 g at 12.5% alpha acids) 37.5 AAU Citra® hops (0 min.) (3 oz./84 g at 12.5% alpha acids) 3 oz. (84 g) Citra® hops (dry hop) Safale US-05 yeast, Lallemand BRY-097, Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale). 2 ⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
 
Sunday had me brewing a Dunkelweizen, my 9th all grain batch.

This was my first attempt at:
  1. a Dunkel,
  2. water treatment
  3. properly building up a starter from harvested yeast (from trub).

The fun began on Friday with a refrigerated trub from December's Weissbier, a homemade stirplate and an old coffee pot. Limited success with the stirplate by the following morning, but the yeast was well away. Fixed the stirplate and left it for another 24 hours.

More fun on Saturday evening doing calculations (guesswork?) with a combo of @strange-steve 's water treatment guides, Bru'n water and various other scraps of googled info, before collecting 32L of our hard tap water and treating with 0.3g of Sodium Metabisuphate (for the chlorine), then 29ml of CRS (for alkalinity/hardness), and finally 6.6g of Calcium Carbonate to tip the balance towards a malty profile. I hope my maths is right aunsure....

Early start on Sunday (8am is early for me), cracked on and hit all my numbers (phew!) - 5.2pH, 1.052 OG, 23.5L. All washed up by about 1pm which knocked off 1hr 30 from my previous fastest brewday. BH eff in the region of 74%. Pleased with all that.

Recipe slightly adjusted from GH's:
  • 2.2kg Wheat malt (all that was left)
  • 2.8kg Munich
  • 300g Special B
  • 300g Caramunich II
  • 25g Black malt
Smelled fabulously malty!

Weihenstephan 3068 yeast was happily bubbling away steadily at 18°C this morning.

clapa So far so good!
 
Got a Cascade/orange pale ale on last night, recipe was derived from the one in the homebrewtalk top 100 but I subbed the bittering hop with centennial to use up some open packs.

Was surprised how citrusy crushed corriander seed is!
 
A simple pale ale...4kg lager malt,200g light crystal,200g barley flakes. Bitter with challenger to 30 IBU and a 80 degree steep with EKG and first gold. First time adjusting water with basic additions of gypsum and CRS....
There's lovely!
 
IMG_20190216_161941.jpg
All done...1040/1 and exactly the colour I was after!
 
5th brew on the Robobrew. IPA To Be Named Later.

4.5 kg 2 Row pale
450 g Munich
225 g Crystal 20
125 g Carapils

30 g CTZ for 60 mins
60 g Falconers Flight 7Cs at 5 mins

Dry Hop TBD, thinking Amarillo and Simcoe

Wyeast American Ale 1272

IMG_6978.jpg
 
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No pictures aheadbutt but my first attempt at an All grain brew last night, and I think it's off to a really good start (or a really bad one).

I decided to risk it and use the yeast cake from a previous Black IPA I had brewing (and brewing an AG Black IPA). So kegged as I mashed. All went well, apart from smashing my hydrometer, and I kept everything either closed or washed it with StarSan. The wort was still a little warm (26°c) so decided to wait till the morning before adding the yeast.
Post parkrun came home to find the airlock going at a reasonable rate. ashock1

Now.... Here's my question. The wort was put into the old fermenter, after I had removed the yeast cake. Has the residual amount of yeast on the sides of the fermenter jumped right in and started having the time of their lives, or has it become infected and a wild yeast/bacteria had back doored its way into my brew day?

Fingers crossed its the former, as I have now added the extra yeast cake (and hops).
 
So packed off SWBO and kids around lunchtime to go away for half term. I'M meant to be helping them get packed and get to airport on time. In between times I nip to the cave to get strike water going. Sit on toilet for a while whilst I work out water additions. As soon as they are gone mash in for a GW Youngs special clone. 4kg MO and 400g 50L crystal but colour wasn't right so added 50g chocolate.

I then start weighing hops and realise that this would have been a good thing to do before I started - given didn't have as much hops as thought.. Ended up (21l) with 31g fuggles and 13g KEG for the boil and short of something for the late addition went with 20g of Saaz. Yeast half gervin/ half so-5.

Spooned strike water temperature- on the low side.

It will be nowt like Youngs Special but hopefully a good house special bitter.
 
Brewed a Kolsch yesterday, a bit short on the SG, 1.042 instead of 1.046, but bubbling away nicely this morning.

Still dabbling with water treatment,see how this one turns out.
 
An early start! This morning is forums very own Foxbat Bitter....a slight modification as I'd only a small amount of challenger of lower AAU so subbed out with more fuggle,choc wheat subbed with choc malt and an extra 200g barley flakes...so apart from that, exactly the same!
Basic water adjustment for "amber" beer but still on the 5.4-5.8 side of the pH for the mash...sparge water just coming up to temp,mash nearly done...DPD message sons Nintendo thing delivered today instead of Monday.....and relax....
 
A few brewing firsts for me yesterday. My first barley wine, with a multi-rest mash to try and maximise sugar extraction, another first, but dead easy on the GF. Ended up with 21l at 1.097 O.G. instead of target 20l at 1.105, can live with that. Pitched with two packs of Wilko Gervin.

Then decided to try to make a small beer from the second runnings, another first. I added an extra 500g of MO as I was concerned that I had stripped out the diastatic power of the grain by mashing out and sparging. Struggled to work out the water volumes required, but ended up with 20l at 1.035, hopped with 50g of Cascade and pitched with US05. Not sure what style it conforms to, a dark US pale perhaps.

This morning the barley wine is going like a train, I have prepared a blowoff tube, in case it starts escaping through the airlock. Also my fridge chiller is working overtime, trying to keep the temperature below 20°C, with two active FV's in it.
 
Change of plans today - stopping in so I’ve decided to take advantage and make an impromptu APA :
Pale malt
Citra
Mosaic
Using M44

You gotta love brew days !
 
I have two lager projects (experimental 11,5 litres) to try to squeeze in before the weather gets too warm. It's already 21C outside and the temperature in the back room is creeping up around 12! Tweeking my Pilsner Urquell today, last one with added Vienna malt was too light in colour and in flavour- more like a Warsteiner brewed with Saaz. Substituted Munich 15 IBC this morning and it's looking a lot more like the Pukka stuff. Last lager tomorrow, then; a single hop with Wakatu. Then time to throw away my flagging yeast cultures and get back into the proper brown stuff after that.
 
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