What did you brew today?

[Twostage]

With bottled water being so cheap, does anyone use this?

I used to, just bought whatever was the cheapest supermarket water. I've since swapped to Spotless, far cheaper (about 5p a litre) and its a blank slate. I now get 80-100 litres into 5 litre containers and pressure barrels which is enough for 3-5 brews.

 

[Stu]

I used to, just bought whatever was the cheapest supermarket water. I've since swapped to Spotless, far cheaper (about 5p a litre) and its a blank slate. I now get 80-100 litres into 5 litre containers and pressure barrels which is enough for 3-5 brews.

That sounds like a great idea. I can divert to my local one on the way home from work.
I've got loads of 5 litre containers (the wife can't actually drink the local water, so she buys it anyway - we get through 2-3 a week).

Might actually work for her too!

 

[Twostage]

That sounds like a great idea. I can divert to my local one on the way home from work.
I've got loads of 5 litre containers (the wife can't actually drink the local water, so she buys it anyway - we get through 2-3 a week).

Might actually work for her too!

Remember this is reverse osmosis water which has no mineral content so isn't recommended to be drunk neat. I'm fairly sure they say that as they don't want to go through the hassle of getting it certified for human consumption. What you can do, though, is look at the water profile of her favourite bottled water and clone it by adding your brewing salts.

P.S. I gave my missus a taste of neat spotless as I was doing a 'here's neat and here's with some added salts' and she like it neat.

 

[Stu]

Remember this is reverse osmosis water which has no mineral content so isn't recommended to be drunk neat. I'm fairly sure they say that as they don't want to go through the hassle of getting it certified for human consumption. What you can do, though, is look at the water profile of her favourite bottled water and clone it by adding your brewing salts.

P.S. I gave my missus a taste of neat spotless as I was doing a 'here's neat and here's with some added salts' and she like it neat.

Ah ok. So what's its primary use then? I thought it was for companies who wanted it for their water fountains.

I have a still. If you want to ever taste the weirdest water ever, try some distilled water. It's very odd and tasteless.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Ah ok. So what's its primary use then? I thought it was for companies who wanted it for their water fountains.

I have a still. If you want to ever taste the weirdest water ever, try some distilled water. It's very odd and tasteless.

Primary use for car washes and window cleaners as far as I can tell

 

[Twostage]

Primary use for car washes and window cleaners as far as I can tell

Yep. My window cleaner uses it.

 

[foxy]

A recipe I came across that looked interesting, Poe's Boston Bitter. Changed a couple of things, for the better.

OG 1,037 FG 1,009 ABV3,7 IBU 36,8 SRM 9,4 Mash pH 5,4

4,1 kg Veloria Schooner.
0.15 kg Weyermann Carapils mash out.
0,20 kg Joe White Crystal malt light mash out.
0,15 kg Joe White Crystal malt dark mash out

20g Challenger FWH
25G EKG 10 mins
15g EKG HS 30 mins
Mash @ 67C for 60 minutes
Boil for 60 minutes
A simple bitter, no adjuncts simple mash regime. Recorded mash temps, 2 probes in the top adjacent to each other, compared to the built-in probe of the Guten.
8 minutes after dough in mash has settled.

At 32 minutes all is steady.

At 59 minutes, the end of the mash and probes are still in alignment.

No starch according to iodine test.

OG just out by a cats whisker of ordinary bitter @ 1,041 but not for a comp so pleased with that. A nice session ale.

 

[Its6pmsomewhere]

Guess you'd call this a light lager, my efficiency is shocking but I've accepted and adjusted for it and am happy with the end product. Co ferment with diamond and S-189

 

[Its6pmsomewhere]

Guess you'd call this a light lager, my efficiency is shocking but I've accepted and adjusted for it and am happy with the end product. Co ferment with diamond and S-189

Should have mentioned this was for a 45l batch into the kegmenter

 

[Sadfield]

Lazy brew day today whilst watching Strade Bianchi.

Another brew to finish off my Maris Otter and Bramling Cross. A loose interpretation of a dark ruby mild, possibly a bit hoppy for the purist. Revisiting S-04 for the first time in 8 years.

Batch - 13L
OG -1.039
IBUs - 25
EBC - 41
ABV - 3.7%

Water

Ca-141 Mg-10 Na-100 Co3-50 SO4-100 Cl-300

Mash - 60' @ 68c

Maris Otter - 38%
Munich Malt - 47%
Wheat Malt - 10%
Roasted Barley - 5%
First Gold - 20g

Boil - 60'

Bramling Cross - 10g @ FW
Protofloc - 0.3g @10'
Bramling Cross - 10g @ 10'
Bramling Cross - 40g @ 0'

Fermented with Safale S-04.

 

[Twostage]

Cheating on the title as the brew was actually Wednesday but made the three sub-styles of Biere de Guarde (blonde, amber and brown) plus an extra blonde ale (as I ended up with nearer 20 litres than 15).

Packed into the brew fridge and well into primary fermentation (past the peak actually) using 34/70 at 13c.

Can't decide whether to dry hop the blonde ale or leave it alone so I can taste the difference between the two strengths.

 

[obscure]

At long last a weekend day which is dry (and I’ve not got something else planned) just mashed on for a batch of Archer Bitter (using the Graham Wheeler recipe) which had become my go to Bitter.

 

[Stu]

So here's the IPA I've mentioned in my signature.
I've ignored the CTZ. I didn't have it and I'm not sure with all the hops in there it's that necessary.

This is going to be an "in your face" tropical IPA (which absolutely suits me - I'm aware it's marmite for some).

4kg American Pale Malt
0.5kg Flaked Oats
0.5kg Raw White Wheat


60g Mosaic (12% AA) @ Whirlpool (10 min in)
40g Sabro (14.3% AA) @ Whirlpool (10 min in)
90g Mosaic @ DH on day 3
60g Sabro @ DH

Yeast: Safale S-04

Process/Stats:

Mash: 68c for 75min
Boil: 60min
Dry hop: Day 3 of active fermentation
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.012
IBU: 40ish?
ABV: 5.9%

I tried one of the DIPAs last night. It's still not there, but it's 2 weeks old and I expected that.
I'll try another one next week.

It was an all-grain kit from HomeBrewCompany.

I need to work on my water.

With bottled water being so cheap, does anyone use this? I've got really high chlorine water (which is also hard).
Sadly Southern Water aren't great at telling me what's in it (other than sodium and so on) so I can't really use the calculator. I left the water overnight with a campden tablet in it.

So as an update, this finished and the FG was absolutely bang on.
Things I learned from this.

Firstly, Safale S04 is fine - it's obviously tolerant and great for British weather. Downside is that it brought nothing to the party. Despite having 260g of "in your face" hops, it didn't really bring any flavour.

I need to do some more homework on my yeasts. I've got the water right - although clearly, the beer was very young, it didn't at all have that homebrew taste that Chlorine brings.

As always, it's a journey and every brew brings something different - after all, isn't this why we do it?

 

[stubrewworx]

Brewed a basic ale yesterday, currently no chilling.

Pale, bit of amber and ekg. Will put in the Pinter and pitch Windsor this morning.

Shot for 1035, but got 1041. 82% mash efficiency as opposed to the usual 70-75%?

I haven't been getting good attenuation from Windsor so the abv might be more in line with the expected 3.7%.

Only differences from previous brews were no brown or black malts and I used ams on this one.

 

[Twostage]

So as an update, this finished and the FG was absolutely bang on.
Things I learned from this.

Firstly, Safale S04 is fine - it's obviously tolerant and great for British weather. Downside is that it brought nothing to the party. Despite having 260g of "in your face" hops, it didn't really bring any flavour.

I need to do some more homework on my yeasts. I've got the water right - although clearly, the beer was very young, it didn't at all have that homebrew taste that Chlorine brings.

As always, it's a journey and every brew brings something different - after all, isn't this why we do it?

I've used S04 a few times, my recollection is that it doesn't hang about and ferments out quickly.

 

[Twostage]

Brewed a basic ale yesterday, currently no chilling.

Pale, bit of amber and ekg. Will put in the Pinter and pitch Windsor this morning.

Shot for 1035, but got 1041. 82% mash efficiency as opposed to the usual 70-75%?

I haven't been getting good attenuation from Windsor so the abv might be more in line with the expected 3.7%.

Only differences from previous brews were no brown or black malts and I used ams on this one.

Yes, the attenuation of Windsor is low, I think I've only used it once in a mild. I'm wondering if it would work well combined with another yeast .

 

[Sadfield]

Yes, the attenuation of Windsor is low, I think I've only used it once in a mild. I'm wondering if it would work well combined with another yeast .

It does.

The lore is that Lallemand Windsor, Nottingham, and now obsolete London and Manchester, were four isolated strains from the same brewery yeast, via Boots.

 

[Its6pmsomewhere]

Decided to brew with what I had laying around this eve. Got kinda late so pitched two packets of voss kveik into the kegmentor at 40c with a single pass through the counterflow chiller and it was up to 10psi and bubbling away after 3 hours. Love that stuff.

 

[Twostage]

A brew for the Missus. She was saying that I was brewing too much dark beer (80 bob, ESB etc.), which she's not a fan of, so I've just pitched the Verdant IPA yeast into a Pennine pale ale clone.

 

[foxy]

A lot of people brewing cal commons on Sunday it seems! We should all post pics of the resultant brews for comparison!

Took a while to settle but turned out nice, I was getting a bit concerned a couple of weeks back.
California Common.