Zephyr's Brew Days.

[Zephyr259]

Hi Folks, I'm finally going to start keeping a proper online brew day log and where better to start than with this unusual brew.

I brew in a Grainfather so my mash and sparge volumes get set by this. I design my recipes in Grainfather recipe tools site and adjust my brewing water based on Brun Water. My standard size batch for just now is 15 L as it gives decent efficiency and seems to reliably give 27 x 500 ml bottles which is good for us to have a few different beers on hand while still drinking them before they're past their best or we're bored of them.

I got a vial of Sigmund Gjerns Voss Kveik yeast from the Kveik facebook group, it's meant to have a bunch of orange/citrus esters and the example recipes I got sent estimate an average attenuation of around 85% (at 77.5c which seems to be where GF sets their average). I've been wanting to try out the grain bills from The Rare Barrel after hearing the brewing on The Sour Hour. The have a base gold recipe which they then adjust to make a red and a dark, all sound interesting to use as a Saison style base and they gold was close to the example kveik recipes I got sent, so I made some changes to make it my own and fired away. If anyone wants the original malt bill from TRB then I'll share that too.

Target was as follows:
10L, OG 1.051, FG 1.010, 5.2%, IBU 20, 11 EBC

1.5 kg Irish Pale Malt
300 g Malted Wheat
150g Weyermann Abbey Malt
150 g Malted Oats
150 g Malted Rye
50 g Acidulated Malt (to correct pH)

Yellow Balanced water profile.

Mashed in 9.5L water at 70c for 60 mins, mash out at 75c for 10 mins. Sparge with 7.5 L water.

Pre-boil I had 15.5L at 1.040 sg for 91% mash efficiency.

Boiled for an hour, all hops were 4.8% Fuggles and I used 10g at 60 mins (10 IBU) and 20g at 15 mins (10 IBU) along with 1/2 tsp Irish moss. Gave it a whirlpool and left to settle for 10 - 15 mins, actually got a good cone of trub in the centre and had no issues with the pump for the first time in 3 brews, which I was hoping for with only 30g hops.

Hit my 10 L in the fermenter at 1.050 for 73% brewhouse efficiency, which is fine for these smaller brews, I normally hit 75% with 3 - 3.5 kg of malt in 15 L beer, I got 85% on the couple of full size 23L batches I did when I first got the GF.

I had a 1L starter going for 2 days, reserved about 350 mls and pitched the rest which should be about 0.6 million cells/ml/P. Wort was 32c and I set the controller to 40c, it made it to 37.5c over the next 6 hrs and in the morning (20 hours after pitching) I was concerned as there was no airlock activity and they fv wasn't bulging and the temp had fallen to 35 - 36c. After some worry I realised it smelled of fermentation and that there was a yeast ring inside. It cooled to 34C by today and I took a sample to check.

I'm in the process of calibrating a digital refractometer over several brews and I have a spreadsheet set up to correct for alcohol, in 2 brews it's been spot on for FG once and 4 pts low (1.016 vs 1.020) once, but for FG it's handy to check for a stable reading by only taking a pipette full rather than 100mls of beer.

52 hrs after pitching the beer is at an estimated 1.014 which could be FG as that's 70% attenuation after mashing at 70c. @BeerCat has found this strain to be ready to bottle at 5 days so it's getting left til Sunday evening and if the gravity is the same it'll go into bottles.

The sample tasted kinda odd but nice, still cloudy, but actually drinkable. I've not had Fuggles be a prominant hop other than in my brown ale where it wasn't noticed over the malt. In such a pale beer and with double the late addition maybe the odd flavour is the "earthy" nature of fuggles? My wife thought it was hoppy and tasty.

Going to be an interesting one for sure. I'm liking the idea of kveik yeast being able to turn beer around so quickly as it means I'll be able to brew, bottle and taste all within a 3 weeks at home, then have a traditional beer fermenting while I'm offshore ready to be bottled upon my return.

Hope this was interesting. I'll post back as it develops. Oh, and if others are interested in trying kveik yeast, let me know and I can see about sending some slurry.

 

[BeerCat]

I am very interested to find out how this goes. If it tastes drinkable after 52 hours that's quite amazing. I cant really remember what Fuggles tastes like but even if you have to leave the beer a bit longer to condition am sure its going to be good.

 

[Dutto]

.................

52 hrs after pitching the beer is at an estimated 1.014 which could be FG as that's 70% ..............

Just over two days and you are taking SG's?

I have to ask:

• "How?" because personally I don't ever open my FV until I think the fermentation has finished. (This is usually after 14 days.) and
• "Why?" because after just two days I can guarantee that the fermentation process is nowhere near being finished and the only thing you are ever likely to discover is that opening up an FV before it has finished fermenting is one of the easiest way to introduce an infection.

Liked the rest of the Post though! :thumb:

 

[Zephyr259]

@Dutto Because this is kveik yeast it's crazy Norwegian farmhouse stuff which ferments close to 40c and finishes super fast. It'll hit terminal gravity in 48hrs and be ready to bottle between 3-5 days. At bottling it can taste like a beer which has been fully conditioned.

So how, I cracked the lid and draw a couple of pipettes of beer out. Why, because it looked done, krausen had fallen and the temp was declining. We'll see what it's like in another couple if days.

Thanks for the comments guys, glad there's some interest, although probably skewed by starting with this brew.

 

[Zephyr259]

Gravity was still reading 7.2 brix on Sunday evening so I bottled. Hydrometer reading was 1.016 rather than the estimated 1.014 based on the formulae which gives 4.5% abv. It's still pretty hazy but the yeast was a nice compact layer on the bottom of the FV, I'm starting to think it's protein from my odd malt bill? Never know it could easily drop clear once it's chilled for a while.

Bottled 9.5L with 50g white sugar for 2 volumes. Back in the fridge which is reading 22c and the bottles are well on their was to firming up after 12 hrs.

Treated pretty interesting. Might have brewed an English pale ale by accident. There's a lot of body to this beer but carbonation should help cut that a bit and still a good hoppy flavour too. Nothing overly special on the yeast front at the moment, might have to really under pitch to get the citrus.

 

[Dutto]

My two mantras are:

1. "Gravity + Time = Clear Beer"
2. 'Drink it cloudy it won't kill you!'

Luckily I haven't had a situation where one or the other didn't apply. :thumb:

 

[Zephyr259]

Yep, and if the haze remains I may have invented the NESPA, North East Scottish Pale Ale.

Just cleaning up from my next brew, details to follow this evening.

 

[Zephyr259]

Today was the second experiment with Voss Gjernes Kveik yeast, Greg Hughes Vanilla Bourbon Stout with a couple of alterations.

Targets
15L, OG 1.070, FG 1.017, 6.9%, 30 IBUs, 58 EBC

3kg Pale Malt (GEB Irish Ale)
750g Munich II (Weyermann)
350g Brown Malt (Crisp)
250g Chocolate Malt (Crisp)
150g Crystal Malt (Crisp Light, 150 EBC)

Black Full water profile.
Ca 53, Mg 2, Na 46, SO4 47, Cl 61, HCO3 144, mash pH 5.48

Since this is getting to be a high gravity beer and my last one only got 67% efficiency I made some changes to improve this; I boiled for 90 mins so I could sparge with an extra litre or 2 and I lowered the mash thicknes from 2.7 L/kg to 2.3 L/kg, which is something Grainfather suggested on their blog post about Baltic Porter. The Norse Gold has given me some attenuation figures to play with so I changed the average attenuation from 85% to 74% which let me mash lower for the same predicted apparent attenuation.

Mashed in 13.85 L water at 67c for 60 mins, mash out at 75c for 10 mins. Sparge with 11.25 L water.

Mash was a pain, it was thick but easy enough to dough in but the recirculation kept slowing down and occasionally stopped. The mash didn't come quite high enough for the overflow to seat in the top plate, I'd guessed that 4.5 kgs in almost 14L water would need the regular pipework so maybe it would have fit with the smaller? I was getting overflow but there was air in the recirc line and some odd noises coming from the pump so I don't know if the pump was struggling to get enough wort to run or if it was air coming in through the threads as I only have 1 O-ring not 2 after one split. In the end the mash got a good stir at 20 mins and again at 60 mins and it was pretty compact, after a good stir it "fluffed up" a lot and the flow was good for a while, going to try oat husks next time, last brew was the first time I'd used them due to all the high protein malts. My pre-boil gravity sample didn't have any more gunk than normal so I don't think my crush was too fine.

Finally, my pH test was varying between 5.1 and 5.2, Bru'n Water estimated 5.48 and my test was low last time too. Need to check calibration of my (cheap) pH meter or see if I can test the carbonates of my water at work. mash had 144 mg/L bicarbonate and this malt bill shouldn't have driven it that low surely?

Pre-boil I had 22 L at 1.054 sg for 86% mash efficiency. I set my grain basket in a big bowl until I get a chance to clean it this also lets me see what my final runnings gravity is and I can add the extra wort if I want. The last 2 brews were at 1.011 and 1.009 so not too bad, this beer was 1.024 so I could have sparged more if I'd wanted to boil longer, this also shows in the 86% mash efficiency vs the last 2 getting 91%. Not fussed, my barleywine only hit 74% mash efficiency.

Boiled for 90 mins and my first mistake, I added the 15 g Admiral (13%) at 90 mins instead of 60 mins but the calculator says that's only an extra 2 IBUs for a total of 26, next addition was 16.5 g Challenger (8.5%) at 10 mins for 6 IBUs. Irish moss went in as always at 15 mins. Gave it a whirlpool and left to settle for 15 mins, got another good cone of trub in the centre and had no issues with the pump, which makes chilling so much less stressful, but once again there was only only 30g hops.

Hit my 15 L in the fermenter at 1.072 for 78% brewhouse efficiency, looks like the changes and extra stirring did boost the efficiency. Out let of the chiller was 39c and the FV stabilised out at 34c. Pitched +/- 1 L of Sigmund Gjernes Voss Kveik yeast which works out to 0.75 pitching rate and saved approx. 100 billion cells for future. I took a risk and put this in a 15 L FV as it was so much easier to handle last brew than my usual 25 L youngs barrel type FV (with the narrow neck) which also happened to still be in the cupboard in my daughter's room where she was napping... I've fitted a blow off tube and the FV didn't hold any pressure last brew anyways. Temp control set to 40c.

6 hrs later and the temp is climbing 35 c and climbing and the FV lid is bulging (never moved last time), no bubbles from the blow-off yet. Smells like its starting to ferment and looks like the krausen has started to form.

I brewed Greg Hughes Milk Stout back at the start of February and it should be carbonated by the end of the week so I'll report back with that as well as how much of a mess this stout has made of my fridge soon.

 

[Zephyr259]

Time for another update, but first a question. How do I change my thread title? Normally you edit the original post but it doesn't look like I can do that anymore.

We sampled the Norse Gold a week ago and it's both good and bad, unfortunately I think the bad is my fault and a good learning point. It landed at a very sensible 4.5% but it's never cleared and looks like cloudy apple juice since it also doesn't pour with much of a head. Tastes like beer though, it's fruity and maybe slightly earthy which are traits of this yeast and fuggles hops, wife thought it tasted great nice hoppy English pale a so a win there, and something learned about fuggles hops.

The bad, it's like drinking single cream... I didn't think about a protein rest until too late and decided that it probably wasn't needed. The recipe I based this on had 14% wheat and 7% each of flaked oats and spelt and gets mashed at 63c, I changed the spelt to malted rye and used malted oats for no other reason than I had some. The mash and sparge were fine but boy does this beer have a "substantial" body. It's still pretty tasty but probably a good thing that i only brewed 10L. The yeast did a great job though but I'm not sure it's being very characterful past the hops at this stage.

The stout is in the bottle and conditioning, I tested gravity on day 2 (1.022), 4 and 6, where it was stable at 1.020 for 6.8% abv. This got bottled with 260 ml Bourbon and 1.5 tsp vanilla paste and primed to 2 vol, the PET bottles had firmed up to a degree but not the rock solid like other beers, it's going to get a few weeks conditioning so it'll get there. My wife picked up a weird sour note in the samples but I think it's just a sharp note from the chocolate malt and tasting a warm sample, it's not infected sour anyways unless she's hyper sensitive to yet another flavour. Tasted quiet chocolatey but with the sample kind of maltiness you get in stronger ales, I think the combo of the two is part of the unusualness. Hopefully this all mellows out with the bourbon and vanilla given time, with the spirit addition it should be +/- 7.5% and a very pleasant sipper come autumn.

For once I actually managed multiple brews between hitches and got a third beer on the go, this time a belgian dubbel based on the recipe from Brew Like a Monk, it's a bit of a complex malt bill but when you break it down it's the usual base + toasted + crystal, it's just that there's 2 toasted and 3 crystals.

I brewed 10L as that's how much yeast I could grow in time and if my wife doesn't like it I thought ~30 330ml bottles was enough rather than 45.

Targets: OG 1.067, FG 1.012, 7.2% abv, 16 IBU, 25 EBC

1.6 kg Lager Malt
250 g Malted Wheat
200 g Abbey Malt
150 g Munich II
100 g Biscuit
100 g Carabelge
100 g Caramunich I
80 g Special B (meant to be 100 g but was last of packet)

Amber Full Water Profile
Ca 53, Mg 2, Na 15, SO4 55, Cl 67, HCO3 42, pH 5.48 (predicted, forgot to test)

Mashed at 67c for 60 mins and mashed out at 75c for 10 mins. Had similar issues with the recirculation slowing off, but stopping and starting the pump seemed to fix it, until I lifted the grain basket and nothing happened. Mash was totally stuck even with a few handfuls of oak husks, a few stirs got it drained and sparged but my wort was pretty cloudy and lumpy. Mash efficiency was around 88% so not too bad, gave me 16.5 L at 1.040 pre-boil, which got heated up to 95c then left while I went to my mum's for dinner. Came back 2.5 hrs later and it was 70c so got on with the boil.

90 min boil with 15 g of 5.3% Styrian Goldings hops for the full boil, 1 tsp irish moss at 15 mins and a 335 g bottle of Meridian date syrup at 1 min. Date sugar showed promise as an alternative sugar in an experiment on basic brewing radio some years ago, based on the packet it should be equivalent to 200 g of white sugar, but I forgot to take before and after samples to test this.

Boiled off a bit more than expected and got 11L at 1.064 after the boil but only 8L made it into the FV. I decided this was a bit sucky so I sanitised a bucket and sieve and recovered another 2L of wort for the target 10L at 1.064 giving me 71% brewhouse efficiency. Unfortunately, adding 2L of wort at 80+c to 8L at 17c gives you somewhere between 22 - 24c which i forgot about until after pitching yeast. Original plan was to start at 18c, I got it down to 19c within 4 hrs and left it there, by morning the yeast was working fine. I pitched 0.75 million cells/ml/P of Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale (or whatever they've renamed it) which was the Chimay strain at one point. I'm hopeful of this one as Chimay is thus far the only trappist beer my wife likes, I figure it's more fruity than phenolic as I think she's sensitive to phenols and fusels.

It's had 2 days at 19c, then last night bumped to 20c and will continue +1c per day until 24c where it'll rest for around 2 weeks, assuming the gravity is stable it'll then get a week at 3c before bottling. Wyeast say this yeast is good between 20 and 26c so my hot pitch shouldn't have hurt it too much and the cooling hasn't seemed to annoyed it either so fingers crossed.

Well done for anyone who gets to the end of this ramble, feels like a massive post.

 

[Zephyr259]

Time for an update as a few developments.

The Norse Gold is a lovely pint, either the first bottle had some unique issue or 3 weeks in the cool cupboard fixed the issues with the body. It's now an easy drinking (cloudy) pale ale with a good body for its 4.5%.

Vanilla Bourbon Stout impressed the folks who have tasted it as a 7.5% stout shouldn't be so good at 5 weeks old. It's chocolatey and rich without being sweet, the roast and lower hopping balances it all nicely with the vanilla providing a smooth sweet edge and the bourbon being very mellow.

The dubbel fermented well, the yeast is a pain and is very powdery in the FV but I got it bottled and there's no more sediment than in most of my beers. I tried one last night and it's still young but it's really fruity which is what I was aiming for with a background spicy note which keeps it from being overpowering. I've got paranoid about fusels in my strong beers but I think its a combo of the yeast spice, 7.1% abv and 6 weeks old, no headache or burn and the glass vanished before I noticed. It's got a much greater complexity than the brunette so maybe there is something to be said for more complicated malt bills, shame that I can't tell which flavours are malt, yeast or date syrup. Oh, and the wife doesn't like it which she has decided is just a standard Belgian yeast thing.

I've brewed and bottled a Yorkshire bitter, which I will cover later as it's bedtime. In brief, I drank the glass of dead volume from bottling and it tasted great at 10 days since pitching, cant wait for it to be carb'ed and fully conditioned.

 

[Zephyr259]

My recent brew was Greg Hughes inspired Yorkshire Bitter, swapped out the wheat for flaked barley and changed the bittering hops. The barley was a bit odd, it's torrified, flaked barley from GEB and it doesn't look like rolled oats they way flaked barley normally does.

2.2 kg Pale Malt
250 g Flaked Barley
200 g Crystal (155 EBC)
25 g Chocolate

Mashed at 67c for an hour with a stir halfway through as the mash had compacted a bit. Mash out at 75c for 10 mins then sparged, volumes as per Grainfather calculator.

The test for this batch was boosting the water minerals, I normally use Bru'n water but it's pretty conservative and I've heard others suggesting that water chemistry is why it's hard to brew a good bitter so I boosted the additions with advice from folks here and from Wheeler's calculator. From memory they were 100 Ca, 2 Mg, 40 Na, 175 SO4, 100 Cl and my standard 42 HCO3. I forgot there was mean to be some MgSO4 in the mix and I don't have any, figure that I've not noticed any issues with my low Mg and the extra 25 SO4 wouldn't be missed.

Boiled for an hour with 10 g of 13% Admiral for bittering, 10 g of 9% First Gold at 10 mins and 15 g of First Gold at flame, which I enter as a 15 min hop stand for the whirlpool and settling. Irish moss as always at 15 mins.

Chilled with no issues again, during clean-up I found that the dead volume was the expected 2 L. This was handy as I later realised I'd forgotten to note my post-boil volume so had some maths to do to check efficiencies.

In the end I got 16 L at 1.038 instead of 15 L at 1.041, not overly fussed, should be 30 IBUs and 17 EBC.

Fermented with Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire at 20c for 10 days, gravity had been stable so it got 2 days chilling then bottled, primed to 1.5 vols. It would have got longer chilling but I got called away for work short notice, worked out fine as the beer was very clear and after my wife finding the bottom cap for my auto-siphon I picked up zero yeast in the transfer.

It fermented a bit more than expected hitting 1.008 instead of 1.010 so it's a very drinkable 3.9%. Tasted great already and I drank the final cup's worth of beer which I couldn't bottle, still cold and will just a touch of carbonation it drank like it was from a cask, my wife really liked it too and said if it's that good once carbonated then I have to re-brew a full batch and have it on hand all the time. :-)

 

[Zephyr259]

Well as expected the Yorkshire bitter is drinking far to well and I'm already down to a dozen bottles from the original 29. Wife and father-in-law say it needs re-brewed, so I'll be doing that at some point, probably going to add 10 - 20 % Weyermann Munich II as I felt it could use a touch more malt body and I like munich. The combination of Admiral for bittering and First Gold for flavour and aroma works very nicely, both are meant to have citrusy components and I could be suggested that the bitterness has a pithy edge to it but it's not actually orangey, just fairly typical for an English bitter.

I tasted another bottle of the barlwywine which I have bulk conditioning and it was a lot nicer than the first one. My wife really liked it, the alcohol is more pronounced than in my other strong brews but I might have let it get a touch warm when fermenting. Also it's got 50 IBUs to balance the 1.082 OG and 8.1% abv which are a bit on the high side for my palate but not for the other half's so maybe what I'm sensing as roughness in the alcohol is actually the bitterness. Going to take some to the local brew club to see what they think.

Yesterday's brew was a Munich Helles, which went pretty well.

2.7 kg Lager Malt
150 g Carapils
100 g Vienna
100 g Acidulated

Water was slightly toned down version of the yellow full based on online advice for the style.
55 Ca, 2 Mg, 8 Na, 52 SO4, 61 Cl, 42 HCO3

Bru'n Water estimated pH 5.37 but my test towards the end of the 63c rest (once it cleared and I remembered) was 5.0. I re-checked my pre-boil gravity sample and got pH 5.2, either my water has a lot less alkalinity than the report suggests or my (cheap) pH meter is naff. Next purchase might be a more reliable pH meter. Conversion was fine based on efficiencies.

Tried a step mash from the brukaiser blog, so mashed in at 50c then immediately raised it to 63c for 30 mins, then 72c for 40 mins and finally a 10 min mash out at 75c as usual. This should give similar results to a single infusion at 67c, so we shall see. It was weird mashing in such a pale grist at 50c as the liquid was very milky from the starch and it didn't go as porridge-like as normal. after 20 - 25 mins at 63c it suddenly cleared which was good to see as my wort never clears like the pictures online but this one was crystal clear until the grainfather grain basket was lifted, as usual.

Boiled for 90 mins with 20 g of 4.5% Hallertau Mitterfruh at the start for bittering and another 15 g at 5 mins for aroma.

Whirlpooled and let everything settle before chilling to whatever I could given a pitching temp of 10 - 12 c and my cold water being 15c, also my termapen finally threw a strop at not having it's battery replaced and decided that everything was 23c. In the end the fv was 20-21c according to the LCD strip and the inkbird so it got left in the fridge til midnight at which point I decided that pitching at 14c was better than leaving it another 8 - 10 hrs til morning, using Wyeast 2124 Bohemian Lager from an overbuilt started when I made my Bock. It was down to 11c by half 3 when I went past the fridge on route to the loo. I think it's fermenting, but the fluid in the air lock seems to be shifting from the left to the right and then back so the pressure inside the FV is changing which is weird as it's reading steady. The yeast was cultured 2 weeks ago rather than my usual practice of right in time for brewing so I guess I might have a slightly longer lag phase than normal.

As I don't fancy waiting 6 - 8 weeks for this the plan is to go with the brulosophy quick method, so it's sitting at 11c for +/- 5 days til 50% attenuation then will get ramped to 18c until it's done. Then chilled down as far as my fridge goes for a spell before bottling, it might actually get a lagering period if I end up offshore.

I hit 87% mash efficiency and 78% brewhouse efficiency which is more or less where I normally am. The final runnings measured 0.9 brix which is lower than the 3 brix I normally get but I collected some of the last trickles in a cup rather than drawing from the bowl I set the grain in so maybe I just got a waterier sample?

Final numbers were 15 L, OG 1.050 (1.048 planned), 16 IBUs, 6.3 EBC. If the step mash does act like a SI at 67c then this should end around 1.012 for 5.0% abv.

 

[Zephyr259]

Lager seems to be bubbling away happily, a lot slower than an ale but I guess that's normal. Going to check the gravity tomorrow evening and see if it's time to start the ramp.

In other news I plan to start a side project of sour / funky beers. I had a pale sour from @rats_eyes the other night and it was very tasty, decently sour and only mildly funky so I kept the dregs and have added 100ml of 1.020 wort to them. 4 hrs later and there's some sign of fermentation as the bubbles on the surface look too big to be caused by residual carbonation. I'll give it a while and see how it's looking.

 

[Zephyr259]

Sour dregs seem to have cultured fine, nice bit of sediment in the bottle and the "beer" tasted plenty sour and not offensive so it's been stepped up to 500 mls of 1.040 wort and stuck in a warm cupboard.

The helles fermentation went very smoothly, after 4 days it was down to 1.023 so past 50% attenuation and got ramped up to 18c over 24 hrs. 3 days later it was at predicted FG and was the same after another 3 days so it got cold crashed to 3c and lagered for 12 days. I would have bottled sooner but between offshore hitches, hurting my back and being lazy in starting my next brew I decided that extra time cold would only make it more "traditional." Primed to 2.25 vols CO2 as I had some conflicting data, some said 2.5 for all lagers but the BJCP guidelines suggest medium carbonation which to me is ~2 vols so I split the difference. Bottled very clear as expected and PET test bottles were firm after 2 days so I couldn't help but have a test since I wont get another for a few weeks. Carbonation obviously not there yet, but similar to my 1.5 vol bitter I'd estimate, surprisingly tasty, I'd expected "generic" lager malt with a touch of vienna and carapils to be on the bland side but there's a really strong, sweet cereal flavour which is very moreish, looking forward to trying it with full carbonation.

Do others find that lager/pilsner malts have a noticeable and unique flavour compared to pale malts?

I then re-brewed the Yorkshire bitter above, I scaled up to 23L and substituted 20% of the pale malt for Weyermann Munich II to increase the malt character and body a touch and mostly as an experiment since I like Munich in theory but never done a comparison.

Mash was too low for the GF regular pipework by a few inches but the re-circulation was a dream, running smoothly throughout and never getting up to the overflow pipe. Sparge ran well giving me my 87% efficiency which is in my usual range. Final brewhouse efficiency was up as I expected it might be going from 15L to 23L so I got 23.5L at 1.040 OG which is 82%, the 75% target was 23L at 1.038. Should end up 4.1% if the West Yorkshire yeast behaves as it did last time, aim was 3.8% but I can cope with just over 4%. 30 IBUs bittering with Admiral and First Gold as flavour and aroma as before. My wife likes this one so much she's going to bottle it when it's done so that it'll be ready in 3 - 4 weeks rather than my usual 5 - 6 due to rotas.

Sad times as I said good bye to my Farmhouse Saison and Norse Gold over the past couple of weeks. Planning some kveik experiments and a Belgian Single soon.

 

[Zephyr259]

Bitter has been steady 1.010 since Friday according to the refractometer so it's chilling down to 3c until it can be bottled, maybe Thursday, probably the weekend. Apparently the samples taste brilliant even warm and with "natural" carbonation.

 

[Zephyr259]

As I expected I've fallen behind in this thread. The bitter is lovely and drinking well after a month in the bottle. I brewed an old ale with Gjernes kveik yeast, hectic brew day with extra wort being reduced and another part getting the kveik added to wake up. Very smooth for 8% but the treacle I added to help hit gravity may have overpowered a lot of the other flavours so leaving it to condition and hoping it mellows. Half the batch is aging with brettanonyces clausenii.

Dark mild was brewed last Friday and my fresh batch of wyeast 1728 Scottish ale fermented it out in 5 days then dropped clear without chilling. Will probably bottle over the weekend to free up space for the next brew.

Currently I've got my first mead in a year fermenting, got some local rapeseed honey and trying out staggering the nutrients and degassing every 12 hrs. I was worried this morning that nothing was happening but the must fizzed a bunch when stirred so all is well. I'm just not used to wine yeasts anymore. This started at 1.125 sg and I'm using Lalvin 71B so should ferment down to around 1.020 for a semi-sweet 14% mead.

 

[brewhaha]

Hey Zephyr, loving the eclectic mix of brews you've got going on here! Wish I could brew as often!

Just wondered if you fancied sending in your Yorkshire Bitter for this month's competition (I'm not judging till next weekend)? I'm in the midst of perfecting my best bitter recipe so would love to try yours. Drop me a PM if you're interested but no worries if not.

 

[Zephyr259]

Hey Zephyr, loving the eclectic mix of brews you've got going on here! Wish I could brew as often!

Just wondered if you fancied sending in your Yorkshire Bitter for this month's competition (I'm not judging till next weekend)? I'm in the midst of perfecting my best bitter recipe so would love to try yours. Drop me a PM if you're interested but no worries if not.

Thanks, I work offshore so when the rotas regular it lets me do a brew while I'm home and another gets left to ferment while I'm away. If things go to plan it'll be a busy end to the year in my brewery. Just have to make sure I have enough bottles.

I was thinking about the comp then got busy/ill and forgot. Might drop on in the post this afternoon or Monday if I miss the post office.

 

[brewhaha]

Thanks, I work offshore so when the rotas regular it lets me do a brew while I'm home and another gets left to ferment while I'm away. If things go to plan it'll be a busy end to the year in my brewery. Just have to make sure I have enough bottles.

I was thinking about the comp then got busy/ill and forgot. Might drop on in the post this afternoon or Monday if I miss the post office.

Ace, I've PMd you my address.

I've managed 3 brews in 5 weeks over the summer holidays but that'll drop back down to once every 2 months or so once school starts again.

Good luck on the bottle hunt!

 

[Zephyr259]

Well time for an update. The dark mild got a quick check before I went away and it was tasty but quite different from what i expected, probably the combo of amber, brown and pale chocolate in such a low abv beer, think it'll improve by the time I get home.

Mead might have stuck at 10% and 1.052 fg but tastes pretty good, sweet and boozy. Going to troubleshoot this a bit then either deal with a sweeter, lower abv than planned or pitch a more aggressive yeast.

I've brewed a "strong, dark ale" it fits the guidelines for a bock but was fermented with Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale, but it's slightly too small to be a Wee Heavy so it's my own special dark ale. :-)

44% Golden Promise, 44% Munich II, 4% CaraAroma, 4% CaraMunich II, 4% Melanoidin. Did a step mash just because I could easily in the grainfather, 30 min at 63c, 30 min at 72c and 10 min at 75c.

Collected 3 L of first runnings and boiled down to ~500 ml while sparging and boiling, was very dark and treacly by the time it was done.

20 IBU Perle at 90 mins was it for the hops.

Since it was a bigger beer (6.75 kg malt for 23L), I estimated 70% efficiency, but I reduced the water to grist ratio from 2.7 to 2.3 L/kg and sparges with an extra 2.5L to account for the 2nd boil. In the end I hit 76% which I was happy with.

OG 1.070, IBU 20, EBC 30 (ish).

Fermented with Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale, pitched the cake from my dark mild, started at 13c and then slowly ramped up to 18c from day 4 - 10, airlock activity stopped around day 7 or 8.

Here's where it gets tricky, running the numbers for 1728 when it fermented my Dark Mild gave me an average attenuation of 71% which is what Wyeast also states, given the step mash it's hard to estimate an FG but I was expecting about 1.016 for 7% abv (amusingly putting it also within doppelbock style), however, a check today on day 15 puts the fg at 1.025 for 6% abv. Playing with the numbers in the calculator I either have to alter average attenuation to 59% or my step mash was the equivalent to a single infusion at 71c both of which seem unlikely since similar step mash for my Helles gave figures that matched SI at 66c. Will see if it's moved in a few days time.

At least it tastes good, wife (who kindly does the sampling when I'm away) said it has "that lovely dark rich flavour" which is what i was aiming for. Second silver lining is that half this batch is getting aged with a blend of brett and bugs to make an Oud Bruin so having a bit more extract to play with should help them along.