Continue reading »]]> The recipe changed a bit at the last minute due to not enough hops and no point in having a few grams of wheat left over etc.

Pale Malt – 1800g
Torrefied Wheat – 100g
Wheat Malt – 3010g
Munich Malt – 475g
Cara Aroma Malt – 300g
Jaggery – 250g

Fuggle – 24g at 60 mins
Hallertauer Hersbrucker – 18g at 60 mins
Styrian Goldings – 5g at 15 mins

Orange zest – 26g at 15 mins
Lemon zest – 6g at 15 mins
Crushed corriander seeds – 40g at 15 mins
Plain flour – 5g at 15 mins

Protafloc at 10 mins

Munich dry yeast

Some photos:

Some ingredients:

Bits and bobs:

The mash:

From the mash tun:

New chiller – a bargain 20m of 8mm copper in B&Q for a tenner:

From the boiler:

6L short of target, all the crap and break bunged up my mesh filter, glad it stayed in there and not in the fermenter:

Beer Engine reckoned 1.058 without the Jaggery, I ended up with 1.059. If the filter hadn’t have bunged up I think I would have been bang on my 23L length. The wort tasted devine, it smelled amazing and again I could have drunk it as it was without the ferment.

Today the yeast had kicked in and was going nicely.

I really can’t wait for this to be ready…

Continue reading »]]> As it is not very summery at the moment I thought I’d inject a bit of summer into a beer. Having decided to do a light summer ale I was persuaded to do a honey ale. Rather than just a honey ale I decided to make a mash up and ferment out, split and add honey to the secondary ferment of one half. Really not sure how it will turn out but that is what experimenting is about.

The mash was over 60 minutes and recirculated for 45 minutes in a 2 batch sparge.

The fermentables:

The hops:

The golden syrup and a spoon of protofloc were added at 10 minutes to go. The wort was recirculated and cooled for 45 minutes and left to settle for an hour.

The target gravity was 1.056 for 23L which I hit but due to using my older backup boiler (main sprung a leak) the tap was slightly higher and around 2L of wort was left in the boiler. Shame.

From doing the calculations:

Mash volume = 30.6L
Mash gravity = 1.050
Efficiency = 90.9%

Boiled volume = 21L
OG = 1.056
Efficiency = 76%

The photos:

The final gravity is expected to be 1.012 making this 5.7%ABV. Let’s see if the S04 yeast does the job.

Continue reading »]]> I brewed this last week but only just got round to sharing it…

The initial recipe was to be PDTNC’s Nelso Brucker but due to a few different ingredients I’ve given it the name of Admiral on Deck on account of the Nelson Sauvin hops.

I did a 60 minutes mash with about 20 minutes of recirculation with the solar pump. 2nd batch sparge for 30 minutes with a 15 minutes recirculation, followed by a 60 minutes boil.

Managed to get a higher efficiency than I was expecting on the mash, I did use too much water on my sparge so the final output was 27L of wort, not 23. The gravity was on target of 1.045 so had it been 4L less I’d have a stronger beer…

The US-05 yeast has done a good job and it is now tucked up in the secondary fermenter with a current gravity of 1.012.

Continue reading »]]> I had intended AG11 and AG12 to be a double brew day but this was unable to happen. As it was I transferred AG11 to the secondary fermenter and then started with AG12.

I used exactly the same recipe but this time I was meticulous with the amount of water used, previously I had done it but eye on a rough scale and had got 24L, this time I got 25L. Time to adjust my settings…

Sadly no photos on this brew, didn’t have time.

The grain bill:

Pale malt – 4800g
Crystal malt – 250g
Cara-pils – 200g
Chocolate malt – 150g
Torrified wheat – 85g

Fuggles – 50g 60 mins
Bobek – 40g 15 mins
Bobek – 25g -5 mins 90C

OG = 1.054, was expecting 1.052 but hoping for a 1.057 like the last batch.

I used the yeast slurry from AG11 which was a mix of Nottingham and S-04.

I did a 60 minutes mash with 30-40 minutes of recirculation with the solar pump. 2nd batch sparge for 30 minutes with a 25 minutes recirculation, followed by a 60 minutes boil. Rather than use my ice bath I opted for the hose pipe feed (no ice this time).

Continue reading »]]> Some time ago I made a clone of the Hobgoblin ale based on Orfy’s recipe. I did make some slight changes but unfortunately I had a hard disk crash and lost my altered recipe. That ale got named Viking Clawfinger and was a success among friends and family. I have produced a new version of it but this time stuck to Orfy’s recipe but with the addition of Torrified Wheat. Kept the VC name as I like it.

The brew went well but the fermentation has had some problems getting started, I am putting this down to a dodgy batch of Nottingham yeast.

Pale malt – 4800g
Crystal malt – 250g
Cara-pils – 200g
Chocolate malt – 150g
Torrified wheat – 85g

Fuggles – 50g 60 mins
Bobek – 40g 15 mins
Bobek – 25g -5 mins 90C

OG = 1.057, was expecting 1.052

I did a 60 minutes mash with 30-40 minutes of recirculation with the solar pump. 2nd batch sparge for 30 minutes with a 25 minutes recirculation, followed by a 60 minutes boil. Cooling with a new bit of kit, an ice bath with water butt pump into the IC. Unfortunately the ice melted faster than I had thought it would and I replaced water bath with hose pipe feed. So much for being more green…







The Nottingham yeast that I had problems with, 30 hours with no activity, batch number 1080961099V expiry 12/2011. This batch number tallies with a few other brewers’ failed ferments… I added a packet of S-04 and it has started to froth up. Fingers crossed.

Finally some yeast action, not sure if this is the Nottingham or S-04 or a combination…

Update:

The brew shed smells lovely, lots of beery yeasty smells. I was greeted by the following. I think that the Nottingham took a while to kick in and then went berserk!

Update 21/09/2010:
Gravity is at 1.014 so with a temperature of 21.7C the corrected gravity is 1.015. Expected is 1.014 so a few more days and this will be transferred into FV2.

Continue reading »]]>

“It is, quite simply, a wonderful beer. It is exceedingly pale (21-22 units colour), with just a hint of colour in its cheeks from the dash of crystal malt. It has a massive orange fruit aroma from the challengers, balanced by biscuity malt.

“Juicy malt and tart hops vie for attention in the mouth while the finish is tart and hoppy but well balanced by creamy malt. The bitterness rating is a substantial 36-38. The tangy fruit lingers on the back of the tongue until it develops a hint of orange liqueur.”

Roger Protz – CAMRA

My take on the Bluebird is not strictly 100% as when the time came I did not have the right weight of Challenger hops. I substituted a small amount for Northern Brewer in the bittering stage and left the aroma hops as they should be.

I used two new pieces of equipment on this brew much to its benefit. I built a new hop filter which worked out amazingly well. Whereas I previously had to drain my boiler very slowly to not pull through any debris, I was able to use my 12V pump on full tilt to drain the boiler in a matter of moments. I also built a small copper return manifold to help with a whirlpooling effect on the cooling and recirculating stage. Four return pipes at 15mm was probably too much though as the feed pipe was only 5/16 inch and so the wort trickled out of each return. Mental note to make use of some chemical engineering to get my pipe diameters and flow rates correct.

The recipe was as follows:

• 3281g Marris Otter Pale Malt
• 170g Crystal Malt
• 100g Torrified Wheat

Process:

1. Batch 1 – mashed for 90 minutes in 20L of 70C water – forgot to let it cool a bit for the intended 67C mash
2. Recirculated for 30 minutes
3. Collected 15L of pre-boil wort
4. Batch 2 – spaarged with 15L of 67C water
5. Recirculated for 30 minutes
6. Collected 14L of pre-boil wort
7. Added 26g Challenger hops to boiler
8. Added 13g Northern Brewer hops to boiler
9. Added the first batch of wort to boiler and left for about 45 minutes with no heat
10. Took 15 minutes to heat to boil and then boiled for 90 minutes
11. Added 20g Challenger hops at 15 minutes to go
12. Placed chiller in the boiling wort with 15 minutes to go to sanitise it
13. Added 1/3 teaspoon of Protofloc at 10 minutes to go
14. Cooled for 10 minutes before turning on recirculation pump
15. Left for 30 minutes
16. Turned off chiller as wort had hit ambient temperature
17. Started drain off to fermenter
18. Collected 20L
19. Topped up to 23L
20. Pitched S-05 yeast
21. Tucked up in water bath in shed

Total time 5 hours

I had added 29L to the boiler and collected 20L. My extra wastage to evaporation is down to an under estimate of the evaporation rate on the new Foker burner. It is extremely powerful!

I ran the amount and gravity into the dilution calculator and it said I needed 5.5L to hit the original gravity of 1.036 but I added just slightly over 3L and the gravity reading of the final 23L adjusted for temperature was 1.042. I guess I managed to get more out of my mash than originally estimated, probably down to beating it with a paint mixing paddle on the end of my electric drill.

I collected the liquid and squeezed the hops in the boiler to give me 1L of further liquid. This settled out into about 550ml of cold break material and the remainder possibly good fermentables. This was all discarded but will be useful in calculating wastage and efficieny in future brews.

This will be transferred to the secondary ferment after 7 days and left for a further 7 days. The temperature it is saying on the fermenter is 18-20C.

All in all a great brew day, the new hop filter worked its magic and will be used for ever more, how did I ever do without it?

The photos…

Continue reading »]]> My original hop filter was a length of 15mm copper pipe with a series of 3mm holes drilled into it. The design seemed to be fine for my first 6 brews but on the 7th and 8th it kept getting blocked up by the hops, both brews consisted of a large number of Challenger hops and I believe the sheer amount of them caused a layer around the filter that became impenetrable.

The time came for a new filter.

The design is fairly simple and consists of a T piece of pipe surrounded by two pieces of 60 gauge woven stainless steel mesh.

Parts needed:

• 1 x 15mm quick solder equal T
• 1 x 15mm quick solder 90 bend
• 1 x length of 15mm pipe
• 2 x M14 washers
• 2 x A4 pieces of 60 gauge stainless steel mesh

Equipment needed:

• 1 x blowtorch
• 1 x pliers
• 3 x clips (clothes pegs will do)

Firstly I cut one of my pieces of mesh slightly smaller than the other. I then cut a small hole in the middle of the larger piece, small enough for the 15mm pipe to push through it.

I cut a small length of pipe and soldered this into the T piece, placed a washer on the pipe followed by the larger piece of mesh and the last washer. The 90 bend was soldered on to this smaller piece of pipe. The length that is attached to the boiler tap was then soldered on to the 90 bend.

The smaller piece of mesh was attached to the larger piece with some clips and then the overlapping edge bent over the smaller edge. The was done all the way around and when necessary the clips were removed. The wedge as then folded over again for good measure and crimped flat as could be with a pair of pliers.

The mesh should be enough to stop the hop leaves and also any pieces of hop pellet form slipping through.

I tested this on my 9th brew and I must say that after I recirculated the wort post boil for 30 minutes I was able to drain the boiler into the fermenter with my pump on full power. The closer fit to the bottom of the boiler left far less liquid in the dead space. I collected this and squeezed the hops dry and was able to collect 1L of dead space liquid, previously this amount was nearer 3.5L. I am most impressed.

Continue reading »]]> Had an interesting brewday, I followed the recipe in Graham Wheeler’s book. The expected specific gravity reading differed from that of BeerSmith but this may be down to differences in efficiency, I didn’t have enough time to investigate.

I added 83g of Torrified Wheat, used caster sugar and not granulated and went for S-04 yeast.

Sadly I didn’t have time to build my new hop filter to go with my shiny new pump and this was a big problem.

The new pump did a fantastic job at recirculating the mash and from a bit of trial and error I found that on 7.5V with the tap half open the flow was enough that it didn’t stir up the grain bed and the wort became clearer. I would love to see what this is like with a false bottom, I expect totally transparent.

I calculated for batch sparge that I needed to use 1 of 21L and 1 of 14L to give me 30L of pre-boil. Not sure of the final amount into the boiler as I used the pump to transfer from mash tun to the boiler.

After 90 minutes of boiling on the new Foker gas ring I cooled with a 60L ice bin and a drill pump. The drill started to smoke so I switched to a hose pipe feed. I must get a decent pump for this, I hate using all that water to cool the wort.

I started to recirculate with the new pump and with 65g of hops in the boiler I was hoping for a great hop filter bed but sadly it was all a bit too much for the little pump. This is why I need a new filter that will use a very large piece of grade 60 mesh, the hops will have a larger surface area to spread over rather than 9cm of 15mm pipe with 30 holes drilled in. I had the pipe output strapped to the chiller in pipe so it cooled down a lot quicker, not quite the whirlpool effect I have seen but on those lines. I will build a new pipe for that job later.

I had a couple of litres left in the boiler but no way of getting it out so I cut my losses.

I did get 20L into the fermenter which was topped up with cold water to 23L. This was vigourously mixed and then checked and the gravity was 1.042 at 26.7C so add 0.0017 temperature correction, it brings it to 1.044. GW’s book has it down as 1.045 and BeerSmith estimated it as 1.056. So overall not bad. Despite losing some to trub in the boiler I think I did very well!

One thing that I seriously recommend now is the drill and paint stirrer, best eBay purchase this year!

The yeast is doing well and it is all tucked up in the shed under an insulation sheet to keep the extra heat off it.