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I was out on an evening stroll and a creeping plant took my eye. It was wrapped around an old telegraph pole. I instantly hoped that it was a hop plant. I took a leaf and what I think are some baby hops for identification.

Any pointers appreciated.

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“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…

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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.

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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.

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My new pump for recirculating mash and boiled wort. It is from Solar Projects and takes a 12v DC input, adapter from Maplin. The pump runs with a rate of 6L a minute and slows down if a decreased voltage is used.

It’s a tiny unit and there’s a beer bottle here to show that.

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Just took delivery of this fancy Foker 3120 8.8kw cast iron gas ring. Hoping to get a Brakspear clone knocked out on it on Monday after the upgrades are carried out for brewing outside.

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Red Eye Review

Red Eye Review is a site that I have worked on with some of my previous colleagues from the TV and software industry. It is a film review website that tries to give fair and impartial reviews of the latest films.

The site was built around the D6 release of Drupal and makes use of a varied host of modules and add-ons. Some of the modules used have been customised to improve their usefulness.

The site is open to new users, whether they want to add personal film reviews or just want to rate films with the simple to use JavaScript rating tool.

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