Brewing season on the way

Well it’s getting cooler outside (and inside my house) – so ‘brewing season’ is about here.  As yeast needs to be between 23-18 or so (depending on beer and yeast obviously) when fermenting,  I have not way to brew in the hotter summer months really.  Plus there’s a lot more airbound bacteria when it’s warmer, which makes getting a brew done even tougher!

I’ve already bought some supplies.. and I intend to try again at a very strong (to original type) IPA – my last one failed (although it is a nice ale.. just not hoppy at all!).

This time I’ll try and get the flavour hops in at the right time (I went too early last time and they would have lost all the flavour in boiling off).  Plus i’m going to boil for longer overall now – from 60 to 90 mins as per the books I’ve been reading.

I’ll take pics of the kit and ingrediants and as I brew again – I’m going for 4.5k of liquid pale malt, two types of grain (crystal and pale malt), two types of hop (fuggles and goldings for traditions sake), got my irish moss this time (didn’t realise I needed it previously!), and 20+ green litre bottles for bottling later on.  the 2 Litre pop bottles I had used aren’t a good idea, mainly because of how much beer you need to drink in one go, and also the amount of yeast that gets stirred up from pouring multiple times!

More to come!

Peterborough Beerfest day 1

Day 1 of the Peterborough beer festival has been and gone, and I’m still here, typing this – so good news

The beerfestival by night

As with the last few years, I had trade tickets so could enter at 3:30 – the ‘trade only’ session.  So I’m proud to be one of the first 10 or so people in – just like last year.

As soon as you enter the huge beer marquee’s, take a deep breath – grass, humidity, mud, beer, food, people – heaven!

I stuck to drinking halves – as any respecting real ale fan does (on day 1 anyway!).  I didn’t have a bad one – one of the highlights for me was a golden bitter called ‘hop twister’ (Salopian of Shrewbury) – highly recommended.

The new Oakham ales festival special was also very hoppy (which I love) – it was like a slightly stronger Bishops farewell (itself a quality tipple).

I met up with the usual raft of friends and family – for a Tuesday it was surprisingly busy – in fact very busy for an opening night – it could be heading for record attendance!

Now that's my type of bus - bar included

New brew – Krispy IPA

I’m in the process of brewing another ale, probably the last of this batch (due to it getting to warm to brew in my kitchen!).

It’s all my own recipe this time, so fingers crossed!  I’ve gone for an IPA style ale – and a proper one, rather than some of the beers which use IPA in the name and end up nothing like the style should be (Green King IPA for starters – what makes that an IPA?).

So into the boiler went;

• 90g of crystal malt grains (crushed) – steeped at 65c for 30 mins (for colour and body)
• 3 x 1.5 kg of light malt extract (to give the ale a good strength.. 6.5-7% probably)
• 80g of Northern Brewers hops, 60 min boil
• 20g of Northern Brewers hops, 40 min boil
• 50g of East Kent Goldings 5 min boil (for the hop aroma)

Once boiled and chilled down using my wort chilller, I transferred to my fermenter, with the air pump on getting loads of oxygen in (make sure the wort is 25-20c during this process).  The wort definitely had a much stronger hop smell than any ale I’ve made so far – it really did smell good (I LOVE hoppy beer).

Then pitched in two 11g packets of Nottingham yeast (double up to make sure.. as this is going to be an expensive beer to make.. nearly £40!).  From what I’ve read, the Danstar Nottingham yeast is a real beast – has a high attenuation (can turn more sugar to alcohol than a lot of other yeasts), and is very good at its job.  I’ve read it’s pretty neutral, and won’t add much personality of its own to the ale, but I’m not too worried at this stage in my brewing.  Anyway it’s fermenting fairly warm, which will add a little bit of a ‘fruity’ note, which might be welcome in such a strong and hoppy beer.

The first 24 hours saw an explosive ferment – I had to swap from normal airlock to a blow off tube (some tubing stuck in the rubber bung to a container of water) – as the head was blowing through the airlock, and it looked like a scene from a horror movie   Airlock re-fitted about 36 hours in.. and its calming down now, only 3 days in.  Seems a little early, for so much sugar to get through, but it might be ok, as this yeast does its thing pretty quick I’ve read.  I’ll take a gravity reading tonight, and if needed, stir up the yeast from the bottom to wake it up a bit.

I’m thinking about dry hopping the beer when I transfer to the secondary fermenter (adding a small bag of hops to the ale ‘dry’), to add even more hop aroma… but I’m worried I could introduce some external bacteria and spoil the beer.. tough call!

EDIT: Well I’ve transfered to the secondary fermenter.. I mis-calculated on the darkness (or lack of) of the crystal malt, so the beer is a lot lighter in colour than I expected, looks like it will be quite a golden IPA rather than a dark colour.  The beer transfered looking like toffee – which should change as the yeast falls out (it better!).  I did add a small bag of aroma hops to the fermenter.. so fingers crossed that goes well, and just adds a nice hop aroma to the beer, rather than a bucket load of bacteria! 

New brew – half mash

My special bitter in 2nd fermenter

Well I’ve just made my third home brew of year, and this time I’ve upped the level from ‘kit’ to ‘half mash’ (or extract brewing). While it’s still not ‘full mash’ brewing (which is buying the grains and doing pretty much everything except growing the ingredients yourself), it still feels much more like making beer than making up a basic kit.

I’ve started my new level of brewing buy trying to make a London style bitter (higher hopped than Yorkshire bitter style), which should reach about 4.2% alcohol (about 21-22 litres of). I’ll know how it’s gone in about 4-5 weeks or so. Here with pictures is how you go about extract brewing.

1) Choose your recipe (you can find recipe’s online, in books, or even the simple 60p leaflet I bought has some basic starter recipes in different styles).  Extract brewing involves buying malt extract (either in 1.5 / 1.8kg tins in liquid form, or as spray dried malt), which is where your sugars, colour, and malt taste come from, and then selecting speciality grains (to add more flavour), and hops (which adds bitterness, and the hoppy aroma).  You also need some yeast of course, and it’s worth getting a good quality one, which goes with your beer style and strength (Belgium high alchohol yeasts when you need to go past 7%).

Beer equipment: Boiler

2) Buy your equipment – as I had been brewing kits, I already had a couple of fermentors (clear plastic ‘water bottle’ style one for secondary fermentation, and a screw top sealed one for primary), I’ve also got an older ‘bucket’ which I have kept for preparing my brewing liquor (that’s treated water in laymans terms).  I also aready had a good syphon, cleaning / sterilising stuff, and other bits n pieces, including the very important thermometer (I’ve gone digital as the old glass n mercury one really doesn’t cut it these days).  To brew extract, I had to also buy a boiler (a stronger heat resistant bucket with attached heating element and tap), and a wort chiller (spiral of copper tubing which you flow cold tap water through to cool the boiled ‘wort’ quickly).  I also bought an aerator – which is a fishkeeping air pump and ceramic stone – which isn’t essential but I thought I’d get to really get a lot of oxygen into the wort for the yeast to use (and I really got a strong fermentation – which might be linked to its use).

Read the rest of this entry »

New homebrew on the go…

I’ve re-started up my homebrew hobby, after a gap of about a year.  So in the fermentor I currently have a Bavarian Witbeer – which was one of the better kits you can buy; you get to boil up the hops and some special grains to add to the wort.

Should be fermented in about 5-6 more days, and then it’s time to bottle.  I’ve only used my pressure barrel before, but I think with a wheat beer I will bottle the 22 litres into 2 litre coke bottles – super strong and I can get to see the 2nd fermentation for a change.  That way I can pop one or two into the fridge when ready (at least 2 weeks after bottling, but probably should leave for more like 4).

Fingers crossed!