Brewday - R.I.P. 24/10/2012

October is a time of year when the sunshine begins to ebb away. I lost a bigger chunk than most when my dad passed away a few years back. On the first anniversary I concocted a new recipe, dubbed 'R.I.P.' and I try to brew this beer each year, at some stage during the month.

The plan for this year was to bring the gravity down. Originally I brewed it at 1.065, reduced over the last couple of years to a more quaffable 1.056, but what i really want to learn is whether the same recipe will work scaled down to a starting gravity of 1.048, or thereabouts.

The grist consists predominately of pale and crystal malts, plus a handful of chocolate and roast barley.  Hops are an infusion of Challenger and Goldings, with Cascade added late in the day to give the flavour a lift.

I wasn't at my sharpest on this brew day and miscalculated the boil time. This meant the bittering hops were in for longer than planned. I also added the chocolate and roast barley to the mash tun after the mash was complete, so the sugars extracted from these malts came only from the sparge, with much less colour being added to the wort.

Whether it turns out to be any good remains to be seen. It was a beer I liked in it's last incarnation, but it's much less dark this time around so doesn't have the 'winter' feel I was hoping for. We'll find out about the flavour, further down the line...

New RIP

Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Type: All Grain	Date: 24/10/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 62.65 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 9400.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 92.5 % 450.00 g Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 2 4.4 % 200.00 g Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 3 2.0 % 70.00 g Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 4 0.7 % 44.00 g Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 5 0.4 % 15.00 g Challenger [7.10 %] - First Wort 75.0 min Hop 6 6.4 IBUs 15.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - First Wort 75.0 min Hop 7 5.0 IBUs 24.00 g Challenger [7.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 8.9 IBUs 24.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 6.9 IBUs 1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 10 - 30.00 g Cascade [7.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min Hop 11 3.0 IBUs 30.00 g Cascade [7.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 12 0.5 IBUs 2.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 13 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.047 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.8 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 30.7 IBUs
Est Color: 23.0 EBC

Brewday - Agent Orange 11/10/2012

Agent Orange? Strange name, but it's not mine. This is a beer brewed by a friend of mine and whenever I get a taster, I'm always impressed, so I thought it was time to brew it myself.

I was due to work today, but due to the racecourse being under water following a recent deluge of rain, the meeting has been abandoned. It's raining here too, so there's not much I could be getting on with, so a brewday seemed the obvious solution.

The beer's a strong one by my standards. As the recipe's not mine I shan't reproduce it in full detail here, but it's very American with a heavy use of Centennial, Columbus and Citra hops. The grist is made up with a mix of pale malt, caramalt, carared, plus some wheat, to give a target OG of 1.072

To ensure I can get all the malt in the mash tun, I'm only doing half my usual batch, so 5 imperial gallons. This will be destined for the bottle and will hopefully in good shape come Christmas.

Agent Orange

Homebrew Review - Common Ingredients

Although a bit of a rush, my beer had conditioned sufficiently for the homebrew meeting I mentioned in an earlier post.

I effectively took two beers. Given the ingredients, my plan was to make a lightly hopped beer, split the batch into two fermenters and dry hop the other.

Of the two hops allowed, Target seemed the more naturally suited to bittering, so I used them in three additions; from the start of the boil, at twenty minutes and again at seven minutes. The other hop, Columbus was put in at 1 minute from switch-off.

As it turned out, I was pleased with both beers. The first was delicately hopped (starting gravity 1.042 and IBU's of only 23.5). Not quite a mild, but very malt forward. It's a lovely deep red colour and although I used only a smidgen of Colombus, you didn't have to hunt for them. As the sweetness of the malts ebb away, there's a final farewell from the hops. Delicate, discreet even, but definitely there, leaving you wanting more.

The dry-hopped version was obviously very similar, apart from the bitterness being far less discreet.

Which do I prefer? It would very much depend on my mood.

The sweet, malty, mild, with a tease of hop flavour at the death, might just edge it. But, the hoppy version has it's merits too, although for it to really work, perhaps the dry hopping needs to be even more aggressive.  I might very well brew this again and replace the Columbus with a different variety and dry hop at a much higher level. I'll give it some thought...

Recipe;

Common Ingredients

Type: All Grain	Date: 01/09/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 62.65 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 7600.00 g Mild Malt (7.9 EBC) Grain 1 85.1 % 830.00 g Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC) Grain 2 9.3 % 500.00 g Cara (Crisp) (34.5 EBC) Grain 3 5.6 % 30.00 g Target [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 16.6 IBUs 15.00 g Target [10.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 5 5.0 IBUs 1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 - 10.00 g Target [10.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min Hop 7 1.5 IBUs 10.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [16.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 8 0.4 IBUs 1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)  Yeast 9 - 50.00 g Columbus (Tomahawk) [16.50 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.040 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.042 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.008 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.1 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 3.9 %
Bitterness: 23.5 IBUs	Calories: 427.1 kcal/l
Est Color: 13.8 EBC