Homebrew Review - Low Flying Crow

It has to be said, this didn't turn out quite as anticipated, but the experiment was a success in that I got a low-alcohol beer that tastes relatively good. 

Starting gravity was 1.028 and final gravity was 1.020, making the ABV a tad over 1%. I was hoping for a FG of 1.016 making the beer more like 1.6% so I'll need to tweak the recipe. To be fair it doesn't need to be any drier, so aiming for a higher OG might be the answer. 

It's cold, clear, and has a lovely flavour from the hops, but it finishes very short in the mouth, with a dry aftertaste. 

I'm not easily pleased and while many might think this beer fine for what it is, I'll probably have another crack at this later in the year and change it up a bit.

Low Flying Crow

The weather was too lousy to get any jobs done in the garden today, so I decided to brew the low abv beer I've been planning. If it's any good I'll detail the recipe in another post when I review the beer. 

A very small bag of malt was all that was needed, and despite reservations of how things would go in the G40 with a total malt bill of just 2.4kg, everything was fine.

I did a single step mash at 79c for an hour. It was a fairly thin mash and I throttled back the circulation and there were no issues with the recirculation. 

After sparging I took a refractometer reading as the wort was coming to the boil and it indicated a pre-boil gravity of 1.024.

As my expected OG was only 1.025, it looked likely I'd overshoot this by the time the boil was done, and that proved to be the case.

Once it was all done and dusted the OG was 1.028, so we'll see how it goes. 

In other news, the Novalager beer will be being kegged tomorrow.

Still Learning

The Novalager beer was a bit of a disaster tbh. I screwed up the water treatment and ended up tipping it. I've re-brewed and it's currently in the FV with dry hops. I'll dump those in a few days and then get it in the keg and lager it for a few weeks. 

My next project is a low-alcohol beer. I do a banging pale ale with a hop combo that really hits the spot. As I like to sink a couple of beers in the evening during the week, I fancy doing a low alcohol beer, and using the same hop profile as this pale ale. 

It's going to be a bit hit and miss as the grain bill is less than the recommended minimum for the Grainfather G40 and I'm planning to use a yeast I've not used before, to keep attenuation as low as possible. 

The OG I'm targeting is 1.025 and if it finishes around 1.014 it'll make it about 1.4% abv. I did have a crack at this type of thing last year, but it wasn't quite what I was after. I've adjusted the malt bill slightly as the original was very pale and because it's such a small beer, that didn't help with the perception as it made it look 'thin' visually. Fingers crossed this will go well. I'll do a post on the brewday as soon as I've got a chance to get brewing - hopefully later this week. 

Welcome To The Pleasuredome...

It was a brew day last Saturday -  my take on a New Zealand pilsner and I'm trying the relatively new yeast from Lallemand - Novalager. It promises to deliver a clean profile, at warmer temperatures in a much faster time than traditional lager strains. 

GRIST

Pilsner Malt 87.2%
Flaked Rice 5.3%
Carapils 5.3%
Acidulated 2.1%

HOPS

Motueka 25.00g Boil 30 min

Nelson Sauvin  10.00g Boil 7 min
Riwaka 10.00g  Boil 7 min

Nelson Sauvin 10.00g Boil 2 min
Riwaka 10.0g Boil 2 min

Nelson Sauvin 20.0g  Hop Stand 15 min
Riwaka  20.00g Hop Stand 15 min

Nelson Sauvin 60.00g Dry Hop 3 days
Riwaka 60.0 g Dry Hop 3 days 

There goes a supernova, what a pushover...

It produced a lovely pale wort and the airlock on the fermenter had kicked off well before 24 hours after pitching at 15c.

After 7 days at 15c the gravity is stable, but I've ramped the temperature 20c. to make sure it's finished and as clean as possible, and will leave it another 4 or 5 days before dry hopping. 

The Novalager is certainly a lot quicker than a normal lager yeast, and while there is some sulphur on the nose from a sample at 7 days, this should dissipate over the next week and I'll post an update once it's dry hopped and packaged. 

Getting Grist (again)

Has it really been two and a half years? I guess it has. Much has changed since the first Covid lockdown, but one thing has remained constant. I'm still brewing beer, even though I've not been blogging about it. 

The Covid situation gave me an opportunity to reflect on what I really wanted out of life and my wife and I came to the conclusion it wasn't money.

What we really wanted was less of the corporate stress, less of our lives wasted on a long daily commute. This would equal more time together, enjoying what we had already achieved and finding pleasure in the things closer to home. Our health. Our family. 

As a result, I stepped down from a well paid position and found a job with a local business. Although supportive, friends were concerned whether we would manage financially and whether we could cope with missing out on some of the luxuries we had enjoyed in the past. Ah nostalgia, an ache for a misremembered past is horribly seductive. 

I didn't succumb, and have ploughed on with the new, less stressful, vision of my life. 

So here we are, two and half years later and we've been able to make ends meet. And that local business that took me on board. That just so happens to be The Malt Miller.

So here we go again. I thought I would resurrect this blog and record my brewing exploits once more. I doubt the readership will be any more than the small handful that may have perused my musings in the past, but if nothing else, it's a handy record for me to reflect on what went well and what wasn't so great, as the brewing years go by. 

I should clarify that anything written by me on this blog are my own thoughts, ideas and practises and not those of the company.