Brewday - Citra Pale Ale 14/10/2011

There’s nothing worse than having a shortage of beer in the house when there’s a ten gallon brewery sitting in the garage.

To be fair, the shortage was self-inflicted when I decided life was too short for mediocre beer. And my last two brews were definitely no better than mediocre.

The Green Bullet Gold was an odd beer. The main problem with it was that I used some old hops I had in the bottom of the freezer. Not only had they had been in there a while, they were given free of charge from a brewery in the first place, so they had definitely lost a sheadload of Alpha.

In the brew prior to that one, I was experimenting with amber malt. I’d used it before in beers I hadn’t liked and gave it one last chance.  It won’t get another. 

I decided to ditch all the amber beer and all the bottled GBG. For some reason the kegged version wasn’t so bad, so I’ve been surviving on that.

The upshot was that I needed more beer. The Best Bitter has been bottled but will need time to condition, so in the interim I decided to get another brew on the go to replenish stocks. 

Rather than devise a new recipe, I reached for my brewnotes for the Citra Pale Ale. This took third at the UK National Hombrew Competition and is exactly the sort of ale I needed in reserve. An easy drinking, sunshine number with a little hoppy bite at the death.

It was brewed on Friday – 50 litres at an original gravity of 1.042. My last batch fermented down to 1.012, giving an ABV of 3.9%. Exactly the sort of beer you can chuck down your neck when a thirst needs quenching.

 The familiar sight of golden wort 

I realise I’m lacking something a bit stronger with the winter approaching and I aim to put that right on my next brewday - using homegrown hops.

I’ve also got a dark winter ale to get sorted. For that pair I’ll probably just brew 5 gallon batches. Recipe and brewday notes to follow when I can find some time to fire up the brewery again. 

Brewday - Best Bitter 29/09/11

I was due to brew the week before, but a dose of incompetence saw the element in the copper burn out. Switched on in error, when the vessel was dry, meant the brewday was cut short.

Thankfully the element was replaced quickly and I was able to start again a week later. After some experimental brews, I wanted an easy drinker that I knew would be good. 

The last brew lacked hop presence, down to the fact that the hops in question had been stored for quite some time. The brew prior to that had used amber malt, which didn't work at all well in a pale ale, so I've been immersed in mediocre beer for far too long.

This recipe is one I've done, in some form or another, for some time. It's a standard English best bitter. I tweak the hops here and there to try and obtain the beer I've planned in my head - I've not always succeeded, but it's always been a pleasure to drink, and I'm hoping this batch will be no different.

There were no hiccups along the way, other than the new element was a bit more efficient than the old one, which I guess should have been expected on the first brew. As a result I boiled off a bit more than planned and ended up slightly short on volume and a tad high on gravity. I couldn't be arsed to liquor back, so left it as it was.

It's currently fermenting at 20C, I'll check the gravity again on day 6 and 7 and see if it's finished. Until then, here's a shot of the sparge in action, and the wort going into the copper;

And here's the recipe, exported from Beersmith. I'll review the beer once it's ready to drink.

  

Best (Elite)

Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Type: All Grain	Date: 29/09/2011
Batch Size (fermenter): 46.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 57.03 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 75 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 52.00 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 46.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 76.1 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 9000.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 95.0 % 470.00 g Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 2 5.0 % 35.00 g Progress [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 14.6 IBUs 38.00 g Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [6.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 14.3 IBUs 25.00 g Bobek [4.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 5 3.4 IBUs 15.00 g Bobek [4.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min Hop 7 0.9 IBUs 1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.045 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.048 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.6 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 33.1 IBUs	Calories:
Est Color: 17.9 EBC

Hop Harvest

The hop harvest is now complete.

I've been growing two main varieties. Target, a traditional English bittering hop and Bramling Cross, an English aroma hop.

Bramling Cross were far more prolific this year, mainly due to the fact that the other variety had to be moved at the start of the season, as I'd constructed some new frames to support the vines and it wasn't possible to erect these in their original position.

The Bramling Cross had very large vivid green cones and were ready to harvest a week or two before the Target. To be honest, I probably harvested them a week too late. Many of the cones had begun to be tinged with brown, but I couldn't pick any sooner as we caught the tail end of Hurricane Katia just when I wanted to harvest and it became too wet.

Bramling Cross



The Target cones are smaller and have a red hue about them. I didn't expect too much from them this year, having been transplanted at the start of the season, but they still produced a fair few cones.

Target



Once harvested, the hops were dried, spread in a single layer on net curtain material in the loft. There was plenty of heat to do the job and they were dried in a couple of days.

I need to invest in a vacuum sealer, but for now I bagged them up and stored them in the freezer. I managed 850g (dried weight) of the Bramling Cross and 580g of the Target.

I've got a brew earmarked for the Target hops in a few weeks time. Before that, I'm hoping to brew a traditonal English bitter. Providing I get my broken copper back this week, I may be able to squeeze in the first brew this Thursday.

One downside to growing your own is the uncertainty over the acid content. The alpha acid is the source of hop bitterness, which is obvioulsy an important factor in getting a nicely balanced beer.

But, to be honest, unless you're trying to brew a competition beer, I'm not so sure that a percentage here or there is ultimately going to make too much difference.  According to the Murphy's web site, Bramling Cross come in the acid range of 5%-7% and Target 8% -10%. If I take the lower end of the scale, I don't think I'll go far wrong.

National Homebrew Competition - The Result

I detailed the beers I had entered in this post. Beers were judged in accordance with BJCP guidelines and this is some of the feedback from the scoresheets. There were two for each beer;


1. Old Ale -  Aroma and appearance did well. 7/12 from one judge on aroma (although the other detected some oxidisation) and appearance 3/3. I lost points on the flavour - 'hops too dominant' was one comment. Overall impression from one was that it needed more malt complexity/richness.The other thought the alcohol was a little sharp. I was surprised with the comment to age it well, as it's already two years old.

Overall score was 30 (out of 50) - this puts it in the 'Very Good' category. 'Beers in this range may have minor flaws, or may be lacking in balance or complexity.' So, a good beer but not quite to style.


2. Pale Ale - Both judges gave this 3/3 for appearance and one a hefty 9/12 for aroma. Mouthfeel was a brilliant 5/5 with flavour 17/20 from one, 16/20 from the other. Both gave 8/10 for overall impression. 'A good beer, great balance'.

Overall score was 41 - 'Excellent' I was completely blown away by this result. I was awarded 3rd place in this category.


3. Best Bitter - Again, this beer looked the part with both judges giving 3/3 for appearance. 'Golden colour, great head and retention, strong beading.' Sadly, from here it went downhill. It was evident the bottles I sent were oxidised. 'Off flavours dominate a beer with great appearance' was the overall impression.

Overall score was 25 - 'Good'. A real shame this beer wasn't quite right. The bottles I had at home were fine, but I guess splashing during bottling had affected a few.

In summary, a good display for my first ever foray into the world of homebrew competitions.