Brewday - Best Bitter 11/12/2012

Weather permitting, I'm planning to brew tomorrow. After some dark beers and a couple of big ones, it's time to brew something a bit more sessionable. My plan is for a standard English bitter.

I'm having another crack at my best bitter recipe as the last few attempts were not the best, as they came at a time when some form of infection was ailing my brews. As I've appear to have turned a corner on that front, I reckon it's worth another go.

A variation of this beer, was one of the first recipes I put together after leaving kit brewing behind, so it's kind of special to me. A very simple grist of 95% Pale and 5% Crystal malts, with a combination of Progress and WGV hops for bittering, plus a late addition of Celeia.

Although temperatures are likely to be below freezing when mashing in, I'll take steps to try and ensure the outside water supply isn't completely frozen, for what will be my last brew of 2012.

Best (Celeia)

Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Type: All Grain	Date: 11/12/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 61.39 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 75 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 8700.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 95.0 % 460.00 g Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 2 5.0 % 30.00 g Progress [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 12.1 IBUs 30.00 g Whitbread Golding Variety (WGV) [6.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 11.0 IBUs 30.00 g Celeia [4.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5 3.2 IBUs 0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 - 2.0 pkg Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-)  Yeast 7 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.042 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.3 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 26.4 IBUs
Est Color: 16.9 EBC

Brewday - Porter 20/11/2012

Porter is not a style I've brewed before. In fact, it wasn't until recently that I started to enjoy the darker British beers, so I thought it was definitely time to have a crack at brewing one.

I've based the recipe on something which I believe is not dissimilar to that used by Fuller's and brought the gravity down a tad. As I'm short on Fuggles, I'm going to try Williamette as the hop. As the beer style is more about the malts than the hop, this hopefully shouldn't detract from what should be a decent pint.

In fact, it wasn't until after I put the recipe together that I read in Beersmith that Williamette is used in Sierra Nevada Porter. I've not had the opportunity to try the American beer, but it's encouraging that my thought of using Williamette as a substitute wasn't wide of the mark - although whether the American interpretation of a porter is the same as ours, I'm not sure.

Oakhurst Porter

Brown Porter

Type: All Grain	Date: 20/11/2012
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 8200.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 78.0 % 1050.00 g Brown Malt (150.0 EBC) Grain 2 10.0 % 1050.00 g Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 3 10.0 % 210.00 g Chocolate Malt (1000.0 EBC) Grain 4 2.0 % 78.00 g Willamette [6.30 %] - Boil 75.0 min Hop 5 26.8 IBUs 0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 6 - 2.0 pkg Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 7 -
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.047 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.5 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 26.8 IBUs

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