Hot, quick and thick is moving

Over to WordPress and generously hosted by Aaron over at beachbrewery.com

The new URL is http://hotquickandthick.beachbrewery.com/

Today's brew day went well, will update on it tomorrow... have been too busy playing with the new blog software tonight.

Blunt Force Trauma!

I cracked the grain for my barleywine today, 15kg of Joe White Trad Ale. For revision, this is the recipe I posted a couple months ago:

Blunt Force Trauma

OG 1.100
~100 IBU
~30 EBC
20-23L

Joe White Trad Ale 15kg

Pacific Gem 14.4%, 20g @ 60
Simcoe 13.3%, 20g @ 60
Pride of Ringwood 9%, 20g @ 60
Cluster 7.2%, 15g @ 30
Fuggles 3.8%, 7g @ 30
Goldings, 5.6%, 20g @ 15
Pacific Gem 14.4%, 20g @ 15
Simcoe 12%, 20g @ 15
Amarillo 8.5%, 20g @ 15
Chinook flowers, ~20g @ flameout

Coopers pale ale yeast, slurry.

66°C mash
20°C ferment

I have decided on a few alterations/addendums:

I will mash at 64°C to help the attenuation a little more, and probably stretch it to 90 minutes if I can wait that long.

After much deliberance I [edit] almost decided to drop the Coopers yeast. Last year I brewed an aussie strong ale (Old Regret) that produced some heavy fusels thanks to a high ferment temp and right now I am drinking a coopers sparkling ale that is producing a ghost of similar flavours which made me worry about high gravity ferments and the yeast's ability to deal with them. However, I have decided to be a true brewing pioneer and see if I can get the yeast to work for me.

I am going to throw maybe 300g of Thomas Fawcett crystal and 200g of chocolate malt into the second runnings and draw it off for a small beer. The beer I make with that will be purely a spur of the moment decision, however I am going to aim for a starting gravity around 1.040. This small beer will provide the yeast starter for the barleywine while the wort sits patiently in a jerry.

I am going to try to keep the barleywine ferment between 15-20°C by the strip thermometer on the fermenter until it reaches approximately 50-70% apparent attenuation (ie from an OG from 1.100 to 1.050-1.030. Then I will allow it to raise to a maximum of 24. I am hoping this will help the yeast finish without allowing any dodgy by-products.

Something I am also considering, but ultimately will probably dismiss, involves saving extra yeast slurry from the small beer. Then, periodically waking sampes up with a fermenting barleywine injection and adding it to the fermenter to give the ferment some fresh yeast. My main concern over this is adding too much yeast, and ultimately I think I will skip the idea, though it is one I will consider in future.

Finally, the hop schedule might change slightly thanks to the consumption of old stock and the gathering of a kilo of new over the last month. It's all good.

cleaning

After my last brew day I hosed out my kettle on the day, unscrewed the tap and forgot about it. After three or so weeks in the carport I decided it needed a good clean.

After giving the kettle a good scrub, I tipped a little neat phosphoric acid in the bottom and gave that a scrubbing, no before photo but rest assured it was very brown beforehand:



The dark spots seem to be where I had a little corrosion already, I am interested to see what happens to them as the bottom of the pot browns up again.

Despite a quick rinse, the tap still held a fair bit of porter wort and some nice mould growth. It got a disassemble, soak and clean. As you can see, there are more than a couple parts to it:



Also have new shelving for the shed, Ikea's finest:



Looking at them, they would possibly make a nice brew stand. They are rated to hold 65kg each however at 36cm deep might be a little shallow to hold everything properly and would probably need anchoring to a wall for safety's sake.

In unrelated news, looking forward to tasting stevesa's lambic :)

Berry wheat bottled

15 litres all up, bottled a little later than I would have liked but it's still tasting nice. Berry flavour is a lot milder than the last one i did, and it has a good subtle tartness to it that will be complemented well by the carbonation. Primed at 7g/L to get sufficient fizz. It's hazy, most likely pectin.

Next time I won't bother with the mix of berries and just go straight raspberry. That works well and makes for a more identifiable fruit flavour IMO. Next mulberry season I want to attack the tree back home too and go for a hefeweizen base. The colour on that ought to be impressive.

SG updates,

Porter 1.060 - 1.015
Rye 1.048 - 1.010

Helles is not moving very quickly, it's almost too cold outside for it and I think I may have underpitched a little.

porter and the rye (and helles)

After a heavy hit from the heat belt, the american rye has dropped to 1.012. It is almost murkier than it was at 1.018 so I am going to reattach the heat belt to it soon to bring the temp back up to the low 20's. The porter has dropped from 1.060 to 1.018 in less than a week, and is tasting promising, the heat belt is on it right now to bring it back up from 16.

Also checked the helles, it is down in the 1.020 range and putting out some good lager fart gas. All good on that front.

Berry Wheat, Helles, Porter

Syphoned the berry wheat last night, it was a royal pain in the ass. Had to syphon as the snap tap was blocked with berries, but my hose not only was only just long enough, but it had a kink in it that kept blocking. With all the time, exposure and handling required to get the beer syphoned I am wondering if the beer will end up infected, oxidised or both.

Finally got around to pitching yeast in the helles and the porter last night, 26L of Helles and ~18L of porter. That makes it almost two weeks from brewing to pitching, about as long as I am comfortable with stretching it. Recipes are:

Bloody Helles

OG 1.046
20 IBU

85% Pils
10% Munich II
5% CaraPils

Hallertauer Magnum bittering
1g/L Hersbrucker plugs flameout
0.5g/L Spalt flameout

2308 Munich Lager

Mash Paddle Porter

OG 1.060
40 IBU

70% Trad Ale
20% Munich I
4% CaraAroma
4% TF Choc
2% Black Patent

Hallertauer Magnum bittering
1.5g/L Fuggles plugs @ 15

Coopers Ale yeast

Only deviation on brewday was that the Helles flameout hops got thrown into the jerry of hot wort as I forgot to add them at flaemout. That will probably increase the bitterness a little, hopefully not too much. Will definitely increase the hop flavour I think. Somehow I managed to hit my target OG of 1.060 on the porter exactly, impressive considering by that point of the day I wasn't remembering much.

While barleywine will indeed be next, I am contemplating sitting down to write an oatmeal stout and a tripel recipe tonight.

Cluster in the Rye - Update

The ferment on this beer is going exceptionally slowly, 1.048 to 1.016 in over three weeks and I would like it to drop another three points before I do anything with it. The krauesen is still active on top even if it has died right back and the beer is still very cloudy so I am not worried about it being stuck just yet. Plus, two days ago it was 1.018, which was when I slapped on the brew belt and brought it from 16-18°C up to 22. I think that is helping.

The bitterness seems to be quite good, I wouldn't have wanted to take it any higher than the low 20 IBU range. I am having difficulty pulling the Cluster flavour out from the rye, as I have never used either before. There's nothing in the hop profile that says XXXX to me at the moment, nor that reminds me of my CAP. I expect it to be more apparent when the beer is finished and cleared though. And bubbly.

Next on the brew schedule is barleywine. That will be a rather experimental brew, with lots of room for stuff to cock up. Looking forward to it. The second runnings of the barleywine will be converted into whatever sort of beer I feel like making on the day.