Re-starting the Clock...

Afternoon.
after my appaulling results in  the national competition, I've decied to resest the cloack on my brewing and establish some good process for sanitation and brewing also.
So in the coming weeks I'll be talking further about some of  processes of beer brewing.
first will be carbonation, then sanitation and so on and so forth.
Onto my brewing...
I bottled up Smell the Roses, and boy does it smell good, fingers crossed for no vege flavours. (asparagus).
OG was 1.055 - FG was 1.012, a tad drier, than i was expecting. only by a point or two, but i think it'll still be good, it'll just be more bitter. I'm ok with that.
The techniques used for dry hopping in this beer will be especially interesting, and if there is some truth behind what Kelly was saying about temperature of wort vs hop oils removed at these temps, it'll be an exciting brew. This beer will receive a full taste review, when completed.
Now I brewed another beer on the weekend, I've called it Mountain Warrior, as it loosely based off 2rowhill56 Pale Ale, from Russian River in the US of A.
A couple of minor differences in the beer, no Crystal 20, so I used Carahell.
I also has 30g of Mosaic to use, so randomly chucked it in at 10 mins left in the boil.
The rest is all simcoe, the last of my secret stash..... Looking forward to this one. although looking back at the beer its distinctly similar to smell the roses, apart from the colour of crystal, and the lack of US Cascade, plus the dry-hop techniques of course, mountain warrior will be dry-hopped with 55g of simcoe. and it'll be chucked in all at once, this will be a good test to see if the dry-hopping techniques add a different dimension to the beer. so strangely enough there is a good similarity between beers.

Secondly; I've been doing some reading on carbonation, hence the upcoming threads about it. I've talked to numerous people, and the consensus is to carb higher than i normally would for Pales and IPA's to bump the perceived bitterness and hop bite. Smell the roses was carbed at an estimated level of 2.55 volumes of co2.
Mountain warrior will be carbed to 2.6 to note any difference with carbonation (0.05 of a volume will be pretty minimal) if these beers turn out well, like i expect (mountain warrior will probably a bit cloudy)  then they will probably be re-brewed again when the new US of A harvest filters through to us here in little old NZ. then a 2.7 Volumes will be created, and taste differences will be established.

Lastly: SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY (Bookbinder type Clone). This has turned out amazingly well, and will be re-brewed using NZ Goldings in place of Fuggles early next year, difference noted. I actually sent a bottle to Manawabrew, and he loved it. the word used was "Brilliant". Which I'm pretty stoked with.

So I've found a couple of beers that I'd like to re-create finally, after much searching.
*1: Sons of Liberty Porter - I really enjoyed this beer, and still have a couple of bottles remaining to drink after all the IPA's are gone. Despite the judges saying it has phenols, it'll get a re-do in the early stages of autumn, but I'm not expecting to have Amarillo available, so Zythos is the most likely candidate ATM.
*2: Silence in the Library NW Bitter - Love this beer, easy drinking session bitter,with a good hop punch. Riwaka will be in short supply soon, but a re-iteration before it all disappears will happen pretty much first thing next year.
I'd like 3 beers that I can keep a good rotation of, so the third is up for grabs, hopefully and IPA/Pale Ale, and in all honesty, if I can nail the Bathed in Blood then i'll be happy. But that'll be down the track.

In the meantime I'll leave you with this, My next beer is Labelled "The Legacy of Wallace"... EstOG 1.063. Keep your eyes peeled for the recipe on brewtoad.com