Check out the video posted by Finney's homebrew, which is from our weekend brewing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXNQSCNEXE
The Plan: Brew a total of 225litres of Red IPA, to fill a red wine Oak Barrel. The recipe is Here: Well my portion of it anyways. Wehad a great time doing it, plenty of beer and laughs. Theres a total of 7 people in the barrel, and once fermented it will be transferred to the barrel and aged .then bottled/kegged. from there, a sour red will go straight into the beer and be left alone for a long period of time.
Second part of my update is the Savage keg has been finished. bloody balancing took most of the beer with it, as I'm still having pouring problems. using standard taps seems to be a real balancing act, which i haven't got right, and along with the leaks (I found another one in my second keg...)a total of 7 leaks getting my system up and running. I have also just kegged the brown ale as well, so hopefully this one will go better.
Next brew is next week, which will by my SJPORR Beer.... I will update later in the week with an actual recipe. on brewtoad, because as I said, I firmly believe in open source brewing, and if someone thinks it is worth making... please let me know if you do brew anything of mine, and let me know results on here!
Lastly, I found I was having some attenuation issues... even with US-05, now this is probably partly my issue. I am working on fixing the issues, I have bought an wort aerator pump with a stone included, whichi will do to amend the poor aeration, then work on other items from there, such as mash temps and volume corrections.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Tuesday, 22 April 2014
Brown ale's and keg Issues
righty-ho so I brewed up a storm on Saturday over the long weekend. oli's Brown ale, Re-dubbed Idles hands.
Which utilises the remainder of my Nelson Sauvin and Citra hops.I can now finally move on from having a bunch of hops, which are really only any good for pale ales IPA's etc. It's time to branch out, to other types of beer. which is a step in the right direction for me. Especially after the GKBF, and the beer of the day being a nice easy drinking Mild... While my tastes for a good Pale ale is still there, I'd like to be malt focused for awhile, and plus I'll actually save a bit of cash instead of having alot of expensive hoppy beers around the place.
right so I kegged up my first beer, the aveage Warrior, and yes it has been savage.... on my patience. i found a total of 4 leak in my keg system, all are now corrected. I had to replace a regulator in the process, which put me out of pocket again, a dodgy disconnect, which kenny beverages replaced and the manifold i bought which had 2 leaks, both I was able to fix up.
Then I had more issues, with force carbonation, an i chopped my line length up, seems to be too short, so i need to replace that now. I'll be getting a helping hand to correct it hopefully.
In some other news, Anothe collab with 7 brewers here in Christchurch is taking place in a couple of weeks, we are brewing a red ale, with NZ Hops and some going with predominately Gladfield Malt, what we will be doing from there is putting it in a red wine barrel, which hamish has sourced. it will sit for awhile in the barrel. this will wet the barrel for our long term sour barrel project. 220litres of red beer.... should be fun and interesting, then comes the main event, my SJPorr Beer......
I will now reveal the ballpark style:............
Robust Porter, with a twist/difference.
Which utilises the remainder of my Nelson Sauvin and Citra hops.I can now finally move on from having a bunch of hops, which are really only any good for pale ales IPA's etc. It's time to branch out, to other types of beer. which is a step in the right direction for me. Especially after the GKBF, and the beer of the day being a nice easy drinking Mild... While my tastes for a good Pale ale is still there, I'd like to be malt focused for awhile, and plus I'll actually save a bit of cash instead of having alot of expensive hoppy beers around the place.
right so I kegged up my first beer, the aveage Warrior, and yes it has been savage.... on my patience. i found a total of 4 leak in my keg system, all are now corrected. I had to replace a regulator in the process, which put me out of pocket again, a dodgy disconnect, which kenny beverages replaced and the manifold i bought which had 2 leaks, both I was able to fix up.
Then I had more issues, with force carbonation, an i chopped my line length up, seems to be too short, so i need to replace that now. I'll be getting a helping hand to correct it hopefully.
In some other news, Anothe collab with 7 brewers here in Christchurch is taking place in a couple of weeks, we are brewing a red ale, with NZ Hops and some going with predominately Gladfield Malt, what we will be doing from there is putting it in a red wine barrel, which hamish has sourced. it will sit for awhile in the barrel. this will wet the barrel for our long term sour barrel project. 220litres of red beer.... should be fun and interesting, then comes the main event, my SJPorr Beer......
I will now reveal the ballpark style:............
Robust Porter, with a twist/difference.
Thursday, 10 April 2014
#SJPORR, A Pale ale, kegging and the GKBF
Plenty has happened in the last couple of weeks, and being the slacker I am, I haven't bothered to update, when I should of.
I'll start with the first Great Kiwi Beer festival Home-brew Competition. Run by The Twisted hop and Finneys Homebrew, it was a great mix of many different beer,s considering the small length of time to brew something especially for it. The Kiwi As category gets his beer brewed in a 600 Lt batch by the hop, which is a pretty good prize. (Sadly I didn't enter that category).
One of my brew buddies Oli actually won best overall beer, with his eisbock, but as it wasn't in the category he doesn't get it brewed. So onto my entry:
35-35-33/50 were my scores from 3 judges, so overall happy scores. I entered my Bad Wolf Belgian IPA so happy with that. I should really brew this for the NHC 2014, but whether I get round to it or not is another story. Some great prizes with some other guys I know picking up a few bits and pieces.
Next was a big weekend for beer drinking here in the Chur! The Great Kiwi Beer Festival, and man what a day, an expensive day a boozy day. Like last year I'll go through my highs and lows of the day in regards to beers. But first a small side point. I was able to get a seat in the final tasting of the day, in the "Beer Academy" Soren from 8wired was to talk-about Sour beers, and given the Barrel experiment a few of us are getting into, I figured it'd be a good idea. It was, which has given me some real insight into sour beers and bret strains etc. I'll try post some videos etc. soon.
Now onto the other highlights of the day:
Best Beer: This was pretty difficult, as there seemed to be alot of Pale Ales, IPA's etc. hanging around. So I'm actually going to buck the trend here, and strangely enough pick Parrot dog's DOGG, an English mild, with low alcohol and not really a big player in the day. I gotta say for a small beer, there's plenty of flavour ,and the mouth-feel is bang on, no faults etc. So it wins my beer of the day. Mainly its different from the other beers on the day.
Next Best, goes to the Stone Range, Luke at Epic was able to get some of these beer into the festival. Although largely Hop focused, they were well brewed, clean and just plain awesome. Particular favourites were Sublimely self-righteous Imperial Black IPA and the Old Guardian Barley-wine, man what great beers.
Worst Beer: While I don't enjoy this category (in more than one sense) I think it needs mentioning. The beer chosen is Four Ave's Half Nelson, while well brewed, its plain un-interesting and uninspired.
Overall Highlight: The aforementioned sour beer academy tasting, Soren couldn't make it, but his off-sider Jason was brilliant, had good knowledge, and was genuinely enthusiastic about these types of beers. Which got me thinking, why can't I do something like this. It's inspired me. More to come on that in a few weeks.
Thirdly, I brewed my Mountain Warrior II, and the day before brewing changed the hop schedule completely, so it has been semi re-named. Mountain Warrior XPA: Savage Edition. As you will see, I used the Riwaka and Citra I had sitting in my freezers for quite sometime. Efficiency wise, I Hit my Target volume (This was hard-work, as I really pushed it to get the 21 litres into the fermenter) I hit 1.055 as predicted. and dry-hopped earlier this week. Before dry-hopping there was a larger riwaka aroma, which was very promising. so I began the crash chill this morning, and will get around to it, probably Sunday or Monday, as my first ever kegged beer. Exciting stuff.
Case Swap beers: I've done a couple of case swaps recently, the first just a normal CHCH Home-brew club swap, with 7-8 other brewers, trying a number of different beers, and styles. And the other one is a special one, which I'm especially impressed with, as the beer needed to be created and brewed with a single hop in mind. No other restrictions, just one hop to use, which was Mosaic. this has inspired my next brew to keg, Oli's Brown Ale. I'll have to make a couple of adjustments, for my system and fermentation but a solid beer, and my first american Style Brown Ale.
And finally #SJPORR, yes I'm registered in the Kiwi contingent, and I have deep dark plans. I guess I should add a YouTube channel at some stage as well. I will be brewing for the August cut-off in a very short while to allow some ageing. I'll do a special post on this, and hopefully a video (Don't expect the awesome SJPORR intro) But watch this space, and expect some dedicated posts on the challenge, the beer I'm brewing and when it comes to competition time, some notes on beer I enjoyed etc. I'll be using proper score-sheets, and trying to be fair.
I almost forgot -
GUTS AND GLORY UPDATE #1: The beer has developed a pellicle surprisingly quickly, and to be honest it look rather disgusting... But its supposed to look like that. The beer seems to be coming together where it should and I will be adding oak at a later point, to add another character to it.
I'll start with the first Great Kiwi Beer festival Home-brew Competition. Run by The Twisted hop and Finneys Homebrew, it was a great mix of many different beer,s considering the small length of time to brew something especially for it. The Kiwi As category gets his beer brewed in a 600 Lt batch by the hop, which is a pretty good prize. (Sadly I didn't enter that category).
One of my brew buddies Oli actually won best overall beer, with his eisbock, but as it wasn't in the category he doesn't get it brewed. So onto my entry:
35-35-33/50 were my scores from 3 judges, so overall happy scores. I entered my Bad Wolf Belgian IPA so happy with that. I should really brew this for the NHC 2014, but whether I get round to it or not is another story. Some great prizes with some other guys I know picking up a few bits and pieces.
Next was a big weekend for beer drinking here in the Chur! The Great Kiwi Beer Festival, and man what a day, an expensive day a boozy day. Like last year I'll go through my highs and lows of the day in regards to beers. But first a small side point. I was able to get a seat in the final tasting of the day, in the "Beer Academy" Soren from 8wired was to talk-about Sour beers, and given the Barrel experiment a few of us are getting into, I figured it'd be a good idea. It was, which has given me some real insight into sour beers and bret strains etc. I'll try post some videos etc. soon.
Now onto the other highlights of the day:
Best Beer: This was pretty difficult, as there seemed to be alot of Pale Ales, IPA's etc. hanging around. So I'm actually going to buck the trend here, and strangely enough pick Parrot dog's DOGG, an English mild, with low alcohol and not really a big player in the day. I gotta say for a small beer, there's plenty of flavour ,and the mouth-feel is bang on, no faults etc. So it wins my beer of the day. Mainly its different from the other beers on the day.
Next Best, goes to the Stone Range, Luke at Epic was able to get some of these beer into the festival. Although largely Hop focused, they were well brewed, clean and just plain awesome. Particular favourites were Sublimely self-righteous Imperial Black IPA and the Old Guardian Barley-wine, man what great beers.
Worst Beer: While I don't enjoy this category (in more than one sense) I think it needs mentioning. The beer chosen is Four Ave's Half Nelson, while well brewed, its plain un-interesting and uninspired.
Overall Highlight: The aforementioned sour beer academy tasting, Soren couldn't make it, but his off-sider Jason was brilliant, had good knowledge, and was genuinely enthusiastic about these types of beers. Which got me thinking, why can't I do something like this. It's inspired me. More to come on that in a few weeks.
Thirdly, I brewed my Mountain Warrior II, and the day before brewing changed the hop schedule completely, so it has been semi re-named. Mountain Warrior XPA: Savage Edition. As you will see, I used the Riwaka and Citra I had sitting in my freezers for quite sometime. Efficiency wise, I Hit my Target volume (This was hard-work, as I really pushed it to get the 21 litres into the fermenter) I hit 1.055 as predicted. and dry-hopped earlier this week. Before dry-hopping there was a larger riwaka aroma, which was very promising. so I began the crash chill this morning, and will get around to it, probably Sunday or Monday, as my first ever kegged beer. Exciting stuff.
Case Swap beers: I've done a couple of case swaps recently, the first just a normal CHCH Home-brew club swap, with 7-8 other brewers, trying a number of different beers, and styles. And the other one is a special one, which I'm especially impressed with, as the beer needed to be created and brewed with a single hop in mind. No other restrictions, just one hop to use, which was Mosaic. this has inspired my next brew to keg, Oli's Brown Ale. I'll have to make a couple of adjustments, for my system and fermentation but a solid beer, and my first american Style Brown Ale.
And finally #SJPORR, yes I'm registered in the Kiwi contingent, and I have deep dark plans. I guess I should add a YouTube channel at some stage as well. I will be brewing for the August cut-off in a very short while to allow some ageing. I'll do a special post on this, and hopefully a video (Don't expect the awesome SJPORR intro) But watch this space, and expect some dedicated posts on the challenge, the beer I'm brewing and when it comes to competition time, some notes on beer I enjoyed etc. I'll be using proper score-sheets, and trying to be fair.
I almost forgot -
GUTS AND GLORY UPDATE #1: The beer has developed a pellicle surprisingly quickly, and to be honest it look rather disgusting... But its supposed to look like that. The beer seems to be coming together where it should and I will be adding oak at a later point, to add another character to it.
Monday, 10 March 2014
No Guts, no Glory
http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/the-guts-and-the-glory-w-brett-brux
Here is my latest recipe, and my first attempt in sometime at an experiment of some sort. I figured, it was time to break the shackles somewhat, and do something different.
I've named this beer The Guts and The Glory w/ Brett Brux
This is now in primary with WLP530, which it will sit for 2 & 1/2 weeks, before transfer to my newly acquired Wide Mouth Carboy. Here it will sit for a good period of Time, I'm giving an approximation of 6-9 months at this stage. 1.060 wort went into the fermenter, at exactly 21 litres (Low hopping means less trub,) Which mean I hit volume and gravity, which is 68% efficiency. Much better.
As I forgot to harvest the previous WLP530 for a big belgian beer. I'm looking at a tripel in the vein of Westmalle. So Hopefully I won't forget about this, this time.
I'm excited about my first Brett beer, I must say. so for those who read this, share your experiences, and what would you change?
I am also aiming to send a few of these Brett beers out. So if yor keen I'll put you on the list. NZ Only though sorry.
Saturday morning was what I am hoping is one of the last times for awhile for a full bottling session. This was Dark Storm Black IPA, which at first inital tastes, is pretty damn good. definitely Black IPA-ish.
Taste Testing in 2-3 weeks and I'll let you know how shes going.
Bad Wolf is tasting good, and changing constantly, so hopefully, the hop flavour will really start coming through. Currently its slightly too bitter, and yeastie. but still tasting good. hopefully this changes, but I've come up with some minor changes for Version 3. to increase hop aroma, and a yeast change again, to get the correct balance.
Next up: Kegorator setup, Grain Mill purchasing, and a NZ Pale Ale, in the vein of Hopwired, but lower Alc and Bitterness. It will be Version 2 of Mountain Warrior, and will be renamed to Aoraki Warrior XPA.
Here is my latest recipe, and my first attempt in sometime at an experiment of some sort. I figured, it was time to break the shackles somewhat, and do something different.
I've named this beer The Guts and The Glory w/ Brett Brux
This is now in primary with WLP530, which it will sit for 2 & 1/2 weeks, before transfer to my newly acquired Wide Mouth Carboy. Here it will sit for a good period of Time, I'm giving an approximation of 6-9 months at this stage. 1.060 wort went into the fermenter, at exactly 21 litres (Low hopping means less trub,) Which mean I hit volume and gravity, which is 68% efficiency. Much better.
As I forgot to harvest the previous WLP530 for a big belgian beer. I'm looking at a tripel in the vein of Westmalle. So Hopefully I won't forget about this, this time.
I'm excited about my first Brett beer, I must say. so for those who read this, share your experiences, and what would you change?
I am also aiming to send a few of these Brett beers out. So if yor keen I'll put you on the list. NZ Only though sorry.
Saturday morning was what I am hoping is one of the last times for awhile for a full bottling session. This was Dark Storm Black IPA, which at first inital tastes, is pretty damn good. definitely Black IPA-ish.
Taste Testing in 2-3 weeks and I'll let you know how shes going.
Bad Wolf is tasting good, and changing constantly, so hopefully, the hop flavour will really start coming through. Currently its slightly too bitter, and yeastie. but still tasting good. hopefully this changes, but I've come up with some minor changes for Version 3. to increase hop aroma, and a yeast change again, to get the correct balance.
Next up: Kegorator setup, Grain Mill purchasing, and a NZ Pale Ale, in the vein of Hopwired, but lower Alc and Bitterness. It will be Version 2 of Mountain Warrior, and will be renamed to Aoraki Warrior XPA.
Tuesday, 4 March 2014
Black Beer, Belgian Beer and Beer efficiency... Again
Hi everyone, its been a couple of weeks.
Heres an update:
So here in Christchurch the decision was made to do a Single hop swap (Yes I realise it rhymes a bit :-D).
So we all chose a hop to brew with and then the wheel is spun and a hop chosen. Then everyone brews a beer with the same hop and we do a swap. It gets to know the hop in different styles of beer whether it be a IPA, Saison, or best bitter.
the hop that was picked out was Mosaic, which to be honest seems to limit your styles to IPA's and Pale ales. However, given what other people have been brewing (Finney has brewed a Saison) Seems an interesting choice, but I really hope it works well. If so, it could be a fantastic beer.
My choice in the end, after much debate was to brew a Black IPA. something I haven't really tackled. so I figured I'd give it a shot. Not overly inventive I know. there is plenty of conjecture about this style, be it the name or the fact that its considered an IPA etc. etc.
The beer style has many names, from Black IPA, to Indian black ale, all the way to Cascadian Dark Ale.
I modelled the beer on the 21st Amendment Back in Black. Aiming for 1.065 OG I set to brewing. now after my last post I worked a bit on my water volumes and came up with a nice 34 litres strike volumes. With the standard 1-1.5Litres of top up should I overshoot temperature, which i did.
So away I went, and ended up having more efficiency issues, approximately 3 points instead of 4-5-6 points, which is an improvement. so I clearly need to work on the boil off points etc. which is i think where the issue lies. things to work on again...
so I hit 1.062, and dry-hopped the beer late sunday night just been. and measured at 1.018, not bad, could do with an extra point or two.
Bad wolf Belgian IPA has been in bottles for about 10 days. i chucked a bottle in the fridge on Monday morning before my flyby trip to Nelson, and popped it tonight, still needs some aging, but I'm enjoying it, similar to the previous one, with some more body, I'm hopingthe vienna has added this. so heres a short review.
aroma, belgian-ness, with some slight citrus, but the yeast dominates (not exactly what I was going for, but i'm happy, less banan than previous)
appearance, same as previous Bad wolf, burnt orange colour,, the only difference is that the current beer has a good chill haze to it. (Most of my beers do these days) White dense head, which if the glass was clean sticks to the glass well enough. carbonation is good, probably a bit low for style, but I like it.
Flavour, Belkgian yeast dominates, with a good resin-y bitrterness from the 60min simcoe hops., the citrus amarillo and cascade hops are pretty tasty, but you don't get the IPa flavour as such. very nice. another week or two, It'll be better again. the last one hit its stride at 6 weeks.
Mouthfeel, better body, much better. slightly sweet malt flavour finishes the beer, with lingering bitterness, big improvement.
Overall, great beer, will improve with time, so hopefully worthy of a mention in the GKBF homebrew comp. it certainly wont win a brew at the hop. (Its in the wrong category for a start).
I'm pretty happy with how its come out, I don't think Id change much from here. maybe a little more hop aroma if possible. but i think that'll be difficult, given the yeastiness thats there.
Heres the recipe for the Black IPA, I've named Dark Storm Black IPA (I brewed midst the hail storm in the garage). this will be the last beer i will bottle for hopefully awhile (not counting big imperial beers, and possibly a milk stout I'm planning for winter) Bring on the kegs.
Next Brewday is sunday: Belgian Amber soured with WLP650 Brett Brux. I'm really looking forward to making this beer. It'll be my first attempt with Brettanomyces. and will be aged in a new Carboy I should receive in the next couple of days, the wide mouthed carboy. I'll tell you more next week when the recipe goes onto Brewtoad.com. I haven't come up with a name yet.
Heres an update:
So here in Christchurch the decision was made to do a Single hop swap (Yes I realise it rhymes a bit :-D).
So we all chose a hop to brew with and then the wheel is spun and a hop chosen. Then everyone brews a beer with the same hop and we do a swap. It gets to know the hop in different styles of beer whether it be a IPA, Saison, or best bitter.
the hop that was picked out was Mosaic, which to be honest seems to limit your styles to IPA's and Pale ales. However, given what other people have been brewing (Finney has brewed a Saison) Seems an interesting choice, but I really hope it works well. If so, it could be a fantastic beer.
My choice in the end, after much debate was to brew a Black IPA. something I haven't really tackled. so I figured I'd give it a shot. Not overly inventive I know. there is plenty of conjecture about this style, be it the name or the fact that its considered an IPA etc. etc.
The beer style has many names, from Black IPA, to Indian black ale, all the way to Cascadian Dark Ale.
I modelled the beer on the 21st Amendment Back in Black. Aiming for 1.065 OG I set to brewing. now after my last post I worked a bit on my water volumes and came up with a nice 34 litres strike volumes. With the standard 1-1.5Litres of top up should I overshoot temperature, which i did.
So away I went, and ended up having more efficiency issues, approximately 3 points instead of 4-5-6 points, which is an improvement. so I clearly need to work on the boil off points etc. which is i think where the issue lies. things to work on again...
so I hit 1.062, and dry-hopped the beer late sunday night just been. and measured at 1.018, not bad, could do with an extra point or two.
Bad wolf Belgian IPA has been in bottles for about 10 days. i chucked a bottle in the fridge on Monday morning before my flyby trip to Nelson, and popped it tonight, still needs some aging, but I'm enjoying it, similar to the previous one, with some more body, I'm hopingthe vienna has added this. so heres a short review.
aroma, belgian-ness, with some slight citrus, but the yeast dominates (not exactly what I was going for, but i'm happy, less banan than previous)
appearance, same as previous Bad wolf, burnt orange colour,, the only difference is that the current beer has a good chill haze to it. (Most of my beers do these days) White dense head, which if the glass was clean sticks to the glass well enough. carbonation is good, probably a bit low for style, but I like it.
Flavour, Belkgian yeast dominates, with a good resin-y bitrterness from the 60min simcoe hops., the citrus amarillo and cascade hops are pretty tasty, but you don't get the IPa flavour as such. very nice. another week or two, It'll be better again. the last one hit its stride at 6 weeks.
Mouthfeel, better body, much better. slightly sweet malt flavour finishes the beer, with lingering bitterness, big improvement.
Overall, great beer, will improve with time, so hopefully worthy of a mention in the GKBF homebrew comp. it certainly wont win a brew at the hop. (Its in the wrong category for a start).
I'm pretty happy with how its come out, I don't think Id change much from here. maybe a little more hop aroma if possible. but i think that'll be difficult, given the yeastiness thats there.
Heres the recipe for the Black IPA, I've named Dark Storm Black IPA (I brewed midst the hail storm in the garage). this will be the last beer i will bottle for hopefully awhile (not counting big imperial beers, and possibly a milk stout I'm planning for winter) Bring on the kegs.
Next Brewday is sunday: Belgian Amber soured with WLP650 Brett Brux. I'm really looking forward to making this beer. It'll be my first attempt with Brettanomyces. and will be aged in a new Carboy I should receive in the next couple of days, the wide mouthed carboy. I'll tell you more next week when the recipe goes onto Brewtoad.com. I haven't come up with a name yet.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Efficiency
Hi Everyone,
So this time around I re-brewed my Belgian IPA. BAD WOLF BELGIAN IPA
The difference this time around.... All Grain.
Some other minor change as you will see to the recipe as well. but as it turned out well last time, I figured with my WLP530 I could get away with re-brewing it.
So the task was simple. Or so I thought. On waitangi Day, I got up to brew this lovely beer.
I had efficiency issues on the brew, which was a shame, and Hit an OG of a mere 1.057 rather than the 1.062 predicted. this is a water volume issue, along with 1 or two other minor tweaks that need to happen, i belive I lost another point from incorrect grain values for points. mainly the melanoidin. As you'll see brewtoad suggests 1.061, rather than the 1.062 on beersmith. so theres 1 point (well, I'm taking it even if its not true.) second was water volumes. i ended up with too much volume, and an extra 1 litre of wort. so i'll cut back next time.
So 1 week is today (Thursday) and the beer is 1.014 gravity, and a small krausen still present in the beer. the beer will be bottled a week on sunday, and dry-hopped sunday evening/monday morning. I'm probably expecting finish around 1.012/3 FG.
This beer will go into the GKBF Homebrew Comp Here.
Now onto the next great Brewery item, my next brew day... a Black IPA for the Single Hops Case Swap/Mini Comp locally. Decided tobrew up a black IPa, because I haven't really ventured properly into that yet. and figured I'd get a feel for it. see how it goes. Could be a winner, Recipe will be posted up soon.
and finally, my other slurry from the recent Bakcup Plan has a purpose... It will be used to a Belgian Red Ale, which will be then Soured with WLP650. I'm quite excited about doing my first beer, with any form of bugs. The aim is just an experiment, as I wanted something that will sit for a long time, and develop different flavours. so Finney had some 4 month old vials of this, and snapped it up while I could.
Expecting 6-12 months of Bulk aging in glass.
fingers crossed.
That all for now, I'll kep you posted on the Black IPA and ongoing sour beer updates.
Brew On. Rob...
So this time around I re-brewed my Belgian IPA. BAD WOLF BELGIAN IPA
The difference this time around.... All Grain.
Some other minor change as you will see to the recipe as well. but as it turned out well last time, I figured with my WLP530 I could get away with re-brewing it.
So the task was simple. Or so I thought. On waitangi Day, I got up to brew this lovely beer.
I had efficiency issues on the brew, which was a shame, and Hit an OG of a mere 1.057 rather than the 1.062 predicted. this is a water volume issue, along with 1 or two other minor tweaks that need to happen, i belive I lost another point from incorrect grain values for points. mainly the melanoidin. As you'll see brewtoad suggests 1.061, rather than the 1.062 on beersmith. so theres 1 point (well, I'm taking it even if its not true.) second was water volumes. i ended up with too much volume, and an extra 1 litre of wort. so i'll cut back next time.
So 1 week is today (Thursday) and the beer is 1.014 gravity, and a small krausen still present in the beer. the beer will be bottled a week on sunday, and dry-hopped sunday evening/monday morning. I'm probably expecting finish around 1.012/3 FG.
This beer will go into the GKBF Homebrew Comp Here.
Now onto the next great Brewery item, my next brew day... a Black IPA for the Single Hops Case Swap/Mini Comp locally. Decided tobrew up a black IPa, because I haven't really ventured properly into that yet. and figured I'd get a feel for it. see how it goes. Could be a winner, Recipe will be posted up soon.
and finally, my other slurry from the recent Bakcup Plan has a purpose... It will be used to a Belgian Red Ale, which will be then Soured with WLP650. I'm quite excited about doing my first beer, with any form of bugs. The aim is just an experiment, as I wanted something that will sit for a long time, and develop different flavours. so Finney had some 4 month old vials of this, and snapped it up while I could.
Expecting 6-12 months of Bulk aging in glass.
fingers crossed.
That all for now, I'll kep you posted on the Black IPA and ongoing sour beer updates.
Brew On. Rob...
Saturday, 25 January 2014
EPIC Success
Hi Everyone,
there is a couple of reasons to make this particular beer, and I'll go into some detail in a minute. I've funnily enough just dry-hopped this beer, and it has the epic taste, that lovely US Cascade flavour and aroma.
Dry hop 2 will go in in another few days,m and it will be cold crashed as the second dry hop is done cold to add additional layers of hops.
Right so the first reason to make this beer, is for a friends wedding. They asked me to make something, so being one of the most famous NZ craft beers, and the most accessible (plus theres a CYBI recipe here.)
The second reason, is actually because I've had some attenuation issues recently, with my Scottish ale, and to be honest the Plan B Clone, finished 3-4 points too high. the idea was to check that with a good solid US-05 yeast i can get good attenuation and the beer will be where it should be. I've ben able to check that the Mash temps are correct, mash time, etc. I wish I'd had a ph meter to check it that'd confirm the acid malt I used is enough to bring the ph into an acceptable range.
its at 1.013 now. which is inbetween where it should be and where I know 1-2 people have been with their versions.
Onto the last beer, its bottled and its looking mighty good, once carbed I'll be sending a bottle to Manawa Brew and maybe a friend or two.
Next brew, I'm not sure about its definitely a re-brew of something..
Post to come, I'll probbly decide like a day before.
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