chromosphere

So Sutton was an excellent afternoon! We went down to the Home Counties festival in Sutton on Saturday - and my two beers were judged accordingly. Pleased with the outcome! No prizes (and wasn’t expecting any anyhow!) but I got some feedback on the two beers. The ordinary bitter came out as full bodied with good full hop flavour and aroma, but with a slightly coarse finish - this is something I agree with and I think this is because of the exceptionally high alkalinity in our water (run-off from the chalk in the Cotswolds…). The Summer Lightning style beer got a decent review too - good hop nose, attractive malt and hop flavour, but needed a tad more bitterness, and had a slightly short finish (how do you change this?), but otherwise some good feedback

So, as a result, I’m gonna try and work hard on water treatment as I feel this is a good way to improve my brewing. I’m also hoping that I’ll be able to influence the flavours a bit more and enhance the malt when needed (e.g. by increasing the chloride ratio). To test the alkalinity, I will be titrating tap water with 1/40 strength CRS - the alkalinity is given by 18 x volume of 1/40 CRS (in ml) needed to titrate to finish (answer in mg/l CaCO3). The theory is summed up excellently by Chris’ (DaaB) excellent instructions.

And here comes the tough bit - getting hold of the indicator (methyl orange) - though, MrC is a legend and I have a supply of it (probably more than enough!). Just looking forward to getting on with it (need to wait for more CRS to arrive as well as some CaCl and lactic acid (to acidify mash water if required - also useful for lagers in the future) and seeing what kind of a difference it makes!

On last Friday, Mr C (who can be often found lurking in the background of SSG’s Wake Up it’s Tuesday) and SSG herself came over. The girls amused themselves watching DVDs - we made far more use of our time and produced a stonking Imperial Russian Stout, based on adm’s “Crazy Ivan“. So this one got the name “Mad Boris”.

The recipe is as follows (loosely adapted, but reduced to allow it to actually fit in the mashtun still leaving room for some water…):

6kg Maris Otter
375g Amber Malt
375g Light Crystal (60L)
375g Chocolate
375g Wheat Malt
375g Roast Barley
200g Dark Brown Sugar

Hops (90min boil):
100g East Kent Goldings (5.7%)
20g Target (9%)

Yeast:
2x Safale 04

We sparged for 32L and then boiled up without topup and after run off (and a fair bit of loss to the hops!) we had almost exactly 4 gallons in the fermenter at 1090. (and “as black as a night with no moon” ) I was tempted to dilute down to 1080-85, but in the end decided to just let it get on with it and pitched as was.

On Sunday morning, the yeast had overflowed in the fridge, and was leaking all over the kitchen floor. And so, into the bath it went and chucked a load more foam everywhere while the yeast got on with it. At last - calm enough to get the airlock on and not foam through - farting every second or so.

Now only four days after pitching, it looks like we’re done. A quick refractometer check and it looks like it’s down at 1023, but I need to recheck with the hydro in a day or two’s time. The airlock is still gluging occassionally. I’ll let it sit for a good week or two anyhow, and may go to secondary for this (though given the long maturation time, I’m sure it’ll be fine straight into the bottle).

Thought I’d add a quick post about the beer I brewed on the 18th Sept - “Early Morning Bitter” (hey, 7am on a Saturday is far too early in my book…)

Recipe:

4.1kg Maris Otter
360g Crystal
40g Chocolate
100g Torrified Wheat

Fuggles 4.5% 55g 90min
EKG 4.1% 15g 15min
Fuggles 16g 0min

Used the hopback yeast skimmed off the top of the Summer Lightning clone. Again, it took off well, but then slowed up - eventually (2.5 weeks later), it was down to 1.008 from 1.042 (so 4.4%ABV ish). Bottled (God, that’s my least favourite job :( ) and I have 40 of the things currently conditioning. I reckon this is a prime Christmas candidate, though I’d like to get another 2 in before then - am torn between a mild, a 1040 porter, a 4.5% stout and a nice quaffing ale at 3.4% or so. Hmmm. Choices…

Am contemplating entering a coupla beers in the Home Counties Craft Brewing festival on the 15th Nov in Sutton (I’ve not had the pleasure of going there since I was made redundant by Securicor about 5 years ago…). The Summer Lightning clone will be one I enter as a strong bitter (8C in the BJCP?). The other probably the fuggles/bramling x/amber malt thing I brewed as an Ordinary bitter (8A).

However, the ordinary one doesn’t quite meet the “low to moderate” carbonation requirement as for some reason, unless it is kept at about 4 degrees, the whole pint wants to try to make it’s way out onto the floor when I crack the top off. I have no idea why this is so over carbonated - only 1/2tsp sugar in each…? I spent a good hour last night slowly releasing the pressure in each bottle and finally recapping each one. What a ballache. Eventually, I think I got it to a manageable level - still a fair bit of carbonation, but hopefully it won’t decide that someone’s lap is a better place than in the bottle or glass when the top comes off.

Still, I’m not holding out too much hope for either - just a bit of fun and a chance to get feedback on the beer from someone “in the know”, and maybe meet some other homebrewers.

Oh - I have a brewing post to do at some point too - second outing for the Hopback yeast, and just coming to the end of its term in the fermenter.