chromosphere

Last night had a rapid brew to give us something in the keg that with any luck will be ready for some friends in a few weeks time.

The recipe is based on Fullers Chiswick bitter-a favourite of mine.

3.8kg Maris Otter
190g Crystal malt

Hops:
20g Target (9%, 60min)
12g Northdown (7.9%, 15min)
12g Challenger (5.6%, 15min)
14g EKG (steep when cooled to 80C)

Irish moss at 15min

The yeast was some slurry from the previous brew – Brakspear reculture again. (Had to drop that into another bucket to retrieve said slurry before I started…)

The attentive reader will note the 60min boil which was in addition to a 60min mash at 66C-certainly shortens the time needed to brew and no drop in efficiency (24l @ 1039).

With any luck, this will ferment out in less than a week, and I’ll whack it into the keg with finings and 14g of dry hop Goldings, and it will have 2 weeks to sort itself out.

I got a letter from my insurance company yesterday stating that they had written to me before about an outstanding premium due on my account, and that if I don’t pay it off soon, then my cover will end.

Apparently, the outstanding amount was due on 1st January, 1900, and was for the grand total amount of £0.00. Hmm.

I would have scanned it in but it turns out my scanner is buggered… still, it had a really annoying bit of dust on the detector anyhow.

EDIT: Got it scanned in – here we go…!

A nice brew for new year – hoping for something along the lines of Worthington’s White Shield but with Boadicea instead of Challenger. It’s a bitter one (60IBUs or so), and packs a decent punch with an OG of 1058 (as it turned out).

The beer will be one for bottling and a decent maturation time given the level of bittering and the strength.

Water treatment again – pH of mash was spot on (as close as I can measure), and alkalinity was measured at 207mg/l CaCO3 this time. (38ml CRS, 9g Gypsum,  4g CaCL, 3g Epsom Salts and 1g NaCl).

Recipe as follows:

4.8kg Maris Otter
285g Crystal
550g Golden Syrup (replacing invert sugar)

Hops:
40g Boadicea (7.6%) – 90min
25g Northdown (7.9%) – 90min
20g Northdown – 15min

1 tsp Irish moss at 15min.

23L nicely in the FV using a big wodge of Brakspear yeast from the slurry of the last brew. I set up a flying starter with a bit of cooled runoff about 15min into the boil (and placed into the boiler cupboard to give it a kick start) – by the time it came to pitching, the yeast was trying to blow itself out of the Schott bottle it was in! With any luck, it’ll chew nicely through it – aim of 1014 for an FG.