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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.

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.

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Brewed this one up on 16th December and used yeast recultured from the bottom of a couple of Brakspear Oxford Gold bottles.

Following on from the last brew, where I think I finally sorted the water treatment out properly, I treated 36L of water with 31ml of Brupaks CRS (alkalinity measured as 194mg/l), and added 10g of gypsum (CaSO4) and 5g of Epsom Salts (MgSO4) to really bump up the sulphates and calcium in the brew (looking for about 450ppm of sulphates to see if I can get a nice sulphur bite!).

2.7kg Maris Otter
100g Crystal 120L
50g Flaked Barley
20g Black Malt
250g Dark Brown Sugar (boil)

Mash 66C
OG 1034 (22L in FV)

Various goldings for hops:

30g EKGs (4.1%, 60min)
20g WGV (8.7%, 15min)
30g Styrian Goldings (1 min)

Gonna bottle it tonight – it’s down to about 1010-1008 (3.1-3.3%ABV) as far as I can see (the krausen came and went very quickly indeed – a day or two and it was mostly done – but at 1034 there’s not much there to chew through anyhow I suppose).

I’ll harvest the slurry from the fermenter too – this will be used with any luck in the new year – maybe something along the lines of a Bishop’s Finger and then in the third batch a nice traditional IPA, bitter, and hoppy with a reasonably high OG .

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Friday night – time to get a brew on for Christmas drinking – this will be kegged and tapped for the festive season (and hence a nice drinking bitter – the Imperial Stout will wait for next year ).

3.7kg Maris Otter
165g Crystal Malt 120L

Mash 90min at 66C. Water: 40L liquor treated with 36ml CRS, 4g gypsum, 9.5g CaCl.

Hops:
Target (9%) 16g (90min)
WGV (8.7%) 8g (90min)
Styrian Goldings Bobek (3.7%) 4g (90min)
Styrian Goldings Bobek 9g (15min)

~29IBU

Dry hop in barrel with 2g Styrian Goldings

Yeast: Hopback

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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).

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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…

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