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Brew time again – with more adventures in reusing yeast from bottle conditioned ales. This time using Hopback yeast from the dregs of a couple of Summer Lightnings – and looking to brew much the same beer with it if possible.

The yeast was grown up in a half-gallon demijohn, using some wort made up from spraymalt dissolved in water, boiled and cooled. This was sat onto a DIY stir plate (computer fan, two strong button magnets and a PWM controller borrowed from the astronomy kit for a bit). The yeast was grown up using a 500ml batch of wort, and then, once this had fermented out, another 1.5l batch of wort. After this, stored in the fridge until the evening before the brew, and then allowed to warm and re-awakened by running off and cooling a litre of fresh wort during the boil.

The recipe for the beer was:

5.5kg Maris Otter
Mashed at 64C for 90min.

Hops:

44g Challenger (5.6%, 90min) – 27IBU
26g EKG (3.9%, 90min) – 11IBU
15g EKG (15min)
10g EKG (0 min Steep)

Irish Moss at 15minutes.

All in the FV – 23L at OG of 1050 – I chucked in 1/2tsp of Brew-vit for good measure too when aerating it, and it was put under the control of the ATC800 between 17C and 18C.

UPDATE:

The yeast is particularly active! It’s tried to make it’s way out through the lid a couple of times – I’ve now skimmed some off the top to keep for a next brew and put it away again to finish up.

I’ve been on holiday this and last week – and only right that I get some brewing done. This one (brewed on the 2nd Sept) is a bit made up (but based on some logic) – I have an old pack of Bramling Cross I needed to use, and I discovered I had no crystal (only caramalt), and so I came up with the following:

3.9kg Maris Otter
180g Amber malt
200g Caramalt
150g Torrefied Wheat

Mashed at 65C for about 75min

Hops:

75min:
25g Fuggles (2007) 4.5%
25g Bramling Cross (2006) 5.5%

15min:

25g Bramling Cross

My aim here is to get a little sweetness from the caramalt, the roast flavours from the amber along with the combination of Fuggles and Bramling Cross (seen this a few times in commercial brews, but not much – Earthy Fuggles and fruity Bramling X?). The amber/Bramling X combination is quite popular too – seen several recipe with these. It has a fairly low SG – 1039 – but this should mean it’ll be ready sooner!

Also, fermenting this one (with S-04) at 21-22C – higher than I normally do, but I’m following a little after the White Horse Brewery (Stanford-in-the-Vale) who apparently ferment at 23-25C using the same yeast – surprising, but I think this is where they get their “house taste” from – and it’s not half bad either. (The White Horse Bitter and “Black Beauty” (roasty, dark mild) are lovely). And as a result, only 2 days later, the fermentation is already slowing a little – the 4-5inch yeast head is already reducing.

Whilst the girls had a marathon Prime Suspect watching session, I hid away and got another brew on to start building up the stocks again. The Hobgoblin is very good to drink now, but not a session beer as such. I’m hoping to get back to some good results after the unknown quantity that is the London Pride clone I brewed a few weeks back (more later).

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Had a successful (I think!) effort at recovering the yeast from a bottle of Fuller’s 1845 – so now to use it in a version of London Pride from Wheeler and Protz’s “Brew Your Own British Real Ale”:

3.65kg Maris Otter
290g flaked maize
130g crystal malt
25g black malt

Hops:

Target 19g (9% – 2006 crop) – 90min
Challenger 25g (5.6% – 2006 crop) – 90min
EKG 20g (3.9%) – 15min

Yeast: From Fuller’s 1845 @ ~19C

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Ok – things I now have:

• An ATC800 (temperature controller)
• Fridge
• Beer in a fermenter in said fridge with said controller

The brew is much like Orfy’s Hobgoblin but since I had no carapils I used caramalt instead (less body, probably more sweetness). I used Nottingham, which decided (though it’s not that warm here, it’s warm enough!) that it’s going to try to make it’s way out of the fermenter by pushing it off the top.

It was running at 20C, which is on the warm side, but probably OK, and maybe could give some fruityness (though it’s Nottingham, so it could be very clean still…) – so i chucked the FV into the fridge, whacked it on the ATC800 and have left it too it – I set the temperature to 19C but it overshot slightly overnight to 17.6C – fine, and there’s no heater in there at the minute so the daytime temps will have to do their work on it to bring it back up a bit.

On the subject of yeast, I found Fuller’s 1845 in the shops the other day, and I’m gonna have a go at reviving the yeast from it for future use. John has a good guide to reviving yeast from an 1845 and I’ll follow his lead…

Here’s the Hob Gobbler type thing I brewed up (got 22L@1049 with Nottingham):

4.80 kg Maris Otter
0.25 kg Crystal Malt
0.20 kg Caramalt
0.15 kg Chocolate Malt

Mashed at 65°C for 90min; Add first wort hops to boiler (well – collection bucket…) at start of sparge.

Boil for 75 min
20g Styrian Goldings 3.9% (75 min) (First Wort Hop)
15g Fuggles 4.5% (75 min) (First Wort Hop)
20g Styrian Goldings 3.9% (30 min)
15g Fuggles 4.5% (30 min)
Irish Moss (15 min)
15g Fuggles 4.5% (15 min)
18g Styrian Goldings 3.9% (15 min )

All grain brewday number 6 on the 19th May – and that’s it for that sack of pale malt! I had almost exactly 3.5kg left over and decided to go for the following recipe (which is pretty much like Norm’s Real Ale Almanac version of Beartown Bearskinful but with a slight alteration on the malt and hops):

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