chromosphere

Here’s what a traffic jam sometimes looks like in our part of the world…

Just in time for summer

Hop strainer, check.

WLP300, check.

Ready to go for brewday on Sunday!

Abingdon Air Show – 7th May 2011

XH558 comes to visit…

At long last I’ve managed to cut, solder, and re-fit my immersion chiller (pictured) in preparation for using my March May 809-HS-PL pump that was bought as a present for me at Christmas. These are excellent pumps, capable of pumping boiling liquids around all day.

I was having lots of issues in getting the wort to syphon out of the boiler post-boil, even when the level of the wort was higher than the top of the internal pickup in the kettle – seemingly defying the laws of physics, and resulting in me being beaten into submission by a simple syphon… (I think it’s basically an airlock being setup in the pipes before filling the kettle, and this never gets cleared out).

So my current setup, now tested and leak free, is to have the March May pump wort from the kettle back into the boiler via the new return pipe thus allowing a “whirlpool” type arrangement (though without the need to form the “cone” of trub since I use whole hops) which sterilises the piping with boiling liquid, and then aids in the cooling by keeping the wort moving around while the cold circuit supplies the cooling water (which at the moment is just mains tap water). It might let me get a bit more hop aroma out too from the late hops, and possible save on cooling water.

Then, when suitably cool, the return feed is disconnected and pointed into a fermenter and the whole kettle (bar the half litre or so deadspace) is pumped out at a rate I desire by setting the output valve on the March May. The hoses I’m using are platinum cured silicon hoses – not cheap, but reliable and food safe at boiling temps.

First brewday is hopefully going to be next week, and I’ll be making a lovely session bitter based on a commercial recipe supplied to me direct from a brewer in Wiltshire, with Challenger, Styrians, Goldings and Pioneer for hops, and the ever popular Wyeast 1968 to ferment with. The yeast is ready to go now, and is just settling out to let me decant the spent starter solution.

Warm Becks/Corona/Sagres/<insert tasteless lager> appears to be the drink of choice at Xmas socials – ours included.

I decided that this year I would offer to bring some of my own beer for people to try, so at the minute I have 3 kegs of beer sitting next to my desk at work – a Whitbread 1850 Porter (a real malty, roasty whack!), an American Pale Ale with Summit, Centennial and Cascade hops (aroma of citrus and pink grapefruit!), and a best bitter brewed with Progress, home-grown First Gold, 5% dark crystal malt and WLP002.

Slightly apprehensive about so many (non-brewers) trying it, especially since the lager drinkers will find the beers have too much flavour for them, most people have no idea that I make my own beer, and a lot will do the classic “Homebrew? That’s awful tasting rocket fuel!”. Ah well, there must be some proper beer drinkers in the department – more for me if not!

(In fact, I know I have one colleague whose father is a well respected professional  (head) brewer. My guess is that he’ll drink some of it and give a decent assessment… erk.)