What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[denimglen]

Thanks, I wasn't hinting for a bottle ;-) thanks for the offer.

I'll have to check out those brews.

Cheers.

[Rob Owen]

Finally got the Pumpkin Ale done today.

9.5lb Pale Malt
2 lb Munich
1 lb Dark Crystal
0.5 lb Crystal
0.5 lb Caramel
1 large pumpkin (2 kg)

Roasted pumpkin then mashed added to the mash 90 min 66C. Massively stuck mash (anyone know where to get rice hulls?).

50g Hallertau 4AA 60min
20g Hallertau 1min
1 tsp Ground Clove 1min
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon 1min
1 tsp Ground All spice 1min
1 tsp Group Nutmeg 1min

OG 1.060 pitched onto slurry of Trappist Ale activity after 2 hours.

[Steve Baker]

(anyone know where to get rice hulls?).
No idea. Another option might be millet hulls. Don't know where to get those either.

[jt]

I don't think rice hulls are allowed to be imported, too many MAF restrictions or they appear to be too'dirty'
The only ref I can find to them in NZ iss as undesirable imports used as packing material

[jt]

Halloween Ale Rob ?

[Rob Owen]

Exactly. Hopefully drinking well for Kieran's mid-winter festival.

[Martin Bridges]

Major bottling day yesterday (30 bottles of Bog Standard Bitter and 21 bottles of Storceupboard Larger), plus a visit to Mike at Brewers Coop in Mt Wellington, ready for this today:

Extract of Daisy
4kg Weyermans Pilsner malt extract
0.5kg dry light malt extract
0.25kg dry wheat malt extract
30g Pacific Jade @ 60 mins
30g Motueka and 20g NZ Hallertauer at 30 mins
20g Motueka and 30g Riwaka at 5 mins
2 sachets of US-05

Mucked up my boiloff calculations so ended up with more top-up water than I expected. As a result it's a 27 litre batch and the OG is only 1.054. Tastes OK going into the fermenter though.

Martin

[jt]

I was looking at a Brown Ale or Mild for the SOBA Champs but I've never been particulary happy with the way my Browns fitted into the style guide.
I've also become a bit tired of the ones I've been brewing. I thought I'd try a Mild and listened to Jamils session on Milds but that didn't enthuse me.
Thought of repeating last years brown I entered and although a second in class I didn't like the beer at all.
Considered something along the lines of Copper Tart, just because the recipe's there, but as I've never tried the beer thought better of it.
So back to the drawing board.
I used to brew an extract with steeped grains, NZ Hops Irish Red, but with 50% more hops and a smidge less gravity, though haven't done this for a few years.
I loved this recipe and remember the first time I poured a pint from the fridge, I ended up drinking an excessive amount.
From memory the recipe calls for dark crystal, but I when I first started brewing it I didn't take much notice of numbers like EBC.
Eventually I did try it with dark Crystal and wasn't impressed
So for this weekend at the Bad Practices Brewery
3.720 Aussie Pale
0.200 Medium Crystal
0.080 Chocolate
0.360 Brown Sugar
Target 1.040 for 25 litres in the fermenter (a bit of topping up going on there)
18 IBU of Green Bullet 60 minutes and 9 IBU of Super Alpha 15 minutes
Thames Valley Ale Yeast

There's nothing like a healthy dose of anticipation

[jt]

Hmmm .. this didn't run as smooth as planned.
Firstly I topped this upto 26 litres instead of 25 so my gravity was down @ 1.039 and I was short on headspace in the fermenter.
The ferment was at the bottom end of the yeasts published range - 16C and all seemed good until the third day when it popped the lid and oozed thick yeast all over the bench.
After 11 days it was 1.008 but very sweet so left it another 5 days (ummm, I forgot to check it again) and it was tasting much better but I didn't take another reading (bad practice or just lazy ?)

Kegged on Friday and snuck a sneaky pint last night. Quite dry, a subdued sweetness, hint of chocolate and a little zestiness from the super alpha, not quite as much as I anticipated
More like a dark New Zealand Draught than a Red, but hey we're all learning eh ?

Might watch what I'm doing next time ...

[MrC]

Managed to get two brews in yesterday.

First was an extract brew to test my harvested Coopers Pale Ale yeast. It all went well and the starter tasted fine. Bubbling after about 4 hours. I went for a NZ Pale Ale using the a pale base with some steeped crystal and a good chunk of late addition of NZ Hallertau. Smells very Coopers'ish coming out of the airlock. Looking forward to tasting this one.

Second was an attampt at an all-grain American Wheat Beer. Everything seemed to ge really well until I measured the OG just before pitching. Target OG was 1.053 and actual was 1.037!!! WTF!!!
I was tempted to add some extract or dextrose or both but decided just to pitch and see what happens.

I'm still confused as to what went wrong here as my process was identical to previous brews where target and actual OGs were pretty close. The main differences that I can tell are:
- Grain purchased and crushed from Dunedin Malthouse
- Significant proportion of wheat malt in the grist
- I noticed that the crushed wheat was pretty much just broken in half rather than having a crushed look. I assumed that beacuse is crushed at the shop that it would be OK. I've never used wheat in an all-grain brew before.

Ingredients:
3.0kg wheat malt
2.0kg pale

28g 60min Willamette (18 IBU)
10g 0min Willamette
10g 0min Cascade

US-05

26L boil vol.
22L in fermenter

Any ideas on WTF happened here???

[denimglen]

I'd say it was because of the wheat not being crushed properly. Let DMH know and ask if they can crush the grain twice next time.

[Edward Siddle]

yup, this theory sounds about right.

mr cherry, i had a similar-ish experience the other night. made my usual weizen beer which is a 50/50 mix of wheat and pils malt, and normally i get 1044 out of a 4kg grist. only got 1042 the other night, and it was actually a 4.2kg grist so really quite poor. i'm not worried because my wife likes her beer weaker anyhow, but it still got me to thinking what went awry.

it was my first time running a wheat beer grist through the mill i bought in march, so maybe i need to run it through twice as well - wheat grains are considerably smaller than barley ones. also the wheat malt may be getting slack - it's well over a year old now. and pH could be an issue too - made no adjustments for it.