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

[Evan Davies]

hey there fellow HBrs, I am stuck on a mining ship off the coast of Sthn Africa, and have formulated a rough plan to do a brew(dry ship). I am smuggling the gear onboard as emergency breakdown goods when our next supply boat arrives in 3 days. I have a 18lt S/Steel cookpot and a conical colindar with 1mm holes and a seive. I have bottled water with a Ph of 6.4 and have sent for milled grain and a 25lt bucket and some tubing. i will be making around a 15lt batch each time( including frozen 2lt ice cream blocks of ice to help crash chill. I have 4 kg of pale and 1 kg of Caramel and 400gm of chocolate coming so will just chuck it in and see. recipe as follows 2kg of Pale 500gm of Caramel 200gm of choc 30gms of cascade and 30gm of fuggles, dont have any idea of A.A yet till it arrives so may less or more on the hop additions. was hoping to get a bag sewn for BIAB but will probably miss the supply boat so will go with colindar and seive this first batch. am still trying to source some starsan and reckon a brewer i met at a beerfest over here will come thru on that. sometimes a man has to do what a man has to brew. Any thoughts on how this will taste? Gonna call it drillers ale, oh yeah will be using 04

[Evan Davies]

Best laid plans of mice and men, some ingredients unavailable now going for 1kg of melandion malt to replace caramalt and east kent to replace fuggles, cant wait for the boat now, eeeeeewwww its like Xmas, considering we worked right thru xmas and NY it'll be nice to open a present like this. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[Dale Cooper]

Hi Evan,

I suspect 2kg isn't enough base malt for a 15L batch and also that the ratio of specialty malt is to high. My guess is you would be better off putting all 4kgs of your pale in there.

Thanks for the info on the camlocks you posted on here, I ordered a few of them today :-)

[Evan Davies]

hi Dale redid my calcs when the internet worked again and have upped the pale to 3kg, from what I read on Melandion malt, it can make up to 20% of the grain bill, will probably be making closer to 12 lt batches unless I can get a bag or a sq mt of voile sent out. I dont want it to have a high ABV as most of us havent had a beer in mths and dont want it to affect the crew from their work. It will be touch and go to get it here as it needs to be transported through the back roads 6hrs to a hick port for the supply vessel to bring it out. will post results. did you get a good price on the camlocks.

[Dale Cooper]

I got males for $8 and frmales for $12 +gst and $5 postage. Seems pretty good to me :-) Just gotta sort out seals now.
I'm sure your beer will go down well, you must have a hellava thirst built up by now!

[Evan Davies]

Throat like a nuns ****, yeah that is a good price, they can go for $45 for a female elsewhere

[Chad Keven]

thort i'd try something a little different; UMESHU more of an infusion than a brew; unripe green plums, rock sugar, and vodka soaked for upto 1 year, bloody nice! keeps the missus happy too!

[Brett Mason]

Half way through quick Friday night brew to try out some Kohatu. Was going to be a smash but ended up getting a new sack of malt so a blend it is.

Also my first time trying out pH 5.2 in the mash and a shiny new refractometer. The light grains should be a good test for it since I've previously been a bit high for lighter beers.

OG ~1.048

60% Maris Otter

40% Malteurop NZ Pils

40g Kohatu @ 60min

20g Kohatu @ 15min

20g Kohatu @ 2min

20g Kohatu @ dry hop

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

[MrC]

Whipped up my annual fruit beer today.

Blueberry Wheat Beer

OG: 1.042

IBU: 15

Boil Time: 45min

FERMENTABLES:

1.5kg Liquid Wheat Extract

1.0kg Dry Wheat Extract

250g Carapils

100g Carahell

200g Sugar (inverted and added after 4 days)

HOPS:

8g NZ Goldings  45 min

8g Super Alpha  45 min

FRUIT:

500g Pams Frozen Blueberries steeped in 1L water @ 80C for 20min and added at end of boil

500g Pams Frozen Blueberries steeped in 1L water @ 80C for 20min and added after 4 days

YEAST:

US-05

[MrC]

Added the second 500g of blueberries and inverted sugar last night just as the krausen was falling away.  This morning she was crankin' again with a 5cm krausen.  Blueberry aroma was minimal in the small sample I had, hopefully this second 500g will do the trick.  Overall tasting pretty good though.

[MrC]

Kegged this Blueberry Wheat Beer recently and it's tasting pretty damn good.  The delicate aroma of the blueberries has disappeared through fermentation and the remaining flavour is more of a generic fruitiness rather than blueberries.  The beer is red/purple colour with a slight red/purple coloured head.

I screwed up the water volumes a little on this beer and ended up with 23L of beer when I was aiming for 21L.  I was expecting the body to be a bit thin but that CaraHell really fills out the body.  I'm enjoying CaraHell in my ligher beers at the moment.  Light & sweet with HUGE body.

[Stu McKinlay]

Brewed an apple ale on the weekend... a lot of apple in the mix, and one other unusual ingredient. 2/3 of the ferementables were malt besed and I only used 20g of hops in 30L of beer (least hoppy beer I've ever made). Smells great in the fermenter, so I hope the mix of fermentables doesn't play too much havoc with the yeast.

 

The first of three beers I have planned with unusual ingredients over the next couple of months. First time I've actually got excited about that thing people call "radical brewing".