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

[Reviled]

Planning to do this mid-week - Its essentially my Cream Ale recipe with the maize subbed for Rye and a bit of a hop change to let the spicy rye character shine through, also using Vienna instead of Munich cos ive run out of Munich :o(

2.5kg Golden Promise
720g Flaked Maize
90g Global Vienna
90g Carapils
36g Caramunich II
180g Cane sugar
60 - 6g Sauvin 11.9%
15 - 15g US Cascade 5.8%, 15g Motueka 7.1%
0 - 12g Cascade, 12g Motueka
Dry - 8g Cascade, 8g Motueka, 8g Simcoe
US-05

[Reviled]

Stuff waiting, doing this tonight :o) Getting the bug again!!

Flatmate just broke my thermometer >:o( Gaaah, now have to guestimate with my sparge water... This should be fun...

[denimglen]

Guestimate? You can sparge with cold water and not see any major drops in efficiency, I also infuse with boiling water for my sparge addition and have never gone over 80C in the mash tun, but I guess that's equipment dependant.

Either way you'll be sweet bro.

[Bambule]

I bought a digital thermometer a few months back and it showed I was about 5-10 deg cooler with my manual one. Anyway, the main effect this was having apart from mashing where I wanted it was that my sparge water was hotter (78-80-deg) and it resulted in about 5% gain in my efficiency. At least that's my theory, don;t want to freak Reviled out. 5%, It may not sound significant but when your efficiency is in the 50s it is.

[Reviled]

What I ended up doing was boiling the water in the kettle (1.8L) then tipping out about a third and replacing with tap water.. Ive done it before and it gets it close, so im sure ill be fine... Not normally worried about efficiency just this is quite a small beer so it does matter alot more!

[Reviled]

All went well, got an OG of 1040 and about 23 IBU, should be nice!

[Stu McKinlay]

Funny you mention this brew day cock-up. It must be a week for it.

I had a similar "guesstimate" nightmare after a little cellar flood the other day. I lost a set of scales (they're hanging up and will hopefully dry out). Unfortunately the batteries in the back-up kitchen scales had run out - or they'd been infected with Rajaijah juice. I didn't realise until 6.30am on brew day morning, and time was short, so I had to wing it with the grist and mash-in before DSE opened.


Eastie Boy's Amber Sunshower Styrian Ale
About 88% Global Vienna
About 7% Crystal 90
About 3% Crystal 250
About 2% Pale Chocolate
Mashed at 65c for 60min
1.5g/L NZ Styrian 5.5%aa @60min
2.5g/L NZ Styrian 5.5%aa @ 15min
2.5g/L NZ Styrian 5.5%aa @ 0min
US05 at 18c rising to 20c
1.052, 36ibu


Not sure how my estimates went as the beer looked considerably darker than I'd envisaged... time will tell.

I'm tentatively lining up a brew day for this weekend... three in a row would be a record for me.

[JoKing]

US Cascade and Riwaka flowers are now available at Liberty brewing.

[Reviled]

US Flowers??? How did you manage that?? thought they werent allowed in the country???

[JoKing]

Nah nah nah nah nah.....

Cascade Pelets, and Riwaka Flowers!!!

[denimglen]

Which brewery did you rob for the riwaka? :-P

[JoKing]

I had to hunt around for them... that's for sure. I can confirm that they were NOT easy yo come by. Most of the breweries I spoke to didn't want to give anything up at all.