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]

Which mill did you buy?

I bought a barley crusher from the good reviews on hbt.com, it's a great mill.

[Doublehoppy]

Same. And good reviews on this forum as well. As I say only used it the once, but so far so good

[Edward Siddle]

yep barley crusher for me too. i might have bought a schmidling malt mill but he was asking a lot more for the postage from the US than randy from BC. still waiting for it though - had confirmation it had been shipped 8 days ago so fingers crossed it hasn't gone astray.

[Alasdair]

Brewed a vienna lager at the weekend. Thought I'd see how the Baird's vienna malt plays out.

43% vienna
30% pilsner
26% munich 2
1% chocolate

67 degree mash

24 IBUs with 14g Hallertau at 10 minutes

OG of 1050

WLP838 Southern German Lager

And an ordinary bitter next up this weekend - Maris Otter with a touch of dark crystal; EKG; London ale yeast...

YUM!

[jt]

Al, you have some temperature control there ?

I've shelved plans to brew lager until the temps drop a bit more as I'm uncontrolled !

[Alasdair]

My beer fridge doubles as a brewing fridge for lagers. I'll need a separate brewing fridge when I start kegging - hopefully in the next month or so.

Its my uncontrolled ales that are suffering at the moment - a downside of actually having a summer in Wellington for once..

[jt]

I was wanting to brew a lager as my lager keg is nearly empty. It's lasted since before Christmas and it's improved out of sight in that time. But with the metservice forcasting 20C + for the foreseeable future I guess it's another ale.

This week an ale with the Caramunich III from Mike and some Pacific Hallertau.
The NZ Hops blurb "Orange marmalade aptly describes the citrus aroma notes achieved through late addition" had me all anxious with anticipation ...

I used Pac Hall in the Blande Blonde and so far I haven't been to impressed (I know it's only early days in the fermenter) so I'll bump up the hopping ratio and see how it goes.

Anyone used Caramunich III, got a flavour comparison with Crystal or dark crystal to share ?

cheers, jt

[Bambule]

Ahhh last of the summer beers?

I don't like to think so either. But had one last bottle of german wheat yeast to use. Fairly safe this one

Ursula's weizen

50% weyerman pilsner
50% weyerman wheat

mash @ 67C
hallertauer @ 60 and 30 for 17IBUs

Just about ready to pitch the yeast, then watch the rain come in and a beer

[jt]

Hoppy Blond'ish ale I think. Should be around 1.040 and 30 IBU
Yet to put the first one on tap so this is a bit of a stab in the dark.
Upped the pale, dropped some Munich and Wheat and added some Carahell.
Adding some Pacific Hallertau @30 as the first one seemed a bit thin on hops from the fermenter (though these tastings can often be deceptive)

75% Pale
15% Munich
5% Carahell
5% Wheat

[Edward Siddle]

looks good JT, do report back. that is pretty much the recipe i will be following....when i get round to it.

Myself, am doing an IPA tonight, in a rather trad style.
5kg pale, 500g dextrose, 100g styrians, 100g fuggles, all at start of boil - mature till christmas. is an adaption of a recipe called "Goodbye Mr Braincell" which can be seen here:
http://www.craftbrewing.org.uk/recipes/doc/recipes-104.htm

[jt]

Ed, just put the fisrt keg on tap. nice malt (70% Pale, 20% Munich, 10% wheat)
But the hops are a no show after 24 hours. I should forget it for a week and see what it's like.

pitched the yaest for #2, above, about noon and I have positive pressure on the fermenter top .. yee ha !

[jt]

Well it's been on tap a week or three now.
I probably overdid the 60 minute hops. The OG was 1.040 and I had 16 IBU of super alpha bittering.
Which is probably too aggressive for the malt and later hops ( 8 IBU of pacific Hallertau @ 15 minutes) and it tends to dominate

The second one was tasting better when I racked it (just waiting for a keg now) but that had 5% carahell and 7 IBU of Pac Hall at 30 minutes as well.
That'll probably be a bit high for a Blonde, but wtf it's only a guideline