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

[jt]

Masho !

91% ADM
5% Dark crystal
2% Caramalt
1% chocolate
1.040 with US05
12 IBU Super Alpha to bitter, 12 IBU Motueka from 30 min (love the 30 min addition in this)
It's a tweak of a favourite, a tad more cara(to use up the bag) and slightly less hops, going for a more even balance.

Sorely tempted to get some tomatos in the ground, but I know there's another southerly due later in the week. I'll have to make do with mounding up the taties today

Michael called by yesterday to mill his fat tire BIAB grain bill, could have been brewing last night, wondering how it went. Tasted the caraamber he had, very nice grain to chew on, might have to try it myself

cheers, jt

[JackoNZ]

Just mashing in an ESB:

1.056 if all goes well.

94% Marris Otter
4% Pale Crystal
2% Dark Crystal
42 IBU's Goldings/Fuggles at 60min
25g Goldings at flame out
S-04

[Mike Neilson]

Got this plugged into brew on Wed

New World Ordinary Bitter

94% Kolsch
2% Dark Crystal (TF)
2% Caramalt
2% Light Crystal

67 Mash

25Ibu of Late addition Amarillo

WLP007

75ppm Ca, 125ppm S04, 40ppm Cl

Its a basic starter for the Siberian Stout on Sat/Sun!!

[Martin Bridges]

Time for the first of my attempts to really nail down an ordinary bitter recipe for the summer, an I'm starting with Greig's Saxby's Ordinary Bitter as a template:

3.3kg Maris Otter
0.2kg Crystal 60L
0.1kg Munich
Mashed at 67 degrees

15g Target @ 60 mins
40g East Kent Goldings @ 10 mins
20g NZ Styrian Goldings for dry hopping

Aiming for an OG of 1.040 and 30 IBUs.

Yeast is Wyeast 1768PC English Ale (allegedly the Young's house yeast)

Water was adjusted with calcum sulphate, calcium chloride, magnesium sulphate, sodium chloride and calcium carbonate. I used the Jim's Beer Kit water calculator set to 'Bitter', then used John Palmer's spreadsheet to adjust the residual alkalinity.

I paid extra attention to my sparging regime today and it seems to have paid off - I was targetting a pre-boil gravity of 1.034 and got 1.033. Looks like 70% efficiency. Not sure whether it was due to more careful control of sparging or paying attention to the RA, but I'll follow the same process in future.

Boiling away now.

[MrC]

Looks good Martin, making me thirsty just reading it.

70% efficiency - Is that with batch sparging, what sort of efficiency have you been getting previously and what did you do differently?

I tried giving the mash more agitation during my last brew to see what the impact on the efficiency was and it made no difference at all. I reckon that the most important thing about efficiency is that you can reproduce it and build a recipe around it.

[jt]

A mash out and lots of recirculation seem to be good for my batch sparge technique (either that or my barleycrusher's closing up it's gap on me)

[Martin Bridges]

Yup jt, that's pretty much what I did. I mashed in with 10 litres, stirred a couple of times during the mash. At the end of the hour I added another 10 litres at mash out temp, stirred, left it for 10 mins, recirculated 5 litres then drained the wort. Then added another 15 litres and repeat the process. Hey presto, 27 litres of on-target wort in the kettle.

[jt]

Sounds close. My mashout addition is calculated so I get two equal drainings. Not sure where I got that from, think it was a Green Bay Rackers article.
I recirculate more though, guessing 6 to 8 litres and I run off at full speed.I was a consistent 72%, then went a bit wobbly, now consistent 80%

reading James' post below, I might slow down though, maybe

[Mike Neilson]

1768PC. Used it, fantastic strain pitty Youngs couldnt do more to there beers to promote the strain.

[Martin Bridges]

Youngs Ordinary on draught in London about 5 years ago was sublime. If this beer gets anywhere near that I'll be in heaven and I doubt I'll ever brew anything else. OK, I lie, but...

Youngs Special London Ale was my favourite bottled beer in the UK, but it has never travelled all that well. All the Youngs beers went downhill when they moved to the Wells brewery.

[Mike Neilson]

Yeah? Younds Ordinary Bitter was one of the worst bitters I ever tried and I only ever worked in Youngs Bars!!!

[Martin Bridges]

For the first time ever I hit my numbers bang on with this beer. 20 litres of 1.040 wort now sat in the fermenter, and it's the clearest, best looking wort I've ever seen. Tastes pretty good too, big whack of bitterness which surprised me.