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

[Dougal]

Good man! Could make an interesting contrast on the day.

[Martin Bridges]

It feels good to get back in the brewshed again. I didn't brew in the whole month of February, the first time I've gone a whole month since I started brewing.

Anyway, time for a bit of an experiment. I wanted to make a fruit beer, mainly because I haven't before. I was listening to a little Prince, and the name Peaches'n'Cream Ale came to me, so hence a cream ale with peach puree added in the secondary!

70% Pale Malt (Gladfields)

17.5% Flaked maize

3.5% Carapils

2% Torrified wheat

7% dextrose

Mashed at 67 degrees

8g Pacific Jade @ 60 mins

2g Pacific Jade @ 30 mins

Fermenting with Wyeast 1338 European Ale at 18 degrees

OG 1.047 (before peaches), 16.5IBU.

Peaches will go into secondary. I'm planning 2kgs stoned, chopped & boiled up with a little water. I'm told that the peach flavour might need boosting with some peach syrup so I'll have that on standby at the end.

[Dan]

Just put down a Standard / Ordinary Bitter as Ive been enjoying the Bookbinder lately

Here is my take on it

87% Maris Otter

6.25% Caramalt

6.25% Med Crystal

0.5% Black

Green bullet to 20 IBU

50/50 Fuggles & Motueka at 15 and 0 to final IBU of 26

Saf US-05

OG 1.036

All went pretty much to plan, fermenting away nicely at the moment at 20deg. Cant wait to test her out!!

[Pilgrim]

45 Litre batch of my Hop Harvest Ale today.

8kg Global Kolsch

500g 120L Crystal

30mt Protein rest at 50C

30mt Sacharification at 66C

40g Target at 60

100g Green Cascade at 10 (hops picked during the mash)

100g Green Cascade at flame-out

2 pkt US-05

50g Dried Cascade dry hopped in secondary.

How cool is it to pick the ingredients during the brew :-)

[Christian]

Yeah, I hear you. Did something similar today with a Golden Ale.

[Mike Neilson]

Nice, is that Kolsch malt still around??

[Pilgrim]

Don't think so Mike, I got 3 sacks from Sherrets last year and they told me they were going out of selling malted barley. Don't know if anyone else has picked up the Global franchise but I haven't heard anything. Not much left now :-(

[Joel Wicks]

Looks like you can get Global Kolsch malt here:

http://www.brewshop.co.nz/malts-grains/cologne-malt.html

[jt]

Another celebration of gravity yesterday, this time in the kitchen.
No Pump Brown, a lazy no sparge partial mash boiled on the stove top with a nice big foamy pour from pot to fermenter
Used up the emergency can of extract with the last KGs of Malteurop and Munich with a bit of dark crystal and pale chocolate
Based the recipe on getting 50% efficency from the no sparge mash, ended up with 55% so that was a bonus
Bittered with Super Alpha with Cascade and Motueka at 10 & 1
1036 with a repitch of W1099

Wondering if I'll go another round with the W1099 after this or try something else

[Stu H]

Yum! Brown ales are probably my favourite style to drink at the moment.

I just brewed my first Belgian Dubbel. Just the recipe from Classic Brewing Styles but with WLP 545 Belgian Strong Ale. Man it's pretty cool being able to buy whitelabs yeast in NZ aye?

It's basically my starter for my first Trippel, which I'm brewing to beat everyone else with at the next WBC.

[JackoNZ]

Brewed a fairly simple ESB today to trial out my new brewery setup. 

93% Pale
6% Pale Crystal
1% Roast Barley

Northdown and Target at 60 to 31 IBU

EKG and Northdown at 15 to 12IBU and 1/2g per litre of EKG at flame out.

Notts yeast. Was planning on using 1968 which I was quite excited about but in the end there was an issue with the starter, in that.. well it didn't start! It's still going now on the stir place but I dunno what's happened. Well I think it was because the yeast seemed to ferment a bit in the smack pack because most of the yeast had turned gloopy and didn't pour out. Stupidly I then decided being sanitary and all I'd pour a bit of boiled (still hot) water into the pack quickly destroying it! Oh well a lesson learnt. Anybody had that happen before with wyeast? It really looked like it had already fermented out rather than mostly being liquid. Possibly too hot for too long after it swelled up?

[jt]

Are you sure it wasn't ok Jacko, 1968 is often described as cottage cheese in appearnace, not sure about so gloopy that it wouldn't pour though ?

But yeast aside, how'd the trial run go on the new gear ?

I was over newtown yesterday and sorely tempted by the Wyeast, but resisted, see they had some of the PC yeasts in, thames valley II and the West Yorks caught my fancy but I'm running with the whitbread for now

Cheers, jt