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

[Richard Deeble]

I'd just stick with your original recipe in that case if you haven't already brewed. Should be a nice beer

[Tonz]

Ok, thanks, will do. Hoping to brew Wed now !!!

[Richard Deeble]

Brewing a beer which is a slightly edited Fullers Porter Clone tomorrow

20 litre batch (58% total efficiency, 73% mash efficiency)

O.G 1054

4.4kg Maris Otter
0.8kg Brown Malt
0.53kg TF Medium Crystal
0.2kg Bairds Chocolate
0.2kg Bairds Pale Chocolate

28ibus of Pacific Gem at 60, maybe a dash at 15.
Wyeast 1968 fermented at 17 then raised up to 20 after 24-48 hours

I've made a few changes to recipe, mainly splitting up the chocolate malt because I have a feeling that the regular Bairds chocolate maybe slightly too dark for me getting the correct colour for the beer. I also quite like the flavour of the Pale Chocolate.

[jt]

So the water ban is lifted in Wellington and we're all getting our imersion chillers out eh ?

I'm planning a rebrew of Analogue Pale Ale, my 1.036 take on Digital IPA for the weekend

[David R]

Sounds interesting, I loved the hop aroma from the late additions when I did a full-strength brew of their Digital recipe and have been thinking of doing a lighter version of it ever since.

[jt]

Just drinking mine now, it's a pretty aggresive hop character in a 1036 beer.

When I do it again I might back off the hops a bit, not sure to take out some 60 minute bittering or the big last one

Cheers, jt

[jt]

This conditioned up nicely over the next week, so nicely that I've just brewed it again.

[Paul Finney]

So last weekend i did my second All grain. The first one had a few speed bumps, namely setting my table on fire, getting a stuck mash (almost watched a whole film doing the sparging) and overshot OG by 10 points which made my light Kolsch a hefty 6.6%er!

So, it was going to be a really bad day brewing if this one went worse :)

Thankfully nothing much went wrong. I hit the mash temp, boil off rate and ended up with 19L in the fermentor.

The recipe was for a Pumpkin Porter (giving away my entry to our local HB group comp!)

4.1km Marris Otter

200g Special Roast

200g Choc malt

350g Medium Crystal

350g Brown malt

Into the mash also went 400g of Pumpkin grown in my very own garden. The pumpkin was dry roasted until the edges started turning brown.

 

Hops were:

40g EKG @ 60mins

20g Fuggles @ 15

10g EKG at 5mins

Also at 5mins there was cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger added in a ratio of 4:2:1 respectively.

Yeast was safale 04

Tasted pretty good going into the fermentor. Will take a sample tonight to see how the fermentation is going.

 

 

[Crusader-Rob]

Wow finney. Pumpkin! I'm looking forward to that.

[Paul Finney]

Yup, just tasted it and there is no real pumpkin flavour, although I am hoping it gives the beer more body.

The roasted malts are really prevalent which I am hoping will calm down once it has aged a bit.

Gravity reading was 1.020 today, so still a bit to go.

[Matt Smith]

My first foray into sour beer brewing is underway. Making a strong funky blonde in the spirit of Russian River Temptation and Jolly Pumpkin Oro De Calabaza.  I'm using re cultured dregs from a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin. Not sure exactly what is in there, but there is at least a brett strain, lacto, pedio, and saccharomyces of some description. In the spirit of Jolly Pumpkin, I'm using my retired brew kettle as an open fermenter. Once fermentation is done I'll transfer it to a carboy onto oak cubes that I have soaking in some Chardonnay.

Here it is after about 18 hours. Smells mostly of Brett at the moment, I'm guessing most of the saccharomyces got pretty sick in the bottle and most of what I grew was Brett. I did throw in a 4 month old smack pack of Ardennes that I had on hand for good measure. Not sure if it will do much though.

The Oak taking a Chardonnay bath

Recipe:
1.062 OG
20 IBU
4.5 SRM

81.3% Gladfield Lager
10.1% Wheat
7.6% Gladfield Munich
1% Acid Malt

14.8 IBU NZ Styrian @ 60
5.5 IBU NZ Styrian @ 15

35g light toasted oak cubes soaked in Mission Estate Chardonnay

Dregs from 1 bottle of Jolly Pumpkin Noel De Calabaza pitched into a 200ml starter, then stepped up to 700ml and finally 2000ml. 1 Smack Pack of Ardennes added and all pitched into primary open ferment.

I'll sample after 6 months minimum, and bottle when I feel the acidity is right . Hopefully the bugs have stuck around and will start doing their thing once the brett settles down. I'll update in 6 months

[Mark Meyburg]

Hi

I have just ordered 5 pounds of simcoe hops. I have made a number of beers with centinnel hops and combo of nelson sav, cascade and motueka. My favourite is a American pale ale but I would like to try an American red or darker with the simcoe and maybe some of the others. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks