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

[Stu McKinlay]

Suggestions here that the yeast is their primary one. Maybe you should do a comparison - 500 v the bottle one.
http://www.brew-monkey.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=631

[Steve Baker]

Looks like I might get away with it, thanks for the link.

[denimglen]

Brewing the APA recipe from Brewing Classic Styles closer to recipe this time.

To anyone looking at brewing it the recipe states 7g for both 10 minute additions but should read 14g for each. Just read the errata on their website. Bit of random info for anyone who's got the book.

[MrC]

Which one? Biscuit or Caramel?

I tried the biscuit one using caraamber in place of victory. Very nice. I'm preferring more biscuit and less caramel in my beers at the moment.

[denimglen]

http://www.mrmalty.com/bcs/errata.html

Looks to be just the biscuit one but I would have thought it applied to both, hmmm.

I made it first time with Amber malt in place of victory. Very good but could have done with more amber as halved the amount.

Made it this time round with home toasted 'victory' malt. Might have toasted a little too hot or for two long cause the wort looks darker than it should be, oops.

[MrC]

Just brewed the first two of my split wort hop comparison beers. Decided to go with US-05 for the yeast as it is easy to reproduce for subsequent "matching" brews.

Grain: 5kg Maris Otter
Yeast: US-05

Split boil (11.5L each):

Pot 1:
Riwaka 19g 60min
Riwaka 10g 10min
Riwaka 12g 0min

Pot 2:
Nelson Sauvin 7g 60min
Nelson Sauvin 10g 10min
Nelson Sauvin 12g 0min

Both should have the same IBUs (31'ish)

I also tried out my new mash tun which is a cooler with a tap and a built in manifold. Worked really well. Even had the 3-teired gravity-fed lautering going on :) By far the most relaxed AG brew day I've had.


This is the first time I've tried fly sparging and it seemed to go well. The only problem I had was that the gravity of the runoff was down to 1.008 before I had reached the my target volume of 26.5L and the the overall gravity of the wort was higher than expected.

Question
Is it OK to add water to bring the gravity down to the target or is adding water after the lauter a crime?
How do you hit your target volume & gravity with fly sparging?

[Stu McKinlay]

Yes, as long as you're only adding a few litres woul will be fine. A few UK breweries (Batham's s one example) still do this commercially. They mash and boil one beer, and then split the wort across two fermenters with one watered down (e.g. a best bitter and a mild). I know Batham's add more yeast to the lower gravity one to combat the fact that it has a lower acidity and (I guess) more susceptible to infection.

Just learn what your efficiency is through this system and then go for it. I'm never really looking for a beer that is exactly this or that, so if I'm out by a few points I just adjust the hopping a shade. When I hit 1.100 for my Imperial Porter it was just a happy coincidence.

[MrC]

Thanks Stu.

[MrC]

After all of my careful planning, I've ended up making a simple mistake. I mixed up the pots during cooling and now I don't know which is which :( Hopefully I'll be able to tell when the smells start coming out the airlocks.

A trap for young players when splitting batches.

[denimglen]

Accidental blind tasting. Nice!

[MrC]

Well fermentation has kicked in know and it's obvious which one is the Sauvin. It sort of took the fun out of it though. Maybe I should "forget" label the bottles too :)

[denimglen]

Just out of interest what are you fermenting in?

Seems buckets come in either 10L or 20L...