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]

This is a good read too.

Which profile did you aim for? The burton one?

Are you just using iodised table salt? I'm brewing today and holding off my boil until 1pm, cause I need to go up and buy some uniodised stuff haha. I'm half and half on the iodised and uniodised thing, but better safe than sorry I reckon.

[Martin Bridges]

I just used normal table salt, there's not a lot in there.

I was aiming for the Bitter profile, so we'll see what we get. Just about to mash out.

[denimglen]

Yeah I saw someone calculate it out, was like 0.22mg/L when used at about 0.5tsp in a brew, so SFA really.

I'm still paranoid though ;-)

[MrC]

Today's brew is another split wort with some additional grain steeped in one half.

Base grist:
3.6kg Maris Otter
0.2kg Wheat
0.2kg Caramalt 30 EBC

OG around 1.040

Beer One - "Blonde Virgin" (my first blonde ale)
Sauvin at 60 min to 20 IBU
12g Home grown hops at flame out

Beer Two - "BB II" (attempt at a Bookbinder clone)
An additional 100g Crystal 240 EBC steeped in half of the wort.
NZ Styrian at 60 min to 24 IBU
15min Fuggles 5g
15min Riwaka 5g
0min Fuggles 10g
0min Riwaka 10g
May dry hop this with Fuggles & Riwaka depending on the one week taste test.

[Daron]

Hi Mr Cherry. you BBII recipe calls for Styrian at 60mins to 24IBU. My calcs make this 27gr which seems really high. Is that correct?

Also you mention steeping 100gr cyrstal 240 in half the wort. What do you mean by that?

Whats your reccomendation on dry hop amounts?

[MrC]

[Edited Version]

Only just saw this Daron.

This beer was a single mash with the wort split into two pots to brew two seperate beers, 11L each.
- Beer one was the wort left "as is" after the mash.
- For beer two I took about 3L of the wort and steeped the additional crystal malt in it. I then added the the steeped portion back into the wort for beer two.

After that I hopped and fermented the two beers separately. An interesting little exercise.

I dry hopped BBII at a rate if 1g/L, 50% Fuggles & 50% Riwaka.

[JoKing]

I was just watching some youtube and I am soooo not for hop bags aye. I can see how convenient they are, you know - just leave them in there while you are cooling and all that stuff...

But all I see is waste surface area... and loss of utilasation.

The ironic part, is while its cooling - the hops fall down the bottom anyway - so what's the point of the bag?

[Martin Bridges]

Each to his own, I guess. My current brewery practises involve me boiling in 2 pots on the stove, then cooling in sinks full of ice. If I didn't use hop bags (or improvised hop bags i.e. the wife's nylons!) then I'd be wasting a heck of a lot more wort when pouring into my fermenter.

Once I progress to a full-size kettle and some sort of immersion chiller I might be more likely to move to just chucking the hops in. I already generally do for the flameout addition.

[JoKing]

I hear ya... they certainly have their place. But even when I was brewing the way you do, I strained them out when I got to the bottom of the kettle - which was much mroe dificult than the bags. You could argue that my extra step in process could have been a possible area for infection (I guess I was luck in that respect). It was certainly a 2 person job - straining the hops!

As you say - each to his own.

[Mark]

i've started using hop bags, and they are really convenient. my one is massive so hopefully the surface area isn't reduced too much

[James P]

If Reviled where here, he would say use your "spare" BIAB bag as a f**ken huge hop sock....... in fact reviled that's what i'll use it for, thanks for the suggestion!

[Reviled]

No worries James, any time ;o) Allthough id be worried about the bag burning/melting...

I used to use hop socks for all my additions but stopped and havnt noticed much of a diff apart from a bit more trub in the kettle, but this is taken care of by tipping the trub into jugs to settle overnight, then I save the odd litre of wort (cheers for the trick Jo)