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

[MrC]

OK, I've changed my mind. I've just finished putting some of this into bottles and the hops are great.

Motueka is fast becoming a favourite of mine.

[Simon David kelly]

Just starting the APA for the WBC in 6 weeks.

Was going to use Maris Otter and Crystal, but I ran out of crystal and had to substitute.

4kg Marris Otter
1kg Caraamber
1kg Melanoiden
[2.5 hours hand grinding. Must buy a powered mill]

Steep in 25lt @ 74C for 45 mins [doing a BIAB]

28g Fuggles + 28g Goldings (60min) [guess who had left-overs?]
28g Cascade (15min)
28g Cascade [+Irish moss] (10min)
28g Cascade (5min)

130g Cascade or Goldings dry hop @ day 9

[Mike Neilson]

Malty!!!!!!!!

[Simon David kelly]

Looks a bit doesn't it. Do you think I may have under done the hops?

[Mike Neilson]

im more concerned of the mashing temp of 74 deg. I normaly mash at between 64-68 degrees.

[Simon David kelly]

That was a bit of a mistake on my part. The water temperature was 75 before I put the grain in, and I was expecting it to drop back down to 68 ish. However it only drop a degree. I think I may have mis-read the dial.

It dropped down to 70 after the first 20 minutes and finished a little under 69 at the end of the 45 minute mark. I may have a dodgey thermometer.

Pre-boil I had a reading of 1.056, not sure if it's going to go too high post-boil.

[Mike Neilson]

It will be highly unattenuable, Put loads of hops at the 90 or 60 min mark.

[Reviled]

Wowza, a kilo of melanoiden?? This is gonna be interesting!!

[Simon David kelly]

Bad interesting or good interesting?

I only had that or brown in enough quantity, and a kilo of brown would have shot it through the roof colour-wise for the style.

[Reviled]

I reckon the malt is going to dominate completely, as in, you dont have enough hops in there to counter all of the caraamber and melanoiden, so its not really going to be an APA, thats not to say its going to be a bad beer tho...

If it was me and I only had the ingrediants you had available, for the particular style, personally I would have just gone with the maris otter and maybe 200-250gms of CaraAmber...

[Simon David kelly]

I think I need to read up a bit more on how each malt should be used. Never mind though, it's all good practice and learning. I should really keep a good stock of malts at hand from now on too.

Maybe it'll be a good desert beer :o)

[Reviled]

Yeah I generally buy about 4-5 kilos of various specialty malts every time I get a sack of base malt, so ive built up quite a good selection...

Be keen to hear how it turns out :o)