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

[JackoNZ]

Good work dude!!

[jt]

I am never brewing on a weeknight again

I almost always brew Sunday morning when I have undisturbed time and I'm organised to that routine.
If I brew other times there's other distractions and things tend to go wrong.

[Ally Mcg]

2nd that JT. I brew weekend to weekend fortnightly; allows some cold conditioning week two, some yeast harvesting and weeknights daydreaming of the next beers and drinking the last ones.

[Patrick]

Sunday morning is my usual day as well. But this sunday I hope to be 30 miles off the coast of NZ dragging Hapuku from 300m of water... Depends on the weather.

[Mike Neilson]

Wheres the like button?

[Llew Bardecki]

Good Stuff. Sounds like a tasty beer. I reckon that even if some of that much-maligned Green Bullet flavour comes through from the bittering hops it'll still will work well with the smoke.

I love brewing on weeknights, but I live very close to work, and can start by 17:15 at the latest :)

[Reviled]

Nice stuff Patrick, so what did you do about the water in the end? Rain water or nah?

[Patrick]

Yeah, it is rain water that has been filtered and UV treated on the way out of the tank. I added chalk (too much actually) but managed to drag the PH back down with a bit of lemon juice. I checked the PH with my wifes aquarium gear - it was the same as Dublin water :)

[Reviled]

How many gms of chalk did you add out of interest? 3gms would probably be about right and itll smooth out the excessive amount of roast you used ;o) haha

[Patrick]

About 4 or 5 grams - hence the lemon juice. I need better scales!

[Llew Bardecki]

Doing a brew with my dad today while visiting Toronto.

We don't have equipment here, so we're using an improvised setup and doing a mostly extract beer with a mini-mash thrown in:

Red Currant Saison, 20L Batch

2.5kg Dry Pilsner Extract (1/2 added at 60 mins, 1/2 added at 10 mins)
0.9kg American Wheat Malt, mashed at 65C for 75 mins, double batch sparge
1.0kg Red Currants picked fresh from the garden this morning added to the boil @ 5 mins
0.5kg Cane sugar to be added partway through fermentation

45g East Kent Goldings 5%AA @ 60 mins, 27 IBU
12g East Kent Goldings 5%AA @ 5 mins 3 IBU

OG of about 1.063, depending on exactly how much sugar's in the currants.

Fermenting with Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes.
We'll probably start it out in the basement at around 24C for a couple of days, then bring it upstairs into 28-29C for the rest of the ferment.

Not sure about the FG, what with using extract, but I'm hoping that between the cane sugar, fruit sugars, low mash temp on the wheat and a hungry Belgian yeast fermenting hot we should get it down to at least 1.010.

And even if it does finish a bit sweet, the tartness of the currants and the yeast should provide a bit of a counterbalance :)

[Matt Smith]

Hi all.
One last brew today before uni starts again on Monday. My first crack at an American IPA. I'm pretty exited about his one after having a bad run of English beers the last few brews.

Aiming for:
20 Litre Batch
1.056 OG
1.011 FG
6% ABV
60 IBU
7.7 SRM

92% Maris Otter
4% UK Caramalt
4% Pale Crystal

9g Columbus 14.2% AA @ 60
9g Simcoe 12.4% AA @ 60
6g Columbus 14.2% AA @ 20
5g Simcoe 12.4% AA @ 20
25g Columbus 14.2% AA @ 10
25g Simcoe 12.4% AA @ 10
25g Cascade 7.5% AA @ 0
25g Simcoe 12.4% AA @ 0
10g Columbus 14.2% AA @ Dry Hopped
36g Simcoe 12.4% AA @ Dry Hopped
22g Centennial 8.5% AA @ Dry Hopped

Wyeast 1272

I hit my pre boil gravity spot on which I'm stoked about. Just waiting for all those hops to settle before racking to my fermenter. I'm interested to see how much I lose to the hops, this is by far the most ive used so far.