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 Walley]

Thanks! Those web sites are fantastic! Aisde from the worrying fact that whichever way I cut my recipe on tastybrew.com, it still flags up red in the 'style comparison' bit, I'm pretty excited by all this info.

I suppose I'm a little guilty of approaching brewing like I approach my cooking, i.e. chuck a bunch of stuff together and see what happens. It's obviously much more complicated than that, and I've had my knuckles rapped on this forum before for that attitude ;-).

One quick question, if you nice guys have time - how long do you reckon the brew will take? I've got a reasonably idea from those fantastic sites what I should be looking for in terms of final gravity, but I'm not sure how long that'll be. Keen to time the brew so I don't end up bottling on a school night.

[denimglen]

If I was you I'd leave it in the primary for three weeks. Four if you're lazy maybe two if you're impatient ;-)

I'd then bottle and prime and leave for about 3 - 4 weeks and it should be very drinkable by then.

[MrC]

Brewed up an Irish Red Ale yesterday.
OG 1.051

4.00 kg Maris Potter
1.00 kg Vienna (cleaning out the closet here)
0.24 kg Crystal
0.10 kg Cara Pils
0.10 kg Roasted Barley

24g East Kent Goldings (60 mins)
24g Willamette (60 mins)
(no other hops)
Total 25 IBU

US05

23L sitting in the fermeter at 20 degrees.

Having some issues with my PVC lautering manifold, it moves around a lot in the mash and often lifts off the bottom. Had to get MrsC to add an extra pair of hands to hold the manifold in place while I lautered.

[Martin Bridges]

I'm thinking of knocking together a quick basic extract-based English Best Bitter while I save up my pennies for the all-grain gear. Any suggestions for a nice simple recipe?

Martin

[Stu McKinlay]

one of those two can muntons kits, with S04 and a sprinkling of fuggles in the boil.
i remember doing that about 4 or 5 years ago and thinking it was a pretty good wee best bitter.

[jt]

Hmmm ... that won't exactly save pennies - those kits run to $50 plus ?

two tins of malt. 20IBU of your best bittering hop, throw the rest of your hops in with bertween 15 and 5 minutes.

Nothing brewing this weekend. Had a few days away and lots to catch up on - erm, ok then, all fermenters full anyway.

[Martin Bridges]

So, BSB (Bog Standard Bitter) is in the fermenter.
2 x 1.8kg Muntons Light LME
25g Galena (60 minutes)
25g East Kent Goldings (10 mins)
Safale S-04

OG measured at 1.042, IBUs should be 34.

Let's see what happens.

Martin

[Martin Bridges]

It's now bubbling away merrily (I love S-04!). Temperature in the fermenter is showing as 19 degrees with an ambient air temperature of 14 degrees, so the shed brewery looks to be a viable option. Which is good.

Mind you, if the weather carries on like this I think I'll need to turn the shed into an ark.

Martin

[Stu McKinlay]

First real attempt to recreate my favourite old extract-based beer as an all-grain recipe. I used to call it "Hopslapper" but now that I've named my homebrewery "Yeastie Boys" I've renamed this: "Hold it now, Hop it".

As Papazian would say, let's cut the shuck and jive and get on with the recipe:

100% Maris Otter (mashed at 66c)
60min boil
Sauvin at 60min
Sauvin, UK Fuggle 50/50 splt (with whirlfloc) at 20min
UK Fuggle at flame-out

42L @ 1.042 and 30ibu. Split into two fermenters, one using S04 and one using Gervin ale yeast.

Since I had a whole day to myself, I also put down an extract American Brown (always been meaning to try a full boil extract-based beer to see, just to see if it's any good).
1 x Mac's Triple Malt Dark
1 x Mac's Late Hopped
Full-boil. Heaps of Fuggles and Sauvin for flavour and aroma (thought I'd use up the leftover from above).
23L @ 1.045. US05 yeast.

65L fermenting, and a nice little southerly came along at the right time to keep ferment temps down. Happy days.

[Stu McKinlay]

Both versions of "Hold it now, Hop it" and the "Ashes of American Brown" are in the can. All three beers show promise at this early stage. In true British-style, I'll be sampling the bitter tonight (12 days after I pitched the yeast). I imagine it'll be at its best in two or three weeks.

The Gervin yeast, in comparison to S04, appears is less flocculant and more willing to show off the hop character. It'll be interesting to see how this changes over the next couple of weeks.

Double batch of my American-style Porter on the cards for Saturday night brew.

[jt]

Interesting your comment on the Gervin and hops Stu as I'd found the opposite when I used it in a brown and bitter last year. perhaps I should have another go

[Stu McKinlay]

I made 42L of the same wort and then split the batches across 2 fermenters, one with S04 and the other with Gervin. This means I can compare directly. did you do the same - or was your comparison based on memory of brewing the same/similar beer?

Tonight I'll have a decent half pint sample of each. I'll let you know how they are shaping up after that.

In my last test of a simlar nature, T-58 kicked K-97's butt. K-97, I've discovered, has very little to nothing going for it. Just like everyone has ever said (I've never heard anyone with any good news stories on it). It seems to throw a lot of sulphur and a phenolics and takes a long time to clean up.


Another point of note -
After some discussion with Steve Nally on yeast volumes, which included some advice he'd had passed on from Dave Logsdon at Wyeast, I pitched about 30% more yeast tha Mr Malty's yeast calculator would recommend. Final gravity was achieved in about three days, at 18c.