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

[Jess9]

Saturday's brew 7/9/2013.  Basic Belg. Saison...

Grain:

 2kg Maris Otter Malt

 2Kg Weyermanns Org. Pils Malt

 350g Aromatic Malt

 50g Roasted Barley

Mash:

 58 deg 45min

 63 deg 15min

 68 deg 30min

Sparge 70 deg.

Hops:

 T-80min 25g Southern Cross

 T-50min 25g Southern Cross

 T-15min 25g Pacifica

 T-5min 25 Pacifica

Danstar Belgian Saison yeast (hydrated) and pitched at 18 deg.

Plan to add 1.5kg raw local/garden honey into fermenter at crausen peak around T+3days.

2-3 week ferment planned, with bottle ageing.

Tasted good prior to ferment : )

Above made 24L @ 1.035 measured at 18 deg.

[Jess9]

oh, and also boiled mash water for 25min first, cooled it back down to start mash temp, and added teaspoon gypsum.  Ratio was quite high 5:1

[Jess9]

Added approx. 1kg of honey to about 30 deg (20min boiled and water left to cool)  3L water tonight, then threw this into fermenter at T+3, noted ferment was settling.  Danstar Belle Saison is a very active yeast.  Aroma from fermenter was nice : )

[Dave W]

So just the honey and water?

No other additives?

*edit*

Whoops sorry just checked the previous page....my bad.  :-(

[Jess9]

Fermentation @ 10 days (4 to go).  Took gravity sample tonight 1035 to 995??  Didn't know it could go below 1k???  Is my Coopers meter faulty?  Will retest in a few days to see if it has stopped moving.

[Karl Hayes]

Alcohol is lighter than water so theoretically it can go below 1.000 but not likely. Check the hydrometer in plain water maybe.

[Jess9]

Good idea, just done.  Tap water (at approx 15deg) reads 992, so a FG reading 3pts higher at 995 makes more sense now.  That saison yeast done good : )  I also read some where that the cooper hydrometer is set at 20deg on distilled water.

[Jess9]

guess I should also add  8 pts to the SG i.e 1043 down to FG 1003 (assuming all done now) for the alc. calc later.

[Thies]

just bottled;

Aventinus Wheat Doppelbock, from 200 clone brews.

this was also my first all grain attempt. My mashing is still in a large drain bag, but in a chilly bin with ball valve. I have not yet sourced the right material to make the perfect manifold.

Grain bill; pale wheat 5kg, pilsner malt 3.2kg, caramunich type 1 250gr, munich t2 1kg, wakatu hops, 2 sachets of craft series bavarian wheat. The OG was a lot lower then expected, read at 1.03. Lessons learned...

I topped up water to 28 litres, in a 30 ltr fermenter this was asking for trouble. The lid blew the next day, spilling krausen everywhere. I siphoned off till i was at 25 litres and it's been fine since then. 

What could i /should i do to get a higher OG next time? I am sure it has something to do with the way i mashed and or the sparging method? Anyways, it's on the bottle now, looks a real straw / pale colour. We have a relative coming over end of October from Munich, think we'll surprise her one night and open one of these to enjoy a hefeweizen kiwi style !

 

[Peter Smith]

there is a recent thread about efficiency of mash and wheat, I moved up from 1.045 to 1.065   longer and lower is the summary

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/problems-with-wheat-be...

another 2 weeks until I can tell the -ve effects of longer mash, I did a 3kg wheat 3kg glad pale low and long  mash  put wheat through mill 3 times

[Thies]

great advice, thanks Peter , i am sure i will try another wheat beer using leftover pils&maris otter, a little smoked malt, some leftover wheat malt, maybe a wheat extract and maple syrup. 

[Thies]

Today it was brewday;

I wanted to brew something like the Boundary Rd Red Baron. I asked around on this forum for advise and someone suggested to use the gladfield toffee malt. I found the website from the brew house, and had a look around at their malts. So, i worked out my grain bill for the aventinus wheat doppelbock from the 200 clone brew book, and i worked out a recipe from scratch to match something similar to a Red Baron.  Everything i used was to be sweet / toffee style so here's the grain bill;

base malt, vienna malt 5kg, toffee malt 1kg, caramalt 500gr, medium crystal 500gr, and used green bullet hops. I used the safale s04 yeast, OG was 1.030. Things learned from previous brews is to definitely be more patient and let the beer sit on the bottle for longer, this improves the taste tremendously.