Back with a vengeance... I hope

The main trouble as I see it with home brewing is that on the face of it the brewing process shouldn't be that expensive... you just need a pot, a fermenter and some bottles right?  Well that's not entirely true.  There's also the fact you need a cool place (ideally 18 consistently 18-20 degrees) to ferment the beer which is unfortunately impossible in most houses in NZ during the summer so you have the choice of outlaying for a brewing fridge... umm no thanks or simply don't brew for a while.  This is another reason I haven't been brewing!  Ignore the weather for a moment, the other major stumbling block was I wasn't prepared to fork over money to get a wort chiller to cool the finished product to a fermentable temperature.  This meant that the 3 BIAB efforts previously mentioned were all left to the mercy of a slow cool  down from boil, exposing them to potential infection amongst other poor brewing practices.

Well, I got a bonus from work and I got myself a wort chiller.... it's cool enough now for the understairs cupboard to ferment beer in so I'm getting back into it and what did I go and brew?  Yes, it's that bloody IPA recipe again!

Same grain:
NZ Pilsner - 5.8kg
NZ Munich - 0.35kg
Pale Crystal - 0.5kg

On visiting Brewers Coop I discovered they have a whole range of US Hops... so I dumped the idea of repeating the last recipe and on the spot chose the following hops:

30g Citra (@ 60 minutes)
30g Cascade (@ 15 minutes)
30g Amarillo (@ 5 minutes)
30g Cascade (@ 0 minutes)
30g Amarillo (@ 0 minutes)

Wort Chiller worked a treat - I managed to connect up the ends to the outdoor hoses - one bringing cold water in and the other directing the waste water into the swimming pool.... that's a decent way to recycle the water I reckon without killing the plants or lawn.

OG was 1045 approx.

I used the US05 yeast x 2 sachets.

The plan is to dry hop some of the Citra and Amarillo (or possibly Cascade).

The whole process took longer as I went out to the supermarket while the mash was going on - I hope that doesn't result in undesirable sugars in the wort but nothing I can do about that now.

Last post August 2012.... well it's been a while.

Well.  It has been a while since I last posted to this blog but in all reality there hasn't been much brewing going on so I'll briefly summarise activities:

Rest of 2012:

Soon after the last update in August 2012 I took the plunge into Brew in a Bag when I got the huge stainless steel pot.  The only other item I needed was a large grain bag sourced from Brewers Coop and then I was away.

Looking back at my scrappy notes I decided to use a similar grain profile to the Hoppiness is an IPA recipe (amended with NZ Pilsner and Munich along with Pale Crystal for the grist) and used NZ hops which was largely due to supply problems getting US hops.  The main error was not allowing enough water in the mash for evapouration and lost of liquid when I took the grain bag(s) out so I ended up having to top the brew up with water - in hindsight I should have just fermented what I had.  The result was a palatable beer more like a Pale Ale than a IPA. 

The hops I used were:

30g Pacific Jade (@ 60 minutes) 

30g Motueka (@ 15 minutes) 

30g Southern Cross (@ 5 minutes) 

30g NZ Cascade + 20g Motueka (@ 0 minutes flame out)  

Fermented with US05 again.  No notes on dry hopping but I suspect I used the remaining NZ Cascade.

OG: 1040

FG:1010

The second beer followed a similar recipe to the first BIAB but I refined the process and used slightly different hops with the same grain.

23g Pacific Jade (@ 60 minutes)

30g Motueka (@ 15 minutes)

30g Southern Cross (@ 5 minutes)

30g NZ Cascade (@ 0 minutes)

30g Nelson Sauvin (@ 0 minutes)

No notes on dry hopping but one suspects I dumped in whatever left over hops I had from the minimum 50g purchase at Brewers Coop.

2013:

The third effort at the same recipe was in the early part of 2013 (damn it I'll get this right one day!).  Once again the process was improved and ran more smoothly.  This time the hop additions were as follows:

30g Nelson Sauvin (@ 60 minutes)

30g Motueka (@ 15 minutes)

30g Southern Cross (@ 5 minutes)

30g NZ Cascade (@ 0 minutes)

Dry Hop (since I have it written down)

20g Nelson Sauvin

20g NZ Cascade

30g Southern Cross

From memory the 2nd and 3rd beers were pretty good and a vast improvement on the 1st BIAB effort.

I also tried a fresh wort pack from 8 Wired for a Hopwired clone in the middle part of the year.

Whilst I'm not trying to make excuses we moved house in the middle of 2013 and that combined with a lack of a way to properly cool the hot wort meant a decided lack of motivation in doing any brewing.  More updates in the next post.

Homebrewing status check - August 2012

As I said in the recipe for Brew Seven, at this rate I will be drowning in beer because when I bottle the Amber Ale in a couple of weeks time I will have approximately 90 bottles of beer in storage.  I best get drinking!

The good news is that there isn't much, if any, of the original Munich 'Lager' or the kit 'IPA' and by my reckoning I only have about half a dozen bottles of the first proper IPA and the original Amber Ale.  

It's interest how the flavour profiles of the beer change over time as I shared a couple of bottles of the kit 'IPA' on the weekend and it tasted sweet and almost like a wheat beer which I can imagine would be quite enjoyable to drink on a hot summers afternoon when you've just finished mowing the lawns.  The original Amber Ale has also softened over time and doesn't have such a harsh bitter hop taste to it either. I also tasted a bottle of the American Brown Ale which has been in the bottle for three weeks.  It tasted awesome so I'm excited to see how it matures over the next month or so but I could be onto a winner there.

I'll be interested to see how Brew Seven comes out as it was pretty dark for an Amber Ale and I mucked around a bit more than I would have liked to with the recipe.

I'm at the stage now where I seem to be able to produce some reasonably tasty beer so the trick will be to try to reproduce it consistently over a number of brews.  On the other hand I don't want to restrict myself by only doing a couple of different styles and I would also like to figure out how to introduce some local NZ hops into the brews as opposed to having to use the US style hops.

Lastly, I picked up a huge pot for only $45 the other day.  I say huge because I'm unclear how big it is exactly as the writing on the sticker is in Chinese.  This weekend I'll use a bucket to fill it up to see how much it is exactly and then do a test boil to see how quickly it comes up to the boil.  If I am going to move to full size boils I probably need a way to cool the wort down and a hose to transfer it to the fermenter.  The other option is to look to moving to a Brew in a Bag process as an intermediate step on the journey to All Grain.

Brew Seven - Amber Ale

I'm going to be drowning in beer at this rate because I now have approximately 70 bottles in storage (750ml bottles at that).  Brew Six had been in the fermenter for nearly three weeks now and the gravity is reading around 1015 so it was time to bottle it and since it's more efficient to be bottles and making more beer at the same time I decided to make an Amber Ale based upon the Brewing Classic Styles "West Coast Blaster" but again there were compromises in the ingredients:

Extract: 
3.0 kg Blackrock Light LME (2 x 1.5kg cans)
0.5 kg Briess Munich LME

The recipe asks for 3.97 kg of English Pale Ale LME and only 318 g of the Munich LME.

Steeping Grains:
0.5 kg Pale Crystal
250g Dark Crystal
250g Abbey Malt
85g Pale Chocolate

The Abbey replaced the Victory that the recipe asks for. The 'Dark' Crystal matches up 120°L Crystal whereas the 40°L Crystal is the Pale Crystal.

Hops:
Quite a few recipes in the Brewing Classic Styles book asks for Horizon hops which Brewers Coop and Hauraki don't stock.  This recipe asks for it so I substituted for Northern Brewer.

30g Northern Brewer (@ 60 minutes)
30g Northern Brewer (@ 10 minutes)
30g Centennial (@ 10 minutes)
30g Cascade (@ 0 minutes)
30g Centennial (@ 0 minutes)

The recipe asked for Cascade at 10 minutes but I had to get a minimum of 50g of Northern Brewer and I didn't have any Cascade so I figured I might as well swap out the Cascade for the Northern Brewer assuming it was better to use the Cascade at flame out.

Boil Volume: 10 Litres

Yeast:
US05

Notes:
1. Original gravity approximately 1050.

2. The whole process including bottling Brew Six, cleaning and sterilising and making Brew Seven took 2 3/4 hours.

Brew Six - American IPA

Having considered my options I opted to proceed with an American IPA for the sixth brew since the feedback about Brew 4 has been overwhelmingly positive.  I used the Brewing Classic Styles 'Hoppiness is an IPA' recipe as a guide again but made some minor changes to the malt and hops.

3.8 kg Blackrock Light LME (2x 1.5 kg cans plus half a can left over from last time)

0.5kg Briess Munich LME

0.6kg New Zealand Pale Malt

30g Nugget (@ 60 minutes)

15g Centennial (@ 20 minutes)

15g Centennial (@ 15 minutes)
30g Simcoe (@ 7 minutes)

15g Cascade (@ 5 minutes)
15g Cascade (@ 0 minutes/flame out)

Boil volume: 9 Litres.

Yeast: US05.

Notes:

1.  I didn't have time to get down to Brewers Coop so I dropped by Hauraki for my ingredients.  When I got home I suddenly realised that I didn't know whether the NZ Pale Malt was the same as the Pale Crystal I had used previously from Brewer Coop.  Lesson learned: just ask if you don't know.

2.  I split the Centennial and Cascade hop additions in half in the hop it will improve the hop profile in both taste and aroma.

3.  The overall process was quicker this time - it took approximately 2.5 hours from start to finish as opposed to the 3 hours previously.

Brew Five - Bottling the American Brown Ale

I bottled the American Brown Ale on Friday 20th July after it had spent 19 days in the fermenter.  I tried using liquid finings for this beer which I added two days prior.

I'm going to leave the beer to mature for about 4 weeks before tasting it.

I now have to decide which beer to brew next - I'm leaning towards an IPA to follow up with the one I made prior to this Brown Ale. 

 

Summary of the first five beers

Here is a quick summary of the first five beers I've brewed:

1. Mangrove Jacks Munich Lager:  The can came with the Copper Tun home brew kit.  While it was fermented with an Ale yeast the good news was that the finished product was a drinkable, if not somewhat unremarkable beer.

2.  Blackrock IPA: This was a virtual repeat of the first beer while I refined and built up my understanding of the brewing process in particular the importance of cleaning and sterilising.  While the end result was lacking in any discernible flavour it has over time matured into quite an easy drinking beer.  

3.  Amber Ale:  This is where things get interesting.  I've got my hands on the How to Brew book by John Palmer and joined the Aussie Home Brew forum for general advice and guidance.  The resulting recipe included a hop boil and a move to LME from the kits.

4.  American IPA: Adding another step into the process I steeped some grains in this recipe.  The recipe itself was based up the 'Brewing Classic Styles' Hoppiness is an IPA recipe.

5.  American Brown Ale:  Once again I've used a BCS recipe to guide me through the process of making this beer.

I've come along way in my understanding of brewing in the last four months and I'm looking forward to continuing on the journey to making great beer.