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.