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.