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CACA brewed

Monday, March 24th, 2008

Brewed another classic american cream ale last weekend, second time for this recipe albeit with some minor changes. I really like what the corn and rice does for this particular beer so will probably make it a regular thing.

Kai’s CACA

OG 1.048
25 IBU
7 EBC
23L

3kg wey pils
900g wey vienna
500g flaked maize
500g flaked rice
100g acid malt
1tsp CaSO4

45g czech saaz plugs 3.3% 60 minutes
15g czech saaz plug 3.3% flameout
15g tassie saaz whole 7.3% flameout

nottingham

Efficiency 75%, currently down to 1.012. I’d like it to drop another couple of points but won’t be too stressed if it doesn’t.

Am currently mustering the motivation to bottle my sparking ale. Checking it to make sure it’s ok… very banana and pear, nice light body but some haze. It’s had a month cold-conditioning to mellow, and the poor brown ale has been sitting in secondary on the laundry floor for about that long. It has gone into the fridge now, will bottle it next week. Flat at room temp it currently has a slightly acrid flavour to it that is not appealing.

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Pacific Gem Ale fermenting, Koelsch bottled

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

Koelsch is bottled, 6x longnecks and ~35 330mL stubbies. Ballsed up the bulk priming, thought I had 18L but only had 16ish so ended up priming at around 7.6g/L rather than 7. Not the first time this has happened so it’s a good indication that I really ought to put volume markers on the front of my conditioning cubes.

Also brewed a Pacific Gem ale yesterday, on a “brew in a bag” system. Ended up with 22L at around 1.050 though numbers are rough. Pitched the yeast 24 hours ago into a plastic water jerry and just transferred the wort to the fermenter recently vacated from the koelsch bottling (and before that, the iron brew fermentation). The yeast had definitely fired up, but a combined refrac + hydrometer reading + software calculation told me the wort was only 0.5% ABV into beer. Nonetheless I’m not particularly comfortable with pouring from one vessel to another a full 24 hours after pitching.

The wort itself is very chocolatey and biscuity with some blackberry overtones. Recipe is as follows:

PGA

OG 1.050
40 IBU
35 EBC

84% trad ale
10% wheat malt
4% caramunich II
2% TF choc

Pacific Gem bittering
1.7g/L Pacific Gem @ flameout

Safale S-04

I used 5kg of trad ale rather than 4.2 but kept the rest of the grains at the level for a 5kg batch, bumping my base malt %age up to around 86. Wort was awfully cloudy leading into fermentation so I am going to lose a few more litres than normal to racking.

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American Brown Bottled, Koelsch Racked

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

American brown bottled just over a week ago, Friday 10th (11 litres worth). Sampled Friday evening, not yet fully carbonated but tasting promising.

Final specs on it:

ABV 5.26%
OG 1.049
FG 1.009
35.5 IBU
65.7 EBC

Also racked the koelsch to secondary and it is now hibernating in the bottom of my new fridge. Had to take the vegie bin out to fit it in there, but it’s a worthy sacrifice. It too is tasting quite good, US-05 has actually managed to leave some light esters behind though they may fade by the time the beer is clear. It has attenuated the same as the brown, down to 1.009 from 1.048.

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Och Aye 80 bottled, 3GA and PPE racked, brewery moved

Monday, January 29th, 2007

Bottled the Scottish yesterday, just under 20 litres, OG 1.056 FG 1.006. Primed with 4.5g/L sugar. Beer is quite clear and a lovely colour. Will try to hold off for a week before consuming the first but only expect to make it as far as Friday night.

PPE is finishing off in the jerry, the 200g mulberries did not have any time to affect the colour of flavour before racking so I added 300g to the jerry this evening. An hour or so later it’s pink, I’ll recheck tomorrow and may add another 100-200g if need be. 3GA is quite hazy and yeasty, ideally I would throw it into my 100 can cooler bag for a CC, but that would require effort so realistically I will probably leave it at room temp and hope it clears. It worked for 1728 in OA80 after all.

Grain is crushed and ready for the Biere de Garde and the light. Will probably aim to brew the weekend after next, after the 3G ale is bottled.

Also moved most of my gear up to Monash where I will be brewing on the veranda of the old picker’s hut. Fermentation fridge still to come.

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Koelsch and IPA bottled

Friday, January 5th, 2007

Both bottled this afternoon before hopping in the car (with a bootful of beer) and barrelling up to Monash. Sometime in the last couple of days the koelsch cleared up stunningly, here’s hoping it was flocculation and not chill haze. Either way I still fined with gelatin.

Just like the apa, the ipa was still cloudy but had a stellar hop flavour. Not sure if it’s going to be as bitter as I wanted though.

I used the car journey to start planning out the next brew day. It will be the Purple People Eater and the corresponding small beer. Some minor changes to the recipe will include upping the OG to 1.080 and an inclusion of 5% vienna in the grain bill. The small beer will ferment on some of the yeast cake from the 80/~ and will be of moderate bitterness yet strong hop flavour. Hops will again be dependent on what
ever old ones still need using up.

I based volume calculations on the assumption that 6kg of grain would give me 25L of 1.050 wort in the fermenter — roughly equivalent to the Och Aye 80/~. Splitting it, doubling the grain bill and changing volumes, I’ll be hoping for 20L of 1.080 tripel and 20L of 1.045 small beer as a minimum. I am no longer going to split the tripel into a normal and a fruit concoction, it will all be fruit this time and I will simply plan another triple soon.

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Och Aye 80/~ brewed, Simcoe summer blonde & Onk Valley Pils bottled

Thursday, January 4th, 2007

Bottled the simcoe blonde and the pilsner on new year’s day, true to form lately I left the pils out too long and the fermenter heated to over 30°C. It was half frozen when I took it out of the fridge and bottled clear as a bell. I’m thinking it will be fine, nonetheless this business of leaving fermenters out in the heat a day or so before bottling needs to stop. Simcoe summer blonde bottled fairly cloudy, but with the coopers ale yeast I am not worried. I am interested to see if bottling conditioning throws up any diacetyl during the first month; a common problem with the coopers yeast in my experience.

Och Aye 80/~ was brewed on Tuesday 2nd, an associate dropped round to assist me with that as well as help me knock off the last half of the classic american cream ale — 3 weeks in bottle, we hardly knew ye. OG in the fermenter ~1.056 and around 75% brewhouse efficiency. I am still contemplating throwing in an additional 10% water to bring the OG down to 1.050 (and give myself another 2.5 litres of beer too). I also boiled down around 4L of the first runnings (18°Bx) to approximately half then left it on a simmer for another 20 minutes or so. The wort looked fantastic and trub was very low. There was one change to the recipe – I remembered I had 5kg of Golden Promise in the grain shed, so it went in as well as 760g of BB Ale to make up the balance. 60g of medium peated malt was sufficient to give a subtle aroma during the mash and the boil.

I am hoping tomorrow to bottle the koelsch and the ipa, the ipa I may or may not as it is stil quite cloudy and very estery too. 1469 seems to put out some good flavours, but I guess I can blame my screwy fermentation and repitching of S-33 on the fact the beer is still cloudy. I will probably add gelatin at priming and bottle tomorrow, as much as I would like to let it clear first I will prefer to have it bottled. The koelsch is only slightly hazy, but it too will get a gelatin treatment to try and get it as bright as possible as well as help tamp down what is a notoriously dusty yeast; last time I used gelatin in the bottle it welded yeast to the sides and bottom.

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Busy, Busy, Busy

Thursday, December 21st, 2006

Not that busy in the brewery, but busy nonethess. Brewed a week or so ago, miserable efficiency which made my cry into my (lack of) beer. Wort sat in the fridge for almost a week before I pitched the yeast, then it fermented out with gusto. Recipe is roughly as follows:

Simcoe Summer Blonde

OG 1.045
25 IBU

75% BB ale malt
25% Powell’s wheat malt

Simcoe 35g at 12% in stock

Simcoe 12% 20g @ 60, 21 IBU
Simcoe 12% 15g LWH, ~3 IBU

Coopers ale yeast

Had a busy catchup day on Tuesday; racked the Simcoe blonde and the IPA to secondary, bottled the CACA, moved the koelsch primary to the fridge. Sometime before that I bottled the biter.

Koelsch tastes suprisingly nice albeit yeasty. It dropped from 1.050 to 1.007 and does not seem to have suffered from its hot spell. IPA is not terribly pleasing, hard to draw out exactly what I don’t like at this point, will wait till it’s cleared up a bit to get a better impression. CACA was tasting nice at bottling, quite sweet and corny. Simcoe blonde has pumped out some nice fruity flavour, probably a combination of the simcoe and a slightly warmish ferment.

Next two planned brews are a little different, am thinking of doing a mulberry tripel and a peach plambic. The tripel I will partigyle and turn the runnings into whatever I feel like on the day, probably with a carared addition and a bit of hopping up.

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hot

Friday, November 24th, 2006

Left the CACA fermenter outside yesterday, 30°c weather has helped it down to 1.011 (OG 1.053), app atten 80% or so and around 5.8% ABV. I was actually expecting it to drop a trifle lower than this, though since there is still (low) krausen present it still might. Tastes quite sweet and very adjunct-rich. I fancy that I can taste the 5% rice as much as the 15% corn, though whichever I’m noticing they are both there quite strongly. A high level of fizz should suit it quite well.

Bottled the lager the other day (wednesday, I think), it’s clearing up nicely in bottle and very pale. Should hopefully be a good summer swiller. I swilled enough from the secondary – bottled 16 L from an original batch size of (I think) 21L.

Onk Valley Pils is at 1.014, OG 1.048. I raised the temp in the fridge a few days ago at around 1.020. Tasting promising though a little harsh and sharp currently – nothing a good lagering won’t cure. Will turn the fridge down in another couple days time, I have raised it to 20 in the interim.

That bastard of a bitter is also at 1.014, OG 1.043. I have given up on it moving any further and will bottle to PET with a low priming rate, probably 3-4g/L. It’s clearing up and the flavour is rounding out. Ringwood ale certainly puts some domininant flavours in the brew though.

Next brew is a koelsch, I have a small starter going for it now. Have planned something a little different to my usual starter regime, I’m doing a small starter (300mL), then since I chill my wort slowly on brew day I will draw off another litre of worth then and chill it quickly. Hopefully that will step up fairly quickly and I can pitch a day or two later.

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Rock Out with your Bock Out Bottled

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

I bottled my bock this afternoon after sampling a couple glasses. I think I have made it a hair too bitter for style but other than that it is tasting excellent. The bitterness is just enough to cut through the sweetness a little more than it should, it attenuated far enough to work better a few points lower. Of course, time and bubbles will provide the final verdict. Bottled with 5g/L sugar.

Ringwood bitter ferment has stalled but is not quite stuck. It seems that a daily rousing shaves off a daily point. I expect it’s my fault for underpitching. Current SG 1.020, compared to the lager which has reached 1.010. After a couple days at 20 I’ll chill the lager in primary for a week then transfer to secondary for lagering.

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Amber bottled

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

Am winding up on bottling my american amber ale. It slipped ahead of the bock on the bottling queue despite still being a little cloudy. With 1026 as the yeast I am moderately confident it will still drop clear in the bottle unless I have a haze issue. I wanted to get this beer in the bottle for a few reasons:

-It tastes ready
-The bock can always benefit from a little more lagering
-I’m running out of beer again
-If I didn’t bottle it, I’d drink it all

The hop flavour is very strong. It has a piny resiny presence without being oily and without being too piny. I would have liked a more tropical fruitiness but I am looking forward to tasting this one once it’s ready. I think it will have a real fresh vibrance to it and am interested to see how the hop flavour counterpoints the quite strong maltiness once it’s ready. I am also glad I aimed for a low bitterness in calculations, it seems to have a moderately bitter presence but there is no lingering aftereffect that I can notice.

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