Beach Brew

Just spent a chunk of Australia Day at the Brew Boys cellar door. JJJ was cranking, bbq was going and good beer was on hand. You couldn’t ask for much more. Here are a couple of pics.

Some very good friends returned from Europe recently and amongst other things, more on that in a later post, they brought me a bottle of Cantillon Gueuze. Here are a couple of pics I took of it:

I had not had this beer previously. The only Geueze I have had in the past was a Timmerman’s which I am told is not a great example. This beer was fantastic. Not as sour as I was expecting. However, the sourness and tarness made the beer really refreshing. To me it had fruity characters of green apple and lemon. Some of the funkiness you would expect from a lambic but I didn’t get the strong farm yard characters from it. Surprisingly easy to drink for this style of beer and the level of sourness.

I can’t wait to find some more of this as it was sensational. I really didn’t think it would be the kind of beer I could drink a lot of but I could easily do a session on this beer.

Some photos of my brew day and the new kettle.

0545 Brewing today with my new kettle. I have the mash in so it’s time to grab a coffee. Will get some more details and pics of the new hardware up soon. Will also post the recipe and some information about it up to.

0605 Here is the recipe I am brewing today:

Ingredients:
————
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (14.0 EBC) Grain 90.91 %
0.25 kg Carapils (Hoepfner) (3.9 EBC) Grain 4.55 %
0.25 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.6 EBGrain 4.55 %
20.00 gm Magnum [12.00 %] (60 min) Hops 25.6 IBU
15.00 gm Columbus (Tomahawk) [13.00 %] (Dry Hop 14Hops -
20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.00 %] (20 min) Hops 10.3 IBU
15.00 gm Columbus (Tomahawk) [13.00 %] (10 min) Hops 7.5 IBU
15.00 gm Columbus (Tomahawk) [13.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.9 IBU
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318) [StarteYeast-Ale

Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 5.50 kg
—————————-
My Mash
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Step Add 16.50 L of water at 71.6 C 66.0 C

0645 Mash is finished and the kettle is on the flame heating up. Have grabbed a few photos but won’t get them up until after I’m done. All going well so far. I didn’t do any accurate measurements of the kettle before I started so volumes could be a little out today.

0655 Came to the boil very quickly. Time to add some hops.

0745 New kettle is good. Seems to be much easier to keep a consistent boil with the stainless kettle than with the previous aluminium one.

0850 Brew done. All chilled and in the fermenter. Even got some work done in the backyard during the brew. Just a little cleaning up left to do. Photos in a couple of hours.

Brewed an IPA for a Christmas case today. Started incorporating the stuff I learnt at ANHC. I got really inspired at ANHC so was looking forward to putting it into practice.

The biggest change I made was water chemistry. I got Palmer’s spreadsheet and used it to build water appropriate for the style. Also used the nomagraphs to ensure the ph would be ok for the style. didn’t measure ph this time. Can’t do everything at once and I don’t have any acid to adjust it if it is wrong. My calculations indicated it should be ok. It was pretty easy to adjust the water to what I wanted. Given I was making a very bitter beer I went for a profile close to Burton. I left the water out for 12 hours to burn off the chlorine then once it was heated I added a little gypsum and epsom salts.

Other than that the big difference was slowing everything down and focusing a lot more. I only did a single brew too so I wasn’t rushed through the brewing process. I really focused on making everything run smoothly and noting everything I was doing. This was really a return to how I used to do things and how I want to work in the future.

The beer is a pretty big IPA. Lots of Simcoe and Amarillo in it. This is going to be my beer for a Christmas case. I will have to give up about half of it. Simple grain bill of all base malts. Using 1007 German ale yeast because it is good at chewing through big beers nd even quite complex sugars.

I used the PBW for the first time today. This was from the free samples that John from Five Star handed out at ANHC. The stuff works great. I used it to clean some stuff I had cleaned with plenty of other products and it removed a bunch of crap the others had not. I really like it. Once I use up the freebies I will be buying more. I didn’t try out the starsan today but will in the near future. In particular the PBW removed a bunch of crap from all the copped tubing in pick up tubes etc.

Just finished judging at ANHC/AABC. Going to head off on a micro brewery tour this afternoon. Not even sure where we are going. I will just follow along and drink the beer.