Beach Brew

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.

It’s about 0540 now. Brew day started about 0500. The fist mash is in, all my gear is out and setup and I have even weighed out hop additions for the first brew. Now I’m having some breakfast and starting a blog post.

I hope to keep posting through the brew day but it’s been a while since I did a double so we shall see. I prepared and cracked the grain in advance and had all the water ready to go to. I started the hlt the night before when I went to bed so I woke up and mashed in. Hit my mash temp exact so things are going well so far. Hopefully I can stay on track to be done by lunch time and head out for something to eat. More later.

I ended up deciding on an American and a English style IPA as my brews today. I’m doing the American style first.

0600 Mashed out. Mash ran out well but was a little cloudy. Sparging with 80c water. Batch sparge left for 10 minutes.

0645 Kettle is boiling and first hop addition is in. Will mash in for the second brew at the end of the boil of the first. Hitting all my numbers so far and have been tking photos so if any of them come out I will post them later today.

0735 Coming towards the end of the boil. Has maintained a good rolling boil and no problems. Almost time to start chilling an getting the second mash started.

0840 First brew is done and second is mashing. All good so far. Most targets spot on. I’m going to mash the second beer for 90 minutes so I can sit around and take it easy for a while.

1000 Second brew is out of the mash tun and sparge is complete. It’s in the kettle and starting to heat up to boiling. The wort was a bit cloudy but oterh than that all looks good. Did collect a little more wort than expected so must have put a little extra water in.

1100 Boil is coming to end and will start chilling shortly. Should just about hit my goal of being finished by mid day. No incidents during the boil and any clean up that can be done has been done.

1145 Got a blockage in the chiller from all the hops so have been delayed a little. Still chilling now but wil be finished shortly.

1300 All done and everything put away. Hit most of my numbers and all went pretty smoothly except for the blockage. Now it’s time to get some lunch and have a beer.

Since the last update a Steam beer has been brewed with my partners assistance. The brew day went reasonably to schedule and we hit most of our targets. Recipe was modified from last time to get some stronger dark malt flavours and more body into the beer. Also did a warmer mash. I was thinking about a decoction to get more malt character in but decided this would be way out for the style.

The recipe ended up as JW trad ale for the base. Then I used a little CarraMunich2 and CarraHell for colour and flavour. I bittered with magnum as I do a lot of my beers then used a bunch of Northern Brewer between 30 minutes and flame out. The magnum just gives a great smooth bitterness and is so high in alpha you don’t need to use much.

The steam is lagering now and will for another week or so. Then into the bottle and I will get down another couple of brews. I’m thinking an ipa and an iba. The iba is a India Black Ale. When I was in Tokyo we had one at Popeye. It worked really well so I think I may try my hand at it. I made a lot of malty beers last year so it is going to be bitter beers this year.

Last weekend I bottled my bitter. I had a taste on the weekend just passed and although not fully carbonated yet it is tasting really good. It has a great aroma and flavor from dry hopping with EKG. It still has a nice balance of malt and a medium light body as you expect in a bitter. I think it is going to be a great summer beer once it has the time to condition properly.

Next up on the brew list is another shot at a steam beer. The last one I made came out ok but ultimately a little disappointing as it is not quite what I was looking for. I am going to add some darker specialty malts this time to get some more of the melanoidin type flavour into the beer. I have plenty of Northern Brewer hops this time so no issues there either. My last attempt was also a little light bodied so will be increasing the mash temp up to about 68C to give it some more body. I was thinking about doing a decoction to try to get some more character but this not really typical for the style. Think I will stick with a single infusion on this one. I will go for the rapid lagering on this too. I’m planning two weeks at about 5C.

Wanted to get another summer beer done. So I brewed a bitter on the weekend. I used my standard recipe of 95% ale malt and 5% medium crystal. I used a mixture of Bairds MO and Joe White Traditional Ale malt. I’m not a fan of the Baird’s MO but I had a couple of kilograms left so thought I would use it up. I bittered with Magnum as it is such a good neutral bittering hop. With the coming expected shortages of hops having a good neutral high alpha hop is invaluable.

Brew day went very smoothly. I was worried I would run out of gad for a while. However I made it through so all was well. Hit all may targets and took plenty of notes this time. I started the brew day at about 7 and was done with all clean up finished by mid day. I like getting up early and getting a brew done. Pitched some 1318 London III yeast into it and there was active fermentation within 24 hours. I hope get another brew done this weekend. Most likely it will be a steam beer.

Have done a couple of brews since the last update. The first was an American pale and and the second an American brown ale. The second beer is heading for the local Christmas case.

The Christmas case is a thing we do between local brewers at the end of each year. We all brew a beer and do a big swap. After the swap everyone ends up with one of everyone else’s beer. It’s a great idea and you normally get some really good beers in there.

The American Pale brew day was a bit of a disaster all round. I have been playing with my mill settings lately and I really opened it up for this brew. Unfortunately my efficiency dropped a lot more than expected. I thought I would hit abut 1.048 but I actually hit about 1.042. So it is significantly lower gravity than what I normally make this beer. On top of this I got called into work on the brew day, which was a public holiday, as someone else was sick. The wort ended up sitting in the kettle for eight hours while I was at work. It was tasting nice at bottling though so hopefully all is not lost.

The American brown brew day was a pretty standard affair. Though I has a couple of other brewers drop by and a few ales were had so my notes were not up to their normal standard. I’m bottling it this weekend. Hopefully it is up to scratch for the case.