Homebrewists of STW, brewing ‘owt at the moment?

Should be ready in 3 weeks.

Give it four (ideally five, a week to carbonate then four weeks to condition)

I have a question for the brewing hive-mind; my Leffe-esque saison number is being drunk at the moment. It had been conditioning out in the garage for a month, and was clear as a bell in the bottles. However, when I bring a few in and put them in the fridge, they cloud up again. I get that some yeast might be disturbed by the movement of carrying them in from the garage, but some have been in the fridge for a week so I’d have expected that to have settled back. Any ideas whey they’re going cloudy in the fridge?

Tastes fine FWIW.

Chill haze? Leffe is a little cloudy, so that would not bother me too much and if it tastes nice…

Chill haze – colloidal particles (polyphenols etc) form bonds at cold temps and make particles you can see.
That’s why chilling a beer at the brewery gives it a clear look – those particles are heavier and fall out of solution.

I would expect a beer to secondary ferment/carbonate in 2 weeks at room temperature.
I always put some beer from a batch in a 500ml juice bottle so you can squeeze it to see if it’s ready

Ah, gotcha, thanks.

That’s why chilling a beer at the brewery gives it a clear look – those particles are heavier and fall out of solution.

Is that ‘cold-crashing’ then? I thought I’d done that in the brewfridge once the initial fermentation had finished, I dropped it down to c.2degC, maybe I didn’t do it for long enough?

I always put some beer from a batch in a 500ml juice bottle so you can squeeze it to see if it’s ready

That is a really good tip. Thank you!

Last Saturday I brewed an APA with Voss Kveik yeast. Pitched at 35C, kept in a water bath, and it had fully fermented (1.009) in less than 36 hours. Blimey!

That’s the good news. The bad news is that it doesn’t taste all that good. I can’t detect any strong signs of infection, but the the flavour is tart and the hop aroma very muted. I’m hoping that it’s just because it needs some proper conditioning time – so I’ve racked to secondary and will leave it a few days before bottling.

Finings adjunct in the fv after fermentation had finished will help to remove some chill haze forming protein. You will only nedd 20ml or so to have an effect
Or cold jold for longer will help if you want bar bright beer

I’m hoping that it’s just because it needs some proper conditioning time – so I’ve racked to secondary and will leave it a few days before bottling.

Bottled this evening. Flavour much improved.

Kveik ferments similarly to a whisky yeast – extremely fast at high temps and with very high attenuation. I had one kveik fermentation go to a couple of degrees under (0.098 FG). However, just because the gravity has fully dropped doesn’t mean it’s ready to drink – you still need to leave it to let the flavours develop.

A friend of mine recently told me his wife found him in a random flood of tears in the kitchen. He had been thinking about how much he missed a pint of Guiness in the pub! So I’m going to take a shot at making something in that ballpark for him today. Slightly limited by just using what I have in inventory – I would have used roasted barley and a different yeast, but hey ho.

Recipe Specifications
————————–
Boil Size: 28.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 25.50 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.50 l
Estimated OG: 1.047 SG
Estimated Color: 26.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 83.2 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.50 kg Best Pale Ale Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 75.3
0.40 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt -240L (24 Grain 2 8.6 %
0.30 kg Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.5 %
0.25 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.4 %
0.20 kg Chocolate Malt (Bairds) (500.0 Grain 5 4.3 %
15.00 g Target [11.00 %] – Boil 60.0 m Hop 6 17.5
10.00 g Phoenix [8.00 %] – Boil 60.0 m Hop 7 8.5 I
15.00 g Bramling Cross [6.00 %] – Boil Hop 8 1.9 I
15.00 g Hallertau [4.50 %] – Boil 5.0 Hop 9 1.4 I
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermenti Yeast 10 –

Mash Schedule: Grainfather
Total Grain Weight: 4.65 kg
—————————-
Name Description Step Temperatur Step Time
Saccharification Add 16.05 l of water and heat to 68 68.0 C 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.0 C over 4 min 75.0 C 10 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 15.61 l water at 75.6 C

In other news, the pale summer ale I made to test out the new malt supplier came out very nicely. Bitterness is a little higher than I envisioned but it works, I was using some old hops and wasn’t sure how denatured they’d be so just chucked them all in.
It’s a very refreshing drink and a few folk who have tried it have always asked more. Having people round for a BBQ this weekend so will be dishing it up!

@yourguitarhero, thank you for that! I was thinking about a stout and was a little unsure about whether to kick of the ‘Winter Stout’ making that I had planned. It comes in pretty strong, so may not be a good choice for light summer drinking.

Finally got around to tasting the summer weissen that I bottled last week. It has carbonated well, which is good, and has a nice haze to it. If anything, I would say that the colour is too pale, but this would fit with the lower than expected boil off. There is certainly a “weissen” taste and smell to it, but it’s a 3% beer and you can feel that; it is a lot more pale/weak/watery than, say, a Schneider or Erdinger.

But, all that said, it is a nice beer to drink and it will do well for the upcoming couple of weeks, assuming the nice weather holds. I still need to organise a brew day and use up the Zappa hops I have in the fridge, something Pale Ale I think.

However, just because the gravity has fully dropped doesn’t mean it’s ready to drink – you still need to leave it to let the flavours develop.

Yep, it seems to need the same amount of time to condition as any other yeast. It was finished at 1.010 though.

Thats nearer a porter recipe without 6 or 7% roast barley or black malt in it. Thats how they get the distinct acrid bitternes. And sulphite ratios, we add nacl to our stout grist and cut back the gypsum. Rest seems ok although i would add a few ibus and shoot for 1010 rack off and bottle carb it.

^ yeah, I agree. I see Guinness as a porter, not a stout.
To be fair, I would have added some roast barley etc if I had any. But I also don’t like the bitterness those grains give. I did end up adding some more hops at the start of the boil to increase IBUs though, so we’re on the same page there.

Seeing as we’re talking about porters and stouts, I was reading about cold-steeping ‘dark’ grains the other day, i.e. those used for porter/stout.

I wondered if it could be done with ‘normal’ grains, i.e. those used for bitters (e.g. Crystal 140) for extract brewing? So, instead of heating the water and steeping the grains for an hour (say) before adding the extract/hops/boiling etc, steeping them in cold water overnight instead.

Would that work?

No

Whoah there, you’re blinding me with the science 😉

It’s for extract brewing by the way, the grains aren’t being mashed.

Is there a reason you’d want to?

Laziness, mainly, instead of heating the water to temp (60ishDegC), adding the grains and wrapping the pot in towels to keep it at the temp for about an hour before taking the grains out and bringing it to the boil/adding the extract, I could just bung the grains in the water the night before, whip’em out the next day when I’m ready to brew and away I go.

Arrived at my local skydiving place the other day to find a large, 60L Digiboil and a tray of Cascade out on the deck. Turns out the club would like to brew and sell its own beer and have asked one of the members to help out. He called a friend and now there is a 50L Baruch of Cascade/Kviek Voss ale fermenting in the club house!

Had a decent chat with the chap. Seemed nice and likes brewing. Now all we need to do is buy some more John Guest bits to connect all the gas and liquid parts to the assorted kegs. And buy a shitload of sanitiser.

This also means we get to plan different beers…

IHN – that may work… I’m not sure though. Without the mash heat you won’t get anything fermentable out of the grains, but I guess you might get colour and flavour? I’m assuming you expect to get your fermentable sugars from the extract? Roasted grains have very little fermentable potential anyway.

This article goes into a lot further: http://brulosophy.com/2017/12/04/roasted-grains-pt-4-cold-steeping-vs-full-mash-exbeeriment-results/

Seems like it may work and be less bitter but you need 3x more grains.

FWIW, I find DRC grains (Double Roasted Chocolate) to work like Black malt but much less bitterness.

I’m assuming you expect to get your fermentable sugars from the extract?

Yup, all the fermentables come from the extract, the grains are for colour/flavour only. And that Brulosophy link is where I got the original idea from.

FWIW, I sort of did what I was suggesting by accident at the weekend anyway. I picked up a cheap kit at the weekend, a Geordie Bitter, so though I’d have a play with it. I heated 8l water to mid-60sC, put the grains in (‘normal’ Crystal malt), then ended up having to go out, so they sat in there for about three hours (rather than the normal 30 minutes) before they got hoiked out.

Brought it to the boil, added the kit tin and 25g of leftover Fuggles that I had in the freezer, boiled it for half an hour, turned the heat off and added 25g of leftover Cascade. Topped up to 23l in the FB, left it to cool for an hour or so then added some ale yeast starter that I’d made up (not from the kit stuff).

Ended up pretty dark, but early tastes are really nice, quite rich. First brew of a bitter using campden-treated water too (from earlier posts on here) so we’ll see what difference that makes.

D R C from simpsons is one of my favourite ingredients. Hazel nut or roasted raison flavours. Dark too fpr a crystal so deep red colours. 400 against 150 for normal crystal or 100 for crystal light.

Currently brewing a Raspberry Berliner Weisse for when the weather warms up! Rather than kettle souring, I’m having a go with Philly Sour a lachancea which produces lactic acid as a by product.

Really interested to see how this turns out.

Yes, DRC is the business. Glad I tried it out on recommendation of a local brewer.

Bakey – just be careful as hell with your cleaning after using souring bacteria – they are persistent buggers and can infect your next “straight” brews. Especially if you use a plastic fermenter instead of glass or stainless steel. I also keep a separate set of gaskets, tubing and bottling wand just for infected beers.

If that’s too much hassle, then put your stuff in the dishwasher – the temps in there should kill them off.

Now planning a brew evening to attempt a stout. Speciality grains ordered and have some friends coming over to help, or “Help” depending on how it turns out.

Plan is that this will have an OG of about 1.100 and attenuate down to about 1.020. Dark, maybe hints of roasted and coffee, possibly with some raisin…

Currently have a La Chouffe type blone carbing in the keg, will be ready next week.

I was thinking about a stout for my next brew. Quite like the sound of the Four Shades of Stout recipe.

Mine will not save (still on the trial version of Brewer’s Friend), but uses a 5kg grain bill of:

Pale Ale – 75%
Roasted Barley – 5%
Dark Crystal – 5%
Chocolate – 5%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Flaked Wheat – 5%

If I can’t find flaked wheat in the storage, I’m going to swap it for either wheat malt or cornflakes. Hops are 20g Chinook at 60 mins for bittering and 15g of EKG at 5mins for aroma. I plan on using either the Lallbrew Voss or the Mangrove Jacks M42 New World Strong Ale yeast, depending on how I feel at the time. Both should be kind of neutral at 20C, with maybe a touch more fruit from the Voss. One packet _should_ be enough for the 10L batch.

Be nice that stout.
That recipe is oh so close to my Russian Winter srout a 5.3% coffee and chocolate bonanza
I pitch 34gm aa per bl in a 90 min boil, snd reduce by 6 %
Start around 54 and it usually gets casked around 12.5′
No late hops, and you might need more yeast. I use bl x og = pitched grams as a guide.

My third attempt has turned out drinkable, but I made mistakes again so it’s not as it should be. I think my mash temp must have been too high as og was as desired, but fg was short. So I think it’s turned out sweeter than it should have been. Still, it’s turned out ok after a few weeks in the cellar.

Next up will be either a weissbier or a saison. My attempts at hoppy beers haven’t worked. The hop flavour and aroma seems to get lost along the way. Presumably due to various mistakes in the process. Either that or my expectations for hoppiness are too high as I’ve been spoiled by modern massively hopped delights.

So I’m trying styles that rely less on hops. My previous attempt at a weissbier looked and tasted like one so I’m hoping I can better it next time.

So, what are the easiest styles for an amateur? Or what have you had most success with?

Cheers 🍻

@singletrackmind

No late hops, and you might need more yeast.

Yeah, I thought that too, but the Lallvin/brew/whatever calculator thinks I only need 12g of yeast and, since I heard that Kveik likes being underpitched, I thought I would gamble with 11g. The fallback is that Mangrove Jacks M42. I _think_ I have two packs of that in the fridge.

@davros.

Simple for me is something like a SMASH IPA. Pick a quality pale ale malt and a hops that you like and make something with those. One of my most interesting beers was a SMASH with a hops I bought from a man in Sundsvall. I had no idea what AA% they are, or the flavours they would give, but it turned into one of the most interesting beers I have made. I actually bought a hops plant from him as well so that I could grow my own Korsta.

+1 to IPA smash. Or a bitter smash.

(SingleMaltSingleHop)

My Kveik APA turned out lovely. Golden Promise, 5% med crystal. Bittered with magnum to 38 ibu and 100g of cascade all at flameout. Fermented out in 36 hours at 35 Deg, then conditioned in secondary for a week or so. Unsurprisingly it tastes similar to SNPA, but a bit fruitier.

Kveik stout complete!

I ended up dropping 750g of pale malt from the bill to make sure that things would fit in my boil kettle, then adding a couple of handfuls of rice hulls because the mash stuck a few times.

Pre-boil gravity was within a point of the plan, but the OG came in low by 20. As this is the second time this has happened, I need to look at how my setup works at the boil stage I think. Whatever… it just means that the predicted 10% stout becomes a more drinkable 8-9%.

Anyway, all done. The Voss I used rehydrated like a charm and was showing airlock activity within an hour of pitching. I should find out whether it has exploded over the kitchen tomorrow.

Got what’ll end up being an alcoholic root beer in the fermenter at the mo. Was given a keg for my birthday so my first attempt at force carbing is also underway (marmalade ale called Paddington Beer).

Also got a plate chiller off a guy at our local brewery’s homebrew club, so a ton of stainless fittings are winging their way at the mo with a hope of testing it all out at the weekend. That way I can iron out the kinks before using it on a brew.

Also en route is some Lallemand Verdant yeast to have a pint at a soft and juicy English hopped IPA – you know, cos we all need a challenge 😂

Plate chillers are fun! But…

Really be careful about stuff getting in them. I forgot my hops spider last beer and only remembered when the 60 minute pellets left my hand. Those small pieces of hops can/did get into the chiller. Backwash the chiller with hot water and PBW and flush it out afterwards with a lot of water too. Be careful how you set up the hoses. I set mine up kind of badly and my sink looks like a hose factory gone wrong when I have things set up.

Also, if using QD fittings, just be aware that the cheaper ones might need some honing before they fit properly. I ended up using three grades of wet and dry paper and a power drill to make mine work smoothly.

Stout is going mad… I woke up this morning to hear the airlock glugging like a champ. That Voss is a beast.

Thanks for the tips! I use bags for my hops so debris is kept to a minimum anyway. Just started a proper cleaning routine since I got a recirculation pump and that seems to be working a treat (PBW), plan is to leave the chiller connected up and therefore it’ll get 30 mins of cleaner running through it – good shout on a back-flush though.
It’ll get stored in the house so hopefully it’ll dry ok and won’t store up issues for further brews – although the plan for that is to run boiling wort through it around the 30min mark thus killing anything before I drop it into the fermenter.

The fittings arrived today, so I’ve put it all together for a test over the weekend. Am now at the point where I hope it works as well as I think it will! I know it’ll be trial and error, but at least with an in-line temp gauge I’ll know what adjustments to make.

How’s the stout @willard ? The Voss must be almost done by now if it’s going like I’ve heard it does! As for your OG, have you more wort in the FV than you are expecting? if you’re hitting the pre-boil numbers then all I can think it would be is a lower boil-off rate leaving you with more of a less concentrated wort.

Looking like my root beer’s finishing primary so added my syrup which briefly livened things up a bit, but there’s not much sugar in it so it’s settled down again. Will check the FG early next week but will need to bottle my other beer to free up the keg for carbing.

@madhouse It was going off like mad when I left for the weekend and I think that it will be done by Monday, even with a day of rest. We shall see though as it has a lot of sugar to go through.

Good call on the boil-off rate. I try to plan around a 10 litre batch, but I got about 10.5 in the fermenter this time and the losses from the pump and the kettle all add up too. This worth was really clear (well, no garbage), so I could have put more in the fermenter. I’ve since downgraded my brewhouse efficiency a bit and will be dropping my boil-off rate for future brews.

Main problem? I think I was scared to have the hob on 9 when I was trying to clean, so it was on 8 and that was a light boil, not a rolling one.

@willard just found out what you mean about QD fittings, I tend to get them all from the same place to ensure they’re consistent (angel homebrew) but they were out of stock so I got some from another supplier. The two are fractionally different! I’ll be fine as long as I use that hose the right way around – although handily it won’t fit the other way.

Bottled the marmalade ale yesterday, first ever force carbed brew and it was all ok fresh from the keg. We’ll see if the bubbles survived the bottling, I used a beer gun so hopes are high.

Took advantage of the heatwave and brewed my saison on Saturday. So it’s had 26 degrees plus in the attic all week. Certainly smells like a saison through the airlock. Fingers crossed it turns out drinkable.

Thanks for the smash suggestion. I’ll give it a go. Can anyone suggest a good site for recipes and brew calculator? I’ve been brewing 11litre batches from brewstore so far.

Cheers 🍻

@davros I use brewersfriend.com, but I think the Grainfather people have a similar recipe maker and calculators.

@madhouse I ended up honing them down a thou or two with a power drill, a file and three grades of wet and dry. It was the same problem as you… QD female from one place, QD threaded male from another. They can work though.

Just a short update on the winter stout. It is still showing activity in the fermenter. The temperature is up to about 26, which the Voss seems to like, but it looks like I will be bottling this next week rather than this. Hopefully the weekend will allow it to finish off and I can get a Zappa pale ale brewed on Wednesday.