Homebrewists of STW, brewing ‘owt at the moment?

That should hurry things along a little! Should give it some nice esters too.

🙂
Not as fast as my last brew – Kveik at 35!

I figure that if you’re making a Saison, it should be very well attenuated and have plenty of spice and fruit notes. The given temperature range is 26-32 so hopefully ok. I’m following the Candisyrup instructions for a Dupont clone – starting hot then gradually ramping down over a few days. I’ll rack to secondary next week so I can free up my FV for another brew before Christmas.

Finished a Czech Amber Lager earlier this evening and it is pitched and in the basement getting cooler. The Christmas bock is showing about 12C so it should be about the same for the lager in a couple of bourse. Three weeks for that and another couple in bottles and it should be good to go.

As a bit of an experiment, I used all of this year’s fresh hops from the freezer as a whirlpool. Less yield, but some amazing smells from the mix of cascade and native sorts.

Saison is an amazingly broad category, but a traditional saison is probably my favourite beer. Cold, dry, effervescent, strong-ish, light palate, strong yeast esters…. Goddamn

Six days after pitching, it’s at 1.001 which is 98% attenuation. Colour slightly too dark but I can definitely taste plenty of spice and esters. Promising.

Is that Kveik? I’ve had it go under 1.000 before.

I’ve never found kveik esters to be *that* strong. It’s an amazing performing yeast – huge attenutation, speed and temp range but always been quite neutral, even at whisky temps (>30c)

Mangrove Jack French Saison.

I brewed another brewdog clone today, first attempt at a dark beer. Zombie cake. Also first time using a pressure fermenter. It’s totally transparent so I’ll be able to see it in action. It had lactose, honey and vanilla extract additions. Super sweet wort. Smelled great.

Photos! One of the reasons I like doing experimental beers is that I get to use the 5l demijohn. As it is clear I get to see if ferment better.

We should try and have a pre-Christmas beer Zoom or something. Home brewed beer only.

thanks for the exclusion!

Noooooo! Not my intention!

Any beer then. Or wine. Or mead. No tequila though.

Unless it is good tequila.

All documents submitted for AWRS today (the licence I need to sell beer to bars/off-licences). Might have to start taking this brewshed seriously soon.

Awesome! When do you think they will get a decision to you?

Also, got my Christmas Bock in bottles on wedneday. FG a couple of points high, colour a bit lighter than expected, but still can’t wait for the tasting.

It’s probably been covered further up the thread, but as a newbie going from kits to malt extract before full mash, what extracts deliver the best results?

I’d go for dried, but it does seem to get everywhere.

I moved to BIAB pretty quickly simply because it was more fun and gave me a bit more freedom to make different beers.

Lockdown has meant full-steam ahead on the brew front. Also got lucky with inheriting a load of homebrew kit and ingredients from the good guys at Sapaudia which was surplus to requirements as they’re on industrial scales these days. Has given me some interesting stuff to experiment with. Currently got this lot on the go:

Session Pale Ale, cascade and chinook hops. This is a re-production of one I made in the Spring, which was great, but this time using Kveik Hornindal yeast. First time with the Kveik and I maybe got a little carried away with how quickly it fermented. It could have done with another day or two in the FV before bottling. Also, Kveik is super-fast in the FV, but seems to still need roughly the usual time (2 weeks ish) in the bottle to fully carbonate and condition. You need to keep the bottles warm too. Looking forward to being able to keep brewing through the summer as I had to give up this year since nowhere in my house got below about 25deg between June and September!

Frirish Stout. Attempted Guiness clone. Using Styrian Goldings hops (an off-shoot of Fuggles). I had a go at souring a small batch of the wort, then adding it back in. Tasted pretty good at bottling. Like warmish, flat Guiness. Which isn’t necessarily a totally appealing taste but is about what you’d expect. Trying to give this a while in the bottle as stouts apparently take longer. Might crack one for the Scotland-Ireland game on Saturday.

El Dorado IPA. A big IPA using Eldorado and Cascade hops. Heavily dry-hopped. Re-used the Kveik yeast from the Session Pale. Impressive – I just scooped the slurry into a jar when I bottled, then stuck the jar in the fridge. Added one teaspoon (for 10L) to the FV and it took off like a rocket. Kveik apparently likes being under-pitched. Tried a bottle of this after a week and really impressed. It’s got a slightly different flavour to other IPA’s I’ve made and I’m putting this down to one of the malts. I was trying to get hold of dark crystal malt and my usual source was out of stock. Ordered some Belgian Crystal with a similar colour rating which I figured would make a good substitute and the beer has come out with a hint of a “Belgian” (Leffe) flavour. Like some Belgian/French IPA’s I’ve tried over here but not so over-powering. Liking this one and hopefully it’ll get even better with time.

Honey Brown Ale
Just brewed a brown ale with some local chestnut honey. Fancied trying something a bit different. I used an alternative Kveik strain (Oslo) which is much cleaner than Hornendal so will hopefully let the honey and subtler hops (Styrian Fox, Amarillo, Bramling Cross) come through. Still fermenting so need to wait and see. Smells good!

It’s probably been covered further up the thread, but as a newbie going from kits to malt extract before full mash, what extracts deliver the best results?

As per Willard, I went straight from kits to BIAB. It takes longer than extract but I don’t think it’s much more effort.

I went straight from kits to BIAB

What’s BIAB?

Not sure how long the paperwork takes to go through with HMRC, they’ve been relatively responsive so far. Hopefully they’re helpful if I have missed anything instead of seeing see ya later pal.
If all the paperwork is OK then they come out do an interview.
Hopefully get it done by the new year.

BIAB is Brew in a Bag – essentially you steep grains in a muslin bag in hot water to extract sugars then take the grains out to boil. Misses out the sparge/lautering stage so not quite as efficient as it could be (you’ll get less sugars per KG of grain used) but will definitely make a nice beer!

Don’t most people reckon BIAB is generally MORE efficient? Reason being that you can get away with a finer grind as there is no risk of a stuck sparge.

I’ve no idea if it’s less efficient, but I would say that at the scale I brew it’s a non-issue. You’re talking about a few pence worth of extra grain.

I tend to do a minimal sparge with mine, mainly because the full volume doesn’t quite fit in my boil kettle. I do notice efficiency hits, but only on beers that have been at the stronger end of the scale, t.ex the stout I made earlier in the year. OG planned for 1.100, came in at 1.08something.

It actually worked out well in the end, but I could have maybe used less grain.

Just tested the Christmas bock. It’s carbonated and has notes of the spice, so win, but the colour is not what I really wanted (more dark Amber/brown than dark gold) and the head retention is poor. It’s still nice though, I just hope it does not get too carbonated.

Just bottled an American Stout recipe that was dry hopped and was my first foray into dry hopping. Think I made a bit of a cock up as I assumed that the hop matter would drop out but didn’t and remained in suspension and when I bottled the bottling wand kept on blocking up with small bits of hop matter. Managed to get the bottling done with great difficultly but what is peoples preferred method of dry hopping…do you use a hop sock or put a filter on whatever device you’re using to decant your beer?

I feel like I’d like to drop the hops into the beer loose to ensure good mixing throughout the beer for max flavour (maybe that’s not true) but I’m putting a tap on the fermentor ready for the next brew and will use a bottling wand on the tap but think that putting a filter on the tap might be problematic too with the tap blocking up.

I did use pellet hops, if I had used leaf hops would I have had the same problem?

What do the STW brewers do?

I’ve used small muslin bags weighted down with shot glasses (I didn’t have any marbles) to dry hop with pellets. Also have a stainless hop sleeve but it’s a bit too big for my fermenter. Have a look at the homebrew challenge videos on YouTube, some very helpful tips.

For head retention, use 3% of total grain weight of cara-pils/dextrine malt.
So for a 5kg grain bill add 150g. Doesn’t add any colour or extract sugars (I think), but helps head retention. I use it in all my beers.
Also look at using tetra-hop extract for bittering. The homebrew places are selling it now. It’s a hop extract in a little bottle (similar to how you get CBD extract). You warm it up in hot water (it’s very viscous at room temp) and add it in with a dropper. Quite powerful – 5ml gives about 35 IBUs in a 20 litre batch. Super bonus – incredible head retention! Like, 5 minutes or so. It’s what a lot of commercial places use.

For dry-hopping, bets to use muslin bags and some inert weight – marbles or a shot glass as Davros says.
You also want to do some clarification on the beer if it’s so hazy. So crash chill it as close to freezing as you can for 48 hours. Helps drop the solids out of solution. If you can get hold of some isinglass then adding that at the same time as chilling makes it much more efficient. You can also use PVPP which is sold as polyclar – you can get it at homebrew shops. Another useful one is ClarityFerm, which also reduces gluten in beer. Enough to meet US “Gluten Free” standards of gluten PPM.

Heard back from HMRC about my AWRS application – needs a few tweaks to some of the documentation, but the guy was positive about me and my plans and says he is happy to give me the accreditation once I sort that out. Nice.

For dry-hopping, bets to use muslin bags and some inert weight – marbles or a shot glass as Davros says.

+1. I sanitise a nylon bag and marbles in boiling water, add the pellets or leaf, and drop into the fermentor for 3 days. Seems to work well.

Also look at using tetra-hop extract for bittering.

I’ve never heard of this: is it a like-for-like replacement for bittering hops?

Thanks for the advice chaps. Will try bagging next time. Have plenty of marbles for weighing down. I’ll have to use a fine tea strainer for this batch I’ve bottled to filter out the hop matter when I pour out of the bottle before drinking. It tasted great so if I can remove most or all of the hop matter when pouring it should be a good drop.

I use hop pellets for the most part and, if dry hopping (only done it twice) I use a muslin sock that I sanitise the hell out of first. I also have some stainless steel weights that I put in to make sure that it sinks.

One thing though I also generally transfer to a second bucket before I bottle. This means I can get a good lot of mixing with the sugar solution I use to carbonate and I get less garbage in the bottles as everything solid _should_ get left in the primary bucket. It mostly works well.

Sanitisation of stuff going into the fermenter after primary fermentation is over isn’t as important as it is with the initial santisation of the fermenter for the wort. Once the ABV is up enough it’s pretty hard to infect it. I just rinse the muslin bag under the tap, chuck the hops in it and chuck it in.

You have to be more careful with lower ABV beers though.

I use a stainless hop ball for dry hopping, I think it was from brew UK.

Agree with the comment about Carapils. I use it in most brews for head retention.

Sanitisation of stuff going into the fermenter after primary fermentation is over isn’t as important as it is with the initial santisation of the fermenter for the wort.

I always sanitise my fermenter but I also “no chill” so the hot wort goes straight in and is left to cool overnight before pitching the yeast.

Carapils – I think the original recipe did say to use that, or Carafoam, but I didn’t have any and really wanted to get the brew done in time for the holidays.

That no chill thing is likely very risky from a contamination point of view. Wort is the perfect medium for so many kinds of bacteria. It’s why yeast love it! Once fermentation kicks in (exponential growth phase) it’s pretty hard to get contamination. Just make sure you’re super careful with cleanliness.

That no chill thing is likely very risky from a contamination point of view. Wort is the perfect medium for so many kinds of bacteria.

Not sure I agree with that: the hot wort sanitizes the container, which is then sealed until the yeast is pitched. I would’ve thought that an immersion chiller creates a greater chance of contamination.

That said, everything I use is thoroughly cleaned and sprayed with Starsan.

Immersion chiller goes in at boiling so is sanitised.

It’s in the time the temp is reducing to pitch temperature that the danger is there, bacterial microflora are in the air.

Have a look at coolships and sour beers for the (semi) controlled effect.

Don’t traditional lambics also rely on natural airborn yeasts?

It’s in the time the temp is reducing to pitch temperature that the danger is there, bacterial microflora are in the air.

Sure, but the wort is stored in a sealed container. Apparently, the wort will keep for several weeks using this method, though I’ve not tried it myself.

The immersion chiller might go in at boiling point, but the temp is reducing to pitching temperature and the wort is exposed to the air…

One thing you do have to think about is the hop schedule:I move 15 minute additions to flameout, and keep meaning to try “cube hopping”. Maybe the next brew.

Pretty sure Dextrin malt is around 280LDK . Not sure of its DP though. I use it and wheat malt for incresed body and head retention in a few of my beers.
You probably had your syphon too low in the FV and sucked up all the pellet mass off the base
I had a chat through dry hopping with a guy at Farams and we came to the conclusion 1 kg of pellet woulld suck up 10Ltr of beer or wort so thats worth remembering
Brewed 2HL of a test today. CitRep 6%abv target.
58% Europils
14% wheat malt
14% Dextrin
14% Otter

Citra + Premiant (low cohumallone ratio czech hop) boil target 26ebu 90min
Citra + Summit boil for 60 mins add 12 ebu
Citra + Comet boil for 30 mins add 12 ebu
Citra + Galena boil for 5 mins + proT and Yest aid , add 16 ebu
Citra + Cascade in @ flame out plus 15 mins , 1gm/ltr plus 2 ebu
Citra + Ella in FV pre transfer 200gms x 2 . No iso .
75gms US05 .- hydrated and attemperated

Czech Amber lager bottled, but I don’t hold much hope for it. As I was transferring it off the yeast and into the sanitised bottling bucket I saw something floating and picked out a chunk of mould.

It looks like the O-ring on the tap had a tear in and caused a bit of air leakage into a gap, so fermentation was fine, but when the tap came to be used, it dragged through some particles.

Ah well, never mind. I’ll see what happens over Christmas with it while it conditions. At least I now have something to ask for as a present… a new bucket tap.

By the way, are people still up for a pre-Christmas Zoom meeting or something?