Your current / planned brews

engrish?

engrish? wrote: »

Fermenting
13L Brewferm Gallia

Just tried a bottle of this after three weeks conditioning and it is amazing! Kind of smokey, the 20g of cascade is really subtle but beautiful.

So happy - the first brew I've made that I feel I can be really proud of!

oblivious

beans wrote: »

I do have a pack of Belgian Strong Ale 1388 in the fridge, and was wondering if I should go ahead and use both? Or make a starter with the 1084 and hope? Or just use the 1084

I would go with the Irish ale and keep the Belgian for something else

oblivious

To day I brewed an American Brown ale with a hop steep for aroma and flavor

engrish?

Half way through my first all grain, all going ok except my boiler tap is leaking a little!

The kitchen smells amazing right now

Richie71

Doing my first partial extract tonight and went with this American Pale Ale from the Homebrew Company. The volume of grain seems light compared to any videos I've seen on you tube. Has anyone else tried these?

Martyn1989

Richie71 wrote: »

Doing my first partial extract tonight and went with this American Pale Ale from the Homebrew Company. The volume of grain seems light compared to any videos I've seen on you tube. Has anyone else tried these?

How much grain did they send you? I would consider 500g the average amount for an extract, based on the recipes I've followed.

Richie71

Martyn1989 wrote: »

How much grain did they send you? I would consider 500g the average amount for an extract, based on the recipes I've followed.

200g is all I got. maybe i'd be better off to make a recipe from scratch next time. enjoyed the whole process though, can't wait to try another.

mayto

I would usually only use a small amount of crystal malt in a pale for a bit of colour and body. Too much of some of the darker crystal malts will not suit some styles and leave the beer too dark. I do not think I even use 500g in a 46L batch. There is usually plenty of flavour from the base malts/extracts we use here and too much crystal can make the beer too sweet.

Martyn1989

Richie71 wrote: »

200g is all I got. maybe i'd be better off to make a recipe from scratch next time. enjoyed the whole process though, can't wait to try another.

All my extracts where loosely based on recipes I found online/in books, with my own spin, following the advice from the lads on here. That and some homebrew software and you can't really go wrong. It also makes it quite rewarding.

mayto wrote: »

I would usually only use a small amount of crystal malt in a pale for a bit of colour and body. Too much of some of the darker crystal malts will not suit some styles and leave the beer too dark. I do not think I even use 500g in a 46L batch. There is usually plenty of flavour from the base malts/extracts we use here and too much crystal can make the beer too sweet.

Good shout, the majority of extract recipes I've done have been red/dark beers, and I have seen a fair few extract recipes that call for much smaller quantities of grain then I have used.

Overall I wouldn't be concerned, I brewed the HBC all grain Irish stout kit and it turned out very nice so I would tend to trust them.

I had a productive day yesterday. I bottled my coopers IPA and got my stout on the go. Its fermenting away quite nicely now. Big head building up in the fermenter

stuchyg

Deleted User wrote: »

I had a productive day yesterday. I bottled my coopers IPA and got my stout on the go. Its fermenting away quite nicely now. Big head building up in the fermenter

any plans to secondary this. Was thinking of doing an espresso & choc stout at somepoint myself

stuchyg

stuchyg wrote: »

any plans to secondary this. Was thinking of doing an espresso & choc stout at somepoint myself

I don't currently have a secondary fermenter but I will buy one this week. I want to add oak chips soaked in jameson once fermentation is done.

stuchyg

^^^ nice, want to do the same myself with bourbon and pale ale

matrim

Got my brew bottled this evening and got 38 bottles. More effort than I thought it would be. Think it'll be a Saturday or Sunday afternoon job from now on.

Khannie

matrim wrote: »

Got my brew bottled this evening and got 38 bottles. More effort than I thought it would be. Think it'll be a Saturday or Sunday afternoon job from now on.

Yeah I have to say I have a pain in my face with bottling. I've switched to mostly 2L plastic bottles for the cider now.

Sky King

It's a bitch of a job.

i procured a bottle rinser and a bottle tree with my last order from online HB shop. Hope that speeds it up to a more bearable time.

My Coopers bitter kit is still in progress. Only in the fermenter a week and samples are tasting great already.

stuchyg

Just threw together a mild ale kit from the make your own beer crowd. Literally took 45 mins from start to finish, if turns out well will be using them again. This will sit in primary for 10 days before racking to secondary over a pound of frozen berries from Aldi to make a fruit beer for the missus

engrish?

stuchyg wrote: »

Just threw together a mild ale kit from the make your own beer crowd. Literally took 45 mins from start to finish, if turns out well will be using them again. This will sit in primary for 10 days before racking to secondary over a pound of frozen berries from Aldi to make a fruit beer for the missus

Will be very interested to hear how that turns out!

The bottling tree is a fantastic investment.

Ratsathome

Nut Brown and Ribena Strawberry Wine in Secondary. Amber Ale and Stout in Primary.Mild Brown on tap and Dark Smokey Ale in bottles.:)

Sky King

The bottling tree is a fantastic investment.

Hope so!

I impulse-bought a smoked beer once. Weirdest taste ever.

It was like taking a mouth full of liquid bacon fries.

oblivious

Sky King wrote: »

Hope so!

I impulse-bought a smoked beer once. Weirdest taste ever.

It was like taking a mouth full of liquid bacon fries.

Start brewing them, their even more fun

engrish?

Sky King wrote: »

The bottling tree is a fantastic investment.

Hope so!

I impulse-bought a smoked beer once. Weirdest taste ever.

It was like taking a mouth full of liquid bacon fries.

One of my favourite beers ever is the Rauchbier from Bamberg Germany. It's made with smoked Rauch malt which tastes like BBQ smell - that's the best description I can give anyway!

I'm making an All Grain batch of it tomorrow morning!

stuchyg

planning to try my Turquoise Lunar Showing tonight after a week bottle - blue moon clone ftw(hopefully)

Khannie

Planning a few brews for Christmas - Apple and blackberry cider. Apple and Cinnamon cider. Pear cider (from kit). Looking forward to kicking them off.

rhonin

Kicked off a Coopers Real Ale last night. Added some honey to see how it will taste.

Sky King

Bottling day is looming!

I think i will leave the beer (Coopers bitter kit with a half kg of spraymalt and a cup of glucose turfed in for good measure) in the fermenter another few days though. Never any harm. It tastes fairly alright, so I am happy enough. I think the very constandt 18 degrees without any variation had something to do with it.

Looking forward to trying my bottle washer and bottling tree. Anyone here use one?

Khannie

If it's the plunger washer sprayer thingy, I use one. Super time saver.

stuchyg

Racked my DIY Mild Ale beer kit into secondary today over 1.5 lbs of frozen raspberries. Must say the Ale kit was quite nice on its own considering it only cost 9 quid. Will be my base for any flavoured beers me thinks while its so cheap.

Sky King

Be interested to see how that turns out. Fruity beer is not my thing personally but the gf likes it.

The bottle tree and bottle washer were a big help but it still took well over an hour to do the bottling!!

Labour of love man, labour of love.....

beans

So today I tried my hand at my first stout, and decided to make it a big one. I used a bit 30-liter cooking pot over 2 gas hob-rings, but since I'd have trouble keeping more than around 10L at a rolling boil, I started with 6L and added 4 L during sparging. Partial-mash at around 150F for 90minutes.

I was aiming for an OG of around 1.095, and hit 1.092 which was pretty ok.

Adding the extract was interesting though - I used 6.25kg of extra-light DME, and had to add an extra L of water just to dissolve it all. The 3kg that went in with 25 mins to go just didn't want to melt. I think the wort was as saturated as I could get it. In fact, I had to dilute the wort in the pot a few times just to get it all out, it was like treacle! I top-up with cold water to chill, no immersion-chiller just yet. Used a bucket-load of Simcoe for bittering and some Northdown for aroma.

Yeast was a 1-liter starter I made from a WYeast smack-pack, in the hope that it'd beef-up the cell-count to deal with the high OG. 23 liters sitting there now, so hopefully nothing's gone horribly wrong! The wort tasted pretty good, so here's hoping

edit - the lid of the bucket was blown off and completely turned inside-out this morning, due to my blow-off tube entirely failing. Expecting bacteria-problems now. Ah well, we'll see.