Random stuff

Using a washing machine to brew beer: It's a German priest, Michael Fey, who used a top loading washing machine as an automated brewing machine, as reported in Techspot. He kicks off an 'experience report' on his website here.

Once I've got the wife happy by finishing some jobs around the flat, this is my project!

And apparently in Germany betaisadonalösung is a good replacement for iodine for brewing purposes.

Drinking No. XII - Tested on friends

Generally went down very well at our summer party, everyone said they enjoyed it and it was gone before much of the bought Tegernseer Helles was consumed but it was a bit 'thick' for my taste and too sweet. I guess this hints to incomplete fermentation because not all the sugar converted.

Oh well, I'll just have to try again ;-)

Time to put No. XII into the Pressure Barrel

I was wondering how much priming sugar to use and here it states about 85g should do the trick. Will probably add a bit more for luck and then I have 10 days for the fermentation. Excellent, will do it tonight.

Actually I used 108g glucose, because that's what fell out of the bag, in about 1l water boiled for 10 minutes and cooled again, the final volume of beer in the pressure barrel is about 35 pints. It's in the cellar, about 18C, so I hope fermentation will start.

I also took 2 bottles of yeast from the primary fermentation barrel to see how well they preserve. Will have to cover with boiled malt extract soon, I don't have a lot of expectation but you never know...

Number XII First Taste

Very good, actually and it certainly contains alcohol ;-). I returned from holiday on Sunday (yesterday) and saw signs of fermentation on the side of the barrel and was very relieved. FG is 1012@18C so need to work out what that is in reality. Measured Sunday evening.

Taste is about right, light with gentle hops, will transfer to pressure barrel for second fermentation soon. Again, it's late so no extra details now.

Brewing Number XII

Number 11 will be a light summer ale for our summer party. Recipe was found on the internet and then modified to my own creation. I'm after something light colour and flavour with gentle hops.

The method will be slightly different - I will do the mash in a plastic bucket and insulate it with a blanket to hold the temperature. A slight departure from the normal route but will be easier to do if it works.

Ingredients

5Kg pale ale malt 7EBC
1Kg cara-pils malt 5EBC
500g malted wheat 3EBC
1tsp gypsum
1tsp Irish moss
Hops
37g Fuggles 4.1% alpha boiling hops
30g East Kent Goldings 6.1% alpha aroma hops
Note both hops are old and lacking character.

Method

1. 09:30am Heated 10l water to 70C, too hot, 65 is enough.
2. 11.10am Drained into plastic bucket wrapped in a blanket with malts crushed and in grain bag, adjusted temperature with 1l water, reached approx 56C
   
3. Started heating 6l water to approx boiling. The mash is about the right temperature it seems.
   
4. 11:42am added 5l water at 90C to grains, it seems this did not get the mash hot enough, it never reached the required 69C, apparently.
   
5. 1:24pm Problem - temperature dropped too low so conversion is not complete, heated the liquid on the cooker in 3l pans and returned to grains, now at around 70C so should convert OK. I hope.
6. 1:52pm Conversion still not complete, iodine still cloudy. Colour of beer looks about right, but will it ferment...
7. 2:15pm Looks like I made a mess of it, conversion not complete according to iodine test, start boil anyway.
8. 3:00pm Boil starting, add Fuggles hops.
9. 4pm final hops added and let to sit for a moment, begin cooling
10. 5pm cooled to 25C in the barrel. OG as measured just after brewing was 1060 so I added 6l water to bring it down to 1040ish. Will pitch yeast now and clear up.

Review of brewing - everything seemed fine except the iodine test didn't work properly. Will have to review the temperatures, I think I did everything right and I've read on the net that sometimes a false negative (and also false positives) are possible so perhaps I'm lucky...

A Useful Address

Good grief, is it 2009 already?

While visiting Dave the other weekend we stopped off at his local homebrew shop near his place in Hampshire (lucky thing him, having a shop nearby) and they have the all elusive malt, Maris Otter, so check them out on www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk.

Sadly it looks like the delivery costs will kill this idea, unless I can bring a sack back myself.