Tasting Number XI

Fantastic, just what I was aiming for, vigorous fermentation ended Monday and all is quiet now and I have 20+ litres of golden brown beer. With 3 more weeks to soften it will be great.

Measured final gravity at 1014@20C, will do the alcohol calculations another day.

Brewing Number XI

Number XI will be a winter beer for a new year's eve party, brewed along the same lines as Adnams Broadside.

4kg Pale malt
500g Munich malt
70g Black malt
1 tsp gypsum

Boiling Hops
Start of boil:
Challenger 39g
Fuggles 34g
Goldings 14g

Last fifteen minutes:
Fuggles 12g
Irish moss 12g

Yeast - WYeast 1968 propagator London ESB from 21APR08

Following the same method as number 7

1. 10l water heated to 63C
2. 13:30 Added the milled grains and gypsum and hold at 56C for 30 mins.
3. 13:55 Start heating 5l water in another pan.
4. 14:00 Add the 5l boiling water, make sure temperature is now 68C and hold at 69C for 30 to 45 minutes.
5. 14:45 Raise just slightly to 70C and hold 10 to 20 mins until an iodine test indicates complete conversion.
6. 15:00 Start heating another 5l water for flushing grains.
7. 15:10 Raise temperature again to 75C and separate grains from wort. Flush grains with hot/boiling water.
8. 15:30 Conversion complete, grains washed using white plastic barrel, worked well actually. Heating to boil started.
   
9. Put the hops in the grain bag for a trial, should be easier than filtering the hops from the liquid later.
10. 16:00 Boil started.
11. 17:30 Boil finished.
12. Measured OG at 1054@20C, really I should do this before the boil as I guess it doesn't change much. Diluted with 6l cold water after cooling, final temperature 23C, yeast pitched.
13. 18:30 All done for the beer, clearing up started for another half hour.

In the end it has made about 20l and the OG is 1038@20C so it should make a respectable beer. I'd have preferred a bit higher but couldn't be bothered to boil some extract.

Still face the problem of filtering the beer before it goes through the cooler, not sure what to do about that. Will consider options when I get my own boiler.

Yeast preparations

Opened yeast today, Monday, slow expansion through the week as it is old.
Pitched to 1l starter on Friday morning, by Sat morning it was going well. Perfect timing.

Opened the first bottled No. 10

Oh, I needn't have worried about the bottles being carbonated or anything. They're very lively, and taste OK too - I was worried that the 48 hours spent in the barrel with so much air would have sent the beer off, but it's OK. It will be interesting for those who said 'I don't like homebrew because it's not carbonated' to try and see if they like it now. I carefully explained the 2 stage fermentation but I guess some just didn't get it. The best part of this was the wife said she liked it! Excellent.

Anyway, nine bottles still survive...

Bottling No. 10

Again, done in a hurry but the 5l left over from the party (The beer was well received, although I didn't like it much as it wasn't hoppy enough for me. That's different tastes I guess...) was sitting in an open barrel and would go off so I sterilised 10 bottles and filled them.

The only interesting bit was the priming which was done with 1 heaped teaspoon of glucose per bottle, plus 3 for luck, boiled in 1l of water for 15 mins and then distributed by eye amongst the bottles. Let's see how it works...

Brewing No. 10

Number 10 is an extract brew done in a hurry for a party we're having in a week and a half...

Ingredients:

1x Muntons connoisseurs range beer kit 1.8Kg for 23l
1Kg Light malt extract
2 Packets of Brewferm blanche dried yeast, rehydrated in boiled water.

Boiled in 10l water for about half an hour, cooled and made up to 20l.
Yeast pitched at 28C, moved immediately to cellar as yeast ideal temperature is 18-23C and it's hot here at the moment.

OG1038 @ 28C, correction is 0.002 to 0.003 per 10C, so OG = 1040.

It's so much easier brewing these kits than a full grain brew!

No. 9 Alcohol content calculations

Taken from the calculations for No. 7:

OG 1.038 @ 25C, correction to 20C gives 1039
FG 1.010 @ 20C


ABW = (1.039 - 1.010) * 105 = 3.0%
ABV = 3 * 1.010 / 0.794 = 3.8%

Note: Correction to hydrometer readings of additional 0.002 to 0.003 per 10C over 20C.

For Adnams bitter that's about right! The book says OG 1036 but end at 1006, giving 4%, and another point is I've got about 25l but brewed aiming for 30l. Next time I'll add more sugar or grains, I think the sugar I've got (Dextrose/Glucose) is very light and when it says 'Use 30% more than normal sugar' it means this for brewing beer as well as other uses.

This afternoon I measured the FG again and it's still 1010 so fermentation is done, but it's very cloudy after moving. Will leave it another week or two in the cellar to clear, but as soon as it's clear I'll decant it into another barrel. Should really investigate dropping it down the stairs in a pipe, not carrying the barrel.