AG #12 - Hippity Hop Pale Ale II - Recipe

This is a revised version of a recipe I previously made in extract form. This was also my first go at brewing on my new system and I'll do a separate post on that.

Hippity Hop Pale Ale II

10-A American Pale Ale

Author: Mark

Size: 22.75 L

Efficiency: 63.12%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Original Gravity: 1.040 (1.045 - 1.060)

Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (1.010 - 1.015)

Color: 21.99 (9.85 - 27.58)

Alcohol: 3.88% (4.5% - 6.0%)

Bitterness: 41.1 (30.0 - 45.0)

Ingredients:

4200 g Maris Otter
205 g Crystal 30
145 g Crystal 55
250 g Carapils®/Carafoam®
19 g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
16.0 g Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 15 m
1 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15 m
22 g Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 1 m
27 g Ahtanum (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1 m
1 ea White Labs WLP008 East Coast Ale

Its nearly ready....

It has been a bit quiet on the brewing front recently and there is a good reason for it. Over the last few months I have been slowly pulling together all the pieces for my shiny new SS home brewery. I have pretty much gotten everything at this stage and have done some work converting the garden shed into a brew shed. Next steps are to put everything together and give it a test run. New additions to my brew equipment include:

• A 50 liter stainless steel mash tun.
• A 40 liter stainless steel kettle
• A solar pump
• Quick disconnects

The pics are to give a snapshot of current progress, hoping to give everything a test run this weekend (water in the system only) and then to have my first brew day on the new equipment over St Patricks weekend.

You may notice that there are only two brew vessels instead of the standard three. I do have a 33 liter bucket kettle that I can add to the system to act as a HLT, however with the new set up my plan is to try the no-sparge AG method. This, as the name suggests, means that you put all of the required brewing water in the mash tun and then drain to the kettle. The downside is a slight loss in efficiency, probably down to 70-73%, however I feel that the benefits outweigh this. If it does not work out I can always add the 33 liter HLT into the system.

AG #11 - House IPA I - Brew Day and First Pour

Homebrewing can be a funny hobby, you spend your time trying to be very careful about everything, ingredients, sanitation, process etc and then something like this happens. Here are the two entries in my brew log that cover the brew day and first taste of my House IPA I recipe that I brewed last month:

13/1/2012 - My first ever disaster of a brew day. All was going well until I went to drain the wort from the kettle into the fermenter. Hop filter must have become dislodged and the tap blocked. Next try was with the auto-syphon, however I never realised that the filter was missing and could not figure out why that didn't work (obviously it was also getting blocked by hops, ended up scooping the wort out with a measuring jug. Got only 15 litres into the fermenter, and this was full of hop debris. Would be amazed if this wasn't infected, if it isn't i will be very surprised if it is drinkable. Note to self, make sure hop filter is securely attached to the kettle tap!!!!

Lessons for next brew: 

- When using so many whole leaf hops I should probably use a hop bag

- Check that all connections/taps are connected properly 

16/2/2012 - Have been drinking this beer for about a week at this stage and I have to say it is lovely, I cannot believe that such a nice beer was made on such a disasterous brew day. Nice light amber colour with good head retention. Hops are very to the fore with great melon and sweet fruit aroma, a real thirst quencher and would be a breat beer to make for the summer.

As I said home brewing is a funny hobby. I have always been so particular about how I brew, maybe from now on I shouldn't be.

PS: Go Big Blue.....

AG #11 - House IPA I - Recipe

Brew day tomorrow. Here is my attempt to create a nice house recipe IPA. I am looking for an American style IPA, hoppy, but with a nice malt background:

House IPA I

14-B American IPA

Author: Mark

Date: 17/01/2012

Size: 20.16 L

Efficiency: 72.65%

Attenuation: 76.3%

Original Gravity: 1.051 (1.056 - 1.075)

Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.010 - 1.018)

Alcohol: 5.13% (5.5% - 7.5%)

Bitterness: 62.7 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:

4000 g Maris Otter

300 g Carapils®/Carafoam®

164 g Belgian Aromatic

250 g Crystal 75

92 g Crystal Malt 60°L

10 g Ahtanum (6.0%) - added first wort, boiled 60 m

20 g Columbus (15.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m

1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15.0 m

10 g Columbus (15.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m

10 g Simcoe (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m

10 g Simcoe (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 2 m

13 g Columbus (15.0%) - added during boil, boiled 2 m

10 g Ahtanum (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1 m

1 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

AG #10 - Standard Stout II - Review

I brewed this sessionable beer with the hope that it would be ready for Christmas Day and it was. It proved to be a perfect beer for what proved to be a long day. Very drinkable and smooth and without the big strength that most of my beer's come with.

The taste was nice, very malty with the dark malts very much to the fore, however I was a little bit disappointed with the contribution of the American C hops at the end, there was not much present. This is now the third stout that I have brewed and I have to say that although number two and three have been good, none of them have compared with number one, the original Standard Stout. With that in mind I think the next time I brew a stout I will try and replicate that original recipe and if I can, I will make that my annual stout recipe.

AG #10 - Standard Stout II - Brew day

Lots of Chocolate Malt &
Roasted Barley in the
grain bill.

So finally after 5 months of a brewing hiatus I got to brew a beer last weekend. I decided on a version of my Standard Stout recipe that I had brewed previously and that I was really happy with. This time round I gave it more of an American Stout twist by adding some late addition hops. Here is the full recipe.

Brew day took a little while to get going as I started to work out how to brew in my new surroundings. Eventually decided to take over the shed for the day and set everything up in there. This worked out quite well and I ran a water hose and extension cable from the outside water and electricity points at the back of the house. I was a little worried that the single outside electricity point would not be able to handle a 60 minute boil with two x 2 kw elements on the go, however all went well and resetting of trip switches was not required.

I have not yet become fully accustomed to my new surroundings and so there was a little reorganization of brewing vessels as the day went on, however I have learned from this and will have a proper three tier set up for my next brew.

Wort aeration system in action.

The brewing went very well with no particular issues. However I did introduce one new technique into my brew day that I have to say gave great results. A couple of months ago I ordered a few brewing gadgets from the US, one was a refractometer, the other a wort aeration system. The wort aeration system comprises of an air pump, filter and aeration stone. Basically the air is generated by the air pump, passes through the filter, down a tube and through an aeration stone that you submerge in the wort for 10-20 minutes before attaching your blow-off tube. This seemed to work very well as about 8 hours later the wort was fermenting away and continued solidly for three days.

The 'Brew-Shed'

As mentioned I think I learned a lot from this brew day about how my new surroundings can be used better to make brew day a little easier. I will certainly construct a three tier gravity fed set-up in the shed before my next brew day and that should mean that there will be no need to be shuffling vessels around during the brew day. Also I think the aeration system will be a very worthwhile addition to my brewing equipment. Another change that I have made is to change the volume of beer I have will be brewing. Ordinarily as home brewers become more competent they tend to increase the amount of beer they make on a brew day, however I am doing the opposite. Fed up with bottling and all that that entails I have decided to brew 19-20 liter batches and then just keg the resulting beer. My system can cope with up to 27 liters and so if I could get my hands on a 1/2 corny (9.5 liter) I could increase once again and be getting one and a half kegs per batch. The only problem is that those 1/2 corny's are so hard to find :-(

Finally, a brew day comes around.

It has been nearly six months since my last brew day. Moving house, starting a masters course and being hectic in work has seriously curbed my brewing exploits. Come hell or high-water tomorrow I will be brewing the following stout recipe which should be ready just in time for the festive holidays.

With this beer I am aiming for a smooth, creamy stout with a little twist of American hops at the end which I hope will balance out the dark malts and the bitterness of the Goldings hops.

Standard Stout II 

13-B Sweet Stout

Author: Mark

Date: 20/11/2011

Size: 22.0 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 72.1%

Original Gravity: 1.044 (1.044 - 1.060)

Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.012 - 1.024)

Color: 63.85 (59.1 - 78.8)

Alcohol: 4.19% (4.0% - 6.0%)

Bitterness: 22.5 (20.0 - 40.0)

Ingredients:

3000 g Maris Otter
475 g Barley Flaked
475 g Carapils®/Carafoam®
400 g Roasted Barley
245 g Chocolate 1060 EBC
36 g Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
5 g Ahtanum (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1.0 m
5 g Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 1.0 m
5 g Columbus (15.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1.0 m
5 g Simcoe (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1.0 m
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15 m
1 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

It makes you proud to be Irish....

I promise I will get back to blogging about brewing soon, work and family just keep getting in the way at the moment :-)

In the meantime here is a good news story:

Irish Bartender wins

International Master Bartender Competition 2011

Dubliner, Fearghus McCormack, a third generation barman in the family run Merrion Inn, Dublin, has beaten stiff competition from across the globe to carry off the title of Pilsner Urquell International Master Bartender 2011. During a highly-competitive week-long final in the Czech Republic this month, he claimed the victory against an impressive group of finalists representing 15 countries.

Fearghus claimed the title in Prague earlier this month in a gala final he likened to ‘the Oscars of beer’. Commenting on his win Fearhgus said: “I can’t begin to express how excited and proud I am to win this title. The Merrion Inn always prides itself on quality, from the staff in the bar, to the food we serve, to the beers we stock. To have been internationally recognised & awarded by a brand of the pedigree of Pilsner Urquell is amazing. Pilsner Urquell is a real beer lovers’ favourite in The Merrion Inn..."

Boston Beer...ahhhhhh

Just back from a trip to Boston and you got to love American bars. The choice of beer is truly staggering, you can choose your craft beer type bar and have a selection of 10-20 draft beers, some specials and then an endless bottle beer selection. Even if you are unfortunate to be dragged to a bar with no beer selection, they will probably still have Harpoon IPA on draft and a few Sam Adams selections.

Here is just some of the beers I got to try, all on draft unless it says otherwise:

Beer menu from The Other Side,
sorry for the poor quality pic.

Harpoon IPA : Whales Tale Pale Ale (bottle) : Clown Shoes Black IPA : Goose Island Honkers Ale : Boulder Mojo IPA : Stone Ruination IPA (Bottle) : Sierra Nevada Tumbler : Sam Adams Boston Lager : Pretty Things Jack D'Or Saison : Green Flash West Coast IPA : Gritty's Blackfly Stout

I also managed to stumble across a Sam Adams tasting session in my hotel bar and got to try bottles of their Oktoberfest, IPA and Irish Red.

The highlight of the trip from a bar point of view was finding Bukowski Tavern, it is on Dalton Street near the Boylston Street junction. From the outside it looks like a tiny dive bar, inside doesn't alter this perception much, however the staff are great, the music is good, and they have a selection of about 100 beers. Included in this are about 20 on draft and a cask offering specials. If you are in Boston make sure you check it out. Honorable mention also goes to The Other Side, it can be found just over the bridge at the junction between Newbury and Mass Avenue.

Pelle, comes to town

Humulus Lupus and some
members of Beoir.

Last week, Pelle Stridh from All About Beer was in Dublin with his beer club (Humulus Lupus) and we managed to meet up for a few beers and general beer discussion, joining us was Reuben and Richard from Beoir. I had suggested meeting up in the Bull & Castle and I do not think the guys were disappointed.

Over the course of four hours we managed to update them all on the current state of Irish Craft beer and quite a few Irish beers were sampled, including Metalman Pale Ale, Galway Hooker, O'Hara's IPA, Trouble Or, Howling Gale and also Black Rock Stout which was on Cask. Metalman Pale Ale seemed to be the stand out beer.


Pelle also managed to bring me over a few bottles of beer that I am looking forward to sampling. They both come from his local brewer, Eskilstuna Olkultur AB, and the brewer Lars Ekstron was there in person so that I could pick his brains. The beers are great as they are something that I would never be able to get in Ireland, one is a Double IPA and the other an Imperial Stout.

Well in a few days time I am off to Boston for a wedding and I hope to be sampling some great beers, I might also fit in a brewery tour or two if time allows.

I also also determined to get back brewing once I return from my trip. The brew day for Furious IPA seems only a distant memory (early June) and so I am keen to get back into it.