AG #13 - House IPA II - Recipe

I really liked the my House IPA I that I brewed back in January. The one thing I identified for change was the fact that I thought the combination of the aromatic malt and Crystal 75 gave it a bit too much sweetness. With that in mind I have made a few alterations and hope to brew this version over the weekend.

House IPA II
14-B American IPA
Author: Mark

Size: 20.16 L
Efficiency: 63.0%
Attenuation: 71.4%
Calories: 194.29 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.058 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.017 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 24.74 (11.82 - 29.55)
Alcohol: 5.44% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 77.0 (40.0 - 70.0)

Ingredients:
5500 g Maris Otter
500 g Crystal 30
250 g Carapils®/Carafoam®
10 g Ahtanum (6.0%) - added first wort, boiled 60 m
20 g Apollo (19.8%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
1.0 tsp Irish Moss - added during boil, boiled 15.0 m
10 g Apollo (19.8%) - 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 Apollo (19.8%) - added during boil, boiled 2 m
10 g Ahtanum (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1 m
1 ea WYeast 1272 American Ale II™

Notes
From House IPA I, deleted the Belgian aromatic and crystal 75, replaced with Crystal 30. Also replaced the Columbus additions with Apollo

New Kit in Action

Here are some pics of my new kit in action:

The new mash tun worked a treat. I overestimated the amount of temperature drop in transferring the strike water through the new pump set up, but once I added a little cool water I got a mash temp of 67c. The mash tun maintained this temperature for the full hour.

As I have previously mentioned I decided to go with a two vessel set up and so I mash-in with the full volume of water required and then simply drain this to the boiler once the mash has completed. Overall I was happy with the way this worked, in terms of moving the liquids around. However I was disappointed with the efficiency achieved, only 63%. I have a few ideas on how to improve this that I will try out on my next brew.

Cooling the wort after the boil. I was worried that my small immersion chiller would take for ever to bring the wort down to pitching temperature, however it was pretty good.

Aerating the wort. An aeration stone is submerged in the wort and then a pump diffuses air through this. Give this 20-30 minutes before you pitch your yeast and it makes a very welcoming environment for the yeast cells.

Fermenter safely tucked away, blow off tube attached.

Brew shed tidied up, brew day from start to finish was 5 hours 45 mins. Not too bad, however as I get more accustomed to my new set-up this will decrease.

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..."