chalkys bite attempt sort of

I tried that chalkys bite beer from cornwall and quite liked it , i read that it contained cornish fennel so I created this brew to explore the fennel/ spice avenue.
the recipe was ;

0.45 kg Lyle's Golden Syrup (0.0 SRM) Extract 11.4 %
3.50 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 88.6 %
40.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [6.20%] (90 min) Hops 30.0 IBU
50.00 gm Saaz [1.20%] (15 min) Hops 3.0 IBU
100.00 gm Saaz [1.20%] (5 min) Hops 2.4 IBU
1 oz crushed fennel seeds added at the end of the boil

yes I know the amount of hops is huge and the AA's low but thats cos theyve been on top of my wardrobe for almost a year so I took degradation into account .
its in the fermentor now so we shall see what comes if it all in a few weeks.

In the meantime I provided two cornies of my normal bitter for a friends party and it went down very well , highly recomend it as theres only one thing better than drinking your own beer and thats seeing a whole house full of people pissed on your beer and telling you how damn good it is :-)

Ive also got a new batch of bitter fermenting at the moment and I am going to add some french oak chips to it to see what happens once it goes into a corny . Im using a dryhopping bag with a ping pong ball in it, hopefully that will stop it clogging up the feed pipe.

till then happy brewing :-)

"jinxed"

today i brewed a biere de garde recipie from jimshomebrew memeber mysterio the recipe was ;

Biere de Garde Type: All Grain
Date: 28/12/2006
Batch Size: 5.00 Imp gal
Brewer: Geoff Boil Size: 5.72 Imp gal Asst Brewer: Boil Time: 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0
Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
6.10 kg Vienna Malt (6.9 EBC) Grain 92.4 %
0.30 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 4.5 %
0.20 kg Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC) Grain 3.0 %
30.00 gm Pearle [8.00%] (60 min) Hops 23.6 IBU 15.00 gm
Saaz [4.00%] (15 min) Hops 2.9 IBU 15.00 gm
Saaz [4.00%] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs European Ale (White Labs #WLP011) Yeast-
Ale Beer Profile Est Original Gravity: 1.060 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Est Alcohol by Vol: 5.9 % Bitterness: 26.5 IBU Calories: 269 cal/pint Est Color: 20.0
EBC Color: Color

so away i went and without boring you with more pictures of the same process this is what happened to cause me to rename this beer "jinxed".
1) first thing i do is trip over in the kitchen , landing on the brew bin barking my toe.
2) i have decied to do a stepped mash so after the 30 mins at 50deg c i add boiling water to raise the temp . but due to the large amount of grain the bin is now full so i have to use the element.
3) despite vigouros stirring the grain burns onto the element and the mash gets too hot.
4) sparging is a nightmare as the grains completely fill the bucket and there is little room for the sparger arm which now sprays the kitchen as well as the grain.
5) once the boil starts i cant get the rolling boil i need as the element is playing up , even rewiring it to bypass the thermostat has no effect .
6) my thermometer goes mental and wont give me a sensible reading !
7) i needed 30gms of perle hops and ive ordered pearle barley ! have to use saaz hops to bitter as well which will alter the taste.
8) hop strainer comes off the tap so it takes an age to drain the wort.
9) final gravity of wart is a pathetic 1040 so i take a risk and boil up some of the wort with some spray malt to bring the gravity up to 1050 .

its now fermenting away but god alone knows what it will taste like . next time (i have enough grain to do two batches of this) i will use the right hops, forget the stepped mash and ensure that my element is spotless before i start the boil.

we shall see how it turns out , it will probably be the best beer ive ever made :-)

CHIMAY

I had some grain left over after the crest ale (which was spot on by the way !) and what with it being january , being skint and everything I asked the forum on jims beerkit what I could make with it . the most intersting answer was a Chimay, which is like a belgiun beer really.

the recipe for 14 ltrs was ;

6 1/2 lbs pale malt

1 oz black malt

12 oz dark soft brown sugar

8 oz honey

2 oz hallertauer hops

1 oz goldings hops

and ideally you would use yeast from a bottle of chimay but i used gervins ale yeast.

I also tried a stepped mash for the first time, this is apparently to give the proteins a rest before you suck the life out of them. i dont pretend to understand the science but basically it is supposed to give you a clearer beer. important if its complex or involves such adjuncts as maize or honey which could cause a haze.

so i threw the grain in at 55 deg C for 30 mins then added boiling water to bring it up to 65 deg. for another 45 mins then raised it again up to 76 deg to really dilute and thin the sugars to draw them off.

sparged as normal and boiled for a good hour after having the hops, sugar and honey thrown in .

after 7 hours i had 14 ltrs of lovely dark brown wort pitched with yeast and waiting to turn into beer. i had a little taste and i was a mixture of toffee/coffee and malt and very bitter . this will change over time of course .

I took the gravity before the yeast went in and it was about 1060 so should be about 4.5 to 5 % in the end depending on how low it goes in fermentation.

as for the last two brews, well the cresta was loverly but had a haze (probably due to it being served quite cool) this didnt affect the flavour at all but i lost that extra pride in having a crystal clear brew. the stout ? well lets just say i only had a pint of it and the garden smells lovely now. the o ring on the corny keg i used left a revolting taint to it and it was really weak and thin so i obvioulsy didnt extract much in the mash.

ah well live and learn.

CRESTA PALE ALE INTO SECONDARY

The pale ale went into the Budget barrel yesterday. no photos as its simply a case of putting the (steralised) barrel under the fermentation bin and opening the tap. I do take off about a pint into a saucepan which i then gently heat on the hob as i add 2 oz of sugar and a sachet of gelatine. this is then added to the barrel when its full.

you should have all the yeast gunge left in the bottom of the fermentation bin and reasonably clear beer in your barrel now. the gelatine will "fine" your beer clearing it of any remaining yeast and debris whilst the added sugar will add a bit of natural gas or "conditioning" to the brew.

now its left alone for yet another 10 days before it goes into a corny keg (as with the brown ale see previously). this should be ready for new year at a push . idealy you should leave it alone for at least 4 weeks from brewing which this will be just. the longer you leave it the better it will be however and the more complex and strong the recipie the longer it needs to mature. barely wine for example needs about a year !

chirstmas day is testing time for my dark brown ale i shall let you know how it is then .

RACKING FROM SECONDARY TO CORNY

time to rack to the corny

my strong brown ale/stout has been in its secondary fermentation for 10 days now and tis time it moved on again.

when your beer is made it has the yeast added, then goes into a bucket for primary fermentation , this is where the sugar is turned to alcohol.

after ten days it should have stopped fermenting and it can be racked off. now this is where you have a choice, you can go straight into a barrel or bottles where it remains until it is drunk , you add a little sugar to create some Co2 which not only protects the brew from nasties it adds the fizz. Gelatin is also added to clear the beer.

Or you can go into the barrel for another ten days then rack off again when the beer is clear into your final barrel. if you are using a corny keg this is the best option as you dont get the sediment at the bottom of the barrel where the beer is drawn from via a long tube.

I was told of a method of drawing off the beer into the corny without letting any nasty air in to contaminate my precious beer. A chap on the jimsbeerkit forum explained how to do it so i gave it a try.

firstly everything was steralised as usual , then i added a squirt of Co2 to the empty corny. Co2 is heavier than air so a protective blanket is laid on the bottom of the keg where the beer is going to come in.

I connect the out disconnect to a length of hose and leave the grey in disconnect off for the moment.

once the beer starts to come in i add the grey disconnect to allow the air to escape as it is pushed to the top.

the hose is connected to the barrel thus;

i then crack open the tap of the barrel and the beer runs down through the "out" connect to the bottom of the barrel. this beer is then under the Co2 and as it rises it forces the air out of the grey "in " disconnect i have now connected. if you have a purge ring you can use that but you will be stood there holding it open like a wally for a while.

obviously at some stage the pressure in the top barrel will be negative and you will have to crack open the lid to let some air in to replace the escaping beer.

once all the beer is in leaving the sediment in the bottom of the barrel you can shut the tap off and remove both the connectors.

my corny has an S30 valve in the top instead of a purge valve so i then pump Co2 in until the safety valve expels the remaining air leaving pure Co2 at the top of the keg. if you have a purge valve you just pump in the Co2 then gently let the air that has been forced to the top escape.

there you have it! this will sit now till christmas day when i will hopefully pour out some clear sparkling beer from it. my cresta pale ale is still in primary and that will go into the secondary barrel on saturday .

till then happy drinking :-)

cresta pale ale

cresta strong pale ale

today was the day for my cresta pale ale brew. i had told my supplier that i needed the grain for today but nothing had arrived yesterday. i still had faith though so i heated up the water (liquor) to the strike temp of 73 deg and just as it hit the mark the doorbell rang and there it was.

in went 7lbs of pale malt and the temp dropped to the required 67deg.

then on went the coat, this will keep the temp more constant rather than messing around trying to keep it stable.

after 3 hours the mash was done.

the grain was then tiped into a bin lined with a grain bag. a normal mash time would be about 2 hours but this recipie from dave line wanted 3 so thats what it got .

i then let this sit while i heated up more water in the boiler for sparging.

this was then poured into an empty barrel , the water was about 80 deg and i made up about 4 gallons.

this is my three tier sparging set up , the usual arrangement for most brewers. i poured the first couple of jugs back over the grain to enusre that a filter had established then cracked open the tap to allow the level to fall just below the level of the top of the grain.

then the sparge water is allowed to run through very slowly to maintain the level. when i have collected about 4 gallons i shut the water off and let the rest just run through ending up with about 5 gallons of wort.

this is the sparge arm, as the water runs through it spins creating a fine mist of hot water to wash away the wort from the husks, too quick and the water wont collect the wort on the way .
i put a hop strainer onto the tap in the boiler as well.

as soon as the wort covers the element in the boiler i turn it on full to get the boil started.

then the boil gets going, i add 2 oz of hallertau hops and 1 1/4 oz goldings hops as well as a lb of demerara sugar . add the sugar slowly so that it doesnt just run to the bottom and melt onto the element.

2 hours of boiling and its ready. i open the windows to minimise the sauna effect .

20 mins before the end i added a whirlfloc tablet and my cooler. the boiling will steralise the cooler for me.

ive now got 4 gallons of wort as 1 gallon has been boiled off. i let it settle for 30 mins . once the hops have formed a filter bed in the bottom i turn the cooler on. 30 mins of cooing and its down to 22 deg ready for the yeast. before i started cooling i drew off about 250 mls of wort and cooled it under the tap to make a yeast starter as well. you can add it dry but this gets it off to a good start.

i drain off the wort into a steralised fermenting bin , as you can see the hops have formed a nice bed to strain out any dregs.

then i add the yeast and stir it all up with a steralised paddle. the lid goes on and 10 days of fermentation starts. the sg was 1060 so this should be a good strong brew. next blog will show the racking off process.

in the begining

I used to brew years ago but with kits , they got boring to be honest and as i used bottles i seemed to be constantly washing them out . I eventualy gave it up and went to the pub.

zip forward almost 10 years and i have another go ! one kit later im bored again so this time i look into full grain brews.

Full grain brews are the closest you will get to replicating what goes on in a big brewery , in fact unless they malt their own grain then its exactly what happens in a brewery. you control the recipie and the conditions ,therefore what pours into your glass at the end of the day is what you want not what a kit decides you want. it tastes far far better than anything you will get from most pubs and certainly anthing from a can.

i bought the basic equipment:

one boiler, electrim from ebay . you can spend a fortune on these but if i had to buy one again id go for a basic boiler from leyland homebrew with two elements and wouldnt bother with a thermostat . to clean i just bung in a couple of tea spoons of wvp and let it soak over night it will be pretty odour free and sparkling bright in the morning.

you also need a chiller : this is side ways on in case you were wondering, you stick this in your brew and connect it to a tap then turn it on, it will chill it down from boiling to "yeast ready " temp in about 20- 30 minutes, thats important but im not going to go into that here.

then you need something to ferment it all in ;

these bins are well cheap , try wilkinsons or a home brew shop , this currently has 30 pints of my strong stout in. i know it looks like tar but believe me it will be nice when its done . when you get one of these put a drum tap in it near (not completely on) the bottom , you dont want to be messing around with syphons trust me.

then once its fermented you need some barrels, again get them cheap from wilkos or a home brew shop, do not get ripped off check around for what youre buying. get a pressure inlet valve for the lid (s30) that will let you put some gas in . you can mess around with bottles if you like but i just cant be arsed myself. these are the cheapest you can get then they get a bit more flashy but basicaly do the same thing.

then after a few weeks just drink it ! simple ! well actually i havent even begun to explain the whole process. to find this out you are better off looking at http://jimsbeerkit.co.uk/index.htm .

you will also need a sparging arm and some hose, a grain bag and of course some grain , all cheap and down to personal choice for type.

jims beerkit is the site i used for my first batch and quite frankly you wont find an easier to follow demonstration, theres a good forum as well so you can register and learn why you have brewed 40 pints of vinegar , no its easy honestly. once you get started you cant stop though its highly addictive then you end up getting things like this;

then it all starts to get silly , but you'll see that in my next blog on wednesday when i brew my next batch.

oi!