You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Bakey – just be careful as hell with your cleaning after using souring bacteria – they are persistent buggers and can infect your next “straight” brews. Especially if you use a plastic fermenter instead of glass or stainless steel. I also keep a separate set of gaskets, tubing and bottling wand just for infected beers.
Yourguitarhero - just spotted this. You're quite right, but this is a yeast which produces lactic acid as a byproduct; its not a Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast. I was extra careful with cleaning though and my current NEIPA in the Fermzilla hasn't been tainted.
Can anyone suggest a good site for recipes and brew calculator?
I use BeerSmith to calculate my brews, but as has been said, there's a load of calculators out there so just find one that you get on with. Took me a few brews to hone my equipment profiles and really get used to it.
Whether you're a fan of them or not BrewDog do something called "DIY Dog" which is all their recipes in one place. It's free to everyone and can be quite handy when looking for ideas, I used it the other day when I made a DDH WCIPA (that's Double Dry Hopped West Coast India Pale Ale in long-hand).
My beer was in no way a clone but it did give me a good idea around the style and hop timings, turned out great and I'm definitely brewing it again!!
Hell yes! As far as a free resource goes, that Brewdog PDF is amazing. If nothing else, it's great to flick through to find something that is in a style you like to see what they used.
One thing I got recommended was to keep notes. If something does go wrong, then you may get an idea from what you wrote down.
Whether you’re a fan of them or not BrewDog do something called “DIY Dog” which is all their recipes in one place. It’s free to everyone and can be quite handy when looking for ideas, I used it the other day when I made a DDH WCIPA (that’s Double Dry Hopped West Coast India Pale Ale in long-hand).
Even better, if you google it you'll find someone has done a searchable web version so you can look for particular styles, hops etc.
Have any of you STW Brewers used Sabro hops? I'm away to do a SMaSH pale ale using it.
Some of the flavour profiles I've read are interesting (coconut, lime, mint)!
OH did a good one recently- bit of malt, some hops, yeast + water. I have no idea what he used but it's nice.
Have any of you STW Brewers used Sabro hops?
Not used it although just looked it up - it sounds amazing! Would be great to know how you get on with it.
One thing I got recommended was to keep notes. If something does go wrong, then you may get an idea from what you wrote down.
I use OneNote, it means I can access it on phone & PC and as we use it at work I can look like I'm working while updating my brewing stuff 😀
I think that, as long as you do actually take notes, what you use is not super important. I use an actual notebook for brew days because the screen doesn’t lock on paper if I have to stir something, but I also add notes to the Brewersfriend app.
If I ever bother getting an iSpindel or a Tilt, they both hook into the website which will allow me to track fermentation too.
Just finished bottling my kveik fermented stout. It dropped to 1.022 and gave me 31 bottle of a 7% beer which is now conditioning with honey As the sugar source. I hope that calculation works better than my original plan!
1022 aaaaaand honey!
Boom
I would force 1 bottle and keep the other bottles nice and cool till you test the 1st one
It had a lot of dark malts in, is quite roasty. I think the honey will take the edge off it a little. We shall see...
That's a pretty high FG for a Kveik. I got one of my Kveik fermentations to 0.998! That's whisky fermentation territory....
Just poured my first glass of a Guinness-style porter I made a couple of months ago. Been conditioning and carbonating while I've been away on my bike.
Came out nice. An easy first taste and a small roast aftertaste that fades nicely - not harsh in any way.
Also did a double brewday at the weekend - a pilsner and a Wit beer - Blue Moon style. The wit hit FG in 36 hours! Slowly ramping up the temps to develop some esters.
My saison was supposed to finish at 1007 but it dropped all the way to 1000. Didn't appear to be infected in any way and I didn't ferment outside the temperature range. Bottled it anyway so I'll see how it turns out.
Lots of saison yeasts have a strain called diastaticus which produces very dry, heavily attenuated beers. I love that personally!
Make sure to properly clean your fermenting equipment as it can hang around and have the same effect on other beers you make
Well, the stout is a beer. Did my usual +7 days taste routine to check for carbonation and it seems fine. It felt a lot less astringent than it did on bottling, so I think it will continue to get better. I plan on crating about 2/3 of the bottles and leaving them in the basement for a few months to see how they turn out.
You are right about the FG. I was expecting it to go to about 1.018, but the airlock activity was non-existent after nearly 10 days, so I suspected it was done. Next time I will make something a bit less heavy and maybe oxygenate more.
Tomorrow is a 50/50 pale ale/pilsner Pale Ale with a shit-load of Zappa hops for aroma and dry hopping. Should be a 4.6% or so summer ale.
My saison was supposed to finish at 1007 but it dropped all the way to 1000. Didn’t appear to be infected in any way and I didn’t ferment outside the temperature range. Bottled it anyway so I’ll see how it turns out.
Probably fine. I bottled my last Saison at 1003, in plastic and heavy glass bottles due to the high carbonation level.
Just finished a Pale Ale with Vic Secret and Zappa hops. Amazingly, was pretty much on the predicted numbers. I think changing the boil-off value lower made the difference.
All I have to do now is get the 50g dry hop in on Sunday night and I should be good for a nice, sessionable beer.
Brewed another batch of my DDH West Coast IPA at the weekend, it's fermenting away nicely in the brew fridge.
70g of hops in the boil, dry hop with 30g of hops to go in on day 6 and another 70g on day 8. Not bad for a 10L batch!!
Bottled a pale ale yesterday, the 5g/litre dry hop has given it a really good smell and I can’t wait for the seven day taste to see what it is like. The only other dry hopped beer I have done so far used Nelson Sauvin and was really good, so I am hoping that Zappa does similar good things.
On a related note, I had a beer from a local place last night that claimed Citra, Amarillo and Mosaic hops and was called ‘Hopsession’. Amarillo is one of my favourite hops and this really underperformed in both taste and smell. Still a very drinkable beer, just left me feeling like I missed something
We have plentiful of apples of the apple tree in our garden and I fancy making some cider from them. Does anyone have any recipes or recommendations that would help me get started? Many thanks
Willard,they probably under-hopped it.It's a lovely combination,but you need to put plenty in,and dry hop too.
Yeah, that's my thought as well. A shame, but it is still a really drinkable beer.
On a side note, the guy I work with has started bribing people at work with my beer to get people into the office for meetings. Looks like my next batch is going to get brewed next week (Pale ale with Vic Secret for bittering, Topaz and Simcoe for flavour and aroma) and will likely be used tactically as bribes.
I'm now wondering how I can explain hops and other ingredients on an expense claim.
The new hops are here and the brew planning is going to happen tonight. It's the same beer as I made last time, but with different hops.
In other news, the elderberry wine has finally kicked off and is fermenting nicely. It smells amazing.
This is good timing, I've just switched off the burner under the brew kettle.
I think my brews are simpler (extract rather than full grain) than most on here, but they come out pretty well. This one's 250g Crystal 180 steeped in 8l for about three quarters of an hour, in with 20g each of Target and Challenger for an hour's boil, with 10g of EKG in for the last ten mins. That'll go in the fermenter with 2.5kg of DME, topped up to 23l. Should be a nice session bitter hopefully.
I have a mild that has been cold crashing for 4 days.
It needs to go into the keg, which is still full of aother brew. Only issue is the CO2 has run out.
Also just finished harvesting 3.5 kg of goldings. Which are now about 1kg of dried ready to use hops. First brew will be an ESB with only them. I'll also dry hop with them.
Ah, lucky you! My Cascade and challenger plants got off to a Late start and I don’t think the fruit will ripen in time to harvest.
Just finished another brew, another light, hopefully hoppy pale ale with Vic Secret, Simcoe and Topaz. This is primarily going to be used to bribe people at work to get things done.
Today is bottling day for the latest beer but, after a few decent NEIPAs in the last week or so, I plan on brewing on Wednesday night as well, a NEIPA this time. I have a fair lot of Citra, Amarillo and Galaxy in and bought some of the Verdant yeast that Lallemand put out to see what it is like.
I did have the recipe on Brewersfriend, but Chrome restarted and only saved the damned name of it. Ah well.
Not quite homebrew but I make cider every year around this time of year. First press this weekend got 70 litres from this lot.
[img] 
[/img]
I'll do at least one more gather and press this year...
Nice!! We were hoping to do something similar, but the pruning we gave the trees set them back a lot in fruit production. Next year we should be good for it though.
Cider counts by the way, so does mead.
Brewed up a NEIPA last night with Citra, Amarillo and Galaxy hops. The first dry hop charge is going in tomorrow and the second one about six days after that. Fingers crossed it turns out ok. Also, used a packet of the Lallbrew Verdant IPA yeast to see what it was like. I hope it pushes the fruity esters and enhances the hops.
Have been away cycling and camping round the islands, so had a busy day in the brewery before I left - three brews as well as packaging a pilsner that had finished conditioning.
I brewed a single malt pale ale with a bunch of UK hops. Have done it before and a real crowd please - very easy drinking, using Nottingham yeast.
Second was a 550 IBU single hop IPA using Polaris as someone gave me 500g of it. It has >20% AA.
Meant to give an icy or peppermint flavour. Used Mangrove Jacks West Coast IPA yeast.
Third was another batch of my barleywine, using Nottingham yeast this time (that what you can see prepping on the stir plate in the pic)
Went to check them yesterday.
Single malt pale has come out very nicely. Final gravity dropped a little further than I expected (1.006 vs 1.011), likely due to Nottingham yeast being a bit of a beast performance-wise
IPA is tasting great actually - surprised as I thought it would be rubbish. Minty flavour is more subtle than I expected and actually works well. Have chucked in 100g of Polaris to dry hop. May consider that hop for some kind of After-8 stout in the future.
Barleywine must have gone off like the clappers as had blown through the airlock and made a right mess - pretty impressive considering the headspace in those fermenters! As well as using a single pack of yeast (though run for 24 hours as a starter) into an OG of 1.099. Sitting at 1.023 which isn't too far away from FG for one of them. Have bunged in some yeast nutrient powder to see if it'll finish it off. Tastes pretty good for being 10 days old.
Will be back next week to bottle the pale and IPA and punt the barleywine into a conditioning tank.
Maybe do another single hop IPA with Sabro to see what it's like. Or a brut IPA....? The new wonder-hop!
Impressive! I have envy for your brewery (again) and really wish I had a bit more space than just the hob and the sink in my kitchen. Things are just a little bit too cramped to work really effectively here.
Did you say 550IBU IPA??? 550? Like, five hundred and fifty? holy shit!
Finally got round to sorting myself out with a starter kit, and just finished bottling a blonde (although it looks quite dark) ale. Surprised at how the process is actually dead simple. I'm very excited about working through different beers and then more advanced recipes and techniques.
I followed the instructions to the letter but the hydrometer reading was around 1020 rather than the 1010 they suggested it should be. Might leave it longer next time (although it went like a blighter for most of the 10 days in the bucket). Will leave it another week or so then stick them in the garage to get cold.
I've got a Landlord style kit next up. Might get that moving this weekend. It's a great feeling when the brew starts bubbling!
There's no way I'll be able to drink it all though...
used a packet of the Lallbrew Verdant IPA yeast to see what it was like
@willard - Have a couple of them to use too - my next brew is gonna be a take on Even Sharks Need Water - so am interested to hear how you get on with it.
Rumour has it it's a fast worker.
@yourguitarhero - 550 IBUs that's huge!! What are you calling that one? Mr Bitter from Bitterville's Best Bitter?
Aye, like Pantera, it's ****ing hostile
Will probably be as un-consumable as them too.
Why are Pantera like your gran's hoover?
They're both from 1981 and they both still suck
Going for the niche market then @yourguitarhero? Something like the smoked beers that are around...
Just out of interest, how much do people actually brew and roughly how often? I seem to have three different batches of beer on the go at the moment (one ready to drink, one conditioning and one fermenting) and this is not super-unusual (I am not counting the stout which is hidden away in the förråd until it is winter...), but I have no idea whether this is more or less than normal or what other people do.
550 ibu will be undrimkable
The rrcomended guide is dont push it much beyond the OG, so 48ibu in 1048O og bitter
Unless you aim to keep it in oak casks for 3 years and csll it whiskey beer, or double down with a load of lactose and use 50% unfermentables in the grist, mash at 76c, thats 2000mg /ltr pre boil of alpha
Shocking, isn't it?
We would need to taste it to make that judgement!
Getting ready to bottle the NEIPA tomorrow. I have to admit I am slightly concerned about how I general prime and bottle with this one, mainly because of the stories about oxygen spoiling the hops flavours. I guess we shall see
Got any ascorbic acid or vitamin c?
Its an oxygen scavenger, without it and no ability to purge or redox your best bet is to cap on foam and fill near to brim ad possible.
Then warm condition to get some co2 into the beer and head space.
No ascot if acid to hand, so I went with the Max fill on the bottles. We shall see what happens in a couple of weeks...
I did try a sample when I was taking hydrometer readings, a bit more bitter than I wanted, maybe more utilisation from the hops in the dry hop, but still good. The smell is awesome! FG finished one point high giving about 76% attenuation. That makes me think I could have left it another few days.
I did a bit of an experimental brew yesterday:
250g Crystal 180, steeped for most of the afternoon
20g Target
20g Challenger
750g LME
Boil for 50mins
10g EKG
200g cocoa
454g Treacle (small tin)
Boil for 10mins
1.5kg DME
Into fermenter, about 19.5l, OG 1.054
Safale S04 yeast (had already made a starter)
Bubbling away nicely this morning, let's see...
Did you use cocoa powder? only ever used nibs before so am interested to hear how it turns out.
I had an experiment yesterday too - an IPA in the style of Verdant's Only Sharks Need Water, just with British hops instead. I've not made this style, used this yeast or the hops so we'll see what happens!
Malt was Pale, Wheat, Oats and Dextrin, tiny amount of Magnum in the boil, boat-load of Olicana & Jester in a whirlpool. Lallemand Verdant yeast (obvs) and then even more Olicana & Jester a couple of days before bottling.
At bottling it'll have had 22.2g of hops per litre, reckon that's probably enough for now.
Oh an update on the root beer - bottled it a few weeks ago and while it tasted alright, it looked like mud. So I'm leaving it in the fridge to see if it settles out.
Another 100L+ pressed on Saturday:
[img] 
[/img]
4x 30L bins pretty much brimmed. 2 bins I add campdens then yeast a day later, the other 2 I just leave to the traditional method and let nature take it's course...
So that's around 160-170 litres in the garage for my 2020 Cider season!
[img] 
[/img]
Uk chinook and uk cascade are very good imo. Then Ernest and olicana are probably the best of the rest
First gold can be ok
Magnum, german good bitterness hop
22gm ltr is not really commercialy viable as it hike the hop cost way up
Will be intersting though
Lallmand Verdant is good stuff, I think I will make that my go-to NEIPA yeast from now on.
Speaking of which... My normal schedule for a new beer is to leave it for a week, then have one as a sample, make notes, then leave for another week, repeat the smapling and put the beer into general circulation (bribes, favours, etc). I sneaked a sample of the NEIPA after three days to find it had carbonated well enough and had an amazing peach/apricot nose and smooth, subtly bitter taste. The colour was a foggy, darker orange/copper (Cara Munich 2 there), so maybe a little darker than the distinct orange I was going for.
BUT... It's a really lovely beer, possibly the best I have made so far and a recipe I will be doing again next summer. I'm also likely to be keeping most of the bottles and using the two pale ales for bribes from now on.
Did you use cocoa powder? only ever used nibs before so am interested to hear how it turns out.
Yep, cocoa powder. The yeast clearly like a treacley chocolatey brew, cos it was bubbling through the airlock within a couple of hours, and by the next day was steadily going at 2-3 'pops' a second. Will probably take a reading tonight, see what it's doing.
IHN
Dont let SO4 get too warm
I notice it starts to produce off flavours above 24c, when i say off i mean less than disirable or needing a vextra week in a ct to clean up
Although witj a darker heavy some banana notes might add an edgr to the nose, think Theaksyons old peculiar
Noted, ta. It's set at 19.5c to 20.5c in the brew fridge, so hopefully will be fine.
Tested and tried it this evening, down to 1.020 after 48 hours. Nice treacle note to the taste, but there's a real bitterness coming from the cocoa. Hopefully that'll lessen as it settles out.
Just bottled the elderberry wine I’ve had going for a ... while. FG had it at 0,997 which put it at a 13,4% ABV end result. It certainly smells it, but the taste is something that may need time to mellow! The bottles are currently getting labelled and will be going to the basement to start their ageing.
I last made elderberry wine with my mum way back when I was in my mid-teens, from what I remember it was always pretty dry and a bit harsh when young.
Elderflower was always pretty great, as was primrose. Blackberry was easily our favourite though. On the other hand, the orange wine we made was pretty rank.
I think my next attempt at wine is going to be using actual grapes and those will come from a friend next year. They have a lot from the vine that grows around their garage.
I’m also thinking about making a small batch of cider using must from IKEA. Only 5l or so, just to see what it turns out like. I have four different beers in stock, so can’t really justify another batch of that (although with winter approaching, I’m tempted to try a lager)
^funnily enough,the best wine I've made was from grapes. You do need an absolute shedload of them though.
Well, my chocolatey treacley thing is down to 1.012, so 5.7%ish, will probably go a bit more yet I reckon.
Lovely treacley taste, a bit like treacle toffee, which is great, however that's followed by cheek-sucking bitterness... I think a lot of the cocoa powder is still in suspension, which isn't helping.
Anyway, I think I might add some lactose when I bottle, sweeten it up a bit. I may have to try and add something to help clear it to, anyone know if finings etc works on cocoa solids?
Adjunct might. Ad it now, do a 250ml glass sample add 1ml, wsit an hour to see. Works bedt on a dropping temp and the convection current moves it around
Did my AWRS application last night. 45 days away from going pro
Adjunct might. Ad it now, do a 250ml glass sample add 1ml, wsit an hour to see. Works bedt on a dropping temp and the convection current moves it around
Cool, I'll have to buy some but that's no issue. Assuming the test works, would adding it at the same time as cold-crashing be a good idea?
Yes, thats the go to method for the pros but cam be added to a ct or a cask pre fill
yourguitarhero
Free Member
Did my AWRS application last night. 45 days away from going pro
Oooh! Nice work @yourguitarhero!
Dry-hopped the NEIPA last night, Olicana and Jester totalling 15g/l. Didn’t look the trademark bright orange but then it’s in a S/S bucket so there wasn’t much light around.
Not worried about the colour though, just as long as it tastes good!
Kegging on Saturday, keeping the dry-hop under 72hrs on this one.
My chocotreacle thing has been cold crashing with BeerBrite since Tuesday, will probably bottle it on Sunday, maybe with the addition of some lactose to sweeten it a bit. It's ended up about 5.8%, which is a bit pokier than I anticipated...
Currently a Belgium Tripel fermenting with (overpitched) M31. Projected at 9.6%.
First time using this yeast; I'm ramping up the temp by 1 degree every 2 days.
I'm brand new to Homebrew and bottling my first all grain batch this Saturday and brewing my second. Still working to see if I can get consistency of result so brewing the same recipe a few times to see if I can get consistent results before messing with the recipe and trying other things. Only done one stove top kit brew before which turned out pretty well considering the instructions that came with the kit were pretty non existent so was googling temperatures and times on the fly, so seemed I was lucky....or the kit is designed to be pretty fool proof. We'll see in a couple of weeks once my first all grain batch has conditioned.
I’ve not brewed beer for years and the standard seemed to be 5 gallons.
I don’t drink that kind of quantity anymore.
What’s the smallest brew you can do these days?
I did a 5L batch of sour a few months ago. All it needed as a pot big enough to hold about 7L of water and a brew bag. That gave me about 4L of sour beer in bottles from memory. It's not really worth it, but it was experimental, so needed to be a small batch. It also was nice, so I spent a while wishing I had made more!
The majority of my beer gets brewed in 10/11L batches now and those get swapped, given away or drunk whilst others are fermenting. I have four different types down in the basement storage right now and am planning on getting a Czech Amber Ale ready for brewing next week.
Much like Willard, I started on 5l batched but have now moved to 10l - seems to be the sweet spot for me of having just enough to drink/give away before the next brew is ready.
Well, ‘Tis about a fermentation and bottle condition away from the season to be jolly, so I got a Christmas beer in the bucket tonight.
Loosely based on a David Heath Christmas Bok (because I had bought a kilo of Munich malt and had the right yeast), but with some changes to the other two speciality malts (CaraMunich 2 and Dark Crystal instead of CaraFoam and Carafa Special 3), it still looked right when I transferred it and the spices (Star Anis, nutmeg and Cinnamon) are noticeable now.
One thing I did notice was being a long way away from gravity numbers agpfter the mash, something like 10 points low. I added some molasses in at the boil and managed to reach the right OG despite getting about a litre more in the bucket.
Anyway, Bohemian Lager Yeast is in, it’s down in the cold storage and I will check on it tomorrow to see if it is cooking. Hopefully it will be cool enough down there.
This does mean my plan for a light, refreshing hoppy lager will get put back until next week.
Just bottled another batch of barley wine, in sizes from 150ml to 1 litre!
And mashing in on a weiss beer this morning.
Anyone fancy doing a Christmas bottle exchange?
Would love to, but posting to and from Sweden might be a challenge!
My chocotreacle thing got bottled at the weekend, the BeerBrite cleared it quite a lot, hopefully the rest will clear on the bottle. Huge amounts of chocolate-mousse-like trub at the bottom.
Added 500g of lactose has sweetened it up, and initial taste is, well, okay. Hopefully with a bit of conditioning it'll come good.
I reckon you have 52ebu of alpha in there, as its so green it wont taste great. Probably abit twiggy or claggy with a twang.
Warm condition 1 bottle for a week at as close to 30c as you csn hold it
Then outside for a day or 2
This will fizz it up a treat and soften then alpha greenness
Think target has a stiff co humalone ratio so will be more pronounced than say a noble hop
Have googled to no real effect: my mate brews (bit I have a vested interest as he always passes me a few bottles), uses an old fridge with an ST 1000 controller to cool the wort. He loves over complicating things and wants to cool it slower - anyone know of a controller that’ll allow that to be programmed in? I did suggest leaving the door open a crack etc but repeatability..
not cheaply
omega controllers are rampable but are over £100 and tricky to program
when you say wort , i hope / think you mean beer post fermenation???
1'F an hour is the rule of thumb , but your man could knock off 2 degress at say 0700 and 2 degress at say 1900 to kinda get the same result
Yep wort was a stab in the dark! Can't remember the terminology. How do brewers usually achieve it? He's just using a Freecycled fridge.
Yeah, that’s about it really. Stc-1000 or the Inkbird plugs are the ones most people seem to use and, for fridges, anything that is big enough to hold your fermenter and airlock.
I do not have a fridge yet, but my plan is to get one when we move or, if our lease is extended, by summer next year. Pretty much all of the hints for better beer start with getting fermentation temperature controlled. No, being clean and sanitary. Ok, temperature is second. After good quality ingredients and cleaning.
By the way, I saw this on another forum and, despite being started already, may be of interest:
Leuven uni have a good brewing school, there's quite a lot of big breweries in that area.
I once played a gig in a hippy squat above a garage in Leuven.
As for more advanced fermentation control than manually changing the temp on the STC1000, your pal could look at https://www.brewpi.com/
Brewed at the weekend: 100% Dingeman's malt, EKG and Mangrove Jack's French saison yeast. Incredibly simple. It's now sitting in a waterbath at 30 deg C.
That should hurry things along a little! Should give it some nice esters too.
I checked on my Christmas Bock last night and it is still happily fermenting, so I have decided to let it sit for another week before I get it into bottles. It is not going to stop me brewing on Wednesday though.