Kegging: Summer Lightning clone

I tested this brew a few times through the week and it was consistently sitting at 1.008, meaning that the beer is at about 3.5% abv -exactly what I was aiming for. So I've put it into the kegs today. I haven't freed up enough of the bottom tap mini-kegs yet, so I used some of the top tap ones that need the gas-fed tap putting into the top. This means that it keeps for longer than the bottom tap ones, because it puts a layer of gas on top of the beer.

I used a bottling bucket with a little bottler fitted to fill the kegs. It went okay, but it meant I had to hold the keg up below the bucket, and they get really bloody heavy when they fill up. I think I will have a rethink of how I do this for the next time, but it came out fine in the end. The only other issue was that I lost about 2 litres of the brew to yeast at the bottom of the fermenter -I just couldn't syphon them out through the massive yeast layer. I will not pitch a whole 11g of safale next time I do this short of a brew.

I'm drinking a bit of the brew right now and I must say it is pretty damn nice. There's a bit of a strong hop bitterness at the back of the mouth, but this should mellow off in the kegs after a while.

Barrelling: Yorkshire Terrier

I finally got around to putting the Terrier in a barrel today after three weeks in the fermenter.  All seems to have gone well and the beer tastes pretty good at this point.  Just got to wait a couple of weeks now for it to build up some CO2 and probably mellow out the hop flavours a bit.

Here are just a couple of shots from the barrelling process:

Next up I'll be starting a batch of Fixby Gold, which I'll put on as soon as the boiler room is free again to get the beer stock rolling.

Thanks for reading!

Update: 'I Agree With Nick' Summer Lightning clone.

I'm already kind of regretting the name of this brew, but don't want to change it really.  Anyway, politics aside, I put this into bottles and a mini-keg last week but forgot to blog about it.  Really, it was such a hassle I didn't want to write about it at the time, but feel like I should now.

I started off with 10litres in the fermenter, and the plan was to put half into the keg and half into bottles.  I've got a 10litre fermenting bucket with a tap on that I used as a bottling bucket of sorts.  I basically had a length of hose on the end of the tap to deliver the beer to the bottom of the bottle.  It kind of worked in theory as a crude bottling stick, but was a lot of hassle and I will therefor be getting a bottler before the next brew. By the time I had syphoned the brew into the bottling bucket, it was down to 8 litres on account of there being a whole pile of grossness at the bottom.  I guess this was mostly cold break material as this brew wasn't crash cooled.  Again, before the next brew, I need some way of cooling it quickly. Filling the keg went without incident but the bottles ended up being a pain and I only got 5 filled before I got too annoyed with holding the bottle and tipping the bucket etc.

Anyway, it's done now and I just have to wait about 4 weeks to tap the keg and see if it was all worth it.

In other news, the St Peter's Ruby Red is tasting pretty nice.

New Stuff AND St Peter's goes in the barrel

So, I remember mentioning in a previous post that as well as all the swell stuff I got for Chistmas, I was due something else that hadn't arrived in time on account of stock shortage or something.  Well, it arrived and my parents brought it up to me last weekend.

These will be what I put my self-designed beers into so that I don't have to make (and drink) huge amounts of experimental beer that might taste rank.  They should also get a bit of use at parties as they're a good size and less complicated than the other kegs I have.  This is how one keg looks with the tap fitted:

The kegs themselves are pretty cheap too so I expect to buy a few more and get a good rotation going on them.  There is also a plan in the pipeline to use these kegs to deliver homemade beer to my friends and family, which I shall elabourate on further once I've worked out exactly how it will work.

Also in the news today: The St Peter's Ruby Red has been put in the barrel and is hopefully doing its secondary fermenting as we speak.  I'll let you know how it tastes in a week (I'm not going to wait for it to mature properly).

Update: Geordie Mild

I know I should have put this in the barrel yesterday but the day ended up being too full with being hungover and playing boardgames (the crazy Tomb) so I thought I'd do it today.  Unfortunately I hadn't banked on this being the first day of term and therefor I am shattered so may not bother.  I'm just sterilising the sample jar and hydro ready to test it.  If it's the same again tomorrow, in the barrel it'll go (really can't be bothered with bottling any after the nightmare that was last time...)

Update: Wherry

Today marked a week(ish) since I put the Wherry into the bottles and barrel and it has been in the Boiler Room to (hopefully) do its secondary fermentation for a week.  So today I moved it out to the shed for some cold conditioning.  Most kits say they are ready to drink after a week or two but this is a lie.  The minimum conditioning for kits is normally about 4 weeks but 6-8 are preferable.  I've read that this one definitely bnefits from a long conditioning and that's good because the Linthwaite is going down quite slowly (thanks to the faff of it being hugely carbonated).

Will obviously let you know how this is when I eventually try it.  The next kit brew I do will be a Brupak's Brewer's choice Old English Ale, which I'm looking forward to as its a little more involved to make the kit up...

Bit of a Bottling Nightmare

So I finally got round to barrelling/bottling the Wherry today after school.  My plan was to do what I usually do to put the beer into a barrel then use the tap from the barrel with some tubing on the end to fill six bottles (I've decided I'm going to do this from now on with kits so I have some things to give to friends etc.).  A sound plan you might think?  Well, me too!

But NO!  Transferring into the barrel went fine, aided by a G clamp I bought today to hold the syphon tube in place.  However, my problems started when I realised the tubing I wanted to use didn't fit over the tap so I had to rethink my plan and ended up syphoning again out of the barrel into the bottles.  This was okay but I kept on over filling them and it was a bit hassle-ous.  The tragedy came when I tried to put the crown caps on the bottles.  Two of the bottles I had used wouldn't take the capper!  This means I've now wasted 2 pints (ish) of beer, which is pretty much a cardinal sin in my world...

That said, I now have a barrel and four bottles full of Wherry that ended up dropping to 1.010, which gives me a very rough ABV of 4.1%.  However, this is far from an accurate measurement (one calculator i found online gave me an ABV of 4.8%! Seems a little high...)

I shall post a picture once I've printed labels and stuck them on the bottles...

Barrelling Linthwaite Light

So, true to my word, I came home and checked the Gravity of this and found it was at 1.012 like yesterday.  Because I didn't think I'd be able to do anything with it later in the week and am heading to Paris for a week after that I figured I should go for it and whack it in the barrel.  I may regret this choice as when I got down to the bottom of the FV, I noticed a few bubbles still going, which suggests that the yeast was still a little active...Oh well...

So here's how it all went down:

I santised the barrel in question (the syphon tube, thermometre and other gubbins are in there too)

While that was going on, I set up the 'area' and boiled ~80g of Brewer's sugar in 200ml of water and left it to cool.

Moved the FV to the table.

Opened it up and had a look.  The bubbles up top should've told me not to do it really, but I'm tired and impatient...

Temperature probe and the aquariam heater.

Barrel done with sanitising and all rinsed out, we're ready to go.

Little suck on the end of the hose and we're in business.

Arty shot of the barrel filling up.

When it's all full up, it goes back to the trusty boiler room to do some secondary fermenting.







And I get a treat for a job well done:

This is the Coopers Stout I wrote about the other day, and it is lovely (this picture does not do it justice...)

Cheers!