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.

Brewing: Summer Lightning Clone

I've just finished making my second ever extract brew with the boiler She Who Must bought me for Christmas ages ago. I used the same recipe as before (a clone of Hopback's Summer Lightning from Graham Wheeler's 'Brew Your Own British Real Ale' book), but with some changes. I decided to try using liquid malt extract instead of powdered, because it's cheaper and the powder is a real ball ache. I also now have a proper set of scales so could measure the hopping more accurately. Lastly, I added more liquor so it will be weaker than it should be (the original is about 5%, which explains all of those drunken summer afternoons in the Jolly Brewmaster).

My overwhelming impression of the experience was how long it took to do. Several things lead to it taking much longer than I anticipated:

1. The boiler kept cutting out after the 1st hour of boiling. This is apparently a well known problem with my boiler, and down to the thermostat and the element having temperature cut-outs built in. I don't remember this happening last time, so I'm going to try cleaning the limescale off the element before next time.
2. I had to cool the wort using a couple of frozen coke bottles full of water. This seemed ingenious to me when I thought it up, and I imagined plunging the frozen bottles into the wort with steam flying up round my ears. It was, in reality, much less dramatic and less effective than I thought. It took well over half an hour for the wort to cool to pitching temperature, meaning I didn't get a cold break (the beer will be cloudy), and it took longer.
3. I don't have a hop filter fitted to the tap of the boiler, and couldn't find any hop bags, meaning that the tap got very clogged up with hop debris when I was running the wort out into the fermenter. This took absolutely ages, and I ended up having to blow up through the tap several times to clear it.

After this experience, I have decided that I need the following pieces of equipment:

1. An immersion chiller
2. A hop filter for the boiler (one to fit 'Electrim boilers')

It is my birthday coming up, so my family should really be reading this...

Anyhow, the beer is fermenting now (I hope), I realised after I'd opened the packet of Safale yeast that there is twice as much as such a short brew needs in that pack, so I'm hoping it should go like bajeezus. I ended up getting about 8ltr from the boiler and topped that up to 12 in the fermenter to give me a starting gravity of 1.035. it should turn out as a nice, session type ale, but very very hoppy (possibly too hoppy).

Don't call it a comeback

Things have been deadly quite on here for over a year, which is a real shame. Anyhow, I stopped brewing for a while thanks to a couple of brews going bad in a row and work becoming more hectic. i was also a little worried about how much beer this hobby was making me drink, so I had to think of different ways of doing it.

So, now to the present. I've moved house with my lovely fiancee (can't work out how to get the accent on the 'e') and now live in a lovely cottage. Several friends have pointed out that this house suits homebrewing so it'd be a crime not to do any, therefore: I'm starting up again. Last week I brewed up a kit for Woodforde's Great Eastern Ale and it is doing pretty well. I tested it today (about a week on) and it's down to 1.019 from 1.040, so I'm planning on leaving it in the fermenter for another week (I'm pretty sure I remember leaving things for 2 weeks before) and then whack it into some mini-kegs. That's the other thing: it's my plan to stop me drinking the stuff too much. I'll split the brew into mini kegs so that it'll keep better and I'll only have to drink it up once I've cracked into a keg. It won't last as long once opened as a standard large keg will, but that'll just stop me from tapping one on a whim on a Tuesday night.

Anyhow, I'll update here next week when I've (hopefully) put the Great Eastern in the kegs and talk about what I have planned next...

Update: Fixby Gold

Just got a chance to test this today, after roughly 2 weeks in the fermenter.  It's dropped down to 1.012, which I reckon means it has stopped.  Unfortunately, my second pressure barrel sprung a leak with the last brew I had in it so I need to buy a new one before I can barrel this.  Hopefully that should arrive by next weekend and I'll sling it in there then.  An extra week to let the yeast settle out a bit more shouldn't hurt it.

On another note, a friend and I got pretty seriously stuck into the Terrier last night and it was good.  Didn't even feel too bad this morning either...

Brewing: Fixby Gold

So I put this brew on a few days back (Tuesday 7th) but haven't got round to blogging about it till today.  As it is a two can kit it was really easy to sling into the fermenter and get going.  I'm a bit worried as it didn't get a massive foamy head going up in the first day, but it seems to still be going quite strong.

The Terrier is building up lots of gas but is not clear enough for drinking yet.

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: Yorkshire Terrier

I got back from a lovely weekend in Northern Ireland (or Norn Iron as the natives call it...), which incidentally is a total dry spot for real ale. If anyone knows of any decent breweries in the County Tyrone or County Derry areas it would be great if they could let me know.

Anyhow, I've just tested this brew and it is down to 1.014, which is showing good progress.  I guess I'll check it again in a couple of days then put it in a barrel at the weekend, all being well.  Had a cheeky taste from the test jar and it seems to be losing quite a bit of the harsh bitterness it had when it first went on.

Brewing: Yorkshire Terrier

So it's been ages since i posted anything here, because it has been ages since I brewed anything.  Various things have happened to stop me from doing anything but now they have all calmed down I figured I should get back to it, even if just to do a kit and get my beer stocks back up.

Handily, I had a kit knocking about that the old housemate (She Who Must moved in the other week...) bought me for my birthday.  It was Yorkshire Terrier by York Brewery, so I stuck that on.  It was pretty much a standard kit apart from it had a pack of hop pellets to steep first.  They didn't come in any sort of permeable bag so I whcked them in a hop bag I had knocking about so I could yank them out when the steeping was done.  Not sure if this was the right thing to do as the instructions were very vague, but I'm sure it won't change much.  Other than this the main memory I have of this brew is how much of a pain it is to dissolve spraymalt.  It took ages and all the stirring I had to do made a bit of a mess, but it got done in the end.

I pitched a pack of Safale S04 by just sprinkling it on (normally I rehydrate but actually read the packet this time which said just to sprinkle).  Checked it this morning and there's a massive head of foam in the fermenter, so it's all good I guess.  I'm a little worried as I had a taste of the wort before pitching and it was very hoppy, almost astringent, so I hope this doesn't turn out like the St Peter's brew that I did last which had such a weird after taste (probably from the hop powder) that I only drank half of it...

Anyhow, we'll see how it goes.

Update: I Agree With Nick (Summer Lightning clone)

Gave this a test this evening.  The SG is down to 1.016, which seems a little high so might leave it another day or so.  As ever, I tasted the sample and it had a good level of sweetness and was very bitter (probably something to do with the slapdash way I measured the hops), but this should mellow after some conditioning.

My main worry is that it looks very cloudy and there were large chunks of what appear to be spraymalt floating about in it.  I guess this is down to me not mixing the extract in well enough before the boil but I don't think it will effect the beer particularly.  I really hope it clears well in the keg, or it'll be a bit disconcerting to drink.

Name for Summer Lightning clone, and Homebrew Primer started

I mentioned the other day wanting an election themed name for the brew I made the other day and Housemate has come up with one for me.  As I made the beer on the day of the first televised debate, it will be called "I agree with Nick" as that was such a popular phrase during the debate.

Also in the news, I have begun writing a Homebrew Primer.  Several people at school have asked me to write a little thing that explains the process of homebrewing and the equipment one needs etc.  On account of me being nice and all, I decided to oblige and sat down yesterday and wrote.  It all came quite easily and I ended up with about 3,500 words written quite quickly (about 6 pages).  I'm going to write one more section, edit it it etc. then make it available for free download on this site.  It will start off just about getting into kit brewing as that's the simplest and the one I know most about, but it will expand when I learn more about the other methods.

Update: Summer Lightning clone

Checked on this this morning and it has started fermenting away nicely.  I didn't put the OG on here last night, but it was 1.044, which is a bit higher than it should have been (1.041), but that's cool, it'll just be stronger.

Brewing: Summer Lightning clone (First ever extract brew!)

So, this is the beginning of my extract phase of my brewing journey.  I'll explain it all in more detail at some other point but this basically means that I'm no longer relying on someone else to do the hopping for me, but I am relying on them to do the extraction of the the sugars from the malt.  Luckily for you, I managed to take some photos whilst doing it, so i'll talk you through how it went down...

I decided I wanted to do a really simple brew for my first go so I chose the clone of Summer Lightning in Graham Wheeler's near ubiquitous book Brew Your Own British Real Ale.  As I also only wanted to be making 10 litres at a time to start with, I plugged the recipe into Beer Engine (also by Graham Wheeler, he seems like a great guy).  This meant I would only be using small amounts of hops so instead of using 2 different types of hop (1 for bittering, 1 for aroma) I decided I could afford to use just the one hop.  This really means that the beer I've made isn't much like Summer Lightning anymore, but oh well.  The long and the short of it is that I ended up with recipe for 10 litres of a simple, one type of malt and one type of hop beer.

After all of that japery, and having ordered the ingredients etc, I finally got down to brewing today. 

I started by marking out some measurements on the inside of my boiler as the ones on it already are a) on the outside so you can't see the water level, and b) pretty obviously wrong.

I then weighed out the ingredients, the Spraymalt was quite easy as I needed 1400 grammes and had 1x1kg bag and 1x500g bag.  The hops were a little less easy as I need 31g, 10g and 6g, and my small, precise scales were not to hand.  This meant that most of my hop amounts were enitrely guessed (the first thing that could make this a disaster).

Once the ingredients were weighed out, I mixed the Spraymalt into the water that had already been warming upto about 50C.  This was just as tough as it is when doing kit brews and gave me a really sore wrist, but got done eventually.  The froth on top here is a product of my thrashing it, not any boiling or anything.

Once it was all stirred in, I turned the thermostat up and set out to get the stuff boiling.  I was pretty chuffed with this thermometre holding arrangement until (about a minute after this picture was taken) the tape gave up and dropped the thermometre in.  I just had to hope that I wouldn't find it smashed at the bottom once I drained the boiler.

This is it just starting to boil.  The frothy stuff here is scuzzy material that gets kicked up by the boiling.  This part of the brewing is called the hot break.

The froth built up incredibly quickly and because I was taken photos, I almost didn't notice it has pretty much reached the top of the boiler.  Luckily I turned it down in time and it settled down again.

Once that died down I chucked in the first lot of hops( ~31g).  I'm using hop bags at the moment because I don't have a hop filter fitted to the tap.

It seems I forgot to take any photos when the other two hop additions happened, but one of these (~10g) went in 10 minutes before the end, and the other lot (~6g) went in right at the end and just got steeped for a while.  This was the less than satisfactory solution I came up with for the shelf thing I had the boiler on not being high enough.

After some searching I found stuff to build up the shelf with, and it went pretty smoothly from there.

I ended up getting pretty much exactly 10 litres, but I'm not sure what OG it has yet (will update when I know).

This is the junk left in the boiler after I ran the wort out, the astute among you will notice the thermometre (not smashed) wedged at the bottom.

And this is where it is as I type.  Obviously the wort is really hot afte the boil so it need to be cooled before pitching the yeast, hence standing it in cold water.  Ideally, it should be cooled much quicker (crash cooled) to facilitate a cold break, which helps it clear.  I don't have the equipment to do that, though, so this'll have to do.




Thanks for reading, I'll update you as the fermentation of this one proceeds.

EDIT: Finally got around to pitching this at about 10:00.  It had been at a low enough temp for a while actually, but I was engrossed in the leadership debate so couldn't do anything about it. I suppose I should give this brew a suitably election-based name, but can't think of one yet.  Answers on a postcard.

First Taste: Linthwaite Light

 The Linthwaite should be ready on Monday but I'm an impatient man so I've (tried at least) to pour myself a pint tonight.  It seems that I may have over primed it slightly as the pint I just drew off was actually only a half of beer with a half of head on top.  Hopefully this will settle down a little because it is a cracking beer.  Will definitely be trying another of these Brupaks Pride of Yorkshire kits...

Temperature Issues

So I've got a Brupaks Linthwaite Light fermenting at the moment but thanks to my latest gadget I have noticed that the temperature has been getting a bit high during the days. The max temp has been up near 30 for the past couple of days...

I'm putting it down to the aquarium heater I hang in the brew being on the fritz possibly. Guess I'll have to check it out in some water after this brew is bottled. This will no longer be a problem after I've sorted my temperature control cupboard (a fridge with a heater in it and one of these). There will be more on this in the future...