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.

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...

First Taste: 'I Agree With Nick' Summer ightning clone

I cracked open a bottle of this honestly not knowing what to expect last night and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  It wasn't overly carbonated, which I quite like and is probably down to bottling method (the real test of this beer will be when I tap the mini keg).  The colour is a bit darker than Summer Lightning is, which I think is due to the boiling of the extract, I'm looking into ways of avoiding it next time. Taste wise, it is very light in the mouth and not overly bitter.  It has a wonderfully pleasant hop aroma and taste that is nicely balanced (I'm starting to dislike overly hopped light ales because they are everywhere, so this is a good thing).

All in all, I'm very impressed and will now forge on ahead with extract brewing, knowing that I can produce genuinely good results.

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).

Future Plans

So I'm feeling in a speculative mood (looking to accumulate, y'see) so thought I'd put some of my ideas for developing the Boiler Room into more than a glorified bucket...

For Christmas, I have various relatives and significant others coordinated to hopefully furnish me with some lovely new kit so that I can move to the next level.(Extract brewing).

First up, SWMBO (the light of my life) will hopefully be getting me one of these bad boys which, while it calls itself a mash bin, is a boiler with an electric element and a thermostat thingy. This is what I will use to boil the malt extract and hops up together so that they can do their mgical stuff.  It's a 25 litre capacity, so should just about be able to manage a 23l boil (40 pints) without too much risk of boil over but I intend to start off with just very small batches of about 10 litres.  My thinking is that this will enable me to hone my skills more and try out more different things without ending up with huge amounts of beer to drink (I've heard that the stuff's not overly good for you in large amounts...)

And from my parents I'm hoping to receive one of these nifty starter sets.  This is because 10litres is nowhere near enough to put in a big pressure keg like the 2 I have atm, it would risk infection or something.  So the plan is to put half of each 10l batch into one of these, then bottle the other half, giving me a stock of bottles for comparisons and gifts, then a mini keg of each brew to crack open when desired, or take to parties.  The tap system on these is also simpler than the S30, meaning that the flatmate might feel better about drinking my brews.

As I said, my plan is to get a good few extract brews under my belt, then move on to all gain brewing, probably doing small batches to start off with again, but after I'm used to how to do it, who knows!

Plans for the more immediate future are to get the Woodforde's Wherry kit I have on my shelf going at some point this week to give it plenty of time to stop fermenting and start clearing before the budget barrel is available...