Brewing: Brewer's Choice Old Ale

So I'm back at school tomorrow so probably should have been finishing off lesson plans and that sort of gubbins today, but the Linthwaite is looking kinda low and I need this brew to be ready to go into that barrel when it's empty, so figured I'd stick it on now.

Only took a few photos partly because most of what I did has been charted on here already and partly because I was also cooking dinner towards the end of the brew so didn't really have time.  So let's go:

The ingredients for this brew.  This particular kit is different from the others I've done in that it's a dry kit.  In that there silvery packet are some muslin bags containing various specialty grains and hops, which get steeped in hot water for a time, then the liquid i mixed with all that Spraymalt (2kg of the stuff) and diluted to the standard 23 litres.  I liked the fact that I didn't have to open any cans.

This is the bags in the pan, ready to have boiling water poured over them.  As far as i could tell, there was one bag of hop pellets (Fuggles I think) and three different bags of grains (no idea what they were).

The bags steeping.  They give off a wonderful smell.

And finally here are the used bags, looking much like spent tea bags.  I had a good old poke and sniff of them and ascertained that one of the grain bags was quite fine, black and smoky, making me think it was black malt or something similar.  Another smelt kind of caramellish, so that could be Caramel, but I'm no expert.
After doing this process 3 times (a 20 minute steep each time), the rest of the brew was the same as ever: mixing in loads of spraymalt, adding cold water and pitching yeast.  I think it all went well, but the proof will be in the drinking in about 2 months.

I guess that's me done, thanks for reading, I'm off to bed to panic about tomorrow...

Bottle Label

So the amazing Henry Ireland has made me an awesome label to put on bottles.  This is it and I love it, there will be plenty of bottles of beer coming your way soon Henry!

Wherry progress

Again, progress as in how it's going, not as in the hops (I think I'll start using the word 'update' instead).

Just check on the Wherry at teh 24 hour point and it's got a healthy frothy head up top, which is encouraging.  Look:

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!