Northdown Bitter 23/01/09

[adm]

Today I'm off with a single hop Northdown Bitter. Exactly the same recipe as the Goldfinger EKG Bitter I did a few weeks ago (but have now run out of!)

Pale Malt: 5kg
Amber Malt: 150g
Wheat Malt: 150g

25g Northdown First Wort
50g Northdown 15 mins
30g Northdown Flame Out

Safale S-04
Water treatment to "Dry Pale Ale" setting on Gtaham's water calculator.
This should work out to 23l at around 1048, 40 IBU

Currently about an hour into the mash. Late start today as work want me to do stuff for them as well.

Pics to follow later!

[Mauri]

Thanks to mctoon there seem to be a lot of Northdown around of late!
I am going to brew a Northdown bitter as well tomorrow.
Recipe:


Hope you have a great brewday.
Mauri

[adm]

Thanks Mauri,

Same to you for tomorrow!

The boil is going on in my garage right now - and my office is above the garage, so there is a lovely Northdown aroma wafting all around as I work!

[pantsmachine]

Nice one, you don't half brew a lot of beer! Just bought the last 2 bags of 200g Northdown off McToons current ebay auction. Realised it can't be long till they are all gone so might as well. Now what can i brew with 1/2 a kg of Northdown?

[adm]

The problem is.....I also drink a lot of beer!

Almost finished now....chilled down to 25C but I've got to join a bloody conference call, so it'll have to sit and settle (covered) for the next hour or so....

[jubby]

I notice that you are drinking your Susan Golding ale adm; how is it? I used the Susan hops in my Old Bag recipe. 50g at 15 min and 50g at flameout. It's just about ready to drink and I am pleased with it but there is no aroma whatsoever. Is yours the same?

[adm]

I had to go and get a pint to find out.....

The aroma is actually pretty subdued. I do get a typical EKG aroma, but not a lot from the Susan hops...I'm not quite sure whether they are adding anything or not!

I then had to get a glass of my Winter Sun Imperial IPA to contrast - and i almost fell over from a snootful of the aroma of that! Which reminds me - I need to take the dry hops out of it as they are right at the point of going "grassy" if i leave them in any longer.

[adm]

And here's the beer porn:

Grain bill


Mash in


Mash pH around 5.1 I'd say


And alovely big bag of Northdowns from McToon - cheers Mal!


Mash finished


Hops weighed out and ready to go


First runnings into the kettle


Cold break beginning to form


Loadsa lovely trub and hops


And finally.....I ended up with about 21l of wort at 1050 instead of 23l at 1048. I let my boil go for too long as I was on the phone. It was close to 2 hours rather than 90 minutes, so I lost some extra to evaporation. I could have diluted it, but it'll be fine as is - there's enough for a corny and a few bottles so that's good enough for me.

All in all, a nice smooth brewday.

I'm going to try and do another Stout tomorrow if I have time - I have last week's one still sitting in the FV and want to reuse the yeast cake.

[Robdog]

Sounds like a good day mate. I think im might have to get another obne on soon.

[adm]

It gets addictive, doesn't it ?

I'm a bit obsessive by nature...so I tend to get a little carried away with my hobbies. I'm also learning to bake proper bread at the minute so my Missus is getting a bit fed up with all kinds of yeast related parephenalia around the house.

The good thing with brewing is that the more you brew, the more beer you have. This is OK as it doesn't really go off.

Bread, on the other hand gets stale rather quickly.

[arturobandini]

Breadmaking eh adm?

I've also just started getting into that having previously thought it as impossible as making good beer. Hopefully my first ag (sitting waiting for me to get my arse into gear) will put that myth to bed.

Do you use fresh yeast in your bread? If so where do you get it from as I haven't seen it anywhere? I'm pretty happy with the bread flour I get from my local organic shop (Doves) and have been using their dried yeast too but I think that the bread doesn't get enough of those big co2 pockets even when left at good yeast temps for 24hrs. The bread comes out delicious though and well risen and I've been relying exclusively on the book Dough by Richard Bertinet. A good purchase if you ask me even if some of his recipe ideas are impratical he seems to have the correct approach to good bread

[adm]

I haven't used any fresh yeast yet....but i do keep meaning to make dough with some beer yeast from the bottom of an FV. And also to replace the water with beer!

I've found an interesting technique for quick, but very good bread with big CO2 pockets. Basically, you make a big batch of dough up in advance and you can then keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. It gets better with time too. You make a really wet dough - 1.5kg flour, 1.25l warm water, 2 tbsp salt, 2 7g packets of yeast. Just mix it all together, but DONT knead it...... stick it in a big box with a loose lid and leave it for about five hours to rise then bung it in the fridge.

When you want to make bread, just pull off a grapefruit size piece, shape it and bake. Takes just 5 mins and the bread is great. The dough is very wet and quite difficult to work though.....it's really sticky!

The holes get bigger every day, and after a couple of days, it starts to get that sourdough tang too.

That book looks good...I might get myself a copy.

[babalu87]

I need to try something like this.

Bitter is something we ALWAYS have on draft here at the house and I'm curious about the FWH then a 15 minute and flameout

Do you get the bittering that a 60 minute addition gives?

[adm]

I've had good results so far with FWH.

What I've been doing is to get half of my IBUs from the FWH, then the other half from a large 15 minute addition. I've not done any split brews to let me get a fair side by side comparison, but all the beers I've done this way have been really good. The hopping seems to be very smooth - even when the beer is quite young, and they all have had great hop flavour.

Give it a go - it's worth trying.

[babalu87]

I've been FWH but its only been for flavor additions (replacing anything from 10-30 minutes)

I need to brew a Bitter soon too....................................gotta keep that stuff around, the wife always notices when its gone