Brew Day 17/12/2006 - Brakspear Special bitter

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Bigster

Brew Day 17/12/2006 - Brakspear Special bitter

Post by Bigster » Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:17 pm

Feels like I havent brewed for ages but wasnt that long ago looking through the AG section - 25 Nov. Anyway this one is taken from dave lines BBLTYB ( not many to do now :lol: )and is described as a ' delicious residual sweetness balances this hoppy strong brew'.

Dave Lines recipe is as follows for 25 Litres:

Pale Malt 3500g [3850g]
Crystal malt 150g [250g]
Flaked maize 250g
15 litres mash water
Molasses 60g
Soft dark brown sugar 250g
Fuggles 30g full boil
Goldings 60g full boil [50 goldings, 10 WGV]
Goldings 15g power off [WGV 25g]
Goldings 10g dry hopping [*WGV 10g added to primary after 10 days]

Mash and boil 90 mins each [ 75 mins each]

I made a few adjustments [in brackets]


Went like clockwork apart from mash PH :? . As always there were a few amendments made to the set up:

1. Water filter used for the first time
2. Mash tun fitted with some of that silver bubble insulation stuff
3. Mash tun had my digital thermometer fitted with the compression fitting sent my way ( cheers daab :D )

You know its going to be a good day - I had the water on timer for 6:30 but didnt wake up til 7 , checked the temp and it was 73, added to mash tun along with grain and the temp was 65.9c. Stayed at this for most of mash dropping to 65.5c at the end. Very happy with that considering how cold it was in the garage this morning. Just above the OG at 1046.

One thing that may be of interest to others is I thought I had the old stuck hop filter full of pesky pips after the boil. However I flicked the tap on and off quickly about 5 times and suddenly blockage cleared and lovely clear wort :D

Bigster

Post by Bigster » Tue Dec 26, 2006 11:40 pm

Advice needed please :D

I am going to bottle up some from this brew as a starting point to get a selection of beers for a tasting / AG talk I am going to do at my wine club in April next year. Have got all the stuff I need but not having bottled before:
1. I usually leave in fermenter for 2 weeks ( usually pretty clear ) then add finings in the barrel - is it ok to go straight to bottle from primary at this stage? Has been a steady 1010 ish for last 4 days.
2. Half a Teaspoon? of sugar per bottle
3. dont fill to top instead leave 1 inch gap?
4. Some of the bottles I have got are clear - should be ok as long as I keep out of daylight?

Cheers

Bigster

Post by Bigster » Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:09 am

:)Thanks daab - will add the gelatine today. Using gervin for the first time btw.

Bigster

Post by Bigster » Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:27 pm

Hmmmm :?
Not the finest start to a new brewing year that bigster breweries has ever had :( .
First off the 5 gallons of my usually reliable sauvignon blanc clone has amyl acetate ( pear drops flavour ) and now something is up with this brakspear bitter.
Unfortunately I had too many experiments
-Gypsum
-Water Filtered
-Boil for 75 mins only
-mash 75 mins only
-dry hopped in primary
with this one to be 100% sure what caused this but it is really rather bitter ( can still taste over an hour later :shock: ) but minimal hop taste/flavour/aroma :cry:

I think it is the mash PH - due to previous attempts with Gypsum I added a few capfuls straight in to the mash water before adding grist. However when taking PH paper test it was still showing on the purple side ( 6.00 ish ). Maybe the papers are not accurate :?:

Anyway not going to give up - will probably give the gypsum a miss next time and may invest in the magic 5.2 stabiliser at some point - has anyone used this and how have they got on?

Bigster

Post by Bigster » Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:57 pm

cheers daab - so for hop utilisation read 'more bitterness' rather than hop aroma / flavour :?:
So CRS and phosphoric acid do the same thing as gypsum without the bitterness (i.e lower water PH which in my case starts at 7.55 )

Thanks as always :)

mysterio

Post by mysterio » Wed Jan 10, 2007 10:30 am

Gypsum is full of sulphates which increase the perception of hop bitterness, too. It's best to use it sparingly.

Frothy

Post by Frothy » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:07 pm

Bad luck Bigster..... any way of rectifying it?
I just bought some Gypsum for the first time too.

Matt

moorsd

Post by moorsd » Wed Jan 10, 2007 1:30 pm

Hi Bigster!

I've just plugged your recipe into Pro Mash....and I think the bitterness is down to the amount of hops you put in more than anything else!

Based on the amount you put in it will give around 85 IBU's :shock:

Before I used Promash I always reduced the Dave Line recipes hop quantity by a third as apparently Hops these days have much better utilisation compared to when he wrote the books (Probably down to better quality and Vac Pack/Foil Packs)

It always worked for me anyway! I've never tasted Brakspear Special Bitter...but 85 IBU's seems quite high!

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Post by Andy » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:25 pm

Hmmm, just put the recipe into Promash and got 40 IBU :?
Dan!

TheBigEasy

Post by TheBigEasy » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:11 pm

Beer Smith gives 50 IBU's

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:05 pm

BeerAlchemy gives 48 IBU


Fuggles 5%
Golding 5.5%
WGV 6.5%

moorsd

Post by moorsd » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:12 pm

hmmm think somethings wrong with my Promash settings...worked it out on paper and got 48 IBU's!!!! :shock: :oops:

I used AA% content for the following:

30g Fuggles 5% AA
60g Goldings 6% AA

My promash settings are as follows:

Hop IBU formula = Rager
% Utilization increase or Decrease for mash hopping = -30%
% Utilization increase or Decrease for first wort hopping = -10%
Kettle size hop utiization scale factor = 1.00

What's going wrong, can anyone shed some light on why it's showing such a difference?????

Bl***y computers....just as you start to trust them they bite you in the ass!! :evil:

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Post by Andy » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:20 pm

moorsd wrote: What's going wrong, can anyone shed some light on why it's showing such a difference?????

Bl***y computers....just as you start to trust them they bite you in the ass!! :evil:
Mostly user error in my experience! :wink: :lol:
Dan!

Bigster

Post by Bigster » Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:14 pm

Thanks all for info. I think I will stop tinkering with water for the time being and start measuring the gravity when sparging so i dont over do it.

Hopefully harveys sussex bitter brew will take place this weekend. Will also tone down hops and increase dry hopping. In the meantime had better force some of this brakspear down :roll:

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Post by bitter_dave » Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:58 am

Bigster wrote: Hopefully harveys sussex bitter brew will take place this weekend. Will also tone down hops and increase dry hopping.
Harveys Sussex Best has 38 IBUs if this is any help; I discovered this the other day in Roger Protz's book '300 Beers to try before you die'. It also said that hops were added at different stages of the brew. :wink:

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