Jim's Northeast Brewer's Night.

[Eric]

Will look closely at the yeast on hand to see if there is need to culture or if there's sufficient on hand to make a decent starter within a day of brewing.

Next event will be Monday March 23rd when Dr Keith of BrewLab will attend with students and beers from their Darwin Brewery. This has to be the occasion above all others when brewing questions of any level ought to be well fielded.

A Darwin beer finished this evening's session, Beagle Blonde. Blonde beer? Yes, but the bittering I could not recognise and for a while wondered whether there was intent to replicate a taste found in HMS Beagle's bilge wells. Wonder if the hops came from somewhere the ship visited?

See you there.

Edit. Think the hops must have been Apollo.

[Eric]

Indeed, the eagle has landed. Thank you so so much, Eric!
I'll keep you guys posted on my findings.
Hey, we should each share our fermentation details here (OG, FG, temperature, time span) in order to learn this yeast's performance thresholds.

So far I've made 3 starters, and 2 brews. The starters were well behaved, but the brews have been harder to manage.
Performance hasn't seemed to be as temperature conscious as expected from what the brewer said, maybe because it was more critical to his operation.
It takes off fast and is easily top cropped, but think I did this too soon on the first brew which, combined with a relatively high mash temperature resulted in a longer fermentation and higher FG than expected.
It was found necessary to stir back the yeast after 36 hours and every 12 hours thereafter to keep the yeast under control and fermentation going.
Second brew details are, OG 1066, fermentation temperature 17C.
Gravity after 60 hours, 1038; 84 hrs, 1030, 108 hrs, 1025; 132 hrs, 1022, 156 hrs, 1020 and allowed to cool expecting a further 3 points drop in the cask to give 6.5% ABV.


Paul said he'll come down at 9:00 on the 23rd for the quiz.

[woblylegs]

ive used the yeast on a "courage directors" clone from the GW book and used the target hops from the meet up.
og 1046. 24 hours in and i paddled the wort about as norm advised me to. 3 hours later there was signs of life. it got quite vigorous and i had to clean the airlock out 4 /5 times per day until it calmed down on day 5. its day 9 at the moment and i checked the gravity today as theres still activity from airlock. its at 1014 at the moment but still has a good krousen . the taste i had from the trial jar was beautiful. im going to check it again tomorrow as according to the recipe it has a few point to drop. ill then cold crash it and go from there.
thats grand Paul is coming down Eric. we need all the help we can regarding the quiz lol

[Eric]

Sounds a great brew, I loved Directors when it was on at the local club.

Pushed the lid off mine as you will see. Left it off until towards the end of day 5. Definitely worth harvesting.
The first brew has been in the cask a week now and it's tasting good.
We can do with all the help we can get in the next quiz.

[woblylegs]

jim, that bottle was very nice. carbed nice and bitterness was to my taste .its a lovely beer. clear as a bell too.
i was spoiled with them beers you fellas kindly gifted me to try. ive a few bottles to pass in return thats ready to drink.
Monday night is the gathering. be nice to see a few more faces if anyone is thinking of coming. should be a canny night.

[Jim]

jim, that bottle was very nice. carbed nice and bitterness was to my taste .its a lovely beer. clear as a bell too.
i was spoiled with them beers you fellas kindly gifted me to try. ive a few bottles to pass in return thats ready to drink.
Monday night is the gathering. be nice to see a few more faces if anyone is thinking of coming. should be a canny night.

I'm relieved it was OK, and glad you enjoyed it. I've had a few pints of the draught version, but it's still not running quite clear yet (still nice though!). Looking forward to sampling some of yours.

I must get some reviews up of Eric's brews - I've sampled 3 now (all very nice) and have the tasting notes, but just haven't got round to putting them up. Still got to try Norm's bottle as well.

[Normski]

I think tomorrow is the next brewers night. Fitzgerald’s in Sunderland
It would be great to see some new brewers. We always have a great night.
Loads of fantastic beers to try. The guest brewery talk and beer samples are always very interesting hic.
It's a great pub, One day we'll even win a round of the quiz.
We always go home with bottles of beer.
And there’s always a thing to learn from the very knowledgeable brewers assembled.
Norm

[Jim]

Does anyone know if Alix101 is still coming?

[woblylegs]

no idea Jim.
norm id say would have messaged him to see if we need to pick him up on the way.

[Eric]

We need as many as we can get, Paul's dropped out again.

[Eric]

Now is the winter of imbibement
Made glorious summer in this side of York:
And all the clouds that lower'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the quizzes buried.
Now are our brews bound with victorious wreaths;
Our swollen gullets stand as monuments:
Our stern responses replaced with free pint tickets
Our heartfelt answers to delightful measures.

Another great night.

Just getting better.

[Jim]

Eric, you realise your poem doesn't rhyme don't you?

Joint first in the quiz eh? We're getting better. I'll have to remember the free pint tokens for next time though!

Another great night as you say.

[woblylegs]

that was down to your input Jim. we were middle of the row until that round come up.
good crac in good company. thanks.

[Eric]

Soliloquy Jim, the original didn't rhyme either. Too much of a good thing, me thinks, with time to reflect on the walk home.
If only more folk were able to come. Great night, but Matt made no mention of the next that I heard.

[seymour]

Hey, we should each share our fermentation details here (OG, FG, temperature, time span) in order to learn this yeast's performance thresholds.

Indeed we should, after all we have a strain well mutated thought to be nearing its end and in need of replenishment. However that might not be so important for us as it is in a commercial world, needing to be an extra half degree warmer that it originally needed to get a quick start mightn't be a problem. In the cultures I made there was no temperature control, they were at whatever temperature our kitchen was, depending upon time of day or night and what might be cooking. Despite underpitching into Sunday's brew at just 15C, it was covered while slowly raising the temperature overnight to just above 20C by the morning, it started well and the cover removed. Then it was set at 18C and skimmed to remove any hop oils and debris that might have come to the top, then top crop harvested on Tuesday and Thursday when it was covered and alloed to cool to 16C. It had continued to ferment for longer than expected so the temperature has been upped to 18C with intent to take a gravity reading tomorrow. The OG was 1045 and there were 24 litres...

Okay, time to practice what I preached:

I revived Eric's Cullercoat's Brewery yeast sample following Wolfy's excellent "From Slant to Starter - In Pictures" thread. A great guide, by the way, we should make that a sticky.

I don't have all the official sciency stuff (flasks, innoculation loops, etc) but I made do with what I had and practiced good sanitation throughout. I did all three increased steps and luckily didn't smell or taste any off-notes, so high hopes. My starter solution was comprised of plain dry malt extract, a wee bit of molasses and hops, to about OG 1030. My temperature was around 64°F/18°C throughout. The actual wort I pitched it into was more complex and stronger (OG 1051) as you can see in my Seymour Festival Mild brewday post. Does the ester profile, performance, and dropping like a stone remind anyone else of Fullers yeast? I'm not suggesting that's what it is, it just reminds me of Fullers more than any other familiar strain so far.

Eric, thank you again, very much! I am very excited to be included in this group experiment.