Manic Mongrel Summer Pale 160709

[adm]

I got another brew on yesterday.....started at 1pm and done by 5.30pm as I was taking the missus out to the West End to see the musical of Priscilla Queen of the Desert...

I'm aiming at a fairly light coloured, well hopped strong summer ale with a bit of extra malt body to balance the hops. An almost but not quite IPA....

Manic Mongrel

Grain:
2.5Kg Maris Otter
2.5Kg Lager Malt
0.2Kg Light Crystal Malt
0.2Kg Munich Malt
0.1Kg Torrefied Wheat

Hops:
UK Susan 9.8% AA 23 g 23.1 IBU Loose Whole Hops First Wort Hopped
NZ Rakau Organic 11.5% AA 5 g 5.9 IBU Loose Whole Hops First Wort Hopped
UK Susan 9.8% AA 35 g 16.3 IBU Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
NZ Pacific Gem 14.0% AA 10 g 6.7 IBU Loose Whole Hops 15 Min From End
NZ Nelson Sauvin 12.5% AA 31 g 0.0 IBU Loose Whole Hops At turn off
NZ Pacific Gem 14.0% AA 8 g 0.0 IBU Loose Whole Hops At turn off

The hops were chosen to use up some more empty packs. I didn't think much of Susan as an aroma hop in an earlier beer, so I've chucked it in the first and second additions to use it up, despite it being the lowest AA hop. I managed to finish off 3 packs of hops here.

Yeast was US05 (again...). Water treatment was TA reduced to 20mg/l with CRS and 1tsp of gypsum each in the mash and boil.


The grain ready to go


Doughing in


Mash temperature is good


So's the pH


Topping up after the mash to batch sparge


First runnings


Here's the first wort hops doing their stuff


Coming to the boil


The other hop additions. Flame out instead of an 80C steep today as I'm short on time. Must be finished by 5.30....


Running off into the FV


Aerated


And the final result......

I got 24L at 1.053 instead of the planned 23L at 1.049. It looks like it's time I upped the efficiency figure in Beer Alchemy

I got done just in the nick of time, jumped in the car and off we went. I had to do the cleaning up today though!

[Parp]

Another excellent brewday lad!

A sprint as well

The other hop additions. Flame out instead of an 80C steep today as I'm short on time. Must be finished by 5.30...

Could have popped the IC in. Last time I was doing an 80degree'er I'd turned around, considered scratching my arse, looked back and found the wort at 76C.


I'm off down one of the geographical locals in a minute for a quick shandy and to get the family out of the house on a lazy sunday.

http://www.thetyne.com/

[yashicamat]

Looks like a lovely beer that, Alasdair.

Couldn't help notice though . . . :

I got another brew on yesterday.....started at 1pm

Then I saw this picture:

Looks like you were doughing in before 1pm . . .

[adm]

Looks like a lovely beer that, Alasdair.

Couldn't help notice though . . . :

I got another brew on yesterday.....started at 1pm

Then I saw this picture:

Looks like you were doughing in before 1pm . . .

That's what I mean by "start".....now i've got the PID controlled HLT I don't have to wait for water to heat up, so my starting time is when I get the mash on.

[yashicamat]

Looks like a lovely beer that, Alasdair.

Couldn't help notice though . . . :

I got another brew on yesterday.....started at 1pm

Then I saw this picture:

Looks like you were doughing in before 1pm . . .

That's what I mean by "start".....now i've got the PID controlled HLT I don't have to wait for water to heat up, so my starting time is when I get the mash on.

Nice one. My start still requires half an hour of faffing about with the HLT.

[Garth]

good brewday there Alasdair, and some fine hop choices, will be interested to hear how they go together

do you have enough beer now? or is there still space at the back for more.

[adm]

do you have enough beer now? or is there still space at the back for more.

Good question.....I do have room for more, but sadly all my FVs are full so I'm going to have to wait until next weekend before I can make more.

I feel insecure and paranoid if I have empty cornies sitting around....

[WishboneBrewery]

I think I was working up to asking you that very question..... Just how much can you physically brew? As you always seem to have something new on the go..!!

Personally, 1 more extract brew and I'll almost be bursting at the seems!

[Garth]

I feel insecure and paranoid if I have empty cornies sitting around....

good lad, that's the spirit

[adm]

The thing is, if I'm at home, I can drink a corny a week by myself. Easily.

3 or 4 pints a night, plus a couple in the afternoon on the weekend and it's a wrap. I'm really only doing corny plus a few bottles brew lengths, so that means I need to brew every week.

Luckily, I travel a lot, so i don't actually drink that much.

But - I do have people round, and also take a few beers out when I go places, so it kind of balances out really.

[Parp]

That sound's like a job my mates brother had.

Writing billing software for mobile phone companies.

He'd get ferried all over the place and get all sorts of perks, get paid a shedload and could work whenever he fancied as long as the stuff was done.

I'll keep on working for the NHS - I'll leave the bitterness to the beer! hehe!

[adm]

Well.....first pints of this this evening (after a quick 8 miles mountain biking with the dog and a short stop at a local pub for a pint of Langhams "Flor-Ale" which was lovely).

First thoughts are....very nice indeed. 5.7% ABV in the end, with a nice smooth mouthfeel and surprisingly gluggable. The hops have all merged together well, with the Pacific Gem and Nelson Sauvin dominating in a good way. That's the last of the Nelsons though.....and I'm not going to order any more until I've made a bit more of a dent in my current hop stocks.

What's more, I've got another keg free now so i can keg the faux Lager i brewed 2 1/2 weeks ago at last, and get another brew on....maybe tomorrow....maybe another New World type Pale Ale...I do like them so!

[mysterio]

Great photos as usual ADM.

You brew a lot of hoppy pale ales: do you have any trouble keeping hop aroma in the keg? Mine seems to vanish pretty quickly. I have a theory it's because i'm allowing CO2 to bubble out by not always keeping the CO2 hooked up. Got some hoppy beers lined up so we'll see if I can sort it out.

[adm]

Good question.... I haven't really noticed much loss of aroma between starting and finishing a keg to be honest, and i think my beers normally have a lot of it (mind you, I tend to throw anything up to 50g of aroma hops in at flame out, or 80C, and also to use a lot of quite aromatic hops, and often to dry hop as well). I am a complete hophead though....

I don't bottle much, so i don't really have much comparison either. I do keep the CO2 hooked up permanently, and I tend to go through a keg pretty quickly normally - apart from the really strong beers, which aren't normally highly aroma hopped to begin with! All in all, I seem to be a pretty crappy test case for this....

I'll tell you what though, i do have a few bottle of this latest beer, so if I remember as the keg gets lower, I'll do a head to head between a bottle and a kegged one and see what the results are.

In other news, I just posted I wouldn't buy and more Nelsons....but I've already hit the "buy" button on Craftbrewer.....must....get....more....willpower.....