AG#2 big hop. (cleaned up brewday)

[floydmeddler]

Thanks for the advice. I'll get some gelatin at the weekend. Is it better to stick to brupaks gelatin or just any old stuff from the supermarket?

Get the supermarket stuff. I use the sheets. Put 3 sheets (or 6 grams of powdered) into a pot along with 150ml of COLD water. Leave for 10 mins then very gently, bring the heat up to 85c then switch off immediately. Put a sheet of kitchen roll over the pan then the lid on top of that (stops condensation on the bottom of the lid meaning no drips will fall onto the gelatine mix) and leave for 15 mins. Then sit pan in a sink of cold water for a min or so to drop the temp. Doesn't need to reach room temp - around 50c or so it OK. Tip into secondary.

Give it a try. It should leave your beer pretty much crystal clear.

[bigdave]

I racked off to secondary last night but will grab some from tescos tomorrow and pop it in. Cheers

[bigdave]

Had a little sample this eve... honey on the nose and caramel in the mouth. While thats not unpleasant, its alot more confectionery than I would normally drink so thought that a dry hop wouldnt go amiss. but I need some advice as to what I should use to sharpen the aroma up a bit. My current arsenal is Saaz, Chinook, Challenger, Fuggles. Advice?......

[Deebee]

chinook will make it citrus, grapefruit.
I'd personally have a 1, 1.5g pr litre split 50-50 challenger, fuggles for a week at least

[bigdave]

Coudnt resist the bad ass that is chinook so ive gone for a 50/50 chinook/fuggles! I konw the chinook will bastardize the fuggles but I kinda thought that with the bittering being fuggles based, it may be a reasonable combo...

[bigdave]

Bottling time! She's gunna bloody kill me!

[WishboneBrewery]

She'll kill you because you cleaned the bathroom?

[RdeV]

Good on you for rolling up the sleeves and getting stuck in!
A couple of observations:
85IBU? That's really bitter! Or have I missed something? For OG of 1.052, >80 IBU is way OTT for most styles, if you want 'hoppy' then add the majority later in the boil as flavour and aroma additions, adding early will just make it bitter as hell.

Leave the krausen in the FV is my advice, you're not doing it any favours by skimming the stuff off- that's actually a goodly proportion of the whole batch's population you're discarding (ale yeasts are not known as top fermenters for nothing!). You wondered why more kept showing up? The hops debris will flocculate of its own accord, next time just leave it be.

Hope it works out!

[bigdave]

Thanks for the replies, Strangely enough she didnt kill me! It was just when I sent 2 litres of beer flying across the kitchen that she got cross!!

Im finding myself preferring the mouth puckering american brews so overly bitter is no bad thing in my opinion but I didnt make it that bitter on purpose. I guess its just another part of the learning curve!

[bigdave]

labeled up the bottles tonight.




Ive never used gelatin before but Im guessing these chunks are just it doing its stuff?..




Was concerned to see this bobbing around the bottom of one bottle so I opened it to have a closer look but it broke up into more tiny chunks so again I'm guessing it was the gelatin starting to form a yeasty jelly: