Old Man's Brown Bitter - 2010-12-18

[Invalid Stout]

I'm brewing this today and aiming to have it conditioned in a polypin on New Year's Eve. Am I mad?

It's aiming to be a nice ordinary easy-drinking bitter.

4100g pale malt
200g crystal

Mashing now at 68ºC. Just about to look in the freezer to see what hops I've got.

[Invalid Stout]

Well, that went well. Aiming for around 1.042. I found I had some Fuggles and Styrian Goldings so they'll go quite well. Boosted it with Magnum to a total 41 IBU.

....just about to add late hops and protofloc now .

Oh, and I'm changing the name. Long Johns Bitter. Brewing is a good way of heating my rather chilly flat at the moment.

[mysterio]

I think it should be easily ready by Hogmanay , I'm brewing my new year beer on Monday.

[adm]

My hosepipe is all frozed up. Thought about brewing today, but no water in the garage put the kybosh on that.

[coatesg]

Ditto. My hosepipe is under 7 inches of snow. No brewing until at least Christmas, New Year or February at this rate! No way of cooling the wort

Good job I have 4 half filled cornies and one full, plus 5g in a fermenter!

Hope the brew went well - have a great new year with it!

[Invalid Stout]

7 inches of snow.

No way of cooling the wort

[196osh]

7 inches of snow.

No way of cooling the wort

[Invalid Stout]

The race is on to see if this will ferment in time! It's bloody cold so it's taken the yeast until this morning to get a decent krausen on. It needs to be racked to a polypin on Christmas Eve to carbonate in time for the 31st ... biting my nails here

[beerlover36]

cooling wort in the snow is a good method, I tried this a few weeks ago when we had the first heavy stuff. Just put it outside with an airlock on and push as much snow as possible up against the sides of the FV, keep pushing the snow up against the side every so often as it melts

[Invalid Stout]

It looks like I won't be able to rack this until after Christmas — only down to 1.030 so far! Looks like I may have to buy my Hogmanay beer.

Still, it's good to have proof that US-05 will still work at lower temperatures!

[mysterio]

I'm sure pantsmachine said he was using that yeast at 12C or something ridiculous

[Invalid Stout]

I'm sure pantsmachine said he was using that yeast at 12C or something ridiculous

It does work, just glacially slowly. Down to 1.023 this morning. 8ºC.

[mysterio]

Gads man, do you not have a warmer spot in your house

[coatesg]

cooling wort in the snow is a good method, I tried this a few weeks ago when we had the first heavy stuff. Just put it outside with an airlock on and push as much snow as possible up against the sides of the FV, keep pushing the snow up against the side every so often as it melts

It'd take *ages* to cool 5+ Gallons with just snow round the fermenter - I'm sure someone tried it before and it didn't work too well (if nothing else, I would freeze in piling the snow up before the wort was cool!). I could cool 5G in half hour or less using the IC - especially if I could actually run the hosepipe through the snow to chill the cooling water even more, and not freeze the thing solid...)

[mat69]

build a snowman round it