AG#3 London Pride 4/5 Mar11

[Lewy]

Evening folks
Big fan of Fuller's beers, 2 of the 3 ingredient orders from Brewzer in Jan were this Pride and the Porter some time soon. Went to the Griffin Brewery on a tour a couple of weeks back, hoped to blag some yeast while there but no dice. So ordered some WLP002.

So anyway started the Pride brew on Friday night. From GW's BYOBRA, understand posting his recipes on here is bad form, you know the recipe, aimed at the 23lt. Trying to improve on the first 2 brew, started early and made a starter two days before from the white labs vial, some pale spraymalt, and boiled water.
Here it is on the sat befoe pitching. decanted most of the malt before pitching.

Also upped the ante on water treatment, though probably getting wrong. Used CRS fo the first time, 0.8ml/l of liquor based on my measured alkalinity of 173ml CaCO3. I confess I didn't measure it on brewday, but relied on my measurements from a month ago Also used a campden tablet and teaspoon of gysome in mash and boil.
Short on time as ever, mashed in at 67.7c at 10pm on Friday, prepared the next days liquor, and got up with the kids in the morning to resume. Mashed with 13ltrs of water per 4.1 odd kilos of grain, though a longer mash may benefit from more.
At 7.30am it was at 62.9c, so lost 4.8c in 9.5hrs;

Sparged at 83c, sparging with assistant. She went through H&S training first;

Ich bin ein Vorlaufer;

From left to right: actual first runnings to boiler 1088, Mid sparge 1016, final runnings accidently chucked , from boiler pre-boil 1040

Another sensational first! first use of Upsy Daily plate to skim boil filth;

Thy money shot


28ltrs at 1046 collected. Guitily pitched at prob 27c as had to go out and was impatient. Checked today, 3 days after pitching and it's down to 1014, bubbling stopped, will let it sit for a few days see if it goes down any further.
Fingers crossed it turns out something like the Griffin version!
cheers
Lewy

[staplefordbill]

Looks good! I'm a fan of London Pride and I have some WLP002 so I'd be interested to know whether yours tastes like the real thing in a few weeks. London Pride from BYOBRA was the first AG brew I made, but I used Nottingham yeast and it ended up lacking in body. And the yeast is a large part of the Fullers taste.

I have an assistant too! She's 4 and and she likes stirring the mash. The other one (7) hates malty smells and she steers well clear.

Out of interest, why did you skim the crud off the top of the boil? That should settle as break so it won't be transferred to your fermenting vessel.

[fego]

Nottingham made my LP attempts very thin tasting, S04 was ok but the WLP was much better.

Can't ever get the colour right though, even with 50gm of black it still comes out pale.

[Lewy]

Bill - yeah the elder brew assistant, 4yr old lad, when I tucked him in the other night said 'don't forgot to say goodnight to the beer'! Bloody cheek. Course I wouldn't forget...

Crud skinning - no huge thoughts into it. A lot of the hops get caught in it. Mr brew sensei Richard Burns recommends it, but then others doesn't bother and someone told me it helps with head-retention to leave it. You think I should leave it?

Tasted this when checking gravity last night. It is smooth, but perhaps a little dull. Less hops than I've used before. Early days yet though...

[floydmeddler]

How has this turned out?

[Lewy]

Hi mate, meant to update this (and first 2) a while back

This spent a week in primary, a week in secondary, and was batch primed with 60g of sugar, disolved into 200ml boiled water. I got 44 500ml bottles out of this, bottles 19th March.

This turned out great, much better than my first 2. What really sticks out is the chewy toffee-like flavour and nose that you get from Fullers, this I presume is the WLP002 at work. also maybe cleaner taste as this was the first time I used CRS and was able to properly calculate reducing.

As for a like-for-like comparison, took some of these to a mates and two of them did a blind tasting versus Fuller's LP from cans (yes I know, but they got the cans not me!). Bigger frothier head on mine. The colour was pretty much spot on. After tasting I asked one of them to guess which was which and he got them the wrong way round. Both said mine tasted better, though they were being plied with free beer!

There is something a little awry in this beer, that has only really become more pronounced recently, perhaps oxidation, I really don't know. Slight metal-taste perhaps, some vague twang. Sure if I got my arse in gear and was more disciplined with technique this would go away. Even so, this is still a v tasty beer, one that will get brewed again when I have crossed a few more off my wish list. It was WLP002 that made the difference to my earlier 2.

Cheers,
Lewy

[floydmeddler]

Excellent. Cheers Lewy. I've always wanted that 'chewy' toffee flavour. This is on my list now. I actually have Fuller's yeast so I may use that.

Cheers!