Home Brew Forum

If the weather behaves itself I will be brewing this tomorrow

Why one earth brew something like that I hear you ask? It was a challenge thrown down at the Northern CBA meeting in January to brew a light ale for drinking on a summer day 1.035-1.040. The real trick with this one of course is that there is nowhere to hide dodgy practices . . . like in all pale beers really. . . . I'm hoping that I can hide something with all that late hopping with well over 50% of the IBU's coming from the 30 Minute addition . . .. its not quite a hop burst/bomb but its getting on that way.

Have a gooden Aleman

I'm hoping to.

And for a change I'm going to be batch sparging as well. . . . Now I haven't got round to converting the 80L Thermobox yet so am going to use the 50L converted keg tun . . . . Which is going to restrict the amount of liquor I can use. According to Daab's batch sparge calculator I am going to need 91L in the kettle pre boil, and need to use two equal batches of 45.5L . . . . I can see me crying over spilt wort . . . So I am going to try three equal batches of 30L , adding 13L for batch one, then two more batches of 30L. . . . I might also consider under letting the sparge liquor to see if I can reduce the amount of fines that get through my FB.

DaaB wrote:

It was a challenge thrown down at the Northern CBA meeting in January to brew a light ale for drinking on a summer day 1.035-1.040.

Sounds like a doddle to me That's pretty much all I brew now, i've heard it said before, what sort of flaws would you expect though ?

Expected flaws . . . . . None but oxidation is more likely to make its presence known, Haze is more obvious, Balance needs to be spot on. The latitude to get away with perceived flaws is greater in darker beers

Well Grain is weighed out and in the airing cupboard, I have 90L of water in the kettles, Concorde will be lit as soon as I crawl out of my pit tomorrow morning.

I must admit that I am also considering moving the fuggles to the 30 minute addition leaving the Bobek for the 15 and 80C steep . . . . Just keep the qty the same . . . Just run it through promash and decided to up the Bobek to 125g at 15 minutes . . .Looking more like a hop burst as time goes on

Good luck tomorrow Aleman

Hope it goes well

"Wake Up! Wake Up! . . . It's a Beautiful Mornin'"

Lit the burner about 30 minutes ago, athe the sun is shining, it is going to be a good day

Just off to make a cup of tea, while the water heats up . . . I forgot to crank the pressure up to 1.5 bar on the propane reg so it was running at 0.35 bar . . . not going to heat up rapidly

Hope it all goes well. Its a lovely day up here too - shame I'm not brewing too.

Sorry guys . . . No piccies on this one

However the boil was started 10 minutes ago, with 15g of fuggles in aech kettle. . . . I'm not happy with the gas situation so have shortened to a 60 minute boil just in case. All in all a very smooth session so far . . . undershot my pre boil volume by 5L, but its a stronger wort than anticipated, so I can dilute it back as the boil goes on. . . . . Batch sparging is great . . . OK I had to do three Batch sparges with this Mash Tun, but very simple and a mash efficiency of 84% is a damn good result . . . Have to see what the brew house efficiency is . . . theres a lot more hops to go in yet

Very interesting recipe, hope it goes well.

150g Bobek in for the last 15 minutes . . . I think this will have a big hop flavour

Its lucky that the hops will suck up the wort as I've just realised that I forgot to scale back the batch volumes from a 90 minute boil to a 60 minute boil Oh well with any luck it means I'll hit my target volume now

Time to get the 50g steeping hops weighed out and the IC ready to go.

Steeping and cooling under way . . . . What Have I done wrong? . . . Answers on a postcard please

I'm guessing there's no hop strainer in there

My god with all those hops in there you could get away with chicken-wire for a hop strainer

Nice day to be brewing Aleman