Home Brew Forum

Its been a while since i posted a brew day and this one was from 2 weeks ago We have a town regatta coming up so i need stock for family and friends so i brewed anouther HH house bitter (that is sitting in my new ATC800 controlled fridge cold conditioning) and this Townes IPA which is my 5th AG. I am starting to get the day and equipment pretty much sorted

Anyway on to the brew day.

Townes IPA
25L OG1045

4460g Maris Otter Pale Malt
230g Wheat Malt

52g Cascade (7.1 AA) (40 IBu) 90mins
20g Cascade 15mins
25g Cascade steep at 80°c

Water treatment
Daabs test kit gives my water as 169mg/l Alkalinity
i used 44ltrs of water so added :
34ml CRS
Sodium met
Gypsum 2gms
Calcium Chloride 6gm

PH 5.3

Yeast: Crouch Vale brewery

Collected 27ltrs at 1044
FG 1010

HLT heating up mash water


Strike heat


Doughing in


Mash temp hit


First runnings


Hot break


Cooling


Pitching the yeast


Warm conditioning 6 days


And the HH house bitter in the fridge

good work and great pics sllimeel,

I wonder if Townes is rapidly becoming the most hammered recipe on the forum?

Garth

Yes it does seem to be I thought it must be good if everyone seems to be brewing it and if the the first "quality control" tasting is anything to go by this will be very good in 3 more weeks, oh the waiting

Excellent, I think I'll give a "proper" IPA recipe a go (minus the months of waiting).

BTW, when you boil to the hot break I notice you have your hops in already. I wait until the hot break is reached (and it's a rolling boil) before adding any hops. Isn't this the norm?

stevezx7r

I added the hops just before the hot break as the boiler was pretty full and it stopped it boiling over

Daab

I haven't tried a mash with just CRS treated water, but the treated water with just CRS and no salts was tested at 27mg/l so spot on alkalinity wise The salts were added to all the water (whizzed in a blender and split into two 22ltr batches). The PH has always been in and around the ballpark figure with PH papers, which is strange as the CRS on my Bramling beauty was a 60ml addition for 40ltrs double the amount now and only 1gm of calcium chloride That brew was very bitter, could this have been through to much CRS I will have to brew that again and compare with today's treatment.

stevezx7r wrote:when you boil to the hot break I notice you have your hops in already. I wait until the hot break is reached (and it's a rolling boil) before adding any hops. Isn't this the norm?

Adding hops to the wort before a full boil is reached does control the degree of foaming that occurs as the wort comes to the boil, and can prevent a boil over from occurring.

Also steeping a qty of hops in the wort as the wort is run off and comes to the boil leads to a less harsh more pleasing bitterness (First Wort Hopping - Sort off)

The downside is that you extract slightly less bittering from them . . . plus skimming the gunk that forms as the wort reaches boiling is more difficult

That sounds like a lot compared to mine, I need roughly 1ml per litre so 50% more although water with that level of alkalinity may exist and it may vary that much (no idea to be honest though). Assuming your alkalinity doesn't vary much then i'd imagine the bitterness was down to the CRS. I presume you used a water report for that, could you have used the hardness figure by mistake perhaps or were you given the calcium carbonate as HC03 and forgot to divide it by 1.22 ?

Daab

Yes the figure i got was from a water report and made a mistake I have brewed 3 beers now since using your test kit and all have been excellent As i said, i will brew Bramling Beauty again and see what it should have been like

but the treated water with just CRS and no salts was tested at 27mg/l

That should read as The water treated with CRS and prior to salts being added was tested at 27mg/l

How is the tap fitted in your nordic mash tun? Do you have the tap going striaght through the side into a syphon tube that goes through a false bottom?

How is the tap fitted in your nordic mash tun? Do you have the tap going striaght through the side into a syphon tube that goes through a false bottom?

Richard

Photos speak a thousand words, hopefully

Mine came with a tap so i used the original fitting and took it to a plumbers merchant who helped out with the extra fittings. Works very well by the way.

I hope these help?

Manifold


Close up on inside fitting


Tap exterior (with feet in shot )

Oooh - all shiney, gadgety, beery pictures, very nice - been a while since I have seen such fine beer porn...

Enjoy

macleanb

been a while since I have seen such fine beer porn...

I hope you had tissues handy

Most certainly not, I'll be going home for the real thing!

Ahhh! The old copper pipey false bottomey thingy! Cunning!
I'm caught between doing that and going wholesale vossey on it's ass.
The Dremel is calling to me.