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AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 5:25 pm
by WishboneBrewery
AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale
I wasn't going to brew today, I was meant to be taking a garage roof off but feeling a bit crappy and its raining anyway... Sooo!!!

Recipe to 23L from the Graham Wheeler book :)

[edited by admin - you'll have to buy the book if you want to see this recipe! :wink: ]

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.046
Final Gravity: 1.011
Bitterness: 40 EBU
Colour: 27 EBC
I'm going to split the wort between 2 FVs and pitch Nottingham or US-05 to one and Pitch a litre of my large WhiteLabs Burton Ale yeast starter to the other.

Here's a few Pics :)

The Grain Bill with 5g of Chalk and 5g of Gypsum
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Mashed in @ temp
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Mashed in pH looking pretty good
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Hops Weighed out, 5g gypsum and 1 protafloc tablet ;)
img*I'd better not post the picture of the hops as it gives the hop schedule away!/img
Mash finishing temp, the first run of the Coolbox tun went very well :)
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The Clearest wort I have produced so far, the depth and size of grain-bed definitely has an effect on this, this is after using my mini 15L bucket tun and getting cloudy wort.
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FWH and 5g Gypsum
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Warming up with the first Batch Sparge
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Coming to a nice rolling boil
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My Mash tun performed admirably, good clear flow no signs of sticking :)
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10 min hops going in, chiller already in sanitising
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Cold Break
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The Clearest wort ever going into the FV :)
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OG, right about where it should be :) :) 1046/1048 @ 23.5 Deg C
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Left overs
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A fairly laid back brewday, started a bit confused with water treatments but got going after that :)
The Burton Yeast Starter was smelling good and sulphurous so I've high hopes for the batch that had that pitched, the US-05 will be the hoppy control batch :)

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 6:00 pm
by Jim
Apologies for the necessary edit, pdtnc.

Hope it goes well; that's one of my favourite beers.

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 6:56 pm
by WishboneBrewery
Jim wrote:Apologies for the necessary edit, pdtnc.
Hope it goes well; that's one of my favourite beers.
oops! I thought just saying what was in it without weights or percentages would be good enough #-o
If there's a recipe at Hopandgrain.com I'll add that as 'filler', thanks :)

Code: Select all

Black Sheep Ale


Batch Size: 21.00 L 
Boil Size: 29.68 L
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 28.2 EBC
Estimated IBU: 35.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:

Amount Item Type % or IBU 
3600.00 gm Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 82.76 % 
400.00 gm Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (3.9 EBC) Grain 9.20 % 
300.00 gm Crystal, Medium (Bairds) (170.0 EBC) Grain 6.90 % 
50.00 gm Roasted Barley (Bairds) (1199.7 EBC) Grain 1.15 % 
40.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (60 min) Hops 22.5 IBU 
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (20 min) Hops 5.1 IBU 
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.40 %] (20 min) Hops 5.0 IBU 
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.40 %] (5 min) Hops 1.6 IBU 
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.7 IBU 
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc 
1 Pkgs Ringwood Ale (Wyeast Labs #1187)

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:27 pm
by WishboneBrewery
All put to bed now :) Wonder if I should give the Yeasts a rouse after 24 hours?

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 9:56 pm
by OldSpeckledBadger
Sounds like another good 'un :)

It'll be interesting to hear what effect the different yeasts have.

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:30 pm
by StrangeBrew
Nicely done, one for me to try me thinks!

I've just had a couple of bottles of this one and christened my new Chimnea with toasted crumpets.

How's that wort chiller performing? You can still make me one if you have time on your hands! :lol: :wink:

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:00 am
by WishboneBrewery
Cheers guys :)
I think the chiller took about 25 mins down to 23 deg C, the connections where the hose meets the copper could do with a bit of modification as the hose gets a bit twisted in use and might restrict the flow slightly. ;) :roll:

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:37 am
by simple one
Nice pictures. Gonna have to retire the camera phone I think.

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:46 am
by WishboneBrewery
simple one wrote:Nice pictures. Gonna have to retire the camera phone I think.
I wish i was using my camera for more than just brewdays, its not been used creatively since last October! :|
I was thinking about using my camera phone to video bits of the brewday, though that might be too much hassle.

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:13 am
by WishboneBrewery
Little FV update ;)

The Whitelabs Burton Ale Yeast:
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The Safale US-05 Yeast:
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Bit of a difference, then Burton is all froth and the US-05 is sticky slime :)

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:51 am
by OldSpeckledBadger
Sticky slime doesn't sound that appealing to me.

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:53 am
by WishboneBrewery
I'm sure it will be fine, I seem to remember my last use of US-05 produced something minging looking :D

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:55 am
by PureGuiness
Is that WPL 0023? I've got some to do a Brakspear Clone and would be interested to know how your experience of this pans out.

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:29 am
by WishboneBrewery
Yep http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp023.html
The Large starter I made from it for Splitting smells really sulphurous and interesting, though the Black Sheep Ale isn't giving off that same aroma. Will post back here when its finally done and I have a comparrison between the two yeasts. :)

Re: AG#4 - Black Sheep Ale

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:28 pm
by WishboneBrewery
Just had a bit of a hydrometer session, and a taste... obviously!! :)

Safale US-05 tastes sweet with lots of Hop flavours, Gravity @ 1020

Whitelabs Burton Ale tastes dry with a somewhat Bland flavour, Gravity @ 1010 none of the nice sulphurous aroma that the starter was exuding.

Have roused both batches, I'd guess they'd both drop a few more points