Imperial Star 240909

[adm]

I've found myself at a loose end this afternoon - Missus out at work, and my work nice and quiet, so I thought I'd get a sneaky brew on.

I've just mashed in with this:

Imperial Star

Grain Bill
6.5Kg Lager Malt
0.5Kg Caramalt
0.5Kg Belgian Aromatic Malt
0.5Kg Munich Malt
(Plus I intend to use 0.5Kg of Pale Demerara Sugar at the end of the boil)

I was originally going to brew an Imperial Pilsner type of beer using lots of Saaz, but I'm actually leaning towards a very heavily hopped New World type approach to use up three packs of hops that were in the freezer: Simcoe, NZ Cascade and Amarillo. I'm looking for about 1080 OG, 90 IBU

I've got a litre of Weihenstephan 34/70 yeast slurry from a lager I kegged two weeks ago. It's been sitting in the fridge at 2C under a litre of beer, so should be fine to use, so I will give this beer a lager type fermentation schedule. Not sure how it'll come out, but it should be a cracker.

More to follow....

[ChrisG]

Sounds another good one.

Looking forward to the pics

[delboy]

Thats a big beer adm, what does mr malty reckon on pitching amounts?

Im going to be repitching some w34/70 soon, but not on something like this beast (going to be a 5 % munichy lager with herbrucker..

Hope it goes well.

[adm]

Thats a big beer adm, what does mr malty reckon on pitching amounts?

Depending on the thickness of the slurry (and with viability set at 70%), MM says from 400-500ml for 23L of 1080 lager, so i should have plenty. There looks to be about a litre of slurry in the tub, so I'll have a go at separating some of the trub off and then pitch the rest.

Fingers crossed.

[Aleman]

Pitch the lot if you are going for a lagery type fermentation schedule.

[adm]

Pitch the lot if you are going for a lagery type fermentation schedule.

I just did! Lots of lovely healthy looking slurry. Crash cooling now.....

[adm]

OK....here's the pics!


Lager Malt - 6.5Kg


And the rest of the grain. Half a kilo each of Caramalt, Belgian Aromatic and Munich


Mashed in


pH looking good


And temperature too


Here's my recovered yeast. 750mls of SafLager 34/70 thick slurry


And some dirty close up yeast porn


First runnings


And some more


The rest of the hops, plus some sugar to boost the OG a bit. I ended up with Simcoe for bittering, some more Simcoe, plus Cascade and Amarillo for flavour and Cascade and Amarillo for aroma. I'll dry hop with the remainder of the Amarillo.


After the mash, I was surprised to see the face of the baby Jebus smiling up at me. Its probably worth a few quid on eBay


Boiling


Running off. Some fool connected his pump the wrong way around today... That caused some fun with hot wort....


Pitched and aerated


And finally....just under 23L of wort at about 1080. Works for me....

[WishboneBrewery]

Excellent pictures as usual
That is a very full grain bucket!

[adm]

I had to hand stack it.....and it was a bugger to lift to the mash tun without spilling the grain!

[mysterio]

Looks great!

You should notice the re-pitched beer is waay cleaner and should ferment somewhat faster too. Probably 7 or 8 days. What temperature are you fermenting at ?

[delboy]

Looks great!

You should notice the re-pitched beer is waay cleaner and should ferment somewhat faster too. Probably 7 or 8 days. What temperature are you fermenting at ?

The samples of the w34/70 lager that i made (3 packs in 5G) is still a tad fruity, im looking forward to seeing what this yeast can do on the repitch though. Hopefully as mysterio says it'll be much cleaner.

[adm]

Looks great!

You should notice the re-pitched beer is waay cleaner and should ferment somewhat faster too. Probably 7 or 8 days. What temperature are you fermenting at ?

I'm doing it at 10C. Hope it's not too low for it, but I figure with a hot pitch (22C) and the amount of fresh yeast, it should still do fine, even given the OG.

[mysterio]

I agree it is somewhat fruity on the first pitch, it's a terrible flocculator as well. I fermented my Oktoberfest at 9C on the re-pitch and it's as clean as a whistle.

[delboy]

I agree it is somewhat fruity on the first pitch, it's a terrible flocculator as well. I fermented my Oktoberfest at 9C on the re-pitch and it's as clean as a whistle.

Thats good to know, any plans to to do a further repitch? i was orginally planning to get at least two brews out of three packs before starting again, but if its significantly improved on a repitch i might chance a second repitch.

[adm]

Looks great!

You should notice the re-pitched beer is waay cleaner and should ferment somewhat faster too. Probably 7 or 8 days. What temperature are you fermenting at ?

The samples of the w34/70 lager that i made (3 packs in 5G) is still a tad fruity, im looking forward to seeing what this yeast can do on the repitch though. Hopefully as mysterio says it'll be much cleaner.

My original one is a bit.....not sure if "fruity" is the right word......but I know what you mean. Mind you, it hasn't been lagering for very long yet. I rescued a bottle from the lager fridge earlier when I turned it up to 10C to ferment the new beer. I hope that bringing the older lager up to 10C wont make much difference. It'll go back down to 2C after this one's done with primary.

I really need just one more fridge....