SuperYorkshire Bitter

[Bribie]

Well Christmas is on the way, I've been brewing a series of Fosters style lagers & Australian Pale Ales for the family and a 21st birthday coming up, but I'm getting a bit nostalgic for the luverly North Eastern beers of my youth, wherever he buggered off to

Looking for something a bit stronger, over 5%, but malt driven and along the lines of a more copper coloured Yorkie such as John Smith or even Camerons Strongarm - although the latter is of course from Teeside but well in the family. I use the popular Aussie method "Brew in a bag" or BIAB which is a full volume, one vessel system. All the required liquor goes in at the beginning.

24l batch, 23l into fermenter.

The Grain Bill:



4000 Golden Promise Thomas Fawcett Floor Malted
500 Weyermann Munich 2
100 Carafa 2 Black malt
100 Carared for aroma

33l of liquor into the 40l electric urn and heated to strike temperature of 69 degrees.
Fit the elasticated bag (acrylic fabric)
Dough in and stir well, initial temp of 66.66 recurring (scary ?)



Turn off the urn, no need to apply additional heat - Passively lag for 90 mins with a kid's sleeping bag slipped over the top, then all wrapped in duvet. - set digital timer, walk away and have some beers. Darn my cornie of TT Landlord tribute has just run out.




Unwrap the urn, temperature is 65.2 : Using the skyhook and pulley system, hoist the bag to drain, turn the urn back on to bring the wort to the boil while last of the runnings are going in.



Rolling boil, spent grain has been put on compost heap, and now using the hangman's noose to lower the hop sock into the boiling wort.



Hop additions:

45 Progress pellets 90 mins
15 East Kent Goldings pellets 10 mins

Note: sadly due to quarantine restrictions we cannot get loose UK flowers in Australia although plugs are available.

Whirlfloc tablet for last 20 mins (Carragheen derivative)

Lid the urn, then rest for 20 minutes to allow the trub to sink below tap level.

Drain the near boiling wort into a sanitized "cube" .... a robust food-grade 23 litre HDPE 'jerrycan' available from hardware stores and camping shops.




The cube will be filled to the top with little or no headspace. Sterile wort cubes can be kept for several months if required (cf: jam and chutney and pickle making) but in this case it will be allowed to cool overnight, poured into FV with oxygenation and pitched tomorrow afternoon. (this is known here as the 'no chill' method as a counterflow or plate chiller is not used). 500g of inverted sugar will be added in the fermenter.

Yeast: Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Bitter liquid yeast. Saved from previous brew.

Oxygenate with a paddle twice a day for three days.

They can have their Aussie lagers, this will be my 'special reserve' for the holidays

[Deebee]

what sort of efficiency do you get?

[Bribie]

Around 75% on a good day - even with a good drain and squeeze of the bag there's still sugary goodness clinging to the grains. One tweak is to remove the bag to a big nappy bucket or small baby bath, do a 'sparge in a bucket' using 6 to 8 L of very hot water and put those runnings into the kettle. However you end up with too much wort so a two hour rolling boil - or longer - is required to get the wort back to where it should have been. Another tweak is to use a very fine crush, because with the bag you don't get stuck sparges.

I don't have a mill as yet so I just put in an extra half kilo or so of grain and I console myself with the fact that the spent grain in the garden gives me tomatoes and aubergines etc

[WishboneBrewery]

Looking good So this would be more like a Taylors Best with your hopping?
How do the Carared and Carafa effect things?

[Bribie]

Looking good So this would be more like a Taylors Best with your hopping?
How do the Carared and Carafa effect things?

I use Carafa 2 whenever I'm following a recipe from GW's Real Ale Book, in place of 'black malt'. In a mild I use it plus choc malt, and in a TTL I use choc but no Carafa, if you follow. I've had good results using it in a Strongarm style beer - and in this case I'm looking for a copper colour but not necessarily any choccy overtones. The Carared gives a bit more malt aroma - it strikes me as more 'luscious' in aroma than the plain old 'cooking' crystal malt.

Edit: hey pdtnc I see you live in Keighley, lucky man. In Australia TTL is the holy grail of many ale brewers. The bottled variety is available in specialty liquor stores but I guess the handpumped version is somewhat different. Luckily we get good supplies of TF malts, UK hops and Styrians , and liquid yeast of the 'stone square' family.

[WishboneBrewery]

Edit: hey pdtnc I see you live in Keighley, lucky man. In Australia TTL is the holy grail of many ale brewers. The bottled variety is available in specialty liquor stores but I guess the handpumped version is somewhat different. Luckily we get good supplies of TF malts, UK hops and Styrians , and liquid yeast of the 'stone square' family.

I do believe you've said hello on the Aussie home brewer forum Hi

[Bribie]

Aye, thought you sounded familiar