Santas tiple 9.10.10

[Deebee]

This years second and final Christmas beer was brewed on Saturday. For me it held a load of firsts.

It was the first time I have used any of the hops I used,
It was the first time I have use a yeast cultivated from a bottle
It was the first time I have used Aroma malt
It was the first time I have used sugar in a brew.

I guess the idea started when I looked for a recipe for youngs winter warmer, but then played with the recipe and ended up with what I ended up with.

22 litre brew length based on 75% eficiency.

4500 Pale
400 Aromatic
340 Dark crystal
225 wheat
500 brown sugar

The hoppy things

25 g centennial ( 11.45) @60
20 g cascade (6.7) @15
10 g Chinook (10,4)@15
25 g cascade @ 5

yeast harvested from a bottle of youngs special ale-

this should give me the following according to beersmith


Estimated OG of 1067
Estimated FG of 1017 ( this is debatable as i do not know the attenuation or strain of yeast youngs use in their bottle conditioning. of the yeast, although 1017 sounds rather high)
I should end up with something around 6.5% and with an IBU of 39 ish



The grain all fited into a bucket just about and I bought it in Friday afternoon in order for it to warm a litle. The garage is getting cold at this time of the year and although this is ok for storage, it means I need to bring it in in order to keep the strike temperature down ( whilst taking over the kitchen it is great to keep time use to a minimum.





SO.
Using my trusty and hi tech ( not) mash paddle I doughed in and hit 66.9 degrees. This was slightly more than I had wanted but I decided to leave it as it was and see if this would help enhanse the malt character I wanted.





I packed a cushion on top of the MT on top and 90 minutes later the temperature had dropped .2 degrees which was great.

First runnings were a nice deep amber colur, after the boil this turned into a nice dark reddish brown colour and is just about what I was after.




The centennial went in, and the boil continued as per the norm. The chinook and cascades went in with 15 minutes and the aroma was great. The chinook giving a great grapefruit type aroma off.




With 5 minutes to go the last of the cascades went in and all went as planned.



In the meantime I added some boiled cooled wort to the yeast slurry cultivated from a bottle

of youngs special




and after about 50 minutes it looked like this.




I ended up with 23 litres as opposed to the 22 I had planned but was 5 points ddown on gravity. I think that I need to adjust the boil off. I had to change the elements on the boiler a short while ago and although these are more than capable of maintaining a rollingboil they are slightly weaker than the older ones. I did a bit of maths and found out that had I hit my target and wanted to water back to the ( actual ) Og I got I would have needed to add just over 1 litre of water.. so this is where the adjustment lies.







Yesterday morning the living room smelt amazing although during the course of the day the airlock had the top blown off and there was yeast visible through the FV walls whizzing around all over the place. This morning there is still a huge amount of action, but a lot less tha yeasterday. I’ll take a gravity around Wednesday but need to decide as to whether I shall add some dry hops 8 cascades and chinook) or if I should add all three cascade, centenial and chinnok to the FV as a dry hop for say 5 days before bottling.

Thoughts appreciated.
Thanks for reading.

[Deebee]

gravity check on this one ( plus a small taster!)

it is now down to 1020 at normal room temperature and the major ferment is over, i hope that this will be finished by around about Saturday and hope for the Fg to be around 1016 or maybe a few points lower. having never used this yeast before and having no info on it i realy don't know what to expect.
One thing is sure though, it is definately not S04.

The sample was really smooth, with great mouth feel and the hops came through really well. At the same time the Aromatic malt makes its presence felt but not overpoweringly so. i can see a future brew with munich and aromatic in it i think.

i have never used the hops before as i mentioned earlier, but the combination is a good one and something i think i'll repeat in a future APA that has a lower OG

Hope to bottle this one up early next week.

[Naich]

Looking good. Are you going to dry hop or is it hoppy enough without it?

[Deebee]

it's a christmas brew so i'd like the malt to come through. I'll wait til i take another gravity then decide.

[Deebee]

this is now down to 1015 and bubbling a few times a minute, there is still a nice foamy head of top of the brew.

tastewise this is massively malty and the cascade hit comes through at the end. the bittering from the centennial is if anything a little undermined in fact but it is there.

I am not going to dry hop this one although i shall be waiting til around tuesdy before i take another gravity and then bottle.

So far this is a brew that sits around
6.3% abv. So i am happy with this one. the yeast appears slow to drop but is incredibly flocculant. Youngs have not given much away, they just said it was " the yeast used for secondary fermentation" . Either way this is not S04 or nottingham. I have used these before and they behave completely differently. think i harvest some of this stuff for future projects.

[Deebee]

took another gravity. Down to 1014. Think this is almost done. Chucked in a largish handfull of cascade pellets for fun. Bottling tuesday then 10 days in the warm before it goes to the garage:)

[trucker5774]

Brave on all those "firsts". Looks like it will be a cracker (no pun intended) I just can't seem to find the time to brew in the next week...............I can feel a 7%er coming on

[Deebee]

And another first.

i bottled this friday evening and had run out of sugar. it was late too so i had a rummage and found some coopers carbonation drops. I used these in all bottles too so we'll see how that works. they are an extra cost but save a lot of hassel and mess with using pure sugar.

Seems to be carbonating well, reddish brown hue to the brew and the smell from the Fv when bottling was amazing. looking forwards to sampling this in about 5 weeks ( have to check before i start giving it away huh:)