Not too sure why, but woke up last Wednesday and I felt Inspired to do a brew. So got to work and took the afternoon off. Sorry no pics, misplaced the camera again,
Anyway, normaly buy way too much grain and end up having bits and pieces stashed away. So this is what I came up with. A mongrel of brew rather than a pedigree.
Inspired by the 60min Doghead hopping but with Crystal hops (Tangerine) and teamed with the "apple and pears" of Burton-on-Trent yeast. Rolled in with the following malts (%).
Pale malts 86.0
Cava Munch 8.0
Vienna 4.0
Wheat 1.5
Pale Choc 0.5
And why stop there I thought. So I mashed on the low side 63c for 2hours. I believe this will make a heavy dry beer? Alright the truth was I was playing on the PS3 and forgot to set the timer and check the temperature.
The funniest part about this brew was the hoping. In the 25L wort I had worked out that I would need 33g for crystal hops at 3aa to get a mild bittering (0.02081g/500ml). I still don't understand the IBU scale that the rest of the World seems happy to use
, hence the grams per 500ml above. My very own scale. Going back to the point. I had 67g remaining of the 100g pack. This seemed very continent as I could add 33g for the scent and again 33g for flavouring. I wasn't too sure if this was a good idea. Then I hit me, I could add X amount of grams per min. So a 90min boil would be 1.111111111g per min. And I would get a fuller hops taste etc. But ah, the scales I use aren't that great. 1.111111g could well be 2.11111g. Any way I was bound to need a pee in that 90min due to the, um, last 4 brews and quality checking
So my next question is. How long will it take me have a pee and get back (with hands washed)? Talking of which, answer ~ 3.5 mins on a stop watch. So I decided on an every 5 min hoping from 90 to 5 min, making 18 editions in total. The 19th is the not so secret vanilla Pod and coriander seed at 0min flame out. I would put more in, but the sage and onion stuffing might have been a tad too much.
The result was poor. I was looking to get 1.046 SG but ended with 1.039. Think this was due the mass of hops, low mash temp. And taking the lid of every 5min during the boil.
Looking on the up side, it smells fantastic and gone off like a train.
I do wonder how I end up with beer worth drinking sometimes. 