Home Brew Forum

Howdy!

Not posted a brewday here for a good while, so I thought I'd share my latest effort.

A number of years back, when I lived in Bolton (near Manchester), the Howcroft Inn was the usual venue for the camra beer festival. Ah, fun times were had.
Anyway, I particularly remember a fantastic grapefruit ale which I've never seen since. I don't remember the brewer or name of the beer, but boy was it good!

So this is my attempt at a grapefruity ale....with actual grapefruit zest.

Label


Recipe
For 15L...

Estimated OG: 1.056 SG
Estimated Color: 12.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 46.0 IBU


Grain + Salts
The salts added aim to make Burton water from reverse osmosis water


Hops


Sparge


Boil & Hot break
The break was quite pronounced in this beer. Fascinating!


Grapefruit!
Only added the zest. Went in at 0 mins.


Steep hops
I think I reached saturation point with these hops.


Collateral Damage
For IPAs I usually blitz the hops in the wort with my hand-held food processor. This beer broke the processor. Good sign?


Burton Yeast



All in all, a good brew day. The hops smelled fantastic, especially the simcoe.
In the temp-controlled-fridge at 20 deg c for a few days, then dry hop with...simcoe I guess? Maybe chinook too.

Cheers!

Pretty hefty hopping there...
What was the thinking with the food processor? Maybe I'll drop the toaster in my next brew or attack it with the Angle Grinder

Really like the sound of this. Be keen to hear how this turns out as would give it a go myself.

Nice pics too.

millstone true grit or pictish brewery ring any bells andy??

Thanks for the replies!

The food processor I use (or 'used', rather) to try to break down the hop cones. Sort of get a hop-pellet effect. Hopefully, that should release a bit more hop oil into the brew. In fact, after 5 minute blitzing, i usually end up with a thick oily green layer on top of the wort.

Pictish i know quite well, coming from Rochdale originally. Not heard of the other brewery. I did used to live a stone's throw away from bank top brewery in bolton. Always nice smells around there.

Cheers!

Great idea! I'll watch with interest. I love adding zest to beers. I prob would have went for S05 though. Personal preference I suppose!

i was refering to those two cos they both do very grapefruity pales, quite a few of the pictish are andthe true grit by millstone is very grapefruity

Wow! Just took a small sample for gravity testing (it's now at 1.008).

Amazingly hoppy, with a strong obviously-chinook aftertaste. Even more amazingly, I think I may have stumbled on a pretty close Jaipur recipe, which I've been trying to achieve for a while. See here (design) ... and here (brewday). Lately, my Jaipur-sense (a bit like Spiderman's spider-sense) is well honed, what with the local Waitrose stocking it....and I'm tempted to think it's a little better in the bottle??? contraversial!

I'm fairly sure that the main flavour is coming from the Centennial rather than the Simcoe, as I've done both 100% Centennial and 100% Simcoe brews before. Simcoe seems to be a bit sweeter than what I tasted in this sample.

Any grapefruit??? Hmmm, too early to tell I think. Certainly not in-your-face, but perhaps a tiny bit in the aroma? We'll see soon!

I plan to get this fined with gelatine on Saturday/Sunday (not gonna bother with the dry-hop), keep it at 3 deg c till Thursday when I'll bottle it. Got good feelings about this one.

Quick update.

Transferred the beer to secondary yesterday, along with a packet of gelatine.

The beer was at 4 deg c, so not sure if this masked the flavours somewhat. Still very very hoppy, resinous, and thick. Slight grapefruit flavour in the aftertaste. I'm tasting mostly the chinook at the moment, I think, difficult to tell when it's so cold.

Bottle on Tuesday - can't wait till thurs!

Looking forward to the bottled................and open bottled report

Nice clear pics there.

Bottled this the other day. This is a sample I took whilst bottling:




A quick tasting review:

Appearance: Nice pale-amber sort of colour. VERY clear considering the amount of hop oil this probably contains. Zero head, despite a tiny bit of carbonation already - probably because it has been held at 4 deg c for a good while.

Aroma: Huge hop aroma. Mostly chinook-y from what I can tell. Citrus and resin. Not grassy at all, which suprised me a bit.

Taste: JAIPUR! YES! This is absolutely the closest to Jaipur I've gotten. I'm not sure if I could tell the difference between the two in a taste-test. Intense hop, tangy, tropical, um bongo concentrate, citrus, resiny, beautiful!!!! Mildly detectable alcohol, but certainly not overpowering. A good dose of chinook a couple of seconds later, smokey, slightly soapy maybe but not unpleasant at all. Perhaps a bit of a give-away that this isn't Jaipur after all.

No grapefruit . Until, that is, you swallow the beer, and the aftertaste is ALL GRAPEFRUIT. Sweet jesus! Incredible. No sh#t, the aftertaste is just like taking a bite into fresh grapefruit flesh. Wow.

Do this: buy a bottle of Jaipur and a grapefruit. Drink a mouthful of the beer, then take a bite of the grapefruit. You've just experienced this beer.

Mouthfeel: slight carbonation (even during bottling). Not thin at all, nicely smooth. Loooooong, long, persistent grapefruit-cum-hop acidity.

Overall: 94 / 100 ...easily.


Instantly, this is not only the best beer I've ever brewed, but I'm rating it up there with my all-time fav beer (Jaipur, which I give 95/100). This is simply wonderful. Can't get over it!

Calming down slightly, and being more critical... I don't think the chinook is well placed in this beer. It's a magnificant hop - and one of my favourites - but it's too domineering here. In a re-brew, I'd either replace the chinook with a lower alpha citrussy hop (cascade even?), or just reduce the addition by half.

I'd also like to see the grapefruit in the initial flavour, rather than all at the end. Perhaps giving the grapefruit zest some boil-time might achieve this? I suppose the main question really is 'Did the zest create the grapefruit flavours here?', or is this just because I've used known citrussy hops throughout? I'd be tempted to believe that beacuse the grapefruit is all aftertaste, and the zest was added after the boil, that the zest is the main grapefruit source here.

I can't wait to see how this develops in the bottle.

Thanks for reading!

Excellent review! I'll have to brew this one I think. Perhaps instead of Chinook, Bobek could work? I really love Bobek so I would say that anyway!

Now about a month old, so an updated final review:




Appearance: Slightly darker than when bottled?? How does that work then?! Golden/Blond, bordering on amber ish. My EBC software (2nd photo above) says this beer is 3.5 EBC, which I'm not entirely sure is correct!! Given that my program is comparing it to stout, probably doesn't help. Eye-balling it, I'd say about 10 - 15 EBC. Nice head (served at 15 deg c).

Aroma: Slight grassy hop, but mostly resiny. A bit sherberty too!

Taste: You'll note from the recipe that there is no bittering hop addition to this beer, and this is why: there is a good amount of bitterness here after 3 weeks in the bottle. If I'd added bittering hops to the boil, this beer would now be ALL bitterness. Lesson learned from previous IPAs!

The chinook has calmed a good deal, some grapefruit in the flavour now, a bit of tangerine, and quite citrussy.

No more mistaking this for Jaipur. This has changed quite a bit, mellowed somewhat. The grapefruit aftertaste is still there, but not as strong as before. Also a little more alcohol peeking through.

Mouthfeel: Much more carbonated, between a lively ale and a dull lager. Quite fitting the flavours actually. Nicely dry. Long lasting bitterness.

Overall: 90 / 100


Lost some points as it has mellowed a bit since the first review. This beer really needs drinking ASAP, straight after bottling!! I'd say it peaked 3 or 4 days after bottling actually. Still my best beer to date, and still the closest I've come to Jaipur yet.

Cheers!

Sounds like the business

Might have to try something similar soon. I love late hopping