Home Brew Forum

Finally, another spearmint-wino brewday - this one's been a long time coming. Thought I'd go for a more traditional style rather than my usual pale cascade/styrian experiments.

Courtesy of Marc Ollosson's excellent 'Real Ales for the Home Brewer'...

Crouch Vale Best Bitter
8-B Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Size: 23 L
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 183.92 per 1 pt

Original Gravity: 1.042
Terminal Gravity: 1.010
Color: 29.4
Alcohol: 4.08%
Bitterness: 35.39

Ingredients:
4 kg Maris Otter Pale
305 g British Dark Crystal

33.0 g Challenger (8.6%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
15.0 g Goldings (5.8%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
15 g Goldings (5.8%) - steeped after boil
1g Danstar Nottingham yeast

Hope it all runs smoothly for you Spearmint

Thanks J_P, starting fly sparge in 10 mins

Excellent choice I rarely brew the same brew twice but looking back through my notes I made the comment 'Brew again'

Good luck, hope the brewing Gods shine on you as brightly as the sun is shining here

Scooby wrote:Excellent choice I rarely brew the same brew twice but looking back through my notes I made the comment 'Brew again'
Good luck, hope the brewing Gods shine on you as brightly as the sun is shining here

Ah good, felt like doing something that will be more of an easy summer drinker and a bit more malty than my usual to keep my 'tasting circle' happy

After sparge I got 30 litres at 1042 for a 23l batch

Hope all is going well SW

doh, had to drain the boiler then re-fill as I forgot to put the hop strainer in...

spearmint-wino wrote:doh, had to drain the boiler then re-fill as I forgot to put the hop strainer in...

We have all been there, don't worry about it, at least you noticed and was able to sort it.

yeah it wasn't too much trouble, only added an extra 5 minutes to the day

After 4 hours there were a few isalnds of yeast floating around on the surface and now 12 hours after pitching there's a full covering of chunky yeast icebergs and the airlock is bubbling every minute or so, but no high krausen as yet.

Sounds like you had a good day of it

Nothing quite like checking your yeast and seeing activity

Ah bollocks, this has been in the keg about a month now and has a really harsh 'varnish'-like bitterness to it that seems to be getting stronger with time. If it continues to worsen the only place for it will be down the sink

Lesson learnt I suppose, the temp strips were reading pretty high when it was in the fermenter. Underneath the nastiness I can imagine a nice beer. Ah well, next time...

Not good SW

Serves me right for being a bit blasé about it I guess.

I've been more careful with the Styrian Stunner that's due to come out of the fermenter in the next couple of days - the wet towel trick brought the temp down by several degrees so hopefully this one will be ok