Home Brew Forum

This was yesterdays brew:


My target mash was 66º and I decided to try a 60 min mash for the first time. I hit my mash temp spot in (which is a first on the mash tun) BUT it seems the tun has a crack on the inner wall where the tap has been fitted, meaning liquor (and wort) seep through into the vacuum between the two walls of the cool box and eventually out of the tap fitting. This coupled with a slight underestimation of how much wort 200g of hops would hold means I was 2ltrs short on collected wort. The 60 min mash wasn't really a roaring success either as I missed my post boil target SG by 4 points (1.088 @ 20ºc). I cant calculate my mash efficiency on this as I'd already added the extra sugar when I took a pre-boil gravity reading (which came out at 1.068 @ 20ºc) meaning that the figures would be wrong but I estimate about a 55% mash efficiency. Something else to take into consideration when working with a small volume in the boiler would be that my IC only partially submerges so wasn't that effective. I pitched 1 pack of US-05 and top cropped more US-05 from one of my other currently fermenting beers.

Regardless of the slight problems, I have 11 ltrs of wort fermenting away very happily and I should still see 10% out of it.... Oh and it smells AMAZING!!

Grain:


What a way to get through 200g hops:


bang on mash temp:


mid brew bevvy.. orange squash:


Flame out hops added.... hop soup! IC not quite submerged!!


Left overs (that's 4 inches deep!!):


Post brew bevvy:


This morning:

This smells flipping amazing so I thought I might add to the bonkers with a 100g Apollo dry hop addition! Its the first time I've run hops through a blender but I'm assured its a fantastic way of getting the best when dry hopping.

bigdave wrote:This smells flipping amazing so I thought I might add to the bonkers with a 100g Apollo dry hop addition! Its the first time I've run hops through a blender but I'm assured its a fantastic way of getting the best when dry hopping.

Looks like a great brew there! I'm thinking about a double IPA along these lines myself... just need to get a collection of 330ml bottles first!

My last 2 brews have been dry hopped with the hops blitzed to a puree with a bit of the beer and added to the fv. They float to the top but a good daily stir sorts that out. My Simcoe dry hopped IPA is nearly 5 weeks old so about ready for tasting, and I was going to post my verdict on that method of dry hopping once I've properly tasted it...

My NZ Pale Ale is currently in the secondary fv with about 120g of hops in it... that one smells amazing!

100g of hops in a 13 litre brew should be a hop monster!

that looks as though its going to be one tasty brew.
looking at the pic of the glass makes my mouth water.
good luck with it.

That looks amazing!

Bottling this today.... its finished higher than anticipated so the final abv is only about 9.8% but I'm pretty happy with that.

I've made a slight balls up with the priming... in that I was on auto pilot and did my normal 90g or brewing sugar, added it to the bottling bucket then remembered that this is only 10l not the usual 20l brew, so I've effectively double primed it! Not too worried though as they're in swing tops, so I'll just crack the lid on each one in a few days to release the pressure.

Had a little taste and its.... well.... as you'd expect! quite sweet, very bitter and very hoppy. Give it a few weeks and it'll be fantastic!!

Very nice bigdave. I must get round to using the pack of chinook that I have in stock but not sure I am ready to be as bold with them as you have been.

I can't wait for it to be ready! Smells fantastic!! A grand total of 300g of hops into 10l of beer is pretty bonkers (total cost is about £1 a bottle) but as a one off I'm hoping its a worth while.

Been in a bottle for 10 days so nowhere near ready but I really couldn't resist!



This is everything I could have wanted in a double IPA and more! It's perfectly balanced with a real hop punch!! Really lookin forward to trying another bottle in 3-4 weeks!