Following my oxidation issues I decided to try and solve those problems and keep things simple by doing a smaller batch.
I'd also recently received a bag of Charles Faram's 'Fusion' hop mix - a mix of experimental English aroma hops that didn't make the cut for commercial use for various reasons, but still smelt pretty good, so I wanted to make a golden ale featuring these.
Finally I also wanted to experiment with shortening the brew day a bit - with a 45 min main mash, 15 min mash out and a 30 min boil.
Brew length - about 12 litres
OG 1.057
FG ~1.012
ABV 5.5%
IBU 38
Mashed at 67C
Maris Otter 3.3kg
Crystal 160g
Flaked Maize 120g
Dark Crystal 30g
Black Malt 20g
Boil: 30 minutes
East Kent Goldings (5%) 30g @ First Wort
Northdown (7%) 20g @ 30m
Fusion (7%) 20g @ 5m
Fusion (7%) 30g @ Flame out with 10 minute steep
WLP002 with a starter for my yeast, fermented at 19C
Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
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Jocky
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Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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McMullan
Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Looks nice. I'm interested how it turns out. Short brews are looking good for double brew days... 
Do you get hops direct from CF then? What's the minimum order for whole hops, if you know?
Do you get hops direct from CF then? What's the minimum order for whole hops, if you know?
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
I got the Fusion through the London Amateur Brewers home brew club. They did a competition recently, and there was a give away of some hops, malt and other stuff.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Just a few notes on my brewday yesterday - I really wanted to reduce the dead time in brewing, as it normally seems like I manage to squeeze 2 hours actual work into 6 hours.
Normally I sort out my water the night before - measure alkalinity, add half a crushed campden tablet and measure out salts. The problem is that it then takes quite a long time to get up to temperature. If I want to mash at 67C, I need to dough in at 74C, and that means I need to heat my water to about 83C to warm my mash tun. Heating 32L of water on brew day from 15C takes time, and while I can stick it on a timer, I don't really trust those things to take a sustained 2.4kw without burning down my brew shed.
So I turned up the temperature control on my combi boiler to max and then took the water straight from there, via a bucket. By the time it was in my HLT I had water at 65C, vastly cutting the time to heat. By the time I'd measured out water treatment and milled my grains I'd got it up to temperature and heated the Mash Tun. So that's a win on time.
Secondly I shortened the mash. 45m at 67C, run off, and then a batch sparge, sitting for 10m. End mash efficiency - 76%. Another win.
Last of all, a 30 minute boil... Not really much to say about this, it works, unless you want to develop some darker colour and bigger body.
I finished off with a 10 minute steep of some of the hops, giving it a good stir all the while.
In the end everything went into a much smaller fermenter than I usually use - this was 12.5 litres and I filled it to about 11 litres, in order to try and avoid oxygenation. Currently it's sealed up with a bit of foil over the airlock port, and once I've hit high krausen I'll put the airlock in.
Overall my brewday went quickly and felt like less of a slog than usual, so I can highly recommend the time saving shortcuts. Hopefully the beer will turn out good too.
Normally I sort out my water the night before - measure alkalinity, add half a crushed campden tablet and measure out salts. The problem is that it then takes quite a long time to get up to temperature. If I want to mash at 67C, I need to dough in at 74C, and that means I need to heat my water to about 83C to warm my mash tun. Heating 32L of water on brew day from 15C takes time, and while I can stick it on a timer, I don't really trust those things to take a sustained 2.4kw without burning down my brew shed.
So I turned up the temperature control on my combi boiler to max and then took the water straight from there, via a bucket. By the time it was in my HLT I had water at 65C, vastly cutting the time to heat. By the time I'd measured out water treatment and milled my grains I'd got it up to temperature and heated the Mash Tun. So that's a win on time.
Secondly I shortened the mash. 45m at 67C, run off, and then a batch sparge, sitting for 10m. End mash efficiency - 76%. Another win.
Last of all, a 30 minute boil... Not really much to say about this, it works, unless you want to develop some darker colour and bigger body.
I finished off with a 10 minute steep of some of the hops, giving it a good stir all the while.
In the end everything went into a much smaller fermenter than I usually use - this was 12.5 litres and I filled it to about 11 litres, in order to try and avoid oxygenation. Currently it's sealed up with a bit of foil over the airlock port, and once I've hit high krausen I'll put the airlock in.
Overall my brewday went quickly and felt like less of a slog than usual, so I can highly recommend the time saving shortcuts. Hopefully the beer will turn out good too.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Interesting. I do batches ranging from 5 to 15 litres, and I sometimes cut the mash time down to about 45 mins which includes a 10 min batch sparge, and I sometimes boil for 45 mins. It depends how much time I have. It makes it a relaxed brew session rather than a big brew day. Which suits some but not everyone, of course. I don't drink enough to want 5 gallons at a time. Only problem is that the best batches tend to get cleared out by other people and I wish I had more!
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Whether the volume is 10 litres or 20 litres it seems to make little difference in time to me, but shaving time off the mash, and particularly the boil and water heating means I can go from zero to cleaned up and ready to aerate and pitch in under 4 hours.Clibit wrote:Interesting. I do batches ranging from 5 to 15 litres, and I sometimes cut the mash time down to about 45 mins which includes a 10 min batch sparge, and I sometimes boil for 45 mins. It depends how much time I have. It makes it a relaxed brew session rather than a big brew day. Which suits some but not everyone, of course. I don't drink enough to want 5 gallons at a time. Only problem is that the best batches tend to get cleared out by other people and I wish I had more!
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
I'm refusing to open the fermenter, but it looks like krausen has touched the underside of the fermenter lid and subsided, so I've popped in the airlock and that's bubbling away happily. I've raised fermentation from 19 to 20C now the growth phase is largely over.
Now we pray
Now we pray
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Well the beer finished up at 1.012 - lower than estimated, alhough I thought that Beersmith was being a bit pessimistic - which means that the ABV ended up at 5.9%.
Having carbonated it, it's turned out as a very nice ESB style beer. I think the crystal has muted the aroma hops a bit there, and I slightly regret not giving it a bit of a dry hop too, but the flavour of the fusion hops is there.
Having carbonated it, it's turned out as a very nice ESB style beer. I think the crystal has muted the aroma hops a bit there, and I slightly regret not giving it a bit of a dry hop too, but the flavour of the fusion hops is there.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.
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BrewerBen
Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Looks really good, great clarity. what are the fusion hops like? The only hop blend i have used before is falconers flight which being US hops is a whole different kettle of fish to UK hops. I wonder if we are going to see more hop blends turn up. From Charles farm it only says it is a "blend of our experimental varieties" and its characteristics is "Tropical Fruit"
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Jocky
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Re: Fusion 30 Minute Pale Ale
Not getting a lot from this, at least not in comparison to American hops. Would have been interesting to dry hop with them in a blond ale though.
Ingredients: Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast, Seaweed, Blood, Sweat, The swim bladder of a sturgeon, My enemies tears, Scenes of mild peril, An otter's handbag and Riboflavin.