Imminent brews ?

[FlippinMental]

to what extent do you skim? ok, you remove the dirty hop stuff. what's the safest method, spooning, scrapping, or what? how much do you take, just the dirty stuff, all of it right down to the liquid surface, or what?

[FlippinMental]

QUOTE (FlippinMental @ Apr 28 2006, 08:36 PM) QUOTE (FlippinMental @ Apr 25 2006, 07:33 PM)i'm looking to do an abbot ale
had the day to myself so made up the abbot ale, dl recipe + 10% on the grain bill for 25ltr.

sparging went real well, ran from the tun so fast it came in gold, silver and bronse. i also warmed the grain this time, the strike at 74c came in at 67c. no discernable loss in temp over 1hr 30mins. :pink

didn't mess with calculating batch volumes, just added water at 80c, near filled the tun, waited 10mins, returned about 6 ltr to tun and ran to the boiler and applied heat as soon as the element was covered. sparged twice again using the same volumes, the excess being held back to help make up for evaporation loss.

had a few boil overs, the wort kicked like cluck for about half an hour - what a pain. <_< is it necessary to have a continuous vigorous boil, or can things be toned down a smidge?

lessons for next time: make up yeast starter the day before - however, where does the sample wort come from clean equipment used after boil, and sanitise on the day. get bucket with lid to keep sterilised equipment in when not in use. have a couple of barrels standing by to collect run off from cooler.
moved on the brew into the secondary fermenter this morning. all seemed fine. pissed right off when i lifted the container, with lid fitted and airlock filled with sodium met. and created a negitive pressure - sucking some of the met. into the container - the f*cker

[FlippinMental]

you have allayed my fears a trifle, daab. there is still activity going on.

[/QUOTE]Sodium met is known to trigger asthma attacks so dont give this to any asthmatics just incase.

shit, i can see the gas it gives off causing trouble but in solution... that’s pretty evil stuff

[Andy]

Hmmmmm, weather for the w/e is looking dodgy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?id=2043

...and....my SL clone cornie is running low.....

<thinks>

[eskimobob]

Well fingers crossed for the weather tomorrow - looks cloudy for me but rain not reaching us until Sunday... Ingredients picked up from H&G this morning and starter under way so brewing tomorrow

[Andy]

what recipe EB ?

[Andy]

How's your extra-strength GFB coming along DaaB ?

[tribs]

EB, Did you ask H&G about their website?

Its been down since yesterday afternoon.

I've been trying to price up ingredients for my summer brewing schedule.

[eskimobob]

I didn't ask them about their website but I did notice it was down. I emailed across my order yesterday so it was ready when I went to pick it up. Yes, I did come out with something I didn't intend getting.... Dave Line's book :huh: Like the look of the 6X recipe

Andy, planning to try my WaggleDance tomorrow so will post details and recipe.

[bitter_dave]

If my order from Hop and Grape makes it to me in time, I'm going to try the Bitter and Twisted http://www.forumforfree.com/forums/inde ... wtopic=692 mentioned in the recipes section, although sans buckwheat, and with a little crystal malt or lager malt in there; not decided.

If the postman doesn't grace me with his prescence, I'm going to have another go at making my Harveys, which came out crazy-bitter in my first attempt. In addition to the fact I made too little, I also suspect the bitterness in Dave Line's recipe was a bit high for the hops I used, so I'll reduce the hops. In his Big book of brewing he gives the alpha acids for various hops, from 1972, and the ranges start low compared with the hops I've seen for sale (Northern Brewer is rated 6-8 AAUs, compared with 9 at Hop and Grape - this could could make quite a difference to the overall bitterness when you use 30 grams of them). I'm going to use 20 IBUs of Goldings and 10 IBUs of Northern Brewer for a 1040 beer, which should be ok, and perhaps add a little black malt to adjust the colour.

Btw, I bought 4 barrels on Ebay the other day for £5.50 the lot, which I'm going to pick up tomorrow. :pink Very exciting, and (hopefully) opens up the opportunity for much brewing in the coming weeks :pink

[deadlydes]

eskimobob:
the 6x recipe in DL's book is good.
look at my review here http://www.forumforfree.com/forums/inde ... wtopic=587

i little bit more crystal i think next time

[bitter_dave]

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ May 5 2006, 12:09 PM)I'd try using 3600g of pale malt B_D and maybe mash for 2hrs. I mashed for 2hrs and got much better extraction than usual, probably up in the high 80's rather than mid 70's.

May give that a try daab, thanks; although I'll probably plan for a 75% efficiency anyway, which is what I got last time. Also, I'm going to try a strike heat of 73 oC or 74 oC, as when I've used 72 oC the last couple of times it has come out much lower than 66, and I ended up mashing at 64/65 after a lot of adjustments.

[Andy]

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ May 5 2006, 01:09 PM) I'd try using 3600g of pale malt B_D and maybe mash for 2hrs. I mashed for 2hrs and got much better extraction than usual, probably up in the high 80's rather than mid 70's.

That's an interesting observation DaaB....

Can you attribute that directly to the mash period or could it have been a more efficient sparge ?

[Andy]

Just finished off my SL clone from the cornie and was impressed in that the cornie kept dispensing right until the last drop! There is some beer left in the cornie but about a thimble full, virtually zero sediment also, racking bright beer is the way to go

[Andy]

The last half was a tad cloudy but I've drunk it B)

So much better than ye olde King Kegge

Thankyou Normski