Holiday Bitter

[Jim]

Brewing up tomorrow.

This was supposed to be a clone of my Easter Ale, only with calcium additions to the water, but it has an extra 50g of torrefied wheat in it (to avoid leaving a tiny bit in the bag).

Pale Malt (Marris Otter) 4.5kg
Crystal Malt 250g
Torrefied wheat 300g

In the boiler:
Fuggle 9 IBUs
Progress 9 IBUs
Challenger 9 IBUs

At end of boil 10g Golding

Possibly some Goldings in the primary - to be decided.

Ringwood yeast (if the starter gets it's arse into gear, otherwise it'll be Gervin!)

I've been conservative on the water treatment, using less than half the additions recommended for bitter on Graham's water calculator. I'll see how it affects mash pH, then I might increase the additions next time.

Total water treated was 46litres, additions (approximate):

7g Calcium Chloride (2 teaspoons)
4g Calcium Sulphate (1 teaspoon)
0.5g Magnesium Sulphate (1/8 teaspoon)

I dissolved the salts in 4 litres of filtered water and mixed it up in the blender. I tried a litre of water but it was no good - the salts wouldn't dissolve (I was half expecting this, but thought I'd give it a go). 4 litres did the job OK. I then added 2lt of this to each 23l batch of filtered water for the brew.

[Dennis King]

Looks good

[Andy]

Excellent, let us know how it goes Jim.

I'm hoping to brew tomorrow also but have done no prep today

[Horden Hillbilly]

Hope it goes ok for you Jim. I have a large bag of maris otter staring me in the face everytime I go in the loft. This, coupled with a week off work should see in action soon.

Nice looking recipe btw.

[mysterio]

I'll be interested to hear your results on the water treatment side, Jim

[Jim]

Good luck with it Jim, if the mash ph has been good until now, i'd add the salts to the boil rather than the mash.

Well, received wisdom seems to be that the mash benefits from a bit of calcium, so I've just treated all the water.

Mash is on now, sitting at 67.5C or so, and I'm going to take a pH reading in ten minutes or so.

I started with a cock-up; I set the timer wrong so the boiler didn't come on at 6am as planned and I had to wait till quarter past seven before I could get the mash on. Never mind!

On the plus side, the yeast starters going nicely now.

[Bionicmunky]

Nice and early start eh Jim. Hope it all goes well for you.

[roger the dog]

Have a good one Jim

[Jim]

Ta.

So, pH continues to baffle me. It looks the same as always - hovering between the colour for 4.9 and 5.2.

[Jim]

A few pics.

The runnings from the sparge seem to be clearer than usual:



I stopped sparging at about 10, at which point it looked like this:



Compared with last brew (the difference looks more marked in real life, honest ):



And a picture of the spent grains (why not? )

[Vossy1]

Glad to see all went well Jim

[Jim]

Well, my pH was no worse with than without. I treated all the water, so no need to worry about what calcium was were.

Also, I could taste the difference between treated and untreated water (treated tasted better, IMO), so that has to affect the flavour of the finished beer, and more so if the whole of the liquor is treated.

[Jim]

I thought you had resolved the ph issue several brews back ?

When I got my water analysed, it transpired that my pH was fine - when I measure it with pH papers, though, it appears low. Apparently adding calium carbonate made no measurable difference to the pH (according to our mutual acquaintance, that is )

This is actually only the second brew I've done since then. For the last one I just chucked a teaspoon of gypsum in the boiler, and I think subjectively the taste improved. However, that beer had a persistant haze. It'll be interesting to see how this one comes out.

It's also worth noting that I'm not brewing with my tapwater this time, but a reconstructed 'harder' water - so really, the buffering ability should be the same as someone in a hard water area who's boiled off the temporary hardness. Maybe.

EDIT: These are also the only two brews made with my insulated MT and therefore weren't stirred during the mash.

[Jim]

Yep, I'm sure it'll be a good un.

All done now, and I even washed the kitchen floor - I didn't mean to, but I did it. Must remember not to leave a fermenter filling with water while I empty the hops out of the boiler in future.

Re the haze in the last beer, it definitely wasn't a starch haze - I always do a starch test at the end of the mash.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've cracked the problem of dissolving the salts. I did a test several weeks ago, and left a bottle of dissolved salts standing in the garage. There was no trace of sediment in there, which I take to mean that everything was in solution (as I don't think anything would remain in suspension for that length of time).

[oblivious]

Looks nice

Could the beer be nearly a pale mild?