Acolyte's Arse
5.2 Kg Low Colour pale malt (MO) Pre-crushed
210g Carapils Pre-crushed
79g Fuggles 90 mins
82g Styrians 90 mins
27g Styrians 5 mins
42g Styrians Switch Off
20g Styrians dry hopped - if it needs it.
Whirlfloc
2 x 11g Nottinghams yeast - rehydrated as per instructions
Obviously a Styrian Wotsit. Hop load looks a bit heavy but most were very low aa, and a year or two old. Fuggles? I had an open pack to use up. Styrians are a Fuggle anyway. I needed to do this summer beer but when was the problem - today was out as it was pissing with rain all day long - then the Brewers Acolyte turned up and suddenly it was game on

We used the new alkalinity test with good results. Mash ph5.2, sparge liquor at ph5.8. As is my wont, it was a heavier malt load than needed for a 1045 beer, but taking my eye off the ball during sparge (probably to get some more cheese onto some more bread) we ended up with a bit too much sugar in the boiler. Ah well. EDIT: I lobbed 6g of DLS into the boil for a laugh. It wasn't needed in the mash. Alkalinity was 198mg/l CaCO3, so according to Brupaks, I had about 79mg/l Calcium. 6g DLS should have brought that to about 115ish mg/l. Should have whacked in more to be in 'Bitter & Pale Ale territory but never mind.
The persistent rain created a need to improvise - boil in the new brew shed with window and door open (new fan not fitted yet) There was some condensation, but not too much considering the Queen Mary engine room ammount of steam being produced.

Running off clear wort - loads of break material. Ended up with 22L at 1051. Wanted 1045, but what the hell. Couldn't be arsed to dilute it.

The fermentation temperature question has forced some improvisation as well. Beer Freezer is full of full cornies. Tall fridge is sitting outside under a tarpaulin while I work in the brew shed. The house is too damn warm. So..just to get it going, it's sitting on a workmate in the big shed with a couple of bin bags over it, a 2kw convector heater under it, plugged into an ATC800, and the controller probe is taped to the side of the FV. The ATC800 is set to 16c, and so the convector shouldn't really have much to do. The temp reading at present is about 18c.
