I was going to call this beer "Fireside Ale", but discovered there's already a beer called that, so I went imaginatively for the name of the hops instead. It sounds almost Jewish now. Oi Vey!
Susan Goldings Ale
My aim here was for a Special Bitterish type beer, but a bit darker in colour than my usual. I went for a 4:5 BU/GU ratio and aimed for 50% of my IBUs from First Wort Hopping, and the other 50% from the 15 min flavour addition. This way uses more hops, but I've found it makes for smooth tasting beers. I also wanted a fairly "clean" beer so that I can use the yeast cake from this for a stronger beer (barleywine?) next week without any really strong flavour carry over.
Fermentables:
Pale Ale Malt 5.211 kg 89.6 %
Medium Crystal 0.225 kg 3.9 %
Amber Malt 0.222 kg 3.8 %
Wheat Malt 0.100 kg 1.7 %
Chocolate Malt 0.056 kg 1.0 %
The weights are a bit weird as I was going for a % based grist (92.5% pale, 4% crystal, 2.5% amber, 1% chocolate), but then ended up using an open bag of amber malt and chucking in 100g of wheat for body and head retention.
Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU When
Golding 4.6 % 24 g 11.1 First Wort Hopped
Susan 9.8 % 10 g 9.9 First Wort Hopped
Golding 5.5 % 40 g 10.3 15 Min From End
Susan 9.8 % 20 g 9.2 15 Min From End
Golding 4.6 % 20 g 0.0 At turn off
Susan 9.8 % 10 g 0.0 At turn off
Yeast was a 3.3l starter from Wyeast Ringwood 1187. Here's some yeast photos:
Here's the yeast in a 2l flask after I've added 1.8l of 1040 wort, stood it on a stirplate at 20C for 2 days and then drained off the spent wort.
Here's the same flask a day later after being topped up with 1.5l of fresh wort.
With the wort drained off. There's quite a lot of yeast there.
And finally, later on in the day, here's the yeast made up with a litre or so of cooled wort as a "flying starter". Its just started doing stuff!
This yeast is said to need a diacetyl rest - is that basically just a few extra days on the yeast after the end of primary fermentation?
And here's the rest of the brewday pics:
Grain Bill
Mashed in! I've got the Hanna thermometer back now - calibrated and with a new probe. I know it's accurate now...
Dull picture of mash tun doing it's thang. Even with 4C garage temperatures yesterday it lost almost no temperature over the 90 minute mashed. Finished up at 65.9C.
Hops. 80g of Goldings at 5% AA, 40g of Susan at 9.8% AA. I've never tried "Susan" before, but it smelled to me similar to Goldings or Fuggles but stronger. Kind of floral with a mild citrus undertone.
Topped up and ready to sparge. Looked and smelled like a nice cup of Ovaltine.
First runnings into the boiler with the hops. Tasted great - there was a surprising amount of taste from the small amount of chocolate malt.
Coming to the end of the boil here. The chiller is in to sanitise.
OG came out to about 1052 - which was what Beer Alchemy predicted.
Collected 23l and aerated.
And finally, put away to bed at a nice steady 20C. It's now got a wine kit in there to keep it company!
