Post
by Garth » Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:49 pm
oh bugger, I wish I hadn't told you about the extra bit, damn
ah well, while the Bluebird brew is boiling, more aching hands,
Brewing Notes for Thomas Hardy's Ale:
Our vessels are not big enough to brew efficiently 23 litres of ans OG 1125 ale. The obvious answer to the prob. is to brew a smaller batch. Homebrew shops sell 2.5 gallon barrels, and this volume is just about as much as we can achieve at such a strength.
You will need two types of yeast, a 2.5 gallon barrel for maturation, and 60 nip bottles or 40 half pint bottles. if you can't get the amber replace it with pale.
Mash and sparge as a normal beer, but stop sparging when you have collected about 15 litres.
Boil for a min. of 90 mins but long enough to reduce the volume to 12 litres, or less.
Cool the wort and then adjust to OG 1125 with water in the ferm. vessel. You should have about 12 litres of wort.
Aerate and pitch with a high quality English Ale yeast.
Monitor SG carefully and if the fermentation gets stuck, ie stops before about 1035, rack the beer off the yeast into another ferm. vessel, and re-pitch with a wine yeast. If a wine yeast is used then fit the lid and airlock to the vessel.
When fermentation has abated, rack the beer off the yeast into a 2.5 gallon barrel and add a sachet of wine yeast to the barrel. Fit the cap, put the barrel away somewhere and forget about it for 3 months.
After three months recover the barrel and rack into a sterilised ferm. vessel on to 50 grams of sugar and a 5 gram sachet of wine yeast. Ensure that the wine yeast, sugar and beer get well mixed, but try to ensure that a minimum of air gets dissolved into the beer.
Bottle the beer and cap. Store for a minimum of one year. Reputedly at it's best at five years.
...phew
