Summer Ale

[Mogwyth]

Well this was a pleasant success, my first modified kit.

Take one Coopers Pale Ale, ferment with 500gms LSM and 500gms honey shove in a teabag with goldings and dried elderflowers in, ferment out. Net result a nice light floral summer sup with a slightly bitter after taste and that's only a week after bottling. Think it will be even better in a month or twos time and served slightly on the chilled side. |Roll on bbq weather.

[stevezx7r]

You do realise your now treading the path to the dark side

First it's "I'll just see if adding these hops do anything...." then it's "I wonder what this yeast will do...." and before you know it your trawling through Ebay for all things shiney, looking into hedgerows for some "wild" hops, checking out the baby bottle cleaner to see if it's cheaper that sodium met and having a sudden keen interest in all things plumbing or electrical.....Oh, and when someone says something about the "AA" you instantly think about hop utilisation

[Mogwyth]

That wont be hard Steve, I already do stuff like cure my own bacon and ham etc. In fact I have already taken a big step to the dark side I planted 6 different hop plants a couple of weeks ago.

Oh and I have 5 gallons of sterilising solution that we used to use to clean the milking equipment.

Cheers

Bill

[stevezx7r]

Excellent, it sounds like you have access to some shiney milk churns which could be utilised into becoming kegs

Thought of brewing a milk stout

[Mogwyth]

Unfortunately they are worth more as churns than brewing implements, we were the last farm in Wales possible in the UK to use churns to deliver milk to the local creamery. The only reason we were allowed to was the creamery is at the bottom of our lane. So our churns have historical value, normally they would fetch £50-100 but ours fetch £2-250.

[joel_m]

I've just done a summer ale (been conditioning 2 weeks today) its a Woodfordes great eastern with 40g of elderflowers steeped for 1h, 50g Brown sugar, 100g light dry spray malt. Tried it last night and really impressed.
Like yours its got a really nice but not over powering floral taste at firsts which gives way to a nice crisp bitter aftertaste.
Served cold in the summer and it'll be a decent pint well impressed!

I haven't been brave enough to play with hops yet as I'm only on my second brew. Next one I think I'll do either a muntons smugglers with a vanilla pod or a midas touch with vanilla. But having not tried either I'm not sure which'll work better as i only want a very slight taste in the beer.

Are Goldings aromatic or bittering hops? This is where I get confused not knowing which are which! Still I guess experementation is the best method of finding out!
Also what does the tea do for the flavour is it the tanning? Edit just realised... tea bag... method of steaping hops? Doh!

Sorry loads of questions!

[stevezx7r]

Goldings hops can be used as both bittering or aroma (and flavour). The point at which the hops are added to your beer dictates what the outcome will be. If say you have 100g of Goldings hops, you could boil 50g for say 60 mins (this is how All Grain brewers would do it anyway) to introduce bitterness to the beer. Then, say 10 mins from the end of your 60 mins boil you could add another 15g which would add more of the hop flavour to the beer. Then, once the beer is cooling down, you could add say another 25g to add extra flavour and aroma and then the rest (10g) of the hops could be dry hopped to add even more aroma to the finished beer. Here's a www which will give you an indication of which hops do what http://www.murphyandson.co.uk/BrewingAr ... pSpecs.htm

[joel_m]

Thats a really good site thanks. I think I will give hopping a go as reading about the different flavours of them they add huge scope to customise the flavour of kits.
Ok this is a complete beginners question but it seems the the Alpha Acid content relates to bitterness as the majority of high AA content hops seem to be describe as bittering hops. Is that correct or am I way off the mark?

[stevezx7r]

No, your right. It all comes down to money, a lot of hops are used and specifically grown due to the AA levels being high. It's more bittering units per gramm so it's cheaper to make the beer. As us homebrewers tend to make less we can (usually) afford to experiment by mixing and matching hops such as using low AA hops as bittering and vice versa.

We don't have loyal customers to supply so if we cock it up we only have ourselves to blame and drink it

[brysie]

excellent thread boys.

mog, how much hops/elderflowers did you use and did you chuck them in dry?

[Mogwyth]

excellent thread boys.

mog, how much hops/elderflowers did you use and did you chuck them in dry?

You could read my sig or I could tell you

50gms goldings + 10gms dried elderflowers in an Asda washbag, weighed down with a sterilised weight, and I used string to stop it sinking right to the bottom.

HTH

Bill