Carnival Ale 27 06 2009

[adm]

I've been feeling a bit removed from brewing recently - all my kegs were full so I couldn't get a brew on until I'd drunk a fair bit of beer and actually got some space to put new beer into. It's a hard life....


Anyway...I got this on this afteroon:

Carnival Ale

5Kg Pale Malt
250g Pale Crystal Matl
150g Torrefied Wheat

20g Northdown 16 IBU FWH
20g Northdown 8 IBU 15 mins
40g EKG 7 IBU 15 mins
15g Perle 5 IBU 15 mins
40g EKG Flame Out
15g Perle Flame Out
(The Perle was really just to use them up!)

I also chucked about 8g of curacoa orange peel intot he boil at 15 mins to use that up too.

Aiming for 23L at 1050, ended up with 25L at 1050

Yeast was SO4


Here's the hops


And the grain


pH looking good


Temperature OK - would have liked 65- 66, but I was in a rush and couldn't be bothered cooling it down a bit.


First wort hops and gypsum waiting for the sweet wort


First wort.....


Good old 3 tier doing it's stuff....


Getting to the boil.


Set up and ready to run off


Cooling nicely


Lots of hops after I've run the wort off


All aerated and ready put away


And the result. Nice clear pale wort with lots of cold break. I had a bit of a light bulb moment today when I realised I could of course recirculate the cooled wort through the hop bed again and leave the cold break in the boiler. Doh!

Anyway....all went well and it's bubbling along nicely already. It's a bit too hot in my fermenting cupboard though (22C, so I think I'll move it inside and hopefully it'll be cooler.

[WishboneBrewery]

Good pictures as usual, your camera must know what its doing without you helping!
Cracking Moment of clarity with the cold break

[adm]

Good pictures as usual, your camera must know what its doing without you helping!
Cracking Moment of clarity with the cold break

Thanks! The camera pretty much knows it's stuff now.....set to f8 at 1/60th with the flash on TTL auto seems to capture pretty much all brewing related pictures...

I tried (well - ended up drinking about 6 pints of) this beer yesterday and it's come out bloody lovely. It's a nice crystal clear, light golden colour and tastes like a really good strong english bitter but with a bit of extra interest from the orange peel and perle hops, very subtle orange fruitiness that's almost not these at all....

I'm going to nip off down the pub for lunch later, but will probably have a few more pintos of this when I get back!

[The Mighty Badger]

Sounds like an interesting pint, do you reckon the orange flavours will come through more with aging?

One quick query - what's the theory behind adding gypsum to the boiler?

[adm]

I don't know about the orange coming through more with age.....I think if I do this one again though I might just add the zest from a couple of large oranges to the end of the boil to try and get a bit more orange....I only had a little bit of the dried peel left.

As for the theory on the gypsum in the boiler.....to be honest, I can't recall... (just arrived back in the US after 10 hour flight, so a little bit woozy...), but it certainly helps the mash reactions, so i add extra to the boil. Others here have recommended the same regime and it certainly does well with the beers I brew. Chris or Graham probably have the theory side off the top of their heads...

[WishboneBrewery]

I think the GW book says 5g of gypsum in the boiler as a matter of course.

[delboy]

Sounds like an interesting pint, do you reckon the orange flavours will come through more with aging?

One quick query - what's the theory behind adding gypsum to the boiler?

The calcium in the gypsum aids in protein precipation and also in yeast flocculation, its a bit of a belt and braces approach to add it to the boiler as well as the mash (important for various enzyme activities and bringing the mash into the correct pH range)..

[delboy]

I tried (well - ended up drinking about 6 pints of) this beer yesterday and it's come out bloody lovely. It's a nice crystal clear, light golden colour and tastes like a really good strong english bitter but with a bit of extra interest from the orange peel and perle hops, very subtle orange fruitiness that's almost not these at all....

Do you actually like perle , i have 100g (unopened) if you want them i'll swap them for anything, even a bag of gravel