First extract brew

[EoinMag]

I'm guessing that if you're fermenting warmer and with the s-04 yeast you'll get a slightly different beer than the recipe intends... but still, I'll bet excellent. Look forward to your follow up!

I guess from those spec sheets that the S-04 doesn't flocculate as well? Curiously, they also tell you to rehydrate the yeast or if not to pitch dry and aerate. My LHBS proprietor is always at pains to tell me NEVER to rehydrate dry yeasts (there is a scientific reason apparently, although I haven't received his lecture on it) and in the particular case of S-04 he told me that it was never meant to be rehydrated (he knew a guy that worked at the lab, yada yada yada) not to aerate it either. All I know is that he uses said yeast, pitches dry and makes award-winning beer with it! My guess is that the rehydrate/pitch dry is a source of contention in the brewing community?

Incidently I'm not fermenting warmer - the nearest heater to my beer is in the FV sitting next to it!. It should be around 16C in this room. Maybe I'll leave it in primary longer - have to prime and bottle before I move house on the 7th May though.

It depends on the type of dry yeast to be honest. Danstar have instructions on their packs for rehydrating their dried yeasts.
Some of them have instructions not to do it as they have sorted the yeast into little pellets with the exact nutrients in the form of stearols that the yeast needs to reproduce, hence also the no oxygenation part. If you rehydrate these yeasts that are not supposed to be rehydrated then they immediately start to reproduce with no source of food and they can get stressed and lose viability.
A lot of info is based on old school crappy dried yeasts that always needed rehydration and were also not very reliable, this has all changed now to a great extent and dried can be just as good as liquid for certain jobs.

[bellebouche]

I'm guessing that if you're fermenting warmer and with the s-04 yeast you'll get a slightly different beer than the recipe intends... but still, I'll bet excellent. Look forward to your follow up!

Incidently I'm not fermenting warmer - the nearest heater to my beer is in the FV sitting next to it!. It should be around 16C in this room. Maybe I'll leave it in primary longer - have to prime and bottle before I move house on the 7th May though.

Ah, my bad. Sticky timing trying to fit in brewing/bottling around a house move - stressful times! I hope that goes smoothly for you and you'll soon settle down to your new place and make a little time to start another brew with that leftover liquid yeast package.

I've decided to buy in some US-05 dry for it and the specific East Kent goldings that the recipe calls for.

I've seen little else online about this particular recipe and the AHA Big Brew day - as the time comes closer I think more chatter should materialise.

[dedken]

Just primed and bottled this, and it's tasting pretty good already after sitting in the fv for just 16 days. Looking forward to sampling at the end of May.

[bellebouche]

Good stuff!

I'm all set to go. I'm hosting an AHA Big-Brew day and will be doing the all grain version. I've an audience of twelve so far - I hope they enjoy the proceedings!

I've bought some US-05 for this brew and will kick off a starter on Thursday evening.

[dedken]

Have a good brew day!

[dedken]

Had a sneaky taste last night. After 9 days in the bottle. It's pretty good already, such a difference from pre-hopped kits! A nice malty toffee taste, slightly smoky, sweet but not at all sickly - I could definitely sit on this beer all night even at this early stage. Didn't get any fuggles from the nose though, perhaps it's underhopped? Perfectly primed aswell. I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops over the next month - hopefully there'll be some head to speak of too.

[bellebouche]

Mine went into the FV on Saturday afternoon. I'd pitched with a 500 ml starter made up from the US05 dry yeast and a 1040 wort made from DME. It's very slowly fermenting and it's been sat at 16 degrees constantly. I had a sneak peak after a few days and a thick Krausen had formed. I'll take a gravity reading at the weekend but expect to leave it alone for the month.

I underextracted and probably overboiled. The distractions of the Big Brew day to blame so it went into the FV at 1064 and about 17 litres. I had sixteen people around for the big brew and it was a bit of a hit - I'll certainly repeat the exercise.

As a side experiment I'd left the mash tun set up all day to show people and on opening the tap was getting a reasonably tasty wort coming out, so ran a kettle of hot water through to sparge it further and boiled down to 5 litres a 'second runnings' batch. I had a muntons gold culture ready to rock for such an occurence and it rocketed away for 4 days and now is just glopping once every few minutes. It'll be done at the weekend when I'll rack it off and dry hop with some cascades before bottling up my little bonus batch.

[dedken]

Great photos! - you have a nice set-up going there.

[bellebouche]

Great photos! - you have a nice set-up going there.

Thanks! It's all very simple home-brewed gear for home-brewed beer! I stuck a vid on youtube with some mashtun/chiller goodness and will do a proper film of my gear and technique next time I do a brew.

40Kg of grains sitting here doing nothing so it might be time to start thinking about the next recipe!

[bellebouche]

Racked off my cheeky second running experiment a couple of days ago. It's only 4litres so not a lot at risk. It'd fallen very clear after a fairly turbulent fermentation on some spent trub from a muntons gold yeast cake from a prior brew. I'd only actually pitched a tiny amount yet it took off fairly vigorously - complete contrast to the Safale 05 that it's been sat right next to.

I had a taste and it was.. a little understated. Not thin but not anywhere near as strident as the original 80/-

So, action was called for. 140g of raw cane sugar and massively dry hopped! Fermentation picked up again with whatever yeast was in suspension and it's had four giant fistfulls of hops stuck on top to give it a kick. I have no idea how this will impact the ale that will result but we shall see. I'm hoping for some rummyness, I expect the sugar to fully attenuate and dry it out and for a big floral hit.

Time will tell. Pic to follow. I'm toying with a comedy name, thinking shall christen it 'Bastard Child' or perhaps 'ya Wee Bastard!'. Brewing is fun

[bellebouche]

After 21 days in Primary the 80/- has dropped to 1009 now. I'll rack it this weekend to a secondary ferm/bottling bucket and bottle it off next week. I've maintained a low temp so far and it's still ticking along judging by what I can see on top. Huge malty flavour, alcohol is quite apparent and bitterness is more forward than I'd expected. After it's done and had a few months in the bottle I'm expecting those traits to calm down and it to be 7.2%

The flavour even now is quite a bit more sophisticated than I'd imagined - very please with the brew so far. US05 has left it quite neutral so the EKG/Complex malt character is all there.

Onto other matters.

I mentioned that after standing for 5/6 hours I still had a tasty wort coming off the mashtun so I flushed it through with a couple of kitchen kettles worth of hot water. Boiled it down to 4 litres and let it ferment off on some old ale yeast. It's done me proud and I'm fairly astonished at the result.



I'd let it ferment out for 10 days, tasted it, added 140g of raw cane sugar to dry it down and boost the booze levels and treated it to a massive fistful of dry hopping. It's been sat like that until the sugars had slowly finished their job this morning and I've racked off again on top of a priming solution of 8g/litre and to the bottle.

That beer, christened 'Le Petit Salaud' is a testament that one mans industrial waste can easily become another mans light, hoppy, malty bastardised beer!

"Waste not, want not"

[bellebouche]

Bottled off 12 litres of the 80/- last night.

Went out on something of a limb when it comes to priming. I dosed rather high at 12g/l - way way above the recipe recommendation. I'll explain why...

The beer has brewed out quite dry, It's malty but no sweet edge - it'd fallen to 1009 before going to secondary
I'd racked to secondary for the last week and a lot of the yeast had fallen - a surprising amount.
I'm hoping that there's just enough yeast in suspension to carbonate well but leave some residual sweetness. I chose a lightish syrup made from raw cane sugar - should bring a rummy edge.

Slightly nervous about this as there may be a ton of yeast in suspension and I'm at some risk of having an overcarbonated brew. That'd be bad! I'm thrilled with the flavour though... had a small glass while bottling and the bitterness had fallen off markedly after the last week in secondary and the flavour was more complex than I was expecting given the simplicity of the recipe. A good autumn beer ahead!

I'll test after 10 days / 14 days and if it's looking about right will crash chill the lot and leave it to lager for 3/4 months as per the recipe.

[dedken]

I've drunk more of mine than I thought I had! I think I've only got 25 bottle left. I'm well pleased with it though. The only thing that is missing is the hoppy undercurrent. I think S-04 might have killed my late hop additions.

Anyway, my first extract experience has left me wanting more and with the expense of extract brewing I have decided to move to partial mashing (to start with) and then AG once I get hold of my uncle's old mash tun later this summer (with luck and a following wind).

[bellebouche]

First taste of mine.


Good, but needs time to ease off in the bottle. Loads of forthright Caramel/Toffee notes and has carbed well. Alcohol is very apparent and I suspect it'll become a more subtle beer after a couple of months. Not quite what you want to be drinking on a hot summers day but has a lot of potential for the winter.