St Austell's Tribute

[weiht]

ok, so my sis in law went to newquay and st ives and i have ordered and instructed her to get me a bottle of properjob and admiral ale each... Well, i got a shock when she passed me a bottle of fullers organic honey dew... man that threw me into a FIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Russ]

Classic......sending a woman to do a mans job, still you did better than I.

I asked my brother in law to bring some back for me and the lazy sod came back empty handed ......still happy enough to drink my brews though, cheeky sod

Russ

[weiht]

For a fact my s.i.l. did not even bother getting the beers when she was in Cornwall, she got fullers in London!!! But I have reasons to believe ur b.i.l. finished the bottles before even reaching u Lol

[Russ]

You just could be onto something there......be but at least you got some beer!

Cheers

Russ

[Rubbery]

I went on the tour round the St Austell brewery last week. The whistle stop tour of the brewery took about an hour, followed by a taster of all their brews afterwards in the Hicks bar. It was an excellent tour that showed the old and the new equipment and how it all fitted together.

We met a few of the brewers on the way round, but there was not much chance to ask questions. However, I got a few answers...

• The aroma hops are added in a "Hop Infusion Vessel" that looked like the same size as the mash tun. I quizzed one of the brewers and the wort temperature is "in the mid 90s" and the time is "not very long" (it is a continuous process - they do not leave it to steep).
• The shelf life of the beer is 6 weeks from casking.
• I asked specifically about the Clouded Yellow yeast and it appears that the yeast is being changed to make it more cloudy. I understand that the yeast was recovered from a bottle of a popular European beer.

[Russ]

Glad you had a good tour

I went round a couple of years ago, the tour guide was a good bloke (Ex PC) but he'd only done a couple of tours and couldn't answer many questions

Russ

[MattK]

A slight digression: Pete Brown's beer blog video features St A this month.

http://vimeo.com/25741393

Worth noting that in the video the guy confirms it's 15% Cornish Gold in the Tribute.

[chrisr]

The aroma hops are added in a "Hop Infusion Vessel" that looked like the same size as the mash tun. I quizzed one of the brewers and the wort temperature is "in the mid 90s" and the time is "not very long" (it is a continuous process - they do not leave it to steep).

That's puzzling. How can it be continuous? Surely the hops would only 'work' for so long and then need replacing with fresh ones? How would you do that without stopping? And the results would change over the period the hops were in use. But earlier in this thread: "They overheard there that they steep the hops in Tribute at ~50 degC for something approaching an hour." So who do we believe? I have to say my own attempts have been improved by steeping for an hour (at 80C) rather than 20 minutes. It definitely picks up more from the final hops.

That's hotter than I'd guessed, but, yes, I can see how it'd work: straight from the boil to the infusion, so only losing a few degrees on the way.

[Rubbery]

I think they load the hops into the hop infusion vessel then pump the wort directly from the boiler. When the vessel is full they start pumping out and balance with the inflow until all the wort has passed through. The vessel is about the same size as the mash tun so would not hold a whole batch in order to steep the hops.

The temperature quote was from the brewer operating it and I am pretty sure he meant 90 odd degrees for all the beers (not just the one he was doing at that moment). I also had a peek underneath and saw 92.5C reading on one of the pumps, but I am not sure if that is the temperature in or out.

[Rubbery]

Here is a picture of the hop infusion vessel...

[critch]

ok, so my sis in law went to newquay and st ives and i have ordered and instructed her to get me a bottle of properjob and admiral ale each... Well, i got a shock when she passed me a bottle of fullers organic honey dew... man that threw me into a FIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Classic......sending a woman to do a mans job, still you did better than I.

I asked my brother in law to bring some back for me and the lazy sod came back empty handed ......still happy enough to drink my brews though, cheeky sod

Russ

you gentlemen might be interested in this link...http://www.beersofeurope.co.uk/acatalog ... l_177.html

[critch]

the hop infusion vessel is just a hopback (albeit a bloody big one where the hops will be circulating), 6 weeks will be for the fined cask version and the continuous process will only be for the length of a batch

same with many bigger breweries

[weiht]

One thing to note is that their estimation of timing is different from ours. Running off for us can be done within 1/2'hr, but its alot longer for them.

Im guessing filling the vessel till full then start running off the wort for cooling and into the fv.

[critch]

my run off at the mo due to the high ambient temp of the water takes 4 hours...........

even in the depths of winter the high volume i do takes 90 mins, suppose it'd be down to how efficient your heat exchange process would be

[MattK]

I emailed Tuckers: it was worth a try!

Hi Matt
Sorry but because Cornish Gold is made exclusively for St. Austell Brewery we can't sell it to the public for home brewing.
Regards
Andy Hill
Maltings Manager