Brewday 16/07/2007 - 'Styrian Smasher'

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:08 am

With the weather looking like a usual British summer for the next week and the temp only getting above 20Ã‚Â° tomorrow, I thought I'd get a sneaky summer brew in. I've been on here long enough so its about time I did my tour of duty on the forum favourite styrian stunner, subtely renamed after the little 'slippery plates during washing up' incident this morning. "Look dear, I can brew and do other things as well so it IS a productive use of my time..." smash

All the usual numbers pretty much:
Size: 23.0 L, OG 1.045, Alcohol: 4.4%, IBUs: 26.19

4600 g Maris Otter Pale

71 g Styrian Goldings (3.1%) @ 90 min
14 g Styrian Goldings (3.1%) @ 15 min
25 g Styrian Goldings (3.1%) - steeped after boil
1 Whirlfloc Tablet

Safale S-04

I was going to try some changes to the routine in an attempt to identify the phantom harsh bitterness I get, starting with a higher mash temp in this brew. Initial mash temp was 69Ã‚Â°, so i left the lid off and stirred for 10 mins, checking regularly then the b*stard suddenly dropped to 66.3, so that's kinda put paid to that. Instead I think I'll try sparging to a slightly higher gravity than 1.006 and see if that helps any.

louthepoo · Post by **louthepoo** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:37 am

Good luck with the brew - its on my to 'do list' when the corni's arrive from Ian and i finish making my stainless steel boiler

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:49 am

cheers. A stainless boiler... now there's a thought

How are you building it?

louthepoo · Post by **louthepoo** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:01 am

spearmint-wino wrote:cheers. A stainless boiler... now there's a thought

How are you building it?

ordered a 50 litre stockpot off ebay, a 2.7kw heating element (kettle) off heating elements.co.uk, a ball valve tap (gonna source locally), got to get a hop strainer (not sure where from or maybe make one??)

Got an engineering mate of my brothers to drill the holes (saves me buying the holesaws)

haven't got links for the stuff yet, if you want them i'll find them.

cant wait for it to be put into operation

maybe add another element for a quicker boil time.

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:07 am

Ah nice one. Its probably the next piece of equipment I'll be going for - my boiler has definitely seen better days.

I know the stock pots you mean and I guess I could find someone local to drill the holes. (me plus anything more than painting = disaster

)

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:24 pm

Certainly not impressive by most of this forum's equipment standards, but here's a bit of 3-tier sparging...

Only got 28litres in the copper today as I sparged down to 1016 then stopped. Hopefully it will have a beneficial effect on the final product, even if I get less beer

prodigal2 · Post by **prodigal2** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:47 pm

Have a good one SW. I hope you nail your bittering issue

I was going to do this recipe this week but my styrians failed to show, so I will need to live the brew through you mate

Scooby · Post by **Scooby** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:55 pm

spearmint-wino wrote:Certainly not impressive by most of this forum's equipment standards, but here's a bit of 3-tier sparging...

Only got 28litres in the copper today as I sparged down to 1016 then stopped. Hopefully it will have a beneficial effect on the final product, even if I get less beer

You've more than likely got less wort with a higher gravity, top up during the boil to achieve your desired og and hopefully brew length.

From my experience you will end up with a higher quality beer

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:37 pm

Scooby wrote:You've more than likely got less wort with a higher gravity, top up during the boil to achieve your desired og and hopefully brew length.
From my experience you will end up with a higher quality beer

I've read people on here advocating not going all the way down to 1.006 so I thought I'd give it a try.

Shame about the Styrians, Prodigal. This is the first use of a kilo I bought off Slurp several months ago - they're smelling great and the wort has more of a greenish tinge than with other hops I've used. Hopefully that means they're fresher

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:47 am

Well I ended up with 24l at 1043 in the fermenter, the rehydrated Safale was going good too - yeast cap formed within a couple of hours.

You just can't beat the smell of styrians - this is my first all-styrian brew and I'm surprised how citrussy it smells/tastes. I always thought that was down to the cascade I've used. Single-hop beers are definitely a good learning process. What other varieties are good for bittering, aroma and steeping in a single-hop brew?

bitter_dave · Post by **bitter_dave** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:54 am

spearmint-wino wrote: What other varieties are good for bittering, aroma and steeping in a single-hop brew?

Goldings, by far my favourite hop

I've made a few all-goldings beers (and a lot of beers where goldings was the majority hop); I keep returning to them because I love the flavour so much.

prodigal2 · Post by **prodigal2** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:05 am

spearmint-wino wrote:Well I ended up with 24l at 1043 in the fermenter, the rehydrated Safale was going good too - yeast cap formed within a couple of hours.

You just can't beat the smell of styrians - this is my first all-styrian brew and I'm surprised how citrussy it smells/tastes. I always thought that was down to the cascade I've used. Single-hop beers are definitely a good learning process. What other varieties are good for bittering, aroma and steeping in a single-hop brew?

Sounds like you had a sucsessful brew day. On a isde note I now want to do this brew even more thanks to you descriptions of the styrians.

Have you tried 100% Satisfaction, 100% goldings, and damn tasty it is to, check for the post from Vossy.

spearmint-wino · Post by **spearmint-wino** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:40 pm

Thanks b_d, i think a 100% goldings is on the cards when the weather cools down a bit.

Prodigal, to spur you on, my brother has been staying for the last few days in the room next to the fermenter and has been saying "that beer smells amazing"

I'll keg it on/after the weekend and report on the first taste

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:15 pm

I am on my third pint of Styrian Stunner tonight, good luck its fanastic. I have tried 100% satisfacton aswell. I have just started a new brew "Yorkshire Pale Ale" with Styrian and Challenger. Recipe added to the forum a few weeks ago. First tastings are gorgeoues. It will be in the cornie by Sunday. Tasting should be well under way by August

bconnery · Post by **bconnery** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:24 pm

spearmint-wino wrote: What other varieties are good for bittering, aroma and steeping in a single-hop brew?

You can do it with quite a few really, even some that are more 'traditionally' used as bittering or aroma only. Ross on the forum here does a range of single hop summer ales to try out hops. Simple grain bill, I think it is something like 95% ale malt, 5%wheat and then a single hop done as mash hops, first wort hops, bittering, flavour, aroma and dry hop. He uses S05 to really bring out the hop flavour.
American ones like Cascade and Columbus, but perhaps not Chinook unless you keep the bittering addition small.
First Gold would work beautifully as a single hop brew, Bramling Cross too. I've had all Fuggles ales and in my book they don't work as well as all Goldings but each to their own.
Almost all hops will work that way I think, its just a matter of getting the balance of additions right, and knowing that some will work better than others.
I would definitely recommend First Gold, Bramling Cross, Cascade, Columbus and Amarillo to name but a few.

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Brewday 16/07/2007 - 'Styrian Smasher'

Brewday 16/07/2007 - 'Styrian Smasher'