St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

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Northern Brewer
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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Northern Brewer » Wed Nov 28, 2018 9:58 pm

Meatymc wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:36 pm
I did wonder whether they'd changed their process to cut down on us farming their yeast.
That's the last thing on their minds - there's just a lot of pressure from supermarkets etc to have beer that's as well-filtered as possible to save on returns from "hazy" beer. That's why the vast majority of supermarket beer is not bottle conditioned.
Bertie Doe wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2018 8:50 pm
When I bought the required hops in brew suppliers, he said the Chinook would be the dominant flavour. I assume it's because it's AA is 12.6%, whereas Cascade and Willamette are around 7% ??
It's a complicated thing, flavour is not directly related to alpha acid content, Chinook is just strongly-flavoured. Plenty of high-alpha bittering hops like Admiral are not strongly flavoured.

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Robwalkeragain » Thu Nov 29, 2018 4:03 pm

Northern Brewer wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2018 9:58 pm
Meatymc wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2018 4:36 pm
I did wonder whether they'd changed their process to cut down on us farming their yeast.
That's the last thing on their minds - there's just a lot of pressure from supermarkets etc to have beer that's as well-filtered as possible to save on returns from "hazy" beer. That's why the vast majority of supermarket beer is not bottle conditioned.
Bertie Doe wrote:
Wed Nov 28, 2018 8:50 pm
When I bought the required hops in brew suppliers, he said the Chinook would be the dominant flavour. I assume it's because it's AA is 12.6%, whereas Cascade and Willamette are around 7% ??
It's a complicated thing, flavour is not directly related to alpha acid content, Chinook is just strongly-flavoured. Plenty of high-alpha bittering hops like Admiral are not strongly flavoured.
Even then, I love when we have a heatwave and you can tell anything supermarkets stock that's seen more than a whisker of hops turns to skunky lemon juice.

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Bertie Doe » Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:11 pm

The attachment P1040249.JPG is no longer available
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Update : Last friday the primary was now available when I bottled the batch of Ringwood Old T . Incidentally, I didn't prime this batch. I'm finding from previous brews, that the combination of 300g of Torrified and priming with just a mere 1g per bottle, has been producing too manny gushers. I'll do the same with the 'Proper Job' which I started on Tuesday.

I followed Johnyboy's recipe posted on 21st Nov 18, using 6kg of Otter, 300g of Torrified, 120g of Crystal plus the 3 American hops, plus water adjuncts. I wasn't sure how much liquor to use (I haven't downloaded the Beer engine yet) so I looked at a G.Walker recipe for 23L at 5.7%, with a similar grain bill. My Brewer instructions recommend a wetter mash ratio than usual, so I opted for mashing with 20L at 64C and sparging with 15L at 80C. I'd run out of light crystal so was forced to use dark. It does look a bit dark in the mashing photo attached but we'll wait till the first bottled is opened in 10 weeks time. The slotted plate supplied with the Brewer is ok for mashing but is a bit too quick for sparging, so I bought a sparging bar to slow things down a bit. It slowed the sparge down from 5 mins to 15 minutes.

Earlier posts suggest that St.Austel use a blend of yeasts at Primary stage. I'll save my last bottle of Proper Job for harvesting porpoises (!) next year :) Meanwhile I've opted for a blend of half pkt of Mangrove Jacks M42 and half pkt of Safale SO4, which I started on Monday in a demijon with one litre of water and 80g spraymalt. This was added yesterday and is bubbling away nicely in the Primary, this morning. Prior to adding the starter my hydrometer showed 1052 gravity. My only concern is the high loss of 27L preboil, down to 23.5 litre postboil. Seems a bit excessive?

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Bertie Doe » Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:28 pm

If you decide to add a spray-bar to your Brewer, it's fairly easy to cut them down to size with a hack saw. I reduced mine to 230 mm, to allow plenty of clearance with the sides of the malt sleave. Before you replace the black plastic end-caps, first remember to dress the rough ends of the s/s sray bar, with a file. You can also get a couple of jubilee clips on Ebay fairly cheap, the ones that use wing-blade adjusters, rather than the awkward screwdriver adjusters.
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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by chrisr » Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:16 pm

As regards the StA yeast this is my understanding:

As someone else has said, it is their 'own' yeast. I read somewhere it was sourced, a very long time ago, from a Dorset brewery (maybe). Somewhere in that area, anyway. But I'm talking decades ago, so it will have evolved by now.

I have read someone claimed Mangrove Jacks M36 was a reasonable match.

Most (but not all) StA bottled conditioned beers do use the main yeast strain. IFAIK, PJ and Tribute do.

I don't think they used to in years gone by, but I think they have improved their processes over the years and do now remove all the yeast from the fermentation, and reseed it. I'm not sure if this applies to all the bottled beers though.

I've sucessfully propagated their yeast in the past, the dregs of a few bottles was enough to get it going.I found it helps to keep the bottles still and cold for a period, to get what yeast there is to drop out.

However, if you are able to actually get to StA, if you go and ask at the Visitor Centre they will almost certainly give you some live yeast (take your own sterilised bottle). I've done this twice now, brought it home from holiday in a bottle.

Their water is also their own, from a cave/old mine working up the hill. It's very low in all minerals. However, I believe all water in the SW is pretty much the same, being low mineral content (feel free to tell me I'm wrong here). The variation, area to area, is slight.

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Bertie Doe » Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:54 pm

Thanks Chris, I'll pick up some M36, next time I'm in town. I'm about 30 minutes drive east of St. Austel and I'd like to do the tour of the brewery in the New Year. I will try and grab some of their fresh yeast and also try the keg version of Proper Job at 4.5%.

As I mentioned earlier, my water adjuncts are based on a very old report from Southwest Water. I'll get an update, it'll be interesting to see if there are any big changes - but I doubt it :)

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Heron1952 » Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:13 am

Just the clarify over the years Roger Ryman has frequently confirmed that they use their yeast both for primary and the same yeast for bottle conditioning. Rumours otherwise, are based on bottling contracts they had with others many years ago.
As for yeast source don't forget Roger came from a Scottish Brewery 😉
Yes their water is from their own spring but it is "Burtonised" I'd be surprised if the sulphate : Chloride ratios weren't tweeked depending on the various styles they are so clever at producing.
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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by chrisr » Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:02 pm

When you say "30 minutes drive", I'd suggest you don't drive. Can you get someone to drive you?! When I was last there in November, the visitor centre had 10 different draught beers on. I think you'd really want to try several :) I did. It's like a mini beer festival. The food is pretty good and reasonably priced, too.

The StA yeast was there before Roger Ryman - think HSD.

If you're only 30 minutes away, have you never come across cask PJ in any pubs near you then? I live in Derbyshire, and it occasionally appears in freehouses even around here. Or do you mean the kegged PJ? Proper Cool, is it called?

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Heron1952 » Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:41 pm

"The StA yeast was there before Roger Ryman - think HSD."
Exactly and the local name for the brewery was "'St Awful' and HSD was "High Speed Diesel" 😀😀😀 Things changed😎
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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by chrisr » Fri Dec 21, 2018 7:28 pm

Probably improved processes, better quality ingredients and better (IE some) quality control. I don't think a brewery would let a new brewer bring in his own yeast and start using it in their existing brews.

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Heron1952 » Fri Dec 21, 2018 7:56 pm

You obviously have better inside knowledge🤨
As an aside, on yeast, they brewed a few weeks ago with Cooper's yeast from Adelaide, Aus.
Gave somewhat better outcome than a Fosters. IMHO.😀😀🙂
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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by jsebright » Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:17 pm

Very interesting thread this. I'm about to brew what I hope to be a decent best bitter (yorkshire / TTL style perhaps). I was thinking I might try a different yeast - Nottingham seems to produce good results, but I'm after a bit more character. Rather than going for something like WLP002 or WY1469 (? - from memory), I thought I'd try and get a decent bottle and propagate up.
I've just bought some bottles of PJ from the supermarket - about the only BC they had if you exclude some of the "craft" stuff that might be Notty / S04 anyway. I'm happy with the process (have had some success in the past as well as some failures), what I'm wondering is if the bottled PJ yeast is suitable for a "Best Bitter" style, rather than a more hoppy, paler beer?
If it's the same as they use for Tribute (not an unreasonable assumption) then it may be OK for these purposes.

I'd welcome some thoughts...

+ It's been a few weeks since the last post - would be good to see an update on the progress of the clone brew

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Heron1952 » Thu Jan 10, 2019 9:46 pm

Same yeast in both PJ & Tribute should be fine.
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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by jsebright » Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:03 pm

Thought that was likely to be the case. Thanks.
I enjoyed two bottles of PJ last night, but they were both sparkling clear. There was just a slight smear of yeast on one side of the bottom, but they were still nicely carbonated. Shows just how little yeast you need to condition.
I've made a small (approx 300ml) starter, but due to the small level of yeast available I'm not sure how it will go. Not sure what activity there is at the moment - it just looks a bit murky. I'm keeping it warm and giving it a swirl every now and again. When it ramps up I'll put in a stir bar and get it whirling.

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Re: St Austel 'Proper Job' Cornish IPA - help please

Post by Top Cat » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:19 pm

jsebright wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:03 pm
Thought that was likely to be the case. Thanks.
I enjoyed two bottles of PJ last night, but they were both sparkling clear. There was just a slight smear of yeast on one side of the bottom, but they were still nicely carbonated. Shows just how little yeast you need to condition.
I've made a small (approx 300ml) starter, but due to the small level of yeast available I'm not sure how it will go. Not sure what activity there is at the moment - it just looks a bit murky. I'm keeping it warm and giving it a swirl every now and again. When it ramps up I'll put in a stir bar and get it whirling.
You’ll be fine, my starter with very little yeast, as you say, lies dormant for around 24-36 hrs then you will see activity.
I have used this yeast to clone Tribute, Timothy Taylor landlord, and Fullers London Pride with imho, very good results.

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