First APA, All Grain

[yashicamat]

I use Nottingham a fair bit but i am now on a US-05 jag. Well worth a try if you have not been there yet. Stops dead at 1.008 for my last 2(different) brews and settles really fast to a tight compact layer in the bottle which does not budge at all on opening. No use if you want the yeast to play a BIG part in your taste but worth a whirl. Heck i got 10 packs from Paul this week and all US-05!

US-05 doesn't settle very quickly in the cask though. In the cask, Nottingham will drop bright for me in 5 - 7 days, US-05 will take up to 10 days, depending on how long the beer had been in the FV before racking.

Back to the OP, I'll be interested to hear how the dry hops have worked out.

[pantsmachine]

Cheers Yashi. I have just bottled a load with nottingham(3 days ago). I'll keep a close eye on them to fix their rate in ma heid! Its been a few months since i used Nottingham so i will be interested to see if i get any yeast 'lift off' from the bottom of the bottle. That was 1 thing that got me switched onto US05. In this hobby i never stop learning!

[bosium]

Well, I drew a sample last night and tasted it - it's really spot-on as far as I can tell from the uncarbed sample. It's got a round, malty sweetness from the high FG, well balanced by the substantial bitterness and a lingering grapefruit taste that stays in your mouth long after the sip. It also has a beautiful cascade aroma, which I guess will be more pronounced when the beer is carbed and can actually throw a head of some sort. I can't detect any grassy flavours which is a bit of a relief.

Now if I can just get rid of this haze. I added 65ml of tH&G triple-strength gooey isinglass last night and stirred it well, hopefully that will settle some of the haze but if not I will try polyclar once it's in the keg (need to buy some).

Btw - I used Notty purely because I wanted a well-attenuating strain which could work at low temps - I was after as little yeast character as possible. I think it's worked out exactly how I wanted, it seemed to have no problem fermenting around 14 degrees C, although it was understandably a little slow.

[pantsmachine]

, result! Haze is nothing to worry about. Looks like you are hitting a high success rate anyway!

[bosium]

I finally got this one in the keg on Saturday, and after experimenting with high pressure and shaking, etc, I managed to get it to drinkable carbonation level by Saturday night. Sunday was much better though, and I have burped the headspace and reset the reg to serving pressure now - I've set it to give me around 2.5 volumes CO2.

Anyway - the colour is a nice copper / orange, and it is actually almost crystal clear above about 3 deg C. The H&G isinglass definitely helped a lot, I used it at -1 so it took a lot of the haze away. Also the beer pours with a beautiful creamy, white head this simply won't go away right until the last sip. I absolutely love flaked barley, I will probably try and sneak some into just about every beer I make from now on.

As for the taste, I have to say that this has to be one of my finest beers yet. It's got a deep, toasted malt flavour from the MO and vienna malt, with just enough crystal sweetness, and the bitterness, while powerful, is very smooth and soft and not harsh at all. There is almost zero yeast character, which is what I was trying to achieve. The hop flavour is incredible, and the aroma is pronounced. The beer also has an almost moussy mouthfeel to it, I think the flaked barley definitely helps here. All in all, everything works together perfectly and it is the most balanced, delicous, drinkable hombrew that I can ever remember brewing. I had about six pints of it over the weekend, I don't think it's going to last long! This will be a regular in my fridge from now on.

The pics don't really do it justice, my glass was frosty from the condensation and I couldn't quite get the camera to focus:

[keithshead]

Sounds Great!
Will try a partial mash version of that i reckon.
So you reckon the flacked barley really helped?

[bosium]

Absolutely! The flaked barley adds lots of protein which gives it the stunning creamy head, and I suspect it contributes to the mouthfeel too. You will need to mash it with some malt though to convert the starch if not doing all-grain.

[mysterio]

Wow, what a great result and description. I can virtually taste it.

I think I was influenced by you taking the Notty down to cool temperatures. I set my controller to 16 for my current APA which is working out as an average of 15.5 with the ATC-800. The yeast doesn't seem to be bothered by those temps. I didn't have the balls to take it down to 14C.

[keithshead]

Absolutely! The flaked barley adds lots of protein which gives it the stunning creamy head, and I suspect it contributes to the mouthfeel too. You will need to mash it with some malt though to convert the starch if not doing all-grain.

Made an IPA recently and included some flaked barley in it. Hopefully with good results! Is still in the secondary right now. had a little taste. it's good but little concerned about my choice of yeast; Wyeast1968. London ESB. Is a tad sweet i think.

[bosium]

Thanks guys. I was shooting for lower than 1.015 too, I dunno if it was my mash schedule or just the Notty finishing high because of the low temps. Either way, I'm actually really glad it did, the extra sugar really works well with the strong bitterness of this beer.

I need another fridge now - I need separate space to lager and to ferment and serve. I have the problem where I have a beer which needs to lager, but I have all the ingredients to brew another batch. I'm hoping to be able to hook up a heating pad (fermwrap from the USA) to the fermenting beer and ferment in the lagering fridge, but I'll just have to see how that works out. I'm not sure how many extra degrees it would give me - ie. could I set the fridge to 0.C to lager my one batch and use the fermwrap to get 10.C in my FV in the same fridge?