Brew No. 8 - The Return Of The Space Carboy
This is going to be a simple bitter ale hopped only with Chinook. I had a fantastic grapefruit beer at the Bolton Beer Festival years ago, and have never come across an ale that even comes close to the pungency of that one. This is my attempt to make my own!
Also, because I'll probably end up wolfing this one down, it needs to be quite sessionable i.e. low ABV!
Goal (according to Beer Engine)
15L
EBC - 20
EBU - 60
OG - 1.039
FG - 1.009
ABV - 3.9%
Ingredients
2420g Pale Malt
201g Crystal Malt (I was aiming for 10% crystal, but ran out! bah!)
20g Chinook (90 mins) (12.7%)
6g Chinook (30 mins)
10g Chinook (5 mins)
24L East Riding of Yorkshire tap water, +1x campden tablet. pH = 7.7, TDS PPM = 393.
Label
CHINOOK!
These smell a-m-a-z-i-n-g! Not particularly grapefruity though :/
Mash Control
I changed my mash/sparging approach for this ale due to a low efficiency in my last beer, and went for a thinner mash (more liquor - discussed below). I only realised that this would have a knock-on effect on the strike temp after heating the water
so the mash started off a little hot. All good experience!black = mash temp
blue = oven temp
Surplus wort
Collected 20L of wort, plus ~3L. A lot of debris falls out of the wort if left for 20 mins, so I add a 'rest' before boiling.
Little Chinook Hop!
Boil
Cool
Nice cold break
Original Gravity
10.3% Brix = 1.041 Hmmmm....
So.
My last brew had a dissappointing sparge efficiency, so I was tempted to change totally things for this brew and go with a fly sparge. In the end I decided to stick with a 2-pass batch, but using more liquor water in the mash; I usually go with what Beer Engine tells me, 2.5 L per kg of grain. This time I used 3.8L per kg, a much thinner mash. 13L of sparge water went through after 2hrs.
After the sparge I ended up with 20L of 1.033...which according to Beer Engine's efficiency calculator is 84.3% mash efficiency, and 78.6% overall
I think the thinner, longer mash is what made the difference?
This is what I love about brewing! There are so many different things to try, and experience really does count for a lot! This is only my 8th brew, so I've got a lot of improving to do yet, but it gives me respect for those that have done all this tinkering about already (Graham, Jim, etc).
All the best,
Andy
