Brewday 02/03/2018 IPA

Heritage Homebrew

For my next beer I decided to brew an old style English IPA. Not to a genuine heritage recipe but I took inspiration from my copy of The Homebrewer's Guide to Vintage Beer by Ron Pattison (whose blog "Shut up about Barclay Perkins" is great source of historical beery information) The 19th Century IPA recipes featured in the book aren't especially strong - around 5-6% abv - but are extremely bitter with IBU ratings in excess of 150 and hopping rates of up to 18g per litre. I didn't want to go for such a high level of bitterness so I used most hops as late addition and for dry hopping, with (high for me!) an overall hopping rate of 10g per litre. The IBU's are around 52 so still quite bitter. This brew was the first time I tried adjusting the water profile. One of my fellow local homebrewers gave me a water adjustment spreadsheet with our local water profile data from a recent report. After some messing about in Excel I ended up adding 6g of calcium chloride and 6g of Epsom salts to the mash, whether this will make any significant difference remains to be seen.

Recipe (BIAB)

• Mash for 90 mins at 66°C
• Boil for 60 mins
• Mash water volume 28.5lt
• Maris Otter 4.8kg
• Wheat Malt 150g
• Crystal Malt 45L 250g
• Flaked Maize 250g
• Northdown 7% 25g (60 mins)
• Northdown 7% 25g (30 mins)
• First Gold (homegrown) 25g whirlpool 75°C for 30 mins
• Cluster 7% 25g whirlpool 75°C for 30 mins
• First Gold (homegrown) 25g dry hop for 4 days
• Cluster 7% dry hop for 4 days 
• Nottingham Ale Yeast 11g pack pitched at 18°C
• Recipe in Brewers Friend

Results 12/03/2018

I bottled this after 10 days fermentation

OG 1.057

FG 1.012

ABV 6%

Now I have to give it a few weeks to condition before I can taste it.

Bottling - Strong Bitter

No Caps!

Time to bottle the Strong Bitter brewed on the 9th of July. Fortunately I realised just before starting that I only had silver caps which I'd already used on my Best Bitter previously. Since I normally can't be arsed with labels I tend to use different coloured caps to distinguish between beers, especially important for two beers similar in colour. So after a quick trip to the local homebrew shop I was ready. The final gravity was 1.010 (exactly as forecast) - giving me 5.1% abv. I filled 28 x 330ml , 21 x 500ml and one 750ml swing top as I almost ran out of bottles.

Bottling - Best Bitter

On The Eighth Day ...

... it was time to bottle the Best Bitter brewed on the 24th of May. 

Final Gravity was 1.010, ABV 4.6% and IBU 38. I think my recent brews have been a touch over carbonated, which is not good for a best bitter, so I primed this batch with 80g of sugar (about 1.8 vols of CO2) and bottled 21 litres in total. A quick sample tasting delivered a sweet malty flavour, pleasantly bitter with a little bit of hops in the background. I hope that after a couple of weeks of conditioning this will be a really nice beer. 

Bottling - Another Pale Ale

More Bottling Fun

Time to bottle the pale ale made last week. It's been in the fermenter for eight days, dry hopped for the final three days. There had been no apparent airlock activity for four days so I took a couple of gravity readings over two days using my recently acquired specialised sampling system (or turkey baster as it's more commonly known) and both results were the same. The FG reading was 1.014, a bit higher than expected (1.011) giving an ABV of 4.2%. I tend to always aim for a theoretical ABV of 4.5%+ knowing that I will still get well over 4% even if things don't turn out exactly as planned.

Porter Tasting

First Tasting 

Time to sample the Porter I brewed on March 23rd. 

First impressions: good carbonation, a rich roasty flavour, slightly sweet and very smooth with an almost oily texture. Not as hoppy as I thought it might be, I was expecting a bit more aroma but overall I am very pleased with this. The only downside is very poor head retention. It's not at all flat, if anything it's slightly too fizzy but the head rapidly disappears after pouring. I'm not sure if the oats have made any difference but I think it is definitely a bit smoother than previous brews so I'll put that down to using rolled oats for the first time. 

In conclusion: very drinkable!

Bottling - Scottish 100/- Pale Ale

Bottling Day

Once again I have managed to be sufficiently organised to manage some bottling on a brewday. The Scottish Pale Ale I brewed on Jan 31st finished at 1.015 resulting in 5.84% ABV and 72.5% apparent attenuation. This was supposed to match an 1879 recipe from William Younger but my OG was 10 points lower than forecast at 1.060. Fortunately the FG was also 10 points lower and apparent attenuation 10 percentage point higher so the final ABV was an exact match for the historic recipe.

Bottling - Altbier

Another Bottling Run 31/01/17

In addition to brewing my historic Scottish 100 shilling ale I even managed to bottle the Altbier I brewed on 24/01/17. The FG reading was 1.012 giving an ABV of 5% and apparent attenuation of 75%. Now I just have to leave it to condition for about 7 weeks. I'll condition at room temperature for a couple of weeks to get the secondary fermentation and then move it somewhere cooler.

After such an intensive bout of brewing activity I need a beer!