15th June 2008 - Effin Summer Ale
Here was a challenge thrown down at the Northern CBA meeting in January to brew a light ale for drinking on a summer day 1.035-1.040. The real trick with this one of course is that there is nowhere to hide dodgy practices . . . like in all pale beers really. . . . I'm hoping that I can hide something with all that late hopping with well over 50% of the IBU's coming from the 30 Minute addition . . . . its not quite a hop burst/bomb but its getting on that way.
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11Kg Pale Malt
250g Light Crystal (70EBC)
130g Chocolate Malt
30g Fuggles Hops (5.9% aa - First Wort)
40g Fuggles Hops (5.9%aa - 30 minutes)
150g Styrian Bobek ( 4.7%aa - 15 minutes)
50g Styrian Bobek ( 4.7%aa - 15 minute steep at 80ºC)
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Aiming for a beer around 1.035, and about 25IBU, so moderately bitter for the gravity, but not out of balance. the light crystal malt will add a bit of sweetness without being cloying which standard grades of crystal can be. The Chocolate malt can add a degree fo nuttiness, but I suspect that in this volume of wort, ( 76l) that will be lost. Although there are a lot of hops in this beer the majority of bittering power comes from the late additions so the level of bitterness should be rather subdued. |
Unfortunately I was unable to take pictures of this brewing session, however, I did my first batch sparge. I haven't got round to converting the 80L Thermobox yet so am going to use the 50L converted keg tun . . . . Which is going to restrict the amount of liquor I can use. According to the batch sparge calculator I am going to need 91l in the kettle pre boil, and need to use two equal batches of 45.5l . . . . I can see me crying over spilt wort  as the mash tun only holds 50l brim full . . . So I am going to try three equal batches of 30l , adding 13l for batch one, then two more batches of 30l. |
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Batch Sparging is great, using three batches was a bit of a pain, due to the extra time involved, however, I ended up with 84% mash efficiency which is considerably higher than I was expecting. Unfortunately I also discovered that I was running low on gas so decided to reduce the boil from 90 minutes down to 60 minutes duration.
Things went well trhought the boil, and it was only when I was cooling the wort that I managed to overfill one of the kettles and spilt a load of wort . . . still I did end up with 71l of wort in the FV though.
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Eventually ended up with 79.5L at 1.035 following diultion which means that even with batch sparging and various wort losses I exceeded my estimated 75% efficiency by quite a bit
Nice looking wort though. . . . Pitched with two 11g packets of Nottingham yeast to aid the crisp clean profile I was after. Fermented it at 22ºC and then allowed the temperature to fall to 20ºC for the rest of the fermentation
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| 20th June 2008 |
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Less than 4 days since pitching and the gravity is stable at 4.9 Brix which should be somewhere in the region of ~1.010 (for 3.5% abv) about where I was aiming. Head has cleared from the surface of the brew, and looking at the sight glass it is certainly clearing from the top so I would say fermentation is over. . . . Time to start cranking the temperature lower now, probably drop it to 10C, for a period and then down to 5C (Hopefully) . . . . Already clearing quite nicely I think . . . Not sure this is going to go the full 14 Days before kegging/bottling now |
| 29th June 2008 |
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I transferred my beer to corny today . . . Filled the Baby 9, which has had 45g priming sugar in 200ml of water added to it. . . . Filled nicely, Got the first of 4 grown up corni and start filling that, move the second into place and hear something sloshing about . . . Oh yeah I left a couple of litres of peracetic in the big ones to keep them sweet after cleaning them . . . . . SHIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!! forgot to drain them from the cask I'm just filling . . . 1/3 of a keg down the drain  end up with 3 full cornii, a baby corny that I'm going to bottle from, and about 4L in the 4th keg.
Its going to be better when fully clear and carbonated . . . but its a nice pint. . . Golden colour . . . but not lager like, Nice aroma . . not massive, but a bit of dry hopping will sort that, Nice hop flavour, and a lingering bitterness to finish . . .and moreish . . . Glad its a session beer  Off to bottle now |
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