Casket Ale v1.1 Brew Day

It's 6:30am and I am up. This is not unknown to happen during the week, but it's a Saturday. Who would be up that early on a Saturday!? This fella would be, but why? Cause it's brew day!

The night before I had set up as much as I could to save time on brew day, as my brew days tend to go on for most of the day. Equipment was cleaned. Check. Hops measured. Check. Brew day equipment ready. Check. Grains and yeast. Check. Water measured out and. Dosed with Camden tablet. Check.

The start of brew day went to plan, strike water temp achieved, target mash temp was 66.7 C, I hit it on the nose, measured mash temp was 66.7 C. Now to wait for the 60min mash with added brewing salts. In total I was planning a 75min mash, with a 15min recirculation to clear our the wort. Tubedinoz arrived just in time to help me recirculate as I do not have a pump yet, so had to jug it. This is when I had the grand plan to try a poor man's fly sparge... It kind of worked, it added on another 40mins to my brew day and was a lot of work. Had a few issues with the mash getting disturbed and some grains got through, but was easily fixed.



We collected 32l of preboil wort of 1.045, the target was 1.036. The poor man's sparge worked, but was a bit of a hassle - some upgrades are needed! Now, the biggest problem of the day was starting to rear it head. The gas burner I use was going a bit iffy but I did not think it was a big problem, thought the slight breeze was effecting it, checked the gas, and it felt like there was plenty...
First wort, 60min hop, and boil salt additions went with out a hitch, but burner was still iffy... 30min left of the boil and the burner really starts going blah, kept going out and a very sub-standard boil. A meeting of minds later, I went to get another gas bottle and boom, burner rocking like a rock star. Once the boil was rolling, I left it for another 10min, the started adding my last hop addition, add chiller, wordloc tablet and yeast nutrient. Once the boil was done, I chilled down to under 75 C and add a 40g hop steep/whirlpool addition and let it sit for 20min. The rest of the brew day went quite smoothly, chilled the wort, transferred to the fermentor and pitched the yeast.

It is now the Monday after brew day, and the fermentation is going well. It is keeping within the 18 C ferment temp that I want and is on its way to high krausen. Tomorrow I will raise it to 19 C and then Thursday to 20 C. Fermentation is not going crazy but just chugging along. I will then raise the temp to 21 C at the end of the week for 1 week. After that I will dry hop for 5 days, crash chill and transfer to the keg.

So what did I learn for the brew day?
1. It's always great to have a brew buddy to help with an extra hand.
2. The bayou burner is great, but it needs a full tank to get a good rolling boil, anything under half is not good.
3. The poor man's fly sparge does work. It is a lot of work and can disturb the grain bed, but the extra efficiency is great. I can see some upgrades in my near future

Now, what I was planning was to use this batch's yeast cake to ferment my next version of Pale Death Ale. I have changed my mind. I forgot that I was going to dry hop the beer and I do not use hop bags, so having hops in the yeast cake will not be beneficial. So the next batch of PDA has been shelved for now. I also don't want the beer to sit in the keg for another 3 weeks while I ferment the PDA. I want to get as much of those hops as I can! Now it's just the waiting game, a couple of weeks and I will be able to tell if the brewing salts have had any effect on my hop profile.

That will be it for now, Thank you for reading about my brew day, drama and all. Below you will find my Homebrew Wednesday with a few clips of my brew day.

Churs!

Something Different Brewing...

I am just putting up a quick post today, wanted to let you know that there is a different kind of brewing going on in the Shadow Beast brewery today... I am trying out some new fermentation/brewing. Firstly I am brewing some cold brewed coffee for summer and for a extra caffeine kick. Secondly, I am also trying my hand at Kombucha... I have ever tried this before but I was lucky to get my hands on to a starter, so  I am now trying to grow a "mother". I won't get into the technical information of the two brews as there some some great links out there to help you. I will add some links at the bottom of the post to the ones I used. 

Cold pressed coffee:


I have tried this before and quite enjoyed it, it makes a great iced coffee and is great just on its own. This is a very easy way of brewing coffee, minus the bitterness and acidity. This method of coffee brewing really brings out the small nuance flavours of your beans of choice. It will also be a stronger brew, minus the bitterness and major increase in the caffeine boost due to it being so concentrated. I used a clean French press(mason jar will do), the coffee beans that I had on hand and spring water.
Make sure the beans are coarsely ground(for easy filtration) and the water is cold, mix in the container cover and leave in the fridge for 12-24hrs, decant off the beans, and serve. It is that easy and tastes great!

 
Kombucha:

Now I have heard about this concoction/alien looking thing for a while, haven't done much research on it, but it has good health benefits, apparently..
I was lucky to get a starter for Willem of TruBrew - Brouwereij Sterrenberg, he was gracious enough to give me a starter for free to try. I researched how to make a starter, but we will have to see if I can get this going...
I made a batch of sweet tea, cleaned and sanitized a mason jar, pitched the Kombucha starter and covered with a hand towel so it can breath. Now to get a decent "Mother," I will have to leave it for 4 weeks. Then only will I be able to make a Kombucha batch. This is going to be interesting, plus hopefully it won't get mouldy, which happens very easily here in New Zealand. It's an experiment for sure!

I will keep you updated on both brews, how they are going, how they taste or if they have gone balls up. I am quietly confidence about the cold brew; the Kombucha... Well, we will see. Thank you for reading my blog and hopefully it is a good read and enjoyable.

The Night Before Brewday

The need to brew is strong! Both kegs are kicked and the fermentation chamber is empty. Brew day is upon us.


So I have finally kicked the keg for the Pale Death Ale and Casket Ale v1 keg, So I will be rebrewing the Casket Ale. This is all part of my Casket Series, where I brew a very simple beer and make slight tweaks so I can see what the results will be. Its a great way to experience what a certain, hop, malt or yeast characteristic's bring to a beer. I have brewed the Casket Ale before, its a very simple recipe and the beer came out decently, but the one criticism that I have received, and what I have felt myself, is the hops are just lacking a bit of punch. This is not from the lack of hops either, one of my early beers, which had almost 300g total in a 23L batch, was a bit meh.

Casket Ale v1.2, will be pretty much the same recipe, with some slight tweaks. I have reduced the grain so I can brew a 21L batch instead of a 23L batch and added a few more hops at the end of the boil, whirlpool/hop steep and dry hop. The biggest change I will be attempting with this beer, is adding brewing salts to the mash and boil. Now I wont get into the technical side of it, as I am still figuring it out myself.. What I have done, is sourced the water report for my area and used the EZwatercalculator to work out my water additions(see image at end of post). 
One of the biggest factors to hop bitterness/aroma is water. The harder the water, the better hop bitterness and aroma you will get. After checking my water report and looking up the optimal water chemistry for a hoppy beer. I found my water was severely lacking! My water it seems is very soft, which will be great for a pilsner but not for a hoppy pale ale or IPA. The only avenue I see it to experiment with brewing salts and record the results.

Its now Friday night, I have premeasured my mash and batch sparge water. I have also dosed each with one camden tablet to help dissipate the chlorine, which I also have an abundance of. Hops and brew salts(gypsum, calcium chloride and epsom salts) are measured out, equipment is cleaned and ready for brew day. All I have left now is to finish writing this post, clean out my large pot in the morning and to get my brew on.


I will post another blog entry about the actual brew day and will have some footage from the day for my Homebrew Wednesday. So you will be able to see the trials and tribulations of the day. 
As I have to warn you, this might go balls up, playing with water chemistry is risky. You can make the beer overly bitter and add off flavours with just the brewing salts. I have read up and done research on the matter, but I might be putting too much in or I might be putting too little in. What I will do, is share my results, be it good or bad.


Now, I need to go do some more readying and get some sleep as it is going to be a long day tomorrow. Wish me luck and have a beer on me.

 

Hoppy Pale Ale by Reidybrews

Hoppy Pale Ale by Reidybrews
Youtube Link

Appearance:
The brew pours a beautiful burnt copper colour with a finger width off white/tan head. Has a slight bit of chill/hop haze but otherwise a very good looking beer, the colour is fantastic, deep burnt copper with bright orange highlights. Head retention is not quite there, head falls away quite quickly but does leave a nice off white/tan cap.

Aroma:
Quite a sweet smelling beer. I am picking up some pine/dankness/tangelo/sweet hop aroma. Has quite a sweet malt aroma coming off the beer, which might be the caramalts used or it might be a bit of diacetyl, or a bit of both. The sweet malt over powers the hop aromas just a bit and makes the beer more malt dominate than hop. I think it has a good hop combo, but the sweet malts need to be reduce just a little to let the hops shine more.

Flavour:
Off the bat the beer is quite sweet, the bitterness is there but needs some more "oomph". Has quite a gentle dryness on the palate with a nutty aftertaste. I think maybe a British yeast was used, as it has some fruity esters and gentle dry finish. The only off flavour I can pick up is a bit of diacetyl, which gets amplified by the sweetness of the beer. The hops are there, but the sweet malt is dominating them. The pineyness and dankness is there but quite subtle. For a 6.5% beer it is going down smooth!

Mouthfeel:
Mouth feels good, could do with a tad bit more carbonation, unless this is going for a British type ale. Light to medium body, leaning more to medium than light, if it had a little bit more carbonation the body would be more medium and suite the beer.

Overall:
Overall the beer is good, it feels to be a more of a English pale ale than American, with more malt forward than hop. My personal preference says to me that this beer, as a American Pale Ale, with more hop forward, clean yeast character and dry finish would be amazing. I love the hop combination that Reidybrews has in this beer, I want them to stand out more. The beer is a tad bit sweet for me, which is not a bad thing if you like that, personally I like my beers a bit dryer. Everything I mentioned is my personal preference, the only thing I could pick up in the beer was a bit of diacetyl, which comes across as a sweet butterscotch flavour, which all beers have to a certain degree, which even my own beers suffer from, but is easy remedied with a D rest.
The beer is a solid brew. Malt forward with a sweet malt and a backup of piney/dank hops. I am enjoying it on a hot spring Sunday and it s going down a treat. Thank you very much to Reidybrews and hopefully he will send a few more my way!

Tubedinoz Jessica Sim's-coe Toasted Pale Ale

Tubedinoz Jessica Sim's-coe Toasted Pale Ale
Facebook Page

Appearance:
Pours a beautiful burn orange/copper colour with a tan head. Has a tad bit of chill haze, but quite clear. Small tight, pure white bubbles for the head. A very nice beer with some great colour for a SMASH beer.

Aroma:
Dank, piney with a hint of grapefruit. The beer has a great hop aroma with a subtle malt backbone and a touch of toastiness. No off flavours on the nose just a great simcoe hop flavour.

Mouthfeel:
Good carbonation, keeps it light and let's the flavours move over the palate. Nice dry finish, that could do with just a bit of residual sweetness.

Flavour:
Smooth bitterness that leads to a good mixture of the dank/piney flavours of the simcoe hops and toasted malt backbone. Has quite a dry finish, I feel that it could do with just a small amount of residual sweetness to balance the toasted malt/dry finish of the beer. The beer has a nice complexity  for a single malt. Toasting the malt really gives extra flavour in the beer that you do not expect.

Overall:
As always Tubedinoz has produced a a great beer. For a smash beer, it is complex in the malt character and balanced with the hops. The toasting of the malt really adds to the beer, the only thing I can think of with this beer, is to add a bit of crystal to add a small amount of sweetness to balance out the roasted malt flavour and dry finish. I think Tubedinoz is onto a great pale ale recipe here, which is moreish and refreshing.

HBW 84 - Grainson Brew Day with Tubedinoz

Grainson Brew Day with Tubedinoz

It is 7:01pm, the sun is still up and summer is almost here. Today, not only was the weather great, but it was a brew day. Brew days are a special thing. They get the heart pumping and the mind whirling! You are up way earlier than you should be, stronger coffee than normal, and the anticipation. Why? Because it is brew day.

The only thing different about this brew day, is that it was not mine... A good friend of mine, Tubedinoz, is brewing a SMASH beer on his new system. It will be a Wai-Ti and NZ mild ale malt beer on his newly built Grainfather clone, called "The Electric Recirculating BIAB System aka Grainson", his words not mine...
I did not have a big part in this brew day except for support and brews. I took along some of my Casket Ale(SMASH) and two bottle of my Pale Death Ale, one keg conditioned and one bottled conditioned. By the time I got there the brew day was already afoot,strike water had reached temp, grains had been mashed in and temps achieved. So there was nothing to do but troubleshoot some small matters. Nothing big, just some teething issues on a virgin brew rig. Once these issues had been sorted, a 75min mash was in progress, so nothing left to do but to try out some beers and spin a yarn about our favorite subject, brewing beer.

The mash went without a hitch, temp was raised to mash out temps, brew bucket raised and grains rinsed to get the last bit of sugars and to get to preboil volume. There where a few more teething issues, some discussions and a fix/upgrades settled upon.
By the time the sparge was done, boil was upon us, very nicely timed by Dean.
Tubedinoz is still brewing, I am still there for moral support and with a beer in my hand. First hop addition was added, time for a wee lunch, proved by Mrs Tubedinoz, was a great lunch of ham, cheese and pine nut scrolls and short bread biscuits. So much for the weight loss...
The last few hop additions went without a hitch and before you knew it, it was time to chill the wort.
So far, besides a few minor hassles I think the brew day has gone quite smoothly and very quickly. Wort was chilled, post boil gravity of 1.052 @ 9L(Dean only does half batches) was reached and it was time to clean up, well would you look at that, it's getting late, the wife will be angry, I would love to stay and help but I....

So the brew day went quite well from my point of view, not sure Dean thinks the same, but have had way worse brew days! I am quite impressed with the system that Dean has built. There were a few teething problems, but nothing major and quite minor for a first brew day. I think that Dean is going to make some outstanding brews on his new system, and I am personally excited to see what he comes up with. I had a great day, spinning a yarn, moral support and drinking some good beer. What could be better on a spring day? Nothing that I can think of.

Homebrewing. More than just beer.

When I first started homebrewing, I never thought I would be where I am today. I started homebrewing as I was frustrated by the lack of creativity in my then occupation. I didn't even drink that much beer at that point!

Most people will have a story of why they started homebrewing, either to save money or just to have a fun hobby. I have no actual clue why I decided to brew beer. As I have said, I did not really even drink beer at that time. I was frustrated, had some expendable income, and this notion of "hey, I can brew beer" came to me. It fulfilled some of my requirements/interests I have. It is technical, creative and at the end you got some beer that you can drink. Choice!

So I bought myself the starter kit. It cost me the princely sum of$110 (including shipping) and came in a very large box(which I then had to take home on a bus). My wife was enthralled! Oh yay, another project that will end up dusty and abandoned...
The kit came with a fermentor, a lager kit, a bag of enhancer and other equipment to make beer. It was awesome- I could not wait to make my own beer! So I followed the instructions to the letter! And I made beer! I will not go into all the details; you will all know how a kit n kilo is made. If not there are some great tutorials out there already.
In the end, I made beer, was it good beer? Yeah nah...But what it did achieve, was get to me hooked! I had found a outlet for my creativity, my need to learn new skills and at the end of the day, I had beer that I made myself! How could it get better?

Fast forward a few years, and where am I? Well, I am still making beer! Is it great beer? Well now, I am not sure about that, it's ok beer, but I think it can be better..(I can be a bit hard on myself, but that is another story)
I am still brewing beer and loving it. I have made upgrades to my brewing setup, I have built things and I have a couple of home brews along the way.
But, yes there is a but, there is an aspect of homebrewing that I did not expect. What is that, you say? What I did not expect, is the social aspect that homebrewing has opened up to me. I am not a social person and was turning into a grumpy old man. (Well, I am still turning into a grumpy old man...) I have met and made friends with a great deal of good people. I must say, that I was not expecting that.

This was made possible through YouTube, yep you heard me, YouTube. I started putting up videos which are called "Homebrew Wednesdays." These are basically just short videos of what you are brewing, planning on brewing, upgrades, etc. Stuff that would be boring to people who are not interested in brewing. And through these HBWs, I started meeting people from all over the world. Not only did they have the same interest/hobby as I do, they actually turned out to be pretty good people. People who do not look down their nose at you, or judge you, but try to help you. You have a problem or a question, these are the people who will help you and give you the advice that you need. In other words just good people. People who I am firm friends with and share brew days with.  I did not expect or even comprehend could happen when I started down this rabbit hole that we call homebrewing.

So after reading through my bad grammar, crappy sentence structure and maybe bad spelling(come on autocorrect, don't ducking leave me hanging), all I want to say is, if you are thinking of getting into homebrewing, do it. Not only is it a great hobby, it helps you meet some great people who will become good friends. People who you want to share a beer with. For me at the end of the day, that is all that I needed.

Thank you for reading this far and reading this post. I am pretty sure that not a lot of people will read this. If by chance, you have trolled the interwebs and stumbled onto my blog, with the idea, "should I homebrew?" I say yes! It is a hobby that will change you and take you down a road that was unexpected but is so worth it in so many ways.

Now stop reading this blog and go brew a beer! Or if you are a homebrewer, relax, have a homebrew.

HBW 83 - Sittin In The Sun...

Casket Ale (Mosaic SMASH) v1.0 Homebrew Review

Appearance:
Pure white head with a golden to coppery colour. Has a bit of chill haze, but clearing up slowly. Will have to work on the clarity on a later version. Has some decent lacing for a single malt beer, with small tight white bubbles.

Aroma:
First off you get a lot of mango and tropical fruit on the nose. The malt is there, but quite subtle. The aroma is good, but I think the hops could pop more and be more distinct.

Flavour:
Mango and tropical fruit. This is a hop dominate beer, with mangrove and tropical fruit mix being the more distinct flavour. There is a nice malty flavour on the after taste. Even with the hops being quite distinct, there could be more defined and could pop a bit more.

Body:
Medium to light body, decently carbonated which helps give a decent mouthfeel that keeps the flavours moving.

Overall:
This is the first in my series for the casket ale, and I think it's off to a great start. I don't detect any off flavours, except maybe some diacytl if I really look. It's easy drinking and very moorish. The hop aroma and flavour is very summer like, with mango and mixed tropical fruit. The flavour is very hop forward with the fruity flavours matching the aroma. I feel that as good as the hop flavour/aroma is, they could be more distinct and have more pop. So what an I say about the beer? I like it. It will be interesting to see how the changes will do to this beer.