HBW 88 - Black Sands Brewing Company

Casket Ale V1.1 (Mosaic SMASH) Pre-Carbonation Taste Test

Appearance:
I have crash chilled for 2 days at 2c but the beer is still pretty cloudy, maybe should chill for longer next batch or use gelatin. The beer is quite light but with a peach/orange appearance.

Aroma:
The aroma of the beer straight off the bat is much more pronounced, I get Lemon meringue/peach/mango with a bit of juicy fruit bubble gum. A sweet malt is there but the hops are the more dominant. The nose is great, it should get better as the brew is a bit cold, the beer has just come out of the fermentor at 2c.

Flavour:
The taste of the beer is very much hop dominate. The flavours of the hops mirror the aroma, with but with a more peach/passion fruit. Very refreshing and will be great on a hot day, reminds me of a tropical fruit punch.

Mouthfeel:
I can't really say much about the mouthfeel, as the carbonation will help the body of the beer. What I can say is that it is very smooth, more on the light side. Very easy drinking!

Overall:
So far I am pretty happy with the beer, once it has carbonated a bit I think it will be better, with the carbonation helping the body and the aroma of the beer. I am still holding judgment if the brewing salts worked but I think it's safe to say I am going to be adding brewing salts to all my beers from now on.
This is a thirst quencher of a beer, reminiscent of tropical fruit punch fruit juice than a beer, which might cause some issues on a hot summers day when you hit quite a few back.

Tubedinoz Wai-iti SMASH Homebrew Review

Tubedinoz Wai-iti SMASH
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Appearance:
Pours a fantastic burnt orange colour with honey highlights has a slight chill haze, but great looking beer specially for a single malt beer. Tight pure white head with great lacing.

Aroma:
sweet melon/marmalade/honey/grassy - very subtle hop aroma on the beer with a bready backbone. Unfortunately I think the beer was bottled too soon as it haze the case of the Big D. Has quite a prominent butter/butterscotch aroma to the beer.

Mouthfeel:
Light to medium body, leaning more to light, but which is quite nice as it lead the beer to a more sessionable quality. Carbonation is great with a pure white cap and small tight bubbles streaming up the glass.

Flavour:
A nice smooth bitterness that eases into a nice smooth sweetness. The melon for the hops is subtle, but unfortunately the Big D is more prominent and dominates majority of the flavours of the beer. Still a decent balanced beer with sweetness to bitterness but the diacetyl just dominates a bit too much.

Overall:
A very nice and smooth session beer which will be great for summer. There is a great sweet melon hop character with which is refreshing but delicate. The biggest problem I think with this beer is that it was bottled too soon as the diacetyl is strong with this one. It is still a great session beer and will go down great after mowing the lawn. Thanks to Dean for sharing with me, it is going down a great on a hot summer Sunday!

Brew Update

And another week has gone by! What has been going on? Not much, just planning/thinking about brews and brew upgrades.

Casket Ale v1.1 update

It has been 1 week since brew day, and fermentation seems to be going on without a hitch. I have fermented at 18c for the first two days, then slowly increased the temp up to 21c by the end of the week for a diacetyl rest. It's still fermenting away today(Sunday 2nd), not crazy but nice slow bubbles. I pulled off a test sample to check gravity and to see if I can detect any distinct changes to the beer from adding the brew salts. Gravity went from a SG of 1.052 to 1.012, so a nice sessionable 5.2% abv.

Casket Ale v1.1 Sample

Tastes and aroma notes:
Straight off, the nose is definitely more distinct. Mango/pineapple/tropical fruit, much more pungent and distinct compared to v1.0. So far, adding the brewing salts has already made a major change compared to the previous batch. At this point last time the hops where not very distinct, and now they are popping quite nicely! I have not even added the dry hops yet.
The bitterness is not as bad as I was dreading. When I had the gas problem on brew day, I thought the extra bitterness was going to unbalance the beer. But the bitterness is good, the finish of the beer is much dryer compared to the previous version though, so the bitterness is smooth but lingers with the dryness of the beer.
Hops are nice and prominent on the palate, mango/pineapple the more dominant flavours. They fall off smoothly with the dryness of the beer.
The dryness is more similar to a lager than ale, but with this base single malt beer is understandable. With dry hopping I have high hopes of this being a very sessionable/easy drinking beer for summer. Until I have tried out the final product, with dry hopping and carbonation, I will hold my verdict for now, but I can say it is promising!

Kombucha:
As far as I can see it seems to be going well. It does not smell off or have any mold on it, so it's

Small Kombucha Mother

looking promising. There seems to be a "mother" growing on the top and there seems to be quite a bit of sluggy stuff going on in the tea, which I think is the yeast and bacteria. It is still early days though, one week in and three more to go. I will keep you updated on how it cracks on.

Cold brewed coffee:
Not much of a update on this wee project except that it is almost finished... Damn is this a tasty way to drink coffee! Specially served over ice, a splash of milk and sweetened slightly with condensed milk. Only thing I would do next time is use a darker roast and more coffee beans. As tasty, as it was, the body was a bit lacking and it could have some more kick... Will just have to make another brew.

That is the update for this week, nothing too crazy, but everything is going smoothly. I have received one small upgrade for the brewery. Well, a tool to be exact. As you can see, I have purchased myself a step bit so that I can add a tap to my hot liquor pot and maybe install my thermometer into my boil kettle. I will finish off this blog entry with a link to my latest Homebrew Wednesday. I hope all is well!

Churs! Chubby.