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.

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.