October Meet - Thursday 25th - Update

The next meet of the group has been scheduled for Thursday October 25th, meeting initially at The Brewery Tap in Leeds, between 6.30pm and 7pm.

However, in a departure from our usual format,. we thought that it would be a good opportunity to have more of a social get-together than a structured meet. If you want to bring bottles along to swap, drop in and meet the group, or just come along and have a beer, please do, but we thought that it might be a good time to review what we've done so far, and what we're going to do next year. More of the same? A change of direction? Do we want to try and do some brewing demos at beer festivals over the next year? Shall we book plant time somewhere and do a commercial brew? Shall we register the group as a brewery and "go legit"? (please don't say yes to this - the red tape of being a gypsy brewer is torturous)

Anyhow, bring along some beers to swap (maybe let people know below what you have available to swap), some ideas, and maybe some dreams, and we'll see you on Thursday evening.

Cheers!

Broadford Aire Porter

Grist:
Maris Otter Pale Malt - 76.1%
Brown Malt - 8.4%
Crystal Malt - 7.9%
Black Malt - 3.8%
Flaked Oats - 3.8%

Hops:
Galena 10g – 12.0% @90mins
Galena 10g – 12.0% @30mins
First Gold 10g – 7.8% @10mins
First Gold 40g – 7.8% @0mins (steep 20 mins)

Final Volume: 19 Litres

Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.2% ABV
Bitterness: 31.4 IBU
Colour: 28.9 SRM
Yeast: Safale US-05
Mash: 90mins @ 66c
Boil: 90mins
Water treatment: In the HLT 1 camden tablet. In the mash 3.4g gypsum.  In the boil 4.4g gypsum, 3.8g epsom salts. 
As with most brew days, there is at least one thing that will go wrong, in this instance it was the last minute realisation that either I made a mistake on my order and ending up with Flaked Barley rather than Flaked Oats. 

Moving on from this minor glitch I used what I turned the HLT on and weighed my malts out.  The mash was the next thing to go slightly wayward, when you have your 4 year old being helpful and when you are trying to help cook the dinner and get the kids to bed, things tend to slip.  I had the HLT to strike temp of 78C and added a kettle of boiling water to the mash tun to pre-heat it.  Time passed. I came to mash in, but forget to re-heat the tun, this meant that I had to mess around to get the mash temp to my target 66C.

Mashing out, HLT temp set to 78C again and a quick temperature check on the tun told me that something had gone wrong.  It was 62C, I usually only lose a degree over 90 mins.  Carried on with the brew, batch sparging.  I usually try to take hydrometer readings throughout the mash, but decided to try to do this by tasting the wort.  This worked in that I got some experience of this method.  I stopped sparging with 3L water left in the HLT.  Got the boil on, 90 minute boil with the additions detailed above.  FOr my 19L brew length I collected 13.6L at around 1.058 (temp corrected).  I decided to liquor back and added 5L boiled/treated liquor. giving me a final volume of 18.6L at OG of 1.044.  Pitched the US-05 yeast when the temp hit 23C Happy with this, but there are some learning points:

• Check your ingredients well before your brewday.
• Always pre-heat mash tun with boiling water.
• When the mash tun is half empty, correct the strike temp? or at least give the tun some external insulation.
• When sparging, use the calculated liquor volume to avoid having to liquor back so much.

You can see the rest of the pics here.

Looking forward to the next Leeds Homebrew meeting 12th January 2012.

Contributor: David Bishop (@broadfordbrewer)

Broadford Black IPA

Grist:
Maris Otter Pale Malt (5.45kg) – 77.9%
Munich Malt (1kg) – 14.3%
Crystal Malt (350g) – 5%
Carafa III (200g) – 2.9% (I added a further 300g Carafa before I sparged.  Aiming for maximum colour, minimum roastiness).

Hops:

Magnum 45g – 12.7% @90mins
Chinook 20g – 12.4% @20mins
Cascade 20g – 7.6% @20mins
Chinook 20g – 12.4% @5mins
Cascade 20g – 7.6% @5mins
Chinook 20g – 12.4% @0mins (steep 20 mins)
Cascade 20g – 7.6% @0mins (steep 20 mins)

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.069
Final Gravity: 1.017
Alcohol Content: 6.8% ABV
Bitterness: 79.2 IBU
Colour: 100 SRM
Yeast: Safale US-05
Mash: 90mins @ 67c
Boil: 90mins
Water treatment: 4g gypsum, 2g epsom salts, campden tablets.

A long awaited brewday (night!) and one that I decided to coincide with local fellow brewers @brotherlogic and @pdtnc #blackipaoff.  This was my fifth full mash brew (AG#5). The Brief was to brew a Black IPA, swap some bottles, taste, discuss.

Beer styles are always a topic for discussion and I know that the oxymoronic Black India Pale Ale is a debate in full flow.  I’m not here to discuss it, just to brew a beer, but I was interested to see what others had said on the subject Stout Fellow, Called to the Bar,  Into the Brew, Craft Beer and Hop Press.  All things considered I’m sticking with Black IPA.  If it’s good enough for Kernel, Brodies, Windsor Eton Brew, Thornbridge and Buxton then it’s good enough for me!

I’ve now brewed with this setup a few times and I’m really happy with the results this time around.  On day 3 of the fermentation the hydrometer reading is down to somewhere between 1.030 and 1.020 (difficult to tell through the krausen and I’m not messing around dipping trial jars. One of these days I’ll treat myself to an FV with a tap!).

You can see some pics of the brew night here.

Looking forward to the next Leeds Homebrew meeting in January 2012.

Contributor: David Bishop (@broadfordbrewer)