15 Mar 2014
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Recipes

Malted Cider 2 – let’s try this again

I’m baaaaaaaack!

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s been awhile.  Mikey hasn’t stopped reminding me.  It’s mostly Mikey’s fault I haven’t been around in awhile.  As Mikey mentioned, brewing slowed down a bit over the summer, so there wasn’t much to write up.  Although I pushed through the heat and still did a couple a brews, giving Mikey an opportunity to write reviews for things like the Red Dog Pale Ale 2, since Mikey was slack, I had nothing to review.  Unfortunately I just got out of the habit… because of Mikey.

Anyway, nearly a year ago I mixed some apple juice with some liquid malt; I called it a malted cider, some call it a graft.  Either way it’s pretty tasty.

20140208_113144The recipe was about the same as last time, just with different apples this time.  Last time I got some organic apples, this time it was just a whole bunch of Pink Lady apples, they worked out pretty well.

I also changed up the method somewhat…

  • First, all the apples were chopped and let to sit for a few hours.  This just softened them up a tiny bit and I’ve been told this gives a slightly sweeter cider (otherwise it’s way too dry).
  • Next, we juiced all the apples, as would be expected!  In the pot and since there is a bit of froth (and eventual evaporation), it’s hard to tell how much juice there is.  So we didn’t add the malt right away.
  • We gave the juice a 10-15 minute boil to kill any nasties.
  • This went into the fermenter.
  • Golden light liquid malt was then added at a ratio of half a cup per litre of juice.
  • We then topped the fermtenter up with cold water at a ratio of one litre of water to one litre of juice.
  • Pitch some wine yeast and done!

It’s a pretty simple recipe!  All the chopping and juicing of the apples took a fair while.  It also made one hell of a mess but it was a bit of fun.

In the end we got a OSG of 1.053, which we were pretty happy about!  Considering we’ll probably get a pretty low final gravity, since the fructose in the apples will ferment almost completely, this cider should have some kick!

Let’s see what happens…

-Chas

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11 Mar 2014
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Experiments

Red Dog Pale Ale 2 – review

It seams like only yesterday in put up the review for the Red Dog Pale Ale 1. And now here a we are with the second version.

Red Dog Pale Ale 2

Red Dog Pale Ale 2 ready for drinking

As Chas mentioned in the write up of the brew day, not everything went to plan. The main issue being that there wasn’t as much conversion of the grain to sugar as expected. The result was an original gravity lower than planned. I expected this to result in a beer that was thinner than first version, and also dryer. I was right about about one.

There’s a nice passionfruit aroma. Has hints of grapefruit and light malt as well. But that Doesn’t stay with you long. Taste wise it’s light and fruity at the front. Both grapefruit and passionfruit comes out across the length of the beer and lingers for a bit. Both drop away a bit too early. Next there the light body sitting  behind this all which helps give a slight creaminess at the back. The problem I have is that the body doesn’t hold up. As it drops out so does the flavour.

The bite and bitterness of the grapefruit is the main character here. Overall this is a really nice beer. It’s just the light body that drops off which lets the beer down. This is probably due to the issues with the grain.

For matching with food there’s a lot of options. As there isn’t a big profile here so the beer can work with a lot of foods that don’t have a really strong flavour. Chicken, fish & chips, Mexican food, most pub meals, salads and veggies, you get the idea. The beer would get overpowered quiet easily by any rich or dark food.

Despite the issues with the brew, this turned out well. Not a complex beer. This is one you can enjoy any day of the week, or have a few in a row.

– Mikey

Update: Corrected some spelling and gramma. Whoops.

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7 Mar 2014
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Experiments

Wired for fun, and heat

First up; wow, sorry, um… and ta-da! This post has been sitting as a draft for months! I’ve finally sat down tidied it up, added in the photos and sent it out to the wide world. So with that, onto the post…

Temp Control - unit on

Working Temperature Control unit turned on

Back in April last year I bit the bullet and bought a temperature controller. I picked it up on eBay for around $10 and a few weeks later it came in the post. It’s quite a small unit with a simple interface. The instructions are basic and just a single A4 sheet covers everything. And that’s where things stop being fun.

Temp control unit back top

The top back end of the Temperature Control unit

The wiring diagram is only a slight step up from incomprehensible with everything in Chinese as well as on the unit itself. Google searches for wiring diagrams on the exact same unit name/number were no use. Trying to find similar units was the first real starting point. Comparing what others had done with similar-ish units gave me an overview if what the wiring structure should be. Then it was a mater of throwing in words like “positive”, “negative”, “current”, “live” and the like into Google translate to work out the right way to wire the unit. Ended up Googling terms like “Chinese character for Positive” to confirm. After all that the unit finally got wired.

Temp control unit wire up

Back of the Temperature Control unit all wired up and ready to work.

Plugged it on and turned on the mains. Let’s just say that it wasn’t wired right the first time, and move on. An not one word about who wire it… A bit more time on Google and everything was sussed. Turned on and worked fine. There is a sensor on a wire which measures the temperature. My original idea was that this would be dropped directly into the wort. Then after a few discussions with fellow home brewers I decided to take their advice and put it on the side.

One noble, and rarely used, stubby holder gave up its life to be used. The ex-stubby holder was placed on the side of a fermenter and stuck down with a whole lot of masking tape. Then the sensor was placed between the fermenter and ex-stubby holder . Overall effect is that the sensor can read the temperature and insulated from everything else. Plus, its nice padding to prevent it from being damaged.

Temp control unit in action

Temperature Control unit set up with carboy and heating blanket.

The unit works by having a set temperature. Then there is a range, or threshold, above and below. Once the actual temperature is beyond that temperature range it turns on the power to the “thing”. This can be for heating or cooling depending on what device is attached. If you plug in a heater and have the unit set to heat then once it’s below the set temperature the heater turns on. Neat. This can be done for cooling as well. The temperature control has a minimum plus/minus range of one degrees Celsius. What that means is when I set the temperature at 21°C it can drop as low as 20.1°C before the heating kicks in. And in theory it could get up to 21.9°C before turning off, but in reality it doesn’t go that high. So, the unit has a bit of flux which isn’t ideal but also isn’t too bad.

This unit only has one switch it means it can heat or cool. It can’t do both at the same time. There are a few units out there that do both and you can find them pretty easily. I was just a bit lazy, and cheap. Plus I’m not sure when I’de need both working. But if I ever do then I might just pick up another unit.

Temp Control sensor on carboy

Temperature Control unit sensor on carboy. It’s under the sliced up stubby holder, which is tapped to the carboy.

Am I happy with the unit? Yes. Was it easy to get set up? No, but proper units with English instructions exits. And for those of you who are not, can’t not find, and still need to find a certified electrician… there’s units out there that don’t require wiring which do the job well and safe.

I recommend any and all home brewers who are after good flavour beer to get some kind of temperature control. It doesn’t need to be a unit like above, it might just be a cool and stable room in the house/shed. Big changes in temperature and high temperatures makes a (negative) difference to the taste of your beer.

-Mikey

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4 Mar 2014
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Experiments, Recipes

Sneaky cider, keeping it cool

Exactly two weeks ago I made another cider. Yeah, I know I’ve been complaining that I haven’t done a beer for a while and then I go make a cider! This was a little experiment in keeping something cool enough over summer months. While it hasn’t really been that hot, or even warm, things have gone well.

The cider itself is a real basic one. One litre of apple juice and 1.4 litres of apple & pear juice. Added in sugar, yeast and yeast nutrient. Whole thing done in about 10-15 mins. To speed up the process I used the blender to mix sugar into juice, one litre at a time. As there’s no boil everything has to be sanitised, including the blender.

What’s in Sneaky Cider #1?

  • 2.4-2.5 litres of apple and pear juice (Berri)
  • 1-1.1 litres of apple juice (Golden Circle)
  • 180 grams of white table sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of Premium Brewer’s Yeast (Pat Mack’s)
  • 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient

Learning from the mistakes of the last cider attempt, I kept sugar levels low. Worked out being only 20 grams per litre rather than the 120 grams per litre or 200 grams per litre of the last attempts. This should help in two ways. First it will keep the alcohol levels down to something considered normal. Second there shouldn’t be anywhere near as much left over sugar which will keep the sweetness down. It’s the second if theses that I’m really interested in. Last time it was undrinkable when first sampled. Then only just drinkable when it was done, but not for everyone.

Sneaky Cider #1

Sneaky Cider #1, in the carboy, in the water, in the pot

The really exciting part of the cider isn’t the recipe or how it might turn out. No, the real thing is the makeshift cooling set up. I’ve got my new big pot with water then put the carboy into it. The water goes up to about the same hight as the liquid in the carboy which means it works as insulation. That’s pretty sweet. But the best part is that I can drop ice packs into the water to chill the water back down, like during the day. And that’s what I did. For about a week and a bit I dropped 2-4 ice packs into the water every day. Well, nearly every day. The result was that the temperature ranged from about 17 degrees Celsius up to about 19 degrees Celsius. Not great control but, still good.

Now just gone two weeks I’m leaving the whole thing to do it’s thing before bottling this weekend. I’m half hoping as it gets warmer it encourages the last of the yeast to kick in or drop out. Not really sure how that stuff works, even after over a year of mucking around with the stuff. Then I’ll give it two weeks before we try and let you know how it turns out.

-Mikey

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17 Feb 2014
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Uncategorized

Alive and brewing, just

Hi. You’re probably wondering why there hasn’t been a post for over two weeks. No, we’re not dead. No, we haven’t stopped brewing. But things have totally slowed down. It’s the heat.

Summer in Melbourne has been a real stinker the last 8 weeks or so. Plenty of days above 32°C. Chas had a little trouble controlling temperature with the second Red Dog Pale Ale. Beer turned out good, review up soon. Chas keeps everything inside and that means when he cools his place the beer stays cool. At my pace I’ve got the brew shed, AKA the garage. No air-con, no fan, not even an ice pack. No cooling means no brewing. I’m not going to leave another brew ferment at high temperatures, or worse kill the yeast.

I’ve been thinking about some work around solutions. Might try something if it’s going to look like we’ll have a whole week under 25°C. Good news is we’re going to have four days in a row under 25°C. Bad news is it might be another month before we’re consistently under that. I’m also looking at a long term solution. I need to get my act into gear and get rid of some stuff first.

Michael's mash tun

Michael’s mash tun with recirculation draining out the wort

As I’m not brewing I’ve gone to visit some others who are. Three weeks ago, on Australia Day, I went and visited my friend Michael. He’s a super keen brewer and looking to make it pro. He has gone all grain brewing and has plenty of equipment. You can read about his brewing journey on his blog twistnstout. The day I visited he was brewing his Triple. Was great introduction to what all grain brewing is like. I wasn’t able to stay the whole day but did get to check out a lot of the gear. Man, he has heaps of cool stuff. Things like counter-flow chillier, pump for his mash tun and a brew fridge for fermenting & conditioning beer! We haven’t talked about all grain brewing much, so a few of those things probably look like made up words. Might update some of the sections here so we can talk about that stuff more. Anyway, good day.

Michael's pump for recirculation

Michael’s electric pump to do the recirculation. Next to the mash tun.

Just over a week ago I went and visited Justin, Carnie Brew, and his mates for a brew day. They had four sets of equipment and were doing four brew-in-a-bag all grain brews when I got there! Then they did a fifth! Four big, and I mean really big, pot/kettles/urns all heating the grain made for a very hot room. It was a long day as they started at 9am and the last brew wasn’t done until about 5pm. Very interesting that they all did no-chill. It’s where you put the hot wort in a vessel, squeeze out the air and leave to chill over a few days before starting fermentation. Was a lot of fun hanging out. Was a bit of a contrast to the all grain brewing at Michael’s place only two weeks before. And, good comparison to the brew-in-a-bag all grain brews with Chas.

Michael's boil pot

Big pot for boiling the wort. Note that there’s a tap for easy draining.

When will I brew again? Hopefully soon. Have a few things I’m keen to try. Some more pale ale trials, a super stout and my first all grain brew are on the cards. Until then there’s a few write ups to be done, including one that’s well overdue.

-Mikey

 

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28 Jan 2014
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Home brew kits

Another brew day – Imperial Red Ale

We’ve had a bit of a heat wave lately so I’m not sure why I decided to brew up a kit of Iron Curtain Imperial Red Ale from Brewcraft, but I figured by the time it’s done the weather should have cooled a bit.  It’s a 23 litre batch as well so it will last me into the autumn when it’s a little more appropriate.

Anyway, we started out bottling the Red Dog Pale Ale that we made a couple weeks ago.  For those who remember, we didn’t get the sugars out of the mash that we were hoping for, but things turned out OK.  A lot of fermentation happened and we got quite a low FSG, so the beer should be of a decent strength and quite sessionable.  It did taste a little thin and a little over hopped – simply not enough malt in there I suppose.  The previous batch tasted a little thin though so hopefully it will beef up with some conditioning.

So, back to the Imperial Red Ale brew…

This was a pretty good extract brew.  Not too simple but fairly cruisy which amounted to a good brew day over all.  The kit contained:

  • Mangrove Jack’s British Series IPA
  • Can of liquid malt extract
  • Light dry malt extract
  • Crystal grain
  • Fuggles hops
  • US 05 ale yeast – the Mangrove Jack’s kit came with yeast but I don’t usually use kit yeast

We kind of jumped right into it so I forgot to take measurements of everything… oops!  I guess I was excited about this brew.

As I mentioned, this one was pretty simple.  The crystal was steeped for 30 minutes then a quick boil was started.  With the boil going the hops were added for five minutes.  After the cold break we threw it in the fermenter, added the Mangrove Jack’s, the LME and DME, topped it up to 23 litres and we were done!

I like kits like this.  While a partial or a full mash is a little more in depth, these are easy enough to spend a couple hours on over the weekend, but a little bit more than just pouring a can of concentrated wort into a fermenter, adding water, and then being done.

The wort tasted great.  There were lots of hops in there and, with an OSG of 1.057, I think this is going to be a really robust beer.  Mikey thinks I should dry hop it but I haven’t decided yet…  I need to decide soon though!

We’ll report back in a few weeks to tell you how it is!

-Chas

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23 Jan 2014
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Home brew reviews

Fook Mi/Fook You Belgian – Review

My friend from Carnie Brew gave me a bottle of his Fook Mi/Fook You Belgian a few months back. It’s been in my fridge a long time. The beer was brewed and bottled in August last year. So, it’s been in my fridge about four months. That’s a long while.

Fook Mi-Fook You Belgian

Fook Mi-Fook You Belgian ready for drinking

Well, finally I’ve cracked it open. Before I get into the review let me just say this; thank goodness I left it sit for so long ‘cos it’s great.

Big sweet aroma. Almost like a toffee or caramel in richness, but a lot darker. Sort of a biscuit/toast smell.

Strong hit of flavour up front. First sweet then dark fruit quickly moving to biscuit-oat flavours. Slowly mellowing out with a dark and slightly dry toast taste crossed with stewed fruit flavour. This is a complex beer. So much flavour in here.

The body is really long. Well after the liquid is gone the flavour lingers. There’s no peaks or drop-offs in this beer, just solid ‘go’ from start to end. If I didn’t know that this beer was only 5.6% alcohol I’m sure I’d say it was closer to 8%, it’s that full.

The different flavours are hard to describe, I’ve tried my best above. I’m thinking the Amber Belgian Candi Sugar that was added might be the thing I just can’t nail with words. Needless to say it seams to have worked.

The beer is a slow drinking beer. Due to the big body and complex flavours I would be recommending this as a great beer to have with cheese. Pretty much any cheese from the basic cheddar all the way down to blue cheese, not that I’d have that stuff. Would go well with antipasto as well, pastes and figs comes to mind.

Well, I’ve finished writing this up and I still have half a glass. Guess that really sums up my review on this beer. You need to sit on it to really enjoy everything that’s going on.

-Mikey

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15 Jan 2014
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Experiments

Return of the Red Dog Pale Ale

Back in October we made a small batch of the Red Dog Pale Ale and enjoyed it so much thought we might up it to 12 litres.  It was a good brew day and a great way to get back into it for the new year, but I think we bit off a bit more than we could chew.  The main lesson: we need bigger pots if we’re going to try an all grain above about six litres…

The recipe we did is the same as what was posted the first time, so I’m not going to both to re-post the recipe.  The first time we did it we only did four litres, this time it was twelve litres, so we just did three times as much of everything…

This resulted in a total grain bill of about 2.4 kilos, so we wanted plenty of water to mash in.  Unfortunately the biggest pot I have is about nine litres so we were only able to mash with 7.8 litres of water without filling the pot too much.  As with the previous recipe we mashed for 90 minutes at 65 degrees, which seemed to work well last time.

After an hour long boil with hop additions, we were left with an OSG of only 1.034, which was much lower than last time’s 1.042 (which had been watered down by mistake!).  I think that due to the pot size we were unable to get adequate water to all the grain; we were still attempting the brew in a bag technique which was probably inappropriate for this sized grain bill.

Red Dog IIShould we try this again I think we’ll need two things: at least one bigger pot to do the boil in and probably a proper mash tun.  This would really make things a whole lot easier and we’ll be able to use much more water for mashing.

The other problem we ran into was during the cold break.  By the end of everything we had about eight litres of boiling water, and we wanted to get it cold fast.  Our usual method of giving it a bath in the sink – even with some ice added – failed to get the temperature down in a reasonable amount of time.  We’ve had trouble with this before, even with smaller batches.  I think I have an excuse to buy a wort chiller now though!

All in all it was a great brew day, and as mentioned a great one to get back into it for the year – with no bottling, a long mash, and a bit of time between hop additions, there was plenty of down time!

We’ll report back in a couple weeks to see how the beer turned out, but I’m not too optimistic!

– Chas

 

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6 Jan 2014
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Home brew reviews, Uncategorized

Matt’s Pumpkin Ale – review

So it’s a new year and it’s time to get brewing again, and reviewing some new brews.  My mate Matt made a pumpkin ale awhile ago and gave me one to try.

Matt gave me the beer well before Christmas and told me I wasn’t to drink it until after the New Year, this was tough at first but then I forgot that it was in the cupboard conditioning.  I remembered it a couple days ago and put it in the fridge and forgot about it again!  Then I remembered it today while at work and dreamed about tasting this beer for the rest of the day.  I was not let down.

I was a bit worried at first because there was very little carbonation and no head when I poured it.  I had trouble at first getting any real aroma…

After giving the beer a minute to breath, the scent really came through though.  The beer was sweet and fruity with quite a bit of apple; it almost smelled like a cider.  I had to look hard but I found a little bit of pumpkin in there too.  The smell of the beer was very crisp.

This crispness continued in the first sip.  For an ale this was a very crisp beer, it was almost like a lager in its crispness.  That being said there was still a lot of body in the beer and it was surprisingly thick and full.

In the flavour, I still had trouble finding finding pumpkin but the fruit flavours continued, especially the apple.  The beer was quite sweet and this interacted well with the hops.  The bitterness had a long feel to it and sat nicely at the back of the mouth while I was sipping the beer.  The sweetness would come through while the bitterness just sat there to counteract it.  Because of this the beer was really pushing towards feeling like a pilsner rather than an ale, but the body gave it away.

The overall hoppyness was great and quite big, which is only to be expected from someone like Matt: he loves his hops.  It was very well balanced between outright bitter and fruitier flavours.  Hints of floral were in there as well.  Matt really selected his hops well and I think he’s got a talent for it.  The hops seemed very intentional and well thought out.

I think this beer would be very sessionable, even though it is fairly heavy and surprisingly bitter after knocking back a bottle.  I was also amazed at how refreshing it was; I think this was due to the beer being just bitter enough to have a bit of a zing but not being overpowering.  Given the style, I was quite surprised.

The only criticism I have is that the sweetness could be dialed back a little bit.  Perhaps the pumpkin contributed to the sweetness, but unfortunately I couldn’t find much pumpkin.  Maybe if the pumpkin was prepared a different way it would make all the difference.

I’d like to try this beer with pork belly and apple sauce.  It would go well with any heavier white meat really, or a gamey white meat as well.  But pork would be optimal!

-Chas

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3 Jan 2014
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Experiments

New equipment is fun, and some bottling

Christmas was good for me. Got a couple vouchers for home brew shops. Yay. Oh, and the Australian Pale Ale #3 needed to be bottled. Was a bit distracted, and a bit lazy, so only got around to bottling on Thursday.

Bottling Tree

Bottling Tree with just the first two levels and full of bottles.

As I had some hot vouchers in my hand I went down to Australian Home Brewing to pick up some new equipment. First thing was a bottling tree. I’ve been wanting one of these for a while. Will be using it for both bottling days, and cleaning bottles. So, this is something I’ll be using a lot. As you can see from the photo I’ve only put the first to parts on, it’s all I need.

Also picked up some hops, bigger capper with caps for big bottles and a small 15 litre fermenter. I’ll keep the hops under wraps until start brewing with them. Tried the capper on a wine bottle I had saved, didn’t quite work. Will be looking for the right bottles in the future. The small fermenter is really useful as I can use it for bulk priming, like for this brew, or other brews between the carboy and 30 litre fermenter.

Bottling took a fair bit longer. Partly because I was trying new equipment and partly because I kept getting distracted. The carboy was poured directly into the small fermenter which had the dissolved sugar. Hopefully I didn’t get too much air into it, I think I might. Hopefully I didn’t get too much trub transferred, I’m pretty sure I did. Again, I split the bottling up into some stubbies, a bigger 500 ml bottle and some plastic bottles.

There were also two 1.25 litre bottles with the brewing caps. Just to see what happens I’ve decided to leave one bottle as it for condition. The other bottle I transferred into a new bottle and left the yeast/trub behind. That second bottle is sealed and without any extra sugar for carbonation. Strange, the beer from the bottle that was transferred wasn’t that carbonated. So, this could go either way.

Australian Pale Ale 3

Australian Pale Ale 3 in original bottle, gravity reading and re-bottled.

Gravity reading was really good, 1.012 for both the carboy and 1.25 L bottle. That means the beer from the carboy will end up about 5.0% with the bulk priming, while the 1.25 L bottles will remain at 4.5%. That’s pretty good. Plus the flavour was good. Quite a bit of orange flavour with some other citrus and other fruit. Hints of some floral and grassy notes. Will be interesting to see how it all settles down.

Given the heat in Melbourne is finally starting to kick in there’s not going to be another brew at my place for a bit. That might change if I get my act into gear and sort out a brew fridge. Will keep you all posted.

-Mikey

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