Month: April 2012

Single Hop IPA – Galaxy

Let me get this out there, I love IPA’s; English, American, Imperial, it doesn’t matter, it’s rare that i’ll find an IPA that I don’t like (Greene King – i’m looking at you >:-/ ).  So it’s quite odd that I haven’t got around to brewing an IPA yet…

This changed a couple of weekends ago with my first batch – I thought i’d try a single hop American style IPA with one of my current favourite hops – galaxy.  Thank BrewDog and their recent IPA is Dead series for the inspiration on this one.

Recipe: Single Hop IPA - Galaxy
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 20.59 l
Post Boil Volume: 18.55 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 15.00 l   
Bottling Volume: 15.49 l
Estimated OG: 1.062 SG
Estimated Color: 16.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 75.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 89.2 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
1.89 kg               Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (3.9 EBC)            Grain         1        47.5 %        
1.88 kg               Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)         Grain         2        47.4 %        
0.20 kg               Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (157.6 EBC)   Grain         3        5.0 %         
22.07 g               Galaxy [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           4        41.3 IBUs     
29.81 g               Galaxy [15.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min         Hop           5        33.7 IBUs     
0.50 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)              Fining        6        -             
1.0 pkg               British Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1335) [124. Yeast         7        -             
46.00 g               Galaxy [15.00 %] - Dry Hop 14.0 Days     Hop           8        0.0 IBUs      


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 3.97 kg
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 11.50 l of water at 71.4 C          64.4 C        75 min        
Mash Out          Add 6.72 l of water at 98.0 C           75.6 C        10 min        

Sparge: Fly sparge with 7.36 l water at 75.6 C

Photos:

Notes / Measurements:

Brewed on 7th April 2012

Before we move on, here’s a PSA – always check your equipment!!!  Somehow I managed to forget this golden rule resulting in me (a) putting 4 kg of grain in the mashtun when the false bottom was not properly attached to the drainage pipe, and (b) proceeding to put in the first batch of mash liquor with the drainage tap open on the mashtun…

So, one slightly moist carpet later I went on ok with the mash, but when it came time to run off the wort and sparge nothing was coming out!!!  Not such a good start to the brew day.  So, I had to scoop out the water and grain into another container to realise my error (the false bottom wasn’t attached) – once fixed I got all the grain and the mash liquor back into the mashtun and got to sparging.  I managed to retain 24 litres of wort, with a pre-boil OG of 1.050 (target was 1.054 so we’ll call this close enough – I was just glad to be this far)!

Thankfully the boil was pretty much uneventful and all went to plan, ending up with 16.5 litres going into the fermenter with a post-boil OG of 1.057, again this was slightly below target (1.062), but I wasn’t too unhappy with that.

After pitching the yeast there was good fermentation going after 12 hours.  I transferred the wort into the secondary fermenter (a pressure barrel) after 4 days.

After 10 days in the barrel it was time to bottle, the FG came in at 1.018, which is quite a bit higher than expected, so we’re looking at about 5.1% ABV, maybe the yeast will still get a little bit of work done in the bottles. In preparation for bottling, I added 180g of light dry malt extract to the barrel for priming, and then after a short while got down to filling my first few bottles, now here’s where it all went wrong again…

After the fourth bottle nothing else was coming out of the barrel – the taps and pipes were blocked with all the hops used for dry hopping!  I ended up having to siphon all of the beer out and only managed to fill about 20 bottles (10 litres). 🙁

The bottles have been sitting for nearly a week now and they’re starting to clear a bit, but there’s some nasty looking crud at the bottom of a few of them – fingers crossed it’ll all taste ok!  Next time i’ll work on putting a filter over the tap in the barrel. 🙂

As usual, tasting notes etc to come once the beer is ready to drink…

Titanic – Nine Tenths Below

Taste – An initial sweetness that evolves into a real citrusy hop hit followed by a long dry finish.  Really quite refreshing.

Aroma – It’s got a bit of a honey smell to it and a slight hoppy aroma.

Appearance – Light golden and bright, not much carbonation.

Would I buy more? – For quite a strong beer (5.9%) this is really quite drinkable, it’s going down quite quickly…  It’d be hard to say to no to another few of these on a warm day.

Goose Island IPA

Taste – Caramel malty sweetness mixed with a citrus/grapefruit flavour from the hops, it also has a slight spiciness to it. It’s quite different to your normal American IPA, there’s more depth to it than just malt and a fist full of hops.

Aroma -Malty, fruity, spicy goodness. This smells not too dissimilar to a batch of home brewed english ale sitting in the fermenter (this is a good smell).

Appearance – Dark golden amber, slightly hazy, not overly carbonated.

Would I buy more? – I think I most probably will be buying some more of this when I fancy a slightly different American IPA.

My First Hefeweizen – Results

 

So here’s the results from my first attempt at making a hefeweizen…

Taste – Banana, citrus, a little bit of grapefruit – it’s light and refreshing.  It tastes at it’s best chilled.

Aroma – To be honest, it doesn’t smell that great (but then again, there’s not many hefe’s that I like the aroma of), there’s a bit of a sulphur hint, along with citrus and a slight yeasty overtone.

Appearance – Light, cloudy (when you swill the yeast out of the bottle), and with a small amount of carbonation (this could do with being better next time). It looks fairly similar to the Weihenstephan hefe you can get in most UK supermarkets.

Would I brew it again? – With a few tweaks to the recipe yes – it could do with a touch more carbonation and a bit more body to it.  I love a good hefeweizen so I’m determined to get this one perfect. 🙂

St. Austell – Cornish Bock

Catherine (the long-suffering other half) and I went on the brewery tour at St. Austell earlier in the summer, it was a good day – very informative, interesting and most importantly, ended with a sampling of the current range of beers. It was during this trip I got my first taste of this beer, and it led to me buying a case for the Christmas break.

Taste – Malty, with a strong caramel character. That said though, this is most definitely a lager and has a clean and crisp taste.

Aroma – Malty, fresh, sweet.

Appearance – Dark amber with a good frothy head, almost looks like a bitter, not a lager.

Would I buy more? – I bought a case, what do you think?!?

Badger – Golden Glory

It’s a brew day (details on that to come very soon) so i’m breaking out the beers early!

First up it’s Golden Glory from Badger…

Taste – It says it on the label and they mean it – Peachy! It has a real light malt and hop backbone, but the truly dominant flavour going through this one is sweet peaches – it’s also quite refreshing and light.  But, if you don’t like peaches, don’t go anywhere near this beer.

Aroma – Peaches… There’s not a lot else coming through to be honest.

Appearance – A nice light golden ale, quite well carbonated.

Would I buy more? – I’d happily sink a couple on a warm summers day if there was nothing else about.