New Perlick SS Beer Taps

Received in the post today 2 beautiful 525SS taps from Perlick. These babies are totally stainless steel including the shank, tail etc. By importing these from the US directly I paid less than half price and that includes postage!

Only ordered them about 10 days ago, so very happy. Already been down to the shed and installed one on the beer fridge, ready to pour the mirror pond pale ale next week

Brew No.30 – Mirror Pond Pale Ale

After listening to the Jamil Show podcast on this beer from Deschutes Brewing, my mouth was watering and I had to give it a shot. I haven’t had the pleasure of tasting this beer but I understand it is the perfect example of a well balanced tasty American Pale Ale. The brewery describes this beer as…

The quintessential American pale ale, Mirror Pond elegantly blends the sweetness of malted barley with the bite of hops (which add bitterness and aroma). It’s refreshing, loaded with strong hop flavors, and perfectly balanced.

Recipe as follows:

• 4.4 kg Joe White Ale Malt
• 0.3kg Bairds Pale Crystal Malt (110EBC)
• 0.1kg Weyermann Carapils
• 20g Cascade Hops – 60 min
• 20g Cascade Hops – 30 min
• 20g Cascade Hops – 5 min
• 20g Cascade Hops – 0 min
• 20g Cascade Hops – dry hop after 4 days
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• S04 English Ale Yeast

20th October 2009 – mmmm…not a hugely successful brew day (well night in this case). Had some terrible stuck sparge issues which seem to be because of a large amount of flour in the grist from the HBS…grrrr….anyway ended up having to do one big sparge (no sparge?) to lighten it up a bit and bring the temp up as well. Efficiency went down from my usual 75% to 67%, so added in 300g dextrose to get OG back where it should be – 1.054.

Target mash temp was off a bit as well. Was shooting for 66 deg C but only got to 64. Shouldn’t make too much of a difference, perhaps just a slightly higher attenuation and hence drier finish. Mashed for 90 minutes.

Boiled for 60 min with additions as above. Nice clear whirlpool into the cube for no chill.

24th October 2009 – Pitched with a re-hydrated s04 (English ale) at approx 18 deg and will ferment low to keep the esters at bay.

4th November 2009 – Forgot to bloody dry hop this one until 3 days ago so threw them in well after ferment was finished. 2 days later (yesterday) I kegged it and there was still sh!t loads of hops and rubbish floating around.

Very cloudy brew with little bits of hops floating around. Tastes OK, but pretty bland on the malt front. Hops are also a bit grassy due to the very late addition.

6th November 2009 – After pouring a few, the beer has cleared up finally and tastes so much better than 2 days ago. I really like this beer, and perhaps a little munich or amber malt would make it that little bit better.