Brew No.34 – SMaSH – American Pale Ale

Sitting at work today dreaming of brewing beer (as one does) and thought I would take a step back and brew a SMaSH beer. This involves brewing a beer using only one malt and one hop…as this is an APA I have gone with ale malt and cascade, nice and simple…

I will play with the recipe in Beersmith tonight, with a view to brewing something light and sessionable (is that a word?).

25 November 2009 – OK, recipe is as follows:

• 4.5kg Ale Malt
• 20g Cascade hops @ 45 min
• 20g Cascade hops @ 10 min
• Whirfloc @ 10 min
• 20g Cascade hops @ 0 min
• US05 yeast – rehydrated
• 15g Cascade dry hopped after 3 days

Mashed in at 67 deg C left for an hour then batch sparged into the kettle. This was the first time I have used my new marga mill, and clearly I need to work on the settings. My efficiency was only about 65%!!! anyway ended up with an OG of about 1.052, no chilled and will pitch in a day or so.

Brew No.33 (and 35, 36) – Aussie Pale Ale v4.0

Need to start stocking up for Christmas and New Year, so will brew one of the crowd favourites again, the Aussie Ale. This is going to be pretty much the same as v3.0 so check it out for the recipe….Aussie Pale Ale v3.0 I’ll actually be brewing this three times over the coming weeks, 2 for consumption and 1 for the swap day Thought I’d keep them under the one blog entry as it may get a little repetitive….

17th November 2009 – Sneaked in a quick brew session. All went well, just missed the temp by one degree at 65 deg C which will be fine. Also used 35g or POR instead of 30g in the FWH. Did find the wort to be a tad pale but otherwise a nice clear wort into the cube. Will most likely pitch next week when I keg/bottle the amber.

26th November 2009 – pitched the Aussie PA into the glass carboy tonight, along with the starter I created from two Coopers Sparkling tallies on Monday night (hey, I was looking for an excuse for a drink on Monday anyway ) starter was looking very healthy and the wort was clear as going into the fermenter. Feel good about this one.

Brew No.32 – West Coast Blaster (American Amber Ale)

The Western Sydney Brewers Xmas bash is coming up in a little over 3 weeks and I am yet to brew the case swap beer! I have decided on a highly hopped (surprise, surprise) American Amber Ale and lifted the recipe from Jamil once again.

My s__t house mill is still not operational (grrr…) so have put an order in for ingredients in preparation for brewing this Saturday afternoon.

As I only need 12 bottles for the case swap, I have decided to brew 30 Litres of beer with the remainder just shy of filling an empty keg Recipe as follows:

• 7.5 kg Floor malted Maris Otter
• 0.5kg Bairds Pale Crystal
• 0.2kg Bairds Dark Crystal
• 0.5kg Munich I
• 0.3kg Amber
• 0.1kg Bairds Pale Choc Malt
• 50g Horizon @ 60 min
• 30g Cascade, 30g Centennial @ 10 min
• 30g Cascade, 30g Centennial @ 0 min
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• ProCulture Pro10 Yeast – Sierra Navada Ale (2nd gen from last brew)

14th November 2009 – Fantastic brew day and hit all my numbers. Pretty good for a large batch. 90 min mash at 66 deg C, hop additions as above and  ended up filling two 15L cubes with an OG of 1.067.  Should be tasty!

15th November 2009 – pitched into two fermenters using slurry from the fat yak clone…

25th November 2009 – Kegged one of the fermenters this afternoon, and bottled the other for the case swap. Reminds me why I switched to kegs Had a swig from the fermenter and wow this is a big beer. Very malty and can taste plenty of alcohol, so may need some time in the bottle to smooth out a little.

29th November 2009 – Finished my evening with a couple of these from the keg. Quite pleased with this beer and hope the boys from the brew club will enjoy as part of our case swap this weekend.

Brew No.31 – Fat Yak Clone v2.0 (APA)

2 November 2009 – Brewed another APA in the style of fat yak (see version 1), but dialled back the hops a little as they were a bit over the top last time I brewed this beer. Will also be using one of the new Proculture yeasts I picked up this week. recipe this time looked something like this:

• 4.0 kg Joe White Ale Malt
• 0.5kg Joe White Wheat Mallt
• 0.2kg Crystal 40
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 45 min
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 10 min
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 0 min
• 15g Cascade Hops to be dry hopped after primary ferment
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• ProCulture Pro10 Yeast – Sierra Navada Ale

Pretty much hit all my numbers on this brew which was great. OG pre-boil of 1.040 and post-boil of 1.049.

No-chilled as usual and will pitch in a couple of days once I rack the Mirror Pond into the keg.

3 November 2009 – Pitched a 1L starter of the Proculture Pro-10 Sierra Nevada Ale yeast. Took off like a rocket and should be finished well under 48 hours. Going to split into 4 and build up another 1L starter to pitch in this brew.

4th November 2009 – Got impatient and pitched the whole starter in the wort. I wanted to start using further generations of the yeast anyway and will use the trub for an amber next.

5th November 2009 – Nice healthy krausen by the morning…smells great!

7th November 2009 – Off to New Zealand in the morning, so dry hopped this afternoon. Ferment was starting to drop off anyway.

14th November 2009 – transferred to keg. See how it tastes in a few days…

15th November 2009 – Sneaked a taste this evening and quite impressed. The toned down hop schedule along with quality yeast has done wonders for this beer. Extremely close to the original

24th November 2009 – Sneaked a couple after work and this is getting better with a couple of weeks under it’s belt. At first I detected a harshness coming from the Nelson hops but this is starting to dissipate and becoming much easier to drink…mmm…think I’ll have another to be sure

29th November 2009 – After having a few real Fat Yak’s today, I think the bitterness on my version is a tad high. Next time I might go with the same hop additions but the first going in at around 30 minutes. Something like this…

• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 30 min
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 5 min
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 0 min
• 15g Cascade Hops to be dry hopped after primary ferment