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.

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.

Brew No.29 – Aussie Pale Ale v3.0

The last batch (a double) of Aussie Pale Ale was good but I thought could do with some improvement. I have done some research and will make the following changes to my recipe:

1) Use one addition as a first wort hop.
2) Use a small amount of carared – about 200g

Recipe as follows:

• 4.0 kg Joe White Pilsner Malt
• 0.5kg Joe White Wheat Mallt
• 0.2kg Weyermann Carared
• 30g POR Hops – first wort hop
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• Recultured Coopers Sparkling Yeast

Hit my numbers perfectly on this one.  1.043 pre boil and 1.052 post boil gravities. Beautiful clear wort was transferred to a no chill cube, which was lucky as the yeast took a couple of days to fire up!

29 September 2009 – dumped the cube (careful to leave cold break behind) into the fermentor and added the active Coopers starter (about 1L)…so far so good!

4 October 2009 - As per usual, once the Coopers yeast gets going, it doesn’t take long to ferment out. Krausen has almost dies off completely but will leave in the fermenter for another week to clean itself up.

18 October 2009 – Yep, this is spot on. By far the best Coopers clone I’ve brewed thus far. transferred to keg yesterday and forced carbed to almost 3 volumes, I believe the first wort hop has made all the difference to this beer. A good bitterness level but without the harshness you can sometimes get from POR. Yum, I’m going to get another one (or two)!!!

Brew No.28 – Fat Yak Clone (APA)

29th August 2009 – Having a crack at a Fat Yak clone. This one will have a little more bitterness and hop aroma but hopefully pretty close. Here goes..

• 4.0 kg Joe White Ale Malt
• 0.5kg Joe White Wheat Mallt
• 0.2kg Crystal 40
• 5g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade Hops @ 45 min
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 15g Cascade Hops @ 10 min
• 15g Nelson Sauvin, 15g Cascade Hops @ 0 min
• 20g Cascade Hops to be dry hopped after primary ferment
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• Safale US05 – American Ale Yeast

Mashed with 18L of water at 71deg which settled at 65deg in the Mash. Mashed for 75 min

Drained and sparged with extra 17L of water at 76deg. OG was 1.046 before the boil (spot on).

Boiled for around 10 min in kettle till hot break then for another hour with hop addition as above.

Transferred to 20L cube after flameout for no-chill.

30th August 2009 – Pitched a rehydrated US01 which took off within about 3 hours which was enncouraging. Also realised I forgot to add the whirfloc in the boil and the wort is really cloudy

4th September 2009 – This brew has almost fermented out already. Added 20g cascade as drop hop this afternoon and plan to leave for another 4-5 days before cold crashing.

20th September 2009 – Bottled after 2 weeks ferment and 1 week crash chilled at 1deg C. still a bit cloudy from the protein but tastes great

28th September 2009 – Wow this is really tasty and I am confident the hops are right, but plenty more aroma and taste than the real fat yak. If you wanted to get closer to the real thing perhaps 2/3 or even half of the hops in the recipe above. Personally though I think this is great and wish fat yak has this much flavour!

Brew No.27 – American India Pale Ale

10 August 2009 – Pitched another India Pale Ale, same recipe as last time but added 500g dextrose to push the alc to 8%! Also increased the volumes on the sparge and boil to ensure I could leave all the hot break in the kettle and cold break in the cube. Had a beautiful clear wort go in the fermenter and rehydrated US05 was off and running by the morning.

8 September 2009 – What a cracking beer! coming in at 8.1% alc the beer is finishing with some nice alcohol warmth without overpowering the strong hop aroma and taste. Next time perhaps a little more malt, maybe some biscuit or amber malt would work nicely…

Brew No.26 – Nelson Sauvin Ale

Not too much to say here, as I have been bitterly disappointed with some off flavours that are coming through after 2 weeks in the bottle. I am convinced that these are oxidation issues due to laziness on my behalf during bulk priming and bottling.

Before my next brew (an 8% IIPA!!!) I will be replacing my bottling and priming equipment, as it is heartbreaking to taste crap beer after all that work.

Such a shame as I used beautiful Nelson Sauvin whole hops and the hop flavour coming through is just stunning. Will re-brew in Spring for sure

Brew No.25 – Golden Ale

1st June 2009 – The new batch of Amarillo hops have arrived in Australia from the US so what better time to jump in and brew a nice Golden Ale using 100% Amarillo hops. This is also a good opportunity to try out my slightly smaller Boiler that I bought a few weeks ago…so…

• 3.6 kg Joe White Pilsner Malt
• 0.7kg Joe White Wheat Mallt
• 0.2kg Weyermann Caramunich I
• 20g Amarillo Hops @ 45 min
• 20g Amarillo Hops @ 5 min
• 20g Amarillo Hops @ 0 min
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• Safale US05 – American Ale Yeast

Mashed with 16L of water at 72deg which settled at 62deg in the Mash.I wanted 64-65 so dumped in 1.5L boiling water which got me to 64 deg.  Mashed for an hour and a half .

Drained and sparged with extra 13.5L of water at 76deg. OG was 1.041 before the boil

Boiled for around 10 min in kettle till hot break (bloody huge, almost boiled over!) then for another hour with hop addition as above.

Transferred to 20L cube after flameout for no-chill.  Not surprisingly, I was  bit off due to a new boiler. This coupled with lack of pick up tube gave me a little less in the actual cube.

2 June 2009 – It’s getting pretty cold here, so threw the cube in the fermenting fridge in the morning to get up to 19 deg, then pitched tonight with a rehydrated yeast

8 June 2009 - Dry hopped with 20g of Amarillo….mmmm tastes so good I could eat them!

15 June 2009 – Man I really dicked this one up tonight. Cut a long story short I ended up with 1/3 of the brew on the garage floor and most probably infected the brew….any way whats left is bottled and we’ll see how we go.

28 June 2009 – very surprised, no infection and masses of flavour and aroma from the Amarillo. Quite a lot of carbonation as I lost some of the brew while bulk priming therefore using too much sugar. A pretty good beer

Brew No.24 – Australian Pale Ale

11th May 2009 – Probably cheating to call this a new brew, but I pitched the second half of the Aussie Pale Ale Double Batch in the fermenter this evening. It has been resting in the cube while waiting for the ESB to ferment out (patience grasshopper).

I started the yeast about 6 days ago, again using the dregs from 2 coopers bottles. Because of the cold weather it seemed to still be fermenting which is ideal so pitched her straight in at about 16 deg and straight into the fermenting fridge set at 19Deg.

12 May 2009 – Bit of a lag this time, took almost 24 hours but seems to be off and running. Keep our fingers crossed….

25 May 2009 – Bulk primed to 3 volumes and bottled into champagne bottles. Smells good!

12 June 2009 – mmmm…bit drier and cleaner than the first half of the batch. Or maybe its just that its my first beer on a friday after work!

Brew No.23 – English Special Bitter

OG: 1.056
FG: 1.014
alc: 5.5% 

18th April 2009 – Thought I would brew something a little bit different today, inspired by the great traditional English brews on offer at the Red Oak (www.redoak.com.au). I also had some of the upcoming Australian brewing comps in mind when deciding on this beer. Anyhow here is what it looked like:

• 4.15 kg Marris Otter Pale Malt (UK)
• 0.25kg Caramalt
• 0.1kg Dark Crystal Malt
• 60g East Kent Goldings Hops @ 45 min (instead of 60 min – accounting for no chill)
• 30g East Kent Goldings Hops @ 0 min
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• Safale s04 – English Ale Yeast

Mashed with 16L of water at 73deg which settled at 66deg in the Mash. Mashed for an hour and a half dropping to 64deg at 90 min.

Drained and sparged with extra 18.5L of water at 76deg. OG was a little low at 1.041 so added 300g of LDME to bring to target of 1.046 (shhh..don’t tell anyone)

Boiled for around 10 min in kettle till hot break then for another hour with hop addition as above. 

Transferred to 20L cube after flameout for no-chill.  Seem to have a little more than usual into cube, prob due to less vigorous boil.

26th April 2009 – pitched into fermentor with well hydrated yeast. Took off within a few hours at held at 20deg.

9th May 2009 - Bulk primed and bottled into Champagne bottles

23rd May 2009 – drinking quite well, and quite a malty brew which is not surprising considering the grain bill. Maybe a touch too malty for me, but true to style none the less. I will definately hold on to a few of these for competitions this year

6th All Grain (22) – Aussie Pale Ale (Double Batch)

5th April 2009 – I have been promising a few of my mates they could help brew a batch, so today was the day. There were four of us, so what better time to brew a double batch….besides needing two pots for the HLT everything fitted in nicely and the day went off without a hitch.

Since all these guys managed to polish off my stash of Aussie Pale a few weeks ago, I knew this was a beer all of us would appreciate. I designed the recipe to be slightly concentrated and fit into two 15L cubes. At ferment 4L of water will be added.

Recipe as follows:

• 7.2 kg Pilsner Malt
• 1kg Wheat Malt
• 300g Caramalt (50EBC)
• 70g POR @ 60 min
• 1 Whirfloc tablet @ 10 min
• Coopers Pale yeast

Mashed with 27L of water at 68deg which came out at spot on 62deg. Mashed for an hour and a half with no drop in temp.

Drained and sparged with extra 27.5L of water at 78deg. 

Boiled for around 10 min in kettle till hot break then for another hour with hop addition as above. 

Transferred to two 15L cubes after flameout for no-chill

12th April 2009 – transferred to fermentor and pitched with starter from 2 stubbies of Coopers Pale Ale. Was going off in a matter hours!

26th April 2009 – Bulk primed and bottled in champagne bottles

9th May 2009 – Not a bad drop, perhaps a little green still due to the cold weather. Certainly some more banana esters coming through, perhaps from a slightly warmer ferment or even some stressed yeast….although this does seem to be a feature of the coopers yeast.