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.

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

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.

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)!!!

I have finally taken the plunge into growing my own hops at home. On the weekend I planted two Pride of Ringwood rhizomes in pots and can’t wait to see them grow! To be honest, it is more for the novelty value at the moment but who knows….will post some pictures later when they start to take off.

20 September 2009 – Woo hoo rhizomes have sprouted and we’re away! Here is a picture of the largest shoot.

13 October 2009 – Ok were are starting to see some growth now! I have built three wires up to the roof of the house, and one of the bines has taken off up one of them. I have been watering every few days and fertilised a couple of days ago as well.

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dad’s out there. I was lucky enough to get a brand new refractometer to replace the dodgy hydrometer’s I seem to break every 2 brews on average Nice little piece of kit, that I ordered from Hong Kong on ebay for only $25! A fraction of the cost of the ones you can buy from the home brew stores and exactly the same model. Delivered in less than 2 weeks. Can’t wait to try it out next brew day. Here is a link to the one I bought for those interested…

http://tinyurl.com/n2f82l

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!

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…

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

A bunch of us brewers in Western Sydney have started the Western Sydney Brewers club. We had our first get together at Paddy’s Brewery on Saturday 28th June 2009  which was a huge success. Details can be found at http://groups.google.com.au/group/western-sydney-brewers?hl=en