Busy Easter weekend!

All been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently, although my brewing has been progressing well. However, I had a really busy extended long-weekend over Easter so I thought it was worth catching up on a few things.

Friday - brewed Urban Bohemian
On Good Friday I finally got around to brewing the Bohemian Pilsner I've been meaning to for a while. I had a pack of Wyeast 2001 Pilsner Urquell yeast sat in my fridge, but I'd been putting off brewing the beer. I brew very few lagers, mainly because of the time they take. A typical lager fermentation will take around 2 weeks, followed by at least 4 weeks lagering time. That means that my fermenting fridge would be tied up for 6 weeks on one beer. During the summer this would have meant that I couldn't brew anything else, as ambient temperatures would be too high for ale fermentation (range is around 18-22 degrees centigrade). Anyway, now that we're into autumn here in Auckland, the ambient temperatures are more conducive to ale fermentations so I can safely tie up the fermentation fridge with this lager, while I ferment an ale or two in the understairs cupboard.

The recipe came from Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. I've brewed a few recipes out of this book now and they've all been excellent. I had to tweak the hops slightly to take account of what I had in stock, but it should be OK.

What I'm not so certain about is the yeast. I've learnt from experience that having the right amount of healthy yeast to start with is critical. I use the Pitching Rate Calculator at Mr Malty.com (Jamil's web site) which works out the right amount of yeast to pitch based on the age of the pack, the type of beer, strength etc. For this beer it told me I needed to make a giant yeast starter - 6.5 litres!! I don't think I have a container large enough to make such a starter. Anyway, I made a 3.5 litre starter and emailed Jamil, asking him if he thought I really needed a mega-starter. He didn't get back to me in time (he's a busy man, so it's understandable) so I just went with the 3.5 litre one. If I'd had a bit more time I might have tried to step it up to 6.5 litres by pitching another 3 litres of wort, but I didn't have time (or dry malt extract available). So we'll see how we go. The beer is fermenting away at 10 degrees now so we'll see what happens. The picture below shows the starter bubbling away:

Update: as of last night (22nd April) primary fermentation seems to be basically complete. The specific gravity has dropped from 1.054 down to 1.010, which is better than I expected so it looks like it was a healthy fermentation. The beer tasted pretty good too - nice malty crispness and no signs of sulphury off-flavours which can be produced by over-stressed yeast.

Friday - Keg Oatmeal Stout

I don't normally drink beer while brewing (got to keep focussed!) but while brewing the Urban Bohemian I decided to treat myself to a glass of my Anniversary Day Porter, which had been tasting very nice indeed. It turned out to be the last glass, as the keg blew dry! Luckily I had another beer ready to go into it so the brewing day was extended as I cleaned and sanitised the empty keg then transferred my Donkey Oatie Stout into it. Donkey Oatie is an amusingly-named oatmeal stout (which is now tasting very delicious).

All in all a very busy day, but very satisfying.

Saturday - visit to Galbraiths
On the second Saturday of each month we have a meeting of the local 'branch' of the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA). As this meeting fell on the Easter weekend I decided to just have a low-key event, as many people would be likely to be on holiday. A handful of us therefore gathered at one of my favourite places - Galbraiths Alehouse in Eden Terrace. I'm sure I've waxed lyrical about this place before, but I never tire of it. The perfect combination of good beer, decent food, excellent atmosphere and a lovely building.

We were lucky to be joined by Ian Ramsay, the brewer of Galbraith's outstanding English-style beers (also a SOBA member). We sampled a few of the beers and chatted about beery things in general. I was sad to hear that the Mr G's Luncheon Ale was not selling well enough and was therefore likely to be discontinued. I've enjoyed this beer a lot - it's a rare sight, a low-strength (3.5%) yet flavoursome English-style pale ale. Beautifully balanced, and the sort of beer you can drink a lot of. Sadly, not enough people have been doing so, so it's not long for this world. Get it while you can.

Sunday - day of rest, inflict homebrew on visitors

On Easter Sunday we had a few friends round for a barbeque. The autumn weather has been very pleasant in Auckland this year and we were able to sit outside all afternoon.

Whenever we have visitors round I'm always keen to get them to try my beer, but always a little nervous. A lot of people still have a negative reaction when you mention "homebrew" - no doubt conditioned by those hideous "kit and kilo" brews that people used to make. If I can get people to sample my beers, I usually find that they are pleasantly surprised.

On this occasion I inflicted my Best Bitter, Pale Beauty pale ale and Donkey Oatie stout on a couple of people. They came back for more so I assume they liked it!

Monday - Wire up temperature controller

For the last few months since I bought a secondhand fridge to act as my outdoor beer fridge I've been running it with the temperature dial turned as low as it would go (i.e. warmer), but it's still a bit cold for the ales that I usually brew and drink. I bought a temperature controller a few months ago from MashMaster in Australia but hadn't got around to wiring it up. Part of this was due to needing to fit it into a plastic case as it was going to sit outside.

So on Easter Monday I finally motivated myself to get it done. I drilled and cut the case, sorted out the wiring and assembled the temp controller. It wasn't all that difficult, just a little time-consuming. So now I finally have my temperature-controlled beer fridge. The controller works by turning the power to the fridge on if the temperature gets above the pre-set temperature, then off again once it's cooled down enough. I have my controller set to 10 degrees centigrade, which is a little cooler than standard UK cellar temperature.

Tuesday - bottle barley wine

Back in January I brewed a barley wine in honour of my Grandad Joe, who was a big fan of Whitbread's Gold Label. The beer has been sat in a keg in my beer fridge since then. However, my plan was to get it into bottles so it could be hidden away to mature slowly over a year or two. The problem was I didn't have enough of the right size of bottles. Most of my beer bottles are 750ml bottles and although the beer is nice, drinking 10% barley wine by the pint is not generally a good idea! I wanted smaller bottles and couldn't bottle the beer until I found them.

Eventually I tracked down a source. The Leigh Sawmill Brewery use 300ml swing-top bottles for their The Doctor strong ale and 12 Gauge strong lager. They very kindly offered to sell me 4 dozen used bottles at $1 per bottle, which I thought was a great deal. They even threw in some spare lids and seals.

Cleaning and sanitizing 48 bottles took a long time, but I kept at it. I then carefully filled the bottles, making sure to "cap on foam" i.e. closing the cap while the neck of the bottle was full of foam, in order to minimize the amount of air left in the bottle. Since I'm intending to keep some of these bottles for at least a year I needed to pay extra attention to sanitation and minimizing the chances of spoilage due to oxidation.

Eventually I ended up with 40 bottles of beer. I created a nice label, labelled them up and have hidden them away. An odd one or two might find their way into the hands of friends, but the rest will be tucked away for future consumption!

Wednesday - clean kegs and fridge

After my marathon bottling session on Tuesday night I decided I deserved a drink, so I poured myself a pint of my Best Bitter. Sadly that was the last pint, and the keg blew dry. I now had 2 empty kegs (the Best Bitter plus the barley wine that I'd just emptied into bottles) so I needed to do some keg cleaning. I took the opportunity of a mainly-empty beer fridge to do a bit of a deep clean. The fridge had been getting pretty grubby with beer run-off etc. so I got the Mr Muscle out and gave it a really good clean both inside and out. Cleanliness is vital where beer is concerned so I felt a lot better afterwards. So now I have a sparklingly clean, although sadly almost empty, beer fridge.

All in all, quite a beery extra-long weekend, but very satisfying. Lots of good jobs done, and some nice beer drunk.

SOBA National Homebrew Competition 2008

This year was the second annual running of the SOBA National Homebrew Competition, and my first chance to enter (I hadn't really got started on the brewing thing last year). I told myself I was only entering to get some feedback on my beers, not for the chance of winning anything, but that didn't stop me from being a little disappointed when the results came back.

I entered 4 beers, all malt extract-based (I hadn't got around to all-grain brewing in time). Entry involved shipping 2 bottles of each beer to Wellington, along with a completed entry form for each one (plus the entry fee of course). Judging took place in September, with the inital results coming out shortly after, followed by the judging notes and comments a bit later. I've lost the actual scores I received, but I can remember that the highest was a 31/50 and the others were in the 14-17 range.

The feedback came on full AHA/BJCP scoresheets. I would include an example because they're very interesting, but my scanner is currently out of commission. I've included a few of the key comments on each beer below:

• Extract of Daisy (American Pale Ale): Hops low on nose for style; cardboard (indicative of oxidation) in aroma and flavour; stylistic accuracy low; technical merit low.
• Storecupboard Larger (Vienna Lager): hop aroma seems inappropriate; more cardboard!; Stylistic Accuracy medium; Technical merit medium-high; "I would drink a pint of this beer"!
• 4BC Altbier (Dusseldorf Altbier): hard to detect aroma; appropriate hop; Lacking malt for style; bitterness too low for style; harsh; technical merit low; sour/acidic flavour.
• 4BeeCee Porter (Honey Porter): Chocolate, phenolic aroma - electrical fire; chocolate, vinegar flavour; medicinal aroma; Stylistic accuracy medium; technical merit low.

Well, the only way is up! I'm hopeful that next year will be a different story - my beers have certainly improved since the ones I submitted. Going all-grain has certainly helped.

Mind you, I've never brewed a beer I couldn't drink, and that's the main thing. Winning competitions is not the main objective of my brewing.

Mostly, I have been brewing....

Since I last posted anything of significance I've brewed seven different all-grain batches of beer. Some of them have been merely OK, some have been good and a couple have been absolutely amazing!

As a quick catch-up, here are the batches I've brewed but not posted about:

• 4BC Altbier v3.1. An all-grain attempt at a Dusseldorf Altbier using liquid yeast (Wyeast 1007 German Ale). Just a few bottles of this beer remain. I was very happy with it. Slightly on the pale side for style but a nice clean malty taste. I'll brew this one again.
  
• Palliser Special. An English Best/Special bitter. Again, just a few bottles of this remaining in the beer fridge. Very pleased with this one also - nice level of bitterness and the dry-hopping (added hops into the secondary fermenter) with NZ-grown Styrian Goldings hops worked well. Lots of hop aroma.
  
• Saison Du Diable. Possibly the favourite beer I've brewed so far. Recipe was based on Jamil Zainasheff's award-winning recipe. Yeast used was a Wyeast special edition - 3711PC French Saison. I fermented it at ambient temperatures in my shed (which were around 20-22 degrees in a warm Auckland spring) then ramped it up to 28 degrees by bringing it into the conservatory and turning the heating on for the last few days. This resulted in it fermenting out very dry, which was the objective. It's a lovely pale golden beer with tons of funky aroma, lots of fruit but a clean dry finish. Very chuffed with this one.
  
• Oh Vienna! A Vienna lager. Had some problems with this one - the liquid yeast (Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager) failed to kick off. I left it for a few days and tried raising the temperature but no joy. So I pitched a rehydrated sachet of Saflager S-23 and this kicked fermentation into life. However, I have no ide4a what the interaction of the two yeasts would do. This was the first beer to go into my new kegging setup (of which more later) and was the first beer I inflicted on my fellow SOBA brewers when they came round to my place, but I wasn't all that happy with it. A distinct rubbery/sulphury aroma, persisting into the flavour. A lack of malt sweetness also. I'll give it a few weeks in the keg and see if it comes right.
  
• Pale Beauty. A beer which is difficult to pigenhole to a BJCP style. In theory it's an English IPA but it tastes unlike most IPAs I've ever drunk! Not that it's a bad thing - I think I've created a damn fine beer. It reminds me a lot of Daisy Cutter from Twickenham Fine Ales, one of my favourite UK beers. It shares a name with another Twickenham beer, although it doesn't taste like Twickenham's Pale Beauty. As it's name suggests it's a pale straw colour and has a big hit of hops on the nose. There's a pronounced passionfruit aroma from the Riwaka hops and a lovely creaminess. At 5.7% it's a little strong to quaff, but it's very tempting to do so!
  
• Palliser Pride. My attempt to get close to one of my favourite beers of all time, Fuller's London Pride. I used Wyeast 1968 London ESB yeast which is rumoured to be the same strain as the Fuller's house yeast. The beer has turned out very nice, though perhaps closer to Fuller's Chiswick Bitter than London Pride - lacking a litle richness and body, perhaps. It's a mighty fine beer for quaffing though, and is currently on tap in my beer fridge!
  
• Grandad Joe's Gold Label. This is my currently-fermenting brew. Named in honour of my grandfather who, in his last weeks, took a liking to Whitbread Gold Label. It's not an attempt to recreate that beer, just an attempt to brew a good English barley wine. There's a lot of Pale Ale malt in it, and not a lot else ( a hint of crystal malt and a bit of sugar to stop it being too cloying). If all comes out well it will be somewhere between 10%-11% and will be aged for at least 6 months.
  

If you want any more details of any of the beers (recipes etc.), drop me a line.

Tasting OK so far

Well, I just transferred Palliser Bitter from the primary fermenter to a secondary one, and took a small sample along the way. To check the specific gravity (SG) of course, but also to have a little taste. And it seems to be doing fine on both counts. SG has dropped from 1.040 to 1.012 in 4 days so if it finished there I'd be happy, but it might creep down another couple of points during secondary fermentation and that's also OK. More importantly, it tastes good! Lighter body than I expected, but a nice mellow fruitiness with a bit of citrus around the edge. Not too bitter, but fairly well balanced.

I've dry-hopped this beer, adding 20g of NZ Styrian Goldings hop pellets to the beer in the secondary fermenter. This should give a big boost to the hop aroma. Styrian Goldings are one of my favourite hops, and feature strongly in Timothy Taylors Landlord. The beer will sit in secondary for about 10 days before bottling.

I also received a nice package in the mail today - a secondhand copy of Graham Wheeler's classic book "Home Brewing - the CAMRA guide" that I picked up on TradeMe. It's a bit old (1990) but is acknowledged as a classic. I've seen it selling for ludicrous amounts (£100+!!) in the UK - suffice to say I picked it up a fair bit cheaper than that. It'll be my favoured reading matter for the bus journey to and from work for the next couple of weeks!

First all-grain batch

This weekend was a momentous occasion in my fledgling homebrewing career - my first all-grain batch (that is, brewed using just grain instead of malt extract). It's something I've been aiming towards for a while - I want to get the greater malt flavour, as well as the additional flexibility that not being reliant on malt extract gives.

The key piece of equipment needed for all-grain brewing is a mash tun - a way of extracting the sugars from the grain and then separating the liquid (wort) from the grain. A classic homebrew technique is to convert a chilly bin (esky, picnic cooler, whatever you want to call it). That's the route I went down. To extract the wort without bringing the grain with it I used the braided metal screen from a hose - lots of people have apparently done it this way. See the picture below:

What to brew for the first all-grain batch? I was keen to get an every day drinking beer in stock, so I went for a Best Bitter which I've called Palliser Bitter. The recipe was:

• 3.5kg UK Pale Ale malt
• 0.4kg Crystal malt
• 0.4kg Munich malt (for a bit of complexity)
• 100g Wheat malt extract (OK, I know it's an all-grain batch but I had some wheat extract which needed using up and I thought it might help the head retention)
• NZ-grown Fuggles hops at 60 mins, 30 mins and 10 mins to about 40 IBU
  
• Dry-hopping with NZ Styrian Goldings hops in the secondary fermenter
• Good old Safale S-04 dried yeast

I got all my equipment together, gave it a good clean and prepared for an exciting day. However, it turned out to be pretty stressful and not all that successful.

I tipped the grain into my mash tun while I brought two large pans of water up to temperature. The temperature of this 'strike water' is very important as the enzymes within the malt are very temperature sensitive. You need to keep the mash temperature within a fairly tight range in order to get the sugars out with the right level of unfermentable dextrins (which provide body to the beer). I got the water to temperature and 'mashed in' (added the water slowly to the grain).

Then came the first panic of the day - the probe thermometer I was using was giving radically different temperatures at different points in the grain bed - several degrees either above or below my target mash temperature. Fortunately the mash thermometer I've bought but not yet fitted to my mash tun gave a more consistent reading, which was at the lower end of my range but I like my beers dry anyway.

After an hour the time came to drain the wort from my mash tun. It smelt bloody lovely! The first couple of litres came out OK, and I tipped these back into the grain bed to recirculate (and clear them up).

However, after only another couple of litres of runoff the flow rate slowed to a trickle and then stopped entirely. Disaster! I had a mash tun full of gorgeous wort that I couldn't get out! I tried tipping in some of my sparge water to see if this would free things up but no joy. The only way I could get any flow at all was to stroke the braided screen with a spatula, but even then I only got a trickle. I was contemplating the total loss of the batch but decided to try an alternative approach - I ladelled the mash in batches into a fine sieve and flushed it through with my sparge water. This got the wort out but my carefully worked-out sparge volume calculations went out of the window, so my volumes were a bit off. I ended up with less wort than I expected and at a slightly lower specific gravity (SG). To compensate I added a bit of extra water and a bit of extra wheat malt extract, but the SG was still a bit on the low side (1.040 as opposed to the target 1.043).

After that everything proceeded OK. I had to split the wort between two pans as I haven't yet finished my converted keg which will act as a full-size brew kettle.

As the wort cme up to the boil I noticed a definite difference from my extract-based batches - the amount of 'hot break' (proteins forming a skin on the surface just before boiling point) was much more dense, which is a good thing.

Hops were split between the two pans using a bit of guesswork on volumes! I used NZ-grown Fuggles hops as they are a traditional hop for good honest bitter. After an hour's boiling I fished the hop bags out and left the pans to cool with the lids firmly on. I'd decided to use the 'no-chill' method - instead of using an ice bath or a copper coil with cold water running through it to cool the wort I just let it cool down over night. Ideally I'd have transferred it to my sanitised fermenter to do this but I had no way of doing so without aerating it (which introduces the risk of oxidation) so I decided to take a risk (of exposure to airborned bacteria) and leave it in the boil pans overnight. Time will tell if this was OK.

The following morning I transferred the now-cool wort to the fermenter (with plenty of aeration) and pitched the rehydrated yeast. I then put the fermenter in the shed (ambient temperatures are pretty good at the moment). When I checked on it about 6 hours later it had burst into bubbling life so I was pretty pleased.

All in all it was a pretty stressful and disappointing day. I was really looking forward to my first all-grain batch and it could turn out tohave been a total disaster. There seems to be a design flaw with the braided hose, in that the holes are too small for the wort to get through, or they block up too easily. I will have to investigate an alternative approach before my next all-grain batch, which I want to do within the next couple of weeks. Any hints and tips from blog readers would be welcomed!

Yankee yeast

I recently decided to splash out and order some liquid yeasts from RealBeer. They're Wyeast yeasts imported from the USA. The guys at RealBeer consolidate orders from homebrewers and microbrewers across New Zealand then place a single order every two months. The yeasts are sent in a temperature-controlled shipment from the USA then distributed by the RealBeer guys. This useful service gives us access to a range of yeasts that would otherwise be hard to get hold of down here.

Why would I want to use liquid yeasts anyway? What's wrong with my trusty Safale S-04 dried yeast? Well, nothing really. For a lot of beer styles a dried yeast will definitely do the job. However, there is a limited range of dried yeasts so if you want to authentically recreate some of the more unique beer styles, a liquid yeast is the only way to do it. So I've ordered 3 yeasts which you can see in the photo below:

The three yeasts are:

• 3711PC French Saison
• 1007 German Ale
• 2206 Bavarian Lager

I also got a small amount of yeast nutrient.

The yeasts are "smack-packs". As well as the liquid yeast they contain a sealed bubble of yeats nutrient. When I'm ready to use the yeast I need to hit the pack hard so that it breaks the bubble, releasing the nutrient and getting the yeast ready for use.

The yeasts cost me about 3 times as much as a sachet of dried yeast, so I need to plan my recipes very carefully and aim to harvest the yeast for re-use. Sounds like fun!

Bottling Day: 4BeeCee Porter

So today was the day to bottle my honey porter, which I'm calling 4BeeCee Porter. It has been cold-conditioning for the last couple of weeks, which is a bit longer than I'd planned but I just haven't got around to bottling it.

One difference with today's bottling process was that I used honey as the priming sugar. Normally I'd use dextrose (corn sugar) but I wanted to boost the honey flavour - there's no point in calling it a honey porter if there's no detectable honey flavour, I reckon. So when I took a hydrometer sample to check the final gravity I tasted it and decided it still needed a bit more honey.

The final gravity was a bit higher than I'd expected (1.019) but I guess that this is because there are quite a few unfermentable sugars in honey. The mouthfeel was noticeably thicker and richer, which again points to the presence of those unfermentable sugars.

Anyway, bottling went fine so I have 30 bottles of porter waiting to be labelled up and put into storage. See photo below:

As you can see from the sample in the photo, it's not overly dark. I would have liked it to be a bit darker but it tastes OK. There is a definite sweetness up front from the honey before the roasty bitterness comes through behind. Once this has had a few weeks to mature I'm sure it'll be tasting great.

I now have 3 empty fermenters sitting in the garage, but I've already been to the brew shop (Brewers Coop in Mt Wellington, with a couple of extra bits from Hauraki Home Brew) so the next brew shouldn't be too far away. This one will be my first attempt at partial-mash brewing, so that should be exciting.

Storecupboard Larger

Brewing day again. I'm currently trying to save the pennies, partly so I can afford to buy the necessary kit to start all-grain brewing, so today's brew is a bit of a hotch-potch. As its name suggests, the recipe came about by looking at what ingredients I had in my brewing cupboard. Unfortunately I couldn't quite manage a whole recipe without buying anything, but I managed to limit the purchases to a can of malt extract and a sachet of dried yeast. The recipe is:

• 0.5kg Munich malt (steeped at 70 degrees C for 30 mins)
• 0.5kg Vienna malt (steeped as above)
• 1 can of John Bull Pilsner kit hopped malt extract
• 1.5kg can Black Rock light liquid malt extract
• 13g NZ Hallertau hops (boiled for 60 mins)
• 25g Motueka hops (boiled for 10 mins)
• 1 tsp irish moss (10 mins)
• 5 tsp yeast nutrient salts
• 1 sachet Saflager W34/70 yeast

Measured OG was 1.044 and the batch size is 23 litres.

I'm getting quite comfortable with the brewing process now so it all went smoothly. The fermenter is in the temperature-controlled fridge, which has been set to 12 degrees C.

No idea how it will turn out. I've not done a lager before and the hop levels are a total guess as I don't know how heavily hopped the Pilsner kit was. It looks darker than I expected but the sample I took to measure the OG tasted OK. I'll give it a week at the primary fermentation temperature then rack it off into a clean fermenter for 4 weeks lagering at 2 degrees.

Bottling day again

4BC Altbier (batch #4 of my homebrew adventures) is now safely bottled. I'm getting quite used to the process now so it all went very smoothly - I racked the beer from its secondary fermenter (where it has been cold-conditioning at 2 degrees for the last 4 weeks) into another fermentation vessel where it was mixed with a solution of dextrose (corn sugar) and water to encourage carbonation. After that it was just the tedious process of washing and sanitizing the bottles before filling.

I have to say that I am very pleased with this batch. Strike that - I'm bloody ecstatic about it! I've been quite happy with my beers up to now but this one tastes so much better than the others even at bottling stage. It's going to be hard to wait a few weeks for the carbonation to develop and the beer to settle down. I drank the dregs (the last almost-pint that wasn't worth bottling) and it was gorgeous - lots of tasty malt but also a nice steady bitterness. Clear as a bell as well. I'm stoked.

I also picked up the remaining ingredients for batch #5 today. This batch will be called Storecupboard Larger because, er, it's a kind of a lager and it was meant to be constructed entirely from ingredients I already had in my brewing cupboard. However I was short of one ingredient so had to pop to the homebrew shop today for some malt extract. It will probably be next weekend before I get this hotch-potch kicked off anyway.