A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

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bellebouche
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A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Tue May 04, 2010 2:06 pm

A few snaps of a simple brewday. My pops was over for a visit last year and helped me pull in a harvest of wild hops from down at a local river so we decided to use them in a brew. He's a big fan of mild which he has found increasingly hard to come by at home so here's how the day went.

Jolly brewers

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Grains
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2400g French pils malt. 310g Medium crystal (homemade so guessing at 55 EBC) 170g Dark Crystal EBC 120. 85g Coffee. 85g Belgian Biscuit. 85g Belgian Amber. 150g 'raw' unmalted barley.

Mashed at 69c for 1hr, Sparged at 76c to 24.5Litres total extract. Extract was running thin/light at the end but was still coming off reasonably sugary. My notes seem incomplete but I'm sure it was about 1018 at the end. 60 minute boil. Chilled to 18degrees before pitching onto an old cake.




Mashing underway.
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We fly sparge, hand sprinkling potfuls of water over the grain bed through a diffuser. Had a good 8cm head above the grainbed throughout.

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Boiled with 50g of the dried/aged flowers from last autumn. No idea whatsoever of the varietal / acid content but tasting the wort there was a suitably light degree of bittering.

Chilled and then pitched this onto the cake from my Elderwherry experiment. Had a short 6 hour lag then off it went. OG was 1038, got 20 litres. Will rack it off in a day or two as the cake was pretty thick and full of flower heads.

So, making the beer was fun but made all the better as I got to do it with my dad, sit in the sun, sip a few homebrews and then set it off on its way. BIg bonus is he'll get to take a case home with him when he comes this September and we'll no doubt pick a load more hops once more.
Last edited by bellebouche on Tue May 04, 2010 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tony01

Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Tony01 » Tue May 04, 2010 2:31 pm

Nice!
I did a brew with my father on Saturday ... can't be beat!
:D

boingy

Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by boingy » Tue May 04, 2010 3:09 pm

That's an experience I will never have. My dad thinks homebrew is evil, full of toxins, additives and somehow wrong! Not that he has ever sampled any (and my beer has never been that bad). He first expressed that view about 25 years ago and has never changed his mind. One day I hope to be as stubborn as him. I'm getting there, I just need a few more years experience.

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Hogarth » Tue May 04, 2010 3:34 pm

Nice pics!

How do you make the crystal malt? And did you roast the other grains yourself?

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Tue May 04, 2010 4:20 pm

I have to say... small scale home malting is time consuming, finnickerty, messy, takes up space, time and energy. It makes no sense on any level other than to produce very limited quantities of specialised grains.

But, no reason not to have a go!

Crystal is my fave to make because it's the easiest and smells outstanding as it's roasted. At the point the germinated grain is ready to kiln I put it in a big De Longhi slow cooker set to it's lowest keep warm temperature. I can do about 3kg at a go. The moisture in the grain steams the kernel and starts the cooking process that triggers off the conversion of the starches into sugars. Squishing grains soon gives you a sugary sticky squirty mess. Delightful. After a few hours steaming I crack the lid ajar, steam it off and then let it dry-roast until I get the degree of darkness I require.

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Tue May 04, 2010 4:22 pm

Hogarth wrote: And did you roast the other grains yourself?
I have a small stock of different grains from either Soufflet (French) or Malterie du Chateau (Belgian)

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Deebee » Wed May 05, 2010 8:34 am

Tony01 wrote:Nice!
I did a brew with my father on Saturday ... can't be beat!
:D
My dad is coming soon for the christenong of his 4th granddaughter.

Sadly i don't think he will be here long enough to brew this time around but i am thinking of making him some gear when i go home in the summer so that he can be introduced to doing it in his retirement.

i miss not doing things with him.
Dave
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Tony01

Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Tony01 » Wed May 05, 2010 12:18 pm

How far away does he live Deebee?
Make a christening brew and he can take some home with him! :D

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Deebee » Wed May 05, 2010 1:02 pm

he lives in London and me in the land of NOG. customs restricts the amount he can take home too.

I spoke with him about laying out and making his equipment for him when i am home in the uk. but he says its not for him.

kind of saddens me a little that there is nothing i can offer. I miss not seeing my folks more than once every 6 months or so,
Dave
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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Hogarth » Wed May 05, 2010 9:02 pm

Nice website there, BB. I enjoyed your post about making inverted sugar. I tried it the other day ... now I see where I went wrong.

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Wed May 05, 2010 10:18 pm

Ahhh, I should update that as I've recently tried to invert with Image instead of Image and a darker colouration.

Results? Somewhat unpleasant horse-urine smell during boil of the sugar!

The beer (just tried it in an ESB) gets a superb licorice flavour. Coo! Chemistry is mad!

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by Hogarth » Thu May 06, 2010 1:02 am

bellebouche wrote: Results? Somewhat unpleasant horse-urine smell during boil of the sugar!
I guess that'd be the ammonium. :out

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Mon May 10, 2010 9:47 am

After this has been steady at 1011 for three days I'd racked off to a bottling vessel and primed with 6g/l raw cane sugar syrup and bottled off last night. On tasting 'Le Chat Noir' it had complex malt flavours and a great ye-olde-ale flavour, very old fashioned. I've got very high hopes for this after it's had a couple of weeks in the bottle.

Not as dark as I was expecting but that was probably down to the variability of my crystal. Small clumps of proteins/floating krausen precipitated out and they were all pitch black so that probably bound on some of the colour I had in there. I was wary of adding any patent malt for fear of brining a harsh/smokey edge to it. Bittering was a little more forthright than I'd expected but still within the bounds of acceptability for the style. I've learned a lesson about my wild/free hops there.

So, it's bottled. I've made a special presentation case of little 250ml bottles for my Dad which he'll get to take home this Autumn. All that's left to do is design him a special memorial label!

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Fri May 28, 2010 9:29 am

Early tasting notes from last weekend now it's had some bottle time. Huge wafty complex malt nose. Pours a healthy creamy head which sticks around nicely and laces the glass all the way down. Deep mahogany which has cleared superbly well and in the brightest light has a slight ruby hint. Hop bitterness has subsided but is still noticeable, rich chewy mouthfeel, subtle residual sugar flavour - a very smooth combination. The malt complexity is good and the crystal comes through well.

I've a friend over at the moment from the Midlands. A gentleman of a certain age and his feedback - verbatim - goes... "please don't take this the wrong way... because it's meant as a compliment. The first thing that hit me on just opening the bottle was that it smells like an old pub floor. Like the pubs of my youth. A truly honest beer smell. It was fantastic! Far far better than many a pint I've had in England"

I had a small moment of chest bursting pride. Result! I haven't had the presence of mind to take a photo yet but I'll fix that this weekend.

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Re: A brewday with my Dad - 29th April.

Post by bellebouche » Tue Jun 01, 2010 11:32 am

M'lud, some photographic evidence.

Exhibit #1 for the defence.
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Exhibit #2 for the defence.
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That last photo taken side on in a sunset... just to accentuate the deep ruby hue that's there in the beer. A very pleasant attribute of the recipe and comes from the crystal and Belgian amber malt.

Tempted to have a go? If anyone has a crack at this recipe I'd be delighted to hear your feedback. I'll be making it again and again... it's hard not to tweak the recipes as you go along when doing all grain. Next time I'll dial back the hopping and bring forward some more chocolate and even perhaps 50g of black patent to turn it a little more towards the dark side.

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