How to brew variety

[greenxpaddy]

*Making the most of your time and equipment*

Here's a way of brewing three different ales from one mash in one day. My capacities can be amended to suit your own set up

This method can be used to step up yeast to larger capacities and keep yeast that has been harvested brewing and alive and fresh.

I have three yeasts currently

West Yorks plenty from top cropping
California Ale from a stage 1 step up 8litre brew, destined for a 40L brew length.
Thames Valley Ale yeast from smack pack 3 months old stir plate starter of 1L destined for a mini 8L batch

My main boiler is 400L. Because these are all experimental brews I will only go half full total volume 200L.

So the plan to brew two pale and a copper bitter is as follows.

Main mash with pale and very small amount of pale crystal.

Boil as normal bitter to normal level, 15 min additions to suit the copper ale which will be the 150L batch.

Earlier, on the hob, quantities of two different hop teas have been prepared in small pans as equivalent to 0 min additions. By adding hops to boiling water, turning off the gas and placing lid on top, leaving to cool. This will be added direct to each of the smaller fermenters that have been filled with the pale wort from the cooled main boiler.

Once the smaller fermenters are filled. A cold steep preparation of dark crystal wort is mixed into the main boiler. The run off in the normal way.

Each fermentation can be dry hopped or not once fermentations are waning.

So three very different beers from one brew day with not much more effort!

Just takes a bit of thought and preparation. Go experiment!

[greenxpaddy]

No probs today with this. Just have to be careful not use too much water for the hop tea or I will be diluting the OG of the wort. I'm going to use the cooled wort to rinse the hops out a bit like a hop back. The difference is the hop tea was made at 85 degrees not boiling and has had time to stew a bit.

Ref the cold steep, this was brought to around 85 degrees this morning to pasteurise. It wont have been boiled at all. Not concerned about DMS because its such a high processed malt. DMS more of a prob with lightly kilned.

I'm going for fruity notes on all three brews so fermenting at 22c.

I'm using amarillo for the hop tea on the smallest batch and cascade for the medium size batch. The large batch is having no late hops, but i may dry hop with some pioneer just to give it a whiff

[legion]

I do similar to this for all my brews now.

Brew 30l but split a third off into a pan on the hob for the last 15 minutes with different flavour and aroma additions and sometimes different yeasts.

My current brew is a belgium abbey single and a simcoe hoppy pale ale from one mash.

Previous brew was a honey hefe and a ahtahum american honey wheat.

Next brew is a oatmeal and raisin cookie ale and a gingerbread ale

I find it great doing it this way as for not much extra time investment you can double the range of beers that you produce.

[barney]

Thats a great idea, its almost like extract brewing, ie. making a base wort and then hoping and adding speciality steeped grains in two three or four different styles. I think some extract recipes would provide a good foundation for calculating the speciality malt and hop additions and help to keep things close to style.

I am going to try this tomorrow, I am doing two separate pale ales from one mash.

[greenxpaddy]

Barney, I put the recipe in Beer Engine then step backwards and formulate the others without the darker grains.

The flavour of 2kg dark crystal in 10 litres of cold water was amazing. Very coffee like. Obviously once diluted into 175 l going to be tamed very much. Can't wait to see what it's going to taste like. Anything like Black sheep would be good Want a real dark toffee hit, balanced by fruitiness from yeast and hops.