AG#044 - Hophead?

[oblivious]

But that the great thing about corny's, you can finish of fermentation and carbonate you beer

[SiHoltye]

1.014 after 48 hrs, by jove large cascades may have cracked it. Great hop flavour, yet not harsh in the sample

[SiHoltye]

Smooth

[SiHoltye]

2 days at 1.008 now, so chilling to 5°C with added Aux finings. Sample tastes like ready beer , no harshness just citrussy bitterness. I plan to keg Sat and force carb with 30g of Cascade dry hop (5 days only)...therein lies the problem - I don't have any Cascade.

I have:
Challenger
First Gold
Fuggles
Hallertauer Hersbrucker

I'm thinking of using the Challenger to dry hop, any better thoughts based on the 4 varieties I have?

[Gurgeh]

Nice work SH!

I reckon use the firstgold - they do have a citrusy effect after all (albeit more orangey). My firstgold IPA was dry hopped with lots of firstgold pellets and I think it would work well.

[SiHoltye]

Ta Pete, First Gold one vote. I wish Christmas would hurry up, I've kegs I want to crack (not just sneakily skim a half from every other night )

[SiHoltye]

Kegged today with 15g of homegrown first gold dry hop. Not primed in the keg instead forcing with 20psi on it. I'll remove the dry hops in 3 days, rather than leave them in to become grassy. On kegging there was a great aroma so we'll see what that's like after the carbonation.

[SiHoltye]

I've not removed the dry hop, because I can't find them now - they've sunk. This is on now and a fresh/slightly undercooked beer, next time will make sure it's all cascade as the fuggles gives a bit too much even though used just for bittering. Also the cleaner the yeast the better after this first try, so 2nd time out it'll be Notts only for me. Altogether it's 70% of the beer I wanted to make - admittedly only after days in the keg so time will tell for sure. Alongside another more matured beer it's a great foil, and with the Quick Turnaround Bitter stuffed full of fuggles flavour I'm pleased with the pale beers I have on , pondering about a dark beer now Merry Xmas everyone.

[spearmint-wino]

Sounds alright to me Si, a nice, fresh winter quaffer

[SiHoltye]

Drinking now and the challenger is noticeable, possibly too high on the full boil bitterness, even more cascade at 5mins next time. Will try with just Notts next time for a try I think. A nice pint

[yashicamat]

Drinking now and the challenger is noticeable, possibly too high on the full boil bitterness, even more cascade at 5mins next time. Will try with just Notts next time for a try I think. A nice pint

Did the cascades survive the force carbonation in the end? It sounds more like what I was hoping to get (but didn't ) with my Hophead attempt. 100g is a lot of aroma hops for a 23 litre brewlength though.

[SiHoltye]

Yep, the aroma was there. Going to try it priming the keg next time, maybe retaining even more aroma Was happy with the nose on this one though.

[yashicamat]

Yep, the aroma was there. Going to try it priming the keg next time, maybe retaining even more aroma Was happy with the nose on this one though.

So if the keg is naturally primed, but then the CO2 applied to maintain the pressure, does that retain the aroma? I'm beginning to wonder where the aroma is being lost. Is it a by product of the "purging" of the oxygen from the keg? I can't see how aroma should just dissapear because of the method of carbonation . . .

[SiHoltye]

Hello,

AG#048 going on tomorrow:

Ingredients
23L @ 85% effiiciency, 90min mash, 90min boil, liquor = bitter
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.27 kg Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 98.00 %
0.07 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 55L (120.0 EBC) Grain 2.00 %
13.00 gm Cascade [5.34 %] (90 min) Hops 7.7 IBU
175.00 gm Cascade [5.34 %] (5 min) Hops 19.2 IBU
2 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.039 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.84 %
Bitterness: 26.9 IBU
Est Color: 8.9 EBC

Not messing about yeast wise. I'm not prepared to pitch a S-04, Notts, US-05 combo as the brewery does until I know I can't get an acceptable clone from a solo yeast (tightwad ) I am however pitching 22g of rehydrated yeast as I want this to attenuate correctly and quickly. Too many times I've had dried yeast get within 1 or 2 points of where it claims it can go using 11g in <1.050OG of well aerated temperature controlled wort. The last time I doubled up on yeast packets (2x S-04 in 1.048) it raced down and stayed at the estimated FG 1.012 in just 2 days, and I'd like that effect again. If it means spending another £1.20 on another packet of yeast, what the hey.

Weekdays are the best brewdays...no family

[SiHoltye]

All done 21L @ 1.046. The 21L was after topping up with 3L...those hops didn't half suck up some wort. The OG is high but I'd not reckoned on hitting an extra 5% efficiency in the tun (90% ), perhaps contributed to by a 1½hr (drain and 2 batch) sparge regimen imposed on me by an end of sack floury grain slow run-off issue. I've not modded my H&G mash manifold at all so far but I intend to double the slits before next brewday to see if that'll help speed things up, though I won't really know for a few brewdays until I get to the end of this new sack of grain.
As it is the balance is a little off target, down by 0.08 BU:GU, at 0.606, and therefore I don't really want to dilute the gravity any further or the bitterness ratio would dip too far for my target range.

So good efficiency, positive improvements to be made to equipment, but once again recipe targets missed Ah well, beats working