The Homebrew Thread

[Frank_Grimes]

That sounds like a steal! I would proudly walk in with the invoice and a comparison to what you were previously paying.

By my calculations you have averaged about $2.60/kg for all of that grain - outstanding.

 

[TiggaPlease]

Sounds about right.

Mick has a great setup there and awesome prices on the by the kg grain, big range too.

Will certainly be using his services again.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

I brewed up Ross's Nelson Sauvin Summer ale yesterday. I tried mashing with 25L and Sparged with 7L, but mash efficiency came out a little low. I ended up boiling for 90min to hit the target OG so only ended up with 18L in the fermenter.

I think the sweet spot for me is to use ~20L for mash every time and ensure the malt is the right grind. Then get back into mash pH and brewing salt additions.

The recipe I used below:

4.5kg Maris Otter
0.4kg Torrified Wheat

Nelson Sauvin:
15g @60
15g @20
20g @5
30g @0

 

[TiggaPlease]

I'm still in 2 minds about Neilson Sauvin, the white wine character can be too full on for me sometimes, the best extract beer I made did have a dose of NS in it though.

Last weekend I knocked out a smoked porter:

3.9kg bb ale
1kg smoked malt
.45kg dark crystal
.25kg choc
.25kg roast malt
.1kg acidulated

20gm Summit @60 to mid 20s ibu
50gm fuggles in the cube

M42 new world strong ale.

Mashed at 69 as my previous dark beers haven't had enough body.

The yeast has taken off like a rocket.

Next up will probably be a bog standard pale ale featuring good old cascade, then either an American brown or amber.

Going to try brew heaps when I've got the week off for xmas.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

I'm still in 2 minds about Neilson Sauvin, the white wine character can be too full on for me sometimes, the best extract beer I made did have a dose of NS in it though.

Last weekend I knocked out a smoked porter:

3.9kg bb ale
1kg smoked malt
.45kg dark crystal
.25kg choc
.25kg roast malt
.1kg acidulated

20gm Summit @60 to mid 20s ibu
50gm fuggles in the cube

M42 new world strong ale.

Mashed at 69 as my previous dark beers haven't had enough body.

The yeast has taken off like a rocket.

Next up will probably be a bog standard pale ale featuring good old cascade, then either an American brown or amber.

Going to try brew heaps when I've got the week off for xmas.

I've never tried NS before but have heard so many good things about it. Smells good so far.

Yeah I'm thinking about moving to no-chill over the Xmas break and doing some bulk production to store some wort. It will save time on brew day not chilling and I can create real wort starters with left overs in the dead space if I run it through a sieve.

Thinking about doing a saison next given the hotter temperatures. Either peach or passion fruit:

80% Belgian Pils
20% Wheat Malt

Thinking something around 4.5% ABV

30g Mt Hood @40min for around 21 IBU
30g Mosaic @ flameout
30g Mosaic @ Dry Hop

1kg of either Peach or Passion Fruit pulp in secondary.

Do you move your bittering hop additions 20 mins back for no-chill?

 

[TiggaPlease]

Do you move your bittering hop additions 20 mins back for no-chill?

I leave bittering at 60 and still calculate it as a 60 min addition. Anything 20 mins and below I just chuck in the cube and calculate as a 15-20 min whirlpool addition.

After the boil I whirlpool then let settle with the lid on for 15-30 mins before draining to the cube.

A lot of people on AHB seem anal about keeping all the cold break and cube hops out of the fermenter, I'm not one of them, I pour everything in and my beers turn out clear and clean.

The day before I want to ferment I pop the cube in the ferment fridge and set the controller 1 or 2 degrees lower than the temp I want to ferment at so I'm always pitching at the exact temp I want.

That's generally what works for me, YMMV.

Thinking about doing a saison next given the hotter temperatures.

What yeast are you going to use? Bear in mind that you'll probably only need an OG of 1.035. Last saison I made came in at 5.6% and the OG was only 1.045ish.

4kg of malt should be plenty.

 

[The Charlatan]

Any of you fellas attempted an IPA? I know f**k all about home brew but I want to give a shot and I quite like my IPA's. Just paging through this thread it looks like it will take a while to get good at it seems as though there's a science to it.

 

[TiggaPlease]

Any of you fellas attempted an IPA? I know f**k all about home brew but I want to give a shot and I quite like my IPA's. Just paging through this thread it looks like it will take a while to get good at it seems as though there's a science to it.

You'll be sweet, I consider IPA is a pretty easy style to brew because most flaws would be hidden behind the hops.

Just need to go hard with american/new world hops late in the boil and do a big dry hop.

What are you favourite IPAs?

As a beginner you could use a coopers kit as a base, then probably 1kg dry malt extract and 1kg of dextrose (so the final gravity wasn't too high) - Boil some of the dry malt extract for 15 mins (say 400gm of it in 4 litres water) adding hops at 15min from the end, 5 min from the end then at flameout. Ferment using us-05 yeast.

I know it all sounds pretty complicated and technical but you can make some seriously good beers without a huge amount of effort pretty quickly IMO.

Cleanliness, Sanitation and Temp control are the 3 most important things for good beer.

 

[The Charlatan]

Only really discovered them in California TBH, Blind Pig and Big Daddy were the two I was really fond of.

Quite enjoyed the Napa Valley IPA at the Napa Valley Burger Company in Sausalito as well.

 

[TiggaPlease]

West Coast IPAs rely heavily on the C hops - Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Chinook.

Head over to aussiehomebrewer.com for more info on brewing.

I reckon you could smash out something pretty nice without too much trouble.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

I leave bittering at 60 and still calculate it as a 60 min addition. Anything 20 mins and below I just chuck in the cube and calculate as a 15-20 min whirlpool addition.

After the boil I whirlpool then let settle with the lid on for 15-30 mins before draining to the cube.

A lot of people on AHB seem anal about keeping all the cold break and cube hops out of the fermenter, I'm not one of them, I pour everything in and my beers turn out clear and clean.

The day before I want to ferment I pop the cube in the ferment fridge and set the controller 1 or 2 degrees lower than the temp I want to ferment at so I'm always pitching at the exact temp I want.

That's generally what works for me, YMMV.



What yeast are you going to use? Bear in mind that you'll probably only need an OG of 1.035. Last saison I made came in at 5.6% and the OG was only 1.045ish.

4kg of malt should be plenty.

What is different about the OG and Saison? Beersmith is telling me the guideline for a saison is above 1.045. Was thinking about Belle Saison Yeast. Basically whatever the shop up the road has. I'm gonna go with a Peach Saison as they're on sale right now. I can get a kg of fresh peaches for $3.80 so why not?

Will brew this over the Xmas break and I'm going to brew a Smurto's Golden ale as a fresh wort kit for my Dad on Saturday. He's getting into brewing and has bought almost all the gear for extract brewing so I thought a great present would be a FWK for him to try out his fermentation fridge on.

Just gotta decide what else to brew over the break. I wanna get 3-4 cubes full of wort.

 

[TiggaPlease]

What is different about the OG and Saison? Beersmith is telling me the guideline for a saison is above 1.045. Was thinking about Belle Saison Yeast.

From my (albiet limited to about 3 uses) experience with Belle Saison you'll be looking at an FG of 1.000-1.003, so if you want 4.5% abv you'll need to lower your OG.

Over the last week I've made a smoked porter, a pale ale and an american brown. I'll probably look at a couple more pale ales over the break, maybe an american amber too.

I think I'm going to give up trying to improve my efficiency too, I've tried crushing finer and coarser and still get smack bang on 65% no matter what I do.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

From my (albiet limited to about 3 uses) experience with Belle Saison you'll be looking at an FG of 1.000-1.003, so if you want 4.5% abv you'll need to lower your OG.

Beersmith should help me plan that no? If I punch in the grain bill and type of yeast it should tell me the expected OG, FG and ABV.

Over the last week I've made a smoked porter, a pale ale and an american brown. I'll probably look at a couple more pale ales over the break, maybe an american amber too.

I think I'm going to give up trying to improve my efficiency too, I've tried crushing finer and coarser and still get smack bang on 65% no matter what I do.

I'm totally fine with 65% consistently.

 

[TiggaPlease]

Beersmith should help me plan that no? If I punch in the grain bill and type of yeast it should tell me the expected FG and ABV.

I'm almost certain I had to adjust the attenutation settings for Belle Saison in beersmith. They had it listed as 73-80% attenuation and I changed it to 85-95%.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

How did the American Brown turn out? I may just try my own:

4.15kg Pale Malt (83%)
450g Crystal (9%)
200g Chocolate Malt (4%)
200g Biscuit Malt (4%)

20g Glacier @ 60min
10g Cascade @ 15min

 

[TiggaPlease]

The Brown is sitting in a cube at the moment, I'll get it in the fermenter later this week after I keg the porter.

Recipe was:

4.3kg Pale Ale (75.4%)
.5kg Dark Munich (8.8%)
.45 Med crystal (7.9%)
.25 choc (4.4%)
.2 Acidulated (3.5%)

10g summit @ 60 (17.3 ibu)
50gm each Cascade (7.4 ibu) & Fuggle (6 ibu) in the cube

Previous brown ale I made was awesome - (Similar to the above but light munich, no acid malt + brown sugar, and willamette as the late hop) certainly one of the most drinkable beers I've made.

I decided to make this one all malt and a bit hoppier after having a brooklyn brown about a month ago, would have preferred to use willamette rather than fuggles but such is life.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

The Brown is sitting in a cube at the moment, I'll get it in the fermenter later this week after I keg the porter.

Recipe was:

4.3kg Pale Ale (75.4%)
.5kg Dark Munich (8.8%)
.45 Med crystal (7.9%)
.25 choc (4.4%)
.2 Acidulated (3.5%)

10g summit @ 60 (17.3 ibu)
50gm each Cascade (7.4 ibu) & Fuggle (6 ibu) in the cube

Previous brown ale I made was awesome - (Similar to the above but light munich, no acid malt + brown sugar, and willamette as the late hop) certainly one of the most drinkable beers I've made.

I decided to make this one all malt and a bit hoppier after having a brooklyn brown about a month ago, would have preferred to use willamette rather than fuggles but such is life.

I think I might up the late Cascade to 50g then. You may not have needed the acidulated malt with the crystal, chocolate and munich additions.

 

[TiggaPlease]

Have you ever bought bulk hops from the states?

I was thinking about getting 4 pounds from Yakima Valley. The hops I was looking at would come in at $105 delivered - About half the price I'd be getting here.

 

[TiggaPlease]

You may not have needed the acidulated malt with the crystal, chocolate and munich additions.

According to bru'n water my pH is too high unless I have about 1kg roast malts in the bill...

Once I've finished the 1kg of acid malt I've got I might do a few beers without additions and see if it's worth continuing with going forward.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

According to bru'n water my pH is too high unless I have about 1kg roast malts in the bill...

Once I've finished the 1kg of acid malt I've got I might do a few beers without additions and see if it's worth continuing with going forward.

I've been using citric acid on the bru'n spreadsheet. I've read that it can really accentuate flavour of citrus notes in hops.