Batch notes

Here’s some more notes on each of the individual pilot batches. There are not notes for all batches, but I am trying to make sure that I add them for the latest batches.

146 Milky Way Stout

This is another one of the Dark Rock Brewing all grain kits in their World Heritage Range.

A rich creamy stout, with subtle chocolate flavours and a complex malty aftertaste, provided by Roasted Barley, Chocolate Malt, and Cocoa Nibs. Lactose gives the beer a rounded sweetness (as it cannot be fermented by a beer yeast). Target and Goldings hops provide the subtle background bitterness. The overall result is a wonderfully rich and fruity, creamy sweet stout, with chocolate flavours and malty aromas. A delicious specialist ale.

I have decided to use WHC Saturated yeast since I seem to have had quite a bit of success with this recently. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but having read the blurb it is suitable to be used in stouts as well as IPAs.

145 Alpine Amber Ale

This is another one of the Dark Rock Brewing all grain kits in their World Heritage Range.

According to the blurb on the box…”A complex copper-amber ale which combines four malts with Northern Brewer and Tettanger hops. The malts provide a full-bodied, malty backbone with hints of toasted nuts and biscuit flavours. The hops provide balanced aromatic floral notes with a spicy undertone. The style is popular in alpine mountain resorts and ski villages.”

Mine is looking a bit darker than I was expecting when it went into the fermenter. Maybe it will lighten up a bit during fermentation. Or maybe copper is a bit darker in the Alps!

I have used Fermentis US-05 yeast for a clean and clear finish.

144 Birra Italia

This is another one of the Dark Rock Brewing all grain kits. I don’t normally brew lager as it can be a bit of pain – fermenting at lower than room temperature, requiring a few weeks to mature etc. But brew 137 (Pilsener Lager) was surprisingly good, so I thought I should give this a go.

I am using 2 packets of Lallemand’s Diamond Lager yeast as I think this works better – one packet will work, but it tends to be a bit sluggish to start. Brewed at 14C and then lifted to 16C for a couple of days once the FG has stabilised. Then cold crashed for 48 hours before being kegged and carbonated (using a Quickcarb).

143 Nectar Oil

This is a Dark Rock Brewing all grain kit. It is listed as a limited edition, so I thought I should give it a whirl since I have tried to brew something similar myself (with slightly limited success).

This actually has turned out really well and was drinkable as soon as it went in the keg. Oops! I don’t think this one is going to make it to four weeks to mature. Ah well.

142 Money People Space Time

This is an exact repeat of 141, but using Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy hops. Slightly increased the amount of oats in the grain bill to increase the density of the beer.

141 Money People Space Time

This is an exact repeat of 140, but using Idaho 7 hops in the hopstand rather than Mosaic. I am sticking with the WHC Saturated yeast for now.

I am also experimenting with a Blichmann QuickCarb. I bought it second-hand on eBay. They seem to be very difficult to get hold of in the UK, so this was about my only option. Even then these units don’t turn up on eBay very often. New, the units are about £300 which I think is a bit expensive for what it is. Fortunately, I bought a rather tatty one (it cleaned up OK) for £60. It has to be worth a try since it promises to fully carbonate a 20L keg of beer in about an hour.

140 Money People Space Time

This is an exact repeat of 134, but using WHC labs Saturated yeast rather than either Verdant IPA yeast or WHC labs Banana Split.

139 Lights out – Version 2

It has been a while since I have brewed this. We like it, but not enough to have a whole keg full of it in the kegerator. However, since we now have a canning machine, we can brew this again and can a good proportion of it without taking up loads of keg space.

Only really changes here are that the water additions have been calculated manually and I am using Chinook as the bittering hop rather than Galena. Simply because I was out of Galena!

I have also reduced the hopstand temperature from 90C to 70C. This should reduce the overall bitterness while enhancing some of the flavour. I have also tweaked the fermentation temperatures as this is now very easily maintained with the new Grainfather chiller. Main fermentation at 21C, then once completed lifted to 23C for 2 days for the diacetyl rest, then dropped to 15C for 24 hours for dry hopping and finally cold crashed to 5C for 48 hours. I am using Fermentis US-05 yeast for this brew.

138 Money People Space Time

This is an exact repeat of 136. Firstly to prove to myself that I can control the fermentation process reliably enough to be able to replicate brews. And secondly, because we have drunk all of 136 already!

The beer was kegged for 24 hours at 25 PSI in the kegerator. It was left another 24 hours and then the entire keg was canned through the new canning machine. I was only intending on canning half of it, but I got a bit carried away!

137 German Pilsner

I don’t normally brew lager, but now I have a chiller it is really easy to ferment at what ever temperature I want! This is a prepared kit from GetErBrewed based on Crisp malts and using Diamond Lager yeast.

I am going to use two packets of Diamond yeast as last time, it was a bit sluggish. I am going to hold the temperature to 14C during fermentation. I will raise it a couple of degrees for 48 hours as part of a Diacetyl rest, then cold crash it to 5C for 48 hours before kegging it.

I am following the instructions that came with the kit and it has a 90 minute boil. I think this is to ensure that the compounds that produce sulphites in the wort are completely removed. Brew 135 was based on a lager malt and this probably would have benefited from a 90 minute boil rather than the standard 60 minute boil. The is definitely a slight sulphurous odour to the finished beer. It isn’t bad as it is very slight, but it is there.

UPDATE: The sulphurous spell disappeared after a couple of weeks in the keg. The beer cleared in about 4 weeks. It has quite a strong Pilsner taste and aroma – nothing unpleasant! You just need to be a bit patient with it.

136 Money People Space Time

This is a repeat of brew 134, only difference here is that we are back to using Verdant IPA yeast. 134 was a real hit and probably one of the best hop forward IPAs that I have brewed so far. I suspect that the new chiller will have something to do with it as the temperature through fermentation was very accurately control.

This time I am going to hold the temperature rock steady at 19C during fermentation then increase it to 21C for the diacetyl rest for 48 hours, then drop it to 15C to dry hop it for 24 hours, then cold crash it to 5C for 24 hours before kegging it. Forced carbonation at 25PSI for around 24 hours. Then it should be ready to drink!

135 Cold IPA

This was an opportunity to brew some hoppy lager using Diamond lager yeast. I normally struggle to keep the FV temp consistently low enough to brew lager. But given that we have a new chiller, I thought I would give it a go. Fermentation temperature held at 15C throughout. It was a bit sluggish to start and hindsight I should have used two packets in 22L. This was a bit academic since I only had one packet to hand! It got going eventually and even managed to hit it’s numbers!

I have brewed this before (108 and 113) and made exactly the same observations then! Maybe next time, I will learn!

134 Money People Space Bananas

This brew and 135 are the first two brews since investing in a new chiller. This unit is one of the fancy Grainfather GC2 units that integrates with my existing Grainfather fermenters. This means that the temperature (both heating and cooling) is controlled by the fermenters. This provides much better control than my rather ad-hoc arrangement before. I am hoping that this will take our beer to another level.

First brew is a repeat of brew 130. I am using WHC Banana Split Yeast rather than the usual Verdant IPA yeast. No reason, other than I fancied a change. Held at 21C throughout the fermentation. Dropped to 15C to dry hop for 24 hours. Then cold crashed to 5C before kegging and force carbonation.

The hop combination is Mosaic and Citra. I have dialled the amount back a bit as there was so much green matter in the fermenters that I was struggling to keg it! So there is 200g (split evenly between mosaic and citra) in the hop stand (at 70C) and another 200g in the dry hop.

133 Lightbulb moment

This is a repeat of brew 129, but this time this is some additional Citra hops in additional to the Centennial and Simcoe already in the recipe. The grain bill remains the same, but I have switched to using Verdant IPA yeast rather than the S-04/US-05 combo. I simply didn’t have any S-04 to hand.

UPDATE: For some reason, this brew struggled with a diactyl. No matter how long it was left in the keg to mature. I couldn’t get rid of it.

132 Citra Surprise

This is a repeat of brew 128, but this time this is some additional citra hops in the mash (yes, mash!). Never done this before, but looking at some recipes recently, I have seen brewers putting hops into the mash (relatively small amounts admittedly) to increase the hop flavour without increasing the bittering effect of the hops. Seems like a good idea, so here goes.

It is a base Citra recipe with 20g of hops added to the mash. Verdant IPA yeast and manual water additions.

It has been a couple of months since I have done any brewing so let’s just hope there aren’t too many mistakes!

131 Beaver Toon

This is essentially a Neck Oil clone. Nothing wrong with that and well worth emulating. I have tried brewing my own versions before (the last time was in December 2021 – brew 103), but I was inspired to have another go when I saw the all grain recipe on the Malt Miller site. I was just about to order it when I realised that I had all the ingredients already.

It is interesting to see how different the hop schedule is from my previous attempts.

The malt bill is pretty much the same although the latest version is using aromatic malt rather than pale wheat malt – this should produce a slightly richer colour. Standard Safale US-05 yeast.

	This version		Previous version
Bittering
	Columbus	10g	Columbus	10g
Hopstand
	Columbus	36g	Citra	20g
	Simcoe	36g	Mosaic	20g
	Centennial	36g	Galaxy	20g
			Columbus	20g
			Eldorado	20g
Dry Hop
	Mosaic	54g	Mosaic	30g
	Amarillo	54g	Columbus	30g
			Galaxy	30g
			Eldorado	30g
			Citra	30g

UPDATE: This is probably the closest that I have ever got to emulating Beavertown. It could do with being a little more malty and slightly less bitter, but otherwise it tastes (well, at least to me!) something similar.

130 Money, People, Space, Time

Sometimes things don’t quite go to plan!

I decided to use some London Ale 3 yeast that I had in the fridge. It was close to it’s use by date so I thought I should use it up. Normal guidance for yeast that is close to it’s use by date is to make a starter first (just to check viability). Did I do that? Course not! I was slightly too laid back and thought it was in a pouch (one of those “Smack Pack” thingies) – I thought it would be fine. Well, 12 hours after pitching and it was as dead as a dead thing. Took the lid off the fermenter and had a peak. Nope. Dead as a dead thing. Nothing. Time for plan B. Well, I could have used the safe option and used some dried Verdant IPA yeast, but I also had some WLP077 yeast from White Labs (a limited edition Tropicale Blend) and this was well within it’s use by date. Oh well, let’s live dangerously!

UPDATE: Good news! A few hours later and we are in business. The yeast is in full flow!

In terms of the rest of the brew, I am using a similar grain bill to my Sharks Need Water brew, but have reduced the ABV slightly to make this one a bit more sessionable. It isn’t short on hops – loads of Mosaic in the hopstand and then a combination of Mosaic and Citra in the dry hopping.

My intention is to let this hit the FG, reduce the FV temperature to around 15-17C, and dry hop it for 48 hours before cold crashing it. My approach to closed system transfers seems to be working – Brew 127 isn’t showing any signs of oxidation even 6 weeks after being kegged (it had all been drunk by week 7 so it could have lasted longer!).

129 Lightbulb moment

For some reason, I have been working my way through the Verdant “back catalogue” of beer recently. You don’t come across many of their beers in the supermarket, but I did discover a local bottle shop that stocks an amazing range of Verdant and other craft beer. Here’s a list of their beers from their website.

My favourite by far is People Money Space Time (it has all the taste and aroma without a >6% ABV), but Lightbulb pale ale comes pretty close. I found a “starter” recipe in Hop & Barley and thought this might be a good jumping off point. So here we go….

It is a combination of Citra and Centennial hops. The original recipe used a small amount of Magnum for the bittering, but instead of this I opted to use a small amount (10g each) of Citra and Centennial late in the boil for the bittering. The surprising thing in the original recipe is that it uses two different yeasts (Fermentis S-04 and Fermentis US-05). Although I haven’t taken this approach before (maybe, just maybe, this was a lightbulb moment!), I had both yeasts to hand, so thought I would give it a whirl. I made a starter first using a couple of can of Propper Starter.

I waited until the wort hit the predicted FG (1.011) and then dry hopped it. In practice, it will probably drop another couple of points before it is finished – my final FG is often a couple of points under the predicted FG. However, it does mean that the fermentation has started to slow when the dry hopping happens. 24 hours later I increased the FV temp a couple of degrees to help drive the DA rest. After 2 days (with no movement on the OG), I cold crashed it to 3C for 24 hours.

The fermentation time on this brew was incredibly short – brewed on the 18th March, kegged on the 23rd! But all of the numbers seemed right – it hit the FG and stayed there for 3 days; the PH was bang on 4.2 when kegged. The temperature of the fermentation was around 20C throughout. It is undoubtedly down to the amount of yeast in this brew – one packet of S-04 (which was slightly out of date, but kept in the fridge) and one packet of US-05 (actually, it was 20g of US-05). I also made a starter 24 hours before brewing. I have never used so much yeast in one brew or mixed two different yeasts together.

UPDATE: This worked out really well and was surprisingly fruity. How much of this was down to the hops and how much was down to the yeast(s) will never know.

128 Citra Surprise

I recently bought a can of “Citra Indepth” from the Left Handed Giant Brewery in Bristol. Looking at their website, it looks like one in a series featuring different single hops. It reminded me how good a straight forward single hopped IPA could be – it was very drinkable (shame I only bought the one can!). Why haven’t I tried something like this before!!

So here’s my attempt. Having just kegged it, the colour looks about right. But it needs time to settle before passing too much judgement on the taste! Citra used as a late addition in the boil (for bitterness), then in the hop stand (for flavour) and dry hopped after the fermentation had finished (for aroma). Lallemande’s Verdant IPA Yeast.

127 Even Sharks need water!

Another go at this one! I had high hopes the first time I brewed this, but the major challenge was stopping the wort from oxidising before I got it in the keg. No mean feat as a home brewer with limited equipment. However, I have some news ideas this time as well as a bit more experience!

UPDATE: Definite improvement on the previous versions of this. I just wish it was a bit more sessionable. The ABV is a little on the high side to my taste.

126 Proper Cornish IPA

Another pre-packaged recipe from The Malt Miller. This time it is an IPA based on Proper Cornish IPA from the St Austell Brewery. Not the sort of thing that I would normally brew, but this particular recipe has had great reviews so I thought it was worth a go! The recipe is here on The Malt Miller website.

I am using Dry English Ale yeast (WLP007) from White Labs. I don’t normally use this particular yeast, so it is always a bit of a journey into the unknown. I decided to make up a starter the day before. The end date on this particular packet was fairly close (March 2023), so I thought it would be a good idea just to check it is still alive. I used some of the home-made starter that I bottled a few weeks ago. This is the first time for this process too, so fingers crossed there are no disasters along the way!

125 Centennial Delight

Every now and then I get bored! Sometimes brewing someone else’s recipe is a good way of injecting some new ideas into your brewing. This brew is based on a all grain kit from The Malt Miller – so not only is it someone else’s recipe but someone else has weighed out all the ingredients for you. The other neat thing about using these kits is that all the ingredients are fresh. There’s nothing left over at the end for another day. You will find the kit here: Centennial Delight

This kit worked out spot on – it worked out exactly on the starting and finishing gravity giving an ABV of 5.13%.

124 Some kind of Saucery

I haven’t brewed this for a while, but I had some White Labs London Fog yeast in the fridge and some Ekuanot hops so it seemed like an opportunity too good to miss! I have been drinking the odd can of this from the Co-op and it remains one of my favourite beers from Magic Rock. It tastes even better on draft!

My original attempts at this (brew 36 and 57) look a bit too simplistic now! I am not sure why I have come back to this recipe before now. This time around the water additions have been calculated manually (using the Grainfather app) and the malts include some Carapils (for body) and Pale Wheat (to add some haze). The base malt is Fawcett’s Golden Promise.

UPDATE: This one was a big hit with the wife – she refers to it as the “Marmalade beer”! I can only think that it is the combination of the hops and the London Fog yeast that gives it that orangey after taste. And no, it doesn’t taste anything like the Magic Rock version!

123 Bavarian Wheat Beer

I haven’t brewed this for a while. I even had to go out and buy some lager malt specially!

122 Faith IPA Mk7

This time the hops are a combination of Amarillo, BRU-1 and El Dorado (I was all out of Mosaic and Citra!). There are no hops in the boil, it’s all in the hopstand and the dry hopping. The temperature of the hopstand is down to 65C as I am trying to extract as much of the flavour from the hops as possible.

I am using Hydra from Escarpment Labs. I like the results last time I used it. This brew is relying on a second generation from brew 120. I made a starter from wort that I held back from brew 120 and refrigerated for the last 6 weeks. I haven’t made a starter this way before, so let’s see if it works as expected. I made up the starter using the old wort and a can of “Propper starter“. I combined the two on a stir plate for 12 hours then left to sit at room temperature for another 12 hours before pitching.

UPDATE: This turned out really well and has become a bit of a favourite in the house. I think the reduced ABV (around 3.5%) makes it a lot more drinkable!

121 Faith IPA Mk6

The hops are a combination of Citra, Amarillo and Mosaic. There are no hops in the boil, it’s all in the hopstand and the dry hopping. The temperature of the hopstand is down to 65C as per the last brew! I am aiming for something that isn’t too bitter, but with loads of hop flavour and aroma. This time the IBU is down to 6.3.

This brew went a little bit wrong as I had to take a break during the hopstand due to foreseen circumstances. The result was the hopstand was an hour longer than intended (90 rather than 30 minutes) and the hopstand temperature went from about 65C to 55C. It seems to have turned out alright despite this.

The yeast was a short dated Omega DIPA ale OYL-052. I haven’t used this before.

120 Faith IPA Mk5

This time the hops are a combination of Citra, Amarillo and Mosaic. There are no hops in the boil, it’s all in the hopstand and the dry hopping. The temperature of the hopstand is down to 65C as per the last brew! I am aiming for something that isn’t too bitter, but with loads of hop flavour and aroma. This time the IBU is down to 6.3.

I am also using a different yeast – Hydra from Escarpment Labs. Details here: Hydra

119 Faith IPA Mk4

It has been a while since I brewed this and I keep buying it in cans in the local co-op. Time for another go! This time I have reduced the amount of grain in the recipe to keep the ABV down to around 4%. It is based on Maris Otter extra pale, but with some wheat and oats for a bit of haze.

The hops are a combination of Citra, El Dorado and Mosaic. There are no hops in the boil, it’s all in the hopstand and the dry hopping. I even reduced the temperature of the hopstand down to 65C from my usual 75C just to see what difference this makes to the taste! I am aiming for something that isn’t too bitter, but with loads of hop flavour and aroma.

118 Rhubarbarella

This is a rhubarb and ginger pale ale using fresh ginger and fresh rhubarb. It is a basic pale ale recipe using Golden promise, Carapils and some light malt. I have used no bittering hops, but I have used Simcoe/Mosaic in the hopstand and then the same combination as a dry hop when the rhubarb is added. I want some hoppiness, but I don’t want it to overpower either the ginger or the rhubarb.

The 50g of ginger root was added to the last 15 minutes of the boil. It was cut into 2mm slices with the skin left on. I left the ginger in the hop spider during the hopstand to try and extract the most flavour.

1.5kg of fresh rhubarb was cut into chunks and boiled with a little bit of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Once soft, it was liquidized and cooled. This mixture was then added to the wort once the FG reaches about 1.020. I added the dry hops at the same time.

The rhubarb element is the one that I am the most unsure about. Boiling the rhubarb should reduce the acidic content of the puree, but I am really not sure about the quantity. I want to get a balance between the malt, hops, ginger and the rhubarb. So I boiled it, then put it in the freezer. I added it as an ice block to the wort when I added the dry hops.

I have used US-05 yeast as it imparts the cleanest flavour. I also used the Grainfather app to calculate my water additions – they seem a little strange but then I am using settings for a fruit beer.

117 Where’s Steve?

This seems to have been a bit of a hit and the last brew didn’t last very long. This one has some Huell Melon hops added to the hopstand as well as the dry hop. Mainly as I had run out of Loral hops! This should boost the fruitiness a tad! Verdant IPA yeast used as it seems to be a good combo for this brew. Fermented really quickly – mainly fermentation took around 3 days.

116 Where’s Steve?

Manual water adjustments calculated by the Grainfather app. I am also tracking the PH with my new meter. Verdant IPA yeast used. Takes about 2 weeks in the keg to mature properly – if it is given the chance!

115 Deanhouse Blonde MK2

It has been a while since I have brewed this. This time with manual water adjustments calculated by the Grainfather app.

114 Deanhouse Blonde MK2

It has been a while since I have brewed this. This time with manual water adjustments calculated by the Grainfather app. I am also using my new PH meter to track the progress of the PH throughout the brewing process.

113 Crisper Cold IPA

Originally a kit, but this one uses the recipe from the kit, but my own ingredients. It was very popular and didn’t last long. It was kegged and it did take a couple of weeks to completely clear.

Last time, I was a bit confused about the FV temp (the instructions said 18C, but the yeast manufacturer said 10-14C). I went with 14C, this time I am going to follow the original instructions and stick to 18C! I saw this higher temperature mentioned in another article (so it must be right!). I also didn’t rehydrate the yeast before pitching it and I don’t think this helped the start of the fermentation either. It took ages to get going.

I am using manual water additions worked out using the Grainfather app. This is the third time that I have done this. I have liked the results the last couple of times. I now have some lactic acid (80%) and will use this to adjust the PH (again using the recommendations from the Grainfather app).

UPDATE: Fermentation started on the dot of 24 hours and seemed to finish cleanly after 7 days. Much better than last time when I tried to ferment this at a lower temperature.

112 NEIPA

This is a repeat of 109, but with a couple of changes.

• I am using London Ale III yeast rather than Verdant IPA yeast. There’s nothing wrong with the Verdant IPA yeast (in fact quite the opposite), however, the Wyeast website lists London Ale III as being suitable for NEIPA. Plus I know BrewYork are using it in some of their NEIPA (NUBA for example). And it is 2nd generation yeast “borrowed” from the top of brew 111. I took 250ml out of the top of the fermenter on day 3. I have never re-pitched yeast before, so let’s see if this works! With a fresh packet of London Ale III yeast at around £8, so it is well worth giving this a whirl (as long as it works!).
• Just like brew 111, I am using the grainfather app for manual water adjustment. The adjustments seem to be quietly heavy on the chloride, but then the profile is set of a NEIPA in the app. Just as an aside, there seems to be a lot more salts being added in this brew than in the previous 111 brew.

UPDATE: This worked a treat. Using the London Ale 3 yeast from brew 111 achieved an apparent attentuation of 79%. I am not sure what the target app attentuation is for this yeast as the manufacturer just lists it as “high” – whatever that means! But it is exactly the same as the app attenuation on brew 111, so this can only be a good thing.

The one downside of using London Ale 3 is that this brew tastes more like Where’s Steve? rather than the usual NEIPA! Just goes to show how much the choice of yeast contributes to the final flavour and aroma of the beer.

111 Where’s Steve?

This is a repeat of 110, but this time I have used the water treatment module in the Grainfather app to manual adjust the water.

UPDATE: Tastes even better than brew 110. It seems a little more clean and not quite as bitter as the previous brew.

110 Where’s Steve?

This is based on “Where’s Tony?” from BrewYork. It is an Citra-Amarillo based IPA based and the recipe was included in the back of their monthly magazine recently (Feb 2022). There were a number of unique aspects to this recipe that grabbed my attention. Firstly, there are no hops in the boil – there are in the hopstand and then the dry hopping. Hence, it has a really low IBU of 4.5 – the lowest that I think I have ever brewed. Secondly, it uses London Ale 3 yeast – a liquid yeast from Wyeast (not used this before). And lastly, it is using Loral hops in the dry hopping (and again I haven’t used these before either) together with Citra and Amarillo.

The only things that I changed in the recipe from the booklet was that I scaled it to 23L and made a compensation with the hops where I did not have the Lupomax version (I simply doubled the hop amount when I didn’t have the Lupomax version).

109 NEIPA

106 was a big hit and everyone that tried it seemed to like it. I also seemed to have avoided the oxidation issues that I had encountered previously, so let’s see if we can do it again!

Exactly the same recipe as 106 with the exception of 100g Citra Lupomax rather than standard Citra T90. Never used these hops before so let’s see how we get on. The Lupomax was mixed with some T90 in the hopstand as well as in the two dry hop doses.

108 Crisp Cold IPA

This is an all grain kit from GetErBrewed. It is essentially IPA but the malt bill is based on a pilsenser malt plus a lager yeast (Lallemand’s Diamond Lager yeast). I was also surprised to see that the hops that were supplied with this kit came in “tea bags”. It is the first time that I have used these and it certainly made cleaning up at the end of the brew a lot easier. I suspect that this method may not impart all of the hop flavours, but let’s see. I am also not sure about dry hopping with the “tea bags” as they could trap air/oxygen. But again, let’s see.

I am normally put off brewing lager because it needs to ferment at a much lower temperature that normal ale yeast. This one suggests the ideal temperature is 12C. I could either leave the chiller on for a week or I could put the fermenter in the shed and allow the Grainfather’s inbuilt heater to bring it up to 12C. I opted for the latter!

The fermentation was very slow to start and in the end I fermented this at 15C rather than 12C. It took two weeks before I was happy to cold crash it and put it in a keg. It was a very slow fermenter, but I did hit a FG of 1.016 against a predicted FG of 1.017. So we got there in the end!

UPDATE: This was really popular and didn’t last long. It did take a couple of weeks to completely clear (by which time, this was only half left!). It tastes a bit like Shipyard IPA – very drinkable!

107 Lights Out IPA

It has been a while since I have brewed this. This time I am going to keg this one rather than bottle it. I have never bottled any of the darker brews, so let’s see.

UPDATE: Wow! After a week under CO2 (at around 12 psi), this looks and tastes great! I am really pleased with the end product.

106 NEIPA again IPA

I didn’t have an awful lot of success with this last time as it oxidised really quickly. However, I know from brew 73 that, if it is handled correctly, this recipe will keep for reasonably long periods. I hate giving up on things so I am having another go at this recipe, but this time being extra careful not to expose it to any oxygen later in the brewing cycle. I now am pretty confident doing closed system transfers into a Corny keg, so this should not be an issue. My main concern is about the double dry hopping and making sure that no air gets into the wort late in the cycle. I am going to use a technique that involves bubbling CO2 through the bottom of the FV while adding the dry hops.

UPDATE: I had a nightmare when trying to keg this. The feed line to the keg wouldn’t work no matter how much CO2 pressure I put into the top of the fermenter. Luckily a piece of silicone tubing connected to the racking pipe seemed to work. Not ideal, but I was grateful to be able to get the beer in a keg. When I cleaned out the fermenter, the bottom of the fermenter was completely solid with hops. I had decided not to drain out the trub every few days (as I usually do), but to leave everything in the fermenter until clean up time. I was trying to get the maximum flavour/aroma out of the hops.

105 Ginger IPA

It has been a while since I have brewed this, but it is a great brew for the winter. IPA flavoured with fresh ginger and orange peel. The trick here is to make the ginger flavour subtle and not too overpowering. 50g of fresh ginger cut into 2mm thick slices (with the skin left on) and added to the boil for the last 15 mins. 50g of bitter dried orange peel is added at the same time. Chinook and BRU-1 hops in the hopstand are used to produce a slightly fruity hop flavour. US-05 yeast.

104 Neck Oil clone again

Same recipe as below. Now I am completely out of Amarillo, but I have found some Pacific Jade leaf hops in the freezer! Maybe these should go in the hop stand? I added 50g of Pacific Jade to the hopstand.

103 Neck Oil clone again

OK, let’s have another go at this. This time back to US-05 yeast. Recipe is more or less the same as before although I did find some Amarillo leaf hops in the freezer. All seem to be OK and it still had a great aroma. These went into the hop stand with all the other hops.

I have been busy lately so this brew has spent longer in the fermenter than usual. It reached it’s FG at the right point, but it was just left to settle for a few days. It was cold crashed to around 2C for 48 hours. Most of the trub was dropped out of the FV before it was close system transferred into a corny keg. When it was kegged, it was visibly less cloudy than other versions of this brew.

UPDATE: This did indeed clear really quickly. 3-4 days in the corny keg and it was pretty much pin bright. On reflection, this brew was left in the FV for longer than normal after the primary fermentation had completed. I wonder if this extra time is helping the beer to clear more quickly?!? Does this mean that I have been kegging some of the beer too early?!?

I also increased the FV temperature to 23C (from 21C) for the last few days. I wonder if this helps too.

102 Neck Oil clone again

Well, I kegged the last batch of this and within 2 days of it being in the keg, I had to brew some more! I just loved the taste and the colour. This time I have replaced the Amarillo hops with El Dorado – I was out of Amarillo and El Dorado should be a reasonable substitute. I have also slightly up the amount of hops in the hopstand (hence the slightly higher IBU than brew 101). I have also replaced my regular US-05 yeast with Verdant’s IPA yeast. Both of these changes should produce a slightly more fruity IPA.

UPDATE: This didn’t work out well. I put the brew in a keg and used my usual transfer method which doesn’t expose it to the air, but it oxidised very quick – within a couple of weeks it had gone “grey” and completely lost it’s taste. Another one for the drain!

101 Neck Oil clone

I have been drinking a lot of Beavertown Neck Oil recently. Currently, it is one of my favourites. So I thought about trying to brew my own version. It is definitely expensive to drink in the pub (£5/pint even here in Yorkshire!!), but too bad in cans. Plus a lot of the supermarkets stock it so it is easy to get hold of.

The starting point for this one was someone else’s clone recipe on the Grainfather community site. However, when I looked closely at the recipe they were some mistakes in it (e.g. hopstand times are set to “0”). Once corrected, the IBU was north of 60, so I ended up changing it a lot! In fact, my version is hardly recognisable from the original one that I copied. You will find my version here on the Grainfather community site.

Here are the major changes:

• As per the original, the bittering hops are added late in the boil. However, simplified the bittering hops to just Columbus added to the last 20 mins of the boil;
• The overall amount of hops in the hopstand was reduced and so was the hopstand temperature. I was aiming for 75C, but ended up with around 72-73C. This should reduce the about of bittering from the hopstand while increasing the flavour. Galaxy, Amarillo, Columbus, Mosaic and Citra used here.
• I used the same combination of hops for dry hopping (added once the most vigorous part of the fermentation is complete). Overall amount in the dry hop was 150g. Not too mad!!

I also checked against the Beavertown recipe that is published in “Craft beer for the people” page 154. My recipe looks (sort of) similar!

100 Another day, Another IPA

I am still trying to perfect a fruity IPA. Here’s another attempt. Cascade for the bittering, but turned down with only 10g at the start of the boil. Flavouring is down to a 30 min hopstand at 75C with 75g of Galaxy. Aroma is based on 100g of Citra and 30g of Mosaic at the dry hop stage. Base malt is Maris Otter with a little bit of Caragold for colour and Carapils for body/head retention.

This is the first brew using a false bottom in the Grainfather G30. This has replaced the standard Grainfather filter. The boil seemed a lot more even and circulation was a lot better too. It was very noticeable during the hopstand.

This batch was kegged with 200g of brewing sugar and then left in the warm for 7 days to carbonate through secondary fermentation. Then the keg will go into the kegerator to cool for a few days before we try it! We will connect it up to CO2 to supply it.

One of the things that I have noticed is that batches that are bottled seem to clear quickly (and more completely) than batches that are kegged. So this is a bit of an experiment to see if it is the secondary fermentation that is helping the beer to clear.

99 Dead Pony Clone

As the name suggests, this is a clone of Brewdog’s Dead Pony Club. It is based on their published DIY recipe. I scaled it up to 23L (from 20L) and rounded up the hop amounts. Not sure how they are doing the “flavouring” thing, so I am using a hopstand set to 75C for 30 mins. That should work. I am using Pilsener malt as the base malt as this is the only extra pale malt I had to hand.

This turned out slightly darker than I was expecting, but on reflection the “real” thing isn’t a light coloured pale ale. This batch was bottled and cleared in around 48 hours. 7 days in the warm and then down to the cellar!

98 Welsh Steve NEIPA with fruit

This started out as a repeat of the NEIPA that I recently found in the back of the fridge. It was still tasting great after 6 months. Then I had the grand idea of adding some fruit to it.

I had double dry hopped this before I came up with the idea of adding the fruit. So I was already being mega careful not to get too much oxygen in this one. I am bubbling CO2 through the take off pipe while adding the hops to the top of the fermentation vat. I hope that this will help to break up the hops pellets and drive out any O2 that they may contain.

I used the same process for adding the fruit. I couldn’t find much guidance on how to do this, so I opted for a couple of bottles of the Co-op’s own brand mango and passion fruit smoothies! The fruit had already been pulped and pasteurised, so much of the hardwork had already been done. I waited until the primary fermentation had finished before adding the two bottles – 1.5L in all. Looking at the labels on the bottles, the contain about 72g of sugar each. Therefore, it is like adding 144g of brewing sugar to enable secondary fermentation (assuming all of the sugar is fermentable). I normally add around 200g of brewing sugar per 23L batch when bottling. So this all looks reasonable. Let’s see what happens.

97 Deanhouse Blonde MK3 Calypso

This is another version of 94, but this time using Calypso hops for the hopstand. 95 used Galaxy for the hopstand. The other change is that I have swapped the Cascade hops around (15g @ 60 mins, then 35g @ 15mins). Just like in 96. This should reduce the bitterness slightly, but boost some of the flavour from the Cascade. I have also added some Galaxy hops to the Simcoe hops used for dry hopping (100g of each). I am trying a produce a more fruity aroma to the finished product.

96 Deanhouse Blonde MK3 El Dorado

This is another version of 94, but this time using El Dorado for the hopstand. 95 used Galaxy for the hopstand. The only other change is that I have swapped the Cascade hops around (15g @ 60 mins, then 35g @ 15mins). This should reduce the bitterness slightly but boost some of the flavour from the Cascade. El Dorado hops produce a fruity flavour, very similar to Galaxy.

95 Deanhouse Blonde MK3 Galaxy

It is a rebrew of 94. Still using Cascade hops for the bittering, but then changing to Galaxy hops for the hopstand. So the bitterness should be about the same, but the flavour should be a lot more fruity. I have been impressed with the Galaxy hops when I have used these in a NEIPA. I am hopefully that this will produce a really fruity version of Deanhouse Blonde.

94 Deanhouse Blonde Mk3

This time we are using Crisp Extra Pale Maris Otter that has been floor malted as the base malt. It is listed as a specialty grain No. 19. Due to the blazing heat here in Yorkshire at the moment (>27C), I thought it might be a good idea to reduce the ABV a bit. This one should be under 4% – good for drinking on a hot summer day. I have reduced the amount of hops down too – both in the flavouring and the dry hopping.

The ambient temperature may cause a few issues in fermentation, but I have a chiller that I can use to reduce the temperature. I don’t really have a way of maintaining a constant temperature. It is more a case of turning the chiller on for half an hour when it looks like the FV is going to get too hot. Not ideal.

I didn’t need to worry. It hit it’s FG bang on 7 days. It was then bottled and cleared in 48 hours. A week in the warm and it is carbonated well. It tastes pretty good too!

93 Three Witches IPA

This is a shop assembled all grain kit from Wicked Brewing. The shop is very local to me and I have only just clocked that they have quite a bit of all grain kit here. One of the items was a pre-assembled American IPA kit. I couldn’t resist.

Although the instructions suggest that it comes out at around 5.5%, I was warned that it would be possible to achieve a bit higher using a Grainfather. Mine came out at 6.43%.

This one was kegged.

92 Deanhouse Blonde Mk2

Yet another batch of this! Unusually, I have decided to do two batches in the same day! Well, it was my Birthday! This one was bottled.

91 Deanhouse Blonde Mk2

Yet another batch of this! And this one was kegged!

90 Shipyard IPA

This is another one of the Dark Rock Brewing all grain recipe kits. It seems really popular in my local coop, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I have bought a couple of bottles in the past and I would classify it is a an American IPA.

I pretty much followed the instructions that were included with the kit, although I have to admit to increasing the mash time from 60 to 90 minutes and adding some rice hulls to grain bill to improve the mash efficiency. I hit 5.12% ABV against a target of 5%. However, my volumes were slightly higher (for some reason!), so the 5.12% should have been more like 5.5% or 6% at the correct volumes.

I bottled this batch and it cleared in 48 hours.

89 Deanhouse Blonde Pilsner

I had some left-over Pilsner malt from brewing Bavarian Wheat beer. I thought I would see what it tastes like when used with the Deanhouse Blonde recipe! I normally use Crisp’s Maris Otter Extra Pale, so I suspect there will not be that much of a difference. Both are a very pale light coloured malt with roughly the same PPG.

This batch was kegged and, as seems to be the norm, it didn’t clear as well as the bottled beers.

88 Deanhouse Blonde Toasted Oats No.4

This is the usual Deanhouse Blonde recipe, but with the addition of toasted oats. This is one of the small batches of specialty malts that Crisp produce. According to the description, it should produce a slight haze and a nutty taste. You will find more information here on the Crisp website. This batch was purchased through the my usual supplier – The Malt Miller here.

I wasn’t sure how much to add. So I started with 750g! This represents 12.6% of the overall grain bill. The recommendation on the Malt Miller website states up to 15%. So it should have a discernible affect.

I also reduced the amount of Simcoe dry hops from 150g down to 50g as I didin’t want this to overpower anything produced by the addition of the toasted oats.

Update: You can definitely taste the toasted oats in this batch. It has produced a very distinct nutty taste, almost musty. I think this would work well in a brown ale recipe – probably slightly turned down (maybe 500g rather than 750g) in a sweeter, malter recipe.

87 Deanhouse Blonde Mk2

The usual recipe. This time bottle conditioned for a change. It makes it easier to share. This also means that it doesn’t last long!

Pin bright in the bottle after a week in the warm. Reasonably well carbonated and definitely drinkable after one week. Now down to the cellar! It won’t stay there for long!

Update: Half of it has gone and it hasn’t got as far as the cellar!

86 Bavarian Wheat Beer

This is a repeat of number 81, but this time I have increased the amount of orange peel and coriander seeds in the hopstand. I have also added some torrified oat flakes to the malt grist in an attempt to produce a slightly more hazy end result. Same Mangrove Jack’s M20 Bavarian yeast. The recipe is here on the Grainfather community site.

I have been looking in the supermarket recently for Hoegarden so I can remind myself of what it tastes like. But it doesn’t seem to be on the shelves in the Co-Op. Odd!

Update: I found some Hoegarden in Sainsburys and I think that bottled Hoegarden tastes very similar to this batch. I would say that that the bottled Hoegarden was a little more carbonated than mine and that mine was a little sweeter. But overall, very similar.

85 Citra IPA

Another go at this, but this time the Citra hops have been increased to 80g (up from 40g in brew 82) in the hopstand and 120g in the dry hop addition (up from 80g in brew 82). I reduced the Magnum bittering hops to 3g from 5g to compensate for the additional Citra hops in the hopstand. This should really boost the fruity hop flavour and aroma. Let’s see.

84 Even Sharks need water

This is a MaltMiller all grain kit (this is the first one of these that I have used) and the recipe originates from the Verdant Brewing Company. I have tried brewing a couple of NEIPAs, but they can be difficult as they oxidise really easily.

This kit looked a bit different from what I had tried before. It also has some great reviews so I thought it had to be worth another go! I love using kits like this as it is all weighed out for you – sometimes using different ingredients to what I would normally use – so it is good to get some new ideas into the mix!

You will find the kit here. I opted to add the additional 200g of rice hulls. I haven’t used rice hulls before, but apparently it helps to avoid a stuck mash. I think it helps bulk out the grain bed without adding anything to the flavour or absorbing large amounts of water.

The other difference with this particular brew is that the recipe notes suggested keeping the FV between 19-20C. Often I just let mine free run to around 22-23C. With this brew, I did as I was told and held the temperature back to 19-20C. Verdant IPA yeast is usually pretty explosive, but keeping the fermentation temperature down seems to tame it. The downside is that it takes just that little bit longer to ferment.

83 Deanhouse Blonde

We do seem to get through the batches of this stuff!

82 Citra IPA

We recently bought a Citra IPA from our local Co-op. I don’t know why but my beer purchasing seems to have got up ever since we started brewing our own! I suppose I am always look for new ideas and flavours. Well, this Citra IPA really hit the spot and it was super fruity. I was impressed enough that I thought I ought to have a go at brewing something like this myself!

This brew is based on Extra Pale Maris Otter with a little Caragold and Carapils. The bittering comes from a small amount of Magnum (5g), then a dose of Citra in the hopstand (40g) and an even bigger dose (80g) of Citra as a dry hop. It shouldn’t be overly bitter (IBU: 15), but it should pick up a lot of the fruity flavour from the Citra hops.

81 Welsh Steve’s Bavarian Wheat Beer

Having established that the Hoegarden clone (Brew 76) was a bit of a hit (only half of it made it to the cellar!), this brew is using an adapted recipe that I found on the Grainfather community site. It won’t be exactly the same as the kit as I don’t know exactly what was in it! But I can make a fair guess! I think the grain bill is about right – the base malt is Pilsener with some Vienna malt, pale wheat and Carapils.

The hops are Mittlefruh (what else!) and there is coriander seeds and bitter orange peel in the hopstand. The yeast is Mangrove Jack’s Bavarian (M20) yeast. Since I am now working to my own recipe, I will be able to tweak it a bit in the future.

UPDATE: This has kept incredibly well. I have just opened a bottle that is 18 months old and it is still very drinkable. Great clear straw colour and still maintaining it’s characteristic Hoegarden taste.

80 Guinness Tribute

After the success of the Hoegarden kit from Dark Rock Brewing (Brew 76), I thought I would try another one of their kits. Since it is St Patrick’s day next month, I thought brewing some Guinness might be appropriate! So this is the Tribute to Guinness All Grain kit from Dark Rock Brewing.

A couple of weird things happen on this brew. Firstly, I struggled to get a hydrometer reading on day 2 – the wort was so active, the hydrometer just seemed to sit on the surface of the wort! I suspect it was full of a mixture of bubbles and trub. And secondly, toward the end of day 2 the temperature started to approach 22.5C despite the ambient temperature being about 18C and the heater in the fermenter being off. I turned the chiller on and brought the wort down to 20C. At this point, the fermentation went from being very active to almost extinct! It crawled along towards the FG for the next two days. I am using Fermentis S-04 on this brew. I have only used it a couple of times before. I know that it’s optimal temperature is lower than S-05, but I wasn’t quite expecting it to react that way when I brought it back down to where it should have been!

I bottled this brew a couple of weeks ago. It was stored for a week at room temperature and then a week in the cellar (at about 10C). I put 180g of brewing sugar in the racking bucket when bottling. This is the “normal” amount that I use when bottling beer. It should be enough to produce decent carbonation. But not this time. Two weeks on and this has barely any carbonation at all. There’s also very little sediment in the bottom of the bottles either. I wonder if the temperature in the fermenter was enough to kill off the yeast. 22-23C isn’t that high and most yeasts that I use would cope with this sort of temperature. However, the Fermentis website does list the working temperature of S-04 as 15-20C. I will give it a couple of more weeks before deciding what to do with this brew. But I could be chalking this one up to experience!

79 Dried South Sea Spice

It has been a while since I have brewed this and this time I have decided to use dried root ginger rather than fresh. I read an article recently that suggested that adding ginger to the last ten minutes of the boil would add flavour, whereas adding it as a “dry hop” would add heat. The dried ginger that I am using has been sterilised so it could be used as a dry hop addition.

As a “starter to ten”, I have added 25g of dried ginger to the last 10 minutes of the boil and a further 25g as a hop addition. This compares to around 50g of fresh ginger that I would have added to the last 10 minutes of the boil.

The brew is a golden ale based on Maris Otter with Cascade as a bittering hop and in the hop stand. Then Simcoe as a dry hop. Yeast was Lallemande’s Verdant IPA.

78 New World Yorkshire Bitter

This is a re-run of 71 that turned out well. I am going to keg this batch rather than bottle it. Although I will produce some bottles from the keg – just for sharing! This approach seems to result in less sediment in the bottles since some of the sediment is left in the keg. It also means that I don’t need to leave it for a couple of weeks to condition, but can drink it once it has been carbonated. In practice, it is drinkable in a few days. Since I bottle conditioned the last batch of this I will be able to see (or taste) the difference.

I have tweaked the hop combination slightly and replaced the Chinook with Galaxy. So in this batch, I am using Cascade as the bittering hop, Cascade, Galaxy and Columbus for flavour and Galaxy, Columbus and Simcoe for aroma. It should produce a slightly more fruity bitter with less bitterness than the last batch.

77 Deanhouse Blonde

Another run of this ever popular brew. It never seems to last long!!

In this batch I have used PureBrew additive. It is intended to remove any chlorine in the water as well as being a yeast nutrient. The benefit of repeatedly brewing the same beer is that it provides the opportunity to experiment a bit. Let’s see if it makes that much difference!

76 Bavarian Wheat Beer

This brew is a bit unusual as it is made from an all grain kit. This means that someone has measured out and packed all of the grains and the hops for me. The reason for this is that I don’t usually brew this type of beer, so I had none of the required grains, hops or yeast. So why not buy it all pre-packaged and if I like it then we can invest the time and effort in acquiring our own grains and hops?

This particular kit comes from Dark Rock Brewing and I haven’t used their kits before, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. They have an extensive selection of kits, but I was most interested in this Hoegarden clone as I haven’t tried anything like this before. As well as the hops and grains, it also included the orange peel, coriander seeds, yeast nutrient and finings.

I followed the instructions to the letter except that I didn’t use the supplied finings. I used my usual Protofloc (Irish Moss) at the end of the boil and a 2C 48hr cold crash at the end of the fermentation. I have decided to bottle conditioned this brew. 41 bottles at 3.54%. This is about 0.5% less than expected, but then I did a 60 min mash rather than my usual 90 min mash. This will reduce the fermentables extracted from the grain bill.

75 Welsh Steve’s NEIPA

This is a re-run of 69 that was spectacular. I think the Citra, Mosiac, Galaxy combination worked really well. Nice strong flavour. In comparison, brew 73 was a bit tame! I can’t quite work out why the taste of 69 is so much better than 73. But checking my brewing records, there are two obvious differences – one was the hop combination and the other is that the temperature of the hopstand was (unintentionally) lower in 69 – between 70-75 rather than 75-80. Let’s see if we can repeat it!

This has an additional 1KG DME in the wort. I found I had some spare when I was having a clear out, so why not try it? This will add around 1% ABV to the finished beer as well as a bit of extra caramel taste.

74 Deanhouse Blonde

This time replacing Pale Wheat with Caragold. This should remove the slight haze due to the pale wheat and introduce a little more colour from the caragold. Hops are the same – cascade for bittering and flavour and simcoe for aroma.

I am also using a yeast nutrient for the first time (Servomyces), so we will see if that makes a difference.

This one went in a corny keg and I forced carbonated it with carbonation stone. It is the first time that I have done this. It was a bit of an experiment! That almost went horribly wrong. Let’s just say that despite spraying beer everywhere when I attempted to remove the carbonation stone, it actually tastes alright. Amongst all the spray and foam, I managed to lose the rubber gasket off the lid. I can only assume that it is in the bottom of the keg! I can’t find it anywhere else so it must be in the keg. We will find out when it is empty! Ho hum.

73 Welsh Steve’s NEIPA

This is a re-run of brew 67 that ended up getting binned due to oxidation in the bottling process. This one will be kegged instead. It is a combination of Citra, Mosaic and BRU-1 hops. Last brew of 2020!

This one went straight in a keg. No point in trying to bottle condition after brew 67!

72 Faith EF MK3

I brewed this previously (brew 68) and it went straight into bottles. After experience trying to bottle condition a NEIPA (brew 67), I have started to realise that some of these hoppy IPAs are prone to oxidation. Maybe not as much as the NEIPA, but I think brew 68 suffered from some oxidation. To prove the point, I am repeating the brew but this time it is going to be kegged. This way it is much easier to control the exposure to oxygen. This approach definitely made a huge difference with brew 69, so let’s see if we can pull off the same trick with this one.

71 New World Bitter

This is my (first) attempt at a Yorkshire bitter, but based on new world hops – Cascade, Chinook and Columbus. I am using Golden Promise as the base malt – I normally use Maris Otter. It has both crystal malt and caramalt in the malt bill to give it some caramel flavour. I am using cascade hops for some slight bittering and then a combination of cascade, chinook and columbus in a big hop stand (at 75C) for loads of flavour. Then the same hop combination as a dry hop addition. You will find the recipe on the Grainfather community site here. Fermentis US-05 yeast.

I decided to bottle condition this brew as it isn’t overly hoppy. I did however top each of the bottles off with CO2 before capping. Hopefully, these will still carbonate properly through secondary fermentation. Let’s see.

70 Deanhouse Blonde

It has been a while since I have brewed this! It is a blonde beer with cascade and simcoe hops. I have been constantly tweaking this to get the bitterness right while increasing the flavour and aroma.

69 Welsh Steve’s NEIPA

My initial attempt at this looks pretty good (brew 67). This is the same recipe but now using Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy rather than Citra, Mosaic and BRU-1.

My biggest concern with NEIPA is oxidation. The pictures of the brew 67 seem to be telling a sad story here. Take a look at the images of 67 below – see how much colour change there has been between the initial bottle and after a week’s conditioning! I suspect oxidation is the culprit. This can only have occurred during bottling so with this brew as I was mega careful during the rest of the process. It is really difficult not to get some level of oxidation in the bottling process.

So I am going this brew into a corny keg (where it is easier to control oxidation). In fact, it is going to go in two half kegs as that is all I have spare at the moment. Let’s see what difference that makes!

68 Northern Monk Faith EF MK3

Ok, another go at this one! My first version (brew 52) was a little too bitter. My second attempt – the Extra Flavour version MK1 (brew 60)- succeeded with more flavour (bittering hops reduced and a hopstand with increased hops at a lower temperature). There was no cold crash or irish moss , but this resulted in too much sediment in the bottles. The third version (brew 63) – Extra Flavour version MK2 – had the bittering turned down even more, but was cold crashed and protafloc (similar to irish moss) added. Very drinkable, but, on reflection, nothing like Faith at all! So it is back to the drawing board on this one!

Now this version (the 4th attempt) is very different. I have changed the malt bill to get the colour and haziness correct – previous versions were far too dark. I am using the extra pale version of Maris Otter together with some pale wheat and rolled oats. This version has an EBC of around 8, all the previous versions had an EBC of around 13-15. The Northern Monk website suggests Faith has an EBC of about 6, so I should be a bit closer with this one.

I have also changed the hops. Magnum (5g in the boil) for slight bittering then Citra, Mosaic and El Dorado for the hopstand (@80C) and the dry hopping. This is the same amount of bittering hops as used in my NEIPA. Total amount of hops in this brew 335g. The IBU is now around 30 which is pretty close to the Northern Monk website (see above).

67 Welsh Steve’s NEIPA

This is essentially Jonny and Brad’s version of NEIPA from the Craft Beer Channel. They cover it in two episodes on YouTube. Episode one is here. I am using their recipe – Verdant IPA yeast with Citra, Mosaic and BRU-1 hops – and have re-created the recipe on the Grainfather Community site. You will find my version of the recipe here.

Like theirs, this recipe is double dry hopped. I haven’t done this before and I will try and follow the way that have done it. Injecting CO2 into the bottom of the fermentation tank while adding the hops from the top! It is a bit of an experiment! This is covered in one of the blog posts here.

If this turns out OK, I would quite like to have a go at brewing versions with Citra/Mosaic/ El Dorado and Citra/Mosaic/Galaxy hop combinations. UPDATE: I did have another go at this, it is brew 69.

66 Simcoe IPA

The last batch of Simcoe IPA went into a 19L keg, so it didn’t produce any more bottles! This is to top up the stock in the cellar.

I have pushed the bittering hops up a bit on this one. The temperature of the hopstand was reduced to around 80C for 30 mins. Hopefully, this should keep the bitterness under control will add to the flavour.

65 Lights out black IPA

Here we go another batch, but half of this is going to be kegged. The rest will be bottled.

64 Simcoe IPA

Some more tweaks to a popular brew. Some changes:

• Bittering hops reduced down to 10g for 60 boil
• Hopstand. Boiled wort to be reduced to 80C before hops added (100g), then held at 80C for 20 mins before cooled and added to FV
• Dry hops. Increased to 150g. Added once SG has dropped to around 1.020.

The aim here is to increase the flavour without the bitterness. Until now, I have been adding the hopstand hops at flameout (100C) once the heat is off. I let it run for 30 mins, but often the wort has only dropped to 90C. At this temperature, I suspect that it is producing too much bitterness. Dropping (and holding) at 80C should get the flavour out of the hops without the bitterness.

You will find the recipe here on the Grainfather community site.

63 Faith Extra Flavour MK2

This is another attempt at Brew 60. Brew 60 had no Irish Moss and no cold crash. In hindsight, brew 60 looks like it is going to have too much sediment in it. I think cold crashing is critical to controlling the amount of sediment in the bottles. I think missing out this step looks like a mistake. If you want cloudiness in the beer, I think the answer is to skip the Irish Moss in the boil and NOT to remove the cold crashing step. This brew had half a tablet of Protafloc 10 minutes from the end of the boil.

I have also taken the opportunity to turn down the IBUs slightly on this. Down to 35 from 44. The genuine article is listed as having an IBU of about 30! Mainly from cutting back on the amount of bittering hops. The recipe is here on the Grainfather community site.

62 Verdant Blonde

A version of Deanhouse Blonde, but using Lallemand’s Verdant IPA yeast. I have brewed this before but it was mistakenly left in the sunlight while conditioning! When this happens I believe it is referred to as “lightstruck”!

This has a 90 minute mash cycle to see if I can get the SG nearer to the predicted reading. Recently my SG readings have been 3-4 points below where they should have been. Slightly more cascade hops used in the hopstand and two packets (23g in total) of Verdant IPA yeast. No irish moss so this should have a bit of haze, but I am going to cold crash it to remove as much of the sediment as possible.

UPDATE: If you put in 2 packets of yeast, you will probably hit your FG within 48 hours. Well, it did for me anyway. It went off like a rocket! In hindsight, one packet would have been enough! I used the pitching calculator on the Lallemand site and it seems to suggest that 12.5g of dried yeast is required, so two 11.5g is probably too much!

61 Lupuloid

Another one of my favourites hop forward beers from Beavertown. This clone recipe uses little hops for bittering (5g of Citra), but a whole pile of hops in the 20 min hopstand and then no dry hopping at all. This isn’t normally what I would brew beer, but I am going to follow the recipe and see what happens. Just out of interest!

Like the previous brew, I am not using any Irish Moss in the boil and no cold crashing as the intention here is to leave some haze in the beer (as per the original). Half went in a half size corny keg. The rest went in 24 bottles (with a little bit of brewer’s sugar).

60 Northern Monk Faith – Extra Flavour version

I brewed this previously and while it was ok, it was a bit heavy on bitterness and light on flavour when compared to the original. So I have made some changes:

• I removed the Magnum hops at the 60 min boil;
• I am relying entirely on Cascade hops for the bittering, but added at 20 mins and 10 mins
• Kept the hopstand as it was (30 mins with Chinook, Cascade and Columbus)
• Increased the amount of hops used in dry hopping slightly.
• Overall, this recipe has 230g of hops in it (for a 23L batch).

The original IBU was around 75-80. This version should be around 40, but with more overall hop flavour. Well, I hope so anyway! You will find the recipe here on the Grainfather community site. There is a bit more in a blog post on this brew.

I have used 20g of US-05, but skipped the Irish Moss addition as the original does have some haze. I have also skipped cold crashing before bottling as this will further reduce the haze. I did however drop the temperature to about 4C just before bottling as this reduces the chances of oxidisation.

59 Simcoe IPA

I have brewed this before, but this time I am using the same increase in US-05 as in number 58 as well as the changes to the mash temperature (mash temperature set to 64.5C to achieve a target of 65C). I have also increased the hops in the hopstand and dry hopping. There is a total of 180g of hops in this recipe.

Last time I brewed this it was kegged and it didn’t clear as well as I was expecting. Still, I wasn’t cold crashing the beer back then. This time I’ll cold crash as normal (48hrs @ 4C) and bottle it. Let’s see what happens.

58 Deanhouse Blonde

Couple of tweaks to the brewing process

• Mash temperature. I have checked the temperature readings on my Grainfather G30. The unit seems to be over estimating the temperature of the wort. I double checked the temperature using two different digital thermometers. Both suggest that the temperature in the G30 is 1C higher than the display suggests. This isn’t going to matter much of the time, but it will matter during mashing as the process is very temperature sensitive. To get around this issue, I have adjusted the “mash in” temperature in the recipe to 64.3 to get the actual temperature closer to 65C (my target).
• Yeast pitching rate. As covered in the blog, I have adjusted the pitching rate from 11.5g to 20g for this batch.

57 Some kind of saucery

Second go at this one. This time I have added some crystal malt to improve the colour and maltiness. I have also added some Carapils to improve the body and head retention. I have reduced the amount of London Fog to just one packet (I think that two is too much). I have also added some cascade hops as a hop stand – the original recipe only had hops in the boil and as a dry hop.

UPDATE: I made a mistake here. The London Fog yeast failed to start after 48 hours. I decided to add some US-05 and, even after a further 24 hours, fermentation was sluggish. Too many things had gone wrong with this batch and I decided to bin it.

56 Deanhouse Orange IPA

This is a new version of the Deanhouse Blonde IPA. This one has:

• 50g of Orange Zest added to the last 10 minutes of the boil. It is the zest of roughly 3 large oranges. I am guessing at the amount, but using a similar amount as the fresh ginger that I use in the South Sea Spice IPA. I put it into the hop spider;
• The standard Maris Otter rather than the extra pale version;
• Carapils for a bit of body and head retention;
• Crystal Malt for a bit of colour (it should be similar to the South Sea Spice IPA);
• Verdant IPA yeast to produce a slightly cloudy, fruity beer;
• I dialled back the cascade hops on the boil to reduce the IBU a little, but bumped them up on the hopstand to provide some more flavour. Hopefully, these two changes will balance out the zest of the orange.

You will find the recipe here on the Grainfather site.

55 Lights out

Another batch of this popular brew. It doesn’t seem to hang around long. Pale ale malt with Carafa III and Galena hops for bitting with Citra hops for aroma.

54 Norwegian Blonde

A version of Deanhouse Blonde but using Lallemand Kviek Voss yeast instead of Fermentis US-05. Hops slightly increased in the hopstand to boost the flavour. Mashed in at 65C. There are a couple of blog posts that cover this in more detail – here and here.

53 Hopped Up Mary Jane

One of my mates really likes Mary Jane from the Ilkley Brewery. So I had a go at brewing something similar for him. I only had the description on the bottle to go on as well as the contents of course!

My first attempt (34) was OK, but was a bit ho hum. This version has a lot more hops for flavour and I have increased the IBU from 43 to 55. I also dropped the temperature of the wort to 80C at the end of the boil before doing a 30 minute hop stand. The aim here was to get even more flavour out of the hops.

52 Northern Monk Faith Clone

First go at this fine example of a Hop Forward IPA from Northern Monk. I loved this when I first tasted it! Brewed using Fermentis US-05 yeast which might not be the best choice as this brew might have benefit from a yeast producing a little more haze. Can’t wait to taste this one!

Mine has an IBU of 59 against theirs of 30! My ABV is 4.33% against theirs of 5.4%. My EBC is 14.6 against theirs of 6! So on paper, mine version is going to look darker and taste a lot more bitter. Mmmmm. Let’s see!

UPDATE: Yep, I was right about the bittering. However, it is still very drinkable. I have had another go at this one – lowering the bittering and upping the flavour. The colour was about on a par with the original.

51 So-La American Pale Ale

Cleared beautifully after 2 days in the bottle. Brewed using NBS West Coast East. Chilled to 3C for 48 hours before bottling. Great aroma.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, this was one of the batches that was conditioned in sunlight. See the blog post here. It was binned.

50 Verdant Blonde

This is a Deanhouse Blonde, but made using Verdant yeast from Lallemand rather than the usual Fermentis US-05 American Yeast. Produces a slightly hazy beer with sweet fruity overtones. Verdant yeast seem to be all the rage at the moment!

UPDATE: This was another one of those batches damaged by conditioning in sunlight. It was one of the favourites, but quickly lost its flavour and colour. The remainder was binned.

49 South Sea Spice

This version is using Cascade for the bittering, but now has some added Cascade hops for flavour as well as slightly more ginger. The aim is to balance out the taste of the ginger with the flavour of the cascade hops. The original recipe did not contain any hops for flavour and relied completely on the ginger for flavour.

48 Son of a Punk MK2

This is my third attempt at a Punk IPA clone. The first two were based on a recipe from the Grainfather site. This version is based on the recipe included in the book “Craft Beer for the People“. It is written by the folks at BrewDog so I assume that it might be a bit more true to the original. This has got an awful lot of hops in it. I ended up having to use a mixture of pellet and leaf hops for some of the additions. I have scaled the recipe for 23L. You will find the recipe here on the Grainfather site.

With an IBU of 77, this is probably one of the most bitter brews I have made. However, after a couple of weeks in the cellar some of the edge has started to mellow. It has cleared perfectly and is well carbonated.

UPDATE: Beautifully clear and pin bright. Bitterness overpowers the flavour. Perfectly carbonated (14/10/20). Doesn’t taste too much like the original though!

47 Deanhouse Blonde

Yes, this one again, but this time the mash temperature was increased from 65C to 68C. The idea here was to see what affect this may have on the final beer. It should produced a slightly higher FG due to more unfermentable sugar in the wort. It should also taste sweeter.

The FG was 1.006 which is exactly the same as produced with the lower mash temperature. However, the SG was lower – 1.038 instead of 1.044. I would say that it tasted sweeter, but it did taste less bitter! Does that make sense?

46 Gamma Ray Clone

Brewed with Fermentis US-05 yeast. Recipe is here on the Grainfather site. Half put in a 10L Corny keg with 75g of brewing sugar. The rest was bottled – 22 bottles in total. The bottles cleared better with better carbonation.

45 Deanhouse Blonde

I don’t know how this got contaminated, but it has all the hallmarks of wild yeast somehow getting into the fermenter. Never had this problem before or since so I am assuming that it is just a one-off! But it does go to show that you need to be careful to sanitise everything properly. Covered in the blog here. Needless to say, it went down the drain!

44 Simcoe IPA

Simcoe based IPA with some carapils in the grist for body. Fermentis US-05. Keg conditioned in a 19L corny keg with 150g of brewing sugar. Tasted great. Carbonation was ok, but could have been better. Did not clear as well as bottle conditioned brews.

43 Nelson’s IPA

SMaSH using Nelson Sauvin hops. Lallemand Nottingham Yeast. Had great hopes for this, but turned out a bit middle of the road. Brewed with Steve Malloy.

37 Black IPA

This remains remarkably popular. This version is completely all grain. The colour is due to 300g of Carafa 3 added to the grist. Otherwise, it is a pale ale! Bittering hops are Galena (same as used in Corona Extra!). Flavour and aroma due to Amarillo and Citra hops. Brewed using Fermentis US-05. Crash cooled to 5C for 4 hours before bottling. In hindsight, it should have been more like 48 hours rather than 4! Still looks and tastes great!

The original recipe produced a beer around 6.8%. This version has been reduced to 5.8% to make it a bit more drinkable (in larger quantities!). You will find the recipe here on the Grainfather site.

36 Some kind of Saucery

This is an attempt to clone Magic Rock’s Saucery. One of my favourite beers and local too! I think trying to clone other brewer’s beer can provide some really interesting insights as well as comparisons. This uses White Labs London Fog ale yeast. It is a bit steep at £7 a pack and this recipes needs two packs! I could have used one pack if I had produced a starter but this needs to be done the day before (and I hadn’t read the instructions until brew day!). Next time. UPDATE: I have had another go at this one here.