Time to Brew the second beer set down at the last OlicanaBrew meet just over 2 weeks ago a Bitter below 4%ABV using English Hops …
HLT is on whilst I drop @neilcouper off at LBA for a weekend in Amsterdam .
Todays Brew is loosely based on Castle Edens Bitter, I decided to go completely Traditional It’ll be good practice….
The Week that Was and what a full week !
started in Bruges, A lovely old City and lots of Belgian Beers ! Some of which I managed to sample in the Staminee De Garre a lovely small bar hidden down an alley in the centre of the City.
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| Tripel Van De Garre the in House special 10.5 %ABV | Duvel Tripel Hop 2012 |
The Tripel Van De Garre Brewed especially for the Bar was excellent and the cheese accompaniment really showed it off..
Mary and I also Managed the Bruges Idiot tour…..
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I must have had a notion about the belgian beer as the friday afternoon before we went I made some Candi Sugar…
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All a Bit Walter White but Hey…. |
When back at the shedquarters I checked on the Simcoe IIPA, it should have been ready to dry hop but to my surprise was only slowly fermenting and the S.G. was only 1.030…
I decided to give it a slight boost ! A quick addition of Candi sugar dissolved in boiled water,ad addition of 50g of Simcoe Hops and a standby sachet of Safale S-04 and it’s off fermenting again, a gurgle every 1-2 second.. I’ll add the other 75g of hops when it’s finished fermenting 
Lets get water to my Shedquaters….
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Olicanabrew Meeting at Sandinista Bar Leeds, This was our Columbus Hop Brew Challenge evening , not every one could make it so the decision about the winning beer was deferred, Bit of a shame the other guys couldn’t get their brews to Nick ahead of the evening ! There were some Jovial comments passed about the absentees and beers not ready/fit but hey ho … The beers that did make it to the initial judging were all very well received , some were a bit young and needed to condition more but all had the potential to be great beers. I like mine to be left for 3-4 weeks unless its a style Like Gaz’s Dark Wheat,( I should have had more of that !) I wasn’t at all sure of Nicks experimental Brew, I’m sure there’s a reason for that fuggled rhyme in my memory about grape and grain, i’ll have to try and remember it…..
Water supply trench , it turned cold …. and by saturday I ached , boy did my 52 year old body ache…. my arms and shoulders … much more and they wouldn’t obey…
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| Under the Wall, Day 2 | A Surprise Drain Find…. |
Thats it …Sunday , Guests and a day of Rest !
Saturdays Simcoe IIPA #BrewDay went very well , The new Kettle element performed well & didn’t leak !
The Recipe was one of @beersmith s cloud sourced, scaled to my equipment, but with one or two quantities changed so suit my inventory on the day. The OG Came in at 1.074-76 and as I was taking the SG I noticed there was quite a lot of Cold Break material settling out. I had re circulated the output of the Plate chiller back into the Boiler hoping to leave it back in the boiler but it looks like it didn’t work..
I also ended up with the wort cooler than I wanted , 13˚c partially due to restricted flow , I think I need a better Hop filter than the current copper tube ! I plan to get a better one when I add my Shiney new SS Boiler. when I back flushed the plate chiller lots of Hop debris came out, not good…
Speaking of new Shiney things, Whilst looking at the Cam Lock Couplings that HomeBrewBuilder supply, it occurred to me that Guyson in Guiseley might stock similar fittings as they stock Hanson fittings for the in/out posts for Cornelius Kegs as I had to replace a damaged one. Sure enough , they do Hanson Cam Lock
ps. here’s the Simcoe IIPA recipe i’m guessing the FG will be around 1.014 …
