Today’s brew day was my overdue Russian Imperial Stout that should have been done in March, but fits in nicely with the Olicanabrew challenge.

The Recipe is only slightly modified from Last years , which I mistakenly didn’t add the 500g of Brewing sugar to the boil. This batch I added just short of  1Kg of Amber Candi Sugar to the boil and decided to use a different yeast to the one listed in my original Recipe

the OG came in a little under the predicted  but I ended up with a full 25L,  Did I lose count and push An extra 2L through the sparge ?…

Dough In..	Nice bit of Black Treacle

Smelling Nice	Og 1.094

Yesterday evenings meeting was very well attended lots of new faces and old ones. As usual the quality of the beers were high  although not all were the Traditional bitters as set down in the last meeting, quite a few weren’t ready, which suggests we should be aiming to set a challenge and then present them at the next but one meeting. Toms BDIPA from the Columbus challenge  was a bit tart /sour at first tasting but once my palate adjusted you were left with a nice blackberry after taste.  Gaz’s Anchor Steam clone which he brought in lieu of his  bitter wasn’t as bad as he first thought, Rob & Jarrod’s joint brew and Pete & Al’s joint brew both excellent but young, it’d be nice to taste them in another week to two 

We were set another challenge by Ilkley Brewery’s  Head Brewer, Chris..

This is an either or challenge, Brew a Russian Imperial Stout with a minimum 10%ABV  or  a Fruit Beer with fresh fruits. Since I have just placed a well overdue order for supplies to re brew my RIS for a christmas batch,  I’ll be doing that and then think about a Real fruit Beer…

Just like to Say thanks to Bar T’at for hosting us and for the nice cheese n Biscuits. 

Last Sunday was a brewday, I decided to make up a recipe with what  I’d  got in, so it just called EXP1 at the moment.

Here’s the recipe.

It’s been brewed, still is fermenting to a profile using the Brewpi .

Just Finished building another PID controller, this one using PT100 probes and a SSR instead of a relay for a the HLT swap around once the boiler arrives.

Speaking of which! I need to get my head around tiling the worktop in the Shedquarters, I need to fireproof/heatproof it somewhat for when I start using the Gas ring.. anyone recommend what adhesive/ tile cement to use on the melamine worktop ?

The Purpleogre Castle bitter is just about ready to transfer, took the SG last night and it had dropped to 1.010 so that will be this evenings task… although it’s a bit too close to the next meeting @olicanabrewing for my liking ! I normally like it to settle and condition for 20-30 days…

I Finally Decided on a new Boiler  capacity and so I have also been in touch with Mark at Homebrewbuilder to get a new 70L boiler Sorted…. although this week it seems to have gone strangely quiet. I think I need to give him a gentle prod to see if my last email went into his spam folder…

A comment from Gaz  has led me onto thinking about Pellet hops and whirl-pooling,  I normally use whole leaf hops and  if I try them  my immediate thought is what Flow rate do I need to get the whirl pool to pile those bits of trub in the middle…. I feel a bit of research in the offing mind you I have several other projects in hand one of which I REALLY ought to get finished but thats not a brewing project…