Brew Day
Tomorrow morning is Brew Day. It’s been three weeks and I’m probably going to have restless dreams in anticipation.
For me, Brew Day usually starts at around 6am and finishes four or five hours later by which time I have over 20 litres of beer settled in my fermenter for the next week or two where it will magically turn sugary, malty water into delicious beer.
Above is a photo of all you really need to make beer; crushed malted barley, hops and yeast (at a trifling cost of only NZ$27 — that’s around 35c per standard 330ml bottle). All I have to do is let the malted barley sit in nice warm water for an hour or so where enzymes will convert the starches into sweet fermentable sugars, then I boil this sugary water up with some hops for an hour or so, cool it down and add the yeast which will do all the rest for me by eating the sugars and producing alcohol and carbon dioxide as waste products.
This week I’m making an English Ordinary Bitter which is a low alcohol beer (~3.5%ABV) with low carbonation, a malty/caramel flavour and aroma with hints of fruitiness and a light hop aroma. It’s a session beer which means that you can drink a truckload of it without feeling bloated from too much fizz and you won’t end up legless. But it’s a hard beer to get right; this is my third attempt and I’ve got high hopes for this one as it’s my first using all grain (instead of liquid malt extract).
Here is my recipe (for 21L):
Grain bill
3kg Maris Otter
200g Dark Crystal
100g Munich Malt
Mashed at 67 degrees C for 60 minutes
Mashout at 75 degrees C for 10 minutes
Hop additions
30g East Kent Goldings for 60 minutes
12g East Kent Goldings for 30 minutes
(1tsp Irish Moss for 10 minutes to clear out the protein)
10g East Kent Goldings for 1 minute
Boil for 90 minutes total to get rid of DMS
1 sachet rehydrated Safale s-04 English ale yeast
(yes, liquid yeast would be preferable but it’s really hard to come by here in NZ)
Sweet dreams!
Tags: brew day, ordinary bitter
Sounds scrumptious! My brother recommended something to me back when I was brewing – it sounded like a good but I never actually tried it:
Brew a “trash batch” with the dried yeast. Then, collect the live yeast after the fermentation and propagate that as long as you can. Voila! Live yeast!
Yes, I collected the yeast from this batch and have it in the fridge in a sanitised container at the moment. I plan on reusing it in the next batch which will be yet another Ordinary Bitter.
Apparently yeast gets better when you re-pitch (up to a limit) as it adapts to your own brewing environment. I’ve heard that generally the third re-pitch is optimal and from there you can go another three or so but, unless you’ve been laboratory-clean in your handling, some of the other microbes in there might begin to affect it.
Have you tried a batch with it yet? I’m anxious to hear how it turns out!
I’ve had a couple of bottles. I was careful not to over-carbonate and the first bottle I had was completely flat (opened it too early) but the last one I had has a hint of a sparkle like a good OB should. I’m not entirely happy that I’ve got the balance right and have yet to pass it by a couple of guys I know who are into their English milds and bitters.
I’ve got another batch fermenting at the moment using essentially the same ingredients except I’ve repitched the yeast from the previous one, I’ve treated the water with 5g gypsum + 2g epsom salts (my water out of the tap is better suited for malty beers and these additions should help bring out the hops), I’ve dry hopped with more EK Goldings, I’m going to let it sit for a full two weeks and I’m going to use gelatin to fine it instead of crash cooling it prior to bottling.
So the 2 bottles you’ve had were from a re-pitch, or from the original dry yeast?
Speaking of balance, one of the things I used to do when I was brewing (God I miss that!!) was to intentionally over do one of the ingredients so that I could taste its flavor contribution. So for example, I’d double up on the Vienna malt in one batch, then crystal-40 on the next (always being careful to have enough 6-row to give me enough enzymes to cover for the extra additives).
Do you get any US microbrews in NZ? Have you seen/tried Big Hoppy Monster? That’s gotten to be a favorite of mine – it’s mega dry hopped but with a solid malty backbone to stand it up. Have you tried any of the English ales that have been aged in whiskey barrels? WOW!!
No, the two bottles are from the first batch which was S-04 from the sachet. This batch currently fermenting is the re-pitch.
That’s a good idea re increasing ingredients. One problem with formulating recipes is that there are so many variables to tweak. If this current batch turns out superb I won’t know whether it was the re-pitched yeast, the dry hops, the extended diacetyl rest, the water additions or a combination of them all that made the difference.
We do get some good US bottled beers here but I’ve never tried or heard of Big Hoppy Monster. Last night I was out at Brew On Quay and I finished the evening off with a fantastic Sierra Nevada Torpedo. They also had some really nice locally-made hoppy APA-style beers (namely Epic Pale Ale and Hallertau Statesman) on tap. I’m hopefully going to be in England around Christmas time so look forward to spending a lot of time hunting down some of their excellent cask beers. Never tried a whisky barrel aged style before so will try to find an example of this too.
So many beers and only one liver!
Also, last night I was chatting to Ian, the head brewer at Galbraith’s (who makes a really, really good OB), and he suggested that I drop the crystal down to 60L or so (a medium instead of a dark) and ditch the Munich malt altogether. So I might try that in a couple of weeks.
I’ve just gone and ordered Wyeast 1318 London Ale III from CraftBrewer in Australia and will use it in my next batch. Expensive but hopefully if I keep things clean enough I’ll be able to re-pitch it half a dozen times or so.