Fairwater Brewery

Fuller’s Discovery (AG#63)

Jul 12th, 2014

We wanted a golden ale, and this one (based on a recipe in GW’s book) I’ve enjoyed in the pub. The recipe has had slight hop substitution (Liberty to Tettnang), and the grain bill was adjusted for my normal efficiency. I was going to get some WLP002 to get as close as possible to the Fullers brew, but I didn’t have enough time or space (thanks to kitchen renovations!) to make a starter. I had all the ingredients in stock, too, so I didn’t need to buy anything other than yeast, so I’ve gone for a pack of Nottingham I had in the freezer.

Brewday details:

Length: 25 litres
OG: 1.037
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.5%

BeerXml File: Discovery

Fuller's Discovery

Style: Standard/Ordinary Bitter
Length: 25 litres
Yeast: Nottingham (Danstar -)
OG: 1.037
FG: 1.009
ABV: 3.7 %
Colour: 11.7 EBC
Bitterness: 27.7 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Pale Ale (Crisp)	6	3.163	80
Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann)	4	0.584	15
Crystal Malt - 60L (Thomas Fawcett)	118	0.201	5
Total		3.950

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Tettnang	4.5	Leaf	45	90
Saaz	3.4	Leaf	15	10
Saaz	3.4	Leaf	9	Aroma

Comments:

Hard water again today: 228ppm. Treatment was 42ml CRS in 38 litres of liquor, and Gypsum 11.7g, Calc chloride 2.5g, Epsom 3.8g, and Salt 1g.

24 litres into the fermentor at 1.040, which is a little higher than target.

2014-07-22: Down to 1.010, and now crash cooling to 4C. Cloudy, but that should change with a bit of cooling. Tastes good, if maybe a bit muted – clearing, cooling and carbonation should sort that out!

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Golden Ale · Nottingham · Saaz · Tettnang

Tim Citra (AG#62)

Jun 28th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

It’s a friend’s birthday at the beginning of August, and he liked my Sim Citra brew enough that he asked if I could make another one. So, same recipe as last time.

Brewday details:

Length: 25 litres
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.3%

Comments:

Water treatment was for measured hardness of 216ppm. 41ml of CRS, 11.6g gypsum, 2.9g calcium chloride, 4.0g epsom salts, 1g salt.

I forgot to plug the HLT in for the sparge water, so when I went out to start the sparging I found it still at 21C. As a result, the mash had an extra 30 minutes, and I’m quite a long way behind…

Last time the yeast was WLP007 from a previous brew, but I don’t have any so I’m using S-04 (which a bit of googling would suggest is the closest dry yeast).

27.5l after the boil, 25l into the FV at 1.054. Pitched the S-04 dry into the wort (we’re having our new kitchen fitted and I can’t find a measuring jug!)

2014-07-07: Racked into secondary with the rest of the pack of Citra. The auto-syphon wasn’t behaving, and was letting quite a bit of air into the syphon tube, so I’m a little concerned about oxygenation.

2014-07-22: Ok, it’s had a couple of weeks at 4C and gelatine for a good portion of that time, and it’s crystal clear and tasting good. I do need to get it kegged and bottled, but it’s just so damn hot at the moment! Down to 1.014.

2014-07-26: Kegged and 10 x 500ml bottles, with 1 x 330ml bottle to finish (15g sugar to prime the bottles).

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Citra · IPA · Pale Ale · S-04

Weiss Weiss Baby (AG#61)

May 11th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

First batch of this for a long while, but since it’s ready to drink pretty quickly, it’s ideal just now. I’ve deliberately kept the SG down as I’d like a sub-5% beer.

Brewday details:

Length: 25 litres
OG: 1.044
FG:
ABV:

BeerXml File: Weiss Weiss Baby

Weiss Weiss Baby

Style: Weizen/Weissbier
Length: 25 litres
Yeast:
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.5 %
Colour: 6.3 EBC
Bitterness: 16.9 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann)	4	2.649	50
Pilsner (Weyermann)	3	2.199	41
Barley Hulls	0	0.499	9
Total		5.349

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Tettnang	4.5	Leaf	12	90
Perle	9.6	Leaf	6	90
Tettnang	4.5	Leaf	6	45
Tettnang	4.5	Leaf	6	15

Comments:

Glucan rest for 30 minutes, but the next infusion was only up to 60C and I need it to be at 95C, so it’s getting a bit longer! It’s a very stiff mash since I only used 6 litres of 44C water with the 5.3kg grain. Looked less like a typical mash, and more like a box full of slightly damp grains..!

I haven’t bothered with any water treatment (aside from Camden tablet) as the other times I did this were before I started treating my water and I was very happy with them.

Looks like a cooler mash than intended – about 62C instead of 66C. This will probably give me a more fermentable mash, but never mind. When I initially added the infusion of 9 litres at 95C I measured it at 67C, so either it dropped a lot during the mash, or it took a long time to stabilise with the grains and at a lower temperature than planned. As a result, the 8 litres at 95C that was intended to mash-out at 76C has only taken it to about 71C. It will sit there for more than the intended 10 minutes, as I need to get my sparging water up to 76C. Will start recycling and draining it before the sparge water is up to temperature, though.

I decided to fly sparge this brew – which is a first for me, as I always batch sparge. My thinking was that if I fly sparge then there will be less chance of a stuck sparge, and if it does happen then I’ll be there when it does. My process was to punch lots of holes in the piece of foil I always lay across the grain bed (during the mash I lay a sheet of foil over the bed, then put enough bubble wrap to fill the tun on top of it – helps retain heat by effectively replacing the air gap above the grains with insulation), then I just poured the sparge water over the top of it. When all the sparge water had been added, I let it finish draining as normal. I ended up with 35 litres in the boiler.

After the boil I had 27 litres in the boiler, which resulted in 25 litres in the FV. It was down to 19C after cooling, and I’m letting the fridge bring it down to 12C, when I’ll pitch the yeast. As before, it then gets a gradual climb to 18C over the next few days. I’m going to let it ferment for a week, the crash cool it for a few days. With luck, I’ll be able to get it kegged at least a couple of days before the 24th, which is when I’d really like it to be ready! At least I don’t need to worry about clearing it up!

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Perle · Tettnang · WB-06 · Weißbier · Wheat Beer

1880 Whitbread FA (AG#60)

May 4th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

My first brew from the Vintage Ales book, chosen by a colleague who found the notion of a 6% family ale quite amusing (the family that drinks together?). It’s got a scary IBU, and a silly amount of invert sugar in it, so it’ll be interesting! Scaled from the recipe in the book to match my normal efficiency and brew-length.

Brewday details:

Length: 25 litres
OG: 1.044
FG: 1.006
ABV: 5.0%

BeerXml File: 1880 Whitbread FA

1880 Whitbread FA

Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
Length: 25 litres
Yeast: Dry English Ale (White Labs WLP007)
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.003
ABV: 6.6 %
Colour: 6.5 EBC
Bitterness: 123.0 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Clear Choice Malt (Crisp)	6	3.449	73
Invert Sugar	0	1.304	27
Total		4.753

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Galena	12.5	Leaf	66	60
Fuggles	4.5	Leaf	110	30

Comments:

My 60th all-grain brew – let’s hope it works out better than AG#50!

It seems that sugar adjuncts are one of those things that I find it very easy to forget. I was measuring the gravity as I drained the copper into the FV and was surprised that the gravity was so low when I realised that I hadn’t added the golden syrup. Since the wort was cool by then, this posed a slight problem: dropping over a kilogramme of syrup into wort at 23C was only going to result in it pooling at the bottom of the FV. I took my trusty stock pan (about 10l capacity) and drained about 4-5 litres of wort into it, stuck it on the hob, and added the syrup while whisking furiously. I then gave it 10 minutes of boiling, then dropped it into the FV, which caused the temperature to rise by about 4C! I’m currently waiting for it to drop back down to pitching temperature, my starter looking ready to go (3.4 litres of it).

SG ended up at a rather low 1.044, but with 30 litres rather than the 25 I aimed for. Maybe I should have boiled it down further, but never mind. More beer, albeit at a lower ABV: 4.7% instead of 5.4%.

2014-05-08: Down to 1.008, so ready to crash cool. Which is handy, as I’d like to brew again this weekend and rather need the fridge! The taste from the trial jar was rather good, so I’m looking forward to this one being ready. A light fruit from the hops, a quite a hit of lingering bitterness.

2014-05-13: Down to 1.006, now being kegged / bottled (18 x 500ml, 1 x 330ml). Smaller corney, so 10 litres left. It reached 12C (since I needed the fridge for the wheat beer), which BeerSmith2 tells me requires 35g sugar for 2.0 volumes of carbonation. Looks pretty damn clear, given it’s been neither fined nor crash-cooled.

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Bitter · Fuggles · Galena · Pale Ale · Vintage · WLP007

Double Stout – 18 months on

Apr 24th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

2 comments

Back in November 2012, I made a 16 litre batch of a double stout, to this recipe from Ron Pattinson.

I’ve just poured myself one of my remaining stash of bottles, which has been sitting in a cardboard box in a cool-ish room for almost 18 months. It’s been a while since I’ve had a bottle of this, and it’s come as a wonderful surprise. With the extended aging, it’s started to take on a sherry-like richness and warmth. There’s some black cherry, and maybe something left of the liquorice that I tasted when it was younger.

It poured a little lively, having to take two goes to get it all in the glass, so it’s a little more carbonated than I like in a stout; I think by now I have got the hang of the amount of priming sugar I need, but that wasn’t the case back then.

I think I need to make another batch of this (or something similar from Ron’s wonderful book!), then stick it in out of the way and ignore it for 18 months!

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Double Stout · Stout

Tzara (AG#59)

Mar 29th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

When Thornbridge has their free shipping offer on in January we took advantage and I got myself a case each of Jaipur and Halcyon, and my wife got a case of their Koln-style beer Tzara. I stumbled across a blog post on the Thornbridge Brewers Blog describing the beer, so I thought I’d have a go, since summer is heading towards us. The recipe details gave me a rough idea – mainly pilsenser malt, 5-10% light wheat malt, and a “dash” of carapils. Hop-wise, I’ve gone for Perle to bitter it to the middle of BeerSmith2′s Kolsch style range of IBUs, and the blog said this about aroma hopping:

Hops must also be classically German – traditionally, Perle or Spalter Select are used for bitterness (we went with Perle), Tettnanger and/or Hallertau Tradition added at the end of boil for aroma. Our Rolec Hopnik is filled with the same amount of hops as a brew of Kipling with a combination of both. The nature of these noble hops used will not overpower the essence of the brew.

So I’ve (hopefully!) done similar, by doing a 20 minute steep of Tettnanger and Hallertau. Yeast is a fresh vial of WLP029, and I intend to ferment at 18C, then lager at 4C dropping to -1C.

Brewday details:

Length: 27 litres
OG: 1.044
FG:
ABV:

BeerXml File: Tzara

Tzara

Style: Kölsch
Length: 25 litres
Yeast: German Ale/Kolsch (White Labs WLP029)
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.009
ABV: 5.2 %
Colour: 6.2 EBC
Bitterness: 26.6 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Bohemian Pilsner (Weyermann)	3	4.499	88
Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann)	4	0.399	8
Carapils (Weyermann)	4	0.199	4
Total		5.099

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Perle	9.6	Leaf	15	60
Hallertauer	4.8	Leaf	30	Aroma
Tettnang	4.5	Leaf	30	Aroma

Comments:

Since this beer is best made with soft water, and ours is very hard, I had a trip to a local aquarium shop this morning to fill my jerry cans with RO water. A post on Jim’s Beer Kit Forum by Aleman said this about Kolsch:

Personally for a Kolsch I would want a liquor with about 100 ppm Calcium, and a higher Chloride level than Sulphate (about twice as high) . . . certainly I would not want to be adding CRS or gypsum to it. If you go with boiling I would suggest that you drop the gypsum addition (and the table salt) and just use 8g of Calcium Chloride this will add those all important calcium ions, and boost the chloride levels. There should be sufficient magnesium derived from the malt, but adding 2g of magnesium sulphate should not do any harm to the sulphate levels.

So I ended up putting these in as my target on the Water Treatment Calculator, and got 3.5g gypsum in the mash, and 11.3g calcium chloride and 2g epsom salts in the copper (for 39 litres of water).

I dropped it into my FV when it had reached 20C, found I had 27 litres in a 33 litre FV and decided that when I add the starter that was more than a bit too close to the rim of the bucket, so I transferred it to one of my 45 litre FVs. I regard this as bonus aeration! Waiting for it to drop to 18C before pitching – the starter is in the fridge with the wort so both should be the same temperature when I do, which is likely to be tomorrow morning.

2013-04-06: I rose it up from 18C to 20C a couple of days ago for a bit of a diacetyl rest. It’s been at 1.008 since then, so fermentation if definitely finished. It’s tasting good, albeit with a little butterscotch (hence the rest). I’ll give it a few more days like this, then the plan is to drop it into keg and bottles and lager it for a few weeks at 4C, dropping to -1C to finish. I’m not planning on fining it, but we’ll see how it looks in a couple of weeks!

2013-04-09: Dropped into keg, plus 28 bottles of assorted sizes. Still in the fridge at 4C.

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Hallertau · Kolsch · Lager · Perle · Tettnanger · WLP029

Sim Citra (AG#58)

Mar 23rd, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

1 comment

I’ve really been enjoying the Oakham Citra (and the M&S variant), so this weekend was a bit of a spontaneous brew with some pale malt and Citra hops I had in. Yeast is some more WLP007, originally from the Spring Meltdown, that’s been in the fridge for a few weeks. Mr. Malty tells me I’ll need 250ml of slurry.

Brewday details:

Length: 25 litres
OG: 1.054
FG:
ABV:

BeerXml File: Sim Citra

Sim Citra

Style: English IPA
Length: 25 litres
Yeast: Dry English Ale (White Labs WLP007)
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.7 %
Colour: 10.8 EBC
Bitterness: 58.3 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Flagon Pale Ale Malt	6	4.999	83
Munich Malt	18	0.499	8
Wheat, Torrified (Thomas Fawcett)	4	0.499	8
Total		5.999

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Citra	12	Leaf	20	First Wort
Citra	12	Leaf	15	30
Citra	12	Leaf	15	15
Citra	12	Leaf	15	Aroma
Citra	12	Leaf	30	Dry Hop

Comments:

Hardness measured at 231mg/L, water treated with 44ml CRS, 13g gypsum, 2.5g calcium chloride, 4g Epsom salts, and 1g salt.

2014-03-29: Dropped into secondary with around 40g leaf Citra for dry hopping at 12C.

2014-04-06: Kegged into 18l corny, 9 large bottles and 4 small bottles (with 10g priming sugar). Forgot to take a gravity reading, so I’ll try to remember to do so when I pour my first pint!

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Citra · IPA · Pale Ale · WLP007

Bramble Stout (AG#57)

Feb 23rd, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

One of my wife’s favourite beers when we were recently up in Manchester for the beer festival was Burton Bridge Brewery’s Bramble Stout. A bit of googling indicated that it was a simple grist of pale malt and chocolate malt, hopped with Challenger, and with blackberry juice added. So, let’s have a go at this one!

I put together a recipe for stout with about 90% pale malt and 10% chocolate malt, with two additions of Challenger at 60 and 15 minutes, giving a middling bitterness for the style of about 30 IBU. The blackberry poses more of a problem… It’s not exactly the right season for them, so it’s either frozen or tinned, and googling for fruit beer recipes would suggest that I need 2-3kg of whole fruit (I could use juice alone, if I could find some). The cheapest I can find are these tinned fruit from Tesco, which are in a light syrup. My current plan is to drain them of the syrup, mash them a bit if they look like they need it (!), and add them to secondary in a week or so. The syrup and the fruit sugars will get fermented, but I hope that by adding them after the main fermentation has finished that most of the flavour will remain in the beer and not get blown out the top with the CO2!

Brewday details:

Length: 25 litres
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5%

BeerXml File: Bramble Stout

Bramble Stout

Style: Sweet Stout
Length: 25 litres
Yeast: Dry English Ale (White Labs WLP007)
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.1 %
Colour: 74.4 EBC
Bitterness: 30.7 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Maris Otter (Crisp)	8	3.999	75
Clear Choice Malt (Crisp)	6	0.799	15
Chocolate (Crisp)	1241	0.499	9
Total		5.299

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Challenger	5.9	Leaf	40	60
Challenger	5.9	Leaf	20	15

Comments:

I’m going to be using last week’s WLP007, so need to rack the beer into secondary so I can get at the yeast. Mr. Malty recommends 113ml of slurry, so there will be plenty left. I’ve filled a litre bottle with slurry, from which I’ll take the 113ml I need.

Finished with 26 litres into the FV at 1.048, which is 84% efficiency.

2014-03-09: Down to 1.012, dropped into secondary and down to 18C. Took 8 cans of those blackberries from Tesco, drained of syrup, lightly mashed with the back of a ladle, then gently placed into the FV. Will have a tiny taste every day (thanks to my plentiful supply of pipettes!) until it tastes right.

2014-03-19: Remind me to find a better way of syphoning when there’s lots of bits floating around in my beer… Think I need a big mesh over the end of the syphon, so there’s a bit surface area to help prevent clogging. Upshot being that I had 5 litres left in the FV when I could no longer rack any more into the bottling bucket. So, I have one 19l keg, 2 proper bottles (with 1 carb tab), and one bottle 3/4 filled, then poured into. I’ve also got two plastic bottled that I filled from the 5 litres through a sieve in a funnel, so they’ll undoubtedly be horribly oxygenised in short order… Basically, it was a right pain! The stuff in the keg should be ok, though – was tasting nice, anyway.

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Blackberry · Challenger · Fruit · Stout · WLP007

Spring Meltdown (AG#56)

Feb 16th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

Basically the same recipe as the Winter Meltdown, but without the spices, and with the hops substituted for what I have in the freezer.

I’d read a couple of things about the new Crisp Clear Choice Malt, so when I saw it was available at The Malt Miller I thought I’d give it a go. It’s 10p per kg more than the Crisp Maris Otter, and 20p more than their Flagon, but that only barely comes to an extra quid on the brew, and it will be interesting to see what difference it makes to clarity.

Brewday details:

Length: 23.5 litres
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.4%

BeerXml File: Spring Meltdown

Spring Meltdown

Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
Length: 25 litres
Yeast: Dry English Ale (White Labs WLP007)
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.5 %
Colour: 29.8 EBC
Bitterness: 41.0 IBUs

Fermentables:

Name	Colour	Amount (kg)	%
Clear Choice Malt (Crisp)	6	5.199	93
Crystal Malt - 60L (Thomas Fawcett)	118	0.289	5
Chocolate Malt	950	0.115	2
Total		5.605

Hops:

Name	Alpha	Form	Amount (g)	Time (mins)
Target	11	Leaf	20	First Wort
Bobek	3.9	Leaf	35	30
Bramling Cross	6	Leaf	22	15
Goldings, East Kent	5	Leaf	10	5

Comments:

Yeast is a vial of WLP007, and for this recipe Mr. Malty says I need a starter of 2.62 litres (so that’s 262g of DME). Started a little over 24 hours ahead of when I’ll need it.

Alkalinity measured at 199mg/L, so for 35 litres that’s 33ml CRS, 7.5g gypsum, 1.8g epsom salts, 1.8g salt.

Doughed in at 65.5C – which is little lower than I expected with strike water at 76C, a pre-heated mash tun, and grains that had been in the house (except the chocolate, which was in the garage).

I ended up today with 27 litres after the boil, 23.5 litres into the FV, at 1.053, which is 78% efficiency. Yeast and starter are in the fridge with the wort, waiting for the wort to cool, and the starter to warm slightly, to 21C, which is where I’m going to ferment.

2014-02-23: I had to rack it into secondary so I could get the yeast, gravity measured at 1.012. It’s switched fridges to condition at 12C for now, but I intend to drop it down to 4C to finish clearing. Tastes good – I can clearly taste that it’s the same beer as the Winter Meltdown, but the bitterness is more pronounced.

2014-03-26: Now on tap, and tasting really good. Very pleased with this one. There’s a bit of caramel, a fruity, herby note, and a bit of mildly lingering bitterness.

Posted in: Beer.
Tagged: Bitter · Bobek · Bramling Cross · East Kent Goldings · Strong Ale · Target · WLP007

The Grumpy Goat – bottled beers & cheese in Reading

Feb 6th, 2014

by Bryan Robson.

No comments yet

I’m a happy man… I’ve just found a new bottled beer (and cheese!) shop in Reading, called The Grumpy Goat. It’s at 8-9 Harris Arcade, RG1 1DN, and they’re on Twitter @TheGrumpyGoat_ and Facebook (they don’t have a website up and running yet, but it looks like it will be here when they do).

Ok, I brew lots of decent beer (if I say so myself!) at home, but I do still like trying new and interesting stuff. I always begrudge how expensive bottled beer is to get shipped, so hardly ever get anything that way, which means I’m limited to the supermarket selection and the odd bottle from beer festivals.

Today I picked up 5 different bottles of beers I’ve never tried before, including Siren Craft Brew, whose beers I’ve only tried once before, on cask at The Alehouse. The selection is very much to my tastes: plenty of “craft” (whatever that means) hoppyness, and dark-and-chewy, as well as more “normal” beers. They seem to mainly be from local-ish breweries, so there’s West Berks, Loddon, Rebellion, Siren, and Lovibonds (off the top of my head), but do include some from further afield, such as Thornbridge. No foreign beers that I could see, but it’s not the biggest shop so I can understand them focusing on their current selection.

I can see me dropping by every week or so to grab a few bottles… and some cheese, next time, as well!

Posted in: Beer, General.

Fairwater Brewery

Fuller’s Discovery (AG#63)

Fuller's Discovery

Tim Citra (AG#62)

Weiss Weiss Baby (AG#61)

Weiss Weiss Baby

1880 Whitbread FA (AG#60)

1880 Whitbread FA

Double Stout – 18 months on

Tzara (AG#59)

Tzara

Sim Citra (AG#58)

Sim Citra

Bramble Stout (AG#57)

Bramble Stout

Spring Meltdown (AG#56)

Spring Meltdown

The Grumpy Goat – bottled beers & cheese in Reading

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Fuller's Discovery

Weiss Weiss Baby

1880 Whitbread FA

Tzara

Sim Citra

Bramble Stout

Spring Meltdown

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search

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categories

articles

blogs

faqs

forums

homebrewers

organisations

recipes

shopping

software

recent posts

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