Brew #19: Brew Hobgoblin Clone, 5 gal, 5.8%abv

Which brings the total number of gallons of beer (not including ginger beer or cider), to a gut-busting, liver-loving 60 gallons, or about 480 pints! No officer, I’m not still over the limit…

The latest is a Hobgoblin clone to Orfy’s recipe, and is conditioning in a plastic barrel downstairs, with bluetack plugging a CO₂ leak, and a “drink on” date set for December. Although it’s a partial mash, with half malt, half extract, I did mash 6+lbs of malt, which is tricky enough, given my sparging capacity is 2 gallons, which I only found out after putting in two and a half gallons of mash.

It’s very clear to me that I’ve still a lot to learn, but as I’m sitting by the fire, contemplating my next brew, I’m very happy with how far I’ve come in the last two years, especially given that drinking isn’t necessarily conducive to learning much. Bags of crushed malt are now taking preference over tins of ready-mix, and I’m now considering (optimistically) malting my own home grown grains.

The next brew will probably be something from ‘Home Brewed Beers and Stouts’ by C.J.J. Berry, as I’ve some dried malt extract needs using up, and I’ve filled the shed, undersink cupboards and two shelves in the porch with empty bottles, it seems only right to fill them up with something, before Mrs Homebrew loses the rag and… recycles them! I want something quick and easy, so it’ll be something like a mild, I imagine, so I can get drinking it pretty soon. Also, they make great gifts to the over 18s, and the primary gifting season is nearly upon us.

Whilst making/drinking all this homebrew, I’m still working out how much CO₂ is produced from one 5 gallon batch of fermenting booze, as well as trifles like how to measure mash temperatures now the expensive thermometer’s broke, how to pour a pint of beer as opposed to a pint of head from the pressure barrel, and why the beer tastes so different from bottle to bottle! I suppose the only way to work these things out is to keep doing it all again, until I’ve perfected everything. After all, it’s not about the destination, but instead about the journey. Though I won’t be undertaking any journeys until the last of the 480 pints wears off.

Pride before fall (or by winter, at the very latest)

Tuesday night I set my alarm for 6 am. It was dark, quiet, and way before I’d usually get up unless there was some sort of emergency. In a way, there was. The homebrew supply is worryingly low (I’m drinking white wine as I write this, and if it weren’t for Mrs Homebrew’s birthday last week we wouldn’t have any of that)! As a result, I was forced up way before dawn in order to get a small all-grain brew going before the day’s choir commitments got in the way. Oh, and I borrowed a thermometer for the mash that very much needed to be back in someone else’s fridge by half 8, so six was as late as I could leave it.

I’m making a gallon to try a new recipe, and I’ve only enough stuff for one anyway. It is a trial of Dave Line’s Fuller’s London Pride, from his book ‘Brew Beers Like those you buy’. The beer bottle says ‘Target, Challenger and Northdown’ are the hops used, whereas the book opts for Fuggles and EKG. Naturally, I’ve gone for Fuggles and Styrian Goldings, as that’s all that was in the freezer.

My morning was spent mashing 1lb 6.5 oz of pale malt and 1.6 oz crystal, followed by a 90 min boil with the hops. The mash and sparge went well, though I’m still struggling to juggle jugs of hot water and the perforated chopped tomato tin I use to spray the grain bed gently. I’ll show you what I mean in a picture one day... actually, for that I’ll need a fourth hand.

Then an interesting weather phenomenon occurred halfway through the boil; a small Cumulo Nimbus formed at the kitchen ceiling. It was a beautiful sight, and at a certain angle a rainbow shone through from the striplight on the roof. I opened to doors and windows to let some of the steam out. Apparently condensation on the walls annoys Mrs Homebrew even more than burnt caramel on the stove, which ranks pretty high.

So, having set the alarm for 6, and by four in the afternoon the beer is frothing away very merrily, which isn’t bad at all. And neither is the state of the kitchen. The walls need a go over with a hair dryer, and I’ve a bag of wet grain I need to get rid of. I’m very happy to report that what went into the bucket will probably end up a lot like an English bitter, and we’ll see how much closer it gets in about 3 to four weeks!

St. Arthur, Patron Saint of Guinness

I’ll be celebrating St. Arthur’s day (22nd Sep, if the campaign has passed you by) by drinking some stout I’ve brewed myself. I’m only making a gallon because I’m not really a stout kinda guy, and every last one of my mates will be mooching promotional pints of the ‘real thing’ in town. Nevertheless, it’s important to observe Irish tradition by brewing this, a uniquely Irish beer, a beer that’s been around for nearly as long as marketing, which is the third oldest profession. Whilst doing a little research, I found this article in the library, and I faithfully reproduce part of it here:

First brewed by pagan settlers to Ireland c. 3000BC, the forerunner to Guinness was a beer made with burnt bread, mashed by the enzymes found in saliva, and made bitter with Dandelion and Yarrow. Years of brewing and celebrating followed, with little sign of change in the recipe. Then, at around the same time as the Romans were befriending Western Europe, St. Arthur (then known simply as Arthur the Sot, causing leading academics to wonder if this is the origin of the abbreviation St. for saint, as a mistranslation) began brewing stout more like the stuff we know it to be today. To begin with he pioneered a primitive malting process, bringing out the natural sugars found in the barley, instead of the much cruder way of grinding the bread into flour, baking with it, forgetting about it overnight until it burns, then mashing with saliva. This new brew was considered far superior to the older beers, however in order to get the dark colour drinkers were used to, St. Arthur still included portions of burnt bread. An early recipe, found carved into the an Cuin nEas stone, locally known as ‘Beer Stone’, located in county Meath, describes how St. Arthur used 8 parts malted barley to one part burnt bread, in order to make the beer he is famed for. Also found on the same stone is an early numerical system, believed to be a tally used to advertise and sell the beer. The contemporary currency was small rocks with holes in, and academics calculate that the price of a pint of St. Arthur’s beer was half a round stone with a hole in, and the modern equivalent is 4-euro 85c, a price now only charged in Dublin and hotels. Truly, St. Arthur’s contemporaries valued this beer highly!

In the 18th and 19th century many styles of beer were invented or developed by brewers, thanks to updated malting, kilning and brewing techniques, and the discoveries of Louis Pasteur. However, current versions of St. Arthur’s legendary brew have made only little steps towards modernity. Not much has changed from the original recipe carved into a stone nearly 1,800 years ago, and developments in yeast strains allowing brewers to use pure yeast strains in their beers have not been entirely taken on board by brewers at the Guinness factory; there are still vats in the St. James’ Gate brewery where the wild yeast strain Brettanomyces is actively encouraged in order to maintain the taste that would have been familiar to drinkers four thousand years ago.

The article then goes into detail about palaeontological evidence of early Guinness drinkers and some interesting facts about the mysterious death of St. Arthur, and the amazing feat of surviving on his beer alone for 40 days and nights, but it’s the above section that interested me most.

So, I’ve brewed to the basic Guinness principle, 80% pale malt, 10% flaked barley and 10 % roast, unmalted barley. However, to make it a little different, I’m using 5% roast and 5% chocolate malt instead of just 10% roast, mainly because I’ve got some lying around. It’s been boiled for ages in order to try and get the length at 1 gallon, with an O.G. of 1048. Seeing as brewday was the 1st of September, I’m not expecting a very dry stout by the 22nd, but hopefully it will be ready to try and, god willing, will be a suitable tribute to St. Arthur, patron saint of Guinness.

Calculating IBU & Copper Hop needs!

It’s not something I lose sleep over, seeing as my scales aren’t pinpoint accurate anyway, but I’ve noticed in my homebrew reading that there isn’t a suitable calculation for getting IBUs or ounce weights for British gallons. Papazian has a nice one for American homebrewers using grams, and even goes as far as to suggest an equivalent for British measures, but in spite of the use of ounces, which weigh the same in the US and the UK, the equation still figures in US gallons, which, as I’ve already said somewhere, is a bit of a wussy gallon. So, here is an adapted equation I’ve been working on for a couple of hours.

Firstly, you can either use the original Papazian sum, which is: and then correct it for UK gallons by dividing the answer by 19 (the number of litres in 5 US gallons - 5 gallons being a typical batch size) and multiplying that by 22.5 (the number of litres in 5 UK gallons), or by multiplying the answer by 1.1842. Those will give you an answer in ounces, and they shouldn’t be miles out.

Or you could use my own simpler contribution to Imperial homebrewing, by using the “Evans UK factor”, or the EKs Factor!

The Eks Factor

The Eks Factor is a simple number that you can use within the above equation that will give you an answer for your common or garden UK gallon brew. So instead of 1.34, use the number 1.587, and thus the equation becomes:
So, for a 5 UK gallon brew, with an IBU of 50, hop utilisation of 30%, an Alpha Acid content of 6% and the Eks Factor, 1.587, the sum goes as follows:
To get an accurate answer you do need to use the factor to 3 decimal places, but then, if like me your scales don’t go much lower than an ounce, I’d recommend, in Papazian’s own words, “don’t worry, have a homebrew”.

I’ve looked through about half of the books on homebrewing available, and the older UK books tend to only use AAU and HBUs in the calculations, which is too general for me. The American books, for example Papazian’s The Complete Joy... doesn’t account for the larger UK gallon, and the exquisitely detailed Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels has something that’s far too complicated for me to get a straight answer out of – my head just can’t get round it! Brew Classic European Beers At Home has an equation in grams that can be converted into ounces if needed, by dividing the gram answer by 28.35 (the number of grams in an ounce), although that answer will be about 0.002 oz out!

Anyway, to sum up, for a very easy equation for anyone brewing in macho-gallons, use the following: I’m no mathematician, and given that I’m not even sure my hop utilisation IS 30%, it really is just splitting hairs. In order to accurately assess your hop needs or IBUs, colour of your beer etc. read Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers. But if you’re merely staggering drunkenly towards your perfect pint, my Eks Factor will suit you nicely! Good luck, and happy nit-picking.

Cider #2011

This year I’ve harassed two people for cider apples, and apart from the absence of wassailing and being chased down the street by an angry man, it’s as typical an old fashioned cider as one can hope to get, and still have a good chance of success. This year the cider contains ONLY apple juice, with one Sodium Metabisulphate tablet (Campden Tablet), and Young’s Cider yeast.

This year the process was simplified too. Rinse the apples a bit, remove anything you wouldn’t feed to a pig, and then mince the rest in a good fruit juicer, stalks and all. The apples are red looking (see photo) and the juice that came out looked fantastic, like a Tequilla Sunrise, but unfortunately the colour hasn’t hung around to be in the actual cider. The stuff that will ferment (O.G. 1046, by the way, which is two washing-up bowls full making one gallon) is a typical yellow-green apple juice colour.

So, with campden tablet in place, I added the juice directly on top, so that it doesn’t get chance to go brown, and I’ll wait 24 hours before pitching the yeast. I think that is so that the tablets have time to react with the oxygen in the apple juice, and not mess up the sweet-toothed yeast.

Once it’s fermented I’ll put it into a demijohn, rack at regular intervals to keep the cider clear and nice tasting, and I’ll try and get it drunk around New Year. 2010’s cider was very dry after leaving it 7 months before drinking, so I’d like something a little sweeter this time, but we’ll see.

This time the whole cider making process took only about two hours, most of which was spent picking bits of apple off the floor, ceiling and out of my hair. Don’t worry I didn’t juice those bits. I do have standards.

An update, is all.

I’ve recently spent a couple of weeks travelling around Ireland, mooching down the west coast, visiting a few festivals; it’s been fun. Fun, but trying to sample all the micro-brewed beers I found on my way round was, frankly, thirsty work. I’ll not go into detail, there’s a fantastic blog for that sort of thing, The Beer Nut, but I will go as far as to recommend Galway Hooker Pale Ale. It’s nearly as good as my own! Anyway, it’s nice to see a healthy industry.

In an interesting capitulation to the holiday, we ended up singing at the Hilden Beer Festival, and gratefully accepted our beer tokens in return. I chose a pint of Metalman, I think twice, and I didn’t pay enough attention, but I think my first was something called Champion. All pales, anyway. I also had a try of Armagh cider. For anyone interested, and I mean really interested, you’ll have your mind blown by the beautiful ciders on offer there.

Finally, my Lorna Light Bitter from Shale’s Advanced Home Brewing turned out nice. It would have turned out nicely conditioned, too, had I lubricated the seal on my Youngs’ barrel. Subsequently, anything after the first glass was airlocked in, and I had to open up the lid in order to get a pint out. That, of course, puts the beer in danger of infection or oxidisation, drawing in the shelf life from anything up to 3 months, to a mere three days. Fortunately, help was at hand. Two brave, selfless individuals who, with a twinkle in their eye, helped get rid of a few gallons of flat but tasty ale. It’s good to have folk one can rely on in an emergency.

Oh yeah, and while I was brewing a stout today I got attacked by a wasp while I was sparging! I can't believe my luck sometimes!

Real life Vs Real Ale

So, there I am, Sunday afternoon, with the promise of an empty house for a few hours. I try and brew when I'm on my own in the house - it's more harmonious that way. I severely dislike company in the kitchen! My girlfriend has gone to the pictures. No sooner than I hear the car pull away and I'm busy brewing up. Once upon a time the words "fancy a brew?" would conjure up images of crumpets and choccy biccies, but today it's 1 gallon of Feile Pale. I've just got to what I feel is the hardest stage, a sparge (rinsing the sugary grains with hot water) when the phone goes. The phone is always upstairs when it rings. Then, once I'd restarted the sparge, my girlfriend comes in telling me the car tyre's flat! Thank God for Papazian's insistence that all home brew be brewed with a 'Here's One I Made Earlier' pint in the hand. It really does make brew-day feel like it's going a lot smoother!

The reason I'm only brewing a gallon is because I'm currently making another adjustment to my Feile Pale recipe.

This time, for 1 gallon:
OG: c.1050, IBU c.50, probably a little more
Pale Malt: 1lb 5oz (90%)
Crystal (120EBC/55lov): 0.7oz (3%)
Wheat Malt: 1oz (4%)
CaraMalt: .75oz (3%)
Magnum: 0.2oz @60
Magnum: 0.1oz @30
Fuggles: 0.3oz @ 15 + irish moss
Styrian Goldings post boil.
Also, I added in 4oz of pale dried malt extract because I didn't account for Mash efficieny when I worked out the recipe. But I really think this is 'the one'! Actual O.G. was 35, because for some reason I've 1 gal, 3 pints in the fermenter! At least I know that if I had done it right, I'd have got 1048 o.g., so I'm doing something right, if not everything!

This is my third attempt at a good pale ale. The first was a little boring, containing only pale and crystal malts, the second, with wheat malt and more hops was fantastically bitter, but still lacked something (sparkle mainly, because I think I forgot to prime the bottles). This third effort is an attempt to nail down some good bitterness levels, having finally got some reasonably accurate scales, and a good depth of malt flavour. However, I won't know if this recipe is any good until it's fermented. Nevertheless, it should taste, at the very least, amazing. I've started bottling into used brown beer bottles with crown caps. Despite the obvious stupidity of hitting the tops of glass bottles with a hammer, I think they look fantastic, especially with the label above stuck to the side with selotape.

I'm going away for a few weeks in August, but before I go I hope to get one last 5gallon brew in; Orfy's Hobgoblin clone. I'll be pitching it on top of the yeast created by Ken Shales' Lorna Light Bitter, just as soon as it's fermented down enough to keg. I've been very encouraging towards it for several days now, and I've been rewarded by a 24 point drop in 4 days. I can see my window of opportunity getting closed and the curtains drawn, but hopefully, with similar encouragement, I'll have time to Keg the Ken, brew up Gobhoblin and bottle it before I go away in ONE week. I've all but washed the bottles!

All in all, I think I'm getting the hang of this brewing lark.