Well, my first true "if it can go wrong, it will" brew. I knew I was long overdue one of these, and when it came to Saturday afternoon and I still had no idea what I was going to be making, the alarms bells should have started ringing. I think a 2 month gap between brews also contributed.
I wanted to choose something this time that had a good reputation, and having seen so many good things about Timothy Taylor Landlord clones in books and on the internet I decided this would be AG #9!
Characteristics
Recipe Gravity 1.042 OG
Estimated FG 1.010 FG
Recipe Bitterness 10 IBU
Alcohol by Volume 4.1%
Recipe Color 6° SRM
Grains
3.5Kg Maris Otter
25g Black Malt
This should make for a light amber/golden colour, the small amount of black malt darkening it a touch beyond lager colour.
Hops
Styrian Goldings |
25g East Kent Goldings 90mins
16g Styrian Goldings 10mins
Reading up on Styrian goldings, it turns out that they are in fact derived from Fuggle hops, which were exported to Styria (Austria/Slovenia border) and grown out there. This is why they resemble Fuggle hops in character. Whatever their derivation they make a great aroma/flavour hop! The recipe called for 16g at the end but I ran out and only had 12g to put in at the end ("go wrong" #1). Not a huge blow but might make a small difference in the end product. If it can be distinguished from among the results of the rest of the problems I'd be very surprised!
Mash
90 minute mash as usual, and here we encounter "go wrong" #2. In my complacency and haste I neglected to fit the mesh grain filter into the bottom of the mash tun. Realising this after I had doughed in, I had a few moments of "WTF do I do now?", before I finally decided I would have to ditch the mash into the now empty grain bin, insert the filter, and tip it all back in. Maybe this wasn't the ideal solution and I should have left it to chance as to whether it would have ended in a stuck mash...
Anyway, mash temp now 62'C so way under the 66'C I needed, so I ended up adding water from the HLT to heat it up. About 1-2 litres later and we had 65.9 - that would do. On the plus side I only lost a degree or so across the whole tun over the 90 minutes.
Sparge
Oh ffs ... |
Boil
Hot break just pre-boil |
I was so pre-occupied with all the goings wrong that at I forgot to add the late hops (#5), remembering them only 2 minutes from the end of the boil. Having added them I left the boil running another 10 or so minutes in order to impart the flavour of late hops, which you will recall were already short by 4 grams. Sigh. I did see a ton of cold break material this time during chiller cooling, which his something I've not yet seen in any of my brews until now! Every cloud I suppose :)
Silver lining |
A very eventful brew day which started badly, got worse, but ended with 20litres of wort in a FV, so on can't be all that bad on average. I usually have a rough idea how my brews will turn out but this time I really have no clue, with so many contributing factors and unknowns! Here's hoping phoenix rises from these ashes :) I'll report back here either way.
Glad you kept such good notes so if it turns out to be an absolute blinder you can recreate it, failing that the beacon does a good pint of Timothy Tailors so we could always head up there for a 'research' trip
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