AG #11 - A Winter's Ale

Sun 2nd December 2012

First brew in over 4 months! You know how it is, one thing and another, time flew by and I found myself starting December without a Christmas brew on the go. I decided to rectify this with a leftover brew, having a load of old hops and a (dodgy) yeast hanging around. This vial of yeast I collected from a previous brew, which I decided I would ferret out from the back of the fridge and use in this one. It will work, or it won't. If it doesn't I'll just order up an S-04 from BrewUK and pitch that when it arrives in a couple of days.

I'm help!

All three brew monkeys were out today which, although quite useful from an underfoot perspective, left me without an assistant. Fortunately, help came in the form of our 6 month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy, Bea. I don't know what I was expecting. Lassie perhaps? The Littlest Hobo? I was disappointed, but amused at the same time :)

I wasn't really sure what I was going to brew right up until the HLT was on, so I browsed through Graham Wheeler's "Brew Your Own British Real Ale". My eyes alighted again on Courage Directors, bringing back memories of the Directors "Stout" which graces this blog. I did hesitate for a moment, but decided to press on with something similar with what I had left over. I moved the entire operation from the shed to the patio today (saving only the frame) for several reasons. Firstly, the shed is full of crap and getting it out and messing around in the cold would not have been pleasant. Secondly, I was free to come and go from the house's warmth instead of traipsing up and down the frozen garden. Also, maybe most importantly, I was able to take the mash tun inside much more easily to preserve the heat therein.


Recipe 

A Winters Ale
Style         English Bitter
Batch         19.00 L
All Grain

Characteristics

Recipe Gravity         1.042 OG    
Estimated FG         1.010 FG
Recipe Bitterness         38 IBU    
Alcohol by Volume         4.0%
Recipe Color         11° SRM    

Grains

0.22 kg         Amber Malt         Grain         Mashed
3.30 kg         Maris Otter Malt         Grain         Mashed

I'm not sure what to expect from this one, being a hybrid of a known recipe thrown together with what I have left in my store cupboard. All indications are that it will be a medium color, medium bitter, medium hopped middle of the road average kind of beer. That usually means it will be exceptional or terrible. It's a dark art, brewing. I'm sure there's magic involved somewhere, and no small amount of blind luck.

Hops

Some leaves and road grit.

22.00 g         Target         60 minutes
10.00 g         Fuggles      10 minutes

The original Director's recipe called for Target for the bittering side and Styrian goldings. I have some targets left from the original recipe I tried, though the Styrians have been used up, so I plumped for Fuggles. Styrians, I recall from a previous blog ramble, are in fact a variation Fuggles that were exported to Styria and planted out there. That curious, brown powder at the back isn't sand, or fairy dust, it's simply brown, or unrefined, cane sugar. This I put into the boil towards the end as per some advice I found online, for better or for worse. Interested to find out what it does to the brew, if anything.

Mash

Makeshift sparge tower

Very strange mash today. I did the now far too common "oh *&% I forgot the *&^%ing filter again" though this time after literally a second or so of pooring in the grain. No huge nightmare today, I simply emptied the water into a handy FV, plugged in the filter quick smart and put the water back in. This though did lose me a couple of degrees that no amount of additions from the HLT were able to recover. This I can only attribute to the 3'C temperature in the garden where I doughed in. Mash temperature, therefore was 64'C which was maintained for the whole 90 mins.

... actually, it went up, from 63'C. I can only assume the thermometer was also feeling the cold in the garden ...


Boil
The trusty old Electrim single element boiler understandably took it's time to haul it's arse up to boiling point, despite starting from 50 odd degrees thanks to proximity to the kitchen and it's combi boiler. Once it hit 100'C tho it resolutely stayed there for the full 60 minutes. So impressive when the element size and the ambient temperature are taken into consideration. Cracking pre-boil hot break that didn't boil over, again presumably due to the cold?



Sparge

Aaah ... Bisto!

Brought you a slipper. I'll leave it here.

Uneventful sparge, though slightly inconvenient having to move 20l of sparge water onto a pile of books to get the height to accommodate HLT, mash tun and boiler. This was where I missed the rack in the shed, it's convenience can't be understated when you have to pick up 25l buckets full of liquid.




Yeast
Here's the interesting part. I have no idea what yeast it is or what brew it came from. It might be the US-05 from the last brew. I might be the S-04 from the on before. I have no clue. No signs of life yet after pitching at 19'C this afternoon, about 8 hours ago. Only worry really is that it doesn't start and I have to get something in. We're talking a couple of days turnaround during which the brew is susceptible to infection. I'll keep it sealed and check it tomorrow. (yeah right. I'll be looking in there again in about 10 minutes I'm sure.)

UPDATE
As expected, the mystery yeast kicked off the day after I ordered the S-04. The lower temperatures are slowing the fermentation down so it's touch and go whether it will be ready for C-Day, but there's always New Year's Eve ...