Be Excellent To Each Other

Busy evening bottling up Afterburner. A 4.7% 4 hopped american style ale. I ran out of empty glass bottles.

Afterburner filling out nicely. A lot less thin than on saturday.

Cottage Brew 1:

4kg Maris Otter
500g flaked maize
275g crystal malt
45g black malt
355g sugar

40g brewer's goldto bitter, 20g fuggles to aroma
Intend to dry hope with Goldings.

1053 is temp adjusted OG. US04 yeast used
This is an Old Hooky Clone that I changed some quantities on. And swapped out a hop as i didn't have it.

Cottage brew 2 will be Watergate avain I think, as I know where I am with that.

Cottage brew 3 will be something decided later.

Cottage brew 2 is sat cooling in the sink at the moment. It is a single hopped ale, Bramling Cross. Malt base was 5kg pale, and then some crystal and black malt because eveeythig is relative really isn't it and I was in a rush so didn't weigh it. 40g hops in at start of boil, 30g at end. Will dry hop with 30g.
Flund my hop bags, which was nice, as it keeps loads of gunk out of the pans.

Going to be a strong one it seems. 1061 OG so if it goes to 1.01 then it is 6.8%

Have you ever done cider, Mali?

Yes. Brought it to Meatup couple years back.

Well I'm not going to remember if you take it there, am I?

First go: viewtopic.php?style=26&p=873943#p873943

Second attempt
viewtopic.php?style=26&p=890933#p890933

Cottage brew 1 is a bit 'meh' but i need an Old Hooky to compare it to.

Cottage Brew 2 just been dry hoppes with 30g Bramling Cross

Cottage Brew 3 is on the go. 5kg Golden Promise, 175g crystal malt, 25g Citra in at start of boil, 35 in at end, and I'll dry hop with 40g.

It was fucking rank from what I remember

Yes.

It was okay. It had ribena in

1.049 was OG.

Heat eXchanger split a hose and was a clusterfuck. I was able to hotfix it. Very hotfix it as it was the hot side needed replumbing.

Anyway. All good.

This is completly wrong.

I have had 2 other bottles and it's probably the best i have made so far.

6.3% abv.

A light one then.

Yeah. Hmm.

I think the citra could be about 5%.

A few beers in and I think "who would homebrew weaker stuff?"

Good man.

Cottage Brew 3 is 5.24% and very hoppy. It might be ready for cottage.

That sounds right up my alley.

Make sure someone coming south brings me some!

This is not strictly home brew, but just knocked up this years batch of Quince Vodka

A Quince looks the same as a pear, but like sloes are not something you can eat from the tree. The texture is like a hard potato.

However adding them to booze with sugar in a jar gives you a superb liquor.

Colour is a golden yellow.

Not sure where you would get these from if you want to buy them, never seen them for sale, I have a tree in my garden that I planted a few years ago, bought from a place that specialises is big plants so its produced fruit since year one

You can also poach Quince these were done in the Sous Vide for a good 12 hours, just the fruit and some sugar.

This time the colour goes more red, great on cereal or with a bit of cheese

Oh, maybe that's why our "pears" aren't ripening!

Cottage Brew 3.
It's pretty good.

Good colour

Thanks. Balancing the malts. If I were more data minded, I'd correlate the %age crystal malt in each beer to the photos i took.

I look forward to sampling your brew, Mali

Been a while, and I've run out of beer!

So. I'm going to make a clone of Landlord, but better.

Golden Promise malt, touch of black malt, flaked maize, goldings hops and some bobek hops.
I'll end up adding fuggles in, too.

Protip! Add flaked maize in to the middle of your grain mix, as it forms a paste and blocks the holes in the mash tun.

Mash tun clogged! 45 mins behind now!

Tidying up, now. If the maths stack up, it should be 7.2% and taste a bit like Landlord. I could have diluted it down to 5%, but I can buy that in the shops. Everything that could have gone wrong, did.

Here's some Malicool

My brother (who some may remember from a music quiz some many years ago) is thinking of maybe looking into home brewing in the new year as his travels abroad have given him a fine appreciation of brewing and ales. I said I’d link him to this thread for some of Mali’s posts as he progresses into developing his processes, but Mali if you get any time in the coming days to distil (huh) some knowledge down into a good starter guide of what he should get for a first brew that has room for expansion to add kit to as he goes that would be particularly great x

Will do. Will stick together a guide for basic equipment to do a kit, and all grain.

My mate does recipes and science, possibly useful as a supplementary - dmonbeer.co.uk

He's head brewer at a brewery now, dontchaknow.

That looks awesome.

I did think I'd mentioned before - but it's probably not as beginner-accessible as the stuff you've posted on here over the last couple of years.

TurboCider 4 done. This seems ok.

Why don't I drill a hole on either side of my huge beer boiling pan and plumb in a heat exchanger? Add wort to pan, boil, remove from heat, attach to cold water supply and a drain and off we go.

This idea brought to you by TurboCider4

Can't you just dump a mass of 10mm copper pipe in the thing with the 2 ends poking out over the edge? Then you don't need to drill holes and it'll be removable.

I could,and have the stuff to do that,but we're all about unnecessary complications, aren't we, otherwise, what is the point?

... you're welcome I guess.

Sorry,mate, I came over as a bit terse, there. My apologies. I meant, "I have this already, I should integrate it!"

Is fine, wasn't being grumpy!
In that case integrate it and bash in some hozelock connectors for speedy state changes.

Wine's done and bottled.

Done my cherry beer. About 5.5%