5 Nov 2016 - There's been a bit happening...its Xmas preparation time. Have knocked out a small batch of Apple Cider for the non beer drinkers. I wanted to get this batch a little sweeter than my last batch, which was 2 years ago and came out very dry, it had some fans but needed back sweetening. This time I have gone with mostly apple juice but have got some pear in there to try and hold onto some sweet notes and a little raspberry to add a little extra interest. I chose to go with US-05 ale yeast instead of a cider yeast as part of the sweetness hunt, it is reported that 05 will not eat all the sugars and leaves some behind. Well, it finished at 1.002 and samples on bottling were quite promising. It has finished dry but is holding some sweetness, it doesn't cut through the palette like the last one did and with a small addition of extra juice to carbonate it should finish with a nice balance.
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Post cider was the first of the 2 Xmas beers.....a Summer Ale. I have tweaked last years version to get a little more flavour, last years was nice but given I have 2 lagers on tap to get me through the hotter months I wanted just a little extra. Hence, a little extra hop presence has gone into this one, spreading the hops over a longer boil length, starting at 20 minutes instead of 10. The grain bill has been slightly changed to give a little more depth to the malt. Also new in the mix is water chemistry with a little bit of additional minerals hitting the water to bring up the hop profile...see Blog re: water chem.
It's finished fermenting and is now sitting cold to clean up before it gets bottled. No keg for this one.
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7 Sept 2016 - Kegged the Oateal Stout today with some help from Nathan Miller, I can't lift anything over 2kgs post surgery. Samples tatse good.
I am waiting on new springs to fix the leaking issues so it won't go on tap just yet.
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25 Aug 2016 - Fitted a 4 way gas manifold to the keg fridge today. Connected 2 new kegs. Czech Pils and Worthogs Express IPA, both a little earlier than expected. Seems to be a slight leaking issue that means I may need to pull the taps down and reseat and lube the fittings, fiddly but necessary.
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15 Aug 2016 - My first full blown Oatmeal Stout was started today. The usual Stout grains found a large addition of over 17% oats going into the mix. A healthy dose of Whitbread 1099 yeast and away it went. Its now finishing off in the fermenter after hitting terminal in 4 days, samples taste amazing.